[WestMALocals] Fwd: International Call to Action by our own Doug Wight of Northampton

[Nat Fortune]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jonathan von Ranson <commonfarm at crocker.com>
> Date: May 3, 2006 9:42:25 AM EDT
> To: "Five.Rivers.Planning.Grp."@mac.com, County.folks at mac.com,  
> Townsfolk at mac.com
> Subject: International Call to Action by our own Doug Wight of  
> Northampton
>
> Doug Wight offered this creative organizing/pressuring approach a  
> few months ago, but here it includes a short questionnaire. I think  
> it is a vision as big as the situation we're in as a country, and  
> am sending it out again. See Doug's contact info at end of message.  
> --JvR
>
>
>
> MEMORANDUM TO INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS REGARDING A GLOBAL CALL  
> TO ACTION
>
> FROM:  Doug E. Wight, Symposium Coordinator
>
> RESPONSE NEEDED:  Please respond to two questions.  First, do you  
> think it is worth the effort to create a national symposium?   
> Second, could you possible donate 5 hours a week in helping to  
> manifest it?
>
> A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION:  WHY WE MUST CONNECT OUR LOCAL, NATIONAL,  
> AND INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS TOGETHER AS ONE
>
> Two months ago I was asked by a number of people to consider  
> creating a national symposium that would kick-off on September 1,  
> 2006, and go to all 50 states starting with Maine.  This symposium  
> would focus on three critical issues of global significance:   
> Ecological and economic sustainability; implementing real  
> participatory democracy in all our institutions, and drastically  
> reducing our military-industrial-Congressional-complex from over  
> $650 billion each year, the actual total after the interest on our  
> national debt is factored in due to borrowing from past wars, to  
> less than $100 billion for real defense and homeland security  
> primarily. Our $500 billion saved, which is our tax money, would  
> then be made available for significant solutions to critical  
> national and world problems beginning with 100 percent renewable  
> energy and the eradication of global poverty. This drastic  
> reduction would also lead to the world’s great hope for the  
> eventual elimination of the institution of war.  This entire  
> symposium would take a year to complete and could be followed-up by  
> a world-wide symposium to keep the momentum rolling.
>
> Our National Symposium and our National Alliance Of Concerned  
> Americans For The Wellbeing Of All People And Earth are  
> intentionally being built around our college and university  
> students.  Because the future wellbeing of both our country and our  
> world depend largely on your values, attitudes, and efforts,--we  
> have hereby decided that the entire Board of Directors of our new  
> 501c(3) non-profit educational National Alliance must be composed  
> of students only.  It is high time that we adults help to empower  
> you folks and that you learn to empower your selves as well,--as  
> you go forth into the world. You will also be major organizers,  
> workshop facilitators, and featured speakers of our National  
> Symposium when it kicks off in Maine. Therefore, we heartily  
> encourage you all to make this National Internet Survey a great  
> success.  Please share this National Survey and unprecedented  
> opportunity with your parents and all your college and university  
> friends and acquaintances. We greatly appreciate your help and  
> participation in building a more ethical, ecological, and  
> spiritually healthy world.
>
> This symposium would be utilized to build an apolitical alliance of  
> concerned Americans and planetarians  for the wellbeing of all  
> people and Earth.  It is of critical importance that this be an  
> apolitical movement in a non-partisan sense so we can operate  
> outside our two party/one party oligarchy of rich and powerful  
> elites who comprise our ruling class aristocracy.  We must be able  
> to hold the feet of every world government to the fire of  
> accountability and responsibility.  Our goal is to build a unified  
> movement of solidarity consisting of 15 million Americans around  
> the above three key issues which are interdependent and  
> inseparable.  Once our organization has been built, we will then go  
> to Washington, D.C.,--with two million activists for a huge rally  
> and keep at least 150,000 protesters there each and every day that  
> follows.  People will be asked to stay in Washington for three days  
> each year around their birthday,--providing a steady re-supply of  
> incoming activists. Our ultimate goal is to compel our Congress to  
> meet and negotiate with us.  Since our Constitution and many of our  
> laws were written by elite white men of the aristocracy who were  
> all wealthy land holders and merchants in order to benefit their  
> own wealth and power interests primarily, both the U.S.  
> Constitution and many of our laws will need to be changed in order  
> to implement fairness, equality, justice, freedom, and real  
> participatory democracy.
>
> We will also negotiate a drastic reduction of our military- 
> industrial-Congressional-complex.  A true resistance must persist  
> and endure to be effective. If we continue to rally on Sunday but  
> are gone by Monday, such a fleeting presence impresses no one,  
> especially our corporately owned media.  After looking out his  
> window for three straight years and seeing protesters outside the  
> White House every single day, President Johnson said: "These  
> Americans are never going to give up.  We must end this war  
> [Vietnam]!" These massive demonstrations can also be extended to  
> other cities. If our Congress continues to stonewall “We the  
> People”,--we can then boycott the 100  worst corporations to put  
> pressure on our Congress. Corporations must forfeit their  
> "personhood rights" and new laws must be passed to assert the  
> rights of public law [federal, state and local communities] over  
> private law [corporate contracts]. Many other creative spin-offs  
> will be invented to put pressure on Congress. The longer we remain  
> entrenched in D.C.,--the more successful we will be!  FDR said:  
> "the White House belongs to the people!"
>
> In the spring 2005 issue of the esteemed journal Nature, hundreds  
> of scientists declared that global warming is now twice as worse as  
> previously feared. We are poisoning and destroying our biosphere at  
> an alarming rate that is increasing exponentially. Each year,  
> 15,000 to 20,000 plant and animal species are becoming extinct. It  
> is estimated that by the year 2050, one million plant and animal  
> species will be gone forever.  This represents 35 percent of the  
> total.  This is an obscene outrage that “We the People” can not  
> allow to happen!  Large-scale corporate capitalism is destroying  
> our own habitat.  In the next 15 years at the very latest, we must  
> have achieved a very significant "turning" towards sustainability  
> or suffer some horrendous consequences.  We simply do not have the  
> luxury of waiting for gradual cultural, values, and behavioral  
> change to take place like local/regional sustainability and slow  
> lifestyle changes to simplicity.  We are already 75 years late.  
> Since large-scale corporate capitalism, based on infinite economic  
> growth and greed is unsustainable even with 100 percent renewable  
> energy, we are headed for a double crash,--ecological and  
> economic.  Widespread civil wars could result as well!  A huge  
> military-industrial-Congressional-complex drives oil and fossil  
> fuel use, protects and promotes large-scale corporate capitalism,  
> and exacerbates all world problems in an egregiously insidious  
> manner. Only real participatory democracy, based on the  
> proportional representation of women, Blacks, and Hispanics, as  
> well as 75 percent consensus decision making, a direct vote for our  
> President, publicly financed campaigns, preferential voting at the  
> state and district level, and a national voter initiative on three  
> key issues each year to compliment our Congress,--can bring about  
> the necessary changes that are required to achieve ecological  
> sustainability, lasting peace, and the abolishment of global  
> poverty. Gandhi said: "poverty is the worst form of terrorism!"
>
> Before undertaking this monumental task, I wanted to conduct an  
> Internet survey to see if the urgency were truly there with  
> millions of concerned Americans and to assess the number of people  
> and resources available to assist with this most worthy, but also,-- 
> most difficult endeavor.  I am conducting this survey now. Please  
> assist this effort by forwarding this survey memorandum to your  
> friends, associates, and any organizations with whom you are  
> associated.
>
> Each three day event will be held at a college or university and  
> would involve student, local, and national speakers, workshops and  
> teach-ins, and non-violent civil disobedience training.  Activists  
> will be trained to be arrested and to resist being arrested in  
> several non-violent ways that will make it impossible for the  
> police, national guard, or hired mercenaries to remove us from our  
> own streets.  This great movement will gradually  become the Second  
> American Revolution,--but it must be a non-violent revolution of  
> great ideas, of great values, beliefs, and opinions, and of   
> incredibly  creative and spiritual solutions to critical national  
> and world problems.  All of our rich and powerful elite will be  
> invited to join in this transformational endeavor as well.  Why?  
> Because we need their assistance, knowledge, capabilities, and  
> resources, and because they will have the most to lose when the  
> whole planet crashes and their money is suddenly worthless.  Large- 
> scale corporate capitalism and the global financial system which  
> drives it,-- must crash sooner or later because they are  
> unsustainable, destructive, and oppressive. They are both based on  
> our current patriarchal paradigm of power dominance to control,-- 
> which is unhealthy and dysfunctional.  We must move from our  
> current unhealthy pattern of competition, individualism, greed,  
> winning, self-aggrandizement, and divisiveness to the higher values  
> and greater priorities of cooperation, sharing, caring, authentic  
> community, mutual empowerment, and love.
>
> James Lovelock and others are saying that we are already too late!   
> This is true in terms of a large number of severe weather events  
> which will hit us over the course of the remainder of this  
> century.  This is not true in terms of the extinction of our human  
> race.  I believe we can prevent the next ice age or worse,--a  
> widespread conflagration of globally destructive  fires that will  
> consume  all our forests and crop lands while causing  irrevocable  
> droughts.  We must heal our broken relationship with Mother Nature  
> planet Earth, with each Other, and with our Creator Source Spirit.  
> Since everything and everyone are interconnected, interrelated, and  
> interdependent, --we must realize that we are One and act like it.  
> The Lakota have a saying: "We are the ones we've been waiting  
> for!"  I believe we know exactly what has to be done now and can do  
> it.  American ends in "I can"!
>
> We are now in absolute critical crunch time!  Do not allow anyone  
> to bullshit you into believing anything else but this Truth.  It is  
> imperative that we unify and solidify around these three  
> significant issues.  All the other values and issues that we so  
> highly prize are contained within these three issues together. We  
> must stay focused on these three issues like a determined laser  
> beam and not let them divide and conquer us as in the past.   
> Vandana Shiva, an international doctor and activist says we will be  
> successful if "we stick together". "We the People" must act NOW!   
> Please respond to this urgent survey by answering the two questions  
> at the beginning of this memorandum.  For the wellbeing of all our  
> entire biosphere,--our plants, animals, humans, and our Earth,--I  
> remain:  Sincerely yours,
>
>
> Douglas E. Wight
> Writer, Activist, and Healer
> P.O. Box 354
> Northampton, MA 01060-0354
> Wellness15 at yahoo.com
> (413) 387-9741
>