Welcome.
The Earth Holocracy Proposal’s sixth Volume is titled ‘Why Whole System Change is Necessary’.
The volume is divided into four parts. Each Part focuses upon a distinct, yet inter-related, reason for the Proposal’s advocacy for ‘whole system change’. Here we present Part Three which explores the Popular Rejection of Neo-liberal Imperialism.
Humanity’s widespread rejection of the current centralized system of neo-liberal globalization has indeed been highlighted elsewhere within the Proposal – particularly within Volumes One and Three. Here we broaden our vision of worldwide activism, of humanity’s vast uprising against the current system’s devastating specter of human rights violations, ecocide, genocide, oppression and and injustice.
Click the link below to open / download Volume Six: Part Two:
Popular Rejection of Neoliberal Imperialism
Alternatively, click the links below to open / download particular articles contained therein:
Articles
1. The Movement Against Neoliberal Globalization
2. The French are right: tear up public debt – most of it is illegitimate anyway
3. Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
5. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
6. Defending the Right to Resist Occupation
7. Jewish Voices for Peace – and the young, brave Israeli Conscientious Objectors, the Shministim
8. Exercising the Right to Act according to Conscience
10. The Unceded Sovereignty of the Original Tribal Peoples of Australia
11. Corroborree for Sovereignty
12. The Alpha and the Omega – The Burnum Burnum Declaration
Foreword to Volume Six, Part Four:
Popular Rejection of Neoliberal Imperialism
1. The Movement Against Neoliberal Globalization
The first article in part four of volume six, titled “The Movement Against Neoliberal Globalization”, reproduces the relevant Wikipedia entry. Yet again, the power of open source collective intelligence to deliver is evidenced, as Wikipedia swiftly provides a sweeping view of widespread activism. The entry begins by clarifying the nature of the movement: “The anti-globalization movement… is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism… The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or movement against neoliberal globalization”.
The diverse forms of popular resistance to neoliberal imperialism make it, the entry notes, a “movement of movements”. Its history includes humanity’s worldwide protests on the eve of the Iraq War: “By 2002, many parts of the movement showed wide opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq. Many participants were among those 11 million or more protesters that on the weekend of February 15, 2003, participated in global protests against the imminent Iraq war and were dubbed the “world’s second superpower” by an editorial in the New York Times.” The entry notes: “Anti-globalization militants worried for a proper functioning of democratic institutions as the leaders of many democratic countries… were acting against the wishes of the majorities of their populations in supporting the war. Chomsky asserted that these leaders “showed their contempt for democracy”.
The Wikipedia entry provides lists of key grassroots organizations, and major global protests:
One of the first international anti-globalization protests was organized in dozens of cities around the world on June 18, 1999, with those in London and Eugene, Oregon most often noted.
The second major mobilization of the movement, known as N30, occurred on November 30, 1999, in Seattle, Washington, USA
The Genoa Group of Eight Summit protest from July 18 to July 22, 2001 was one of the bloodiest protests in Western Europe’s recent history… Police have subsequently been accused of brutality, torture and interference with the non-violent protests… [complicit in] the clash between the law enforcement ranks themselves and the more violent and brutal fringes of protesters, who repeatedly hid themselves amongst peaceful protesters of all ages and backgrounds. Several hundred peaceful demonstrators, rioters, and police were injured and hundreds were arrested during the days surrounding the G8 meeting…
World Social Forums [WSF] – which were begun in 2001 and have continued to be regularly held, branching and spreading globally ever since
The Wikipedia entry (and this article) finishes with a most telling observation: “It has often been argued that in the dominated countries (most of the world) the WSF is little more than an ‘NGO fair’ driven by Northern NGOs and donors – most of which are hostile to popular movements of the poor”. That the vast majority of the larger peace, justice and sustainability organizations have been infiltrated and taken over, and their aims radically subverted, by agents of neoliberalism is a serious issue (raised by the likes of Naomi Klein) as the hopes and trust of these organizations’ vast memberships are utterly betrayed – the take-over effectively ensuring that “business-as-usual” is not curtailed by popular aspirations… or by popular movements.
2. The French are right: tear up public debt – most of it is illegitimate anyway
The second article reproduces a highly illuminating article by Razmig Keucheyan, titled “The French are right: tear up public debt – most of it is illegitimate anyway” (10 June 2014, The Guardian). Keucheyan reports the findings of a French Public Debt Audit which identify the actual causes of the French debt, which have nothing to do with (non-existent) public over-spending, but rather: “First, a fall in the tax revenues of the state. Massive tax reductions for the wealthy and big corporations have been carried out since 1980. In line with the neoliberal mantra, the purpose of these reductions was to favour investment and employment. Well, unemployment is at its highest today, whereas tax revenues have decreased by five points of GDP. The second factor is the increase in interest rates, especially in the 1990s. This increase favored creditors and speculators, to the detriment of debtors… Tax reductions for the wealthy and interest rates increases are political decisions. What the audit shows is that public deficits do not just grow naturally out of the normal course of social life. They are deliberately inflicted on society by the dominant classes, to legitimize austerity policies that will allow the transfer of value from the working classes to the wealthy ones.”
“Hence, the audit on the debt concludes, some 60% of the French public debt is illegitimate. An illegitimate debt is one that grew in the service of private interests, and not the well-being of the people. Therefore the French people have a right to demand a moratorium on the payment of the debt, and the cancellation of at least part of it.”
Keucheyan also notes: “A stunning finding of the report is that no one actually knows who holds the French debt. To finance its debt, the French state, like any other state, issues bonds, which are bought by a set of authorized banks. These banks then sell the bonds on the global financial markets. Who owns these titles is one of the world’s best kept secrets. The state pays interests to the holders, so technically it could know who owns them. Yet a legally organized ignorance forbids the disclosure of the identity of the bond holders. This deliberate organization of ignorance – agnotology – in neoliberal economies intentionally renders the state powerless, even when it could have the means to know and act. This is what permits tax evasion in its various forms – which last year cost about €50bn to European societies, and €17bn to France alone.”
3. Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
In our third article herein, we reproduce an open letter written by ex-US-military personnel to the people of Iraq. One of the authors, Ethan McCord, was one of the soldiers to walk into the bloody aftermath of the infamous US military attack on Iraqi civilians and Reuters journalists made famous by the WikiLeaks 2010 release the “Collateral Murder” video. When he saw the video on his TV back at home, there was no turning back. In their “Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People”, Ethan McCord and Josh Steiber write:
“We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home… The soldier in the [Wikileaks] video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family… Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you… Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity – that we were taught to deny… Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones.”
4. We Are Not Your Soldiers
The fourth article, titled “We Are Not Your Soldiers” is actually not a text-based article, but a series of collages that combine the content of fliers and images from various anti-war movements based in the United States, and fueled by popular outrage over the WikiLeaks “Collateral Damage” video. We Are Not Your Soldiers, Courage To Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War [IVAW] and World Can’t Wait are featured.
Operation Exposure: War is Trauma
“We recognize that we must stop the deployment of all soldiers in order to end these occupations. We see the deployment of soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and military sexual trauma as particularly cruel, dangerous, and inhumane. Military commanders across all branches are pushing service members far past human limits for the sake of combat readiness. We cannot allow those commanders to ignore the welfare of their troops. From multiple deployments despite PTSD, TBI, and other injuries, to rampant sexual assault within the military, soldiers are consistently being denied their right to heal. This basic right is being denied and we must organize to get it back.”
Iraq Veterans Against the War [IVAW], Operation Exposure: War is Trauma, http://www.ivaw.org/
“We stand for truth, for government transparency,
and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad.”
Courage to Resist, December 8, 2010
5. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
The fifth article herein presents an overview of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement with extracts derived from the BDS Movement website. We hearken to the reasons for Palestinian civil society’s call for a comprehensive and immediate military embargo on Israel:
BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT & SANCTIONS MOVEMENT:
Israel is only able to carry out brutal massacres and deliberately kill Palestinian civilians because of the willingness of governments, institutions and companies around the world to cooperate with Israel’s military and weapons companies.
Military assaults on Palestinians are used by Israeli military companies to test and market new weapons and military technology. Israeli weapons companies market their products as “field tested”, by which they mean that they are tested on the bodies of Palestinians.
The Israeli military has adopted the Dahiya Doctrine, named after a Beirut neighbourhood devastated during the 2006 war, which calls for the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure as a way to deter all forms of resistance to its oppression.
Israel has recently adopted new “rules of engagement” that allow its occupation forces to “shoot to kill” Palestinian protesters, including children and youth. Israel has been documented as using banned weapons including cluster munitions and white phosphorus.
Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems are key drivers in the proliferation of both drones, and a ruthless model of securitization and militarized repression to the world.
The functioning of this system depends on the willingness of governments and companies around the world to cooperate with Israel’s military, weapons industry and military research institutions.
BDS Movement – Military Embargo against Israel
We examine the figures and details which clarify Israeli – US Military Relations, wherein Israel receives more U.S. military assistance than any other country.
We hearken as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan confirms: “The means and methods employed by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) [have] come to resemble all-out conventional warfare. In the process, hundreds of innocent noncombatant civilians – men, women and children – have been injured or killed, and many buildings and homes have been damaged or destroyed.”
6. Defending the Right to Resist Occupation
The sixth article, titled “Defending the Right to Resist Occupation” is an extract from a John Pilger article (11 September 2014, Breaking the Last Taboo: Gaza and the Threat of World War) which focuses upon a legendary man, Dr. Mads Gilbert. As Pilger reports: “ Dr. Mads Gilbert is a Norwegian doctor renowned for his heroic work in Gaza. On August 8, Dr. Gilbert returned to his hometown of Tronso in Norway, which, as he pointed out, the Nazis had occupied for seven years. He said, “Imagine being back in 1945 and we in Norway did not win the liberation struggle, did not throw out the occupier. Imagine the occupier remaining in our country, taking it piece by piece, for decades upon decades, and banishing us to the leanest areas, and taking the fish in the sea and the water beneath us, then bombing our hospitals, our ambulance workers, our schools, our homes… I have returned to Norway, a free country, and this country is free because we had a resistance movement, because occupied nations have the right to resist, even with weapons – it’s stated in international law. And the Palestinian people’s resistance in Gaza is admirable: a struggle for us all.”
7. Jewish Voices for Peace – and the young, brave Israeli Conscientious Objectors, the Shministim
The seventh article, “Jewish Voices for Peace – and the young, brave Israeli Conscientious Objectors, the Shministim” includes a report by Cecilie Surasky, Deputy Director, Jewish Voice for Peace, on a brave JVP public action made by young Jews, many of them Israeli-American, with the message: “We care deeply about our history, our families, our spiritual lives and the lessons we learned from our elders about the Jewish values of justice and healing. And we refuse to remain silent about the Israeli settlements, the Occupation, the silencing of dissent, the loyalty oath, the siege of Gaza. Israel’s actions and institutional Jewish support for them are making Israel a pariah and turning us away from the Jewish world we seek to claim and embrace.” In this article, we hear the Shministim – Israeli high school students imprisoned for refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Force – explain “Why I am one of the Shministim”, and the grounds for their “Declaration of Refusal”:
Tamar Katz, imprisoned at age 18 during the final months of 2008:
“I refuse to enlist in the Israeli military on conscientious grounds. I am not willing to become part of an occupying army, that has been an invader of foreign lands for decades, which perpetuates a racist regime of robbery in these lands, tyrannizes civilians and makes life difficult for millions under a false pretext of security.”
Raz Bar-David Varon, imprisoned at age 18 during the final months of 2008 and early 2009:
“I have witnessed this army demolishing, shooting and humiliating people whom I did not know, but have learnt to respect for their ability to go on dealing with these horrors on a daily basis. I wasn’t born to serve as a soldier who occupies another, and the struggle against the occupation is mine too. It is a struggle for hope, for a reality that sometimes feels so far away. I have a responsibility for this society. My responsibility is to refuse.”
8. Exercising the Right to Act according to Conscience
9. Restorative Justice
10. The Unceded Sovereignty of the Original Australian Tribal Peoples
With our tenth article, we turn our attention to the Great Southern Island Continent, known as Australia, and to the prodigious and relentless efforts of Indigenous Australians to secure justice, control over their own lives, and meaningful recognition of their unceded sovereignty. The article explores relations between the Australian government and Indigenous Australians, and it puts on the table of discussion and debate the Earth Holocracy Proposal – an alternative, systemic, structural approach for the meaningful recognition of all peoples’ right of self determination. The article features extracts from 1) The Uluru Statement of May 2017; 2) a highly significant Melbourne University Press publication: It’s Our Land: Indigenous Arguments for Meaningful Constitutional Recognition and Reform, 2016, edited by Marcia Langton and Megan Davis; 3) a proactive Indigenous Governance initiative: Sacred Treaty Circles for Peace, Prosperity and Healing; and 4) the Earth Holocracy Proposal.
11. Corroboree for Sovereignty
With our eleventh article, titled ‘Corroboree for Sovereignty’, we explore further the Original Australian Peoples’ stand against the illegal occupation of their land – and the ongoing oppression and injustice yet suffered at the hands of the invader. By international agreements, inclusive of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN International Bill of Human Rights, all peoples have the right of self determination. The severe lack of meaningful recognition and upholding of this right is the common issue of Indigenous Peoples – and, indeed, Regional Communities – all over the world. We celebrate the deep and active global solidarity of indigenous movements for self determination as magnificently evidenced by the profusion of messages from all over the world that were read out at the Original Peoples’ ‘We Have Survived’ mass celebration held in Sydney on the Australian Bicentenary Day of January 26, 1988. (The disproportionate representation of the Self Determination / Sovereignty activism of Original Australians – over all the world’s many other Indigenous Self Determination Movements is due, it may be noted, to the fact that the developer of the Earth Holocracy Proposal resides in ‘Australia’ and has long worked as a “Black-Up” in this ancient Sacred Land.)
We cast an eye upon the Australian Government’s land grab – the infamous ‘Northern Territory Intervention’ / ‘Stronger Futures’ program – condemned by the United Nations as racially discriminatory and against international human rights principles. This program is an example of the globally pervasive mnemocidal / “shock doctrine” assault of neoliberalism – hard-aimed at the destruction of the peoples’ cultures and unique identities in order to utterly dis-empower, whilst flagrantly violating all peoples’ right of self determination, all human rights. The Stop the Intervention movement candidly points out:
“The suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act to seize land, assets and authority has destroyed trust in government and many well run programs. Much of the unprecedented investment of more $1.5 billion has been wasted on government bureaucrats and contractors.
“Alongside the Intervention, the NT government has introduced policies guided by the same approach of paternalism and assimilation including dissolving Aboriginal community councils, effective cuts to homelands and smaller communities, and bans on bilingual education.”
We hearken to the contents of a powerful expression of the will of the people the world over for self determination, for the return of decision-making power and managerial control back into the hands of the people themselves, and for the right of all peoples to maintain their cultural heritage, as we read the widely endorsed statement titled ‘Rebuilding from the Ground Up: An Alternative to the NT Intervention’ (June 21, 2011).
12. The Alpha and Omega – The Burnum Burnum Declaration
Our final article of the Earth Holocracy Proposal’s six volumes is titled ‘The Alpha and Omega’ wherein we present ‘The Burnum Burnum Declaration’, delivered by Original Activist Burnum Burnum on the Australian Bicentenary Day, “Invasion Day” or “Sovereignty Day” of January 26, 1988 – when, in an act of mock audacity, he planted the Aboriginal flag on the white cliffs of Dover and “claimed” England for Original Australia. Burnum Burnum’s torrent of caustic humor concludes: “Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.” We leave it with the reader whether to respond with the keening of the world’s peoples’ grief wails, or with a great belly-laugh in celebration of the indomitable spirit and good humor of the People… or maybe, both.
Leave a Reply