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Re: Building support for a WP with a Peoples Global Action Campaign
John BUNZL
Saturday, 8 March 2003 13:25:46
Dear Rob and Friends,
Thank you, Rob, for your proposals concerning a People's Global Action Campaign which I believe are very valuable and, as you say, they are perfectly compatible with Simultaneous Policy (SP).
As you also say, getting people around the world to recognise the value of global democracy (i.e. of a WP) is critical. In a sense, of course, the general recognition that a problem exists is already there since people in their millions already recognise that global warming, excessive corporate power or excessive US domination represent growing global problems. But the difficulty is, in my opinion, that they do not yet make the right * connections * to the root cause of these problems.
Since we all live in some locality or other on the Earth, it's obvious that the effects of * all * problems will manifest themselves locally. For example, if a Walmart store (n. f. A big company of mega stores in USA and UK) opens outside your town and sucks the lifeblood out of the local economy, we naturally experience that as a * local * problem and hence people tend to focus their responses locally.
But why is Walmart able to open up outside your town? Probably because planning laws have been relaxed by your government in order to encourage more foreign inward investment in the hope of creating more jobs. And this, of course, is but a symptom of every governments' need to remain competitive in the global market. Any government not seen by global investors to be implementing investor-friendly policies is likely to be punished by losing out to other competitor countries.
So I mention this example only to show how many problems which seem to us at first glance to be merely * local * are, in fact, really * global * problems. Or if you like, the effects are * local * but the cause is * global *.
So I think one of our key tasks - PGAC, SP and other global initiatives - is to help people make the vital * connection * between local * effects * and global * causes *. Only in that way will people come to see that while local action is good and necessary, they * also * need to act globally too if fundamental change is ever to come about. So we might say that people should: * Act globally, not just locally! * (or vice versa).
As initiatives such as PGAC gradually bring greater awareness of these issues to greater numbers of people and consequent agreement over * what * needs to be done emerges, we need also a parallel process capable of putting the * what * into action. In other words we need not just the * what * but also the * how *.
And that is where Simultaneous Policy (SP) comes in: it provides the * how *.
By adopting SP, ISPO's members pledge to vote in future elections for * any * political party or candidate - within reason - that also adopts SP (SP could, of course, contain the policies to be agreed by PGAC). As more and more citizens act in this way, politicians will adopt SP too if they wish to remain in office. That's because many politicians (George W Bush included) are increasingly winning elections on the slimmest of majorities. (Only about 2000 in the last US Presidential election!) So if we have a critical number of people who've adopted SP and are thus prepared to vote for * any * of the parties who also adopts it, if they want to avoid losing the election * all * the main parties will have to adopt for fear of their opponents doing so. In that way, we could end up with the ideal situation: * all * the main parties adopting SP.
Furthermore, adopting SP involves no risk because simultaneous implementation removes everyone's fear of first-mover disadvantage. SP thus transcends party politics by providing a powerful tool for citizens to drive politicians and governments to deliver the measures our world so desperately needs. So it's a way we citizens can already today set in motion the building of * real * political pressure towards the practical implementation of global democracy and a WP.
With best wishes John Bunzl - Director International Simultaneous Policy Organisation <http://www.simpol.org/>
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
Information, inscriptions, désinscriptions: germa@alliance21.org
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