The New Dark Age

7 February, 2010 — New International

This is a very important mailing from Z Communications, so please give it a bit of time, when you have a chance.

It addresses two topics:

1 – the New ZCom, which is now live, and
2 – a proposal for a Participatory Socialist International, which is now online and seeking endorsers…

Let’s start with the second focus, first.

Proposal for a Participatory Socialist International

If you visit the following page:
http://www.zcommunications.org/newinternational.htm
You will see a proposal – in both English and Spanish.

That page also has links to endorse the proposal, a display of the proposal’s initial endorsers, a left menu with links for more information about the origin and writing of the proposal, as well as links to see all endorsers by country, etc., plus a counter of people endorsing, a process just now getting started.

The proposal is a discussion piece offered in hopes that lots of endorsers will indicate their support for the included ideas to be part of any discussion of a new International, urging that the ideas be debated, edited, refined, augmented, etc., and then decided on by participants in any emerging new International.

The proposal is therefore not a call, not a piece of legislation, not a program, not a constitution, not a mandate, and not even a long term document. Nor is it in any sense comprehensive. Rather, the proposal is a time bound statement meant to inspire and perhaps provide some useful content for a wide discussion in the coming period. But that is still a lot.

The proposal comes in context of the Venezuelan call for a Fifth International which was made a few months back, as well the fact that the Bolivarian leadership is currently discussing hosting such a meeting in April. The proposal is thus very timely in trying to contribute positively to that process and to any process to create a new International.

About 100 initial proposal endorsers listed on the site, including a great many who will be very familiar to you from ZCom – Albert, Shiva, Chomsky, Pilger, and so on. Soon, more people will read the proposal, hopefully like its ideas, hopefully desire a wide exchange, and thus also hopefully endorse the proposal by clicking the link on the site.

We sincerely hope you will yourself endorse the proposal to help prod and contribute to a wider discussion. If you don’t want to go to the site, the text of the proposal follows at the end of this message. You will need to go to the site, however, if you want to endorse, or to read more about the origins and process, etc. The page, again, is:
http://www.zcommunications.org/newinternational.htm

One last point: perhaps the most unusual thing about the proposal is that unlike most petitions and other signed or endorsed documents, there is every reason to believe that if there are a great many endorsers of this proposal its content will, in fact, be taken very seriously by folks seeking to create a new International. That is actually easy to predict. Why wouldn’t people give it attention? But we also know it to be the case, as well, from the requests we have had to translate the proposal into Spanish and the interest in it, already, from various Venezuelans, and of course from the positive involvement of all the endorsers.

If you have questions about the proposal, please send them along, or even better, indeed much better, put them in a blog post. If you visit the page and decide to endorse the proposal, and you have some additional time to give, please write a post discussing why you signed, and, even better, exploring the ideas and any additional or other ideas you may have regarding a new International. Doing this is likely to be time well spent!

The NEW ZCom

Our new site is now online. There may be some interruptions as the internet infrastructure parses through the new server destinations, etc., and as we discover bugs only visible with high levels of use, not least drags on speed. We apologize…but in the end the benefits will hopefully outweigh the temporary inconveniences. In any event, basically, we are up and running. We hope you will visit soon, and use the much improved facilities.

Have fun, and if you have difficulty, please let us know, but do also use the help features and view the videos, at least if you intend to use any of the more complex and powerful features.

Thank you – and here is the proposal.

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We, the undersigned, endorse the idea of a new International and urge that its creation include assessing, refining, augmenting, and then implementing as many of the following points as the International’s participants themselves, after due deliberation, decide mutually agreeable:

1. A new International should be primarily concerned (at least) with:
• economic production, consumption, and allocation, including class relations
• kinship nurturance, socialization, house keeping, and procreation, including gender, sexuality, and age
• cultural community relations including race, nationality, and religion
• politics including relations of law and legislation
• international relations including matters of mutual aid, exchange, and immigration
• ecology including relations with the natural environment and other species

And that the new International should address these concerns without elevating any one focus above the rest, since (a) all will critically affect the character of a new world, (b) unaddressed each could subvert efforts to reach a new world, and (c) the constituencies most affected by each would be intensely alienated if their prime concerns were relegated to secondary importance.

2. Our vision for a Participatory Socialist future should (at least) include that:
• economic production, consumption, and allocation be classless – which includes equitable access for all to quality education, health care, food, water, sanitation, housing, meaningful and dignified work, and the instruments and conditions for personal fulfillment
• gender/kinship, sexual, and family relations not privilege by age, sexual preference, or gender any one group above others – which includes ending all forms of oppression of women while providing day care, recreation, health care, etc.
• culture and community relations among races, ethnic groups, religions, and other cultural communities protect the rights and identity of each community up to equally respecting those of all other communities – which includes an end to racist, ethnocentric, and otherwise bigoted structures while simultaneously securing the prosperity and rights of indigenous people
• political decision making, adjudication of disputes, and implementation of shared programs deliver “people’s power” in ways that do not elevate any one sector or constituency above others – which includes participation and justice for all
• international trade, communication, and other interactions attain peace and justice while dismantling all vestiges of colonialism and imperialism – which includes canceling the debt of nations of the global south and reconstructing international norms and relations to move toward an equitable and just community of equally endowed nations
• ecological choices not only be sustainable, but care for the environment in accord with our highest aspirations for ourselves and our world – which includes climate justice and energy innovation

3. The guiding values and principles informing internal strategic and programmatic deliberations of an International highlight at least the following values which includes implementing whatever structural steps prove essential to organizationally embody the values as well as possible in the present:
• solidarity, to help align worldwide movements and projects into mutual aid and collective benefit
• diversity, to spur creative innovation, respect dissent, and recognize that minority views thought to be crazy today can lead to what is brilliant tomorrow
• equity, to seek wealth and income fairness
• peace with justice, to realize international fairness and fulfillment
• ecological sustainability and wisdom, to seek human survival and interconnection
• “democracy” or perhaps even a more inspiring conception of “people’s power,” “participatory democracy,” or “self management,” to foster participation and equitable influence for all

4. That a new International be the greatest sum of all its parts, including rejecting confining itself to a single line to capture all views in one narrow pattern. To achieve this the new International should:
• include and celebrate “currents” to serve as vehicles for contending views, help ward off sectarianism, and aid constant growth
• establish that currents should respect the intentions of other currents, assume that differences over policy are about substance and not motive, and pursue substantive debate as a serious part of the whole project
• afford each current means to openly engage with all other currents to try to advance new insights bearing on policy and program.
• guarantee that as long as any particular current accepts the basic tenets of the International and operates in accord with its norms and methods, its minority positions would be given space not only to argue, but, if they don’t prevail, to continue developing their views to establish their merit or discover their inadequacies

5. Members of the new International would be political parties, movements, organizations, or even projects, where:
• members, employees, staff, etc., of each new International member organization would in turn gain membership in the International
• individuals who want to be members of the International but have no member group that they belong too, would have to join one
• every member group would have its own agenda for its separate operations which would be inviolable
• at the same time, each member group would be strongly urged to make its own operations consistent with the norms, practices, and agendas of the International,establishing solidarity but also autonomy.
• member groups would have a wide range of sizes – but since the International’s decisions would not bind groups other than regarding the collective International agenda, a good way to arrive at decisions might be serious discussion and exploration, followed by polls of the whole International membership to see peoples’ leanings, followed by refinements of proposals to seek greater support and to allow dissidents to make their case, culminating in final votes of the membership
6. Programmatically, of course what a new International chooses to do will be contextual and a product of its members desires, but, for example:
• a new International might call for international events and days of dissent, for support campaigns for existing struggles by member organizations, and for support of member organizations against repression, as well as undertake widespread debates and campaigns to advance related understanding and mutual knowledge…
• more ambitiously, an International might also undertake, for example, a massive international focus on immigration, on ending a war, on shortening the work week worldwide, and/or on averting climatic catastrophe, among other possibilities. It might prepare materials, undertake education, pursue actions, carry out boycotts, support local endeavors, etc.
• general program would be up to member organizations to decide how to relate to, yet there would be considerable collective momentum for each member organization to participate and contribute as best it could in collective campaigns and projects since clearly one reason to have an International is to help organizations, movements, and projects worldwide escape single-issue loneliness by becoming part of a larger process encompassing diverse focuses and united by agreements to implement various shared endeavors.

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Endorse here: http://www.zcommunications.org/newinternational.htm