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The Earth Party
Blueprint for a Mature Civilization
Summary
Please note: As of March 12th, 2020, this page is undergoing a slight re-arrangement. The essentials are all the same, but the presentation will be adjusted to a new form, to make it more clear and understandable. For the moment, there will be an "under construction" feel. But we hope to have it all cleaned up by the end of the month. Thanks for your patience!
The Earth Party proposes a two-pronged strategy for saving humanity and the planet.
On the one hand, we will run candidates in traditional "politics" and "elections", in order to pass legislation within the existing "national-state system", to slow down the destruction of the planet, and provide an emergency social safety-net to stop the bleeding of the poor and working class.
But at the same time, we must recognize that the existing political systems are inadequate for the long-term. In some countries, like the USA, the electronic voting machines are rigged to defeat progressive candidates. And even if we somehow manage to win, the existing system is simply not structured for the kinds of deep, fundamental changes we need to make to our society to make it sustainable.
The only viable long-term strategy is to redesign human civilization, from the ground up. And that's what this Blueprint is for.
To recap:
~Fighting within the existing political systems for short-term harm reduction and buying time...
-...and a Blueprint for a Mature Civilization for long-term sustainability.
Make sense?
On to the Blueprint!
* * *
This is a plan to evolve humanity into a mature civilization - one which exists in harmony with the living world.
You can start right now. Yes! You!
Even though it is a long-term solution, it's ironically also something that you don't need to wait to start implementing.
No matter who you are, where you are, or how much money or power you have (or don't have), you can implement the beginning steps of the plan. It does not require any waiting for someone else to act. Although the later steps do require consensus from others, the beginning does not. You can start today.
The plan has 3 chronological phases:
1. Local Self-Organization
2. Establishing the Planetary Protectorate
3. Healing the World
Phase 1
Local Self-Organization
There are three angles from which we approach Phase 1:
They are Threads, Levels, and Steps.
The Threads are:
A. Self-Governance
B. Natural Law
C. Economic Democracy
D. Benign Transit
E. Self-Sufficiency
F. Economic Multi-Layering
G. Truth and Reconciliation
The Threads are ongoing projects that progress through the 5 Levels, which are:
Village
Township
City
Region
Planet
And the weaving of each Thread into each Level generally corresponds with a Step.
Think of the Threads as fibers in a textile. You weave them all together at once, but none of them concludes right away - they're recurring themes.
For this reason, Threads are denoted with letters (A, B, C, etc.) and Steps with numbers (1, 2, 3, etc).
For example, building the Benign Transit Grid is a Thread, and there are individual Steps in the process, each corresponding to the weaving of that Thread into a particular Level (e.g. building the grid at the Village level, then the Township level, then the City level, and so forth).
Here are the Threads in more detail:
A. Restoring Natural Social Units
To begin, we restore the natural societies that are intuitive to our species - that humans "grew up with."
This Thread s a prerequisite for the other six Threads. The other six require self-governance, in order to be implemented. But the good news is, this is the easiest, and fastest of all of them.
The other six are:
B. Natural Law
We must have a rational moral foundation, or there's no telling what unintended consequences we might cause. The only stable one is Natural Law.
C. Economic Democracy
Evolving beyond money, we'll have the independence necessary to decouple our sustenance away from bankers, billionaires, and bureaucrats.
D. Benign Transit
Our transportation grid is the basis of our economy, the same way the skeleton holds together the body. No matter what we produce, trade, or consume, it's all connected via transportation, whether it be a superhighway or a forest foot-path.
Before we can build a healthy global economy (or any economy bigger than a Village), we need to plan and understand where our transit lines are. And our current system is very, very unintelligent. It was designed over centuries of accidents and short-sighted plans stemming from the selfish desires of elites thinking only of short-term profits. We need a Benign Transit Grid that's built to service the natural social units we just restored.
E. Local Self-Sufficiency
Begin localizing the production of our basic necessities, so that what we need comes from as near, and as familiar, and as stable a source as possible.
F. Economic Multi-Layering
The most anti-fragile economy is that which incorporates self-sufficiency at multiple technological layers, in case one or more layers fail. We will establish fully self-contained stone-age economies at the Village level, bronze-age economies at the Township level, light-industrial economies at the City level, and heavy-industry at the Regional level.
This does not mean that "if you live in a Village, you have to live in the stone-age." First of all, everyone lives in a Village, since smaller Levels are constitutive, rather than exclusive, of larger Levels, and therefore, even if you're in an urban environment, you're still also in a Village (don't worry, this will all be explained as you read through the Steps below). And secondly, the Village stone-age economy is layered with the more advanced economies - so you have access to all the layers (stone, bronze, industrial) at once.
99% of the time, you'll be using the technology of the most advanced layer you prefer. The purpose of the layering is so that, in those 1% of times when the more advanced level isn't available (i.e. when the electricity goes out, or there's a pandemic that disrupts supply-chains, or a tyrannical nation-state government institutes martial law to stave off its replacement by the system we're setting up - or whatever the reason) - we all have a backup system, to meet our basic needs, while we ride out the storm.
This idea, of making ancient tools again, might sound strange and unnecessary, now, but as capitalism collapses and the availability of basic necessities becomes unreliable even for people in "first world countries" like America, the importance of Layered Economies will become more and more obvious.
G. Truth and Reconciliation
In order to get any of this done, we'll need to cooperate with one another. And there is nothing that impedes this process more than interpersonal conflict and resentments. To heal this planet, we must heal ourselves, and our relationships.
* * *
OK! Those are the Threads.
As stated earlier, these threads will pass through 5 levels of social organization:
The Village
The Township
The City
The Eco-Region
The Planet
So... 7 threads... and 5 levels that the threads go into.
Got it so far?
To implement all of this, the order is simple: You start at the smallest unit - the Village, and begin to implement the 6 threads. Then, the villages in the area work together, up to the next unit - the Township. Once the Township has all 6 threads, you move up to the City.
Then, Region. Then, the Planet as a whole.
Note: It's not necessary to achieve all 5 of the threads "perfectly" at each level before moving on to the next level. They are not meant as one-off deals - more like "works in progress", and there's always room to improve.
Generally speaking however, it's best to have as solid of a foundation as you can, before moving up.
Phase 1 culminates in the convening of delegates from around the world, at the First Planetary Congress, to set up the Planetary Protectorate (which is what Phase 2 is about).
And now the individual Steps!
Here are the Steps for all of Phase 1:
1: Restore the Village
1.1: Make a basic land plan (simple draft)
1.2: Inform your neighbors
1.3: Hold first Village Council
1.4: Review and affirm Natural Law at Village Level
1.5: Hold reconciliation dialogues
1.6: Elect Village leaders
1.7: Confirm land-plan
1.8: Democratically choose jobs and duties for creating a self-sufficient layered economy at the Village level
1.9: Begin the work
2. Restore the Township
2.1: Elect a Village delegate for Township Council
2.2: Coordinate with neighboring Villages to define Township constituency
2.3: Hold first Township Council
2.4: Repeat Steps 1.4 - 1.9 but applied to "Township" (and with a self-sufficient layered bronze-age economy)
3. Restore the City
3.1: Repeat the same process from Village and Township levels, but applied to "City" (and with a self-sufficient layered light-industrial economy)
4. Unite the Region
4.1: Repeat the organizing steps from previous levels, to set up the Regional Council.
4.2: Make a plan for total regional self-sufficiency in all industry.
4.3: Elect Regional delegate to Planetary Council.
Phase 2
Establish the Planetary Protectorate
Establish the Planetary Protectorate.
With a solid foundation in natural law and local self-sufficiency, it's safe to begin governing ourselves as a Planet. Our world is already heading unconsciously towards this, and our choice is to make the process conscious, so all of us have a say in how it's structured - or leave it all to the whims of chance and the existing, corrupt institutions. In order for humanity to take conscious control of the process, we have designed a constitutional system of checks and balances to ensure a fair and just system.
Once the Protectorate is formed, Phase 2 begins. This is where We the People take back our power from the destructive institutions we created in our centuries of unconsciousness.
2A. With the Planetary Protectorate operational, all nations will have a central forum to discuss their disagreements and make peace. This planetary peace process begins with the release of pressure from the big, imperial countries. The Imperial Deflation Treaty will give all the big nations the ability to let go of their conquered territories, and satisfy their restive separatist movements, simultaneously, to avoid losing face in relation to one another, and without disturbing the existing military/economic power-balance between them.
2B. We are moving forward into a new era, and a clean slate is enormously helpful in doing that. The sooner we can forgive each other for our past wrongs, the faster we can build a new civilization. But forgiveness isn't just an instantaneous choice - it's a process, requiring Truth and Reconciliation in order for true healing to occur.
2C. Technology might always march ahead, but there are many directions in which it can march - not just one. And the direction it's going now will lead to the eradication of humanity, if we don't change course. To survive, we must begin to consciously choose our destiny, as a species, rather than let tech companies and billionaires choose it for us. We must Regain Mastery Over Technology, by collectively taking the reigns - as an entire planet - and deciding what the proper role and function of technology is. This planet is our home, and we have the right to decide what technologies exist, and don't exist, in our home.
2D. It's clear now, to everyone paying attention, that private corporations cannot be trusted to manage the internet in a way that's democratic and fair, or that conforms in any way to the ideals and values of a mature civilization. The internet is far too vital to the functioning of our society to allow its governance to remain subject to the un-challengeable whims of un-elected corporate executives whose only goal is profit. Our freedom and liberty depend on us taking conscious, collective control of the internet, by planetizing it - i.e. by making the Internet a Public Utility, under the stewardship of We the People of the Planet.
Phase 3
And in Phase 3, we initiate long-term, large-scale, infrastructure-intensive projects to heal the planet and secure our benign civilization deep into the future.
3A. With our intuitive transit grid in place, and a conscious set of values for the proper use of technology, we can begin building a Benign Global Economy, continuing from the principles of local permaculture, but applied to the whole planet as one economy. The smaller, local economies will remain functioning, to provide anti-fragility, just in case there are problem with the global one, while the global one provides higher levels of efficiency and living standards, through planetary coordination.
3B. The power source for the planetary economy will be clean, Renewable Energy. Self-explanatory!
3C. In addition to giving land back to nature in our local communities, we can also "pay it forward" by Greening the Deserts. We already have all the technology necessary to do it - the only thing missing is the will to do so, and the willingness to cooperate with people whose looks and cultures are different from ours. If we do this, humanity will not only "not have a negative footprint", but will begin to have a positive one!
3D. Natural social units, the intuitive transit grid, and benign economics at both the local and planetary scales, combine to provide previously unimaginable levels of efficiency and waste-reduction, allowing us to Give Land Back to Nature for the first time in thousands of years.
3E. The calendar we currently use - the Gregorian one - is absurd. It has no basis in any celestial movements, or in any biological or climatic cycles, or in any natural phenomenon at all. It was made by one guy, a pope, in the 1500's, for political reasons. If we want to be a mature civilization, we can't keep using it. We need a Logical Calendar that's based in real, actual reality. The longer we wait to switch, the harder the switch will be - so let's do it now.
Optional Phase 4
4. Once we've got our own house in order, we can begin the adventure of Exploring the Universe. This step is the very last, and it has to be last, because, otherwise, we would pollute the cosmos with our pathologies. It is morally bankrupt to put other planets and civilizations at risk of genocide and ecocide by allowing a psychopathic society to reach out and colonize them. We must heal ourselves before we expand. And once we're healthy, the cosmos awaits!
Localize, Planetize, Heal, Explore
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