Call for a New Coalition for a Shared View and Agenda:
The Caring Society–Caring for Each Other, Caring for the Earth
The Blessed Platform for Guiding Political Discourse in 2012—Love, Freedom and Democracy
A Platform on Which We Can All Stand without Fear of Collapse
The Call: We seek to share a vision and an agenda with others who recognize the disturbing transformation of America and wish to change structure and policy in a meaningful and fundamental manner. We present that vision and agenda for commentary, change and as inclusionary. A Coalition must have leadership and we seek that as coming from a communitarian, sharing, profoundly democratic grouping of people and organizations: one person, one vote being the operational basic structure.
Rationale: This is a defining moment in planetary and human history and the moment when a national and international broad based movement must be built. The planetary tipping point is behind us, and the disintegration of societies worldwide is occurring with no coherent opposition or new view. Yet the immiseration, corruption and class stratification under global corporatism and ruinous financial capital is obvious to many. Helplessness, refuge in coarse materialism, cultural and personal delusion and personal greed and corruption abound. And on the other side of being human so does love, a longing for justice and recognition that sharing is the path that eliminates war, poverty, and narrow self-interest.
Our aim is to create a base level unity of consciousness and program as a reference for political and social activity and as a personal reference for what is good and true and what needs to take shape to create a society of caring here and in the world at large. We intend to function as a Coalition locally, nationally and within the world at large as Citizens of the World.
Our Coalition could have influence in the Democratic Party in 2012 if it were kick-started by a progressive challenge to President Obama in the presidential primaries. At this time, there is no one person who can effectively challenge Obama, nor has anyone volunteered. By having a defining program as the reference base for all political action, our Coalition would set the standard for discourse, truth, and progressive change. For that reason, the Coalition would consider the possibility of having different candidates in different states running in the presidential primaries, all united by public support for a shared platform, and making clear that their candidacy was aimed to promote the platform, not themselves, and to seek the endorsement of Democrats for that platform by voting for these various candidates. Such an effort could bring back into politics the millions who have been dispirited by the massive betrayals and failures of the Obama Administration—the failure to articulate and fight for an alternative vision.
That vision for us is the Caring Society—Caring for Each Other, Caring for the Earth. We want a New Bottom Line for America, so that corporations, government policies, our educational system, our legal system, our health care system, and even our personal behavior is judged efficient, rational or productive to the extent we maximize our capacities to be loving and caring, kind and generous, ethically and ecologically sensitive and responsible. By reference, the Old, Still Dominant Bottom Line is that of the corporations and the rich–the exclusionary maximization of money and power—repulsive and destructive indeed.
Mechanism: We will be a pluralist, populist Coalition recognizing the boundaries and integrity of the organizations and people who voluntarily join the Coalition. As initiators, we seek the input of potential collaborators in this great undertaking. While we are generating a core platform on which we ultimately will agree is the basis for membership in the organization, we are enthusiastic about referencing the particular contributions and views of participants. To that extent, we attach herein and ask for others to attach their programs and views to the platform as broader references and potential participations for others to join with Coalition members. Once an agreed upon platform is obtained from input we deem sufficient, we will call for a plenum, seek wider distribution for the Platform and broader participation in the Coalition. The Platform shall serve as the basis for membership and will be reviewed and augmented as necessary—in response to new conditions and greater understanding.
The Blessed Platform in 12 Prodigious Steps that We Can All Take:
Step 1—Surrender to the Higher Power of Love—The View
We recognize that all of us on this planet are fundamentally interdependent and that our wellbeing depends on the well being of everyone else on the planet. We are committed to love, respect for all beings, love of life itself, to equality and sharing, and the promotion of great lives for all beings. We commit to overcoming a utilitarian attitude toward the physical world so that we can respond to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of all that is. We recognize that the accidents of birth–to whom we are born—place, class, culture, religion—in a just and loving world are not defining of position or opportunity. We are militants for social justice and seek to build institutions of fairness, creativity and cooperation. We surrender to the higher power of Love.
Cf. the Network of Spiritual Progressives—The Spiritual Covenant with America
Step 2—One Person/One Vote: The True and Profound Democracy Amendment aka The Omnibus Anti-Corruption Amendment—the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
No progress can be made in US politics without a complete overhaul of campaign finance and lobbying. The 28th Amendment eliminates corporate and wealthy individuals from influencing representative democracy and returns our nation to its people. Corporations are not people. Politicians are paid a salary for their work. Becoming an elected official must be freed from the allure of wealth and personal gain. Return the United States to its people. Let other nations do the same.
Cf. The True and Profound Democracy Amendment
Step 3—Planetary Responsibility
It is more and more clear that we are past the tipping point and climate change will be increasingly negative, unpredictable, and massively destructive. Vast social and environmental dislocations and disruption are on the visible horizon. Efforts to plan for these changes, to develop an international taskforce, and to rein in the human impact on our planet amount to next to nothing.
We are committed to taking leadership to save our beloved planet to the extent possible, to protect remaining nature, and to prepare to aid all people who will be adversely impacted by climate change.
Cf—The Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment (ESRA) for one approach to this problem
Step 4—Population Reduction
Earth cannot sustain the current human population without grave impact on resources—water, air, land, natural habitat, minerals, energy. Yet population for much of the world, particularly in the underdeveloped nations, is growing at an alarming rate and there is no coherent policy to limit population growth, let alone reduce it, which is the only sane path for our planet. We are committed to a global policy for population reduction, as well as for the United States. We will act to convene an international body to develop a fair and just world population policy that recognizes our capacity at the local, national and international levels for sustainable populations and creates programs to achieve such goals. The most enduring impacts on the velocity of population increase are education and a sustainable economic life. We are committed to both of these for all peoples.
Step 5—Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Education
We will be certain within 5 years that all humans have sufficient food to sustain a high quality of life. This means we will restrain profiteering and domination of distribution in the food channel. Basic staples will no longer be a commodity traded and hoarded for the benefit of wealth accumulation.
We will be certain that within five years, all humans will have adequate clothing and shelter to sustain and ennoble life.
We will reshape our education system to teach the values, of love, caring, generosity, intellectual curiosity, tolerance, and collaboration, and to train our children to have great capacity for productive, creative and thoughtful lives.
We will develop programs in the US and internationally to achieve these goals.
Step 6—Medicare for All
We will work unceasingly for a national single payer health care system in the US and support health care for all worldwide. We will seek the unification of a workers compensation system and disability benefits within a single health program. All people have the right to health care that promotes well-being and longevity. We support national and international programs to achieve this goal.
Step 7—Capital Flight, International Minimum Wage, Safe Work Conditions for All, Progressive Taxation, Job Creation
We will start a world minimum wage and seek all countries’ participation in this, building wages from the bottom up. We will eliminate slavery and sex trafficking worldwide. We will establish an agreement for worldwide support for the elderly, the work-injured and for decent working conditions everywhere. We will regulate finance capital’s profiteering and influence and enforce taxation on corporations. We will tax goods coming from abroad and from our own country that rely on cheap wages and abhorrent working conditions to enable corporate profits and return those taxes to the international community’s workers. We support a new national work initiative that will build again the productive structure and infrastructure of America. We seek a progressive tax policy that reduces the egregious gap between rich and poor and provides for a welfare state that supports education, health care, and a minimal standard for quality of life for all.
Step 8—Demilitarization, An End to Wars and Nuclear Disarmament
We seek the limitation of the US military to a defensive capability. We call for the withdrawal of the US military from its bases abroad, from foreign wars and occupations. We call for US military cooperation with the United Nations and its efforts to prevent war and holocausts. We call for the US to unilaterally move towards nuclear disarmament and to be a full and active participant in world nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. We are horrified and personally violated by the continued threat of nuclear holocaust.
Step 9—Drug Legalization
We recognize that our mass consumption of illegalized drugs has caused great national and global suffering and dislocations. Whole states are destroyed or crippled by our continued blindness to the ravages of the money/narco-criminal nexus. We call for a progressive national and international policy of legalization, decriminalization, and state support for drug education, treatment and sponsored availability. We will enter into a national and international forum to make this a reality during the next five years and to divert funds from the ‘drug war’ apparatus to education and treatment.
Step 10—Separation of Church and State
We recognize our Founders insistence on the separation of Church and State as essential to a democratic society. While recognizing and upholding the right of all people to determine their spiritual lives, we abhor and abjure any attempt to enforce spiritual dominance on others through any means and especially through the mechanisms of our civil society.
Step 11—Energy Policy and Nationalization of Industries
We seek the creation of a coherent national and international policy for sustainable energy that curtails our polluting and our outlandish consumption of earth’s limited resources for energy. This requires a coordination and focus with nationalization of the oil and gas industries, eliminating the for-profit motive, which drives the engine of planetary destruction. We seek mass transportation solutions that benefit all beings, an end to nuclear power, and a trans-national effort to develop and proliferate alternative energy solutions.
Step 12—Guns, Murder, Our Out-of-Control Legal Non-System
The US has turned into the most litigious society on earth with lawyers running our political and social institutions. We seek a streamlined legal/jurisprudence system with respect for the Bill of Rights, and with clear and specific penalties for criminal offenses and civil issues, limits on legal fees and profiteering.
Within the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms, we seek the elimination of handguns, and the outlandish weapons of destruction that everyday claim our citizens lives, especially our youth. A culture of love and respect cannot be based on armed deterrence at the community level. We seek the building of community institutions that foster friendship and collaboration, economic and social justice and emotional and spiritual vitality for all. This is where we want our efforts to go—into a creative, caring society. We have the highest percentage of incarcerated persons ever and we seek the rebuilding of the prison system into an educative, creative and productive system with appropriate punishment to the committed offenses, true community protection and supervision of released convicts, and a commitment to incorporate rehabilitated persons into a productive and good life.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of knowing the truth and appropriateness of these steps—imagining a world in which this vision is realized and what peace and love it brings to our hearts–we will carry this message to all and will practice these principles in our personal affairs.