Like WikiMedia, our society needs a long-term plan, if we want to move coherently from here to a better place. Looking back at this set of suggestions from four years ago, now I think I can safely say that I would suggest the more inclusive project of The Four Freedoms movement, but here’s how I got there, if you think these more modest goals make more sense:
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We are all working to continue to recover from the shock of this past week. Still, certain strategies that many of us began putting into place some time ago continue to have value. One strategy is working to build inclusive cultural structures that can re-frame our ways of thinking as a culture (clearly long term work), such as using the Holocene Calendar.
Adapting to the needs of the moment, however, are also clearly important, and more viscerally compelling as well. To that end, many of us are standing, like the Sargents from Herland, together with the most vulnerable, ready to calmly, even grimly, but non-violently, face down those who would threaten or do harm. Like those Sargents, we stand with the discipline that Dr. King and Gandhi taught, of non-violent resistance. Those who wear a #SafetyPin are pledging to stand with all of our fellow human beings under threat.
But we need intermediate strategies, between the short-term reaction of the #SafetyPin movement, and the long-term, evolving toward inclusive cultural change. I would suggest that one mid-range strategy to work for is Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), also known as Ranked Choice Voting, such as the state of Maine recently adopted.
A second mid-term to long-term strategy is to study and share Non-Violent Communication (NVC) while working toward better jobs (especially via worker’s cooperatives and unions/labor activism) for ALL races and classes.
So, short, medium and long-term: Stand together using NVC to work for IRV, and eventually changing our year designation from Anno Domini/Common Era to Holocene/Human Era (HE).
Finally, my personal Dream-term (very long-term) goal is to see both single payer health care and a Universal Basic Income, such as Dr. King called for over 40 years ago. These would allow every person, of any creed, color, class, etc, to reach his or her full potential as a human being. That is, after all, the real American Dream, isn’t it?
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
ShiraDest
November 13th, 12016 HE
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Action Items:
1.) Imagine something you’d like to see happen for our society 40 years from now.
2.) Share it with us in the comments, here, please.
3.) Share your thoughts on how we could get there from where we are now,
4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. If you write a book, once published, please consider donating to your local public library.
Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?
Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GR button:
Yassas, γεια σας! Salût ! Nos vemos! Görüşürüz! ! שָׁלוֹם
December, 2020 CE = December 12020 HE
(The previous lesson 2/67 published since this post, and the most recent lesson 3/67…)
Shira Destinie Jones by ShiraDest is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.