Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 14:24:42 -0500
From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: C of C: socialism
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Socialism: More Than Ever -- A Compelling Need
Socialism. The pundits keep up the drum beat that it's outmoded,
discredited, and defeated. But socialism has been a vision and a movement
for hundreds of years. It's still around and will remain a vibrant and
increasingly urgent issue for decades to come. Socialism is global, but it
is also as American as cherry pie, with deep roots in the nation's history
and traditions. It is embodied in the hearts and the exertions of many who
believe in a country and world anchored on fairness, on genuine democracy
of citizen participation, on equality and justice for all regardless of
race, gender, or sexual orientation, on freedom to learn and to be enriched
by a growing culture, on living in peace, on sharing in the ownership and
control of wealth created by the majority, and benefitting >from an
equitable distribution of income and property.
Socialism will always be around because capitalism, despite its noisy
self-congratulations, is making life increasingly harder for the working
majority. The Dow Jones may be soaring, but Mary and John Jones are having
a rough time. Every upward surge in the stock market in today's global
economy reflects another "downsized" worker, another leveraged buyout and
shuttered business, another union-protected industrial job shifted to a
low-wage, environmentally lax country. New technologies, instead of making
life easier for working people, are eliminating jobs by substituting
machines for bank tellers, telephone operators, machinists, and many
others. Unemployment may be down, but real wages have declined 16% since
1973. Millions today have to work two, even three low wage, non-union,
no-benefits jobs to barely compensate for rapidly disappearing work at
decent wages. The United States now embraces the most unfair distribution
of wealth and income in the industrialized world. The average net worth per
household of the top one percent is now $7,875,000; the net worth of the
bottom one per cent is $900! Bill Gates's $40 billion is more than the
combined worth of 40% of the nation's households! We are now at a
watershed: each succeeding generation is worse off than the preceding
generation.
Democracy is our most treasured tradition. But it is sullied by the
domination of politics by big money. Corporations get their tens of
billions in "welfare" at the public trough while schools, health services,
and housing needs go begging--and the poorest and most vulnerable are
scolded for allegedly leeching off the taxpayers. No wonder that aFrom
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Dec 13 17:16:01 1998
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Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 17:14:21 -0500
From: Steve Kurtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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To: ECOL-ECON <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
futurework <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
gaiapc-list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: sustainability: Improving community participation
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This is a valuable resource, in my opinion. There are many others, but some
are very specific or highly technical, others superficial. The internet is
only as useful as we humans make it.
Steve
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: WWW: Environmental sustainability: Improving
community participation
The practice of involving people and building environmental partnerships
requires not only a specialist knowledge of the particular area
(agriculture,
biodiversity, etc.), but also skills in a diverse range of areas from
information management through to conflict resolution and collaborative
problem solving.
The NRM_changelinks web site http://nrm.massey.ac.nz/changelinks/ has been
designed as a practical resource for natural resource managers, NGO's,
scientists, academics, community leaders and others working to help
communities identify and adopt more sustainable environmental practices.
The site provides a guide to a range of information, tips and techniques in
fields such as sustainable development, adaptive management, participatory
monitoring and evaluation, conflict resolution, partnership development,
collaborative problem solving, decision support, action research,
information
management and collaborative/organisational learning. It also shows how the
application of these areas are interlinked in practice. Collectively these
approaches are suitable for those working in a wide range of areas such as
rural development, conservation, biodiversity, water, agriculture, etc.
Another section in this site shows how to make the most of the Internet for
sharing information, networking, decision support and learning. A guide is
provided for those who are interested in developing their own web presence
... particularly aimed at showing how this can be done easily and at very
little cost. Links are also provided to international job opportunities in
the area of environment and development.
Willy Allen
