Areas For Change

Manifesto - "Areas For Change"

In this physical universe, change is the only constant.
(Josef Hasslberger)

We are living in interesting but also very volatile times. A world war is not a remote possibility any more. Religious wars are in again, one could almost say, if it wasn't so obvious that all wars are fought for economic reasons. Although the current "democratizing adventure" of a clique of neo-cons around and behind the Bush presidency is largely justified by "terrorism", the religious undertones are unmistakable.

Jews and Christians are pitted in mortal combat against the Muslim world, while all three of these religions go back to essentially the same biblical tradition. The interpretations are different, but the story is the same. The laws and moral concepts of each one of these religions are used to justify - more even than the threat of terrorism - the violence that is meted out daily.

Something is awfully wrong here. Church and State have melted almost imperceptibly into one glorious mass. Islamic jihad - holy war - against Bush and his crew of re-born Christians while Sharon's Zionist faction is working in the background to keep the two main players at each other’s throats. Whatever happened to the concept of separation of Church and State?

Actually, our whole Western culture has been "infected" by a serious virus. That virus is the confusion of worldly law and religious or moral law. One of the most widely known documents showing such confusion is what Moses apparently received and passed on to his people as the Ten Commandments. If you look at them, you will see that worldly law (also known in Latin as "mala in se") is quite will mixed up with religious or moral law (which is known by the term "mala prohibita"). This confusion of mala in se and mala prohibita, which has entered the law books of all Western nations in a grand way, is obfuscating our minds and justifies a concept of "different" people who are natural enemies to be eliminated by warlike action.

Eliminating such confusion would be a good starting point and could in time defuse the threat of war, but there are some other important contiguous areas that need to be addressed at the same time, if we are to build a saner world.

The Economy is rigged to siphon money away from productive use by a mechanism of interest, profit and return on investment, leaving about 98 per cent of us to do the slave work while the important resources end up in the pockets of a few who like to control. Even countries are indebted up to their eyeballs, many of the developing nations are so badly in debt that foreign "money providers" have come to practically own their natural resources. Closer to home, taxes have become - at least in part - simply a way to make us foot the interest-bill, with the government doing the collecting and then paying interest on what they call the national debt.

The economic system should, by reason of its basic set-up, favour distribution of resources, not concentration in a few hands as it currently does. Speculation should be discouraged while free and direct economical exchange should be encouraged. The creation of monetary values by credit, currently a prerogative of commercial banks, needs to be in the hands of either the state or should be organized directly by and for communities. The siphoning mechanism (interest) should be eliminated. This is best done not by prohibition but by re-arranging the monetary set-up so as to promote the circulation of money, which will let interest fade into insignificance.

Energy production is based almost exclusively on burning or atomically disintegrating non-renewable fossil resources, such as oil, coal, gas and uranium. Alternative technologies are deliberately sabotaged in order to maintain the status quo - and the energy monopoly by a handful of multinationals.

We need networked, distributed, non-polluting energy production using abundant and/or renewable fuels. Candidates are out there in abundance. A breakthrough is eminently possible if funding can be somehow drummed up for serious research in the right direction. Hydrogen seems close to breaking through but is by no means the only option.

Science is not helping to bring about this breakthrough due to certain tenets, which are "fixed in concrete". Real innovation in the energy field is not possible unless science basics can be re-examined in open discussion. This would be a pre-requisite to seriously advance our way of energy production and to develop non-polluting and non-destructive technologies.

Science is largely controlled and kept in a quasi-immobile state by University-controlled education. Our method of forming scientific consensus, the peer-review system, practically excludes paradigm-challenging work by denying it publication and discussion. Facts and experiments that get in the way of this conservative attitude are disregarded, labeled as oddities or worse - are ridiculed.

Science should be driven by the demands of art (application) and funded in a way that does not give special interests a right of veto. We need generalists, people who can see the "broad picture" to connect the various strands of research in an effective way. Basic assumptions and scientific paradigms should be routinely and continually open to question and review. Diversity and cross-pollination of ideas is one essential element required for the effective growth and meeting of such objectives.

The Environment or rather our thoughtless treatment of it, is another problematic area in urgent need of attention. We are poisoning ourselves by saturating the beautiful environment of this planet with the many toxic by-products of fossil fuel combustion, with millions of tons of toxic chemicals we manufacture and use in a senseless war against bugs. And let's not forget the electromagnetic pollution produced by various technical applications such as radar, radio, television and various communication applications.

We should be personally aware of and responsible for the environment. It really is one big worldwide "commons" - a resource that belongs to all of us. No one, whether state, corporation or individual has the right to endanger this resource. Spaceship Earth, as Buckminster Fuller called it, should be kept in good working order. Our health depends on this to a great extent.

Health is controlled, in the western world, by a monopolistic, pharma centered kind of medicine, which has effectively suppressed any valid alternative. Most nations are finding this to be very expensive - their health care programs are going broke. Yet, through globalization, this model is being imposed on the developing countries. No one has made an "operating manual" for the upkeep of our own bodies. There is no real prevention in Western type medicine. We're promoting illness by an exclusively symptom oriented approach and by our use of largely toxic, xenobiotic "remedies". Psychiatry is an instrument of social control rather than being a healing art.

We need a simple health operating manual - for efficient nutrition and prevention - and real freedom of choice for the individual. Diverse systems of medicine should compete on an equal footing. No one system, however scientifically hyped up, should have a healing monopoly. Compulsory treatment has no place in a rational approach to health. Prevention should be the mainstay of all health-oriented action. Treatment must find the cause of illness rather than treat its symptoms.

Education is largely based on formal learning and is geared to perpetuate the existing scientific paradigm as well as the official version of historical events. Critical thinking and our ability to evaluate as well as the acquisition of practical, survival related skills are not promoted. Currently, education has been directed more at making individuals obedient citizens and to develop blind respect for authority rather than providing them with effective mental and motor skills to confront survival, health, and problem-solving issues. Educators are not pedagogically trained to help others learn and even the subject of communication itself is poorly understood. It is hard to find out the truth about anything and today's education certainly is no great help.

An effective educational system should promote the ability to research, understand and evaluate. Even questioning paradigms should encouraged. This could effectively allow those now considered "black sheep" to realize their full potential. Students must be put on the path of learning how to learn and how to question. The learning process should be a life-long endeavour. Educational content and information can be freely accessible on the net today. Acquisition of personal survival skills and self actualization on all levels should be promoted. Interpersonal communication skills are important both for educators and students.

Human potential has been a long neglected area. One could even say that schooling, television and the limitations of science are factors that actively suppress any ability which does not fit into the current very limited scheme of things. The use of "special" abilities such as intuition, telepathy, telekinesis, and similar is actively discouraged by society. Also the extension of our life span falls victim to a clear lack of interest in optimal nutrition and an emphasis on toxic remedies in western medicine.

Human Potential. The abilities of the individual - however "strange" they might seem - should be accepted, nurtured and strengthened in family and educational settings. We must learn to use our intuition to guide us in our decisions. Limiting the use of television would go a long way in making people more smart and alert. Life extension should be actively researched and any progress made accessible to all.

Intellectual Property laws tend to prevent, rather than promote, the free and productive use of ideas. Copyright makes information subject to ownership and thus less accessible. The patent system has been accused of stifling outside-of-current-paradigm technological progress. Patent laws have no provisions to guard against inventions being bought up and shelved by special interests. This severely limits our ability to put such inventions to productive use. The patenting of life forms, plants and seeds tends to monopolize, for the profit of a few, what was once considered a common - a resource everyone was free use.

We should move towards limiting copyright, examples are the Creative Commons approach to copyrighting, Copyleft, as well as the Open Source software movement. Legislation should favour the sharing of works while providing reasonable compensation for limited time. It should promote bringing intellectual property into the public domain. No protection should be afforded for biological "inventions" such as any living creature, bacteria, virus, plant and seed.

Social organisation is highly centralized and authoritative, bringing us ever closer to an all-controlling police state. Democracy is a sham and does not offer real alternatives, although the existence of political parties gives many of us a false sense of being represented. Our choice of leaders is not based on merit but rather on access to public media. World affairs are substantially controlled by a relative minority, operating behind the scenes and exercising control through politicians who owe them their election.

The purpose of government happens to be to ensure peace and security so people can pursue their personal goals toward happiness. We need more direct involvement of people and various interest groups in the political process. Decentralized government - a preponderance of local rules and regulations - not necessarily with a geographical focus, could facilitate personal involvement. Leaders should be responsible for the running of affairs - not the making of policy which should evolve co-operatively - and should be subject to continuous public verification.

Public Media and information are under the control of a restricted circle of magnates and powerful special interests and further consolidation of these power centers is on the agenda. Disinformation and propaganda, rather than information, is the rule. The so-called mass media have become a powerful narcotic and source of confusion, promoting everything but personal initiative.

We need independent, distributed, interactive, community based and highly personalised media. Indymedia , peer-to-peer networks, weblos and wikis, augmented social networks, and personalised newsfeeds are parts of an early model of this necessary change of paradigm.

Summary
It should be understood that this outline is highly skeletal and there may be other equally important areas to add. The emphasis is on the interconnected nature of all the areas briefly described here and anyone working in one area would do well to be aware of the others and find out as much as possible of how changes in one area may affect others as well.