Here is a model for activation in all bioregions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGTREn1uKlk
* * * *
There’s a certain straightforwardness to the situation:
* The current hypertrophied reality is insane. It’s not conducive to our desiderata: democracy, community, justice, egalitarianism, peace, sustainability.
* There’s plenty of great literature about the bioregional alternative, but if you just read Kirk Sale’s Dwellers in the Land and keep in mind that vision of sanity, you’ll have your bearings re: the deeply transformational direction we need to go in.
Social changers gravitate toward issues that particularly resonate for them. All work for reforms in the various areas is good work and to be appreciated. But it’s meaningful to have in mind the difference between issue-based reforms and deep social transformation.
It would be good to attend to both … reforms and transformation. The latter is going to take a long time. Bioregionalism will ultimately involve the breakup of the nation-states, devolution of power, technological and institutional simplification, relocalization, reinhabitation. The most we can do in a single lifetime toward that end will advance things just a couple of steps.
Reforms, on the other hand, can be won . . .
redistribution
demilitarization
campaign finance reform
ballot access reform
labor unions revitalization
universal health care
deconcentration of wealth and power
socialization of society’s productive assets
stop the destruction of habitat
livable wage for all
Universal Basic Income
Green New Deal
progressive income taxation
carbon taxation
wealth taxation
financial transactions tax
full employment
shorter workweeks
fair trade rather than “free trade”
increase social investment spending
free tuition at public colleges
cut corporate welfare
mass transit
nuclear disarmament
close the military bases abroad
affordable housing
universally available, low-cost daycare
abortion rights
secure retirement funding
worker cooperatives
public banking
full multi-party democracy
Ranked Choice Voting
Proportional Representation
abolish the Electoral College
publicly-owned, open-source voting equipment
civil rights
gay rights
trans rights
indigenous rights
reparations
anti-imperialism
anti-patriarchy
immigrants path to citizenship
community control of the police
foster community-based economics
end mass incarceration
treat drug abuse as a health problem
legalize marijuana
decriminalize sex work
fight corporate crime
enforce anti-trust laws
end warrantless mass surveillance
restore net neutrality
end fossil fuel subsidies
cut corporate welfare
ban fracking
no nukes
regenerative organic agriculture
Puerto Rican independence
prohibit commercial advertising targeted at children
sign the treaties banning land mines and cluster bombs
etc.
