All power to the (Extinction Rebellion) people?

-Or 2/3rds of the power to the other wings of the movement needed to get from here to the Zero Carbon future?
As a member of the Hastings & St Leonards Extinction Rebellion discussion group I sent this message this morning:
“I celebrate Extinction Rebellion plans for the August Bank Holiday locally and onwards into London. I acknowledge that some people may find it obnoxious: 1) to have posts from the Independent Candidate in Hastings & Rye 2019-2029(?) put up here & 2) that I post in the form of verbose YouTube clips whilst working 70hours a week Shielding my disabled & dementia-suffering Dad:https://youtu.be/QKFDfsG8gZ8

What I’ve just pasted is, I’ve just learned, an “intuitive story telling” and the importance of closing down capital cities begins at  8minutes in. I’m with you in spirit. I have already registered my support for the Three Demands Bill when asked to by an @XRHSL member in https://Twitter.com/paulcrosland 

All power to 1) your campaign  & 2) the other wings of “The Great Turning”

Are we all in this together?

(I don’t mean to be divisive 

when my need for integration asks the incisive:)

Are we all in this together?

And are we duly broken apart

By the demands that these times

Place on many a struggling heart?

Be there with sorrow

Find a way to address the pains

Journey through the doldrums

To where love is what remains.

What I Stand For -Expressed As Three Pairs Of Policies

What I’m standing for in the #PandemicEra reworking of #EthicsEconomicsPolitics I try to communicate in three pairs:

1) “Kinder Politics” which opens the door to, amongst other things, “Deeper Accountability”. (“What would #KinderPolitics look like to you?” is a key door to door question for the next election campaign in which I’m involved.)

2) A change in custodianship responsibilities with “Land Value Tax” initially at 3% of Land Value to fund “Universal Basic Income” to free up people’s creativity to meet the needs of these times.

3) #GrassrootsManifestoes - as many citizens as possible putting forward for representation their main 4-10 policy suggestions. This bottom-up policy making meets with the conscience of their would-be representative and mediator, who needs to be free from the obligations of a political party. Powered by GrassrootsManifestoes (or other forms of interaction with constituents) Independent Candidates can now share a platform, standing for “Whip-Free Accountable Mavericks In Parliament”. My first two nominations for possible forerunners in getting into Parliament under the hashtag #WFAMIP are Martin Lewis (of moneysavingexpert.com) and Russell Brand (of https://m.youtube.com/user/russellbrand)

Upping the level of levelling up

I too need to double down

In order to level up.

I’m not as fit as a butcher’s dog

And prefer a more eco analogy 

Amidst the flotsam and jetsam of

Consumer Folly

I too want to break free

From the slump

For the depression is deep

And the need to believe in my contribution 

Is like the cheaper items from Ocado;

Essential.

I tout the “Universal Basic Income paid for by Land Value Tax (e.g.3%)”*;

Advocate GM i.e. #GrassrootsManifestoes;

The boosting of the

#NonMonetaryEconomy

That truly builds Community;

The case for KinderPolitics paired with 

DeeperAccountability

And the kind of supermarket sweep

That values ecosystems rather than 

Just graspingly fills trolleys;

My ordering finger on the pulses

Because of the rhizomes 

As informed by Vandana Shiva**

If it’s to be another year

Before my shielded Dad and I

Even get to enter a social bubble

May the social media I meanwhile encounter

Level-up in encouraging respect

Of difference.

That would be like removing the plastic

From the sea;

Latest hashtag from me,

#FreeRangeBuddhist 007 

& #BipolarWarrior:

“Hold Me To Account For Non-Polarisation”

- #HMTAFNP

*#UBIpfbLVT

**Vandana Shiva polarising with Bill Gates

Social Media is not the problem; (IMHO) lack of "right effort" is

Let's start with a couple of useful lists from the editorial of The New Statesman (12th-18th June 2020), headed A World In Revolt:

In common with 1848, 1968, 1989 and 2011, 2020 is already being celebrated as a year of revolt. Nation states are not threatened by these revolts. Political systems will not be demolished. However, this new spirit of insurgency not only reflects the grievous social and economic toll of the pandemic, but also the forces that have driven upheaval since the 2008 financial crash: wage stagnation, unemployment, austerity, inter-generational inequality, social media and political polarisation.

That's 6 forces listed; five of which I agree with; one I do not. Do you recognise all 6 descriptions as complete enough? Perhaps you think I'm splitting hairs in suggesting that commentators are failing to distinguish between a technology as a cause and the use of that technology as the true cause of the problem. So to me, "Social Media" is not a problem at all, but these three aspects of its use are a potential civilisation-breaking problem:

1. lack of ethical standards or clarity 
2. lack of mindfulness in applying one's face to face ethical standards when on line 
3. lack of accountability (due to anonymity etc) on Social Media are generating problems.

Perhaps the primary vested interest of all magazines or TV News programmes is to show that they are the most legitimate source for considering the issues in whatever they deem the "proper way". Here are three examples of what "the proper way" to present news and the world around us may be:

1. "Impartiality", 
2. "Class War and the need for Dictatorship of the Proletariat" 
3. "The need to end Civilisation as we know it" - if we look at the historical example of Green Anarchist Magazine and Green Anarchist Statement of Intent, valuable touchstones in any Politics101 course*.

From a media agency that prides itself on it's impartiality, the BBC, via the journalist Amol Rajan, here's a direct attack on Twitter as unfit for purpose in these times:

"It is worth saying that this is a very difficult & toxic area where people on both sides receive the most horrendous amount of abuse and I'm afraid Twitter is just not the place to have these conversations; it has dissolved into a kind of Hobbesian war of all against all. Twitter is slow to remove abuse; there's huge scope for insult before you violate policies there, many users are anonymous and if there is a moral to this story it is that the more complex, sensitive and emotive the subject, the less useful, I think, Twitter is to discuss it" (BBC "News at One", 11th June 2020)

Whilst I hope for, and ask you to discuss, Twitter to split its service into two tiers according to the verification of identity or the anonymous, enabling choice as to which one participates in and what can be expected in terms of #DeeperAccountability.

Without change in how Social Media is provvided to us, the responsibility of ours is to use it withina clear ethical framework. I offer below the 5 ethical questions I keep asking myself and then an outline of what "Right Effort" is:

*The Politics101 course that I offer exclusively is that recorded in RefugeTreeWoods and the playlist edited by the main shareholder in the company that owns RefugeTreeWoods, ie Mediation Support Ltd. Here's #PoliticsAndBuddhistEthics101