To see solutions to the overall problems facing various societies today we need to look beyond the systems that are in place today, mostly in westernised and imposed forms. I say western because largely that’s the most fast moving and influential force guiding most everything nowadays, from the banking system, to foods, lifestyles and to Hollywood.
It has its positives, the Internet and the mobile phone, wide-scale medical improvements, technologies of all sorts benefitting mankind, construction techniques; it has its negatives: nuclear weapons, mass consumerism, environmental destruction, mental illness, medical abuses, societal fragmentation, warlordism, tribalism, nationalism, trading monopolies and cartels, financial speculation, un-regulated banking practices, manipulated currencies, unequal distribution of wealth, copyright laws that restrict creativity and sharing, and more.
Anything done to oppose or relieve these manifestations mentioned above will take our societies in a direction relieving the particular sector so fraught of its negative impact and thus is a step on the path to revamp everything to a new mean, likely lower on the developmental scale but not regressive to any real detriment to the general human lifestyle, though one not so demanding of novelty but more tied to meeting real needs for more people.
In reality this simply means all the forward thinking activists need to continue with whatever they are doing, understanding this outlined above, and carrying out their tasks using the methodology of nonviolent action, this latter requirement an absolute otherwise it’s one step forward two steps back!
Amnesty does its work, Doctor’s Without Borders their’s, Oxfam continues, War Resistors, World Without Wars, all these NGOs and groups and their composite individuals need to carry on, always clarifying, monitoring, advancing. Among these we have the organisations originating among our humanist movement friends in various countries plus Pressenza, the international news agency where I apply myself.
There are all the Green groups, anti-slavery groups, workplace unions, action fronts for minority rights, women’s rights groups, even Dogs & Cats as War Victims, each and every one emanating from a caring individual who wants to make a difference. Each with their particular insight and inspiration. Arts for Peace… the list goes on and on.
Activists within established religions who are dumping the superfluous and getting to the core, overriding the superstitious, bringing down the barriers, opening doors, calming any tendency toward imposition to only offer instead, and interchanging with due respect for other faith’s and stances outside of particular faiths.
The value of Pressenza – if I may state my own case and interest – lies in telling stories from lesser known positions on conflicts, often conciliatory but also bringing to the fore minority views that get lost or are intentionally ignored by big media that see no profit in highlighting minority problems or views they like to label conspiracy. The reporter may tell a story but the editors under pressure from the publishers dovetail their final accounts in line with policy, not balanced truth.
More aware people are seeing the double standards of the mainstream media and the way the news is reported, always the same people and events and without critical editing, just allowing these personalities to have air time.
President Obama is a case to make this point very clear. He is paraded on television night after night saying things that totally contradict what is happening in the real world. Every statement on Israel is confounded by what is happening between the USA and Israel. In Hiroshima he spoke of getting rid of nuclear weapons while his government has concrete plans to spent trillions of US$ on upgrading their nuclear defences. He speaks of the Asian pivot as a defence measure but it is an aggression against China plain and simple. Obama is a PR man fronting for the US system of governance that has as its fundamental tenet its own supremacy and exceptionalism. This is not a wish of the average USA citizen, it is a desire of the ruling and moneyed elite.
So, activists everywhere are bypassing the channels these controlling forces set up for complaints and dissent. Just as governments nowadays are cleverly establishing particular areas where demonstrations can be held… what’s the point if protesters cannot take their protest to the very streets which are part of their own domains to show their own fellows in their cities what they are protesting about?
Thus social media is playing an important role in changing things, of allowing communication between activists. Gather at this point! Did you hear the latest? Etc.
Small scale projects and operations are favoured these days. Co-operatives; barter systems, Bitcoin equivalent cybercash transactions outside the cheating banking systems, neighbourhood organisations, ‘save the …’ groups. More direly, indigenous people’s are becoming organised as education spreads and people will no longer just sit back and take it.
The solution then is a diluted one, stemming from the efforts of all such units and hubs and opt outs because we are making a difference and things are changing and we will carry on.
