Our biggest challenge is to overcome the legacy of Bush unilateralism, militarism, and imperialism. Our proposal: To create momentum toward a post-Bush era that both practices and celebrates Earth Community. Specifically a US foreign policy that rejects the Empire ways of unilateralism, warfare, and exploitation and instead leads by example, endorsing by both word and deed the Earth Charter, the International Criminal Court, the International Panel on Climate Change, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, etc.; giving up unilateral power in order to democratize global institution such as the UN, WTO, IMF, and World Bank; renegotiating trade agreements to benefit the developing world; showing the way toward a radical reduction of wasteful and polluting consumption, and so on.

Our goal: The US should not only be a team player and a model of probity, but it should give a helping hand to the little guy. This means giving ordinary people both voice and power at all levels of government, including regional assemblies, such as the European Parliament, and ultimately a global legislative assembly that would utilize innovative methods of both representation and participation by individuals and civil society.

Our strategies: Promote public discussion of the Earth Community alternative, including both short term steps toward democratizing the existing global order and a longer vision of how to achieve a fundamental transformation in individual identity and in cultural and institutional practices. This will include working with similar, often more advance movements, from Asia, to Africa, to Latin America, to Europe.

Our workshop will consist of short presentations and small group brain storming and discussions, led by very experienced facilitators that include one woman and one person over 65. The presentations will be in English but we have some handouts in other languages. The cross-cutting theme is “Internationalism”.

Our expected outcome is that participants will gain hope that global solutions for global problems are possible, but that attempted global solutions will fail without the development of democratic power at all levels, from local to global. Namely, domination of the global order by the wealthy and powerful breeds injustice and violent resistance. Global climate change, environmental degradation, economic exploitation, over population, warfare, and resource exhaustion cannot be halted without developing ways to engage the peoples of the world on their own terms.