Western Industrial Civilization must dismantle the structures of industrial agriculture and re-appropriate the land for mass smallholdings. Using recent developments in organic growing and scientific insights into natural systems we can feed and employ all of the people even as we reduce demands on the natural world to an indefinitely sustainable level. The benefits are manifold. We will end resource wars by reducing our demand for oil and foreign food supplies. We will save dwindling oil reserves by not shipping food thousands of miles to our table or using petroleum as stock for pesticides and fertilizers. We will enhance our health by eating fresh, uncontaminated food grown locally. We can disaster proof our regions by growing and processing food locally. A family kitchen garden should go with each home instead of environmentally negative lawns. We can employ millions within walking distance of their homes, reducing oil use as well as pollution.

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Humanity is living one of its most crucial moments. The time of the great empires is in decay. There is no specific culture or country arising as a new empire, but instead there is a Global Emerging Culture. It seems that the planet is growing a new social body where all humans are connected giving birth to a global brain.

We are living in the peak of an evolutionary leap. The past century we started riding horses and ended riding to the moon. We have reached a high level of development in technology, but we haven't evolved in the same proportion in the development of our consciousness. That is indeed a dangerous formula for our planet.

Taking that in consideration the guidelines I suggest for the Emerging Global Civilizations are the following:

1) Personal Mastery: We can go global, participate in forums and work for Global peace and unity. But we won't get far if we don't go to the last frontier of humanity. The inner self.

I have seen great endeavors for the sake of humanity fail just because the members of the project, couldn't get along. I have seen with sadness big ego battles among leaders of many organizations which claim be working for global peace, but inside their organizations there is a silent war in the hearts of its members. We will not reach global peace and a global civilization if we first don't learn how to live in harmony with oneself.

I recommend that any person claiming to be a servant of the world, should be deeply involved in a personal mastery process of any way.

2) Social Technologies: We have to make use of all technologies available in order to be able to come together as a Global Community. It won't happen just by itself. We need to build it, and for that we need tools that can help us see each other, understand different perspectives, and be able to work successfully together in a multicultural environment with many countries and thousands of people involved. There are several workbooks available and a wide range of consultants around the world, teaching  how to use social techniques like World Cafe, Open Space, System Thinking, new governability models like holacracy, the effective use of Social Networks etc. We need to learn how to use all of them in order to work effectively as a Global Community.

 3) Global Collective Intelligence: Through the use of Social Technologies we can learn how to access the Global Collective Intelligence as a path to Global Collective Consciousness and Wisdom. When civil society learn how to reach Global Collective Intelligence we will move in a more precise and organized manner in order to find what is the best way to live as a Global and harmonious Community, where we respect oneself, each other and the entire planet.

 4) Citizens of the World: Technology has help humanity to see the world as a beautiful sphere floating in the space, to see the beauty of the planet as never before, and to reduce distances. The spirit of being a Global Citizen is being spread and a new breed is being born. Special attention should be put into this topic. Only when we see ourselves as Global Citizens we will be able to address humanity’s problems with the right perspective. 

This list could be longer, but I consider this to be the most important steps in order to engage in a positive dialogue and be co-creators for a new humanity.

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Numerous articles have made it plain that there's considerable opposition to this at the Pentagon, so there's some hope.   However, the recent vote by Congress to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, (supported by Clinton, Feinstein, Domenici, Warner and Reid, among others), gives Bush a way to justify his attack.

This situation is so much more complex than the media portrayal of Ahmadinejad as another madman who can't be allowed to have nuclear weapons.  Ahmadinejad's recent talk at Columbia showed him to be a 2-bit politician with cheap suits and cheap rhetoric.  All hat, no cattle, as they say in Texas.  Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader , controls the military in Iran, and he needs a nuclear weapon for the same reason Kim Jong-Il needed it, so the US can't impose regime change as Bush threatened in his Axis of Evil speech.   Only the Iranian's want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but there are better ways to accomplish this.

Please, call or write your congressman and urge them to pass legislation to block Bush from making a bad situation worse.   If you aren't a resident of the US, please contact your leaders and ask them to not support the White House in its efforts to provoke a confrontation.   Together, we can keep this war from happening.

Other Relevant Links:
"The Iran Plans", Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, April 2006
"Stop the Iran War Before It Starts", Scott Ritter, The Nation, Jan 2007
"Iraq Will Have to Wait", Scott Ritter, Truthdig.com, Sept 2007
"The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran", John Richardson, Esquire, Oct 2007

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      I tried hard to avoid grandiose, philosophical high-falutin' rhetoric.  I think American culture is already far too much "in our heads".  I tried to cite very simple, practical ways to free our psyche and spirit from pop culture, styrofoam Wal Mart culture.  Here are some easy ways to not be enmeshed with transnational corporate hegemony.  Here are some simple ways to disengage from fossilized paradigms that turn you into a mindless consumer - you can reclaim your divine inheiritance.  Our divine destiny is to experience bliss, ecstasy and illumination.
 

1.  Practice voluntary simplicity as a daily lifestyle practice.  Eschew "affluenza" and conspicuous consumption and excessive consumerism.  Avoid shopping malls and big box stores.  With every purchase you make - first think carefully, "Do I really need this"?   Quit shopping in the mall and big corporate chains and try assiduously to shop at small mom and pop businesses in your neighborhood.

 
2.  Regain your health by eliminating processed food in your diet.  Eat locally grown, organically grown food created by family farmers.  Try to eat foods grown within 500 miles of where you live.  This will help save energy in food production and lower your carbon footprints.   Join  a natural foods cooperative, try to focus most of your grocery purchases from the produce department and bulk foods bin.  Join a CSA "Community Supported Agriculture" - shop at the local Farmers Market and quit shopping at big chain store supermarkets.  The more food you buy that is not canned, frozen, or wrapped in packaging - the healthier you will become and the more money you will save on your grocery bills.   Get together with a circle of your friends and trade off several nights a week by cooking dinner, trading nights with each person sharing meal preparation - a kind of "meal preparation cooperative" - this is a wonderful alternative to fast food meals and fosters community building.   Europeans spend 2 or 3 hours eating dinner, while Americans are frequently seen buying dinner from a fast food joint, picking up prepared food from the supermarket deli, microwaved/frozen meals.  How many families really sit down every night and share dinner together?  Not too many, the kids are off at the mall, mom and dad are doing errands, or the family eats dinner at the food court of the mall.

 
3.   Read, study and educate yourself for the times to come.  Try to get your news from indie media, blogs, online and from alternative progressive media - quit watching corporate network TV news.

 
4.  Use your High Order Critical Thinking skills to be discerning and judicious in your decision making process.  Eschew the "Slavespeak" of our government, media, advertising and pop culture which relies heavily on ad hominem syllogisms which are fraught with sloppy irrational messages that clog your brain with mush.. 

 
5.  Don't watch reality TV - most of it is extremely negative.  Have you noticed the winners of those reality TV contests are always the most conniving, manipulative and nastiest contestants?

 
6.   Plant as much green plants as you can.  If you don't have a backyard garden space - even planting in containers on your apt balcony makes a big difference to lessen global warming.  Join a community garden - volunteer at a public school garden and help kids learn about ecology and how to grow fresh, healthy food.  Where I live in Sacramento, California a small group of citizens spent 2 years lobbying our City Council to abolish a long standing ordinance which banned residents from gardening vegetables and fruits in their front yards.  After a very long struggle as citizen activists/advocates we were finally successful in overturning the ban on Front Yard Gardening Ordinance.  Growing your own food instead of driving in your car to the supermarket lowers your carbon footprints, while saving you money on your grocery bills, saves you gas ($3.50 a gallon!) and your health will improve growing organic food in your front yard!  Every bit of greenery you plant cools down the planet and helps reduce global warming.
 

7.  Get rid of your gas guzzling car and switch to hybrid electric, biodiesel.  Did you know used fast food deep frying oil can be easily processed at your home and turned into fuel that a diesel engine car can run on?  Biodiesel fuel cost only 52 cents a gallon to make - a heckuva lot better than $3.50 a gallon at the gas pump!  Get rid of your car and take public transit, carpool, ride a bike, walk, skateboard or switch to a motorcycle/scooter which has a diesel engine and use biodiesel.   Driving only 10,000 miles a year using gasoline creates 6 million tons of global warming gases.

 
8.  Become the change within you that you want to see in the world.  Become politically active, sign petitions, organize non-violence rallies, attend City Council and Board of Supervisor meetings, write letters to the editor, join a neighborhood association.  Don't wait for "The Government" to change the world - take charge of your personal power and make your voice heard.  If you aren't registered to vote, then DO IT and also volunteer as a Precinct Worker on Election Day with Registrar of Voters.

 
9.  Keep Hope Alive.
 

10.  We are not human beings in search of a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings in search of a human experience.

 
11.  Develop an attitude of gratitude.  Seek your unlimited, boundless potential by seeking truth, justice and honor.  There is nothing you cannot be, do or have.  You are here by your powerful and deliberate wanting to be here.  Attract life experience to decide what you want in life.  Most of your time can be spent collecting data to help you decide what you want.  Decide what you want, then focus on it - this is the process of creating.  There is something magnificient about you - the moment you being to think postively - you will be guided, protected, sustained and illuminated.  Seek the light even when you are depressed, dejected and overwhelmed. 

 
12.   Don't succumb to apathy, negativity, disengaged  inertia. Reject victim mentality.  Don't blame your parents, dysfunctional childhood on your current personal problems - accept responsibilty for your life and develop an Internal Locus of Control.  Follow your bliss by seeking the heart trail to abundance and joy.   The power of just one individual with a positive attitude can change the world.  Ghandi's march to the sea which resulted in making the British Crown leave India and gaining Home Rule independence, this all begain with two people!

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Neat story, that about Arun's father walking home to think over the way he had brought up Arun.  I have told it several times now, and people listen with interest and laugh a little at the young man's plight.

As advice for the NVSA, the message about Arun is clear enough.   Let's see, has anyone lied to us recently? 

We, amongst the Americans anyway, though one or two other nationalities might also want to join in, could have a parade in shoes a size too small to ponder our sins.  How did we raise up a crop of torturers?  Why are we still so strangely silent about the destruction being wrought in our name?  Next Code Pink action, I am there! 

As it happened the next local Code Pink action was the Saturday Oct 27 march in downtown Los Angeles, so I bought a tie for the occasion and printed up some flyers and spent an enjoyable afternoon chatting up a whole lot of very receptive people for the Dialog.  Here I am heading out the door on my way to the demonstration with my packet of flyers.  I'm glad I went!  

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Topic: What do we have in common?

Question: Before we were religious, spiritual, or non-religious people we were born just people. How can recognition of this help in bringing a sense of tolerance, understanding and unity to the emerging planetary culture?

A few more commonalities:

We all bleed red. War is not an answer but a lack of understanding synergy. Pulling on the ends of a rope (war) wastes enormous energy and resources that could solve the very problems being fought about!

All our genes come from a common ancestor of the North African bushmen some 50,000 years ago. After a large volcano erupted in the region the tribes spread worldwide.

Skin color is only a function of the amount of sun in the area the "race" was developing in. More melatonin in the skin for those with more sun made them darker and less likely to burn and get skin cancer. Those of the northern region with less sun became lighter skinned to absorb more sun for the Vitamin D. Race designations should be abolished ASAP. Inter-racial breeding should be encouraged as soon the skin colors would change into a "tan man". Then no more skin color to fight about.

Religions also developed from tribal cultures toward today's revelations of science. What cannot be proved scientifically as a truth should be abandoned. I include in the word "science" the soft sciences of sociology, psychology, comparitive religious study, and even to some extent metaphysical theories that have some experiential basis. We should preserve the commonalities or religio-spiritual thought and experience and abandon the rest. We need a newer testament of world culture and belief not limited to any region or people to solve the world's current conflicts.

I have abandoned any one belief myself and am currently working to bring these changes and understandings about by working on Interfaith dialog, understanding world scriptures and how to update them, ministry based on the above principles, this Global Assembly dialog, and more.

I hope you will keep in mind these ideas and if you agree help bring them to reality.

For Truth, Justice and the One World Way; David Turner

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we need to change the calendar to the mayan dreamspell calendar and quit looking at time as money then we will truly begin to bring about world peace. the current calendar is inslaving all the people of the world in the technosphere.and its a total lie the earth only has 28days linked by the phases of the moon as soon as we know this and live by it we begin to transgress time and space in otherwords time has no more hold on us and true peace.

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