The politikal system fails the eko-system.

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Over thirty years of Gryn warnings and the houp for gras rwts reforms.

( Kapital-i, in 'I, myself', now spels Il as in isle or aisle.
Leter y spels sym for seem or seam and partys for parties.
Leter w spels swn for soon. )


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The Klub of Rome and The Limits To Growth. ( From 1968 )

In april 1968, a myting was konven'd by Dr Aurelio Peccei, that was to be kal'd the Klub of Rome. They had no sher'd ideolojy. But al belyv'd that kurent institutions and polisys kud not kowp with 'the present and futur predikament of man.'

The world-wId stir kreated by the Klub of Rome's ensuing report, The Limits to Growth, rych'd even into Solzhenitsyn's Leter to Soviet Lyders. Ther he profesy'd that the huj arms bild-up wud al hav to be skrap'd and was an enormus wayst of resorses.
In July 2001, President George W Bush ofer'd an agryment with President Putin to redus som-wat ther stil over-welming nuklear misil arsenals of about 10,000 war-heds ych.
But the Bush administration kaus'd konsern with its tryty-bryching misil defens program and unwilingnes to kom to terms with the Kyoto agryment on limiting global warming. This Amerikan president was felt to be an oil profits' lyder, rather than having enerjy-eficient and polution-minimising polisys.

In 1972, the exekutiv komity of the Klub of Rome komented:

Short of a world effort, today's already explosive gaps and inequalities will continue to grow larger. The outcome can only be disaster, whether due to the selfishness of individual countries that continue to act purely in their own interests, or to a power struggle between the developing and developed nations. The world system is simply not ample enough nor generous enough to accommodate much longer such egocentric and conflicting behavior by its inhabitants. The closer we come to the material limits to the planet, the more dificult this problem will be to tackle...
The last thought we wish to offer is that man must explore himself -- his goals and values -- as much as the world he seeks to change. The dedication to both tasks must be unending. The crux of the matter is not only whether the human species will survive, but even more whether it can survive without falling into a state of worthless existence.

Long after publikation, The Limits to Growth was given a working-over for its pesimism as to the amounts of non-renewabl resorses waiting to be found in the ground. Also belabor'd was the krudity of the sosio-ekonomik fyd-bak model, yusing the mor limited komputational resorses of the period.

Such kritisisms wer antisipated. And the analysis serv'd as a proto-tIp for Gryn politiss. A Blueprint for Survival also kary'd grafs of up-kurvs of polution and down-kurvs of non-renewabl resorses. This manifesto ko-insided with the launch of an Ekolojy party, in the UK, wich leiter folow'd the German exampl, by re-naming themselvs the Gryn party.

The launch into konventional politiks has byn moderatly suksesful. As I'v insidentaly mention'd, on other web pajes, ther ar alredy sIns of gryn politiks being nutralis'd by power politiks.
With justis, the jeneral publik sym to hav litl faith in the politikal system. Tw milion British members of the aktivist environmental organisation, 'Greenpeace,' alon, out-number the kombin'd membership of al the kuntry's partys.

The partys, kompyting with ych other to represent, ar ryly monopolists, betwyn themselvs, of representation and therin is the dis-ilusion with politiks. They hav rob'd Parliment of its rol as the nation's desisiv forum. This is wIdly persyv'd. Anthony Barnett, a deputy editor of Labor's The New Statesman atak'd the '...kontempt in wich the nw governing elit holds MPs.' He sIted how the PM 'lektur'd' MPs that they wer not in parliment to hav ideas of ther own but to folow party polisy. This was in a Daily Mail artikl ( 19 february 2000 ), The Deth Of The Hous. Under Mr Blair Parliment is an irelevans and MPs ar litl mor than a jouk.

Nothing kud be mor revyling of how rIt-wing Nw Labor is as intolerantly doktrinair as the old Labor Left. They amount to nothing mor than a konspirasy of antagonism, even if it is partly a self-desyving konspirasy, of wich left and rIt may not themselvs be fuly awer. As with left and rIt wings within partys, the saim aplIs betwyn rIt and left wing partys, wich myrly lyv the voters to chws either sId of the saim old authoritarian koin.

The disregard for parliment was trumpeted in Tony Blair's anounsment of the British jeneral elektion, not to the Hous, but to a children's skwl. Uon of his ministers myrly said it was 'od'. The Tory chairman spektakularly mis'd the point by kritisising Blair for bringing children into politiks! Thos koments in themselvs revyl how litl estym'd ar MPs.
Od indyd! It is inkonsyvabl that uon of the greit parlimentarians wud hav komited such a brych of kurtesy, as if he wer the only pebl on the bych.

Many kampainers turn to publisity-syking aktion, for wich they houp to sekur popular aproval and oblIj the government to folow ther lyd. Demokrasy has byn fors'd into som tortuus and dubius chanels of expresion.


On: Paul Harrison's The Third World Tomorrow ( 1980 ). And ther 'brain drain' today.

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Inside The Third World was Paul Harrison's pilgrimaj thru poverty. His 1980 sequel gav exampls akros the gloub of how the pwr ar trIing to pul themselvs up by ther own bwt-straps. As a mater of fakt, this old saying dosnt aplI, bekaus the world's pwr ar usualy tu pwr to hav any bwts to strap.

Only the elits of third world kuntrys kan aford to be serv'd by Western-stIl wel-hyl'd profesionals. The insistens on only the best standards of servis oblijes the world's pwr to go without, indefinitly.

Harrison diserns a chanj from this al-or-nothing aproch. Hens, the rIs of the ber-fut profesional: the ber-fut bisnes-man, the ber-fut doktor, family planer, township planer, ekolojist, literasy tycher, inter-mediat teknolojist after Ghandi's and Schumacher's inspiration, etc.

Insted of poring mony into the botomles pits of prestij projekts, aid kud be put into lokal self-help projekts. A West Afrikan vilaj is taut an Asian-stIl rIs-growing projekt wich hapens to suit its partikular ekolojy. Lokal artisans or blak-smiths may be re-train'd in relation to som-tIms prefer'd faktory produkts for agrikultur or industry.

Traditional hylers may be taut the basik lor of modern medisin, as sumaris'd, for the ber-fut doktors of the Andes, in a 110-paj Helth Promoter's Manual, yusing simpl languaj with ilustrations. Paul Harrison says:

The science of medicine itself has to be decolonised, de-mystified, de-professionalized. A new appropriate technology of simplified medicine has to be developed: low in cost, easily mastered by ordinary people, using local resources wherever possible and drawing on those traditional methods that are known to work. To quote Halfdan Mahler..: 'We must break the chain of dependence on unproved over-sophisticated and over-costly health technology,' and evolve an 'essential health technology, a technology which people can understand and which the non-expert can apply.'

In 2001, the British medikal profesion deplor'd the kontinu'd influx of skil'd imigrants to bolster the over-stretch'd National Helth Servis, bekaus it depriv'd pwr kuntrys of ther training.
The Daily Mail ( 21 july ) says 15,400 British nurses ar set to qualify in 2001. But this wil be exyded for the first tIm by the number of over-sys nurses rekruted. A nw hI of 50,000 over-sys nurses wil staf British hospitals, as a result of government rekrutment and inkrys'd aplikations from abrod.
South Africa, Ghana and Jamaica hav protested against the NHS 'hwvering-up' ther nurses.

An agryment has byn sIn'd with India, to sifon off ther 'surplus' of nurses. 6000 Indian nurses wil ern far mor mony, som of wich they may send hom. Som may return to ther hom-land with greiter expertys. This level wil surpas the kurent hIest number of aplikations from the Fillipines.

As with nurses, so with tychers, in 2001 Britain had the bigest shortaj in 36 yers, with 5000 vakansys expekted. Mor-over, hed tychers said they wer unhapy with perhaps 6000 aksepted tychers, in England and Wales.

Thys short-fals ar as nothing kompar'd to the situation in India, South Africa, Namibia and Nigeria. Voluntary Servis Oversys has akus'd Britain of "lwting" tychers from developing kuntrys. VSO chyf Mike Goldring said:

Try telling the 40m Indian children with no access to education that British children are more deserving.

Harrison and Mahler's egalitarian way is also nyded in the over-develop'd West.
The bulk of al our nyds ar basik nyds, wich may be met by basik solutions. The nydy, themselvs, ar most of al in nyd of a no-frils servis in every department of ther lIvs.

Paul Harrison talks of edukational experiments, often opos'd, that kut out the 'akademik twadl' for things pepl nyd to no. Growing a row of organik vejetabls mIt be mor helthy than tu much hom-work.

Children of rich, as wel as pwr, kuntrys mIt be taut the basiks of first aid and hIjyn, as part of 'the national kurikulum'.


The iliterat English alfabet, iliterasy and lawlesnes.

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Skwls kud hav a spel-as-yu-spyk rational English alfabet, of about the existing 26 leters, to abolish the funktional iliterasy rait of over twenty per sent. Adam Smith said the profesions ar konspirasys against the publik. In this respekt, the literat may be the bigest klos'd shop of them al. Perhaps seventy per sent of the world population is iliterat. Equality starts hyr.

The lak of respekt for demokrasy may be disern'd in this basik isyu. Literasy, equaly availabl to al, partly depends on the liberty to spel rationaly, and its fraternal tolerans by thos hw kan spel konventionaly. The testing for konventional speling trivialises literasy tyching. It profesionalises the pryching of mindles konformity, in the way we spel.

Perhaps, skwl testing in jeneral has mor to do with expensivly promoting unquestioning mediokrity than any-thing els. Of kors, this has byn said by a 'skwl' of radikal edukationalists. In 1969, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner mayd ther kais with humor and humility, in Teaching as a subversive activity.

Literasy is the foundation of al the specialist forms of nolej that the profesions govern. Exklusiv preservs mIt sher ther nolej, at lyst of the esentials.


European Union tychers kan no longer yus the stik or kain on ther pupils to enfors the wil of the system. But the system enforses itself on the tychers, hw ar tested as much as the pupils, to sy if they mak the graid.
It is as if the examiners of orthodoxy fyr any kreativ lak of konformity so much, that they must purj it in the tychers, as wel as ther pupils.

In 2001, a University study from Ulster ( a provins with the hIest akademik standards ) said up to fiftyn per sent of children ar 'funktionaly iliterat'. Other studys hav put the rait at over 20% for adults. As in Huxley's Brave New World, the system is not mayd to suit the pepl. The pepl ar fors'd to suit the system. The ryl sors of funktional iliterasy is not so much in the tychers and the taut as in the insistens on our 'funktionaly iliterat' English alfabet.

In the first plas, it is our unreform'd alfabet that kan not spel properly. That is wer the blaim ryly belongs and with the prejudises that refus to admit it. To put the blaim on 'pwr tyching' is a mentaly lazy exkus to do nothing to intelijently reform English speling. Its absurditys ar a konvenient habit for the komplasently 'literat', hw dont ker about the trubl it kauses the 'iliterat' and the edukational and ekonomik ineficiensy it is bound to jenerat.

For failing to sy the ryl kaus of iliterasy, throwing mony at the problem wil not solv it either. In september 2000, the Scottish exekutiv alokated £22.5m. to end adult iliterasy within ten yers. But the United States thrw a mountain of mony at iliterasy to no notisabl efekt for 'the Greit Sosiety.'
It reminds me of many an old movy, of my childhud, that had a fortun spent on the kostums, sets and kasting but neglekted to find a desent skript.

Tychers report that seriusly disruptiv pupils ar often kovering-up for pwr skils. Indyd, as many as 60% of prisoners, in England and Wales, ar iliterat.
Mor-over, the unrulines of children is unfair on tychers. The rIt to children of frydom from fyr ( uon of Franklin Rooseveldt's 4 Frydoms ) shud be sher'd by tychers. Children hav responsibilitys, as wel as rIts, wich they must lern the swner the beter. This implIs praktikal edukation of yung pepl in the law, with children's korts. ( 'The amater lawyer' is the subjekt of a sequel web paj. )
This is an exampl of the nyd for edukation to tych yungsters how works the world they ar going out into.


The Mad Oficials.

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In 2001, the tychers wer so over-burden'd with the leitest testing rejym that they simply deklar'd it unworkabl. But the tychers ar not the only demoralis'd profesion. The hom sekretary's promis to redus paper-work was resyv'd with a slow hand klap by the polis federation. It drIvs experiens'd ofisers out of the fors. Doktors, tu, hav a kripling lowd of oficial dokumentation to komplyt. The medikal profesion deliver'd an out-spoken vot of no-konfidens in government reforms, at the tIm of the 2001 jeneral elektion. The British Medikal Asociation baloted the 36,000 Jeneral Praktitioners. Of the tw-thirds that anser'd, 86% said they wud be prepar'd to resIn, 'unles ministers kut burokrasy and giv them mor tIm with patients.' ( Daily Mail 2 june 2001. )


At present, in Britain, the profesions komand the hIts of a status sosiety, with hI inequalitys of inkom in ther favor. On the re-defin'd National Sosio-ekonomik Klasifikation, The Daily Mail ( 17 march 2001 ) kaption'd: 'The Nw Peking Order...Do yu no yor plas?' The emfasis was on grading okupations akording to kontrakts, konditions, prospekts and sekurity.

Mor important is to defin konstituensys of work for ther koherent rol in the funktioning of sosiety. Insted of a pointles peking order, ther shud be fyd-bak to the elekted representativs of thos vokational konstituensys to the sekond chamber of government.

BBC Ceefax ( 26 july 2001 ) reported Management Today saying British boses ar the hIest paid in Europ, by mor than £100,000. Chyf exekutivs ern'd over haf a milion pounds, an inkrys of 29% sins 1999. Only US boses ern mor, with averaj salarys of £1m. But British manufakturing workers ar the lowest paid, and the chypest to dismis, in the develop'd world. At £20,475, they ar below the national averaj waij, and they also hav put mor tIm in than most of Europ. They ar stil inkredibly rich kompar'd to the rest of the world, for-fifths of hws pepl dont ern any mony at al.

However, the 'karot' of plutokrasy is of-set by the 'stik' of burokrasy.


Bisnes has also long komplain'd about being tI'd up in red taip. In 1993, the Singl Market impos'd a huj burden of 218 harmonization direktivs, wich, in many ways, left the level playing fyld as far away as ever. So says a bwk riten on the folys of the administrativ laws of the European Union and ther exesiv and ritualistik, rather than rylistik, implementation by sivil servants and inspektors in Britain.

A 'chek-list mentality' ryled-of al the points theyd byn told to lwk out for, at kolej or seminar, demanding thousands be spent, and forsing shops and bisneses to klos down.
Yet, in this pre-okupation, inspektors' lak of experiens mIt lyd them to over-lwk ryl risks pos'd to sot-after objektivs of hIjyn, saifty, konservation, institutional kering or wat-ever.

The Mad Officials ( 1994 ) by Christopher Booker and Richard North gets its tItl from an esay by G K Chesterton, so quoted:

I should not be surprised if the law were like that; because in modern England there is practically no law to be surprised at.

Booker and North said:

wherever the monster ( of bureaucracy ) impinged on the real world, it invariably had the same effect. It threw out clouds of deadening jargon; it tied people up in absurd paperwork and form-filling; it made ridiculous demands; it asserted its power in a blind, wilful way; it crushed enterprise and independence; at worst, it turned far too many of those who fell under its sway into nothing more than uncomprehending and often fearful victims.

Ther is a way out from the karot and stik of plutokrasy and burokrasy: demokrasy, in the ekonomy as wel as the polity. It shud myn greiter ekonomik equality and fraternity, as wel as greiter frydom from oficialdom, for al klases.

The Parlimentary laws and administrativ laws kud be chek'd by a sekond chamber, representativ of al okupations. This kud redres the exeses of oficial administrativ chors delegated to the publik and privat sektors. The okupations themselvs, in konsert with ych other, must no the nyds of ther own work best, subjekt to the first chamber, the Komons, representing the interests of komunitys as a houl.

The klos'd shop, of the unions, was out-law'd by the European Union. But the profesions, also shud be mor open. Ther basik nolej and most esential skils shud be brodly bais'd in the population, either thru a mor praktikal jeneral edukation or by a part-tIm work-fors of train'd amaters on a basik inkom.

'Sivilization is a rais betwyn edukation and katastrofy,' H G Wells said. In 1980, Paul Harrison said 'Reform wil not be a Sunday skwl ty-party'.


On: The world is dIing. Wat ar yu going to do about it? Sunday Times magazin ( 1989 ).

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As prIm minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher uons grup'd Gryn aktivists among 'the enemy within'. It is thot that Prins Charles mayd her mor awer of environmental isyus. At any rait, she chanj'd her mind about inkluding Britain's antarktik survey vesel in her kurent round of kuts. The ship sail'd again to diskover a hol in the ozon layer over the south pol.

The PM konven'd a konferens on ozon layer depletion, wich wud mak mankind mor vulnerabl to skin kanser, if we kontinu'd to fuly enjoy our frydom myrly to walk in the sun. To mark the okasion, 'The Sunday Times' desided it was hI tIm its ryders al wouk up to the foly of destroying our eko-system:

We are all polluters on this planet. We burn fossil fuels, we create waste, we ravage natural resources with little or no regard for the consequences. But time is running out. Our planet is becoming despoiled, rotten, overcrowded and barren. We could all be contributing to the causes; we will certainly all suffer from the effects.

The magazin fokus'd on kemikal spils into air or sy, kiling pepl or marin animals, by the thousands or skors of thousands. Or the systematik pumping of faktory waysts into rivers and sys, such as the North Sy and Mediteranean. Poisons ar dump'd on other pepl's dor-steps or dump-ships yus'd, even if ilegal.

The magazin map'd de-forestation and over-population, with a global sampl of som of the mor out-rajus and lIf-beryving polution disasters. Richard Mabey did an artikl on 'the rwts of sivilization': trys ar the pilars of gryn sosiety. After sIting Europ's try-intolerans, he deskrib'd the wIt North Amerikan setlers' destruktivnes as 'pogroms of an arogans and violens that rival thos in modern Amazonia'.

'The burger that ait a rain forest' sum'd up the fakt that 'It taks 55 squar fyt of rain forest to rais enuf byf to mak a singl Amerikan hamburger.'
Stil fIting a lwsing batl ar the re-foresters. Som of ther work was fytur'd, especialy Vietnam's national efort and that of the World WId Fund for Natur ( WWF ).

In 1969, The Sunday Times magazin dis-klos'd the exposing of Brazilian nativs to disys, under the kaption of 'Genocide'. Survival International was founded as a result. Its direktor Robin Hanbury-Tenison gav uon of the most klosly riten artikls in the magazin's 1989 gryn isyu, about the kontinu'd persekution and betrayal of the nativs, 'hws understanding of the medikal and nutritional resorses of the rain forest is unrival'd'. Ther land kontinus to be ruin'd, as shown in the familiar pikturs of deserts of try stumps.
The author put responsibility on 300 or so banks, trIing to re-kwp Brazil's dets. Also, land reform is resisted by fIv per sent of the pepl holding 80% of the land.

An other sampl of 'gryd, koruption and politikal ambition' fytur'd tusk poching and the threten'd extinktion of the Afrikan elefant.

The Sunday Times 'The world is dIing' rounded-of with a survey of the Gryn kampain from such as Frends of the Erth, Grynpys and the WWF.
( Not to forget an amusing, but serius, after-thot artikl on 'pwp-skwp' laws for dog-owners. )


On: How to saiv the erth. Time magazin ( 2000 ).

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Time magazin's Erth Day special edition 2000 has a gud sampl of spot-lIt artikls, as uon wud expekt. BesIds being resent, at the tIm I rowt this, such a publikation has its profesional on-lIn kounter-part. So, I konfIn myself to a bryf diskusion, hyr.

Time magazin establish'd an Environment sektion in august 1969. That is litl mor than a yer after the founder members of the Klub of Rome met. In 1970, they kover'd Barry Commoner. His bwk, The Closing Circle. Confronting the Environment Crisis kaim out in 1971. ( A nw magazin, The Ecologist, devoted several pajes to paning the bwk as 'uon-dimensional ekolojy'. ) Commoner reviw'd how the 1963 limited nuklear test ban tryty kaim about:

This unexpected event was a tribute to the political effectiveness of the scientists' campaign to inform the public about fallout.

Radio-aktivity kud be kerlesly spred, wIl an information blak-out was efektivly impos'd, as in war-tIm. PM, Harold Macmillan supres'd the truth about Britain's first major radio-aktiv lyk from a nuklear power station. He fyr'd the publik wud turn against nuklear power.
If so, it wudnt be the first tIm the intuition of the 'lay-man' was mor reliabl than the experts.

By milenium's end, the reip of the planet gos on and an information war or propaganda gos on to exkus it. Lwking bak, it has to be admited that the media have inform'd the publik rysonably wel. In the erly seventys, I uons remark'd ( by leter ) that ther sym'd to be mor environmental storys. I was told that I was rIt, bekaus a grup of jurnalists had got together to promot such nws.

The media kan mobilis opinion, as wel as nutraly inform the publik. Time magazin onor'd 'Heros for the Planet', sponsor'd by The Ford Motor Kompany wich advertis'd its environmental kredentials, in Time's Erth Day 2000 edition.
Amerikan individualism may be responsibl for the kult of heros. As C G Jung said, greit historikal events ar profoundly unimportant. The individual is not only the pasiv observer and suferer of events but the maker of epoks.

The Sunday Times magazin, in 1989, was equaly bent on reform. But it apyl'd direktly to every-uon: 'Wat ar you going to do about it?' Ryders wer not given inspiring rol models to emulat.
Paul Harrison's exampls from the third world also fytur'd remarkabl individuals. Granted that, the inspiration was of a mor social emfasis. Komunity self-help organisations, with some expert and financial aid wud start improvments, suported by further konsultation and ko-operation.

Wen yu lwk at al thry aproches to saving the planet, they perhaps al hav uon thing in komon. They ar al atempts to stimulat chanj larjly from out-sId the system. In that respekt, they al agry with the Klub of Rome initiativ.
The establishment has got us into this mes and has to be dis-establish'd suficiently to get us out of it again.

'Bisnes as usual' depends on promoting waystful 'geting and spending.' This konflikts with advert-dependant editors exorting and mobilising ordinary pepl to be konservativ of resorses.
The mas media ar also a part of the establishment, hw no the rich and powerful personaly. And ther is perhaps som ambiguity in ther minds. Do they ryly want to chanj the system enuf to mak the publik interest efektiv?
Sins Randolph Hearst, the media hav short-kut betwyn the pepl and ther oficial lyders of partys or industry. If lawles myns, som-tIms, wer employ'd, they bekaim posibl as demokrasy was proving to be not nyrly as representativ as it shud be. To amend that, requirs, at lyst, a nolej of demokratik voting method and an extension of konstitutional politiks to ekonomiks, with okupational representation.


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