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The Simultaneous Policy News 2004 – issue #1 An occasional newsletter (successor to ShiP Ahoy!) from the
Edited by Brian Wills (brian.wills@wanadoo.fr)
Encouraging endorsements of the SP idea may keep on coming … This from Keith Wilde in Canada (keithwilde@sympatico.ca), in comments about Monetary Reform by James Robertson and John Bunzl (2003): Syd Baumel in Canada (baumel@mts.net) thought that Arundhati Roy’s article on ‘The New American Century’ in the 9 Feb 04 issue of The Nation offered an excellent opportunity to tell readers of this well known liberal US magazine about the relevance of the Simultaneous Policy to the thread of her text. So he circulated drafts of a Letter to the Editor for comment among SP colleagues, and sent this final version signed jointly with Dick Stimson as National Coordinator, USA, and John Bunzl as Founder and Director: We couldn't agree more with Arundhati Roy's plea for the global justice movement to mount a new Gandhian "salt march" against the American-led empire of corporate globalization. But why limit ourselves to resistance? In any legitimately democratic world order, it is we the people who are the rightful sovereigns. Our challenge is to apply the immense power of our numbers to claim that sovereignty. We believe the Simultaneous Policy (SP) is a uniquely potent strategy to peacefully achieve that goal. Roughly 60 percent of the world's citizens have the right to vote, and the number is steadily rising. SP is an emerging global "legislature" and voting bloc that enables us to use these general election votes to drive our national governments to adopt and eventually implement our global justice policy platform, simultaneously and worldwide. It is a democratic strategy to globalize our common human values. As far as salt marches go, SP will likely be a long and slow one, complementary to more focused and rapid marches like the one suggested by Roy. But when we get to the ocean, we will have changed the system itself. Please join the long march at www.simpol.org. For Weintraub, SP is heir to Seattle. "I came to SP as a way for Seattle folks to enter the global dialogue they started during the WTO '99 protests. Powerful and transformative ideas are beginning to be shared the world over." SP, she thinks, could turn those ideas into reality. This is an important question because we interact as volunteers via email without formal decision-making procedures. Early adopters may remember we proposed that people who felt strongly on particular issues should function as email discussion moderators, so that exchanges could be guided through to an agreed conclusion under the tutelage of a well informed adopter. But – no surprise – it didn’t work out, perhaps because potential moderators were hesitant to chair ISPO-wide exchanges ‘unofficially’. The situation changed late in 2002 when John Bunzl selected a dozen adopters to form the Governance Taskforce. Its job was to function as a chaired email committee to debate key ISPO organisational issues and make recommendations for approval by adopters. They tested out voting and consensus ways of arriving at agreement, and soon discovered just how different an email committee is from a conventional one sitting around a table. If there are no facial expressions, or silences or body language, how does the chairperson decide whether a point must be decided by vote, or whether sufficient consensus has emerged so that s/he can dictate an agreed minute for the secretary? In the end the Taskforce found a no-objection consensus procedure worked best. Ideas were proposed, debated, modified, and then finally agreed when it was clear no further divergent emails could be expected. But – no surprise again, perhaps – in the end the really hard work of drafting the ISPO Founding Declarations clause by clause was delegated to a small sub-committee, occasionally meeting in person to speed things along. And in turn, as readers of this newsletter will know, these were circulated for endorsement by all adopters following the same no-objection consensus principle. So has this set a precedent for ISPO? Probably yes – because, as these two interesting examples suggest, we seem to feel comfortable working with each other in this way. How, for instance, should the title of this ISPO newsletter be chosen? Your editor trawled the simpol listserve for suggestions, asking if the original ShiP Ahoy! or its successor It’s Simpol! should be retained, or whether there were alternatives on offer. The response was surprisingly inventive. Up came SPress, graSP, SPrint!, SPin, News SPecial, SPring is Coming, Simply Profound, Shifting Paradigms, and, for fun, Simply Potty – followed, of course, by comments favouring this or that choice, including warnings about overlaps with existing titles. So what did your editor do? He assessed the feedback, checked same-title entries on internet, and concluded that It’s Simpol! had won on points – naturally on the understanding that nothing is immutable in this world, and that this title may evolve into something different sometime in the future. And here’s another example. A Flash script has been proposed as an overdue addition to the ISPO website. Pros and cons have been debated by several pundits who know about these things, following an offer of guidance from a professional animator at a knock-down fee. (That’s how things have to work, of course, if you don’t have cash in the bank.) Anyway, now that a few scenarios have surfaced for discussion, the protagonists are exchanging opinions. Here’s a recent extract in which Robin Paris (robin@robinparis.co.uk) responds to ideas from Syd Baumel (baumel@mts.net): Either way, what do these learning processes tell us? Helen Barber, Simpol-UK’s legal adviser who specialises in cooperative law, perhaps has the answer. She has spelt out in one of the incorporation Articles that "questions arising at any meeting shall be decided by consensus" (with majority voting as a sole alternative). So has the time now come to say – whether it’s face-to-face around a table or collectively in front of our computer screens – consensus rules, okay? Brief notices and campaigning roundup § John Bunzl (jbunzl@simpol.org) wrote and circulated an article on Why Forgiving Ourselves and Each Other is the Path to Social Justice on 13 Jan. This prompted Miles Litvinoff, General Manager, One World International Foundation, London (miles.litvinoff@oneworld.net) to adopt SP and to invite Simpol-UK to become a partner of One World ("a community of 1500 civil society partners worldwide": www.oneworld.net). § Final versions of the Founding Declarations for ISPO (global) and Simpol-UK (as a model for other national SP organisations) were circulated to SP adopters worldwide by John Bunzl on 27 Jan, with his thanks to all who had submitted modifications for incorporation in the text. Both may be viewed at http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/html-UK/aims_scope-UK.html. § ISPO’s application for co-funding the professionally managed Cross-Frontier Poll of voters’ opinions on key SP issues in the UK and India was submitted to the Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation in February. We expect to hear in May if this grant application is successful. § Readers concerned about global trade in agricultural commodities will be interested to see the interview of ISPO’s Indian National Coordinator, Devinder Sharma, published in March in the online magazine Acres U.S.A. It is entitled ‘Food as a political weapon: international activist battles the tyranny of WTO’ and can be viewed at http://www.acresusa.com/magazines/archives/0304SharmaInterview.htm. § For campaigning on the Global Day of Action on 20 Mar, Syd Baumel (baumel@mts.net) circulated an A4-size leaflet headed Globalize Goodwill / Legislate Global Justice / Adopt the Simultaneous Policy and use your vote to Take Back the World (see http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/pdf_UK/globalize_goodwill.html). This "could also be used as a poster", he writes. "There's room at the bottom to add local contact information …" § Also in March John Bunzl uploaded a revised Policy Proposalspage
to the ISPO website (see
§ We heard recently that SP activists in Spain plan to register the address of their website as www.simpol.org.es. And Tim Anthony (tim-1@iname.com) in Canada has reserved the domain name ‘simpol-canada.org’. § On 31 Mar the number of SP adopters worldwide had risen to 1153. News from National SP Organisations (NSPOs) Simpol-UK Now it's official! Simpol-UK was incorporated on 22 March 2004 It was registered as a non-profit company limited by guarantee
(no.5080159) at 27 London Road, Bromley, BR1 IDF, UK (address for legal
purposes only). Patrick Andrews will serve as company secretary and be
supported as directors by John Bunzl, Peter Challen, Stephen Eades and
Brian Wills, who also become candidates for election as Trustees. And at
the inaugural meetings held in London on 1 Apr the management functions
were confirmed as follows:
And soon SP promotional leaflets will be dropping though voters’ letterboxes Under the guidance of Mike Brady (mikebrady@simpol.org.uk), the Simultaneous Policy Adopters’ Group (SPAG) in Cambridge is distributing an SP leaflet in the run-up to the European elections, due in June (contact Mike if you would like a master copy for your own use). The front page reads: SP – how to use democracy to put the people in charge. So watch this space for feedback on how ordinary people and candidates in an English country and university town react to their first contact with the SP message. Campaigning roundup § Interest in setting up local Simultaneous Policy Adopters’ Groups continues to grow, with a meeting in March prompting activity in Bristol and Hereford. Simpol-Reading was formed on 31 March with Maurice Adshead as Coordinator. See the temporary Local Group Network site at http://spdev.gn.apc.org/ for details. § Guidelines on Setting up a SP Adopters’ Group have been drawn up and circulated by Mike Brady, accompanied by a self-explanatory form for signature: SP Adopters’ Group Officer’s Pledge. Suggestions about how to build a relationship with candidates are given in a leaflet entitled Elections and candidates, which includes a tear-off sheet headed Simultaneous Policy Pledge Form (for Political Candidates). And a folding A4-size leaflet and a T-shirt, both prominently inscribed How do you want your world to be? are now available from Mike for campaigning use. § The Cambridge SP Adopters’ Group (CAMSPAG) policy forum on 7 Apr concerned ‘Food Security for All’ and was held jointly with the campaigning organisation Farmers’ Link. Previous policy forums have been held on ‘Making all trade Fair Trade’ and ‘Achieving Sustainable Energy Use’. These public events are helping to increase the number of adopters and have been attended by representatives of the Green Party and Liberal Democrats. § Josie Sawers (josie_sawers@hotmail.com), assisted by interested friends, has drafted an ‘aspirational’ view of the Simpol-UK website for Management Board discussion and approval. "It is envisaged that the core site will be launched and visible to the public", she writes, "whilst some of the more complex features are developed later ... in such a way as not to impact the structure and navigation after the launch". It will be based on the domain address www.simpol.org.uk, already secured. Her draft provides brief data about web hosting, the site’s goals, the six target audiences and information on how the site is organised and navigated; it also displays six ‘zone landing pages’ and ends with 75 associated linked pages that may eventually be deployed. And, to provide for its possible use by other NSPOs, there is a transferable template that follows that excellent principle: "Design once; use anywhere". § In pursuing the Sustainability-Plus project, Brian Wills is interacting with Francis Irving of Public Whip (www.publicwhip.org.uk) in defining what criteria a ‘Dream MP’ in Westminster might use in supporting Simpol-UK interests. The objective, through Public Whip software, is to provide data derived from voting patterns and parliamentary questions on which MPs are most likely to support ‘SP’ measures. Currently, under the heading Supports measures promoting: this MP profile identifies 13 sustainability-related items (eg fair trade, debt relief …) and the heading Seeks to reform: lists the EU Common Agricultural Policy, international monetary systems, intellectual property rights, and the World Trade Organisation. The plan is to refine this list over time, and to supplement it with the names of MPs who are known to have supported SP-related Early Day Motions. Other NSPOs To avoid possible omissions in scanning SP lists, the plan is to open
this section to contributions submitted by National Coordinators and others,
as and when there’s news to share. Candidate items are therefore welcome
up to around mid-June 2004, when compilation of the next issue will begin.
End-piece: disclaimers and letters Your editor apologises in advance if errors have crept into this Newsletter: ça arrive, as they say in the country where he lives. But don’t hesitate to request corrections if they are necessary. And, of course, do write a Letter to the Editor if you want to comment on items in this issue. Or consider that something important has been overlooked. Or feel that It’s Simpol! is the ideal space for sharing new ideas with other adopters … |