Geoff,

Everywhere that you mention something regarding dehumanization, I agree that
we do not need any of it. BUT, I strongly disagree when you insist on positions
like:

"In the early days of the 20th century something strange happened in the South
Wales Valleys, a new mutual culture evolved that spoke loud against the
dehumanising of people in the name of any abstraction or ideology. A new syntax
developed that simply said 'No' to dehumanisation. Firmly saying to those who
fail to respect others that they do not deserve respect from 'us' - the key
holders of core civil values - and should be told in 'No' uncertain terms to
change or fuck off. "We shall have to say 'No' more and more, because only by
saying 'No' more and more to the things that dehumanise 'Us' can we say 'Yes' to
the most valuable things." (Bevan)."

My answer to this one is that, only by the power of YES do we eliminate the
ground for what we do not need for our humanity to be healthy. As soon as we
take on ourselves to put no in place, then we are no longer involve with yes.
The best recent example of that came in the following letter regarding
HO'OPONOPONO: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyfranogi/message/1756
Yes is in the Spirit of life that sets us free from the law of sin and death.
The path of YES is made of the forgiveness that goes on forgiving until complete
delivrance of that which is being forgiven.

Tyronne Power, a modern humanist who understands the sound of Bevan reminds 'us'
that ' When forces of darkness knocked the lights out we had to do something
about it. It's the way I was brought up to think, it's the way the Old Mutuals
thought. That's why the Miners Institutes were built not solely as centres for
learning and personal development but for a vision of the common good that
included us all in opening new windows of light to discover new tomorrows. They
taught 'us' to improve our humble beginnings, to turn darkness into light and
empowered 'us' to express contempt for all those who dehumanise others at the
top of 'our' list of the most deadliest of things."

As soon as we speak of "new windows to discover new tomorrows" then we must
create our own agendas, which refute somewhere else in your article. This is
why that instead of speaking of "new", we ought to speak of "renewing, renewal
or renewed" so that the all-inclusiveness of yes remains intact in the ongoing
growth of forgiveness and deliverance.

HUMOUR NOTE

When it comes to "fuking shit", here is a smile for us all:

From the street of Québec, there is a poet, song writer, known by the name
Plume. He is a brilliant thinker. He describes a state of mind to his fans on
one of his live albums, that gets everyone laughing for quite a while because we
can all relate. It is the state of mind when the optical nerve unhooks from the
eyeball and falls into the large intestin and all we can see, smell, touch, hear
and taste is shit, of our own making. He gives this explaination to describe
the new word that he had thought of for such a familiar mood. The word is
"Visiorrectumy" made of "Vision" and "Rectum".
In our family, we accept that our personal and communal health depends upon
our ability to process the fertilizers and nutrients of our own shit and to rid
ourselves of left over excrements. YES all the way!!!...

with love and humour,
Benoit Couture


Geoff Thomas <geoff@...> wrote:
HOW SOCIAL CURRENCY SWITCHED THE LIGHTS ON IN THE 21ST CENTURY

When the lights go out in a big city, as they did in New York in 2003, people
seemed surprised how easily life can be plunged into darkness. Although millions
complained about the temporary disruption to everyday life there was a common
understanding that the lights would be switched back on. This understanding was
based on the knowledge that the physical infrastructure was in good shape and
that it was only a matter of time before it would be reconnected. What we
sometimes forget is that in order for civil society to function we require the
equivalent social infrastructure to be in good shape. For this to occur the
social energy produced by the light of mutuality is the only show in town. When
the supply fails for an extended period life rapidly descends into darkness.

Journeys into darkness begin with lack of civil respect for others, pick up
speed on the road to dehumanisation and end with "final solutions". Genocide did
not start with screams of mass slaughter it began with dangerous whispers that
threaten common civility. Strange fruit did not suddenly blossom from trees in
the Deep South its harvest was planted in the seeds of dehumanisation.

Andrea Dworkin once said 'pornography is a civil rights issue'. What she was
really saying was that 'dehumanisation is pornography', speaking loud that if we
tolerate human abuse we are giving green lights to mandates that dehumanise
others. She was singing clear to those who wish to exercise their 'freedom to be
by shaping others in dehumanised form' that never again are 'we' going to drive
the trains to Auchwitz

no matter how well paid we are or how sexy you dress us up. More importantly
'we' are not going to tolerate this fucking shit because 'we' have civil
principles. She was also reminding 'us' that secondary social policies regarding
opportunities to produce and star in pornography are debates about 'rights of
access' to get on board the Auchwitz train.

To simply clarify the above consider a historical analogy - social reform in the
workplace. It is commonly assumed that dangerous work practices that were
tolerated in old Victorian industries should not be tolerated in the modern age.
Collectively, people fought in the struggle to provide safer working conditions
for all, the understanding being that future generations would not have to
endure such shit. Gradual social change ensured that dangerous working practices
were consigned to history. If we assume that civil society is about our living
space, of which the workplace is a part, then the same vision of what we are
prepared to tolerate should apply. Very simply, 'we' should learn from the past
and say never again will 'we' allow this shit to happen in the future.

Aneurin Bevan remarked that "dehumanisation of ourselves and others is the
deadliest of things, if we fail to defend against it with our hearts and
cultures, it will eventually destroy us all". He realised that where there is no
opposing force - no strong sense of collective mutual respect for others
embedded in the core values of civil society - the culture is prey to be
hijacked by vultures with their own agenda. These vultures do not speak for
"us", they feast off the death of common humanity and in the process encourage
"us" to become "sub-human".

Bevan was talking about an inclusive Culture with a capital 'C' not an exclusive
culture with a small 'c'. Reminding 'us' that cultures that do not honour basic
principles of civil society prosecute the belief that their 'exclusive mandate'
gives them the right to harvest strange fruit, to dehumanise their own citizens,
to rule by fear, subjugating the potential of the human spirit by celebrating
the horror they create. The old warning from history tells us that for civil
society to collapse allowing injustice to prosper all that is required is to
switch off the power of good people.

In the early days of the 20th century something strange happened in the South
Wales Valleys, a new mutual culture evolved that spoke loud against the
dehumanising of people in the name of any abstraction or ideology. A new syntax
developed that simply said 'No' to dehumanisation. Firmly saying to those who
fail to respect others that they do not deserve respect from 'us' - the key
holders of core civil values - and should be told in 'No' uncertain terms to
change or fuck off. "We shall have to say 'No' more and more, because only by
saying 'No' more and more to the things that dehumanise 'Us' can we say 'Yes' to
the most valuable things." (Bevan).

Tyronne Power, a modern humanist who understands the sound of Bevan reminds 'us'
that ' When forces of darkness knocked the lights out we had to do something
about it. It's the way I was brought up to think, it's the way the Old Mutuals
thought. That's why the Miners Institutes were built not solely as centres for
learning and personal development but for a vision of the common good that
included us all in opening new windows of light to discover new tomorrows. They
taught 'us' to improve our humble beginnings, to turn darkness into light and
empowered 'us' to express contempt for all those who dehumanise others at the
top of 'our' list of the most deadliest of things."

In the early days of the 21st century let us remember the high price that people
have paid for the civil message that "the less human we are when we treat one
another as human beings, the more inhuman we become". If we have learnt anything
from the 20th century it is that there is an urgent need for the creation of a
civil currency that will anchor and empower peoples' mutual capacity for human
good, thereby guaranteeing to future generations that they will not bear witness
to the social injustice of any spiritual darkness that gives free reign to
'human indifference' between those who constructed gas chambers and those who
entered them or any other equivalent horror.

If we are serious about switching the lights on in the 21st century and
consigning dehumanisation to history let us create a civil currency that
transcends boundaries of human indifference, a transactional currency that can
only be acquired by civilly interacting with others regardless of age,
disability, gender, language, race, religion or sexual orientation. The
challenge is to originate a humanitarian currency that will challenge
dehumanisation by validating our capacity to share and celebrate our common
humanity in the places that we live.

Traditional currency is simply a human artefact a translation of how we
commercially value agreements and processes of exchange between people. The DNA
of a new civil currency can be designed to embody core values of co-operation
and mutuality that foster and encourage civil interactions between people. By
making core civil values visible the currency will offer people the opportunity
to subscribe to 'processes of interaction' that test their civility for others
thereby revealing their sense of social inclusion or exclusion of others. The
currency will challenge 'us' to test our capacity to be human by subscribing to
core civil values that overarch tribal and ethnic identities.

The struggle against dehumanisation is a civil rights issue. Edgar Cahn, a
visionary civil rights activist, has suggested a blueprint for a more humane
tomorrow in the design of 'time currency' that attempts to create new social
capital infrastructures that incorporate core civil values. Cahn recognises that
it is the hidden hand of humanism that holds civil society together and that it
is time to give this hidden hand a helping hand to form a strong fist by
affording it a currency, an agreement for civil exchange. This currency will
help shield people from the tyranny of dehumanisation, protecting them in a new
civil culture with a Capital C from the strictures of self-appointed or
democratically elected preachers of socially exclusive 'isms' be they religious
or secular. The cost of building these new social networks generating positive
social capital are fractional compared to their benefits.

When Bevan stated that 'dehumanisation is the deadliest of things' he was
reminding 'us' of the hidden civilization of humanity urging us to be vigilant
against the darkness that threatens to destroy us all. We now have the potential
to guard against it with a humanitarian currency that will affirm our humanness
and belong to us all - a multi-cultural currency that will underwrite civil
culture.

It is time to turn on the lights, to reinvent mutualism in currency form to
build new social networks for human exchange that will underpin the sustainable
development of active civil society in the 21st century. The sooner we it get
through our dumb fucking heads that dehumanisation is shit, the sooner 'we' will
realise that the light of humanism and the reflected glow of mutuality is the
only show in town.

Geoff Thomas

.

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