Education is Key to Freedom.
The crisis of citizenship is the delusion that we have a democracy at all.
Citizenship as an idea has been subsumed into a consumeristic culture. Our schools have failed our democratic constitutional republic because we the people have not demanded a radical citizenship curriculum that teaches the truth about plutocracy. This we can do.
Citizenship is a form of activism by individuals and by groups, working to influence local, state, national and international policies. People come to citizenship for different reasons, but the point of citizenship is to be engaged in the development of society by applying our political freedoms to influence decisions about social, economic, ecological, political issues, for example.
I think a majority of people probably know better than to think their voice counts. We know the phrase: money talks and bullshit walks. Citizen influence is being undermined on multiple fronts. I think a majority of people are aware that citizenship is in crisis, but we don’t think we can do anything about it. Chiefly, plutocracy (rule by the rich) finances elections and as stated, money talks. However, grass roots campaigns can overcome plutocracy if they work hard and raise sufficient funds.
Our democracy, our capacity as citizens to influence our representatives and influence the direction of society, is profoundly corrupted such that we are not really a democracy, we are a captive society, held by big lies and intimidation from a state that has monopoly on power to punish dissidents.
For citizenship to become meaningful, relative to influencing the vote of an elected official, or getting the plutocracy / military industrial complex to stop warmongering, we need to educate about the true nature of power and discuss means for the people to gain control in society, which is the purpose of the Green Liberty Caucus.
The chief mission of a Green Liberty Caucus, as a collective voice of radical egalitarians for an authentic democracy, is to remove, or at least displace the plutocracy from power, and end its dominion over the world population and earth itself; to achieve this, we the people need to unite around basic egalitarian principles, recognize that plutocracy as an institutional power structure, has got to go; from shared values, we can build a movement by advancing a liberation coalition as a liberty bloc.
The request from the Green Liberty Caucus, to society, is to form a unified bloc and transform society. Aspirational for sure, and a big ask of ordinary people, but the pursuit of the better society, one not dominated by evil people, is virtuous, and gives one’s life purpose beyond the everyday things we all must do to hold our lives together.
GLC is tasked with advancing a conversation about being in revolution for a better society, one not dominated by an emerging, if not already present, global technocracy.
Being in revolution means being in a state of awareness that human kind is in a predicament on multiple fronts and that something transformative must be done.
The question is: can we the people do anything about this? Can we agree on basic principles, ideas about freedom and liberty, and form a bloc?
For a movement to emerge from our current conditions and circumstances, there needs to be a collective agreement that things are really bad because of the plutocracy and its use of “capitalism,” and its control of deep state, to advance its ends.
We need to be clear about what we want society to become. This means we need to be holding a mass conversation. Mainstream media won’t do this for us. We have to use non-mainstream platforms and find ways to avoid the censors, and talk about revolution as a transformative event.
From the Green Liberty perspective, a coalition will need to agree on basic principles for an egalitarian society, democracy principally, economic cooperation, shared resources, mutual aid, and most importantly there needs to be tolerance toward a diversity of perspectives relative to those things we in the liberation coalition don’t agree on.
The obvious things we will not agree on would be matters of faith, religion, cultural values and beliefs, taste and opinions, but where we need to agree without equivocation is the need to remove the super powerful elite from power through a mass movement of assemblies of egalitarians; this provides a decentralized governmental system that supports personal freedom, advances freedom of nature to be biologically diverse, and builds the alternative society not dominated by plutocracy.
I will add, we need to agree that “capitalism” is not about “free markets” or the “freedom” to work and choose one’s livelihood. It’s a system that has led to ecological ruin (grow or die; commodify every nook and cranny of life and planet) and enabled some to prosper at the expense of the majority. Nor does capitalism have a monopoly on creativity.
Our movement is “post-capitalist” in that we seek to transform society totally into one that is cooperative, rational, practices mutual aid, and enables all to prosper.
To accomplish societal transformation, people must exercise our collective freedom to build democratic agency through institutions that currently exist in all of our cities, towns, and county governments. We need to take over grass roots institutions and turn them egalitarian.
As the chief proponent for a green liberty caucus, which is predicated on a general demand for freedom and liberty and restoration of earth’s ecosystem, I welcome egalitarians to find common cause in the Green Liberty Caucus.
The Green Liberty Caucus is tasked with simultaneously speaking frankly about the problem of plutocracy, setting an ultimate goal to create a society not dominated by plutocrats, and explicating about how citizens through radical democratic practices can create a free society.
(And if anyone reading this doesn’t think there is a plutocracy, that does run and control society, look no further than the way state crimes by deep state has put the USA on a destructive path of generations of warmongering, cemented the surveillance / national security state as above the law, and lately advanced the “Iran War” as the latest gambit in securing Western hegemony over the world.)
So, what holds the broad public back from joining with others in revolution?
If John Spritzler is correct, it’s that people don’t think other people feel the way they do about plutocracy: that plutocracy holds the populace in contempt and treats the people like dirt, and that it is morally appropriate to remove them from power. But, the majority want to remove the rich from power, he finds from his one on one meeting with ordinary people.
To build popular awareness of our shared distaste for plutocracy, green libertarians, as a constituency in a freedom movement, need to conduct mass education on the virtue of taking a categorical stance against plutocracy, the need to build a real democracy, and work for a post-capitalist egalitarian society that puts earth first all the while meeting the basic needs of society to live in dignity.
Educating about the transformation of society is then our chief task, and inviting people to get on the bandwagon to liberate from plutocracy is key.
We need to tell the story of why the plutocracy needs to be removed from power.
We have to be clear and point out how truly corrupt the ruling power structure is. We need to be emphatic on this point. Our storytelling needs to indict plutocracy for the evil deeds it does; and this means identifying how it commits state crimes against democracy as a means to holding power; this should be the chief reason to remove the rich from power.
However, John Spritzler argues it is not optimal to lead an egalitarian revolution by denouncing state crimes. It’s not optimal because only a minority of people are aware of state crimes while the majority is already aware that the plutocracy is cruel, an awareness by itself that should suffice for galvanizing the will to organize and plan for the revolution.
I don’t share John’s stance on this; for me, the state crimes and the daily individual state crimes that frame innocent citizens, is what puts fire in my belly for a revolution. As a fellow anarchist I accept that we don’t need to say why we want a society without a ruling class but when we have brazen crimes staring at us in the face it is wrong not to highlight that fact.
That being said, a campaign for freedom from plutocracy should lead with brick and mortar, bread and butter issues. However, I also accept John’s ontological stance, that we the people are naturally endowed to be free from a plutocracy, which is his foundational stance for an egalitarian revolution, if I understand him correctly. We don’t need to say why we want to ditch the rich, only be in the possibility, state an intention; that’s enough.
In any case, it is the job of the Green Liberty Caucus to call out state crimes; to speak frankly about presidential assassinations, denounce the assassination of civic and cultural leaders, expose false flag events, and end the nonsense that state crimes are conspiracy theories.
Framing an egalitarian revolution as a means to get justice for state crimes has merit; we should make hard hitting allegations, and demand accountability and justice and represent that only an egalitarian revolution can get us the justice we want.
Awareness of state crimes adds impetus to the movement to liberate from a wicked evil ruling class.
Now, some will argue that the problem of state crimes against democracy can be solved by empowering federal and state attorney generals to hold criminal acts accountable, and for this reason we should appeal to our state and federal attorney general for redress of state crimes. Fuh-get-about-revolution, they will say.
But, the power of plutocracy extends down into all channels of power; hence, the judiciary in all jurisdictions is to some degree or another corrupted, and can’t be counted on to do the right thing.
We cannot be free without removing the rich from power. We can do this by voting into being, actual libertarian municipal democracies in our cities, that confederate to form a collective agency that is not a state. Call it a new kind of state, but a collective agency that could go head to head with other states.
This egalitarian revolution needs to be global; we need a mass movement of indignation at plutocratic cruelty and channel collective indignation and our desire for justice, into an egalitarian society where there is no plutocracy.
The bottom line, prosecuting state crimes needs to be part and parcel of making an egalitarian revolution.
Epilogue:
Taking the revolution to your local school board.
We have to agree, as a liberty bloc, that we need to transform our school system so its primary purpose is to teach citizenship and all the skills that are required to be a well rounded citizen: critical thinking, general knowledge, rhetoric, debate, elocution, and so on. To accomplish this, schools need to shift into holistic education that teaches the whole child, so that they grow up to be fully capable according to their abilities as individuals, who have command of craft, and art, and are able to navigate the necessities of life, like building a building, growing food, solving problems, devising algorithms, and be political animals, conversant in the practice of democracy.
Green Libertarians should consider running for the school board in their area.
Appendix:
Below substack from John S. reasoning about why local sovereignty is best.