From vancouverparecon at resist.ca  Sun Sep 19 18:18:10 2004
From: vancouverparecon at resist.ca (vancouverparecon at resist.ca)
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 18:18:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Van-Parecon] ParPolity: Political Vision for the Good Society
Message-ID: <53321.24.80.169.7.1095643090.squirrel@mail.resist.ca>

The latest from the Vancouver Parecon Collective:

==> The Vancouver Parecon Collective blog, our collectives comments on
parecon, vision, strategy and related issues. Readers can also comment.
Here: http://vanparecon.resist.ca/grindershalomparpolity.html


==> "ParPolity: Political Vision for the Good Society"
Van Parecon Collective member Matt Grinder interviews Stephen Shalom about
his political vision, a political system designed to compliment
participatory economics.

The following is a brief excerpt. You can view the whole interview online at:
http://vanparecon.resist.ca/grindershalomparpolity.html


Grinder: Could you begin by explaining why you developed this political
vision?

Shalom: I think it?s very important for those of us interested in social
change not just to talk about what?s wrong with the current system, not
just to talk about what we need to do tomorrow to achieve this or that
short term goal, but to also have some sense of a long range vision of
where we want to go. If you want to change things, you need to have some
final destination in mind so you can tell if you?re on the right track.
Then you can choose tactics and strategy to make sure that it?s leading
where you want to go.

In addition, I think another reason why you have to have some kind of
political vision and a vision more generally, is that for many people that
we come across in our day-to-day political work, they say to us, "there?s
no alternative, so I?m just going to accept the status quo." What we?ve
got to be able to show them is that there?s a reason for them to make the
commitment and sacrifices necessary to challenge that status quo. That
reason only makes sense if there is some alternative that can actually
work and can actually inspire us. So I think Parecon -- Mike Albert and
Robin Hahnel?s economic vision -- does some of that, showing people that
there is an alternative, but that?s only for the economic aspect of
society and I was interested to see, can we develop as well the political
institutions of a good society?

Read more: http://vanparecon.resist.ca/grindershalomparpolity.html

Vancouver Parecon Collective
http://vanparecon.resist.ca