Yes We Can

Chapter 5, verse one: We are the only ones that can make a difference and a difference must be made
Verse two: You have more power than you think
Verse three: You can change the world you live in for the better, just by deciding to

First, let’s acknowledge the gap between making a decision and taking action, this gap is there in our personal lives, in our work lives and throughout our lives. Bridging this gap is about turning a decision into a commitment and an idea into an impact.
You may reach a time when you think that the ideas of LIFE are great but too big, too much and not possible now — this chapter is for you, at that time.

Look around the world today and you will see a number of nation-states in such a state of disarray that they may as well be starting from zero tomorrow: Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan and Somalia come immediately to mind, and close on their heels are Israel-Palestine, Congo, Sri Lanka, the Balkans and so many other war torn and economically ravaged areas. The current definition of success in these situations is too often to laud the arrival of “democracy” when power and wealth are shared amongst two groups rather than one or when sufficient “order” is restored to allow the continuation of the world economic order as defined by macro corporate enterprise. In these situations not only could LIFE standards easily be introduced, LIFE represents the best hope for the future of these people.

In reality, LIFE is just as practical and relevant in the “developed” nations because, nearly universally, they have areas of blight and peril akin to the situations we notice more starkly in the “developing” world. From the industrial waste lands to the ghettos, from indigenous reservations to rural backwaters there is a near universal failure of the crudely fashioned democratic/capitalist system to meet the basic needs of people. If you cannot travel within an hour of where you are now and find people so much closer to simply surviving than to living, then you are already in a society close to being run along the principles of LIFE.

There is no shortage of need nor lack of will, there is only a fear attached to what little we do have.

Simply focusing, single-mindedly, on the two pillars of LIFE: Multi-Layer Representation and BASE, will catalyze positive change on a massive scale. Both of these two primary Standards of LIFE are easily within the grasp of the developed world’s societies, often because they are already partly present.

Which brings us to an important note, that is also particularly relevant to our commitment to take action. Partial implementation does not partially satisfy the principles and does not bring anything like most of the benefits. The Principles and Standards of LIFE make for a coherent whole that truly delivers on its promise, when implemented comprehensively. For example, even societies that already aspire to offer Social Security through the provision of benefits, do so without universal eligibility. In missing this crucial, final step, the benefits of the universal BASE system are not passed on to the wider society and economy as a whole, through consequences such as the ability to abolish the minimum wage and enable micro-economics.

Here is a incomplete list of the cost savings available to a society that engages in a holistic implementation of the Standards of LIFE:

• Qualification testing
• Policing personal space
• Incarceration
• Military intervention
• Corruption
• Resource use inefficiency

Just making the commitments to remove law from personal space and to make BASE universally available will have enormously beneficial impact on a society and is easily within the reach of a dozen nations within one year. All you have to do is to make it a condition of any candidate, for any position that you vote for, that they support the principles of LIFE; it doesn’t matter whether they want to be a superintendent of your local education district or your senatorial representative.

The more people there are in all positions that have a commitment to the implementation of LIFE the faster we will get there!

Conclusion

We stand on the verge of an elementary decision-making time, not just of our times, but of the time of all mankind. Without quick decisions followed by concerted action we risk plunging the entire planet into a quagmire of environmental change and social destruction that will leave a future world unrecognizable from any our kind has known and quite probably most of us will not survive. If that is our fate then it will only be because we failed to avoid it.
Avoiding that fate does not require new research on new ideas, it requires simply that we act now. The power to create action now lies mostly in the hands of the people of the developed, industrialized democracies. The majority of the citizens of those nations do not vote. Why? Because they are not presented with a cohesive, positive alternative to the status quo. The assimilation of the best of today’s new thinking into a simple construct that has a credible implementation character can provide such an alternative.

The action required now is to inspire the uninspired to elect new governments committed to the new platform and to do so within a decade — that’s not much time, but it is enough. Small groups in every constituency, in every nation, must organize now around a standard, new, simple platform and present themselves for election on that platform at every opportunity. The consistent platform will enable and speed the education of the citizenry of all nations, regions and communities. Those who do not wish to stand for office can be powerful in demanding that anyone they vote for adopt the Standards of LIFE as part of their own agenda and commit to promoting them in any way they can whenever they can.

Hopefully the principles, standards and proposals laid out in this wiki can create the basis for such a standard platform. We just have to break out of our entrapped investment in the existing dysfunctional system that indulges our fear that nothing better it is possible.

We can change the world we live in for the better!
Let’s do it!
Now!

Ready for more?
Have a look at the Standards of LIFE that take these principles and build on them to create a political framework for change.