Resoc Purpose & Initial Invitation

Purpose

The goals of the Reimagining Society Project are:

• To explore ideas about long term vision and related long and short term strategy and program with the hope of reaching agreements and/or clarifying persisting differences
• To develop a basis for working together
• To facilitate joint projects and shared vision/strategy
• To generate enough agreement to initiate continuing and/or enlarging group connections
• To display all related essays, proposals, explorations, debates, etc., in ways aimed to incorporate ever wider circles of activists in the collective process of arriving at shared vision and strategy, and then acting on it.

 

Invitation

 

This is the invitation sent in April 2009 to all participants..

Hello,

We would like to invite you to participate in an extended online and print exploration of societal vision and strategy to promote widely shared understanding and activism.

We are calling this effort The R0eimagining Society Project.

As an invitee and to get a better feel for what is outlined below, please see the highly explanatory beta site of Reimagining Society at:

/zparecon/reimaginingsociety.htm

 

Project Origins

The immediate spur for initiating the Reimagining Society Project was the recent exchange of comments elicited by the article Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher published in The Nation magazine ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/ehrenreich_fletcher ) calling for new shared vision and strategy. The exchange was an excellent step, but limited by too few participants as well as brevity and lack of dialogue among those participating. We hope to undertake a greatly expanded collective exploration via a multi stage project hosted by Z Communications and outlined below.

The invitation committee, sending you this message, is:

Michael Albert, US ZCom/ZNet
Walden Bello, Philippines Focus on the Global South
Patrick Bond, South Africa, Center for Civil Society
Julio Chavez, Venezuela ex Mayor Carora, Current Rep
Noam Chomsky, US author/activist
Carol Delgado, Venezuela Consul General of NY Consulate
Jill Soffiyah Elijah, US Deputy Dir Harv Law Sch Crim. JusticeLydia Sargent, US ZCom/ZMag
Barbara Ehrenreich, US author/activist
Bill Fletcher, US Black Commentator
Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay author/activist
Susan George, France, Attac
Katja Kipping, Germany Left Party Vice Chair
Naomi Klein, Canada author, activist
John Pilger, UK journalist/videographer
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Portugal WSF
Vandana Shiva, India author, activist
Mandisi Majavu, South Africa author, activist
Fernando Ramón Vegas Torrealba, Venezuela Supreme Court
Ranier Rilling, Germany, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Hilary Wainwright, UK Red Pepper
America Vera Zavala, Sweden author, activist

Below we include a brief note about our procedures, a rough timeline for the project, a stage by stage description of the project as currently envisioned, and finally a concluding summary of what we need from you if you want to participate.

 

Process

Each participant in The Reimagining Society Project will have essentially the same editorial status as all other participants. All participants can write essays, comments, and replies and these will all be displayed in the site in the same format.

Similarly, regarding who is invited, the initial inviters have sent this message to about 360 others. From now on, the inviters become participants like everyone else. More, anyone who receives this message and who is listed on the draft site as an invitee and who sends us notice of their decision to participate, can then also send us names of others to invite to participate. Once these have come in, we will send a second round of invitations.

Regarding inviting more participants, we ask only that you take into account that everyone who becomes a participant adds to the overall workload we have in managing the details of the site and especially participant communications. The aim is to have a representative group from various parts of the world, all of whom as a prerequisite to participating are committed to and hopefully involved with a mutually respectful and insightful approach to vision and strategy.

 

Project Timeline

Assemble Invitation Committee: April 1 – 30
Send Invitations to Invitees seeking their agreement to participate: May 1
Receive replies from invitees (indicating yes or no on participating): May 2 – May 14
Participants send names of additional people to invite: May 2 – 14
Invite second round of potential recipients: May 15
Participants send brief Bios: May 2 – May 25
Some participants send one or two Opening Essays: May 15 – July 15…
Albert and Fletcher send requests for participants to assess and address opening essays – June 15
Collect participant exchanges: June 15 –
Display Reimagining Society Project Site publicly: July 1 or at the latest July 15
Solicit specific proposals from materials, for polling: August 15
Conduct first polls: August 25: Sept 1
Solicit group vision proposals: Aug 20 – Sept 1
Conduct poll on vision proposals: Sept 1 – 15”
Invite concluding essays from Participants and post as they arrive: Sept 15
Post concluding essays and consider follow up options: Sept 16…

 

Stage 1: Deciding to Participate and Replying

We need you to please decide if you wish to participate in this project in any way, and to let us know, either yes or no.

If you decide to participate, then we need you to please also send us a three paragraph bio by May 25 at the latest. Your bio will appear on the site so that all participants can easily make each other’s acquaintance.

The first paragraph should include your age, country of birth, country of residence, and your occupation and/or school. The second paragraph should briefly summarize your political history and current involvements and priorities. The third paragraph should briefly indicate your hopes for the Reimagining Society Project, both what you personally hope to contribute and to gain, and what benefits you see for the project more broadly.

In your response, please also list any additional people you want us to invite, including the person’s name, country, and email address. Please add only people appropriate to the task who add a missing element. One serious constraint on participation is that submissions need to be in English. Suggestions for additional participants from countries not represented, or under represented, will be most appreciated.

Finally, if you intend to contribute an opening essay or essays, in your reply please indicate that too, and if possible, include a very tentative title that lets us know your focus. If you prefer to limit your participation to being a commentator or discussant, please indicate that as well.

Here is a form you can use to reply (please erase everything above and below and send just this form, with your information, back to [email protected]):

My Name: (Enter your first and last name here, please)

Participate (please enter "yes" or "no"):

Brief Bio (please include here, in the email itself, or note that you will send it later):

I would like to invite the following (please list the name, country, and email for each person…):

Opening Essay (please enter "yes" if you want to write one or two, or "no" if you don’t):

Title(s) (if yes on an opening essay, please include tentative title or titles or at least topics, revealing the focus):

 

Stage 2: One Way to Participate – Opening Essays

As one possible way to participate, we are asking about 360 people worldwide to consider sending us a full essay, or perhaps even two, by July 15th, for the Reimagining Society Project. You can send something old – or you can write something new.

Should you choose to contribute an opening essay or two, it/they should highlight vision and/or strategy bearing on any area(s) of social life you choose – for example economy, political relations, kinship and gender, culture and race, ecology, and/or international relations – or perhaps highlight narrower topics such climate, adjudication, sexuality, economic allocation, religion, education, health, science, sports, art, etc. Length of essays should be at least 2,500 words and at most 5,000 words so as to have substance, yet remain comfortable to read online.

The Reimagining Society Project is entirely about positively and innovatively proposing vision and strategy for the future, so please do not allot more than 300 words to the usual critique/rejection of capitalist, racist, sexist, relations, or to very general calls to rebel and resist. The only reason any participant opening essay submission will be rejected is for ignoring that mandate, though we also strongly urge that submissions be highly readable.

We of course realize that not all participants will decide to send an opening essay(s) – but will instead participate in other ways.

 

Stage 3: The Main Way to Participate – Mutual Exchange, Debate, and Discussion

We will post opening essays on the Reimagining Society Web Site as we receive them
( /zparecon/reimaginingsociety.htm ) to facilitate further discussions.

Each opening essay will appear on the Reimagining Society Site exactly as it is written. It will be uploaded for participants to view immediately when we receive it and will appear publicly for all viewers as early as July 1 and certainly by July 15 and will remain in place thereafter. The site will be prominently publicly visible in ZCom, the project’s host/sponsor site, but any other web site or organization is more than welcome to display as much or all of the Reimagining Society content as they wish, after July 1. The only exception to submitted essays appearing will be participant submissions that don’t propose positive vision and strategy or that are way off in length.

On June 15th Michael Albert and Bill Fletcher, from the initial inviters list and responsible for maintaining the site, will write to all participants – both those who have already written opening essays and those who have indicated their desire to participate in other ways – and we will request that each participant comment on at least two other participants’ submissions and remind that any participant is welcome to additionally respond to the ideas of any other participants, all for prominent display on the Reimagining Society Site.

We will post all replies and responses to replies authored by project participants in whatever order we receive them. When the site goes public, July 1, all opening essays and ensuing discussions we have will be displayed. More will accumulate in subsequent weeks. (Non Participant readers’ comments on articles will also display, appended to articles in typical web style.)

 

Stage 4: Proposals / Polls 1

On or about August 15th we will ask authors of opening essays and major participants in discussions and explorations of those essays to enumerate specific institutional features or programmatic aims in their contributions that they feel ought to be part of a broad societal vision and related strategy. These will be itemized on the site.

Starting August 30th we will conduct two online polls, one for the general readership of the site, one exclusively for project participants, each poll eliciting reactions to the various itemized proposals offered in the content of the exchanges, as determined by their authors.

At the same time, we will urge authors of opening essays and participants in the project more generally to try to combine their efforts by teaming up to collectively propose full Social Visions in the form of combinations of itemized proposals.

The idea is that a few participants will collectively sign on to an array of proposals as components of a broad proposal for shared vision/strategy which they advocate and wish others to advocate as well. The hope is that this will yield at least one and presumably two or several social visions (with various features appearing in more than one or even in all of them but, nonetheless, with some critical differences and incompatibilities).

 

Stage 5: Discussion / Polls 2

From August 30 all participants will be invited to spend a month discussing the contending collectively advocated social vision proposals – these are proposals for society, not just for elements of society – as they have been put together by authors who team together – with the ensuing discussions trying to indicate reactions, pose questions, and especially debate or even resolve incompatibilities.

Then, authors of the proposals may decide to amend them – and at that point, to see where things stand, we will have another round of polling, this time on reactions to the full proposals for shared vision/strategy.

 

Stage 6: Conclusion…

Finally, on September 15 we will invite every participant to optionally comment at 2,000 words or less via a closing essay on the whole set of articles and comments and replies and polls and especially on the overarching societal visions, assessed as one large project.

These concluding essays will be displayed from September 30. Participants can then assess prospects for continued work in light of levels of agreement, mutual ties, etc.

 

Recapitulation: What We Need From You Now

We need you to let us know as soon as you can that you are, or are not, going to participate in the Reimagining Society project.

If you are going to participate, we need you to indicate any additional people you want us to invite.

Finally, if you are going to contribute an opening essay, we need you to please indicate that, and if possible, to include a very tentative title that lets us know very broadly the focus.

Please use this form, which is the same as the one included above…and erase everything else from your email reply, before filling it out – so in our email the form is right at the top! Please send to [email protected]

My Name: (Enter your first and last name here, please)

Participate (please enter "yes" or "no"):

Brief Bio (please include here, in the email itself, or note that you will send it later):

I would like to invite the following (please list the name, country, and email for each person…):

Opening Essay (please enter "yes" if you want to write one or two, or "no" if you don’t):

Title(s) (if yes on an opening essay, please include tentative title or titles or at least topics, revealing the focus):

 

We hope the Reimagining Society Project can be an inspiring step toward developing and working for shared vision and strategy.

Thank You For Considering This Proposal,

Michael Albert, US ZCom/ZNet
Walden Bello, Philippines Focus on the Global South
Patrick Bond, South Africa, Center for Civil Society
Julio Chavez, Venezuela ex Mayor Carora, Current Rep
Noam Chomsky, US author/activist
Carol Delgado, Venezuela Consul General of NY Consulate
Jill Soffiyah Elijah, US Deputy Dir Harv Law Sch Crim. JusticeLydia Sargent, US ZCom/ZMag
Barbara Ehrenreich, US author/activist
Bill Fletcher, US Black Commentator
Eduardo Galeano, Uruguay author/activist
Susan George, France, Attac
Katja Kipping, Germany Left Party Vice Chair
Naomi Klein, Canada author, activist
John Pilger, UK journalist/videographer
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Portugal WSF
Lydia Sargent, US Z Magazine
Vandana Shiva, India author, activist
Mandisi Majavu, South Africa author, activist
Fernando Ramón Vegas Torrealba, Venezuela Supreme Court
Ranier Rilling, Germany, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Hilary Wainwright, UK Red Pepper
America Vera Zavala, Sweden author, activist