A message.

  I cannot care about myself. I know how important I could be, or at least what others thought of me but i don't apprecisate it. Lives were changed. The world changed. And I didn't notice.

What's fair is fair. If i cannot listen i should kill myself. You already know this is true and how serious this is. Ruining your own life is foolish, especially iif you have been given a once in a lifetime chance to exist and win. What are you doing? Can you stop? Of course you can. You once were smart. You can be again.Youi're making your buds angry and ruining your life. Please stop so you can be happy. 

Introduction to The Global Assembly's Official Transition Plan (Please share!)

The plan we've been waiting for

We've been discussing RBE ideas for 4 years, yet action seems hard to follow. It's not your fault. The problems we face are huge.

Still, we always want to think big- trying to talk to politicians, organize a "mass movement", protest or wait until we have "enough" people instead of starting with what we have.

(And that means starting small.) We can't keep waiting for everyone else to join us. If we wait until we have "enough" people, we'll never have enough! We have to take action now, and when we finally create results people will start jumping on board. Note, we're not talking about "building cities" or ecovillages. In fact, the plan explains why that's a really really bad idea. This is realistic, beginning with the assumption that you have no money and only a few people. Still, with a little ingenuity and luck, a group of 10 people following this plan can take over a city of several thousand in one year.

Over the past several months, we've looked at all the RBE movements and took the best ideas from each one. The Transition, Copiosis, EOS, TZM, TVP, Ubuntu and pretty much everything else.. You name it, we researched it. Together, we combined them to create a transition plan that costs nothing to start, requires no permission and can occur immediately. There's no reason to wait. It begins with each and every one of us! Instead of splitting our efforts, we create local assemblies at the ground level and work our way up from there. Our local teams unify behind a single "brand" to build publicity and clout. The Global Assembly serves as a united front not to spread awareness (since we all have different ideas), but act. Recruiting one new member every month means that we can transition to a free world (the precursor to full-blown RBE) in as little as 2 years.

And that biggest obstacle to transition? It's been figured out. Here's how we get the rich and powerful on our side. 

This plan is long for the casual reader (approx. 7 pages), but it goes deep into detail about what we can do and how we can do it. If you like what you read, please share this as much as you can! Tell your friends, fellow sustainability advocates and join the action group on Facebook to share your ideas: Once we all get on the same page, we can make this go viral. It's as easy as just linking to this post.

I'm ready to get started, are you?

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction, Purpose and Goals

Chapter 2: Creating a Local Assembly

Chapter 3: Stages of Transition 

Chapter 4: How to solve Money, Time and Interest problems

Chapter 5: General Ideas and Starter Projects 

Chapter 6: The Essence Of Transition 

Chapter 7: Closing out- How to Recruit, Slay Dragons, Destroy Big Media and More 

Not "just another movement"

We know- division of effort and everything- but this isn't "just another movement". This is a specific way forward and plan for us to unite around so we can do something instead of continuing to watch the horror unfold behind the safety of our computer screens. Our local focus means that we can't be sidetracked as easily since  lot of work needs to happen in real life, not just online.

The Global Assembly does not conflict/compete with TZM/TVP or seek to duplicate their efforts.
While these two movements are about education and have done excellent work producing materials to share with people (no doubt they'll be very useful in our plan too), TGA is about action. We're talking practical steps that we can all take to not just spread the word, but save money and move ourselves (and eventually our cities) out of the system. Our plan culminates in complete basic self-sufficiency for each city and town around the world in as little as five years. The Assemblies provide the framework and bones for a new society. Each local assembly is a "seed" that will bloom into something amazing if we work hard and stay connected.

Now that we have the roadmap, what are we waiting for?

Dear 1%.html

Okay, 1%; Here's the deal. 

We need your stuff. Not your fancy cars, private jets, mcmansions, butlers or yachts- you can keep all of that-

But your factories, fields, businesses, mines and oil wells? That stuff belongs to the people, and it needs to be returned to it's rightful owners. The world is under new management, and there are going to be some changes.

For one, every business that currently exists must now be owned and operated by the people who work there and live around it. Why should we let absentee shareholders thousands of miles away determine our economic destiny? There will be no more "money" as you know it, and we're committed to putting people before profits- so earth's natural resources will satisfy human needs before human greed.

We aren't going to come after you with pitchforks or expropriate your wealth: You worked hard for it, and deserve full compensation. Paying you in money kinda defeats the purpose though. So instead, we're going to give you shares: For every $10 of net worth, everyone gets a share they can use to vote on public policy in the new government (The Global, Regional and National Assemblies) and receive dividends on any surplus revenue. You can also inherit, give away, sell or trade these government shares just like you would corporate stock. Your economic wealth is not taken from you or destroyed, it is merely transformed into an equal amount of political wealth.

Here's the catch: The dividends you receive are tied to public happiness as measured by a detailed monthly survey. This survey doesn't just ask people whether they're happy or not, it's a bit more complicated than that.

GDP and "Profit" were always flawed measures of success anyway, since increases in them don't necessarily correspond to better standards of living. So you can't just raise taxes to make more money without providing services which make the rest of us better off. This also has the nice side effect of eliminating government abuse, since the pay of government employees is also tied to how happy the people are. Bringing the competitive efficiency of business to governance means that governments around the world will now compete for investment by creating the best public policies.

Just like how capitalism brought us better products at lower prices, The Global Assembly will bring us better public services & governments that waste less money.

Maximize public well-being, maximize profits. Capiche?
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The rich and the poor have a common enemy. Now's our time to fight back. Click here to learn more.

But what about the constitution?

"Face it, these ideas are great, but it'd be impossible to get this through Congress". 

"How are you going to amend the constitution to make this possible"?

"Good luck convincing the politicians to go along with this one". 

Do you ever feel like politicians are some of the biggest obstacles to progress? You aren't alone. They allow their childish bickering to get in the way of policies that make life better for the rest of us, while slavishly follow the party line for fear of rejection. Why do we allow these people to control our lives in the first place? When your vote doesn't matter, who's really in control?

How will The Global Assembly succeed with all of it's radical proposals? How will we convince those in power to give it up?

We won't. We aren't going through them. The Global Assembly is not a political party that seeks to change a few laws then call it a day. Nor do we want a new constitutional amendment. We want a new constitution. There will be no referendum, poll or vote. Each person will look over our proposals and decide for themselves whether or not they support them. If you do, then ratify our constitution and vote in our elections. If you don't, then don't. It's your choice. When a majority of people in an area agree with this new direction, they make it happen.

Protest doesn't work. Petitions don't work. Begging for permission does not work. When the system is broken, attempts to work within it will get you nowhere- elections will be rigged, and propaganda spread. That's why it's time to break the system and crash the party.

One thing that you need to remember is that nothing physically possible is impossible. Forget everything you know, forget what you've been told: All authority derives from the people, both figuratively and literally. At the end of the day, government is a group of people like any other. We are the ones who give them their power, and if we come up with something better, we can give them power too. The constitution is a piece of paper with brilliant ideas- but we must never allow the will of the dead to dictate the reality of the living. We need to keep the "brilliant" parts like universal rights and democratic government while leaving outdated concepts such as the electoral college behind.

"There's nothing more powerful than an idea who's time has come". - Victor Hugo

When millions of us stand together in support of change- not just abstract "change", but unified in our demands, there's no contest. Those in power will listen, or those underneath them will walk away. They won't have a choice.

Why Money Needs an Expiration Date (and what that has to do with time banking)

If there's one basic law of nature you can rely on, it's this: Everything dies. 

Yes, it's a bummer. Everything weathers, everything decays. Bread gets moldy, homes spring leaks and cars break down. It doesn't matter how long it takes- whether it's minutes, years or millennia. Nothing lasts forever. 

Nothing, that is, except money. 

And that's a problem, because everything else you can buy with money will eventually go bad. Heck, even the person who currently "possesses" all that money won't be around forever. Because money never "rots", people hold onto it for dear life instead of putting it back into the economy where it belongs. Money piles up upon itself and is handed down through generations, allowing children of the rich to stay rich regardless of their own effort. Do you ever look at Paris Hilton or the Kardashians and ask why? Why do they deserve so much while the rest of us get so little? What makes them so special? 

Inflation sort of solves this problem in a roundabout way,  but it's more of a stealth rot- instead of you directly losing money, everything else just becomes more expensive. The problem with inflation is that 1) it's really hard to control and 2) people don't understand why it happens, so they get upset. 

The more straightforward route would be to implement a fee for storing money in banks, but economists always claim that that wouldn't work because people would just take out their money and hold it in cash. When discussing a contributist economy, it's important to remember that most of the assumptions we have today about how economies must function no longer hold. Our current system isn't a law of nature: It developed over centuries through the random interactions of strangers and the writings of philosophers like Adam Smith. 

Money works in a completely different way post-transition. For one, it's designed to be used, not abused. "Abusing" your money may mean hoarding it, using it to negatively influence others or just allowing it to sit and earn more money on top of itself via the scam we call "interest". 

How many of us know where interest actually comes from? True, when you have a savings account it comes from loan returns, but when you take out a loan, the interest required to pay it back doesn't exist in the economy! Here's the kicker- neither does the money itself! Banks create money out of thin air whenever loans are taken out, and through "interest" that constantly compounds upon itself, these loans can never be fully repaid. 

That's economic slavery. We literally can't afford to let it go on any longer.

Contributism is based on the principle that those who contribute more deserve more. Money can only be "earned" (read, created) through doing work which benefits others in your community. It then circulates, and is taken out of circulation when someone needs to purchase something. Time credits are one implementation of this idea: An hour of work (any kind) is always equivalent to an hour's time credit. 

Time credits are only good for certain basic community service applications though, as some jobs are harder and require more skills. For these, payment could vary based on supply and demand. Is your city running short on doctors? Place an ad online. Raise or lower the listed salary based on the responses you get. Nontransferable time credits could be used to ensure only people who contribute to the economy get rewarded. 

Nontransferable? 

Yes, nontransferable. Making some forms of money nontransferable- like checks or airline miles- solves a lot of problems. Nobody can steal your money because it's only usable by you. Nobody can earn money by exploiting other people because money only goes to natural persons, not organizations or corporations. While you may not be able to directly give your money to someone else, you can still buy a gift and give it to the person instead.

The full effects of this take a while to sink in. Landlords no longer exist because they can't spend the money they receive as rent. Debt is eliminated, as is every other middleman between a person and what they want to buy. The end result is that only the people who directly benefit from something "own" it. 

"Money", then, becomes a token agreement between the individual and society. It's recognition of a job well-done, and a special gift to you as thanks. In this future, money is a claim on a portion of the world's resources- one that belongs to you and you alone. Viewed this way, why would you want to give your hard-earned money away to other people? The Global Assembly makes sure everyone has financial security in the first place, since children and the elderly both can earn time credits for participating in social life or even just being around,  

How does it work? 

Time credits are earned by working on community projects your local assembly approves. Keeping the streets clean, working on a community garden or tutoring children after school can all be "community projects". The project manager receives a set amount of blank time credits and a notepad to keep a record of who attended the project, what they did and how many time credits they've earned. Like a check, the recipient of the time credit is written on the credit itself unless they request to "keep it blank". These records are logged, entered into a computer and used to calculate how much a person has contributed over the course of the year (for voting purposes)*. 

Spending your time credits is straightforward. Just go to the store with your community membership card and credits in hand, then grab what you need. 

Once a person has received their time credits, they can hold them for up to one year. After that, they need to be put in the bank or reinvested into other communities since they expire. 

While in the bank, we charge a 2% per year storage fee to encourage people to reinvest their money into the economy by buying shares in other communities around the world. If money is sitting around for years at a time, it's not doing its' job. 

Money constantly circulates, doing good as it moves along. The role of the time bank is a clearinghouse and loaner for large purchases- (like homes and cars). The money is then paid back plus a fixed fee proportional to the amount of money taken. For example, if the time bank gives you 5000 hours to buy a house and charges 500 for the trouble of loaning out the money, this is not interest, and that's what is so important. No matter how long you take to repay your loan from a time bank, the total amount of money you owe will still be the same ($5500)- it doesn't grow with time. This stops the "debt trap" where no matter how quickly you try to pay off your debts, the amount you owe just keeps growing.. and growing.. and growing. Borrowers can't claim that they were taken by surprise anymore, so they must repay their loans. 

There are some things that time credits can't buy because they aren't for sale: land, natural resources and the hard work of other people come to mind. 

Hopefully, you're beginning to see some of the positive effects this new banking system will have on humanity. Corporations can't abuse their wealth, nor can extremely rich individuals. The only person who gets to decide what you spend your hard-earned money on is you. 

*In order to remain a community member, each person needs to pay taxes in the form of a set amount of time credits weekly (say, 10). They can donate excess time credits in return for votes in the regional assembly. Depending on what percentage of their yearly income they donate, they get more votes. 

Page 7: Recruitment, Dragons, Media and More.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE IMPORTANCE OF RECRUITMENT.

Get each member to gift $5 a week so you can print out thousands of flyers- and leave them all over the place. Each flyer should use a half-sheet of paper to save resources. Voraciously promote your assembly, and share the local facebook group/youtube playlist so they can learn more. Interested people will request to join the group and boom, you’ve got a new member.

We want each member to recruit at least one new person a month, not just the “recruitment” PoC. If your group commits to this, the amount of growth you can create in a short period of time will be astounding.

Month 1 - 12 members: Just starting out, getting settled and getting your project teams sorted out.

Month 2 - 24 members: Your project teams are almost ready and you’ve begun approaching people with your vision.

Month 3 - 48 members: Project teams completed, you are now ready to begin.

Month 4 – 100 members: Your core hybrid group is complete, and filled with a diverse skill set.

Month 5 - 200 members

Month 6 – 400 members: At this stage, most of your service-based needs can be met within the group and you’re starting to have some effect on the local economy. You enter your rapid growth phase. This phase is make it or break it- pull it off, and your success is guaranteed. Fail, and your group will plateau somewhere between 200 and 400 for good.

Being successful requires every tool at your disposal to get the word out, even if it means you become a “walking billboard”. In other words, wear a custom solidarity t-shirt which reads “I WORK 20 HOURS A WEEK AND LIVE FOR FREE Ask me!”

Month 7 – 800 members

Month 8 – 1600 members

Month 9 – 3200 members

Month 10- 6400 members

Month 11 – 12800 members

Month 12- 25600 members

There you have it. In less than a year, you can convert an entire mid-sized town of 100,000 to Contributism. Long before you reach Month 12, other businesses will be forced to adapt or close, speeding transition. As more people become unemployed, they can join your group which accelerates the process.

Imagine 25000 people living the hybrid lifestyle in your town. Imagine two of them sharing a car and selling the extra- that’s 12,000 cars off the road. Imagine the hundreds of dollars being saved monthly by members sharing apartments, homes, cars etc.. All that money can go towards community projects.

This needs to be a coordinated operation. More and more assemblies pop up in neighboring towns, starting the process all over again. As they grow during year 2, millions of people come on board.

That’s millions of people waking up by watching RBE videos on youtube.

Millions of people not shopping at stores owned by big corporations.

Millions of people growing an abundance of food or supporting local farmers who do.

Millions of people who refuse to work at jobs they don’t like.

Millions of people sharing golf clubs, tennis rackets, lawnmowers, power tools..

Millions of people not taking out bank loans or dropping the ones they have.

Millions of people who know about liquid democracy and next time, will vote for it so they can take back government to protect their revolution.

And even cooler, millions of people who get to travel and stay for free in other hybrid towns.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you starve the beast.

Capitalism has a fatal flaw- it requires constant consumption to keep the wheels turning. We do the opposite. Yes, we still have to pay taxes for now- but as far as everything else is concerned, we try to limit the amount of money used in our day-to-day lives as much as possible. The system will collapse within 3 years if we work hard at recruitment. Unlike last time it’ll be planned and we will be ready for it.  

Slaying the Dragons

Most of this so far has focused on business- but there are other interests that may interfere with transition.

The Powers That Be

Dealing with this depends on your attitude. If you take an adversarial tone or blame them for things, understandably they will see you as the enemy and act accordingly. The Global Assembly isn’t anyone’s enemy though; we just see problems in the world and want to fix them. In the beginning, it’s best to just focus on the humanitarian aspect of what you’re doing and leave the politics aside. Once the assemblies mature and build a broad base of support, you can speak out about the political aspects of transition (safety in numbers). Local government officials will naturally be on your side since they see the effects your programs are having on the community firsthand. Over the years, local assemblies will have embedded themselves so deeply within the fabric of communities that attempts to harm them will be considered similarly to attempts to ban churches. Remember: You don’t win by fighting the system. You win by creating a new system that makes the old one obsolete.

The biggest immediate “dragon” that needs to be dealt with is Big Media.

It’s crucial to take control of the narrative from the very beginning. Your local assembly starts as a humanitarian organization- so show it! Make pictures and videos of everything you do, and post them on your social media pages (not just group)

Long-term, if we want to wake up the a large amount of people, we need to replace big media. An idea I had was something called “Channel 99”, and like The Global Assembly it would be a brand. Channel 99 is a grassroots local news source and public access channel hosted on Youtube. “Channel 99” is meant to reference the 99% and associated feelings. The channel would be democratic and public-access so if anyone had something they wanted to share, they could submit it for broadcasting.

There are lots of general politics and political talk youtubers out there, but Channel 99 is different because of the local focus. “Channel 99 Chicago” would be the Chicago branch focusing on local Chicago neighborhood happenings for example.

What you place on this channel is limited only by your imagination. Cooking shows, dramatic book readings, game shows, talk shows.. We want this to be a real tv station that people can tune into, livestreamed during certain times of the day. You don’t have to produce all, or even any of the content. Just look around to see who has some stuff they’d like to get out there.

Local musicians and artists looking for a wider audience? Check.

School plays? Check.

Church events? Check.

Low-budget DIY home movies and funny local clips? Check.

Cooking and game shows? Check.

Women sitting on a couch and talking? Check.

Deconstructing advertisements and other BS peddled by the mainstream media? Check.

In return for promoting them, guests can promote you and expand the reach of Channel 99. 

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The end! We hope you enjoyed this short series of articles on how to transition to a Resource-Based-Economy. Stay tuned for more!

First: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-guide-to-global-assembly-and.html
Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-6-essence-of-transition.html

Page 6: The Essence of Transition

The Essence of Transition

Transition happens by turning the machinery of capitalism against itself. Don't be afraid to use money to get rid of it! Everyone wants a lower price, and everyone wants to save. The twin processes of ephemeralization and productive maximization will work together, forcing all businesses within a certain radius to adapt. The first has to do with labor, while the second deals with production. Both feed a vicious cycle of cost reduction that pushes the price of goods and services towards zero.

Ephemeralization

Why pay workers when you can get volunteers to work for you for free? Ephemeralization is a term coined by Buckminster Fuller which describes the process of doing more and more with less and less. He used a bridge as an example: Our first bridges were very heavy and made of stone. Later, we learned how to use lattice steel and our bridges became lighter. And on and on it goes, until today we can cross oceans with little more than a few feet of concrete and some steel cables.

Participating businesses enjoy free labor because people who work there earn time credits. After seeing initial positive results, the business owner will naturally want to expand the program. 

Productive Maximization

It’s amazing what can get accomplished when we all unite on a common goal. Residents who get together to work on projects create things at a lower cost, and these low-cost items can be used as inputs for ephemeralized businesses.

How this relates to your group.

It just doesn’t make sense. How can a small group of 12 or so people rally an entire town to a cause and create change? Every change in history has always begun with a small core of dedicated, highly-committed people. And once you get roughly 5% of the population involved, the rest will join by necessity.

If each of your seed members builds a team with three other people on it, your group has suddenly quadrupled in size to 48. From there, it isn’t far to 100 and beyond if every member recruits one new member per month. Each of these people provide free services to each other (denominated in time credits to keep track of everything and shut down freeloaders) while cooperating to save money and slash their living expenses. Each group member agrees to work for 10 hours per week together on common projects that help the group become self-sufficient. That’s your “membership fee.”

Here’s where the program developed by The Transition comes in. Within the group, we aim to use very little money- but outside it, we charge for services.

The secret is sharing your way to success. If you know how to cut hair, give other group members who present their membership card “free haircuts” in exchange for a time credit. Group members earn time credits volunteering for you now. The same goes for nail salons, mechanics, auto body shops, computer repair.. Whatever your skill, trade it on a one-to-one hourly basis with contributing members while charging everyone else full price. Aim to give whatever you can each month to help fund projects and expansion (like buying an apartment or more businesses so you don’t have to pay rent).

Getting rich is no longer the goal. Businesses must earn profit to stay afloat, but the profits won’t be large. We must rely on our network of support and self-sufficiency to get through this rough period.

Three simple steps:

1) Work: Share what you can with other group members. Your tools, equipment, meals, chores, anything you feel comfortable with. Keep track of what you share and who you share it with. When enough members get together in one area, they pool their money to purchase a large home or apartment, maybe renting out half to non-members to make money and saving half for themselves.

2) Gift: Save up for local sustainability projects (solar panels) and give what you can to other communities.

3) Recruit: Spread the word and try to grab one new person each month. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, worry about meeting your own goals.

4) Start small home businesses like window washing, lawn care and dogwalking to bring more money in, charging 20-30% less than the other guy.

If the local assembly owns one restaurant and we charge 20% less than other restaurants for the same food because we don’t have to pay employees, get free eggs, vegetables and electricity, you can kiss the other restaurants goodbye.

Painter charges $3000 to paint a house, you charge $1500.

Plumber wants $150 to fix a pipe, you charge $50.

All the while, you are building relationships with local business owners to volunteer in exchange for more services that you can’t do on your own. 

It’s important to work with landlords to see if there’s any deals you can make. Does your group provide services they need? Perhaps the landlord can offer the business owner a reduction in rent in exchange for being paid in credits + a share of the profits. The housing director will phone-bomb local rentals to see if any are interested in setting up a cost-saving arrangement. 

Next: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-7-recruitment-dragons-media-and.html

Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-5-general-ideas-starter-projects.html