FOR THE FORMATION OF A NEW POLITICAL PARTY governing the transition
1. The historical phase, which began with the Industrial Revolution and in little more than two centuries has completely transformed the world, is heading to its conclusion. The growth of commodity production that has characterized, and the gradual extension of the commodification of a growing percentage of world population and increasingly large sector of human life, are up against the physical limits of the biosphere to provide increasing amounts of energy and raw materials that this process needs and metabolize the waste liquids, solids and gases it generates. Numerous scientific papers document it.
2. Another sign, although equally evident ignored the imminent end of this phase of history, is given by the failure of attempts to overcome the crisis of overproduction triggered by the financial crisis erupted in August 2008. Western governments have tried to support the demand by allocating huge quantities of public money, but have not been able to boost production and consumption, or to stop the rise in unemployment. The anti-recessionary policies have resulted in increases fearful of public debt, leading several countries to the brink of insolvency and beyond. When he reversed the order of the factors, trying to start restrictive policies, the effect was the reduction in demand and a new surge of unemployment. It 'obvious that all the strategies of the past no longer work. The economy's growth has reached or is about to reach its limit.
3. This limit is incompatible with the existence of the international financial architecture. The war and the assault to balance eco-system are both a direct product of this structure. The financial world is not the result of a mistake: it was built to operate as it worked and it works. It is for this reason that produces monsters of violence and inequality. This global finance is the monetary form of irreconcilable contradiction, and now explosive, between development and nature. Of
continue to need money, but not the current one. Will be introduced democratic public control On issue of monetary union, as money can not be conceived as a commodity and has no value unless it is connected to the real economy. When this relationship is broken - and broke dramatically before our eyes - the money is transformed into pure power, subversive of every principle and rule, including those in the market, and the same moral logic. In this context, also the sovereignty of the Member loses all meaning and with it democracy itself is liquidated, as is happening.
4. In Italy, as enshrined in our Constitution, sovereignty belongs to the people. However, the party elites have made this text is largely be ignored. To counter this dangerous drift, and especially to return to citizens the rights they should exercise, it should require the Parliament, to discuss the legislative proposals of popular initiative, and to give them a priority as routine activities. Milestone for a participatory democracy is surely the abolition of the quorum for holding the national referendum, with the simultaneous introduction of proactive ones, as can be crucial to bring the municipal authorities to include in their statutes the advisory referendum, and to repeal and deliberative without quorum. Similarly, there is the urgent introduction of a proportional electoral system with the ability to express preference by voters for the candidates, together with the elimination of the procedures for collecting signatures in order to submit list for any election (the mechanism currently is fraudulent and distorted, and also ignores the fundamental principle of secrecy of the vote, forcing the expression of a "political support" to the list that you subscribe).
5. The current situation is critical on many fronts simultaneously, all the assets is already changing world power, suggesting that the transition has already begun and that its expansion in turbulence. The long world dominance of the United States is in obvious decline, along with the now untenable - for the rest of the world - the absolute supremacy of the dollar.
The standard of living of the golden billion is not sustainable, in peaceful conditions, and even within the industrially developed countries - where large sections of the people have still been able to enjoy in the years of GDP growth, the crumbs that fell from the table of the rich - there is a striking gap and disparities in income distribution. It follows that social pacts - which have allowed our company to hold in the last 60 years - are seriously under threat almost anywhere.
international tensions will grow to the social and internal to each country. Political classes are left unprepared and short-sighted solutions groped by demagogic inward and outward aggressive, hoping to keep a hold that escapes them against their public opinion.
It 'obvious that under these conditions, a growing risk of war, even in large sizes. In the absence or shortage of essential resources, those that are strong militarily are dragged from the temptation to use force to solve the problems of its own internal stability. These trends will continue to grow. This calls
therefore, a foreign policy completely different from today, starting with the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people and the elimination of nuclear weapons in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean region. We need a foreign policy free from any military alliance between Italy - also through the publication and passing secret military agreements still in place - and allowing it to carry its own action and supreme peace. How
Act imposes a turn required the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan and the commitment to a strict and consequent reduction and redirection of military spending, only within a common European policy of active contribution to peace and the construction of a new architecture multipolar world.
To achieve these objectives must be interpreted in a radically new feature of the movement for peace. The logic underlying the response to the war, that of the mobilization advance against the emergence of conflicts. Wars must be identified where it can be born. And there must be defused. Peace is won by preventing the war started, not to compel it to stop.
6. All the political forces of history have a foundation of its system of values \u200b\u200band criteria for their interpretation of reality, the identification of welfare with the growth of production and consumption of goods. All have taken the measures which they considered most effective for growth and remove the obstacles that stand in the way, continued to increase in the levels of consumption, to increase the number of producers and consumers of goods. The political confrontation between them has always been divided on economic policy choices more effective to stimulate growth and the criteria for allocation of monetary income that goes with it.
7. To overcome the crisis of the system determined by the intertwining of the crisis of overproduction with the environmental crisis should develop tools of economic analysis and economic policy other than those intended to boost growth of commodity production. And to do this we need a political entity capable of demonstrating with facts that can, and should, address the scientific research and technological innovations to reduce energy waste, the waste of raw materials and the amount of waste because the only way we can create jobs, then the economic crisis can be overcome only if the economy is aimed at overcoming the environmental crisis. We need to continue manufacturing-led growth of functional areas to overcome the environmental crisis and a decline led the sectors that make more and more serious. We will vigorously fight against layoffs and unemployment by initiating a progressive and generalized reduction of working time. The development of technologies that increase efficiency in the use of raw materials and energy, that increase the durability and repairability of the objects, which allow you to recover the materials they are made when they are decommissioned, involves a reduction in fuel consumption without compromising comfort. If instead of the current quantitative parameters were used in evaluating quality parameters of production activities, the consequence would be a reduction of waste and production of goods.
8. Such a radical change of perspective requires the development of a cultural paradigm different from that which characterized the industrial mode of production and can not be included in the system of values \u200b\u200band conceptual parameters of the parties that were formed during the historical period and in countries where this mode of production has emerged, since it is the antithesis. Therefore requires the formation of a new political entity that can not just be another variation of the existing parties, a reshuffling of cards including clips from various sources warned that the failure of the theoretical framework provided propose to enrich it with some tool more. The new political subject, which is needed to support at the institutional proposals are consistent with a cultural paradigm that replaces the quantitative parameter of growth with qualitative parameters designed to overcome the economic crisis by creating employment in productive activities that can mitigate the crisis environment, can only be placed in a space defined by coordinates other than those that define the space in which more than two centuries held the comparison among the various political right and left.
9. The new paradigm, new life styles, production, re-use, consumption should become a heritage of immense masses of the people. This is not only necessary for the transition to a new company takes place in a peaceful manner, but also because it achieves a higher level of participation and democracy. We live, however, for the past two generations in a society where democracy has been transformed into a battle of technologies to manipulate the collective consciousness.
A new political subject, which we intend to build, will therefore have to pose the crucial task of reversing the operation of the machinery of deception and the noise, or background noise rather than obsessing and distracting. All this to bring the man at the center of himself and society, instead of economy, technology, virtual, and to recover its most precious asset: time.
There is no doubt that the mainstream information-communication is producing a collective regression, for populations that are subject, which has already transformed the majority of citizens of the golden billion into compulsive consumers. Those who hold the power and communication are the same link the continued development of predatory and frantic consumerism. Here, then, that we must bring the battle on the field of information communication from its democratization, the strengthening of public action, as a result of the fact that television (and in general the media of any kind) have become central and dominant in the formation of cultural and intellectual content of an entire nation. Among the measures needed to accompany a transition need to be aware drastically reduce the mass of advertising messages. It introduced, including in school curricula of all levels, media education. This would be a crucial tool for reversing the slide into illiteracy di massa che caratterizza tutte le società investite dalla mutazione antropologica dell'homo videns. Ora doppiamente analfabete, perché non sanno più leggere e perché non sono ancora capaci di leggere – non conoscendone la grammatica e la sintassi - il messaggio ormai dominante delle immagini in movimento.
Questi ed altri strumenti di organizzazione democratica e partecipata del flusso informativo-conoscitivo, come quello del sapere in ogni suo aspetto, debbono colpire l'effetto ultimo della mercificazione di tutti i rapporti umani che è stato il risultato del processo manipolatorio.
10. Le politiche economiche dominanti nei paesi occidentali sono variate nel tempo assieme alle forme di organizzazione e di regolazione dell'economia capitalist. Thus, the long phase of economic development began with the end of the Second World War was characterized by left-wing economic policies, that kind of reformist social-democratic, and its crisis, which occurred in the seventies of the twentieth century, led to the predominance of economic policies right (usually indicated by the label "neoliberalism"), dominance that has lasted until today. At this stage, "neoliberal" has seen the collapse of "real socialism" and spreading throughout the world of capitalist social relations. At this stage in the market economy countries the left has tried to compete with his right hand into her conceptual framework and operational elements essential elements of the culture right. But the market economy has aggravated the problems of environmental, economic and social growth in emissions, more difficulty in obtaining raw materials, de-localization of production in countries with little or no environmental control, willing to work with labor costs shorter and with fewer guarantees, migration processes worldwide. There are forces, political and cultural rights, which include these issues. Missing, however, to them an awareness of the need for a different cultural paradigm. Consequently the 'fairness or sustainability is presumed to be pursued within this production system, that is reduced to a more equitable distribution of monetary wealth produced by an economy aimed solely to the growth of commodity production, without even scratching the destructive logic of the system. This is a dead end.
11. There is also in Italy who thinks that it is necessary to establish a new political entity to give representation to ever broader sectors of the electorate who do not identify in any of the existing parties and are increasingly disgusted by the level of degeneration reached by the political system, by ignoring the law, by the spread of corruption in the parliament by the presence of a large delegation of persons convicted in criminal trials, the approval of laws that impede the conduct of trials of defendants excellent and obstruct criminal investigations, by encouraging tax evasion amnesties, from an electoral system that has taken away from voters the freedom to choose their own institutional representatives and broke it delivered to the secretariats of party, by the interweaving of the state apparatus and criminal organizations, by collusion between the majority and minority in the defense of privilege intolerable. How can we not agree with any initiative aimed at restoring law and popular sovereignty? But even if you got this result would not have made advances in the definition of an economic policy capable of overcoming the economic crisis and the environmental crisis. If in a context of legality and democracy to continue to finalize the economic and productive activities to the growth of commodity production, unemployment, pollution and waste would continue to grow, energy problems, those of health, and the greenhouse effect to worsen. It should, however, the disaster, but under sound legal principles.
12. A fairer distribution of resources between social classes and between peoples, environmental protection and defense of the law are fixed points on which we can not agree, but not enough to prevent the collapse of civilization that is being caused by an economic system aimed at increasing production and consumption of goods.
must reverse this trend by identifying different parameters for productive activities, discovering in doing good, and not doing more and more, the true meaning of work in being comfortable with yourself and with others in the places where we live, and not have much in the way of life.
a political presence in the institutions is essential to be able to translate into economic and industrial policy measures this conception of the world and to disseminate educational activities necessary to adjust lifestyles towards sustainability. This step will not be easy because the whole society is based on the assumption of growth. Consequently, the crisis of growth involves serious social problems, particularly rising unemployment and social inequality. For this reason, the transition to a more humane society requires a great effort, in large part still to be done, of theory and practice. Only a new political force, national in scope and, ultimately, international, can be posed such a goal, which is a prerequisite for building a democratic and popular alternative to the advocates of growth.
13. A new political presence in the institutions is necessary, it is necessary that you implement a new method that can effectively promote good practice and spread of direct democracy. Becomes as important: listening, talking, dealing with the citizens, committees, movements, associations, building and nurturing spaces and tools that can foster authentic participation choices and shared decisions.
Making of consistency and transparency are essential principles of political action.
affirm the political commitment and practice as a right / duty of each and all, rejecting the principle of delegation to professional politicians. Rejecting
personalities, actors, hierarchies, encourage direct participation, collective responsibility, the spirit of service for the common good.
overcome the opposition between the left and right (both advocate of an economic policy based on unlimited growth) and the whole of party politics in favor of a different cultural paradigm, which focuses on sustainable growth and economic development at all costs.
embody the local work area, the development community to feed the sense of solidarity, mutual trust, mutual help.
Supporting and increasing cooperation between local entities and persons unconnected with the parties who share the experience of the new political entity, helping to create a support network to represent the provincial, regional and national levels.
Promote and encourage alternative circuits of the economy based on non-monetary trade and local currencies in order to blackmail plot to steal financial and experiences to multiply the transition to a genuinely alternative social system.
This document set out some basic principles on which the proposers invited to open a comparison to verify the possibility to initiate the process of forming a new political entity.
Turin Provincial Network of Movements and lists of citizenship:
Committee List of active citizenship and civic Rivalta Sustainable civic Alpignano List, For the Common Good Piedmont Piedmont Alternative Movement, civic List No Incinerator Beinasco, Animo Nicholls.
Maurizio Pallante (MDF - Movement Degrowth Felice)
Giulietto Church Movement (Alternative)
Monia Benini (For the Common Good)
Massimo Fini Movement (Zero)
Rome, November 21, 2010
