WiserEarth Editors
Collaboration in serving the greater WiserEarth community
As active community members, we would like to make this group into a gathering point where we can work together to transform WiserEarth.org into an effective platform of support for the global community of concerned citizens and organizations who are working to create a more just and sustainable world. ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Nov 20, 2007
Updated: Nov 27, 2009
Membership: Invitation Only
Semi-Private
Topic: Political parties on WiserEarth
Posts (1 - 16 of 16)
|
|
Politics, if you look very closely at the majority of the organization and groups listed on WiserEarth, there is a political hook in most of the issues and strategies that are part of these organizations and groups. Can’t be helped. I could point out any number of them, but I’ll just pick one as an example - transition cities.
Politics always comes late to movements; I’ve seen that over my seventy years of living on this planet. Politics does not lead, political parties don’t lead, they don’t want to. What drives political parties around the world – and remember WiserEarth is a world coming together information and exchange portal, not a country coming together, is and should be its core prim directive.
Any body from the USof A or China, or Bahrain, or where ever, if they want, should be able to start any kind of group they want, so local Greens start a group for ag in their community. Great. It doesn’t mean that WE agrees or sanctions it, it only means that there’s a group of people that see some use for WE in their local effort towards better ag policies. Great.
I have been a life long member of the American Civil Liberties Union the ACLU. They have defended the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution in all cases no matter the content of the speech. Without free speech we have nothing.
I would feel that the underlying principle that WE might consider is that simple concept, that without free speech we have nothing and with it we have everything.
The planet needs a voice that resides within the human community. That I think is what WiserEarth is all about. There will be conflict, there always is when people start speaking for the planet, but that also is part of free speech.
By the way there’s no end to this road – that is the joy and the joke. |
|
|
I found this an interesting read:
Phil Sutton (1999) 'Genetics and the Future of Nature Politics'
Abstract
|
|
|
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Frank.
My main concern about allowing political parties to have presence on the site as groups is that it might turn WE into yet another platform for political advertisements and (unhealthy) competition. I can imagine what happens when campaign season arrives and WE becomes more popular. I personally would rather see political views or policy proposals comes out as comments in discussions around particular issues (e.g. agricultural policy).
So, free speech is still there for the people (a.k.a. WE community members), but not for corporations or political parties. i.e. 'yes' for political comments, 'no' for political groups.
What do you think? Anyone else has any thoughts on this?
p.s. Can't access the full paper from here. It's limited to institutions who've payed for access to the journal. |
|
|
Here's another 'political' group: http://www.wiserearth.org/group/Ronpaul2008
|
|
As far as political parties, like Ron Paul, its pretty clear that that violates our content guidelines. Organizations that engage in lobbying / advocacy (as Phil mentioned) but that are themselves nonprofit is another thing all together.
|
|
Here's another point of view...
Ron Paul's group details and activity put things into perspective...isn't it? GROUP DETAILSCreated: Nov 23, 2007 Updated: Mar 06, 2008
It would be interesting to allow and trust the community's ability to discern... hahaha... I imagine Gordon Brown, trying to persuade WEblindspotters... or David Cameron going to the WiserEarth UK meeting with Peggy in December... :)
Bowo, I personally was always impressed with your - on the whole - leniency and great tact with people here, in preference of enforcing guidelines. It shows wisdom, compassion and hence positively allows people to learn and grow.
|
|
|
So let's see... the Ron Paul group, created Nov 23, 2007, last updated March 06.2008. Membership: open, Semi-Private. Total membership 3. The admin lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Last up date March 08, 2006. Members: one from Sausalito, CA - last up date March 6, 2008. Member: San Francisco - is also an editor, update: March of 08.
... so what's that all about?
Searching the word politics WE comes up with 14,678 returns - 13,148 organization, 460 people, 78 groups, 566 resources, 9 solutions, 3 jobs, this was interesting NO events, 132 wiki pages.
In looking over the group search as far as political parties, there was the "Green Party of Knox County" - greated in Sept of 09, one member.
So what's the issue? I guess the concern is the future - I have no idea how the future is going to play out with WE in regards to politics, but I can guess - with the present membership, from a political prespective WE isn't much and if WE numbers did increase would it be worth political energy to use WE as a political platform?
I would answer that question with a - NO. |
|
|
It says clearly in our content guidelines that Political Parties are not valid for including as organizations. It would seem a very small stretch to assume that Groups that support a specific political party or candidate and that is all they do would fall foul of these guidelines. There are plenty of other venues for politics (many of which I frequent) but its nice to be in a place where we are working collaboratively on social justice and the environment not arguing the merits of one political party or another. My two cents - delete the Ron Paul group and any other groups like it.
|
|
Mnnnnn could I suggest rather than just deleting non conforming groups that we contact the group admins and explain why they are being deleted, and suggest ways that they could engage with the broader community here in WE without being overtly a front for their political party? I too think that an Aus greens group is listed here in WE, mosr of the members are activists.....
|
|
political parties (part is divination of the whole), the political mind, is one of the major reasons for the collapse, the humanity and earth is suffering from. While we think about a future we learn to operate as a whole in coherence with nature inward and outwards freedom and life, political propaganda and "orthodoxies" are contra-productive. So my answer would be also NO. One might said, if we devide us from the political parties, we become indirectly a party... there is some truth here. |
|
|
Below is the field description - the only text on the page - of the group whose administrator is Jay Dadrass from Canada - WEactivity
"The campaign of Ron Paul is showing the world the power of interconnectivity through the internet, and paving the way towards a new tomorrow where we the people choose leaders based on information and not the way they are presented on the boob tube. The story of Ron Paul's campaign is more about the internet revolution than the Ron Paul revolution. We the internet community will decide the future by actively raising the collective conciousness about leaders, issues, and the future of our civilization. Its time to empower the people with knowledge like never before, this campaign is for the leader of America, the once great superpower, but it is only the beginning of the internet revolution. Hopefully with the help of people like you and I, his story will go down in history as the first revolution of the information age. Join the campaign, and remember its all about the message of Freedom for the individual, if we are not free then our society will not be free."
Does the fact that he lives in Canada and the fact that his campaigning (which ceased a year ago) is quite insignificant quantitatively, constitutes him as a political party, or, working on behalf of a (Ron Paul's) party?
Mat Jordan's Green Party group page is seemingly in breach of the content guidelines. But does he constitute or representation of a political party? |
|
My 0.02
Many (maybe most, maybe all) organisations and groups listed in WiserEarth, and in this respect WiserEarth itself, are political organisations, if one abides by this definition from Wikipedia (I do).
A political organisation as distinct from a Political Party is generally a non-partisan body that is established and engaged in the political process in order to bring about or support a particular issue or cause or system. (eg Environmental Organisations are also in most cases Political Organisations which are separate from Political parties in that they do not endorse and run candidates for public office, their membership is open and non-partisan).
The very objectives of WiserEarth are political in this meaning, the original one of the term : engaged in the government of the city. Our city is now the Earth. As far as I am concerned, political parties are organisations among others, and as long as their main objectives are tuned to those of WiserEarth, I don't see the rationale of not allowing them in the directory. As I posted a while ago about changing WE "solutions" to "actions", the important criteria for including organisations is that they should be clear on what they do, where, when and how, as soon as the "why" is consistent with the global WE "why's". |
|
|
Looks to me that "being political" and "doing politics" are two different things? Most of the what WE people do can be categorized as "being political", but not many seems to be "doing politics". An example is people who will do demonstration in the upcoming Copenhagen meeting. That's clearly "being political" but not necessarily "doing politics-as-usual"
I suppose the trouble with politics-as-usual is the difference between claims/promises and actions/realities and that's why even if a political party is clear about their 'why', it remains questionable. That's why it seems the approach taken so far is "better safe than sorry"?
Based on the comments thus far, it seems that we pretty much agree on adding a clause in the guidelines about not using groups for "doing politics-as-usual"? (then we can follow Celeste's idea about contacting the admin and suggesting for more acceptable ways to participate in WiserEarth).
To re-cap, here are some examples again: http://www.wiserearth.org/group/knoxvillegreenparty/ http://www.wiserearth.org/group/Ronpaul2008 http://www.wiserearth.org/group/Boaties
Yes agreed? or no? |
|
Thanks Bowo for summarizing this discussion. I like your pragmatic way of addressing this question and fully agree on the approach you suggest.
|
|
I agree with Camilla & also hear Frank's point about focusing on issues impacting a significant # of active users. Thx Bowo!
|
Dear all,
Just wanted to get some thoughts on whether to allow any presence at all for political parties in WiserEarth.
Our content standards does not allow listing of political parties in the directory. While I am unsure of what the exact reasons were for this, guessing seems easy. However, with the trend of more 'activists' going inside the system (e.g. green party), I wonder if we should allow certain political parties on WE if they fulfill certain criterias.
Today, there's a new WE group created around a green party.
http://www.wiserearth.org/group/knoxvillegreenparty/
... due to the missing guidelines for the use of WiserEarth groups, there's not much to do other than allowing it for the moment.
Any thoughts?
Many thanks,
Bowo