"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom."
- Georg Hegel

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Welcome to the inaugural newsletter of our Global Justice Movement web site. Our organization is dedicated to looking at the structural causes of injustice, and offering what we think are well thought out alternatives to outdated institutions.

We've already received some gentle criticism regarding our name. Quite rightly, we were asked if it was not a little presumptous to use the name of the Movement of Movements for our one specific part of the effort.

To try to live up to the name, we aim to showcase various facets of the the global justice movement, both here and on our website.

The NDP, which holds 14 seats in the Canadian Parliament, are indignant at the methods used by Montreal police this week to control demonstrators who were protesting at a WTO meeting in the city's downtown.

NDP leader Jack Layton is calling for an independent investigation, asserting that freedom of expression rights may have been violated. Layton is also questioning whether the massive arrests on Monday were justified.

Over 200 people were carted away for the violent actions of one to two dozen people. Many were arrested at a 'green area' set aside for peaceful assembly. A doctor treating an injured protestor was one of those later released without charge.

About 500 people took part in the initial demonstration.

Compiled from various news outlets - photo from Davo, Thunderbay IndyMedia

This is a summary of an initiative that could create lasting peace in the Mideast, and elsewhere. The full article has been published in The American Muslim online.

PHASE I: Denationalize the oil fields of Iraq, as a catalyst for building a new "Just Third Way" economy. Convert the Iraqi National Oil Company into a professionally managed limited liability corporation. Issue initial shares at no cost to every oil worker and Iraqi citizen and guarantee them first-class shareholder rights to the profits and voting control of the company. Encourage preferential oil production leases to competitive operating companies that are broadly owned. To lay the foundations for Iraq's future economy, launch projects to be owned by Iraqi citizens, using advanced technologies that produce power and water from sea water and waste. Future government revenues would then come from increased citizen incomes, reducing non-accountable political control by a military or political elite, or by foreign oil interests.

Set up individual share accounts within local banks for each worker and every citizen of Iraq, including those now in exile who return to Iraq. Free, full-dividend payout shares would be distributed equally to these individual accounts, representing the current assets of the denationalized Iraq National Oil Company. These initial shares would be non-transferable for 10 to 20 years, except for inheritance upon death. The tax-sheltered equity accumulation accounts would be given the power to borrow interest-free, non-recourse productive credit on behalf of the shareholders for future share issuances to meet the expansion and modernization needs of the former state-owned oil company, as well as new enterprises, with the debt secured and repaid by the projected dividends on the newly issued shares.

PHASE 2: Facilitate Iraqi establishment of a written constitution that reflects all the rights contained in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, strengthening Article 17 (acknowledging every person's right to own property individually or in association with others). The new Iraqi constitution would include the provision that as a fundamental right of citizenship every citizen is guaranteed access to the social means (i.e., money and interest-free productive credit) of access for acquiring and possessing income-producing property. All tax, credit, property, corporation, insurance, inheritance and related laws should, if necessary, be reconstituted to conform to the constitution and to establish institutions supporting economic democracy and universalization of the right to private property and protection of the rights of property.

Genuine wealth indicators should be constructed from democratic feedback, to supplement the traditional wealth indicator of GDP.

PHASE 3: Restructure the discount power of the central bank in Iraq to create interest-free money for facilitating private-sector growth without inflation, linked to providing more widespread access to capital credit and allocated through local banks and institutions.

PHASE 4: Have the U.S. introduce a resolution into the UN General Assembly to treat Iraq as a "global free trade zone" whose imports and exports would be exempt from all trade barriers and tariffs of other countries. In this way the international community could provide a major catalyst for "Peace Through Justice" in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

Read The American Muslim online article here.

Imagine a world where values mattered

Imagine a world where politicians listened

Imagine a world where the strongest lobby was 'we the people'.

Most people across the world agree that some things desperately need changing. Things like:

- Pollution and environmental destruction
- Mass poverty, hunger, and starvation in an affluent world
- Terrorism, injustice, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction
- The concentration of power and influence in the hands of a few
- Democracy and human rights for some, but not for all
- Global warming
- Destructive, wasteful, and unsustainable economic practices

But what if there was a way for us to pressure our leaders to start solving these global problems in a concerted, unified way - simultaneously, 'all together now'?

Some people think there is.

Vote for a policy, not for a politician or party: adopt the Simultaneous Policy!

The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) is a growing association of citizens world-wide who use their votes in a new, co-ordinated and effective way to drive all nations to co-operate in solving our planetary crisis. Transnational citizen action is vital because global markets and corporations so comprehensively overpower individual nations that no politician dares make the first move to solve global problems for fear of economic competitive disadvantage.

ISPO overcomes this paralysis by bringing all nations to adopt in principle - and then to simultaneously implement - the Simultaneous Policy (SP), a range of democratically selected regulations to bring about economic justice, environmental security and peace around the world.

By adopting SP, ISPO's members pledge to vote in future elections for ANY political party or candidate - within reason - that also adopts SP. With more and more parliamentary seats – and even entire elections - around the world being won or lost on very small margins, citizens pledging to vote for any politician (within reason) presents politicians in all countries with an attractive, yet compelling, "carrot and stick" proposition.

Since SP is only to be implemented simultaneously, there’s absolutely no political risk to politicians who adopt it. Indeed, they can adopt SP while continuing to pursue their existing policy programmes until such time as all nations have adopted and implementation proceeds. But failing to adopt SP could cost them dearly, especially if they’re fighting closely contested elections, for they’ll likely lose to rivals who have adopted SP to attract the SP voting block. So SP’s growing number of adopters – even if relatively few - could make the vital difference between politicians winning or losing their seats, or even an entire election.

SP thus transcends party politics by providing a powerful tool for citizens to drive politicians and governments to deliver the measures our world so desperately needs. With SP, global citizens are replacing destructive competition with fruitful co-operation.

What people from across the political spectrum are saying about SP:

From the political Left:
"Simultaneous Policy is a very stimulating book and by substituting internationalism for globalization, co-operation for competition, humanity for markets and wisdom for materialism you have unlocked a powerhouse for good."

Tony Benn - Former Labour Member of Parliament, UK.

From the political Right:
"The really big issues today now cross national frontiers and individual governments cannot cope with them in isolation. This is where Simultaneous Policy comes in. … [It] is the only way a host of problems can now be solved. Simultaneous Policy is the alternative."

Sir Richard Body - Former Conservative Member of Parliament, UK

From the world's largest and fastest growing political constituency - apathetic voters:
"In the twenty years that I have been afforded a vote, I am unashamed to say I have never used it, my theory was that not to vote was the best way of securing my protest to all or any political parties, as the years have gone on my decision at 18 to adopt this tactic has been fuelled by what is happening in the world. As soon as I had digested your information I signed up to Simultaneous Policy without hesitation and now feel almost compelled to get involved...congratulations."

Mark Davey - Social activist, Halifax, UK.

To adopt SP, click on here.

It's free and takes just a few minutes to cast your vote for a better future.

The second European Social Forum (ESF) will take place from 12th-15th November 2003 in Paris as well as the towns of St Denis, Bobigny ( Seine-Saint-Denis) and Ivry (Val de Marne).

After Florence, ESF is the second continental social forum in Europe following on and in the spirit of the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre.

A place for meeting and discussion for social movements, the ESF is equally a space for the elaboration of alternatives and the strategies for their implementation; because, we believe that another Europe is possible, and that it can play a decisive role in making another world possible.

Click here for details.

At the heart of the Seven Steps to Justice is the urgent need for a new stable, just, global monetary system which addresses poverty and rich-poor divisions; focuses on the real, productive, economy; enables all societies to control their own destiny; ends the exponential increase in debt now threatening to engulf the world; and ends money lent at interest.

Over a period of several years, Canon Peter Challen had been investigating various groups and schools of thought in the endeavour to identify where they stood on a range of important issues. As time went on he was able to see what was, and was not, held in common. Very interestingly, virtually all the groups tended to see the world only from their own relatively narrow perspective but – and it was a very important “but” perhaps unknown to the individual groups, they often had more in common with others than they might suppose.

All of which gives a clue to the nature of the global justice movement and its promise of success if groups and schools co-operate with each other. Without co-operation, the individual groups and schools have little, even no, chance of success. But, in contrast, the chances of success immensely increase with co-operation because so many others have similar elements of policy or belief. The Seven Steps has identified the core issues which can form the basis of co-operation and success.

The book opens by recording the reaction of people of good faith to the events of 11th September 2001. They do not succeed, however, in coming up with a solution. The situation then suddenly changes – a “dirty” bomb has exploded! The explosion focuses minds on the urgent need to develop a new economics, politics and morality. Hearing the global cry for social and economic justice, the people of good faith go on to interpret and enhance contemporary debate taking place at focal points across the world and in the hearts and minds of concerned people everywhere. The result is an extraordinary vision of a universal justice which is wholly practical, radical and new. The justice gives the boldest of moral and intellectual leads for a world desperately in need of leadership.

Such is the book’s huge potential for peacefully revolutionising society that Sir Richard Body has described it as “a testament to politicians aspiring to be statesmen”.

Other endorsers point to its profound sense of justice, its prescience and – a matter of importance to any reader – the brilliant lucidity of its exposition. John Bunzl wrote: “They make simple, readable and understandable subjects which others manage to make complicated and impenetrable.”

Order below, or pester your local librarian to stock it, if this possible in your part of the world.