[Nettime-bold] Towards a Democratic Power System (map 4 of 4)

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

Public Policy proposal: A Power System that Serves People

[v.1.3] please forward far and wide. no copyright. bc.2001
(this e-mail is bcc'd to 100+ news organizations worldwide)

The following map of a democratic Electrical Power System
is not limited to its "United Statesian" origins in the
sallow private energy policies that are bringing this
country and the world towards rapid ruin, in the name of
unfettered business, at the expense of everything else.

The public, human interest must be served in public policy,
and it currently is not, in any sense, especially in energy
policy. And this is critical because the future of electronic
media and technologies, such as the Internet, are now being
guided by an industrial philosophy which predetermines the
future course of their development, or lack thereof. And
this only means more war, more pollution, and more waste.

Without a democratic electrical power system, democratic media
& technology, democratic culture cannot be sustained. This is
evident in the loss of free speech online and other independent
attempts to change the power system today, which lead only to
violence and further opposition, not collaboration and innovation.

It is time for public and private citizens, human beings, to
join in the effort to guide our energy future. For all of our
heating, lighting, and power in addition to our access to the
electronic telecommunications of the Internet depends upon a
just, balanced, sustainable, and democratic electrical power
system. And this is exactly the opposite of what exists today.

For example, to question Energy Policy is to poke at the heart
of the national and international Security State. And to become
an enemy, or terrorist, of the status quo industrial order of
things. That means, be quiet, accept global warming, the threat
of rolling blackouts, and the unquestionable need for nuclear
missiles and nuclear missile defenses as the only way to keep
stability in the geopolitical theatre. No questions asked.

Needless to say, neither Energy Policy nor geopolitical relations
need to be this way, and this way alone. Yet this is so because
the subject of Democratic Electrical Power is intimately tied
with special interests in both the public and private sector,
with government officials and industrial executives, as private
individuals, determining the future course for all human beings
based upon only what is possible within a thoroughly broken
bureaucratic democracy, and its power system. To challenge this
status quo, is to challenge not only government and industry,
but also the military, meant to protect and serve these interests.
Instead of the power system serving the people, the common citizen
is left to serve this dysfunctional power system. How can this be?

There is no freedom in this system - only obedience. There is
no dissent - only fear. There is no cooperation - only surveillance.
And until we, as citizens of the world, human beings, join together
and voice our needs, and demand that they be addressed within our
energy policies, will things begin to change. Else, there is only
war, and opposition. Nations are left to fight for the life-blood
of the industrial order, fossil and nuclear fuels. Winner takes all.
And there are no winners in this game. Everyone loses, humanity loses.

It is no coincidence that there is silence in Energy Policy regarding
the strange weather regions around the world are experiencing. Or the
massive inefficiency of the current centralized powerplants, which are
66% inefficient, losing more than 2/3rds of their power to waste heat
along long-distance transmission powerlines. Why then, for example,
would the US Administration focus on further developing this broken
system with 3,000 new powerplants and 35,000 miles of long-distance
powerlines? This outdated conceptualization of electricity originates
in the early 20th century viewing and valuing Energy Policy only in
terms of its ability to create and sustain industrial power and profit,
firstly. And it is this industrial ideology which holds back necessary
strategic changes critical to establishing a sustainable society, and
for saving our fast withering democratic societies.

This is not a political question. It is not about political parties,
one being right, the other wrong. It is not about holding individuals
responsible for the broken energy system we inherited. No one could
predict in the 1930s the unfolding of electrical technologies and its
myriad problems to the extent that today we can communicate globally
at the speed of light via the Internet while at the same time causing
global warming due to the connection between our online computers and
the electrical powerplants run by fossil fuels which run the works.

We now need to begin using our online computers as tools to forge a
common ground, common goals, regardless of politics. As people we need
to be able to discuss what future we want to create, and make it real.

Please contact your public representatives with this message about
changing our Energy Policies to respect both our basic human needs,
and our right to voice these needs without fear of reprisal. Forward
it to your friends and colleagues. And to your power companies and
others whom are interested in working towards change. We can stop
wars for natural resources, and change the geopolitical stage to
one that addresses human needs and rights, and not energy profits
and sustaining an unsustainable and unethical system of power.

Join the non-politically-affiliated Public Energy Network-list,
where the P.E.N. can become, with effort, mightier than the sword.

Let's work for a collaboration with those already in the governmental,
energy, public policy, and economic sectors, and add in other voices,
such as educators, architects, sociologists, citizens, and artists.
If the Electrical Infrastructure- at the base of the Cyberspace of
the online electronic internetwork- is not free, we cannot be.

The PEN-list will focus on organizing diverse groups and viewpoints to
to create a set of Energy Policy goals, common regardless of political
inclination, a win-win scenario, in this paradoxical world.

We as human beings can find our commonality in public Energy Policies
that can be shared by people and governments around the world. What
is good for North America or Europe need not be bad for China, Russia,
Africa, South America, or elsewhere. This is the only way, by finding
common language, and a shared understanding of the situation we are
now facing as a world, to deal proactively, if quite late, to change
the outcome of the Geopolitics of the International Security end-game.

If we can responsibly question authority in groups, not with reason,
but with logic, as reason as a tool of discourse no longer exists,
then we will be able to invert the pyramid of electrical power to
serve people, and not the other way around. And with it, freedom will
reclaim the electrical infrastructure as a human project (both public
& private) which will enable us to build a system of Democratic Power.

Contribute your ideas, and bring your civic sense of duty and support
for others doing the work. And let us try to change the future, today:

Subscribe to the PEN-list (PEN-l: democratic energy policy by and
for humans worldwide) and the Electronetwork-list (Electronetwork-l:
Electromagnetism/Infrastructure/Civilization) at Openflows.org :::

==>>   http://lists.openflows.org/

the Electromagnetic Internetwork
'matter, energy, and in-formation'
http://www.electronetwork.org

brian thomas carroll, facilitator
human@electronetwork.org

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(map 4 of 4, map of democratic power, from the upcoming 'seeing
cyberspace' project from http://www.electronetwork.org ...)

see the other three maps in the design-list e-mail archives:

map of cyberspace:
http://lists1.cac.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0105&L=design-l&F=&S=&P=3058

map of the ecology of cyberspace
http://lists1.cac.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0105&L=design-l&F=&S=&P=3155

map of the industrial power system
http://lists1.cac.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0105&L=design-l&F=&S=&P=3355


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