What is Revolution Seven?
What is Revolution 4?
Revolution 4 advocates for progressive change in four categories: full democracy, human dignity, economic resilience, and environmental sustainability.
The Revolution 4 blog is non-partisan and commits to supporting politicians and organizations that work to achieve full democracy, human dignity, economic resilience, and environmental sustainability. It also calls out people who are working against these values. Progress on these issues can only be made by people acting on them while we generate a chorus of opposition to those who serve entrenched interests at the expense of the general welfare.
We define our key categories as follows:
Full Democracy--The United States is a democracy in only the most limited sense: Americans get to choose periodically from a narrow set of politicians to occupy the offices of government--politicians who represent the interests of economic elites in whose hands most real power resides. While still technically sovereign, the people have a limited voice in the overtly political arena, and almost no voice in other aspects of their lives. Full democracy means that common people have real power in the political system and in their work lives. It embraces the long-term public good for dignity, resilience, and economic sustainability--at the local and national levels--over the short-term, selfish interests of large corporations, the military-industrial-espionage-industrial complex, and other centers of unaccountable power. We associate full democracy with alternative forms of structuring elections, moving beyond elections to direct democracy, campaign finance reform, voter rights, media reform and disaggregation so people can be informed, worker empowerment and co-decision-making, worker-owned businesses, student-centered and directed education, a secular ethic that allows all to participate regardless of religion, political charters that empower people to govern themselves, and challenging the political power of entrenched selfish interests.
Human Dignity--We subscribe to the outlook expressed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stated that "the inherent dignity and. . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." We associate human dignity with full social, political and legal equality regardless of personal characteristics or economic status. War--except in defense against an actual or imminent attack--is an affront to human dignity, as is structural violence that systematically assaults common people. We take a libertarian approach with respect to individual choices, meaning that John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle should be the starting point for all laws governing individual behavior. Similarly, we approach politics with the attitude that two primary purposes of laws should be to ameliorate human suffering and to allow individuals to live to their fullest potential without harming others. Human dignity takes the ideals of equality of opportunity and social justice seriously. We embrace the 2006 U.N. statement in Social Justice in an Open World, that "social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth," without entertaining utopian notions of the absolutely equal distribution of material conditions.
Economic Resilience--The globalized economic system of the United States depends on the smooth interaction of many actors, the viability of extensive supply lines, the ready availability of cheap natural resources, and the prevalence of large corporations employing disempowered laborers. Thus constructed, these systems are remarkably fragile and prone to disruption. In contrast, a resilient economic system is local, with empowered actors and shorter supply lines. It depends on regenerated and renewable resources, and validates both workers and entrepreneurs. Economic resilience is associated with the Transition Town Movement, localism, renewable resources, backyard and community gardening, the sharing movement, worker owned businesses, volunteerism, main street instead of Wall Street, post-carbon societies, economics beyond the growth paradigm, constructive responses to resource depletion, and small-scale capitalism.
Real Security--In 1983 the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations defined sustainability as "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Americans have structured their economic systems, built environments, transportation systems, individual behaviors, and their cultural values in ways that directly undercut environmental sustainability. In other words, we our meeting our current needs by destroying ecosystems and resource sinks so that future generations will not be able to meet their needs. I associate environmental sustainability with combating climate change, transitioning to a post-carbon society, promoting a low-energy lifestyle, cultivating renewable resources, limiting overconsumption, controlling human population, protecting biodiversity, and incentivizing individuals and groups to lessen their ecological footprints.
Revolution 4 advocates for progressive change in four categories: full democracy, human dignity, economic resilience, and environmental sustainability.
The Revolution 4 blog is non-partisan and commits to supporting politicians and organizations that work to achieve full democracy, human dignity, economic resilience, and environmental sustainability. It also calls out people who are working against these values. Progress on these issues can only be made by people acting on them while we generate a chorus of opposition to those who serve entrenched interests at the expense of the general welfare.
We define our key categories as follows:
Full Democracy--The United States is a democracy in only the most limited sense: Americans get to choose periodically from a narrow set of politicians to occupy the offices of government--politicians who represent the interests of economic elites in whose hands most real power resides. While still technically sovereign, the people have a limited voice in the overtly political arena, and almost no voice in other aspects of their lives. Full democracy means that common people have real power in the political system and in their work lives. It embraces the long-term public good for dignity, resilience, and economic sustainability--at the local and national levels--over the short-term, selfish interests of large corporations, the military-industrial-espionage-industrial complex, and other centers of unaccountable power. We associate full democracy with alternative forms of structuring elections, moving beyond elections to direct democracy, campaign finance reform, voter rights, media reform and disaggregation so people can be informed, worker empowerment and co-decision-making, worker-owned businesses, student-centered and directed education, a secular ethic that allows all to participate regardless of religion, political charters that empower people to govern themselves, and challenging the political power of entrenched selfish interests.
Human Dignity--We subscribe to the outlook expressed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stated that "the inherent dignity and. . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world." We associate human dignity with full social, political and legal equality regardless of personal characteristics or economic status. War--except in defense against an actual or imminent attack--is an affront to human dignity, as is structural violence that systematically assaults common people. We take a libertarian approach with respect to individual choices, meaning that John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle should be the starting point for all laws governing individual behavior. Similarly, we approach politics with the attitude that two primary purposes of laws should be to ameliorate human suffering and to allow individuals to live to their fullest potential without harming others. Human dignity takes the ideals of equality of opportunity and social justice seriously. We embrace the 2006 U.N. statement in Social Justice in an Open World, that "social justice may be broadly understood as the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth," without entertaining utopian notions of the absolutely equal distribution of material conditions.
Economic Resilience--The globalized economic system of the United States depends on the smooth interaction of many actors, the viability of extensive supply lines, the ready availability of cheap natural resources, and the prevalence of large corporations employing disempowered laborers. Thus constructed, these systems are remarkably fragile and prone to disruption. In contrast, a resilient economic system is local, with empowered actors and shorter supply lines. It depends on regenerated and renewable resources, and validates both workers and entrepreneurs. Economic resilience is associated with the Transition Town Movement, localism, renewable resources, backyard and community gardening, the sharing movement, worker owned businesses, volunteerism, main street instead of Wall Street, post-carbon societies, economics beyond the growth paradigm, constructive responses to resource depletion, and small-scale capitalism.
Real Security--In 1983 the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations defined sustainability as "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Americans have structured their economic systems, built environments, transportation systems, individual behaviors, and their cultural values in ways that directly undercut environmental sustainability. In other words, we our meeting our current needs by destroying ecosystems and resource sinks so that future generations will not be able to meet their needs. I associate environmental sustainability with combating climate change, transitioning to a post-carbon society, promoting a low-energy lifestyle, cultivating renewable resources, limiting overconsumption, controlling human population, protecting biodiversity, and incentivizing individuals and groups to lessen their ecological footprints.
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