Ancil Nance Page 18 RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 This new political economy must root in the physical reality of the biosphere if it is not to become just one more form of abstracted state power. would not be brick walls of separation, but permeable tissues of interaction much like the walls of a living cell. Each individual would have mulhple levels of belonging. 1 see a seven-level model: — Neighborhood — The immediate place you live, under 5,000 people. For example, my neighborhood is the Thurman-Vaughn section of Northwest Portland. — Community — A larger area, easily accessible, that perhaps has no more than 25,000 people. For me, this is Northwest Portland. • — Region — Something on the level of current cities or counties. My region is Portland. — Watershed — The basic biological support area for the smaller levels, the level of basic food and energy self- sufficiency. 1 live in the Willamette Valley Watershed. — Basin — The major river drainage on which you live. At this level, larger matters regarding water, resources and production could be coordinated. I live in the Columbia River Basin. — Conference — A council of river basins that would work out cooperative arrangements and coordinate relations in a section of the continent. My conference would be The West. — Continent — North America. At this level would be provision for common defense (real conHnental defense, not messing around everywhere in the world). Also at this level would be some means to channel income from richer places to poorer ones, so divisions of wealth and poverty would not be perpetuated. A continental compact of human rights would provide basic protection to all peoples. Past these seven levels, one might wish to add an eighth — Planet Earth. Some form of planetary order is necessary. A decentralized confederahon of self-governing continental communities is much preferable to a highly centralized world government, and much more likely to happen. Values of respect for diversity and sharing of natural abundance could form the basis of a peaceful North America and a peaceful world. In my own musings, I see a North America where many cultures and races live side by side in harmony, no longer an overgrown European country, but something completely its own, an interaction of Hispanic, African, Asian, native and Caucasian peoples, a richness of synergy and creation. In this North America, difference would not be regarded as a threat to be resolved through submergence into some monolithic melting pot. Instead, it would be seen as evolutionary growth expression of the diversity of nature. A new North America would seek a new kind of greatness and different forms of common endeavor and achievement. In our time, greatness and achievement is almost always defined by abstract economic statistics or displays of power (aircraft carriers, space shuttles). Yet the accumulation of power and wealth is an empty, soul- deadening game. The threat of war that hangs over us tells us that it is worse than empty. It is destructive and contrary to reason, wisdom and common sense. We need more sustainable and more joyful criteria for success, more satisfying and real modes of common effort. We need criteria and commonalities that derive from nurture rather than compehtion for power. The greamess of a new North America would not be measured by the size of its military or the growth of the gross national product, but the level of human growth and development and the quality of care for the land. We would seek to create beauty rather than accrue fortunes. The success of one would not mean the failure of another for all could succeed alike, and all would benefit from the blossoming loveliness around them. The distance between this vision and our reality should not discourage us. We travel the road in many small and sometimes mimdane steps. Some of us run for office. Some plant gardens. Some write magazine articles. Some simply love their neighbors. It is all part of something we feel, a direction sensed but not completely understood. Let us realize that this work, this creation of a peaceful world, is a lifetime project, a purpose that can inform and give vitality to living. Let our visions be broad enough, high enough, deep enough and long enough to see us through and give us the strength to face the vast challenge of the years ahead, the challenge of making peace. □□
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz