My Dream

May 3, 2008 -- This is a continuation of an earlier article, "Beware: Change is Coming!"  It's time to stop reading and start talking to our friends, neighbors, and family. We now know enough to see the big picture. Time is running out.

 I don't know if people have enough strength, wisdom, and interest to build a massive grassroots movement in order to defend their freedom, their rights, and their lives. This would require a great deal of solidarity, time, hard work, and coordination. What I see around is rather discouraging. But I believe that promoting and preserving a culture of liberty and humanitarian values within small groups of people and within families will work as seeds for a better future. When the time is right, the seeds will grow branches and deliver fruits.

My greatest worry is that the majority will buy into an emotionally loaded manipulation without any realistic ability to determine the outcomes. In such times, it is hard to know who is calling the shots and who can be trusted. The only way around it is a territorial organization.

It is simple and we have the right to do it. We have the right to self-determination.
 
Here is how it went in my dream last night:

The first step is to boycott official elections. This can be done; nobody can be forced to vote.

We need to elect our representatives in our own neighborhoods. It is extremely important to elect people that we know well. There will be many eloquent and brilliant candidates and advisers. If you don't know them, don't listen. They should run in their own neighborhoods.

Elected grassroots representatives will then select their delegates to the town councils. Town councils will elect regional councils, and so on. We will act peacefully and avoid confrontation. We will use our right to organize and to associate, parallel to official structures.

When the national council is chosen, the people will be strong enough to confront the government and any lobby, no matter how large and wealthy. We will have the means and the structure in place to win the official elections in a fully democratic way.

Once in office, we will be vulnerable to corruption. This will be the most difficult thing to control. It is absolutely necessary that those who elected their representatives have means to recall them. Checks and mechanisms must be in place to monitor and correct our representatives at each level of government.

Lobbies and other groups of interest will have no place in this system. Each citizen of required age will have one vote. This will be a system run by the people.

We need to reclaim our country.

We need to reclaim our land, our resources, our markets, our banks, our national treasures, and our media.

We need to reclaim education for the quality of life, not as a factory of workforce. Adults may not be equal. Some work harder than others, some are smarter than others, some are richer than others. But all children deserve equal chances and equal start in life.

We need to reclaim health care for all. The right to life and health must be protected.

We need to reclaim our families, our religions, and our privacy. The state and business have no place in our homes, in our families, and in our spiritual life.

We need to reclaim human rights and our freedoms. A selection of most important human rights should be published and distributed to all households, so that people know what rights they have.

We need to learn to share, so that all people on Earth can live with dignity and security. We are one family. Unless we recognize this simple truth, there will be no peace. We need to conduct ourselves and govern our affairs accordingly.

We need to learn to respect Mother Nature. We are part of it and we cannot survive without a healthy environment.

We need to find effective mechanisms and effective ways to keep in check the exploding global population.

We need to make sure that our military has only one mandate - to defend our territory.

We need to make sure that our law and order agencies serve the people in our communities by protecting human rights, securing peace, and preventing crime.

We need to make sure that businesses and corporations have no political power and fairly contribute to the society in return for access to our resources and our markets.

We will have to avoid confrontation and clear the way to the future. For this reason, a political amnesty will have to be offered and a verification based on a declaration of loyalty, will be conducted. This will reduce the resistance on the part of those who feel threatened by change. The country will need the knowledge, the skills, and the experience of its bureaucracy, and its business leaders.

This is where my dream ended. I am not sure what country I was dreaming about but I hope that you get the picture.

Lech Biegalski is one of the original 108 members of the first National Council of the "Solidarity" movement in Poland. He was also a member of the Initiating Committee and a chairman of one of the original "Solidarity" regions. On December 13, 1981, he avoided internment and continued independent publishing work in hiding until the end of Martial law in 1983. Currently, he lives in Canada and publishes the Canada Watch [http://canadawatch.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1]