MATTERS IN THE AIR: April 27th 2016: in which all may share as our networking prospers the cause of inclusive justice… visit the website to view the evolving agenda for the next meeting: http://www.globaltable.org.uk/WP.

10-12 INFORMAL ICUK AGENDA – open, but attentive to that initiative:

12-2 GLOBAL TABLE AND ITS ‘MATTERS IN THE AIR’ on issues raised in our network. Please make your comments or raise questions on any of these. We are trying to sense the richness of our networking without  overburdening with detail.

Welcome to our second Canadian associate  this year – Tony Crawford
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REPORTS: always invited our associates in the quest for inclusive justice. Then a discussion: Those who can’t join us on a Wednesday – send us your comments and reports of your action.

An associate in New Zealand comments: Trade unions are great, and I admire the work they do. In the wider scheme of things, though, they are living in the past, when they could stop production to gain leverage.  These days business has options : automation is replacing workers anyway so labour has little leverage.  One or other “Trade Union Bill” won’t change that one iota.  So, pending fundamental financial/monetary reform, the way forward is a universal basic (or citizens) income that at least gives people some choices in relation to earned income in the medium term.  While a “cost-free” neutral basic income that reflects the current income structure is entirely feasible, in the long run it seems to me that the productive capacity of automation itself has to be taxed if further concentration of wealth and income is to be avoided.   Lowell Manning

A SHARING WORLD COMMUNITY – The civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander is one of the people who is waking us up to history we don’t remember, and structures most of us can’t fathom intending to create. She calls the punitive culture that has emerged the “new Jim Crow,” (http://onbeing.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c4ce343e5cb83e8b16dffbf08&id=e0f65c1bca&e=4f397e7c74) and is making it visible in the name of a fierce hope and belief in our collective capacity to engender the transformation to which this moment is calling.  ALSO ON THIS THEME http://www.stwr.org/  and http://www.DiEM25.org

Compass: see draft Strategy Paper: http://www.compassonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Compass-Draft-Strategy-Building-the-Alternative_final.pdf. At the end of this are listed some questions for us to respond to: 1. Is this shift from immediate concerns to more structural change right? 2. Are we proposing to do it in the right way? 3. Are we proposing to do it around the right issues?  Who else should we be working with? 4. What can you do to help? and DiEM25, the European Movement for Democracy with which we are seeking dialogue and to which we now subscribe.

George Monbiot: writing in the Guardian: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative? George Monbiot’s: How Did We Get into This Mess? is published this month by Verso (see details at foot of article). Reviews welcomed…

Neil Faulkner, writing in Red Pepper argues that the biggest barrier to Jeremy Corbyn’s rational economic policy is the huge profits the super-rich are making from an irrational one: Corbynomics can work – once you know that economics is never ‘neutral’

Richard Murphy: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/04/18/arguing-about-4300-entirely-misses-the-point-in-the-referndum-campaign/

Steven Walsh writes in the Guardian about Hull City Council’s new Community Currency: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/22/hullcoin-bitcoin-volunteers-new-way-pay

NEW WEBSITE! Quantitative Easing for the People: http://www.qe4people.eu.

Trusteeship studies.   See ‘Matters in the Air’ for April 20th on how we are developing our ability to articulate the  responsibility we bear – references needed here, or in  original article

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EVENTS : see: http://globaltable.org.uk/wp/forthcoming-events

The planned venue for the Annual Appraisal Meeting of CCMJ on May 14th has been cancelled, however, watch this space for an alternative venue.  Meanwhile, the appraisal is gathering momentum in e-mails, a pre-meeting on 4th May at 4pm is being planned, and a report will be sent in mid-May with some valuable developments. Let us know if you wish to be involved, or wish to send your appraisal from your point of participation to me – noting first the three modes of our activity at the foot of this weekly notice.

Annual Justice & Peace Conference 15 – 17 July 2016 “Justice, Power and Responsibility:
How Can Democracy Work for the Common Good?” *** CONFERENCE NOW BOOKING *** Booking forms from NJPN, 39 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1BX  020 7901 4864admin@justice-and-peace.org.uk or download here Some assistance may be possible for families.   Please contact NJPN to discuss.