These notes are posted at http://globaltable.org.uk/wp/, to contribute background information for associates of the Global Table and its offspring, the Open Research Group. This weekly forum is a persistent focal point for many who cannot often get to London but are encouraged in bold initiatives by association and collaboration. We all continue to foster the public sense of the search for inclusive justice. We are trying to sense the richness of our networking without overburdening with detail. We collaborate in order that action may flow BOTH in specified targeted initiatives AND in acknowledgement of our shared commitment to ending exploitation – usury – now exponentially rampant, plus the theft of the Commons and Institutional Drag!  Contact the Open Research Group – info@globaltable.org.uk 

Forthcoming Events: www.globaltable.org.uk/wp/forthcoming-events

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FROM ASSOCIATES AT THEIR POINTS OF WITNESS:
the stream is gathering force:

“Lessons in life will be repeated until they are learned.”

“The world desperately needs people, free of cultural illusions, who are undertaking a dedicated exploration of true reality, not just to know the material nature of things, but also to know the very Source of everything that exists.” TK

Guardian Review: THE NEXT LEFT – Ben Tarnoff: Away from Brexit and trump Headlines, the revival of socialism in the UK and US remains striking. Can Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders make it count? The_Next_Left.
Peter Challen comments: This article attached has valuable comparisons and indications of the difference between bold palliatives and a radical curative. Worth noting our ICUK bid to go deeper into Democracy.

Brian Wills also came across the following via Common Dreams, the alternative news feed from the USA: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/12/10/sanders-institutes-gathering-was-about-saving-world-it-was-not-about-bernie-sanders

Crimes Against the Earth – Andrew Glickson —Possessed by a conscious fear of death, craving a god-like immortality and omniscience, Homo developed the absurd faculty to simultaneously create and destroy, culminating with the demise of the atmospheric conditions that allowed its flourishing in the first place. The biological root factors which underlie the transformation of tribal warriors into button-pushing automatons capable of triggering global warming or a nuclear winter remain inexplicable: https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/12/14/crimes-against-the-earth/ 14-12-18 Patrice de Bergeracpas

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COMMONS and CO-OPERATIVE SOCIALISM – this non-hierarchical alternative to capitalism and totalitarianism, continues to campaign for a non-usurious, fair-world approach to the economy, taking forward ideas promoted by CCMJ and The Spirit Level – for background see the papers section of www.interestfreemoney.org.  The campaign website – in development – includes videos by John Courtneidge explaining the proposal:  http://www.co-operativesocialism.org • See latest update on the Co-operative Sector: http://www.letslink.org/forum/commons-and-co-operatives-update

FREE CRITICAL THINKING: meets Tuesdays  to its own timetable – see Events Listing at The London School of Mosaic in the Basement Studio (down ramp), 73-96 Ludham, Southampton Road, Lismore Circus, London, NW5 4SF (Gospel Oak overground /Belsize Park tube): http://www.freecriticalthinking.org
• Critical Thinking’s scope: http://freecriticalthinking.org/9-general/1518-hierarchy-and-the-political-economy – in pithy summary: “Hierarchy, theft of the Commons and Usury are the fundamental drivers of poverty, wars, environmental destruction and the enslavement of humanity. Once we understand that, we’re on the road to recovering humanity.”  See Clive Menzies’ paper in the Islamic Economics Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Reform Proposals in the Monetary System for Attaining Global Economic Stability: http://iei.kau.edu.sa/Files/121/Files/153872_30-02-09-Clive-3.pdf.
• Link to Co-Creative Learning: https://cocreativelearning.org • Daily Pickings: December 2018: Mon 10th: Strategy for resistance • Tue 11th: Paris resists usury • Wed 12th: Paris called. They want their money back • Thu 13th: Tale of two cities • Fri 14th: Brexit distraction • Sat 15th: Slumbering power awakes • Sun 16th: Bilderberg 20 years ago.

*INDEPENDENT CONSTITUTIONALISTS UK (ICUK): recognises the necessity of dealing with BOTH the need for many urgent palliatives within a dying system, AND a systemic curative re-design by participative democratic application of an integrated social-political-economy of trusteeship in the co-evolution of planet earth. It concentrates on the Meta-Narrative within which the UK could shape all its independent but mutually accountable communities. Curative change to the political-economy like “poetry happens in two stages, like sculpting; first the imagination, then the chisel.” The specific pursuit of an integral model for public policy originated at the London Global Table and is now pursued as the emergence of ‘A PEOPLE’S SOCIAL-POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF TRUSTEESHIP IN THE CO-EVOLUTION OF PLANET EARTH.’ The CURATIVE structural change advocated in the ICUK’s Declaration of Purpose is set within PRINCIPLED-PRAGMATISM. It provides an integrated, and therefore multi-disciplinary, context for human response-ability. All specialist Disciplines must be seen to make their contribution to this dramatic description of cognitive behavioural therapy applied to public policy and purpose.” MP [For those using philosophical and theological studies as an aid, the curative represents a modern perception of bringing the Kin[g]dom into all aspects and language of public policy. ⁴].  An update of its website is now evolving: www.icuk.life – which later became: www.ic-uk.co.uk. An informal Strategy Forum meets in central London every Wednesday between 12 and 2pm – you are invited to contact Peter Challen – peterchallen@gmail.com – for latest developments and meeting venue.

LETSlink is working on much-needed national and regional hubs to enable dedicated training for individual LETS groups. Newly online groups are being encouraged to work on a county-wide basis.  The main website sets out theory and enables enquirers to connect with local groups:  http://www.letslinkuk.net/uk-map.htm. See PP presentation – Local Exchange Trading Schemes: Integrated Community Currency Model – ICCmodel. See record of origin of LETS in the UK via a paper by David Weston, “Green Economics: The Community Use of Currency,” paper presented at The Other Economic Summit at the 1984 TOES Conference as recorded by Paul Ekins in “The Living Economy: A New Economics in the Making”, 1986.  See LETSlink Forum.  

LONDON COMMUNALISTS, coordinated by John McCone, are engaged in discovering a politics of citizenship based on shared public concern. See notes on Communalism based on Murray Bookchin’s: “The Next Revolution” – CommunalismProject00-A4 – They meet 6pm-8pm on the third Monday of each month in the reading room of 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH – dates on the Events page. See John McCone’s written evidence on Land Value Capture submitted to the Housing and Communities and Local Government Committee. Feedback welcomed to John McCone.

POSITIVE MONEY has branches all over the UK to campaign for debt-free issuance of currency, which are often listed on our Events page. Positive Money is the civil society organisation fighting for a banking system that works for people:  www.positivemoney.org • Recent Articles: The History and Future of QE/  • Bank of England on Climate Risk  • Worrying New Data on War on Cash  • Results of Swiss Referendum on Sovereign Money • Local Groups • see also Forthcoming Events

Further Reports are invited from our associates in the quest for inclusive justice to stir our awareness and effect change through both palliative and curative means.

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PUBLICATIONS & BLOGS – reviews always welcomed:-

RENEGADE INC: Monday 17th December 2018: Resilient cities: As more and more people migrate into cities around the world they are demanding more of their urban spaces. No longer are city dwellers happy with the anti-human concrete jungles. They want sustainable, liveable, environmentally-aware cities that provide quality of life. So, what does the city of the future look like, and, how do we update leadership so these new spaces can be born? Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by the founder of Happy City, Liz Zeidler, and the co-founder of Re-powering London, Agamemnon Otero: https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/446657-city-dwellers-urban-space/

THE KEISER REPORT: Tuesday 18th December 2018: Canceling debt to avoid economic crisis (E1320): In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss David Graeber’s thought piece about the #GiletsJaunes and how the fact that intellectuals have failed to understand it proves we are living in revolutionary times. Graeber notes, as Keiser Report had only last month, that Cantillon effect has created the mass disparity in wealth against which those who must pay for this disparity are rising up. In the second half, Max interviews Dr. Michael Hudson, the author of the new book “… and forgive them their debts”, about the history of debt forgiveness. Hudson explains that the rulers of Byzantium wiped out the savings of rich people by forgiving debts because canceling debts does not cause economic crises but prevents them: https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/446750-yellow-vest-debt-crisis/

BBC Radio 4: Desert Island Discs: Mariana Mazzucato, economist, is interviewed by Lauren Laverne: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001mtb • https://marianamazzucato.com/

BBC 2: The Big Short: Oscar-winning drama based on real experiences featured in Michael Lewis’ bestseller. Defying market reasoning, a few shrewd but oddball fund managers and traders start betting against the US mortgage system’s stability. They are predicting (and counting on) its collapse, but the unforeseen consequences prove devastating: 122 minutes: contains strong language, available until 14/1/2019: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06vq3yn/the-big-short?suggid=b06vq3yn