I think people need a mental paradigm shift, we have gotten used to thinking of ourselves as citizens of our city, our region, and our country but political and business leaders don't think this way - fighting globalization is pointless, globalization already happened. Now we have to work for the kind of globalization we want. We have to start thinking of ourselves as citizens of the planet, and realizing that everything that happens everywhere affects us all.
The realities of trade, the environment and nuclear proliferation have made it quasi-suicidal to think any other way - be optimistic though. Wars are fought between politicians, generals, religious leaders and business leaders: There has never been a war between people - a war where the people of country A really truly hated the ordinary citizens of country B - not unless it was achieved through propaganda by the powerful.
As disheartened as I was by the US election on November 3, after the sorryeverybody.com and apologiesaccepted.com appeared, I thought that perhaps there was an opportunity buried in the ruins of the election.
Technology has finally provided us with the option to circumnavigate political leadership and conduct international relations ourselves. As the old rally chant goes 'the people, united, will never be defeated'. If we can get together and talk, free of professional lobbyists, wealthy vested interests, and traditional rivalries, if we can find ways among ourselves to achieve understanding, peace, security, a healthy environment, economic justice, and numerous other worthy goals then perhaps things can start to get better for everyone. If we can find these solutions, keep abreast of what is being done around the world to achieve them, and work together nationally and internationally to help one another, then we can begin to change the dynamic of how traditional politics works.
So, with this goal in mind, I began going through, one at a time, each of the thousands of messages posted on the two sites listed above. I sent email to those who included any contact information and then began contacting those I could find of like mind. and with those people the idea has found resonance. The resulting listserv and has members from across the US (including sorryeverybody.com founder James Zetlen) and Canada as well as members from the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands (including appologiesaccepted.com founder Thijs Leydens), Austria, Morocco, Spain, Brazil, Columbia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Egypt, China and Singapore more people in more places are joining everyday.
I would humbly invite everyone who reads this not only to join us, but to pass this message along to others. The group can currently be found at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EarthU/ or you can join by sending an email to EarthU-subscribe@yahoogroups.com