Life on the road: why can't we get our sh*t together?!
And the need to democratise power & make it accessible to the many to finally address our basic needs!
Dear friends,
Apologies for the delay in sending this blog. I’ve been quite ill and unable to write before. So, this newsletter will be slightly shorter, and I’ll take it back to the basics.
Everywhere, every day, I notice the same issue worldwide. Every day, I talk about the same political topics with people worldwide: the biggest challenges we face are just going unsolved. Climate. Inflation. Housing crisis. And it’s not problematic; it’s tragic! It’s the case from India to Australia, where I’m writing from.
Politicians and political parties fail to address, acknowledge and solve topics on top of everyone’s minds.
🇦🇺 Destination: Australia
A couple of days back, I landed in Melbourne to understand:
How to build a global political party branch in Australia!
learn more about the many new political and democratic initiatives happening in the country, and
explore Australia’s foreign policy on authoritarianism/China.
Whilst in Melbourne, we met with activists, politicians, journalists, and members and asked many questions. However, in this blog, I want to speak about what kept coming up, just like in India.
Climate, especially fossil fuels
I’m sure you’ve read news of bushfires devastating Australia, of oil & gas continuing to harm the environment and of climate protesters being arrested. But do you truly know the size of the problem? “Australia is experiencing higher temperatures, more extreme droughts, fire seasons, floods and extreme weather due to climate change.”
Yet, it’s the world’s third largest fossil fuel exporter, making up 7% of all fossil fuel exports, behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia. As I write this post, the Prime Minister is at the Pacific Islands Forum. All Pacific Islands have been asking Australia to stop building new oil and gas mines to avoid being sunk. Yet, “there are 116 new fossil fuel projects on the Federal Government’s annual Resource & Energy Major Project list.” Countries are fighting for their very survival, and instead of doing anything meaningful to impact change, Australia approves and subsidises new fossil fuel projects. It’s fundamental to ban fossil fuel subsidies. As we describe in the Philosophy of Unity,
“In 2018, 89% of global CO2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry. Even though phasing out fossil fuels is fundamental, their production is heavily subsidised, often more than green energies. While those subsidies are intended to protect consumers, it’s not working and harming the planet. As the International Monetary Fund puts it: “Subsidies have sizable fiscal costs (leading to higher taxes/borrowing or lower spending), promote inefficient allocation of an economy’s resources (hindering growth), encourage pollution (contributing to climate change and premature deaths from local air pollution), and are not well targeted at the poor (primarily benefiting higher income households).
We must ban fossil fuel subsidies for the world to stand a chance to fight the climate crisis. Removing subsidies could cut global CO2 emissions by a third. This revenue gain could be better targeted on green technologies and mitigating the impacts of such a transition. The climate crisis has many culprits, and it’s easy to get lost and have our attention diverted. Individual actions are essential, and we can all do better, but the focus should always be on those that impact it the most. There is no excuse not to tackle urgently and radically the biggest driver of climate change: emissions from fossil fuels.”
Money, especially the cost of living and rental crisis
Rental crises, the cost of living through the roof, you name it, it has happened. In Australia, recent headlines read: “More than 1,600 Australians pushed into homelessness each month as housing crisis deepens.”
We see these trends as unavoidable, but they aren’t. The truth is that too few own too much, and the many don’t have access to wealth or opportunities. Hoarding happens in every realm of society, but it can be stopped with extremely high progressive income taxation, inheritance tax and more to finally redistribute to the bottom.
Regardless of the issue, it often seems like we have short-termism; we need a longer vision and break today’s lack of political vision. Politicians look away from real issues and pretend they are unsolvable. But that’s not the case, and we all know it.
📣 The political corner: why can’t we get our sh*t together & solve fundamental issues?!
I believe it’s linked to who holds power, for how long, and under which influence. As we write in the Philosophy of Unity:
“Power must be democratised as it is too often inherited and hoarded. In short, the few have it; the many lack it. It is also closely linked to wealth: those with wealth too often have too much power, and vice versa.
Those belonging to influential and powerful families or backgrounds have a massive chance to profit from that privilege in their lifetime, making it very hard for newcomers to have the same opportunities. Consequently, power is concentrated in a handful of individuals who went to the same educational institutions or came from families with power centuries ago. For example, recent studies showed that almost all American presidents descended from enslavers. In addition, access to political power still depends on an individual’s wealth or the wealth they can raise for themselves. The best leaders cannot emerge if those with access to easy wealth systematically outspend them. The issue lies not only in the fact that leadership positions are inaccessible but also in how those leaders retain and maintain power. Even within democratic countries, citizens have few ways to make their voices heard between elections. Countries that offer participatory democracy tools are a minority, and the executive often undermines those tools. Ethically, this is wrong: democracy is for all, not the few. Practically, this is utterly stupid: the interests of the many need to be represented, and the few cannot consistently make the best decisions as individuals are fallible. Giving access to power and opportunities to the many always results in better outcomes than when few monopolise everything: leaders’ mistakes in governments can be counterbalanced by the scrutiny of participatory, democratic bodies.
Through Unity, however, we don’t relinquish our democratic spirit at the polling station. Currently, too often, democracy means voting, and a winner takes it all. Through Unity, however, we don’t relinquish our democratic spirit at the polling station but instead come together constantly to do better, collaborate, and share our expertise and time. We innovate democracy to make it fairer, more equitable, more democratic, more accessible, and more participatory. In today’s democracies, you ask, “Who did you vote for?”. Through Unity, you might ask, “Were you selected for last month’s citizen assembly?”. In a United society, democracy must serve and include everyone, not just the few.”
💫 Next up: Sydney
The good news is that I definitely think there is a space for something like Atlas in Australia. We had meetings with many members and talked about how to unite beyond borders starting here, and people want to run for elections and get the power to do so!
Let me know what you think, send me your feedback and ideas, and don’t forget to take action to unite the world.
One way is to join or donate to Atlas, the global political party uniting people worldwide to create a freer, better and more equitable world (click here)!
Cheers,
Colombe