How could we get there?

Great question. I'm thinking out loud when I say that one way is to achieve gd is allowing every citizen of the world to have the choice at birth on if they want to be included in a new paradigm of being a citizen of the planet instead of a specific country. Mots about choice.

In George Monbiot's book "The Age Of Consent" which is probably the most important work in this vein so far, the strategy to birng about a global democratic system hinged on an alliance between the populations of the world and third world governments.

I think the governance issue hinges on us first agreeing upon values and metrics. What is optimal human potential for each human and ecological diversity for our planet? Until we have a cohesive narrative for our species and planet (and potentially Cosmos), and ways to measure our progress in this narrative, we won't have any agreement. I'm working on this piece of the puzzle at http://cdhi-hp.org.

This idea of a coalition of the democracies was broached by Clarence Streit, a NY Times reporter who formerly had the League of Nations beat, in his 1938 best-seller "Union Now". With numerous reprintings, the book inspired Union Now clubs.It is sad that there were so many people in France, the UK, and the US who were so Hitler-friendly or Hitler-neutral (all the same to him) who made an anti-Hitler/Mussolini/Tojo coalition impossible.

For a further source of inspiration, have a squiz at the "Divine Plan" of the Baha'i Faith.

About the same time as Streit's book, Baha'i leader Shoghi Effendi wrote this:
http://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/world-order-bahaullah/#r=wob_en-3

Great topic. A few things need to happen.

1. We need a deep why. A compelling, pan-species threat / enemy, e.g. Hitler, that will certainly oppress / destroy us if we do not unify. I think we have this in climate change / social unrest / mass extinctions. For me this is enough to unify. However, merely extolling the horrific costs of industrialized capitalism is not enough for the whole species, witness the failures of the labor and green movements to unify the species towards a common goal. We need a more holistic and inspiring vision, one that calls us into a larger expression of ourselves, our planet and all of humanity, one that includes the wealthy and corporations, one that transcends, includes, improves and refines everything on our planet today.

AND

1. A picture of what this looks like, the felt experience of what we would achieve through unification, both at the larger species level (political economy) and at the person level (how will this make my life better, vis Maslow's hierarchy).

AND

1. A plan (if only a rough outline today) to get there. What are the levers to pull, the tactics to employ, reforms to advance.

I'm working on these presently, with planetpurpose.org ( http://planetpurpose.org ), a global movement to define the why, the vision and the tactics.

The short of it is that there is Declaration of Purpose, -the why and how we can use purpose discovery tools to improve the human and ecological condition, at every level of human cooperation. There is a book called Purpose Revolution being edited that flushes this out in greater detail, setting the context for personal, political and economic reform. Lastly, there is a movement beginning in August with a 21-day purpose challenge, to engage all of humanity (only eng. speaking at present) in a deeper conversation about purpose through proven purpose discovery exercises.

I have a couple of asks:
1. Join the 21-day challenge to deepen your connection to purpose, and realize its benefits - long, healthy life, better relationships, rewarding career, more just, sustainable, peaceful human presence on Earth.
2. Read the declaration and lmk your thoughts.
2.. Co-author the declaration. I'm seeking 6 volunteers from each region/demo (LatAm, EU, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Youth) to co-evolve. If this is you, or somebody you know, please apply on the site.

Thanks in advance for your time & wisdom!

Brandon

I don't think it's the right approach to build a coalition of people who happen to live in a 'western democratic' nation state (as opposed to those who don't).

My feeling is that we shoud keep our vision at the level of the entire planet, and envision it as a web of human communities.

And, generally speaking, I feel we should de-emphasize everything that has to do with a nation state.

I think any serious effort begins with a compilation and effort to contact the many other groups with similar names and goals to ours around the world, including the various "world federalist" or "Global Citizen" initiatives, and an attempt to establish overarching cooperation between as many of them as possible. At the moment these groups are divided by matters as trivial as whether they communicate VIA email, facebook, loomio or whatever.

Special note should be made of the Campaign For A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. This is the realest, most serious and most advanced effort to achieve meaningful global democracy. Generally I think smaller "start up" groups like this should make efforts to support and advance its efforts.

http://www.unpacampaign.org/ ( http://www.unpacampaign.org/ )