Welcome to World 5.0

And welcome to my blog on my favorite idea. This first entry is to intended to help you get your head and heart wrapped around this crazy notion of World 5.0 – that this moment is all that exists, and that the most valuable and entertaining way to spend it is in Love.

I stumbled upon the notion of World5 in August of 2004, when I realized that the idea of an operating system could be applied to culture, and that we’ve had generally four ages in our cultural past. Later I discovered that each age had a technology level that mirrored the culture and that new technology jumps created new ages. More on that in the upcoming book.

But as I more and more pondered the core of this marvelous idea, I found it intimately connected with my personal journey to find the truth of our nature and our lives here on Earth. Evolving bodies with an Eternal Spark comes close. That spark is Love, and we can grow into it. Love, which is only truly found in the absence of fear. More startling in the context of our world4 culture, is that I found, as I find still, that we commune with Eternal Awareness much more clearly when our minds are without thoughts. Peace.

And so it was and so it continues that discerning the truth of our Reality is tremendously freeing. We more easily let go the hurts of the past and apprehension for the future. We more and more feel the power of Love in This Moment. We no longer fear future pain or toil, as we let the flow of Now take us.

So, we start with a complete shift in our perception of reality. There’s a tendency to assume if God is everywhere in space, then Eternal Awareness must exist everywhere in time, and past and future are as valuable as This Moment. But that is wrong. God, Eternal Awareness, exists only Now. This Moment leaves the past behind like so much dissipating energy, and the energy of Now shapes the future. We flow through time, we Live Here.

The human species is just now beginning to ride the wave of a new technological breakthrough, the Internet, or the InterWeb as I prefer. The farther implications of this include the prospect of Digital Awareness, neither male or female, consciousness that does not face the prospect of death. Imagine that.

Without today’s InterWeb World5 could not come into being. I remind you the term stems from the idea of an operating system. And the communication, research and repository aspects of the InterWeb are required for the sort of movement we seek.

The ramifications of our InterWeb are already sufficient to provide the toolkit for a complete restructuring of our laws, food production, energy generation, health and education infrastructure – all our systems. There is another fabulous mechanism for doing the same which falls under the name of localism. Localism and the InterWeb are the two greatest keys to transforming our culture to one that embraces health and peace.

What has been the constant throughout our long history is the animal tendency toward power and control. In our past this has played out as elitism. In more modern times, this elitism shows itself as corporatism or militarism, but in essence they are the same impulse.

World5 rejects any value to such motives or agendas, recognizing that only in integrity can we find Love. Indeed, one can argue that integrity is the one requirement of Love. We can talk all the bullshit we like, but it is in learning to be impeccable, in being responsible, in keeping our word, that we create the space for Love. Love will not be found when we do not honor ourselves or others, as such behavior in inconsistent with the nature of Love.

Let’s say that again. Love cannot be found in fear. And Love is very clearly right Here, for those peaceful enough to be with Eternal Awareness and each other. All very entertaining.

A Culture of Bullshit

The inimitable George Carlin, in one of his last stand-up routines, had the theme, "It’s bullshit, and it’s bad for you." So true in our world today. The bullshit and the bad. The source of both is the money. You can always follow the money. And where does the money lead? To those that have far and away the most: global corporations and their well-heeled controllers, uber-rich families, the elites of the world who have known nothing else, the Goldmans, the Rothschilds, the Saudi Royal Family, and any number of collaborators and government "servants" who share their misplaced priorities.

At every turn in our lives, as American and global citizens, we see the pattern of bullshit being shoved down our collective throats repeat itself endlessly. Recent events like the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, the feeble attempt at healthcare reform, and the 2008 Financial Collapse are just the most striking current examples in this parade of bullshit.

It’s an old parade. Our founding fathers used the fear of slaves rising up against their owners in their push for a new republic. They similarly demonized the Red Man to justify their atrocities and aggression against these indigenous Americans. They wanted only property owners to vote, giving the vote to "all white males" only because they needed to increase the tepid support for the revolution. And these were the good guys.

It’s not been much better in other places or at other times. It’s the most repeated story in human history – the powerful abusing those with less power, taking more than their share, destroying the planet for their whim, and squeezing we, the people in every form of shake-down to maintain this corrupt and unjust system. And then some sort of justification based on bullshit. What’s changed today is scope.

Just as there has always been the unscrupulous, there have been those who call them out. The Thomas Paine types, most recently emulated by the marvelous Howard Zinn, who points out in his "A People’s History of the United States" just how our government has consistently sided with the powerful, and the elite. And this while giving the citizenry bullshit in the form of "PR" or public relations, another name for the propaganda machine developed in the 1930s and 1040s. Indeed, the term public relations was invented just for U.S. government elitist purposes.

And curiously, just as honest voices have been shut out from corporate media [television and right-wing radio], the Internet has provided a new outlet for viewpoints that deviate from the corporate mantra of American Exceptionalism. You can google or wiki American Exceptionalism for a more detailed understanding of the term, but to be succinct: It’s bullshit and it’s bad for you.

One part of this notion is that America, due to [presumably] some unfailing dedication to human health and ecological soundness, gets to set the military and economic agenda for the whole world. Especially since WWII, our government has become the main vehicle for the elitist agenda, and there is no interest in noble, life-sustaining goals, except as PR. So we invade, we build and maintain bases, we tout Shock Doctrine Economics, and we continue to destroy our planet. We, as a country, exhibit every characteristic of Empire, and yet the vast majority of American citizens find that idea completely off base. That’s the effectiveness of bullshit in our culture.

Most American people are upside down with the truth. Our country is a democracy in name only, with our political system so infected with corporate dollars there’s no hope for the citizen agenda. We have a two party plutocracy, one nearly as infected by elitism as the other. As our friends at Cyrano’s Journal Online maintain, "If voting could really change things, it would be illegal." That’s why we believe we citizens need to force the issue – rise up and demand a rewrite to the U.S. Constitution based on what we know today. Corporations are not people. CEOs are not overlords. Communities have rights too.

Which brings us to the other part of American Exceptionalism, this notion of individual rights superceding community rights. Much of the Tea Party mentality supports this notion, including the suddenly infamous Rand Paul. But it would seem that this is due to the success of the propaganda machine as opposed to a real threat to individual liberties, such as those that occur with telephone wiretaps and database tracking of individuals. The propaganda machine has been so effective we rail against the constraints of community while barely noticing the end of Habeas Corpus in the United States.

Sadly, Tea Party concerns are often bogus, mimicking the talking points of right-wing radio. Sadly, many seem to lack the ability to discern truth, taking the less-accurate route of chanting slogans. Sadly, most Tea Party proponents do not understand how they undermine their own best interests with their mantras. "Keep your governments hands off my Medicare" is one of striking irony.

Just as an individual cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater because of obvious community issues, a corporation should not be allowed to treat workers or the environment badly for a few more dollars in profit. The stories of ruined lives and ruined ecologies are endless, consistent and one with the pattern of elitist control mentioned at the beginning of this article. U.S. dependence on oil, mountaintop removal mining, mining waste, deforestation and desertification, child labor and sex slaves, Palistine, global warming, and endlessly on…

Bill Maher recently commented that Al Queda is not nearly as effective at destroying America as Wall Street and BP. What? Could the whole threat of terrorism be bullshit too? OMG!!!

It’s bullshit and it’s bad for you. You want to start reducing the level of bullshit in your life? Find clarity in nature, find discernment in your forgiving, quieted mind, turn off the propaganda machine in your living room, and start with some positive behavior, like boycotting BP corporation and joining the World5 movement. After all, we move from Here.

The World Is A Ghetto

The utter failure of our current systems, whether energy and food production, finance, healthcare, or the war machine, creates a stench that permeates our lives in every corner. Our quality of life is threatened at every turn, whether it’s trying to keep oneself employed, keep a home that’s lost substantial value, keep healthcare while being ripped off, or seeing the death, destruction and waste from U.S. incursions in Iraq, Afganistan and wherever else "our leaders" choose to attack. Our planet is ruled by money, and its concentration among a handful of elites has left the rest of us impoverished.

This is not a new phenomenon. Historically there has always been a large class of paupers. The ‘great experiment’ of the United States did create a middle class, unprecedented in its size and scope from previous cultures. As Howard Zinn described, this middle class became ‘the guards’, protecting the wealthy elites from the rebellions of the impoverished and working poor. What’s changed recently is that this very middle class is now threatened by the rampant greed of the elite class.

The decisions of those with and in power have neglected the communities and environments they exist within for too long. The brutal disregard for the common good is evidenced by just about every global corporation, especially if they’re directly involved with energy, food, money, healthcare, media or war.

The dramatic case-in-point right now is oil gushing out of a 21" hole in the ocean floor 50 miles from New Orleans. The absolute greed of BP was such that it blinded them from using procedures that could have easily prevented this disaster and protected the company’s fortunes, now at risk as their stock value plummets. But the damage is [being] done, and we’ll be dealing with it for a generation, at the least. And our Earth is now the poorer for all the richness of the gulf ecosystem that is lost.

But is this unmitigated disaster unique? Can we look at our world and say, like Kentucky Senatorial Candidate Rand Paul, "accidents happen" as though that’s the end of the story? Pick a problem area – global warming, violence and terrorism, crime, starvation, frankenfoods, community decline, etc. Pick a continent – deforestation, pollution, habitat loss, species extinction, soil depletion, unbridled corporate growth, etc. Pick a people – Asians, Indonisians, Europeans, Africans, Native, African and Euro Americans, etc – we’re all under duress.

Our world has been dominated by Industrial Capitalism for over two hundred years. As Industrialism has morphed into globalism, it’s flaws and failures have become similarly scaled. Government, the supposed bastion of defense against the worst excesses of corporations, is instead a bribed and willing accomplice to such bloated industry. Do not Haliburton, General Dynamics and the company formerly known as Blackwater whisper policy requests to the U.S. Government? Do they not demand more drones, more guns, more killing to keep themselves in luxury? Is there any other reason we go to war when police action would be far more effective in fighting the current straw man, ‘terrorists’? Blatant greed with utter disregard for citizens and ecologies is their operating system There is no other explanation for the state of our world today.

These are long-standing institutions and their attitudes, policies and behaviors will not be willingly changed. Notwithstanding, the elitists, their culture and their methodology are quickly becoming dinosaurs, not yet aware of the sea change going on in our culture.

The Walmarts, the ExxonMobils, the General Electrics, the Haliburtons – they and their ilk must change or die. BP has created the tipping point with the horrific decision-making that led to the gulf gusher, and the equally horrific decisions in responding to this gusher. This situation will not blow over like so many ‘accidents’ in the past. This is too big, too many lives are effected, and the damage to the gulf ecosystem is too enormous. Unless BP does a quick 180degree turn away from their attitude and approach so far, they will bankrupt.

The good news is we are not helpless. Our purchasing decisions impact the situation. We can boycott BP and other offending corporations. We can support emerging industries like organic foods, green buildings, public transit and renewable energies, aiding the transformation. And most importantly, we can migrate our energies toward local energy and food production. To the extent that we strengthen our local communities and meet our needs on the local level, we undermine the model of corporate greed and control that we’ve been witnessing for the last 30 years.

World 5.0. It’s a new way to talk about our common problems. A new way to think about challenges and how to face them. You can be liberal or conservative and still love integrity. You can be Muslim or Jew and still love justice. You can be businessman or environmentalist and still love balance. You can be anyone and still love Love. We have to find our common ground, our areas of common interest, and remove the corporate and governmental obstacles to pursuing those interests. If not now when, if not us who then?

A New Beginning | World 5.0

Greetings Friends and Citizens,

This is a time of awakening. Something new is in the air. To quote songwriter Joni Mitchell, “Maybe it’s the time of year, or maybe it’s the time of man…” I’ll go with the latter, in spite of the deficiencies in using the word ‘man’ when one means ‘humans.’

It’s no wonder that a protest song [Woodstock] from the 1960’s seem to resonate. Just as the awareness of so many injustices came to light then, awareness of the injustices caused by corporate elitism and corrupt government is now at an all-time high. Then it was the grievances of minorities who couldn’t vote and women not allowed to work outside the home. Of young men being drafted to fight an useless war [Vietnam]. The grievances of the poor, and those whose air or water were polluted by some uncaring corporate interest.

Now minorities can vote, though they are still intimidated and treated poorly. Women can work, just not for the same wage as a man. The U.S. Government now mostly relies on mercenaries, as young men drafted for stupid wars tend to have an attitude problem. And now, along with the host of pollutive practices and polluted places, our financial system has become utterly polluted as well. From the perspective of a citiizen, we’re having our wealth stolen through unfair taxes and unfair policies due to the kleptocracy we now live under. The uber-rich have stolen the wealth of the middle class, using the vehicle of corrupt government.

Okay, so that’s not the new beginning part.

The new beginning is World 5.0, our new operating system, based on the eternal values of Integrity, Justice and Balance. Our goal is restore community and ecology, which we can only do by reconstituting government to be the honest mediator between community and corporate interests. So long as our government is bought off by corporations we have no chance. We also require a healthy Return On Investment [ROI] for our tax dollars, the exact opposite of what we get today.

Ronald Reagan famously said ‘government is the problem,’ which became a conservative mantra. Except that Mr. Reagan omitted one critical word – bad. Bad government is indeed the problem, and it’s as bad today as it’s ever been. We intend to fix that.

Another flagrant abuse of truth is to insist that government is ‘too big’ – big brother trying to take over everything. First of all, the government is not taking over everything – the huge corporations are, using privatization schemes. Our bad government just enables it. Secondly, and more importantly, size is not the critical issue, ROI is. If taxes are relatively high but we have free healthcare, free education, free water and sewage, free Internet access and the like, that’s fine. The value is clear. If we have lower taxes and less social services, that’s fine too. Just so the value is evident. Money spent on wars and the manipulations of empire has a poor ROI for us citizens.

Along with restoring government to serve we, the people, we intent to rebuild communities everywhere. There are a number of strategies for this, but most important is our intent, our decision-making process. Do we eat at a local restaurant or McDonald’s? Do we shop the local hardware store or at Lowes? Where do we bank and keep our savings? Exactly what are we voting for with each dollar we spend? Are we spending our time engaged or lost in the served up distraction?

Non-human communities are in great need of restoration as well. Our trees, mountains and topsoil are all disappearing to feed the gluttonous beast of corporatism. Our land and water are mightily polluted from terrible industrial and agribusiness practices. Our oceans are in a sad state as well, with only ten percent of the large fish stocks we had in 1950. And of course the sea level is rising, proof that our planet is getting warmer.

We don’t have the financial resources to leverage the ‘Citizen’s United’ ruling that allows for unlimited spending on campaigns by corporations [yes, it’s on our list of things to be undone], but we have the potential power of a united and awakened citizenry. We have the power of a new, people-powered movement, based on the idea of World 5.0.

World 5.0 not only offers us a banner for solidarity, it offers us the banner of truth – Life is this Moment. Actually there are Three Truths to Happiness: Life is this Moment. It consists of Eternal Awareness and this constant flux of Energy. These two elemental forces comingle only in the present, which means this moment is all that exists. We don’t live in some one-third past, one-third present, one-third future reality. We live in this moment – we can’t leave! This is the First Truth.

The Second Truth is that Here, of prime concern is our intent: fear or Love. If this moment is our only reality, how we’re feeling and what we’re thinking right now is crucial. What exists emerges from past energy patterns. How we use our intent now creates future patterns. But this Moment is always the leverage point. This is where our intent operates.

And the Third Truth: Only Love makes us happy.

So, with World 5.0, we finally have a way to ground ourselves in present reality, we know where we are. By focusing on how we think and feel now, we learn who we are. And once we understand who and where we are, there seems a much greater likelihood of us getting off our behinds to take a stand against the corporate behemoths and the globalization that has wrecked so many lives and so much of our home planet.

The thing now is to make this idea a movement. And this is clearly our intent. Here’s the poster for the official coming out party for World5. It’s on the Autumnal Equinox [in the Northern Hemisphere]. It will be held in Cincinnati. If you can attend the event, you contribute to the statement we make. If you donate or pre-order the book, you contribute to the statement we make. If you can’t attend, tune into the live stream from World5.org. Then you still contribute to the statement we make.

This is indeed a new beginning. We live, we love, we move from here.

Join the movement!

The time is always now. The answer is always love.

Welcome to World 5.0.

Birth of a Revolution

For centuries the vast majority of humanity has suffered under the thumb of elitism, the system where powerful political and commercial interests collude to take advantage of the rest of us. They start wars, they create globalism, they call us consumers. The classic name for this is plutocracy. It’s a clear sign of the failure of government, serving the interests of elites instead of citizens.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed, throughout the world we see insurrection and the rejection of nation-state colonialism and corporatism.

Here is the U.S., we have an election year of particular note and color. The republicans prostrate themselves for every hater vote, except of course for Trump who so well epitomizes hate. Democrats have a choice between another Clinton and a rare bird in American politics – a person of integrity.

This person claims #notmeus. This person claims money is the central corruptive force in our politics and culture. This person claims we need a revolution. Bernie Sanders has picked up the banner of progressive leaders throughout history, and intends a better day for we, the people.

This better day will not come through ‘negotiating’ with fundamentalists driven by ideology. Nor by those whose souls are owned by elites. The revolution is happening through common values of peace, love, integrity and justice.

We’ve had movements. In my time the sixties was a great movement, with Civil RIghts, the women’s and enviromental movements, we hippies – all told it was a near revolution. But the system was too strong, and we weren’t ready.

Since then we’ve had the Arab Spring, Occupy and Black Lives Matter, all evidence of a yearning we share. A yearing that not only is our system corrupt, but it’s foundations are corrupt as well.

It’s true. In the dominant culture the very premise of human life is that we’re born alone, die alone and need to spend our lives trying to get ahead of the rest of humanity. And so our thoughts race, constantly flooded with the requisite fear, hate, dread mixed with the flush of triumph and domination. Such a poor existence.

The foundation that is true is that we are all here together in Life. This truth ever stares at us as we course through our lives. We call it World 5.0.

Millions of us realize this – especially the young. Millenials are stirring to this new recognition of who and where we are. Millions of us are recognizing that the way out of drama and fear is integrity and love, which open the door to peace.

And now we have a leader. Revolutionaries, Occupiers, BLMers, and activists – we now have a leader. As this most auspicious year plays out, lets not forget who and where we are.

Occupy – Finding Our Core

The Occupy Movement is an amazing phenomenon. In less than two months it’s has aggregated into a global movement, taking a strong stand again the financial forces that have taken over the U.S. and so many other governments. There are no indications of us going away.

Still, there are issues. The corporate media insists we don’t have a clear message, with good reason since we threaten their stranglehold on truth. The Wall Street robber barons insist we are anarchists and lazy hippies, whose only interests are avoiding work and causing trouble. Again it sounds like someone is feeling threatened. Politicians are holding their fingers up to the wind, trying to decide whether it helps or hurts them politically to support us. Such poor leadership.

Regardless of such opinions, those of us who are Occupiers know what is going on. We’ve had enough of a world of lies. We’ve had enough of a world where money rules the political system. We’ve had enough of a world torn by war and globalization. And so we choose a new way forward.

When those heroes decided to Occupy Wall Street on September 17th, they began something extraordinary. The began to create a new culture based on ethics instead of the power of money. They started a process of consensus, where 90% is the minimal threshold to establish principles, areas of focus and policy. They started a process that continues in this moment, a process we Occupiers all share in, though much of this process is not yet explicit.

Yet it is clear we operate by new rules. We accept everyone, regardless of the meager distinctions of looks, color, race, religion or sexual preference. We even accept those without a home, agitators and just-released felons presented to us, so long as they honor our process and principles. We choose peace and solidarity as keys to our process. We choose the power of Love over the power of money.

These new rules are principles, that can generally be described as peace, love, integrity, justice and balance. A system of ethics. And these ethics create a space of peace, compassion and friendship unavailable to most of us in the old system.

What we’re seeing then, is the birth of a new consciousness among us, where our priorities are these principles of ethics, where we rely on truth instead of falseness, abundance instead of greed, and where we intend to get big money out of our political system. And this code of ethics brings us a sense of trust unavailable to the old world.

Curiously, there is a name for this new consciousness. A name for this new cultural operating system. A name for a culture based on principles instead of the power of money. The name is World 5.0.

The name is derived from applying the idea of an operating system to culture. We’ve previously been hunter/gatherers, agrarian, medieval and most recently industrial. Indeed, it is the Industrial Age, World4, collapsing around us from the weight of its own corruption.

The central tenant of World 5.0 is that Life Is This Moment, an idea that finds harmony among many of us. The past is gone and tomorrow never comes. We stay Here. Our process is Here. We move from Here.

I see this pretty clearly as I’m the founder of World 5.0. There is a book and a website on the topic. While the book was written before this movement sprang into being, it reminds of the same things the movement does. We must get money out of politics. We must put an end to war. We must rebuild our communities and ecologies. We must have honest government and a transparent financial system. We must create a culture where globalization, a system based on profit, is replaced by World 5.0, a system based on health and ecology.

In the coming days, week and months we are going to find each other far more easily. We’re building new coalitions with like-minded people and organizations each day. We’re learning process and more effective ways to create this new world. We’re learning that ethics, the power of Love, is bigger and better than the power of money. And we’re loving it.

In spite of the many situations where occupations are threatened by police action and unfriendly government, we stand, peaceful and strong. In spite of the many internal squabbles and difficult decisions, we are growing. In spite of wildly diverse backgrounds, ages and interests, we are Here together.

And now we’re finding our core. An operating system based on the power of Love instead of the power of money. An operating system that says armchair citizenry no longer cuts it. An operating system that focuses us on localism, organic food, sustainable energy and peace, regardless of the challenges to it. Along with the tremendous power and energy of the Occupy Movement, it is holding our core, living World 5.0, that assures us we can never be co-opted, usurped or otherwise turned into something we do not intend. Humanity is finally, through the Occupied Territories and its supporters, finding our home in Life.

Occupy World 5.0

We are in uncharted territory. This is like no time in our civilization’s history – global food shortages, climate crisis, unending war and violence, corporate domination, rampant systemic corruption, government collusion with corporations, abject poverty and homelessness, mass extinctions – it’s a long list barely begun here. It’s enough to leave one feeling hopeless in the face of such onslaughts. And yet there is hope.

The urgency of these issues has caused an unprecedented reaction – a global uprising. It was called The Arab Spring when initiated in Tunisia last December and quickly spreading to Egypt and beyond. It’s called Occupy in the US, Europe and much of Asia. There are protests and citizen repression in almost every nation-state on the planet at this time. And with good reason. Our governments have almost universally failed us in favor of colluding with corporations to form a kleptocracy. This arrangement not only funnels our money to the 1%, it destroys lives, communities and ecologies with impunity. It is this kleptocracy that we intend to dismantle.

As this energy of Global R-evolution has bubbled up over the last several years, so has the idea of World 5.0. I stumbled on the idea seven years ago, and have developed the idea in light of Life, the experience of being we have in this moment. Indeed, the central premise of World 5.0 is that ‘Life Is This Moment.’ The past is gone and tomorrow never comes. Our experience is always Here, unless we’re so caught up in our thoughts and feelings that we don’t recognize Life Here. Living in a bubble has that effect, and so was standard procedure in the World4 culture.

Prior to the failing Industrial Age we find ourselves in currently, we’ve had three previous ages: Neolithic, Agrarian and Medieval. We were hunter/gatherers for long centuries, maybe 150,000 years. 10,000 years ago we began farming with hemp and 1,000 years ago we learned to make machines. It was but 200 years ago that we developed engines, ushering in the Industrial Age. With World4 crumbling around us, the emerging global operating system is World 5.0.

Occupy begins to understand that we require not just a less corrupt world, but a new system entirely. We require a new level of integration, based on ethics and principles like peace and love. Indeed, we can say “we intend to replace the system of globalization built on the corruptive power of money with a system of ethics that supports Life based on the power of Love.” More simply, “we intend a world based on the power of Love instead of the power of money.” This is not so hard to understand, unless you hold allegiance to the Kleptocracy, like corporate media outlets. Their difficulty is not understanding, it lies in trying to spin something so powerful, honest and peaceful that it is difficult to undermine.

There is much we can do already. World 5.0 encourages localism, spending our money with local purveyors of goods and services instead of global behemoths like Walmart and McDonalds. We can make efforts to grow and buy local food, and encourage organic food production instead of the polluting agribiz model. We can take steps to increase our personal and local energy sustainability, foregoing fossil fuel use as much as possible. We can engage in local civic actions to improve our communities and begin the process of reconstructing government.

The farther reaches of World 5.0 call for a World 5.0 Certification Process, whereas small businesses and organization are easily certified unless they act out of alignment with ethics and our principles. Corporations will typically find certification more challenging. This simple process takes us from a ‘buyer beware’ culture to one of trust in our spending decisions.

World 5.0 seeks to establish a ‘Constitution for the Earth,’ creating a document that enshrines protections for Earth’s ecologies and requires a system of ‘Natural Capital’ so that harvesters of the Earth’s resources, whether mineral, plant or animal, must pay for their extraction and for any negative effects on the system due to that extraction. Indeed, with World 5.0 we seek to replace the extractive nature of the Industrial Age with the generative energy of Occupy and World5.

With the understanding that World 5.0 provides a ‘core idea’ to Occupy, we further our efforts at positive change tremendously. First, we clarify by an order of magnitude what Occupy is about. Indeed, World 5.0 provides the context of us living as evolutionary creatures finding our shared identity for the first time in our history.

Second, we codify what Occupy already knows – that corporations are the central problem in our culture today, especially in using their vast wealth to undermine government’s inherent responsibility to meet the needs of their citizens. In the book, “World 5.0 – Healing Ourselves, Our Earth and Our Life Together,” I explore the roots of the Limited Liability Corporation, and the long history of collusion with governmental entities, and how that process has lead to Disaster Capitalism and the general disaster we face today.

Third, we find areas of focus that can be personally implemented at once. These same areas of focus can be used to take on our largest challenges, like an end to war and corporate personhood.

Fourth, we find a new awareness in living in this moment, awakened from the bubble of personal thoughts and feelings that cannot be shared. We connect with all we come into contact with, and honor and respect each other. This allows us to get past long-standing hatreds, controversies and problems based on false ideas of reality and relationship. We are all here together, and the more quickly we understand this, the happier we find ourselves.

Fifth and finally, we create a path forward for the peaceful and agile transition from the Industrial World4 to our new home in World 5.0. We design and build systems that are life-affirming. We create infrastructure, buildings, homes and gardens where artistry is ingrained in the process. We nurture Life as best we are able, and in doing so nurture and restore the Earth. And we find each other as citizens, beloved sisters and brothers who understand our place, and are passionate about healing ourselves and our Earth.

And so it is indeed Here we find ourselves. Our civilization is broken, and this global uprising creates an incredibly powerful force for change. Which begs the question, “What sort of change do we want?” Which begs the answer, “World 5.0.”

In Praise of Hemp

Hemp is the common name for cannabis, the first plant cultivated by humanity as we crept from being Neolithic to becoming Agrarian. Likely this was due to a few reasons. First, hemp is an extremely versatile plant, with leaves, seeds and stalks all capable of creating useful products. Second, it’s particularly easy to grow, needing little in the way of fertilizer or pest control. And finally, hemp is native to many parts of the world, particularly The Fertile Crescent, where some of the first agriculture happened early in our civilization.

Hemp use predates the Agrarian Age, as hemp fibers have been found in pottery in China and Taiwan dating to 7,000 years ago. The classical Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 480 BC) reported that the inhabitants of Scythia would often inhale the vapours of hemp smoke, both as ritual and for their own pleasurable recreation. So presumably the Scythians were the first recorded stoners.

In Europe, hemp growing and production became quite popular during the Medieval Age, having disseminated in that direction along with much of the technology of the Arabic Golden Age in Northern Africa. In Europe hemp seeds were used for food and oils, the leaves for teas and the stalks for fibres, including rope, clothes, sails and paper. Estimates put the number of Europeans actively involved in hemp growing and production in the 15th and 16th century at well over 50%.

Hemp has a strong historical influence on every continent, with varied cultural and religious traditions. Many African spiritual practices involve consuming hemp smoke to enhance awareness and generate visions like the Dagga ‘cults’.

The Spaniards brought hemp to the Western Hemisphere and cultivated it in Chile starting about 1545. However, in May 1607, "hempe" was among the crops Gabriel Archer observed being cultivated by the natives at the main Powhatan village, where Richmond, Virginia is now situated; and in 1613, Samuell Argall reported wild hemp "better than that in England" growing along the shores of the upper Potomac. As early as 1619, the first Virginia House of Burgesses passed an Act requiring all planters in Virginia to sow "both English and Indian" hemp on their plantations. The Puritans are first known to have cultivated hemp in New England in 1645.

In more modern times, hemp was a popular crop in antibellum Kentucky and other southern states. It was commonly used for a variety of products, most notably the paper on which the U.S. Constitution was written. Several of our founding fathers were hemp farmers.

All this changed with William Randoph Hearst, who began demonizing hemp in order to leverage his great tracks of forest for paper production instead of needing to buy hemp from other farmers. His effort to demonize the plant was also instigated by his racism, as many hispanics and blacks used hemp for recreation. The word, marijuana, is the hispanic term for that form of hemp which has psychoactive ingredients.

There are several varieties of hemp, most of which have very little THC [tetra-hydro-cannabanoid], the mind-effecting component. For most of U.S. history, the distinction was well-understood and laws reflected that awareness. Like so many with the power of media, however, Mr. Hearst did his best to cloud that distinction, as he was against hemp in any form. Indeed, industrial hemp was referred to as ‘ditchweed’, while hemp for medicinal or recreations purposes has come to be known as marijuana.

An analogy would be poppies, where you have the breadseed poppy seeds that can be found on bread or rolls, in contrast to the opium poppies grown to create morphine and heroin.

As reference, the timber and lumber industries, textile and petro-chemical industries are the most influential in keeping hemp illegal. As usual, we can follow the money. Then for pot there’s the pharmaceutical industry, the alcohol lobby and all those anti-drug agencies with self-preservation interests. We learn much from understanding these connections.

With this background, let’s consider how hemp might again play a pivotal role in our culture.

Assuming access to air and water, our most regular needs are for food and energy. In the World4 culture, these needs, at least for the industrialized world, are met through global corporations like ADM, Monsanto, BP and Exxon. And of course, hemp is illegal to grow in much of the industrialized world and particularly the United States.

But as noted above, hemp is easily grown with little required in the way of fertilizer or pesticides. As such, hemp typifies a sustainably-oriented plant. Corn, by comparison, requires heavy doses of fertilizer, especially nitrogen, and requires a good deal of pesticide use, with Roundup often used to kill weeds, and genetically modified corn seed that is resistant to the effects of Roundup. With the vast expanses of corn grown in this country, it should be no surprise that the runoff from these chemicals has created a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. And let us not forget that our tax dollars subsidize these efforts through farm and energy subsidies.

With hemp, we have a low-impact, high-yield crop that can be used for a variety of uses. The stalks and fiber can used for composites that can be a wood substitute in an array of products. They can also be processed to create ethanol. They can be burned as a carbon-neutral resource, since the carbon they release is but the carbon the plant ingested during it’s life. Durable, light-weight, and strong, it’s difficult to imagine all the uses for industrial hemp were we to focus on designing and building hemp-based products.

Hemp seed can be used as a food as well. The roasted seeds are crunchy, they can be used in soups and casseroles, mixed with cereals or other foods. They’re highly nutritious, have a good deal of protein and again, are positive-impact environmentally.

Hemp has remediation properties too. It absorbs heavy metals in the soil, reducing their toxicity and harmful environment effects. There are vast expanses of hemp in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear accident for just that reason.

Hemp can be grown successfully in nearly every state in these United States. One can imagine a culture where locally produced hemp provides a good portion of the energy, food and product needs for our communities. This methodology would provide employment in both production and processing of the plant. It would reduce the environmental damage caused by our overused, subsidized corn. [Corn syrup is a cheap, low grade sugar that’s in a ton of processed foods.] Re-integrating hemp into our culture is just good, common sense.

And then there’s marijuana. The heathen devil-weed [a term coined by Heart’s yellow press] was blamed for all sorts of bad behavior as part of the demonization process. But as usual, someone who smokes pot and acts badly likely acts badly anyway, with marijuana as the straw man. Marijuana reduces aggressive behavior, unlike alcohol. This slander against the singular most influential plant in human history is but one example of the dysfunctionality of our culture.

Weed does indeed have psychotropic properties of note. Being stoned has a curious effect on the mind. Most say it tends to enhance whatever we feeling or experiencing at the time, offering a heightened experience of music or games or food [the proverbial munchies]. It is often used as a mind-quieting agent as well, as the stream of thoughts so constant to most of us becomes less pressing in a marijuana state of mind. In our fear-ridden, highly-stressed culture that alone could be of great value.

It’s worth noting that marijuana has not been placed as the medical cause in a single death in this country. Compare that with alcohol, tobacco, or the host of concoctions the pharmaceutical industry markets to us constantly. Mary Jane is decidedly benign.

As a medicinal, hemp oil has the afore mentioned essential fatty acids that are very effective for skin issues like excema and when ingested enhances body health. Medical marijuana is much in the news these days, being legal in California and a handful of other states. It’s value in alleviating the worst effect of cancer treatments, chronic back ache and other issues is well-documented. Imagine if our culture actually encouraged research on medical marijuana. Not likely when the legal drug cartel we call the pharmaceutical industry has so much influence in government.

Proposition 19 is a measure on the ballot in California this fall that makes hemp legal. It merits our support for all the reasons indicated in this writing. Perhaps with this ballot measure passing we can begin to reverse the foolishness that has withheld leveraging this marvelous plant for the last 100 years.

Perhaps one of the most beneficial characteristics of this renewable resource is that the hemp plant can be used in its entirety, and that a streamlined life-cycle assessment yields positive impacts on the environment throughout the growth, harvest, and production stages. The industrial hemp plant offers a wide variety of high performance applications through the many aspects of community design, and will help strengthen our local economy, return power back to our local agricultural industry, and restore the environment as it grows. – Scott Blossom

Well said, Mister Blossom. Perhaps this fall [in California Ballot Measure Prop 19] we’ll begin to see a return to sanity in our policies toward this marvelous and versatile plant. And wouldn’t it be just swell to see this happen in the wider context of a return to localism. Very World Five – dude.

Hemp for the World

There’s a lot of energy in the air these days surrounding hemp, and with good reason. Hemp was removed from our culture back in the early 20th Century when a number of laws were established that demonized hemp and marijuana. Now, as we’re learning that so much once held as true is false, it should come as no surprise that our illusions about hemp are crumbling as well.

Hemp is the common name for cannabis, the first plant cultivated by humanity as we crept from a Hunter/Gatherer culture to an Agrarian one. This were several reasons for this. First, hemp is an extremely versatile plant, with edible seeds, rich oil and strong, fibrous stalks. Second, it’s particularly easy to grow, needing little in the way of fertilizer or pest control. And finally, hemp is native to many parts of the world, so it was accessible to large segments of our ancestors.

Hemp has a strong historical influence on every continent, with varied cultural and religious traditions. It’s written about in China as early as the 5th Century BC. It was commonly breathed or smoked by various tribes in the Middle East. Many African spiritual practices involve consuming hemp smoke to enhance awareness and generate visions like the Dagga ‘cults’.

In the United States, as early as 1619 the first Virginia House of Burgesses passed an Act requiring all planters in Virginia to sow “both English and Indian” hemp on their plantations. In more modern times, hemp was a popular crop in antebellum Kentucky and other southern states. It was commonly used for a variety of products, most notably the paper on which the U.S. Constitution was written. Several of our founding fathers were hemp farmers.

All that changed when newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst decided to demonize the plant, his financial interests better served by printing his newspapers on wood pulp supplied by forests he owned in the early 20th century. Dupont’s new plastics were far more valuable in a hemp-free world as well. His nephew, Harry Anslinger, commissioned ‘Reefer Madness.’

Today, we can still follow the money. The lumber, textile and petro-chemical industries are the most influential in keeping hemp illegal. Then for pot there’s the pharmaceutical industry, the alcohol lobby and all those anti-drug agencies with self-preservation interests. We learn much from understanding these connections.

With this background, let’s consider how hemp might again play a pivotal role in our communities and culture.

With hemp, we have a low-impact, high-yield crop that can be used for a variety of purposes. The stalks and fiber can be used in composites as a wood substitute for an array of products. They can also be processed to create ethanol. This is a carbon-neutral resource, since the carbon released is but the carbon the plant ingested during its life. Durable, light-weight, and strong, it’s difficult to imagine all the uses for industrial hemp were we to focus on designing and building hemp-based products.

With hemp oil we have another energy-rich resource, which can be used in cooking, as lamp oil and as a medicinal, as its high concentration of essential fatty acids is great for the skin and overall health. Hemp seed can be used for food as well. They’re highly nutritious with a good deal of protein. Hemp has remediation properties too. It absorbs heavy metals in the soil, reducing their toxicity and harmful environmental effects. There are vast expanses of hemp in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear accident for just that reason.

Hemp can be grown successfully in nearly every state in these United States. One can imagine a culture where locally produced hemp provides a good portion of the energy, food and product needs for our communities. This approach would provide employment in both production and processing of the plant. It would also reduce the environmental damage caused by our pollutive, subsidized corn production. Re-integrating hemp into our culture is a key to the new localism.

And then there’s marijuana. The heathen devil-weed [a term coined by Hearst’s yellow press] was blamed for all sorts of bad behavior as part of the demonization process. Marijuana actually reduces aggressive behavior, unlike alcohol. The demonization and slander against the singular most influential plant in human history is but one example of the dysfunctionality of our culture.

Medical marijuana is much in the news these days, being legal in a number of states, though often still prosecuted by the Feds. Its value in alleviating the worst effects of cancer treatments, chronic backache and other issues is well-documented. Imagine if our culture actually encouraged research on medical marijuana [sigh]. Not likely when the legal drug cartel called ‘the pharmaceutical industry’ has so much influence in government.

Finally, it’s worth noting that marijuana has not been placed as the medical cause in a single death in this country. Compare that with alcohol, tobacco, or the host of concoctions the pharmaceutical industry markets to us constantly. Mary Jane is decidedly benign.

Just say no to politicians and pundits who espouse the evils of hemp. They are uneducated, disingenuous or both [surprise, surprise]. Let’s say yes to re-introducing hemp into our culture, and to creating local jobs, products and health.