Pussy Riot: Building a new world together

Today the call comes from Nadya Tolokonnikova in Huffington Post

It was 7 years ago in 2008, when a similar missive was delivered to The US Senate Commitee on Foreign Relations, from an activist working in Ukraine calling for their support with a 'Marshall Plan' proposal.

It opened with these words:

“Honorable Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing to you to request your support in advancing critical relief for Ukrainian citizens – with first focus on children in state care, the worst result of Ukraine’s political machinations. This is mentioned in some detail in “A Marshall Plan for Ukraine” referenced at the end of this document. I will fill in some gaps here.“

It ended

“We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?”

At the same time, writing of the Information Revolution:

"The corporations involved in this almost fantastical deployment of the machines and communications infrastructure that we now rely on profited for themselves and their shareholders, and certainly produced social and economic benefit around the world. Those efforts were and are so profound in influence as to transform human civilization itself. That is the Information Revolution, and it is nothing short of astonishing.

So it is safe to say that all these players in the Information Revolution — the enterprises that created it — have engendered almost immeasurable social benefit by way of connecting people of the world together and giving us opportunity to communicate with each other, begin to understand each other, and if we want, try to help each other."

 

Terry Hallman first went to Russia in 1999 where he was able to source the Tomsk Regional Initiative and in 2003, moved on to Crimea where he spent six months reseearching an economic development proposal for Crimea, which reasoned:

"Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.

By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.

These points were made to the President of the United States near the end of 1996. They were heard, appreciated and acted upon, but unfortunately, were not able to be addressed fully and quickly due primarily to political inertia. By way of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US out of Afghanistan – on which the US and the former Soviet Union both inflicted havoc, destruction, and certainly poverty – I rest my case. The tragedy was proof of all I warned about, but, was no more tragedy than that left behind to a people in an far corner of the world whom we thought did not matter and whom we thought were less important than ourselves.

We were wrong."

Four years ago, Terry died in Ukraine where Maidan peace activists acknowledged his efforts. One of their leaders who'd discovered his body wrote

The author of breakthru report “Death camps for children” Terry Hallman suddenly died of grave disease on Aug 18 2011. On his death bed he was speaking only of his mission – rescuing of these unlucky kids. His dream was to get them new homes filled with care and love. His quest would be continued as he wished."

The 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine had been delivered to Ukrainian government channels in February 2007 and was published the following year in the prominent ForUA web journal as two articles.

It was what the proposal has argued on applying capitalism for social benefit which seems to have created the greatest traction. I shared this with Mixmarket several years ago, with the title "Re-imagining Capitalism The New Bottom LIne".

The other 'Marshall Plan'

It's not a plan as such, since it has no content, but it has been given a lot of attention by Huffington Post, perhaps due to the prominence of its advocates, headed by Bernard Henri Levy who says: .

"Please understand that I am speaking of economics as history.

I am speaking of economics underpinned by an intellectual and moral reform of the entire society.

I am speaking of economics as understood by my professor, French philosopher Louis Althusser, who would say that economics is never solely a matter of production, finance, and accounting -- these parameters always imply profound choices about the spirit of laws, about biopolitics and the health and possible suffering of human beings, and about one's idea of time, space, and the very nature of being."

it sounds a lot like what was put on the table 8 years ago:

'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a "top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way. '

To the oligarchs and members of the House of Lords who now clamour for a 'Marshall Plan' perhaps this is not very palatable.

It wasn't the first experience of a hijack as Terry wrote before his death:

“As the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan came around in June 2007, noise was emerging within Ukraine of a certain political boss preparing a Marshall Plan for Ukraine.  This person was a reputed mob boss — exactly the sort of entity that the original Marshall Plan meant to oppose.  It seemed most likely that whatever he came up with would be self-serving, hijacking the label ‘Marshall Plan’ and turning the whole notion on its head.  I reviewed the original Marshall Plan and realized that what I had written was, in fact, the definition and spirit of the original Marshall Plan.  Thus, in June 2007, I appended the original title with “A Marshall Plan for Ukraine.”  After some discussion among trusted colleagues over timing, I published an abbreviated version of the paper in two parts in August 2007 in the ‘analytics’ section of the Ukrainian news journal for-ua.com.”

What's the agenda at Huffington Post, given the ease with which our 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine could have been located online? How can we possibly work together with Pussy Riot in such circumstances?