other nations, or even to force certain settlement patterns or prohibit people from moving, as the ability to move – intellectually and physically – underpins freedom. It is instead to acknowledge the reality of today: the nation state is effectively wounded, if not dead.
And it is not proper to keep it or its tyrannical leader and his totalitarian tendencies on life support simply because America is today the preeminent economic and military power in the world, or out of fear other superpowers might take advantage of our desire for change, or the threat of nuclear or global war breaking out.
Instead, what is needed is a means to create the runway to produce the time necessary to change to a more inclusive community. So
why not use the structure of the United States or the superstructure of the North America – and its military and economic might – simply to provide the stability for change to occur from within, across time, peacefully, until such can be achieved? Yes, power matters and we should
not be so naïve to give such up: but we should not also be so foolish as to think that power alone is what matters. Character, too, matters. And as our political and social systems take time to take on the character of ourselves and others, patience is required. But it is also through such patience that the impatience which so often defines failed revolutions will be countered, thereby giving all a greater chance at realizing success.
But equally, when attempting to engage such large-scale change, a hard truth must be admitted: what is fundamentally missing from the bioregional discussion – and one which the eco-cultural community cannot ignore – is oftentimes a focus on the very people who are living within the regions.
So, what is needed is not just to generate theories or create maps but add actual people to the conversation. The voices of people who
are living within mega-cities, urban archipelagos, and more remote communities need to be heard. And to hear from those people, they need to be seen and acknowledged – whether their ancestors have been there for thousands of years, whether they be more contemporary inhabitants, or whether
they are new migrants who have only recently settled. Only then might it be possible to learn about who they are and what they wish to be, living within a particular space, among a community of others, through memory and imagination.
This is why the notion of an eco-cultural community, a community which again is defined both through its naturally occurring
biosystem and the economic and cultural identity of the people involved therein, appears so promising. Such a framework would provide a means for developing a new Constitution of the body politic, a space for living and governing, constructed amidst people and places, which could more readily represent our notion of a more naturally occurring governance framework than an artificially generated one constructed through arbitrary lines or the colonizing framework of “Greater Northern America” strategic plan proposed by today’s tyrant as that stands opposite of what is trying to be achieved through eco-cultural communities. In short, for societies in search of ideas, as our forefathers were at our founding
Could this be a political movement, a political party, both? Well, why not answer that question by starting a Campaign for Human Dignity which might then reconstitute itself as a political party, comprised as such would be not just one party to which all must conform, not one ideology to which all must adhere, but many smaller groups or parties built in representation of the various eco-cultural communities and regions discussed and identified?
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