It appears that the economic model that Prout espouses is more compassionate and humanitarian than the current US system of capitalism and its close cousin, fascism, whereby big business interests – and not what's best for the citizens - currently affects government decisions. That being said, how do most Americans who you've come into contact with so far react to the Prout economic model?
Garda: "I don't really go out of my way to talk about Prout to people, aside from to my thesis adviser. I talk about the principles it embodies. For example, I try to talk about cooperatives. A lot of people don't even know what a cooperative is. Some people think it is related to communism. Of course, there is no connection between the two. In communism, the people own nothing and all business profits are turned over to the government or, rather, to a bureaucratic elite.
In contrast, the bedrock of a Prout economy is cooperatives, which means, local people control their own economies. The majority of businesses in a town will be set up, owned and controlled by local people in a collective manner. All workers are also owners. Collective decisions are made. So we would be moving from a scenario of subordinated cooperation (boss - employee) to coordinated cooperation (worker/owner - worker/owner).
Capitalism breeds so much selfishness. It teaches each person to think for himself first, for his own profit first, and only afterwards for others. In the cooperative model, because cooperatives are collectives or collections of people all working for a common goal, so each worker/member learns to think first for the collective and only afterwards for himself. So by creating a cooperative commonwealth we can change the entire culture here - from one of extreme selfishness and self-centeredness to one of collective caring and community.
Like so many other issues, this is an issue of education. Right now in Sweden more than 60 percent of businesses are run as cooperatives. The result is far more egalitarianism in the workplace. Here cooperatives are practically unknown. We need to talk to the people about cooperatives, and if possible, we need to establish them and help spread the cooperative movement here."
Can you please tell me what is the WPA viewpoint or position on the US imperialist wars being waged since 9/11 under the guise of an eternal "War On Terror"?
Garda: "Well, Cathy, this seems to be a rhetorical question you've asked here... US wars are indeed imperialist wars. They are also illegal as per Article 51 of the UN Charter. If we study the history carefully, we will probably find that US imperialist wars have been illegal for many decades or even centuries. America does not have a very good track record when it comes to its treatment of other countries. But certainly, the present regime in America has taken criminal wars to a new and horrible level. Close to two million Iraqis have been slaughtered as a direct result of US invasion and occupation. More than four million are refugees. Those remaining in Iraq suffer untold misery with only a couple of hours of electricity each day, only a few buckets of water and sometimes no water daily. Americans cannot even imagine it. Sometimes when I'm hanging out with people, listening to them chat about various things, my mind seems to invariably wander over to Iraq and Afghanistan, and I start feeling all the pain of the people there - then I start to wonder how people here can live in such utter oblivion of that all that pain. I just can't understand it."
Your panel of speakers and presentations certainly looks impressive and exciting. What do you hope will come out of the "Building A New World Conference?"
Garda: "Well, I feel I've done very little in my life compared to many of the speakers coming. The first thing I need to do there is to salute all those great people whose contribution to humanity is by any standard truly astounding. So even if I can simply salute these great people, I will feel very happy. And the second thing, the hope, the dream that I have, is to somehow cause this conference to be the seed of a great movement that needs to sweep our nation...a positive force that, through its sheer moral force, will have the capacity to obliterate all the crimes and corruptions going on in high places. And once that is achieved, that same positive mass movement needs to find the strict moralists and install them as the leaders of our country. This is the dream, Cathy. Please come there and help me to manifest this dream."
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The "Building A New World Conference" will be held May 22 through 25 at Radford University in Virginia. In addition to this writer and Garda Ghista herself, other speakers include: Anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan, journalist William Blum, peace activist Kathy Kelly, economist Mike Whitney, USSF organizer and poet Alice Lovelace, impeachment and anti-war leader David Swanson, professor Robert Jensen, Senate candidate Kevin Zeese, SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois, IVAW and "Winter Soldier" co-leader Adam Kokesh, Iranian blogger Kianoosh Sanjari, radio broadcaster Meria Heller, "After Capitalism" author and professor David Schweickart, Iraqi MD and anti-war activist Dahlia Wasfi, Tony Award-winning "Rescue Me" star Daniel Sunjata, World Can't Wait leader Sunsara Taylor and many more leaders and luminaries will join thousands of people from across the country for a conference that will lay down the foundations for building a new world now.
For Conference Registration and to see many more Speaker names, topics, and Conference details, visit:http://www.wpaconference.org
To visit the World Prout Assembly website: http://www.worldproutassembly.org
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Originally, the "official story" told to the American public and the rest of the world about 9/11 was that the World Trade Centers twin towers collapsed due to the hijacked passenger jet airlines crashing into the towers.
Then, remarkably, on September 6, 2006, the "official story" was suddenly changed by the President George W. Bush from crashing jet planes to explosives when he stated: "During questioning, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] also provided many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans. For example, he described the design of planned attacks on buildings inside the United States, and how operatives were directed to carry them out. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a point that was high enough to prevent the people trapped above from escaping out the windows." CONTINUE TO NEXT PAGE
