IdT: What's It All About

Language and Tools

During the late 60's I began writing think pieces to attempt to understand human development from an anthropological and evolutionary way. I was trying to understand the evolution of man from no tools to tools and wrote a think piece on "A General Theory of Tools," concluding that it was a mistake to think of "tools" in a restricted sense such as arrowheads and scrappers, but more informative to think of tools as things that facilitated work. That opened up the concept to cosmic tools, tools of physical, chemical and biological evolution and finally to tools of opportunity and tools of design as they relate to animal and more specifically human evolution. I got an insight into the origin of language and began to see biological evolution as distinct from technological evolution and the dichotomy of man the animal and man the language based technologist. I felt I could distinguish between biological man and technological man and ascertain the differences and the effects of the differences. Through a friend I submitted the manuscript for possible publication to the University of Georgia Press. The message I got back from the editor was the University of Georgia Press did not publish works (A General Theory of Tools) of such a practical nature. In December of 1969 I joined the staff of the Chief Scientist of the National Park Service.

Parks for the People

One of the initiatives of the Nixon Administration was "Parks for the People." That meant introducing urban thinking and urban mentality into the National Park Service, a discussion akin to talking about horseless carriages to the cavalry. The park service had a number of urban initiatives underway, including significant recreational resources in the form of Gateway National Recreational Area in New York and Golden Gate National Recreational Area in San Francisco.

I was hired by Dr. Robert M. Linn, then Chief Scientist of the National Park Service, and now Board Member and Treasurer of IdT to work up an urban ecology program for the National Park Service.

Ecological Services

What he had in mind initially was upgrading the Plant Pathology Laboratory in the National Capital Region of the Park Service, which I did turning it into an Ecological Services Laboratory. The plant pathology that was going on at the lab was first rate. It had been run for years by Horace Wester who came to the National Park Service when Harold Ickes was Secretary of the Interior in the first administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. To Horace's credit the city of Washington still has its elm trees and what's more is still planting elm trees in spite of the scourge of Dutch Elm Disease. It was a short step to move the lab from shade tree and ornamental to more fundamental work with basic ecology as the driving force. The lab continued its work in plant pathology but went on to include urban soils, (Washington, DC is the first city in the United States mapped by the Soil Conservation Service), the rivers and natural areas in the region of the nation's capital. This laboratory did pioneering work in urban wildlife, studying raccoons in Rock Creek Park and the squirrels in Lafayette Park, the park across the street from the White House. The squirrel population is maintained at a high level by people (some of them regulars) who feed the squirrels (and the pigeons).

Yosemite: A Steady State City

Considering urban values in rural parks and rural values in urban parks was an easy step and I applied urban concepts to our large rural parks. I startled my associates and many park managers by describing Yosemite as a 'steady state' city of 50,000. They might have a different 50,000 every day but the park managers had the same problems of any manager managing a city of 50,000 people. That is the average daily visitation to the park. Some sociologists associated with the Park Service now and accustomed to urban sociological vocabulary applied to large National Parks call Yosemite valley an urban slum, a concept inconceivable 15 years ago when our urban ecology program began. An early study of parks near metropolitan areas indicated that a majority of our large National Parks were located within 50 miles of major urban areas and the next transition step to understand was, is there a relationship between natural ecosystem principles and " urban ecosystems"?

Urban Ecology

In the early 70's ecologists were beginning to become interested in cities and I recall attending a meeting of eminent ecologists where the city was characterized as a detritus community. The foodstuffs et al were produced in the rural areas and the cities consumed them discharging wastes into the nearest streams. I was appalled and asked if any of those present could explain the long lines of high voltage electric lines that found their way into the hearts of all our cities. Weren't cities the greatest consumers of energy per square meter on the planet? Didn't a stream of manufactured goods leave cites, for destinations all over the globe? It was at this time that I asked Edward Hessler, now Executive Director of the Minnesota Science Education Foundation to do a study to determine if there were in deed correlates between and among natural ecosystem processes and "urban ecosystem processes."

A Common Language

Coincident with this project I assembled a small group of people to discuss these same problems. We actually had only one meeting face to face, but it was memorable for the agreement it produced and the questions it raised. The most significant problem, the lack of common language. Dr. William Key then Vice Chancellor of the University of Denver was among those present as were; Edward Hessler, mentioned above, Drs. Robert Anthony and Milton Marley both professors at George Washington University, Anthony a physicist interested in systems and very conversant with the Prigogine open system of thermodynamics and Marley, philosopher and epistemologist of science, (Marley didn't use Occam's Razor he used Marley's meat clever), Dr. William S. Kornblum then Associate Professor of Sociology at CUNY, Manhattan, author of "Blue Collar Worker," a study of human relations in a major Chicago steel mill, Jeanne Giovannoni, then Professor of Social Work at UCLA. now Associate Chancellor same institution, Cecelia E. Sudia, family based services expert from the Children's Bureau, ACYF. The single meeting and the ensuing dialogue set the stage for generating the necessary vocabulary to proceed with the translation of ecological and ecosystem concepts to the urban environment.

Writing It Down

I wrote and Ann Barker edited and designed and the Park Service published a series of nine booklets called the Urban Ecosystem. The Urban Ecosystem Series was to be a popular version of the larger treatise Hessler was working on and the follow up to these efforts was to be children's books on urban ecology. There was wide distribution of the Urban Ecosystem Series, the treatise was written (about 1000 typewritten pages) but never published although it received a limited circulation and can still be obtained from me upon request, and the children's series never got out of the talking stages. The Administration changed. The booklets are out of print but the titles are:

• Man Nature City
• The Vegetation of the City
• Ecology of the Walking City
• The River in the City
• Wildlife and the City
• The City as a Biological Community
• The City as a Park
• Technology Assessment in the City
• Ecological Engineering of the City

The last booklet to have been entitled "The City as an Humane Habitat." was never written.

The Ecology of the Law

A seminal encounter occurred in my house on Lincoln Park in Washington. It had to be in the mid-70's. I'd give a dime to the person present who could come up with the date. There was a meeting in town and a group of our out of town friends and colleagues came to dinner. After the usual dinner conversation the topic shifted to the ecological properties of the law. Robert M. Linn, one of the confounders of IdT had the immediate Shakespearean answer, "Kill the lawyers," but after that initial shock there was a lively discussion about the ecological properties of law. Present at the meeting were; Dr. Robert M. Linn former Chief Scientist of the National Park Service; Professor William Burch, Yale University, sociology; Dr. William Key as noted above Vice Chancellor University of Denver; Cecelia E. Sudia, Children's Bureau my daughter Rachael, who was just back from a year in Germany and Austria, my son Frank, a law student at the time and myself. The meeting further elaborated the possibility of using ecological terminology to describe social phenomena and to begin to see the rules of society as factors in the distribution of equity within the system. One result was a think piece called the "Ecology of Gun Control." The paper was an attempt to analyze the problem ecologically and propose an ecological solution. The paper was never published but was fairly widely distributed. Interested persons can get a copy by requesting it. I have thought the matter through from an historical perspective and in a future issue of "We the People" will discuss guns and the 2nd amendment. No one can ignore the effect of the indiscriminate use of firearms in our society since it is a leading cause of death. And a leading cause of death has to be an ecological factor with ecological consequences for society.

The Mother Paper

It was a logical progression to the Constitution. The step came via a question. The nation was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The question; what should be the Park Service agenda for the next 100 years? My thought was to look to the Constitution for the clue. What jumped up at me was the phrase "domestic Tranquility. My immediate thought was, "This is what its all about." I thought about it for several weeks. I had to go to San Francisco and took a non-stop out of Dulles Airport. In the 5 1/2 hour flight I wrote the 'mother paper', "The Constitution as a Clue to an Ecology of Human Society or To Insure the domestic Tranquility." The paper summarized my thoughts on the past and present world economic situation, the evolutionary and biological properties of man, the age of Reason, the Constitution et al.

This paper was widely discussed and eventually led to the formation of the Institute for domestic Tranquility which was incorporated in the State of Delaware on (date).

The Salient Conclusions

Wealth is a function of resources and knowledge, and since knowledge is increasing exponentially and resources are infinitely recyclable there should be enough for everybody, present and future. Its a matter of distribution of wealth not its production, and always has been.

Humans are dangerous animals. We could easily post a notice like the Surgeon General's "Humans are Dangerous to the Health of the Planet." Humans are dangerous because biologically they are beta animals, the prey in the predator/prey relationship, but because of language based technology they have super alpha power. An individual may be afraid of a small dog, but some men with tools of destruction kill the largest most fearless animals on the earth. And humans kill lesser game and themselves at an appalling rate. But for all the destructive aspects of language based technology there are positive aspects with many humanitarian actions which could lead to an humane world.

The Age of Reason

John Locke and Thomas Jefferson give us an alternative to the rule of force in the rule of law and introduce an element of equality, more properly interpreted equity. These thoughts and concepts found their way into our two most precious documents the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Recipes

The Preamble to the Constitution is one recipe for government. The Declaration of Independence has another.

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union, to establish Justice, to insure the domestic Tranquility, to provide for the common defense and to promote the general Welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States"

Justice and Welfare relate to individuals. They are autecological. Tranquility and defense relate to communities, they are synecological. Together they represent the ecology of individuals and the ecology of communities in the framework for the definition of government.

History speaks loudly to the free hand with which the largess is distributed for community purposes; the great cathedrals, the great tombs, the great temples and war in all its aspects. History is equally eloquent on the stinginess of society in supporting justice (for all) and in supporting the general welfare for individuals. We as a society do not much like the poor and we begrudge them support from the public coffers. For the welfare of the business community the treasury house doors are open, as they should be if it leads to greater productivity and hence to greater wealth to be shared by the society as a whole. We as a society find it easy to support causes with out the names of individuals attached, we are reluctant to support any effort which seems to benefit individuals who can be named. Synecology, sky is the limit; autecology purse strings are pulled tightly. This economic trend has become so remarkable that is the mechanism for dispensing the surplus wealth of the society. The defense budget in the Reagan ad ministration can only be viewed as a mechanism for distributing the surplus wealth of the nation, past, present, and future. I'll have more to say on this subject in a forthcoming discussion of the Ecology of World Debt.

What's Worth Defending

We can distinguish between the community properties of domestic Tranquility and the common defense in the following way: The common defense is supported by the military arts and sciences. The domestic Tranquility is supported by the pacific arts and sciences. The fruits of domestic Tranquility are what make the country worth defending.

The Declaration of Independence has a different recipe for government. Jefferson says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And that to obtain these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." What are the unalienable rights? They will be different from society to society is detail, but they won't differ much in principle. The unalienable rights, are access to those processes of society that enables one to survive and thrive. The unalienable rights enfranchise citizens in the society, they are the citizens equity in the society. For our society they are:

• Life
• Liberty
• Pursuit of Happiness
• Health A Humane Environment
• Humane Nutrition
• Humane Habitation
• Education
• An Equal Share of the Commonwealth
• Participation in Free Enterprise
• The Right of Residency and Movement
• The Constitutional Guarantees of Citizenship

There may be others. We would have to give serious consideration to privacy as an unalienable right.

Equity

Dr. Milton Marley describes the system in which we are working in the most general terms. First of all we are working with decision systems. Decision systems occur through out the universe, in fact the universe itself is one. Moreover we are interested in self-generating, self-replicating decision systems. These certainly include the ecological systems and would of necessity include human society. The items of interest are not only the systems and the decisions they make, but most importantly how resources are partitioned or divided within and among the systems. The process of the partitioning of resources establishes equity. Not all organisms in the system get an equal share, but they get what they need to survive or thrive or they are lost to the system. Generally speaking then IdT's interest is in the equity in the self-generating, self-replicating system we call human society, particularly in the United States and as it is influenced by the organizing documents of the system that is our nation. We are deeply indebted to Dr. Marley for this analysis.

Not Empty Words

Look at these concepts carefully. The preamble says, "We the People," the Declaration says, . . ."the consent of the governed." These are not empty words to be recited in 8th grade civics then forgotten to be replaced by hollow patriotism, or adulation for the Office of the President. If the people are the sovereign then they must act like the sovereign and require their government to provide the legal and fiscal environment for each citizen sovereign to enjoy the unalienable rights endowed them by their Creator. This is their equity in the system. When this happens our social welfare program will be reduced to a minimum, our citizens will have access to the processes their rights give them and they can look after themselves. Nobody wants a welfare state, nobody wants the poor. Well the way to change all that is to give people their unalienable rights, enfranchise them in the society, and they will become the middle class. Give them access to their equity.

Rugged Individualism vs Cooperation

Rugged individualism, while it was a valuable virtue on the frontier, is not the valid modus operandi for the enlightened democracy. We are seeing greater and greater evidence that cooperation produces more overall wealth, a healthier and safer work place and a livelier school situation. Not that individualism is bad per se. It is not. Most artists are not cooperators, for instance, but a society that sees a competitive edge by depriving certain members their unalienable rights is a sick society, especially when there is enough to go around. And intentionally producing scarce resources as our recent administration has done to deny even the humanitarian support to the disadvantaged, undermines the basic vitality of the society, which is established to perfect the union, secure the blessings of liberty, justice, tranquility, defence and welfare using just powers derived with the consent of the governed, not implied consent (Gee only 40% of the registered voters voted and only 50% of those eligible were registered.)

Voting Is Not A Right Its An Obligation

It should be mandatory on the part of every local registrar to enlist the eligible voters of his/her district, failure to do so under the penalty of the law. Like the census takers are persons eligible to vote should be sought out and enrolled, by voting registrars. Persons failing to vote would need a note from their mother, their doctor or pay a 25 to 50 dollar fine. How can the government rule with the consent of the governed when the governed don't participate and in many instance are encouraged not to participate.

The Anachronistic Electoral College

We have to get rid of the Electoral College as a last vestige of a slave society whose landed aristocracy was afraid of the people. Their heart was in the right place. Their pens allowed for a time when their thoughts would need changing and the courts and various amendments have through the years proven them right. More changes are needed to achieve the democratic state our forefathers started but knew they couldn't finish in their life times. We escaped from an enlightened monarchy, we had a flying start at republican democracy. We have to be a better example to the world than just a bunch of spoiled privileged children exploiting both our European heritage and the natural resources of the Indian Nations of North America. Taking a hard look at the ecological properties of our society and our government will point the way to the needed adjustments, which can evolve as our society moves from a human economy to a humane economy, from a human to a humane society, from property based human morality to a humane morality based upon the principle of the unalienable rights and ecological equity.

IdT

The Institute for domestic tranquility looks at the evolutionary history of man, both biological and technological, the properties of man, economics, the law and the two great touchstones of our democracy, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence an is attempting to see the ecological relationships among them. As Chris Maser puts it, "We view governments and society as subsets of the biosphere."

Animal Morality

Animal morality is the "Law of the Talon." King of the hill is a kids game which plays out animal morality. Who can stay on the top of the hill against the force of all others. Animal morality relates to territory, held during the time of ones prime but lost to the vigor of youth, or the procession of a harem lost to the same cause. Animals live in real time (for the most part) and occupy niches in the ecological scheme of things in accordance to their evolution derived endowments. Ecological systems without man display equity, all of nature displays equity, the partitioning of resources. The "Big Bang" was a decision system and "our" equity from it is the positive matter universe. Animals and plants occupy ecological niches and exploit their abilities to compete. In the animal world there are predators and prey, alpha and beta animals. Alpha animals like the blue shark which apparently do not know fear, and rabbits and mice which are the prey of larger animals are examples. Humans are beta animals from the standpoint of evolution but with super alpha power through technology. The evidence is clear that humans have learned to use that power benignly and positively and destructively and negatively.

Territory and Property

The possibility for a human morality arose with the shift from the concept of territory to the concept of property. Territory is a real time procession held for the time the individual has the power to hold it. Property is a language based technology function which is perpetuate through time. Property but not territory can be inherited. Property gives rise to economics and economics and property give rise to human morality. The Ten Commandments are full of property and economics related injunctions; Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Even worshiping false gods might lead to tithing to the wrong church.

"Shoot The Looters."

During the 1968 riots that occurred in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley said it all, "Shoot the looters." The property is more valuable than the lives. In the Middle Ages and beyond when a good horse was worth more than a slave, purchase price that is, the nobility that owned such horses might get severely irked if an hapless person were to be run down by such a horse injuring the horse. World War II, the regular insurance companies would not offer life insurance to military personnel in time of war. The government underwrote to program. A human life was worth $10,000. The premium $3.40 per month. The government made a ton of money which it distributed to the military in the form of dividends. The demographics of war worked wonderfully in favor of the insurance. Millions went into service only hundreds of thousands saw any combat, hence a large profit for the insurance venture. In the Korean Conflict and in the Vietnam War private companies provided the insurance.

Human morality? What's it worth?

The economics of the world of human morality speaks to disequalities and redistribution efforts to amend these disequalities. This is the world of "All men are created equal," which was a misstatement when Jefferson wrote it and is a destructive myth. "All men are Created Equal" is the equal and opposite bromide to the Malthusian proposition that there is not enough to go around. Both statements are false. Malthus was wrong and all men are not equal. There is enough to go around, our technology has always seen to that, and one day transportation and communication systems will make it go around. Men/women are not created equal but they are endowed with an equal access to the processes of the societies that allow them to survive and thrive. This is where the individual meets the government s/he created. Recall Jefferson's words, "and to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." What does a citizen get for this grant of authority to govern? The citizen should get what every other citizen gets; the unalienable rights, equity in the system, for which purpose the government was established. Remember we have two recipes for government: one, Jefferson, is an autecological approach, individuals and the unalienable rights. The second the Constitution with its preamble with both autecological and synecological properties, justice and welfare for individuals and defense and tranquility for communities.

Surplus Wealth

We know we can spend unlimited amounts to counter our beta brained paranoid fear of foreign aggression. What we have yet to discover is that we can spend just as lavishly for domestic Tranquility and for much better purposes. Spending for defense is just what it says it is, spending. Spending for domestic Tranquility is investing in our future. If we were to judge the efficacy of government spending by the amount of taxes it generated (for the government taxes = profits), we would see the big pluses every time on the side of domestic tranquility. Does the tax collector get more money from the killing of people or the healing of people do we get more taxes from unskilled uneducated, illiterate people, or highly trained, skilled and literate people. The comparisons become sheer nonsense. Defense and war time prosperity is the grandest illusion of Western Society. Japan and West Germany, our two former enemies whom we pacified speak eloquently to the matter. They are on a peace time economy and we are on a war time economy. They are making money and we are borrowing it from them and selling our capital assets to foot the bill.

Glasnost And Perestroika

Glasnost and perestroika are essential if the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries are going to emulate Japan, not the United States. We are not the model. Its not democracy the Russians want it is economic power. Japan proved it by losing World War II and winning World War III, the economic war. We have the best social framework. We have the most workable social model. Do we need a strong defense? Yes we do but the money spent for defense should be spent on defense not to achieve some social or ideological goals. We have to protect and advance our political hegemony. We also have to protect and advance our economic hegemony. Both must work in tandem. We can not borrow for defense, neglect the infrastructure, allow business and industry to go hog wild on borrowed money and expect to retain any semblance of leadership either at home or abroad in either our economic or political hegemony. We just have ignored several of the most important parts of the legacy of the founding fathers in our pell mell pursuit of human values (greed) while losing sight of the humane values.

The World System

The World System is harsh and unforgiving. Immanuel Wallerstein makes this quite clear in his two volume work, the World System. He and some of his colleagues indicate in other papers that the game may already be lost to Japan. Fernand Braudel in his three volume history of capitalism describes in great detail how economic strategies rose and fell and how western civilization thrived on innovation and creativity. Both Wallerstein and Braudel are ecologists as well as sociologists and historians. Are we doomed to go down like the Roman or British Empire? We are different. We have a system of government that is capable of great, sudden and swift course corrections. Has our leadership smelled the coffee? We can have it all. If we will just do what the preamble and the Declaration tell us to do.

Idt's Role

Idt's role is to teach ecology, perfect the union and redeem ourselves the nation and the earth. (Redeem = save). Idt's role is scientific and educational. We have to research the ecology of the unalienable rights. We have to educate the American public and the world at-large concerning the intrinsic, moral and ethical values associated with domestic Tranquility and the unalienable rights. We have to seek for balance in the government among all the virtues of the Preamble. We have to promote the pacific arts and sciences. We have to promote a fair system of taxation, the progressive individual income tax, to insure that the government can provide the physical and social environment for each individual to have access to the unalienable rights, according to Jefferson, Creator given rights. We have to promote the concept of equity, not equality, but equity. We all have a Creator endowment of unalienable rights and it is immoral to deprive any citizen of it.

Enlightened Self-Interest

We can't do it alone. No one organization can be all the things Idt has to be. The subject matter ranges over the total spread of human knowledge. The interests span the transactions of daily life to the actions of nations. We are interested in all actions of the Federal Government. The question posed in the Federalist Papers was how would the people interact with government and how would they get the government to pay attention to them. The answer was that people will act in their own self-interest. They will form groups and the groups will act in the self-interest of the group. A whole sector of the government has arisen from self-interest groups. We call them non profit or tax exempt corporations. For the advantage of not paying the corporate tax and/or the privilege of deducting contributions and dues to non-profits from the individual income tax the Federal Government has enfranchised thousands of organizations to act in their self-interest as long as the self-interest agrees with predetermined actions approved by the government. Education, promotion of science and research, charity and a host of other reason are acceptable for the establishment of non-profits.

Research, Education And 501(c)(3)

IdT sees its role as an educational and research organization in that same light and obtained the 501(c)(3) designation. We have in effect agreed in exchange for tax exempt contributions, to do research and educate people, our members and the public at large on the purposes of our organization, which is really in the support of better government and a better society and which mission has been approved by the Internal Revenue Service. Since we can't do it all we have devised the notion of affiliating with like organizations, which we will designate affiliate members and establishing other organizations which we will designate associate members. We have several such operations underway and you will hear more about them from time to time as items arise worth reporting. IdT, if successful will be come an Institute of related organizations each one organized independently, incorporated independently, and managed independently, but which will carry our part of the over all mission of applying ecology and ecosystem thought to the operations of our lives and the life of our nation. The purpose as always to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

A Free People's Exercise Of Their Unalienable Rights

The ideal conception of domestic Tranquility is a free peoples exercise of their unalienable rights. Such a society would be Eden II where the world becomes a vast park and where knowledge and resources provide the sustenance and our lives are governed by an humane morality. Where the only limitation to individual development is original genetic equipment not the limitations wrongly imposed by social environment. Where each individual is endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, which become the equity for that individual in the society. Would there be people of great wealth. Yes. That will never change. A society can not limit the accumulation of wealth and express its full range of creativity. Wealth has an ecology of its own. It is access to the process of wealth generation that's important and it is the denial of the unalienable rights to large segments of our society that makes the process cruel and immoral.

Examine the list of unalienable rights and see for yourself how many of the problems of our society would be alleviated or would disappear if their full expression was ongoing. Access to education alone would solve most of our problems from drug use, to unemployment to meeting the foreign competition and the examples could go on.

IdT Needs Your Help

It won't take contributions from a million people for us to realize our goals and ambitions. More likely we will achieve what we want with few but dedicated supporters. We need a faithful cadre (tens, hundreds, possibly thousands) of supporters who have the confidence to think we are on the right road and that we will succeed and who will support us however long it takes. We don't want people to sacrifice for us, we don't want tithers, we want true believers who will share their disposable tax deductible income with us. Why?..because we have no foundation grant or sponsor to fund our activities. Everything we do..the newsletter 'We the People", notices, letters, etc., are paid for by contributions from a precious few friends and members.

In 1988 a handful of people responded to our needs with contributions ranging from $25.00 to $1200.00. Much of the support for the newsletter has come from Bob Linn, who does the printing, collating, mailing, etc.

We will survive at this level because the few who are contributing are dedicated, but we are on too narrow a basis to thrive. Our contributors have seen IdT struggle to emerge as an idea transforming into reality. They have seen IdT come a long way conceptually and see it beginning to be translated into specific action. But IdT, without additional help, will remain on the flat part of the growth curve. We are looking to a growth process, we are looking to increased development with the growth, but we are in stasis with only maintenance of a few functions and the tentative start of others.

We have important accomplishments. Three corporate associates are well on the way to being organized with two more in the concept stage. I expect National Parks Associates to be incorporated in a matter of weeks. Proprietors of the Public Domain is thought out conceptually but needs an organizing principal. The teen health organization has a set of purposes, an organizing principal but little momentum as yet. A new organization is in the brain storming stage, one to look at the problem of preserving biodiversity. We have a tentative title, "The National Association for Biogeographical Planning." The concept: Natural diversity has to be planned like anything else. You will be hearing much more about this in the near future. All these "starts" are founded within the concept of a natural human ecology, conceived as seeds that can root and grow and change with the human condition.

Won't you look at the purposes clause of our charter and see what in the purposes you already are supporting. You may find the basis for transferring that support to IdT. We are broad purposed, with the main function to teach ecology as it applies to our world, the nation and to the transactions of our daily lives, raise our awareness of how ecological principles are shaping our individual actions, our collective activities, our world. With our present limited support our actions are correspondingly limited.

What's Reasonable

It is impossible to say what an appropriate contribution should be. We have contributions in the range from $25 to $1200 now. If a lump sum is difficult to manage, spread your contribution over monthly or quarterly payments. Above all your contribution should reflect your commitment to the organization.

We don't want to change the world. We want the world to see it self ecologically. We know after that the world will change by itself. We are for legal equality and ecological equity. And ecological equity is attainable only when all persons have the opportunity to exercise their unalienable rights. Ecological equity and the unalienable rights are synonymous. A world balanced among Justice, domestic Tranquility, the common defense, and the general Welfare defines the ecological environment where all this can happen.

If You Believe And Have Faith

Unalienable rights and domestic Tranquility are what we are all about. If you believe and have faith in the goodness and fairness of your fellow human beings then you believe in ecology as the organizing principle and ecological equity as a system that can make for a better world... a world of human experience transforming itself to a world of humane experience. This is the world our Founding Fathers conceptualized in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the one we lost track of, and the one that can perfect itself through human ecology. (Our nation is a system self-designing, in the context of the world system, which is self-designing and we are the "self!") IdT's ultimate purposes: (1) teach ecology and thereby speed the process of (2) perfecting the Union (3) redeeming ourselves, the nation and the earth.

Bootstraps

With your help IdT will flourish and become the influential organization it needs to be. Won't you take the time to look at this important problem now? Your support is vital. IdT is a pyramid standing on its tip. Help us put it on a solid base. Help us write the ecological contract. Please contribute today. Call or write Bob Linn with your pledge. You will pull yourself and world up by your bootstraps.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1989
Institute for domestic Tranquility