Recently I read an article from Chomsky in which he spoke of people’s beliefs who have made it into the establishment. He looks at a typical top journalist for the New York Times, for example, and asks what moves this guy to write what he writes. Is he being censored, manipulated by his bosses to write pro-government, pro-corporate articles? Chomsky says no. This guy believes what he’s writing. He’s not lying and he’s not being censored. The journalist’s world view is clearly within that of the dominate culture. He is no radical and he doesn’t think in revolutionary terms and doesn’t seriously question the system. He’s beliefs conform to those of the power elite.
Chomsky says that top journalists are by default conformists. If they weren’t they simply wouldn’t have gotten where they are. They would have been booted out way earlier. The education they go through conditioned and formed them. Throughout his education and career the journalist has been molded into what h is. You could say he brainwashed, though that is misleading. So there’s no need to actively censure your newspapers cus they are by their own will printing what you want them to.
This attitude seems defeatist to me cus it says: you’re a conformer, you’re in the system cus you believe in it, so what can be changed? If the conformers firmly believe in what they’re doing, then there’s no way they’re gonna change. That seems rather hopeless.
Would Chomsky agree to that? There is no way to “convert” the conformists and there’s no use wasting our time trying. Maybe we should concentrate our efforts elsewhere. Maybe itÄs been a mistake and a waste of time thinking we could convince the established if we just tried hard enough, got enough people behind us an had good enough arguments.

We would like to organize a workshop on economic alternatives. Topics could range from parecon to local currencies to local first (small-mart revolution). Here is what it could look like:
- one or two day event
- small introductory lectures on a few central topics
- focus on working groups
- summary at end and planning next steps
- goals: help people find groups in the area in which they can get involved, setup system where groups in the region can network
Possible topics:
- parecon and libertarian socialism (Charles)
- Bürgergeld (ZAK)
- Small-Mart: Penny?
- Military and capitalism, attac?? Globalisierungskritiker
- local currencies (Reinhold Klett)
- Global Marshall Plan
- Alternative Wohnformen (Axel Burkhart (Burgi) von der Schelling (burgi@schellingstrasse.de): he has a presentation prepared on Wohnprojekte, Networking)
Goals:
- creating a vision
- helping get more people involved
- encouraging dialogue
- encouraging long-lasting, substantive change through local action
- what can be done at the community level to further global goals of economic justice?
- how can more people get involved?
- how can we reach a wider sector of the population?
- common goals of attendees?
-- strengthen local economies
-- decrease dependence on corporations
-- increase control of individual over his/her life (consumption, work, political life)
-- increase economic justice
- networking
Guidelines:
- topics have to be focused on socio-economic issues
- in the workgroup segments it has to be a priority that as many people as possible take part in the discussions. It has to be avoided that we only have experts lecturing on their topics.
- By giving people the opportunity to speak themselves we radically increase the chances of them becoming empowered to get involved.


Questions:
We we like to adopt the principles of the World Social Forum (https://www.ussf2007.org/en/wsf_charter)
How could we get others involved in the preparation?