peoplehood" -- or, to speak of it another way, "indigenous economics".
I introduce myself to you after the recent SPUR event and you gave me
your email address. I hope that I did not unduly monopolize your time
at the event and I hope that my aggressiveness in reaching out to you
was not offensive.
I grew up in the Tahoe/Truckee area but I went to Burning Man last year
for the first time because the theme of Evolution spoke so directly to
my passions (I was also getting divorced, so I was finally "allowed" to
go, but that is another story). Black Rock City was the first place in
the world that I felt that I was accepted as my genuine self -- a man
with a vision of renewal. I have always been the boring guy at the BBQ
that can't seem to focus on the latest advancement in mountain biking
technology, or the political intrigues of local Little League Baseball
draft. On the playa, I offered footbaths to the community with my
clear, clean Shinneyboo water. The baths came with or without a vision
of evolution. Only one person took it without the vision, and I
appreciated her candor and enjoyed giving her a footbath just as much as
all the others. I learned to offer my vision as a gift, without
expectation of anything in return, and that has profoundly changed my
life. Thank you for your part in providing me with that opportunity.
The theme of Metropolis is again deeply aligned with my life's work.
I believe that you cannot understand the form of any Metropolis without
looking at its organizational DNA. The large skyscrapers of San
Francisco sprang from the organizational DNA of Wells Fargo and Bank of
America just as castles and moats sprung from the organizational DNA of
medieval monarchies, just as the mighty oak springs from the
organizational DNA held within the diminutive acorn, or Black Rock City
springs each year from the organizational DNA held within the surveyor's
flags that inform the annual unfolding of the Burning Man mandala
metropolis.
An intrepid band in the High Sierra seeks to evolve the organizational
DNA of the dominant structure in society (corporations) and we believe
that the evolution will be manifested in the new metropolises we build
-- but without changing the current corporate organizational DNA then
visions of new metropolises will not be possible. We seek to create
this radical change by looking back to our indigenous roots and fusing
the best of that knowledge with new zero cost, mass coordination tools
-- tools that allow for decentralized but coordinated incorporations of
community never before possible in human history. We call it
"corporate peoplehood" and it is nothing less than the rebirth of the
indigenous tribes based on the economic models of the rabbit runs of the
Shoshone and the buffalo runs of the prairie peoples. In fact, we are
in talks with the The International Council of 13 Indigenous
Grandmothers <http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com/> to host a healing
ceremony where indigenous people forgive the wandering ones for the pain
of the past and ask them to become indigenous again and to enter into a
great economic alliance to nurture the Earth and each other with radical
love and inclusiveness.
In the 1770s in America a handful of people, inspired by the great
Iroquois Confederacy, began to dream of national peoplehood and those
dreams changed the world. In the Western European world up until that
point it was national personhood that prevailed. Europeans even went so
far as to call the monarch by the name of the state, so France and
England meant the Kings of France and England, not the people. But that
was the age of the Nation State, and now we are entering the Age of the
Corporate State and corporate personhood is dominant. 2007 was the
first year in human history that the majority of the 100 largest
economies in the world are now corporations, not governments. We
believe that now is the time for us to imagine corporations that are the
embodiment of a people -- strong, powerful, profitable corporations that
are of the people, by the people, and for the people. We believe that
an incorporation of community of this kind (Us Inc., if you will) has
the potential to become the largest economy in the world, based on the
emerging power of decentralized, coordinated economic structures (e.g.
Burning Man, Wikipedia, Linux, etc).
So enough theory, now to practical matters. We are caretaking 160 acres
of the most spectacular High Sierra county around
<http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=shinneyboo> on the Western Slope of
Donner Summit near Cisco Grove now called Shinneyboo Creek Cabins
<http://www.shinneyboocreek.com/> . We are building an economic tribe,
a democratic corporate nation on this land. We plan to build an ARC
(aggressively resource-efficient community) Ecosphere that will be a
live, shop, work, play village without cars. We will seek radical
efficiencies in the use of natural resources (and the full use of the
creativity and potential of our human resources) to liberate ourselves
from fossil fuel tyranny and to build a just, abundant, and sustainable
economy. But this is just the beginning. We are working on a regional
vision to apply these ideas to the entire Northern High Sierra.
What I ask of you, if you have made it this far, is any time you might
have to advise us. Burning Man in so many ways embodies the indigenous
economics that we are attempting to animate in our lives. Your insight
and experience would be greatly appreciated. Shinneyboo is a great
place to enjoy the High Sierra, and we would be honored to have you come
and stay in a cabin if that works for you, I travel to SF often if that
works better for you, or if you have time on the phone then that would
be appreciated (although I greatly prefer face to face communications).
Thank you for your time and consideration.
With Hope, Determination, and Love
Michael Rogers (Pilgrim)
530-587-5160
