Jonathan Brun

[:en]TEDxQuébec – Un revenu de base pour tous[:]

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[:en]On Haiti and Freedom[:]

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Haitians are a proud people and for good reason. They were the first colony to free themselves from slavery and overthrow a ruling class. The revolution, set off in part by the French Revolution, led to a bloody battle and punishing reprisals from European nations. Some two hundred years ago, one of my ancestors, Philibert Fressinet was a commanding officer in an invasion force sent to Haiti by Napoleon in the worlds then largest naval fleet to attempt to recapture the wealthy colony of Saint-Dominique (now Haiti) and re-instate slavery. In some ways, I wanted to go Haiti to absolve my ancestors sins and to see for myself what a revolutionary colony looks like. It’s not pretty.

I have travelled to poor places before – Ethiopia, rural China, Mongolia and others – but Haiti in 2015 is truly a place in desperate need of massive assistance. The Haitians fight for liberation started in 1791 and allowed them to free themselves from the bonds of slavery, but it left them in a political quagmire that lasts to this day. Walking through the streets of Port-au-Prince or smaller cities you see abject poverty nearly everywhere, yet you also see tremendous pride in the faces of everyday citizens. This fascinating contrast is difficult to explain. The expressions on their faces are different from any other non-white people I have met. Nearly all people of colour around the world were subject to colonialism at some point in time – everyone from the aboriginals in Canada to the people of Africa and Asia. When I visited Tanzania many people did not look you in the eye, their head and eyes turned downward upon sight of a white person as if to say they were subjugated. I would claim that this is even true in the United States with African Americans. An ingrained inferiority complex beaten into certain peoples takes generations to root out of a society. Some mouvements can accomplish the feat of instilling pride in a oppressed people and one of the most recent attempts was the Black Panthers, who led a fight for equal rights and dignity in the 1970s before imploding due to FBI sabotage and infighting. They had a similar image of pride in their eyes.

The leader of the Haitian uprisings, Toussaint l’Ouverture perhaps explained it best when he stated that he planned

“to cease to live before gratitude dies in my heart, before I cease to be faithful to France and to my duty, before the god of liberty is profaned and sullied by the liberticides, before they can snatch from my hands that sword, those arms, which France confided to me for the defence of its rights and those of humanity, for the triumph of liberty and equality.”

The Haitian people, if anything, are about freedom – freedom of spirit and of body. You can see this passion and righteous freedom in their eyes like I have not seen in may other people, except those of the ruling classes in other countries.

Haiti is tiny and mountainous an has over 10.32 million people who congregate in the valleys and near the water, making towns and countryside incredibly dense. The deforestation and its impacts on agriculture and sustainability are well documented in book such as Collapse by Jared Diamond. Simply flying over the country you can see the demarcation with the Dominican Republic, which has remained forested thanks to strictly enforced laws. All this to say that Haiti has a serious and not easily remedied problem: too many people and not enough land and resources.

The second main issue I could see in Haiti is that anyone with either an education or a bit of wealth leaves the country. This emigration empties of the country of a potential middle class. After the revolution some of its leaders got greedy and established a ruling elite not dissimilar to other central and Latin American countries. One leader, Henri Christophe ruled the north and even thought it was a good idea to reproduce, in exacting detail down to the specific titles, the aristocratic structure of Europe. This ruling elite has continued to exist until today and they seem to have little interest in developing the country. Much of the the aid money sent to Haiti often ends up in their hands. Without an educated middle class to counter the power of an elite, it becomes very difficult to establish the rule of law and build up an economy.

Third, foreign intervention is not new to Haiti. After the 1791 revolution and under threat of invasion, reparations estimated at 20 billion 2015 dollars were paid by Haiti to France for loss of property including Slaves. Successive interventions occurred over the years up to the American invasion in 1915. Today, foreign intervention is more subtle, but it is a major influencing factor on the politics and opportunity for the Haitian people. From controversial deals that prevent the application of Haitian law in a section of the North Coast and potentially an island Carnival Cruises has leased out land for foreign tourists to enjoy. The massive investments by foreign embassies, aid organizations and other non-profit groups has an impact on the relationships between foreigners and Haitians and between Haitians themselves. These investments, often done behind back-doors, makes it challenging for an economy to be built as Haitians will often use aid money to buy products from China or the Dominican Republic instead of building factories for their own production. In short, a system of dependency has been created that is sadly aligned with some of the interests of the ruling elite and certain foreign entities.

It would be nice to say that I am optimistic for Haiti, but I fear I cannot be. With no president and increasing violence, Haiti seems to be in a situation that cannot easily be corrected. There are so many problems that any realistic solution would need to involve the relocation of millions of people, the investment of billions of dollars and the return of educated émigrés. If there is one thing Haiti undeniably has it is honour and pride in their remarkable revolution that is well documented in C.L.R. James book, The Black Jacobins. It would be a great victory to see Haiti prosper, but if there is any lesson to be learned from them, it is that one should not understate the power of foreign countries, corrupt elites and revolutionary fever.[:]

[:en]Four Ideas to Change the World[:]

[:en]Time passes by so fast, I have been busy at Nimonik and had little time to write about the things I see in this crazy world. Luckily, NASA just announced the discovery of a 0.98 similar planet, so we can have a back-up planet if we do not sort out issues here. We will however need some form of traveling device near the speed of light to get there, or faster. Elon Musk? If Elon cannot solve it, here are four ideas that I am really passionate about these days and that I think can change society for the better. Read on about them if you can, I hope to elaborate in more detail in the near(ish) future.

1. Liquid Feedback – A system to make decision making democratic and fluid.
2. Rolling Jubilee – debt annulment for medical debt or the creation of a debtors union to free people from quasi-debtors jail. Don’t forget to read the great 5,000 years of debt.
3. Basic Income – Distribution of common wealth (land tax, spectrum charges, pollution charges) to all citizens on an equal basis. Great book here on Citizen dividends, another term for basic income.
4. A Tax on Capital – reduce the influence of capital in society and encourages people to invest their money in active assets that produce goods and services, as opposed to become rentiers living off the work of others. Read Pikettys Capital in the 21st century, best book in a long, long time.

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[:en]Response to The Walrus Prostitution Debate[:]

[:en]Here is a recent letter to the Walrus that I wrote. If you are interested in Canada, The Walrus is a great publication.

Traffic Jam

As the organizer of a recent debate on the new prostitution bill, C-36, I am familiar with the emotional discourse surrounding sex-trafficking numbers (“Dirty Tricks,” December). Both sides of the broader debate, for legalization and for abolition, have a tendency to distort statistics. And as Alexandra Kimball indicates, each side has a hidden agenda: the legalization camp sees money to be made, while the abolitionists see sin.

We cannot deny that this debate is a moral one, and not simply a matter of mathematical analysis. Should society simply condone the selling of sexual services, primarily by women to men? Progress requires equality, and the abolition of prostitution is a stepping stone toward greater gender equality. As long as it is profitable and socially acceptable for women to sell their bodies, the practice will continue. The solution is to remove the demand from the market and encourage women to seek alternative means of employment. Sweden’s prostitution laws (passed in 1999 and the model for Bill C-36) have led to a precipitous drop in human trafficking and the sale of sexual services in that country—numbers, yet again.

What’s clear: we must choose between believing our fellow Canadians sometimes have to resort to prostitution to earn a living, and believing that we can offer them something better.[:]

How to build a Citizen Movement for Basic Income

[:en]This is the text to be presented at the North American Basic Income Guarantee Conference in New York City on February 28th, 2015. More information on the conference here.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Jonathan Brun, I previously founded two citizen action groups that successfully lobbied for more government transparency – or what we call open data – in Montréal and in the province of Québec. I am the Québec spokesperson for the Canadian Basic Income Network and the cofounder of the Québec Basic Income citizen initiative. I am a web entrepreneur and obviously passionate about basic income.

This talk is aimed to help those who are looking to organize around basic income. It is of course not a comprehensive guide or contextualized to your environment. I hope it helps some organizers here in the United States and elsewhere structure your efforts, build them out and exert influence. I believe basic income is possible in our lifetimes, but it will require thousands of hours of hard work, dedication and discipline. The following steps are not comprehensive, but I believe they are essential to any citizen initiative.

The five steps I wish to cover today in about 10 minutes are:

1. Building an Identity
2. Getting Organized
3. Spreading the Message
4. Growing a Mouvement
5. Exerting Pressure

1. Building an Identity

The first step to any mouvement is to clearly lay out your own identity. Who is the Basic Income mouvement and why does it exist? When people hear about Basic Income they should immediately have a clear picture in their mind of the organization, its aims, goals and its way communicating. Ask yourselves this, if the Basic Income Mouvement were an animal, which animal would it be?

This need for an identity is essential to any successful organization – non-profit or for-profit. What do we think when we are asked what the World Wildlife Federation is, Greenpeace, the United Farm Workers, the Teamsters, The Tea Party, The Occupy Mouvement, etc. There is an image that comes to mind within a few seconds, that image will define the way people react the following things you say – so it is of the utmost importance.

Part of building an identity is branding. In a modern society, such as the United States or Canada, we have tough competition of people’s attention – and donations (eventually). Our competition is not so much other non-profits or other mouvements, but rather the media landscape in general. People are bombarded with advertisements and content 24/7 – they see advertisements and information all day, every day, on their televisions, radios, computers and phones. If we want to gain even 5 minutes of the average person’s attention, the Basic Income mouvement must be presented in a catchy and professional manner.

This requires a professional logo, powerful copy on websites and printed material, a great catch phrase and even more. The recent social mouvements in Ukraine and Thailand and elsewhere had a number of common features – one of which was a colour. A colour or colour scheme is a powerful symbol – think of the national flags or the major corporations we know about, their colours are a pillar of their identity. This is not recent and includes everything form the thirteen colonies to the french revolutionaries, who used the red white and blue to symbolize their difference with the ruling classes. The Basic Income mouvement should consider adopting a colour that allows itself to be easily identified. This colour would then be used on t-shirts, communications and other items. In Canada, we are adopting purple to ensure we are not tied to a political party and it is a colour that is not commonly used – it also has a link to peace.

The fonts and layout used on the website and the printed materials must also be consistent. Building an identity requires  number of pieces, but it should not be taken lightly or disregarded as something for large organizations, well funded political mouvements or corporations. No mouvement can be successful without a strong and clear identity.

2. Getting Organized

It has been said that there are two challenges in building a sustainable mouvement – getting organized and staying organized. Basic Income, in North America at least, has yet to get organized. It may therefore be premature to discuss staying organized, but it is something we should keep in the back of our minds. Part of the reason that the civil rights mouvement fell apart after the death of Martin Luther King, was that its organizational structure was terribly poor. But I digress, let’s discuss getting organized.

Start small, but use scalable models. In the business world, when someone is proposing a new venture, one of the first questions is, “Is it scalable”. Which means, with more capital or ressources, does your model grow in a cost effective manner. If your model cannot grow cost effectively and generate a profit, then you are not scalable, which is a death sentence. While the initial work done by any organization is typically arduous and labour intensive, it needs to lay a foundation on which the organization can sustainably build up its structure.

The beginnings should be simple. The United Farm Workers, led by Cesar Chavez, defended the rights of farm workers, but when they started they did so in a simple format not dissimilar to certain corporations such as Tupperware. They organized discussions at people’s homes, around their kitchen tables, by doing this for five months, they were then able to call a general convention that brought together farmers and their families to define a common way forward.

Now, one challenge with comparing basic income to other social mouvements is this: “Who is most concerned with basic income?” In all likelihood it is the underprivileged and the disenfranchised, though a good article by Geoff Simmons in New Zealand laid out 10 potential people who would benefit most: Students, The Working Poor, Volunteers, Entrepreneurs and a few more. However, should we base a Basic Income mouvement around this group of people – the poor and students, it is likely going to affect our identity – making basic income  harder sell to the middle class and the political elites. To ensure a broad base of support for the mouvement, we must create  coalition of groups that all have something substantial to gain from basic income. If they have too little to gain, they will not mobilize their ressources to help.

So, getting organized requires that we very actively reach out to anti-poverty groups, right wing government reduction groups, student organizations, volunteer networks and single revenue homes while also explaining the tax benefits to the middle and ruling classes. This process will take a significant amount of time and lots of hard work.

3. Spreading the message

Once a base has been established, the next step is to spread the message. This can be done through a series of tactics. Publicity stunts, such as the coin deposit done by the swiss mouvement help in attracting press attention. Op-eds, and articles in the mainstream press would help as well. But, the key element is the need to leverage existing institutions to help scale the mouvement.

On a side note, we all know there is growing mainstream press coverage of basic income and people in high places murmuring things about it. Even Bill Clinton was seen carrying the book, With Liberty and Dividends for all, that covers the need for Basic Income. However, do not confuse this with spreading the message about a Basic Income Mouvement – we are talking here about spreading the message that a mass citizen mouvement is requesting basic income.

Many successful social mouvements in the United States leveraged powerful organizations that already had scale such as religious organizations. In New York, where religion is perhaps less prominent in people’s lives, we often forget the importance of the Church, Mosque Synagogue or Temple in people’s lives. Everything from the Civil Rights mouvement to the Farm Workers to anti-war mouvements were able to effectively leverage religious institutions to both spread their message and position themselves as a just and holy cause. This piggy back effort can also be applied to other groups such as unions, non-profit groups and celebrities. It can be an important tool to spreading the message farther and faster than what we can do alone.

4. Growing a Mouvement

Once you are organized, a major challenge is maintaining momentum. You must constantly keep your troops motivated, at attention and willing to take action. This can be done in a number of ways.

You can organize events, conferences and common meals. One key element is that the members of your mouvement must see progress and small victories, or else they get frustrated and leave. For example during our effort for more government transparency, we hosted letter writing campaigns where we sent hand written letters to elected officials, many of them got a response, which led them to remain motivated. We also hosted Hackathons, which is an event that brings together technologists and other people to design technological solutions to problems. In Montreal, corruption had been making headlines for the last few years and so we leveraged or piggy-backed on this problem to organize an event called “Hacking Corruption”. The event brought together bureaucrats, technologists, journalists and others to build technological solutions to help fight corruption. Due to its timing, catchy headline and our identity, we were able to get 300 people, 10 politicians and most of the local, provincial and national media to cover the event. The visibility brought us new members, but more importantly it reenergized the existing base of volunteers.

Another thing to mention when growing a mouvement is how to handle motivated highly volunteers. As you grow and attract new people to your mouvement, you inevitably come into contact with highly motivated volunteers who are willing to go above and beyond typical requirements. It is essential that you empower these individual to take action and demonstrate that they are valued by the organization. If you do not, you risk losing them and they may start rival organizations. However, some motivated volunteers, can have difficulty following orders or sticking to a party line, so you must find a way to frame them into something productive that they are satisfied with and that allows you to maintain control over the messaging. This is perhaps one of the more challenging parts of growing an organization and each volunteer who wants to go beyond the typical tasks needs to be treated according to their specificities.

In summary, to grow a mouvement you need to piggy back on existing movements, groups or actions. You need to empower individuals and you must achieve small periodic victories to keep the troops motivated.

5. Exerting Pressure

When civil rights leads met with Franklin Delanor Roosevelt and asked for help for African Americans, he replied “Make me”. By this he meant that the social mouvements must form enough pressure so that the decision makers are obliged to act and have a public legitimacy to do so.

During our efforts to increase government transparency, we identified people within the city administration who were already advocating for our policy. We did this through LinkedIn – which is a powerful tool. We met with these people, off the record, to gain insights into how the city worked and why the policy had not already been done – who was opposing it, who was for it and what were the key roadblocks inside the administration. This is essential information, that is actually easy to obtain, and will pay huge dividends.

You can apply pressure from outside an organization, but your mouvement can also allow people within the organization to apply pressure. When we started the group, there were already people within the city administration who had been asking for such a policy. However, because there was no external pressure on the city, the higher-ups could point out the lack of public support and dismiss the internal demands of the employees. Just as we are competing for the attention of the general public when trying to promote basic income, we are also competing for the attention and decision making time of the powers that be. Our outside group empowered our insider allies to go back to their superiors and apply pressure.

Ultimately, effecting massive change on government or society requires us to identify the current pillars of support for a policy or system and systematically move those pillars of support to our own goals. We do not want the pillars to crumble, as that leads to anarchy (see Libya), but we want to transfer their weight bearing capacities to our structure.

I hope this has been useful information and that you an use it to build a citizen mouvement for Basic Income in the United States.

**Bibliography**

From Dictatorship to Democracy – Gene Sharp
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow
Why David Sometimes Wins – Strategy, Leadership and the California Farm Worker Mouvement – Miriam Pawal
Bolivar: American Liberator  – Maria Arana
The Black Jacobins – C.L.R James
Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela
Ghandi an Autobiography – Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi
René Lévesque, un homme et son rêve – Pierre Godin
The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns – Sasha  Issenberg
The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction – William Doyle

http://www.slideshare.net/montrealouvert/how-to-build-an-open-data-movement-in-your-city-state-or-province-okfn-data-camp-2011

http://blog.okfn.org/2011/09/12/how-to-build-an-open-data-initiative-for-your-city/[:]