THE SUM II: A Critical Analysis Of The Current State Of Activism To Create A Cohesive Vision, Strategy & Philosophy Of Neo-Trans

The second edition of "THE SUM II" supplies, among many other templates, the "Grand Unified Platform: A Common Ground Agenda Of The People For Integral Evolutionary Transformation,"--otherwise known as a "Synthesis Platform." As such it offers a holistic approach (THE 2016 SUM STRATAGEM: Seven Strategic & Interdependent Initiatives) to coordinate effective actions and create a "Grand Unified Alliance (GUA)" among independents, third parties, the "Optimistic Postmodernists" and "Progressive Libertarians" within the five most influential movements today: 1) The Tea Party/Liberty Movement, 2) Occupy, 3) Transition US, 4) US Social Forum and 5) the Zeitgeist Movement. And just in time for the upcoming US Presidential and Congressional elections.

The book virtually begins with a new 300-page “Interlude” chapter titled, “Reconfiguration: Change within Changelessness—The Current State of Activism.” The analytical assessment presented in this section of the book deconstructs the anatomy of demoralizing defeats due to past and present movements’ shortcomings and spectacular failures of third party politics to reveal a self-defeating codependent relationship between “outside-the-system” progressive activists and the “inside-the-system” liberal Democrats. It’s a painstakingly detailed and heartfelt admonition to unshackle us from the shortsighted “Lesser of Two Evils” mentality or its 2004 fear-driven sequel “Anybody But Bush” and right onto the 2016 “Dump Trump” or “Lose With Cruz” position by pro-establishment Republicans or “A Vote For Sanders Is A Vote For Trump” by status quo Democrats despite national polls suggesting otherwise. Most activists have yet begun to fully understand or acknowledge this divisive and dysfunctional correlation with “practical reformers” who adhere to the misguided paradigm of “the ends justify the means” by becoming corporate state Democrats rather than embracing the more ethically sound and universally applicable guiding principle of “the means are the ends in the making,” by overthrowing the pathological system through nonviolent, noncooperation civil disobedience on a massive scale. This, among many other erroneous positions has led conventional activists down a divisive and self-destructive path that only serves to derail all efforts towards true transformation. So much so, many now perceive them as the predominant problem.

PROBLEMS WITH PROGRESSIVES: The 45 Theses Regarding
The Obstacles Facing Activists Of The New Social Movements

Today, the unresolved problems of the 1960s and 70s still persist with a few more added over the course of 50 years: 1) an overemphasis on marches, demonstrations and protests rather than creating new institutions and an alternative social system for fundamental change; 2) a lack of reflection and long-term vision building; 3) a tendency to solely focus on the issues rather than promoting the values behind the issues; 4) divisions exist among social change agents due to activist cliques and movement silos that continues to create more barriers that prevents mending the fragmentation of progressive forces everywhere; 5) poor county, state and national activist infrastructure; consequently resulting in temporary alliances for protest marches with little or no follow-up and without any lasting impact; 6) activists are content to settle for temporary victories at the expense of creating a sustainable and national grassroots movement; 7) failure to capitalize on the successful challenges made against the established codes of mainstream culture, therefore possess less influence and revolutionary potential; 8) constantly fall short of galvanizing the 100 million non-voting Americans who have given up on politics; 9) erroneously putting all of our political eggs into one electoral candidate basket” by transferring most activist efforts, energy and hopes onto one individual political campaign without a bigger and broader plan to overhaul the entire political structure; 10) poor analysis of the true causes of our social problems, therefore, leading activist to fight the wrong enemies and often each other; 11) the minority few activists that do critical analysis often don’t offer a synthesis of proposed solutions to create a national cohesive program; 12) failure to integrate spiritual progressives and socially conscious religious conservatives as a resource of motivated individuals, groups and churches into a collaborative partnership for the development of a sustainable movement; 13) little or no county, state and national power mapping efforts that could be used as a template to consolidate progressive forces and develop common strategies based on overlapping issues and obstacles; 14) mistakenly insisting other individuals and activist organizations to drop their issues or causes to join one’s own; 15) allowing self-righteousness to creep in by disparaging opponents that only serve to polarize activists and mainstream society; 16) activists within the consciousness movements tend to overemphasize the actualization of the individual’s human potential, while neglecting the collective social potential for human evolutionary transformation and activists of the new social movements overlook the personal needs of the individual activist often resulting in burn out syndrome by neglecting the individual-interior realm of societal transformation; 17) activists lack a common code of conduct based on the design brilliance of natural law to hold social change agents accountable for counterproductive behavior and tactics like violence; 18) failure to engage the youth in meaningful and long-lasting change; 19) an inability to move beyond political power plays rather than striving to consolidate power with others; 20) failing to properly promote successes, victories and role models in the mainstream media; 21) approximately 99% of all non-profit organizations are social service oriented that usually provide temporary band aids to our social problems, while serving to preserve the power of the ruling elite, while the remaining 1% are social change organizations that struggle to change the status quo by working towards fundamental transformation only to have their efforts undercut or cancelled out by social service agencies and non-profit organizations; 22) non-profit organizations rely too much on corporate and government funds, the very institutions that are often culpable for our social problems and help foster a divisive atmosphere among activists who have to compete and even fight among themselves for these limited funds; 23) failure to create new forms of economic sustainability and financial independence on a more broader scope; 24) inability to produce or promote compelling heroes and inspirational national leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X or Cesar Chavez; 25) unable to create a mass media network of our own and/or mobilize an effective national media reform movement; 26) there is a lack of cultural and ethnic diversity in our efforts for inclusive social change; 27) failing to engage academia into a more active role; 28) there is a lack of thinking “outside of the box;” 29) a lot of activists are constantly engaged in misguided priorities leading them to lurch from one immediate issue to another—a sort of collective ADD; 30) activists fail to make significant advances on fulfilling peoples basic human needs such as housing, food and jobs for all; 31) ineffectively addressing the spiritual and psychological emptiness that most people feel; 32) struggling to foster a greater sense of community in our metropolitan areas and suburbs; 33) not spending enough time and energy on exploring and promoting alternative visions for a positive future; 34) failing to provide practical alternatives to the status quo that would win over Americans from the dominant Modernist culture; 35) failing to substantially counteract the “unpatriotic” image of activists due to the authorities’ criminalization of dissent; 36) inability to consolidate all nonvoters, independents and third parties during national election cycles; 37) a lack of paradigm shifting that leads to cultural change; 38) not enough emphasis is being placed on redefining progress; 39) overly attached to ethnic differences, which tends to create divisiveness through voluntary segregation in an excessive effort to preserve ones individuality at the expense of our common human heritage; 40) failure of integrating activists limited resources and synchronizing ones organizational goals; 41) much of the new momentum of the peace movement is not based on national organizations that can sit down and negotiate a common strategy; 42) failing to resolve the age old problem of how to defend particular local interests, while fighting collectively for common goals; 43) activists lack a major grassroots movement of connectedness, collaboration and strategic coordination on a national, state and local level; 44) failure to effectively coordinate the various activists’ roles as citizens, rebels, change agents and reformers and their different parameters that divide progressives (local interests, idealism versus pragmatism, radical change versus moderate change and militant versus moderate advocacy; and 45) inability to unify the different modes of thoughts among progressives (socioeconomic, identity politics, environmentalist, civil libertarian, spiritual, and antiauthoritarian). It is only through such a critical assessment and honest reflection that we can then proceed to provide potent ideas to overcome such obstacles.

THE DYNAMIC DECALOGUE: A MONOLITHIC MILESTONE
A Grand Unification Of Activism By Resolving Progressive Problems

The fruits of my labor have finally yielded the bounty that so many activists have sought to harvest for many decades if not centuries. The 10-step integral activist process has evolved to become “The Dynamic Decalogue: The Ten Philosophical Pillars of Neo-Transcendentalism (Integral Activism) for Evolutionary Transformation,” creating a new unified program for radical social change. As mentioned before the purpose of this holistic approach to activism is to ultimately create collective mutual understanding among Cultural Creatives that are on the verge to making the leap to second tier thinking by moving from the perspectives of “I” and “You” to being on the same social change page on fundamental matters to create the necessary “We,” to proceed forward together. Finally, “The Dynamic Decalogue” is not a new set of Ten Commandments dogmatically dictated by an anthropomorphic divinity to all activists or evolutionary change agents. Instead the ten philosophical pillars reflect a new evolutionary perspective of reality. It synthesizes the positives, adaptive, progressive dignities from the three previous worldviews of Traditionalism, Modernism and Postmodernism, while jettisoning their corresponding negative, maladaptive pathologies. These ten transformative tenets within “The Dynamic Decalogue” make up a dynamic, ever-evolving framework to help guide us through this difficult and titanic period of transition with a new collective identity as the Neo-Transcendentalists that is so badly needed not only for novel branding purposes but to begin to cohere a new integral consciousness and emerging culture of evolutionary transformation. The Sum Stratagem and Grand Unified Theory & Strategy (GUTS) along with the other eight philosophical pillars of Neo-Transcendentalism within the Dynamic Decalogue is the long overdue answers activists have been waiting for to resolve past and present progressive problems.