The nation-state system, the first force, and the market economy, the second force, are exacerbating political and economic inequalities and conflicts instead of promoting peace and prosperity for all.

These forces are sowing the seeds of terrorism instead of bringing the benefits of democracy and the free enterprise system to all in a manner that is politically, economically and socially just.

In response, civil society constituents, organizations and their democratic nation-state allies around the world are uniting to build a third force that can stop these conflicts and prevent terrorist attacks nonviolently by empowering people everywhere to acquire inalienable political and economic rights and build sustainable livelihoods.

Recent history indicates that the nation-states and unfettered free marketeers that have proved most damaging to global civil society center around the United States and its allies in Western Europe and the Middle East, despite the extraordinary success of the free enterprise systems forged by these same forces.

Instead of leveraging their political and economic prowess to ensure that all nations and peoples can benefit from the opportunities provided by democracy and free and fair markets, and reap the advantages of popular political and economic enfranchisement, their actions have exacerbated inequalities of wealth, stifled the spread of democracy and the exercise of popular sovereignty and sown the seeds of the terrorist networks around the world.

If it were possible to quantify all the causal factors, the predatory economic and political activities of the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East over the past 100 years might well account for 90% of the causes of terrorist attacks against them, including 9/11, 3/11 and 7/7. These predatory activities have infuriated successive generations of indigenous populations throughout the Middle East by preventing them from acquiring political and civil rights, and fully exercising their right to develop sustainable livelihoods and grassroots economies.

A quantitative analysis, were one possible, might well also show that the remaining 10% of the causes of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies can be attributed to the adoption by radical Islamists of an Islamic rhetoric to voice and legitimize their economic, political and religious grievances against the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East who are using force to protect and expand their hegemony in the region and access to Middle East oil.

Lacking nation-state resources and state-funded military forces, independently-operating terrorist networks, which originally sprung up in the Middle East under the aegis and inspiration of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda movement, attack "soft targets", principally civilians, to terrorize their enemies, break their will, raise money and recruit operatives by convincing despondent individuals that they will become religious martyrs by carrying out suicide attacks.

Military retaliation by the U.S. government and its allies against elusive terrorist networks has proven to be a counterproductive failure by swelling the ranks of terrorist networks, increasing terrorist attacks around the world, and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

Terrorist attacks against the West will continue, spread and increase in frequency around the world until global civil society intervenes to establish and deploy nonaligned multilateral forces comprised of nongovernmental organizations and nation-states committed to human rights. Only these forces are capable of brokering permanent ceasefires in terrorist conflicts, administering emergency humanitarian assistance, and providing long-term policing and technical support that empowers indigenous peoples to acquire and exercise political and civil rights, and develop sustainable livelihoods and grassroots economies.

The Third Force Network is designed to assist global civil society constituents, activists and nongovernmental organizations leverage the Internet and its 900,000,000 users to mobilize their political forces to develop, fund and deploy these multilateral forces wherever they are needed to protect civil society, create sustainable livelihoods and resolve conflicts nonviolently.

By eradicating the root causes of individual and collective violence and terrorism, the Third Force Network is designed to help civil society constituents, activists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their allies prevent future terrorist attacks and retaliatory attacks, like those of 9/11 in New York, 3/11 in Madrid and 7/7 in London, and those launched by the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is also designed to help them replace unilateral forces deployed in Iraq by the U.S. in its "war against terrorism", which violate international law, with nonaligned multilateral forces that respect international law. These forces will be comprised of nation-states and transnational NGOs committed to protecting human rights and human security rather than national security, and resolving conflicts nonviolently.

Through NGOs and Multilateral Forces in Action, Civil Society Grassroots Hotline, NGO Emergency Requests Helpline, Livelihood Lifeline, Third Force Network Bank, Livelihood Index and Global Civil Society Directory, the Network will help NGOs raise money to finance their operations and participation in nonaligned multinational forces that can broker and enforce cease-fires and peace accords. These multinational operations will also help indigenous peoples build sustainable livelihoods and grassroots economies that generate and retain wealth at the local level, and ensure that they are politically and economically enfranchised so that they can play a decisive role in assuring their own wellbeing.

The blueprint below outlines the global challenges to civil society that are being created by the conflicts and inequities caused by the first force, the nation-state system, and the second force, the market economy. Under the impetus of Western countries and economic institutions, especially "superpowers" like the U.S. and its allies, they have directly and indirectly spawned the conditions that breed terrorism. It also outlines the reasons why these forces, and the terrorist acts that have arisen out of them, can only be stopped by an equally powerful third force comprised of civil society constituents, activists and NGOs aligned with nation-states committed to human rights and security. The blueprint also describes the ways in which the Third Force Network will use the Internet to help civil society constituents, activists and NGOs accelerate the emergence of this global third force.

We invite you to read the blueprint and share your comments, thoughts and ideas about how the Network can play a pivotal role in helping civil society to eradicate the root economic and political causes of poverty and terrorism, and provide inalienable political rights and economic justice to all.

We would also like to know:

1. What benefits you and/or your organization would like to reap from the Network
   
2. How you and/or your organization might wish to participate in developing the Network
   
3. Where you think the headquarters of the Network should be located
   
4. How you think the Network should be formally structured as an organization so that civil society constituents, activists and NGOs can have a say in formulating its evolving goals and objectives.

When you have finished reading the blueprint, click here to share your views. The white paper found on this website, a work in progress, provides an in-depth analysis of the need, goals and objectives of the Third Force Network.

The Challenge

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 in New York in 2001 and March 11 in Madrid in 2004, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there has been a dramatic escalation of the continuing violence between non-state combatants and nation-states conducting counterterrorist operations. The conflict is trapping in their deadly crossfire innocent, unarmed civilians around the world, and eroding human rights and civil liberties. In the U.S., it is transferring to the military sector hundreds of billions of dollars from the civilian sector - and publicly-funded programs to improve standards of living around the world.

Despite these massive military expenditures, however, increasing numbers of civilians and combatants are being captured, detained, abused, tortured and executed by non-state combatants and governments involved in the U.S. "war on terrorism". Both sides are carrying out these acts in clear violation of established international and domestic laws. Although the use of force has not permitted either of the two parties - terrorist combatants or U.S. forces and their allies - to gain the upper hand, none has faltered or changed their strategy. Both continue to increase their numbers and expand their operations worldwide as civilian casualties mount.

Only Civil Society Can Stop Terrorism

The primary causes of the conflict are widely believed - particularly by observers outside the U.S. - to be the long-standing, adverse economic and political conditions in the Middle East which the Western-dominated nation-state system and free market economy have failed to alleviate and exacerbated over the past 200 years. While there is no justification for the attacks of 9/11 in New York and 3/11 in Madrid, the actions of Western nation-states during the colonial period are believed to have aggravated these conditions, as did their economic and foreign policies in the latter half of the 20th century preceding the attacks.

By the opening of the 21st century, 2 billion of the world's 6 billion people are living in poverty in countries that afford them few if any political rights or influence over economic policies and conditions affecting their livelihoods. The gap between the per capita income of the richest and poorest nations in the world is now 80 times greater than it was in the early 1800's, when it was only 5 times greater. Per capital income has been lowered in more than 50 countries. Life expectancy has decreased in more than 30 countries. And the starvation rate of children has increased in more than 10 countries, while obesity has become a major health problem in the wealthiest nation of all, the U.S. Indigenous populations that were once able to feed themselves are no longer able to do so. They have either lost ownership of their land, or they cannot produce crops that can profitably compete with imported foodstuffs.

According to a growing number of analysts and observers around the world, the free market economy and the nation-state system will continue to exacerbate the adverse economic and political conditions that spawn terrorism. This prospect is heightened by the counterproductive impact of the U.S. "war on terrorism", which has transformed Iraq into a mecca for terrorists from around the world. It has also become a breeding ground for a homegrown Iraqi insurgency whose members join with terrorists in planning and executing suicide attacks throughout the country, in spite of the presence of nearly 145,000 U.S. troops.

With the first and second forces playing pivotal roles in perpetuating a conflagration with terrorist organizations that is causing mounting civilian casualties, it is becoming increasingly clear that only an equally powerful third force can stop them, one comprised of civil society constituents, activists and NGOs in alliance with nation-states committed to human economic, political and social security. If the nation-states and free market economy under the sway of the current U.S. administration is perpetuating conflicts and inequalities that jeopardize civil society, its constituents, activists and NGOs must mobilize their very considerable political, legal, moral and financial resources across national boundaries to end these conflicts and reverse these inequalities. If all of these parties leverage the full power of the Internet and the plethora of emerging civil society organizations like the Third Force Network to enhance their self-organizing capabilities, they can establish and deploy nonaligned multinational forces throughout the world that are powerful enough to resolve these conflicts and eradicate their root economic and political causes.

The Emerging Third Force

The emergence of transnational NGOs and their transformation into a global political movement referred to as a "third force" has been well documented by political analysts and researchers around the world. Numerous studies have demonstrated the increasing effectiveness of NGOs and their transnational political mobilization strategies, which are now playing decisive roles everywhere at all levels, from grassroots service provision to international policy-making. (1)

For example, over the past three decades, a growing number of international treaties, covenants and United Nations resolutions have given NGOs the power to intervene in conflict zones to protect lives, uphold international law and arrest individuals committing crimes against humanity and war crimes -- even without the permission of the sovereign governments of nation-states whose territory they enter to access these zones. While these legal instruments recognize and reaffirm the sovereignty of these states, they also recognize, reaffirm and support the implementation of a growing body of international law that protects the lives and human rights of both civilians and combatants in failed states and states that do not abide by the rule of law.

Among the pioneers and pioneering institutions throughout the world that were among the first to discern the emergence of transnational civil society organizations and their transformation into a global third force is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), and its president, Jessica T. Mathews. In 1997, she described the emergence of global civil society as one of the most significant international power shifts of the past 50 years in "Power Shift: The Rise of Global Civil Society" (2). (Interestingly, in a recent editorial in the Washington Post, Mathews argues that U.S. use of military force in Iraq has created its current insurgency, and that history has taught us that there can be no military solution to politically-inspired violence by local insurgents against foreigners, as the French learned in Algeria, the British learned in Northern Ireland, the Russians are now learning in Chechnya, and the Israelis are learning in the West Bank.[3])

In 2000, Carnegie documented the increasingly decisive global role of civil society organizations and NGOs in its landmark research, The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society (4). While raising key issues about global civil society's long-term potential, the study illustrates how transnational NGOs have successfully demonstrated over the past 20 years their unique capacity to resolve cross-border conflicts, human crises and environmental challenges that nation-states have been unable to surmount. The reason for their success where nation-states have failed is the tendency of national governments to focus their priorities on the defense of their sovereignty and borders in ways that often redound to the neglect and detriment of human problems that lie inside and outside their frontiers. In contrast, transnational NGOs have the flexibility and latitude to take on the responsibility for solving transnational human and environmental problems that sovereign governments leave unresolved, exacerbate, or create in the first place.

A key advantage over nation-states stems from the fact that the global civil society movement and the transnational NGOs of which it is comprised are not hampered by a central governing structure or bureaucracy. Collectively and individually, the movement and its members constitute an increasingly effective self-organizing, nongovernmental system with a steadily expanding capacity to act decisively wherever and when its members choose, and can afford, to operate. This capacity is growing dramatically as they hone their skills for utilizing electronic networking technologies and the Internet.

In Europe, several major institutions such as the London School of Economics (LSE) have provided major impetus to growing recognition of the pivotal role civil society organizations are playing in national and international affairs. In 2000, LSE began publishing comprehensive Global Civil Society Yearbooks (5). One of the editors of the yearbook, Mary Kaldor, authored a seminal analysis in Global Civil Society: An Answer to War" in 2002. (6) The book provides pathbreaking proposals regarding the potential of nonaligned multinational forces to address the challenges of terrorist networks and 21st century forms of military confrontations, including "spectacle warfare" conducted by unilateralist, "superpower" nation-states like the U.S.

Elsewhere, civil society-oriented academic departments and think-tanks like the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi, India have mushroomed around the world. In addition, NGOs that work on behalf of civil society by providing direct services in specific areas have muchroomed around the world, as have umbrella organizations and networks that have sprung up to strengthen these organizations.

What is needed to accelerate the transformation of these organizations into a global third force is greater popular awareness of their accomplishments and potential to protect ordinary people against first and second force institutions and actors when these threaten their livelihoods, rights and safety. When this increased awareness is translated into the willingness of ordinary people and civil society constituents to financially support these organizations at dramatically increased levels, a third force will emerge that is powerful enough to play a decisive role in resolving conflicts and eliminating inequalities through nonaligned multinational forces that can intervene wherever civil society and human rights and security are threatened or absent.

The Third Force Network is designed to accelerate the emergence of the third force by helping the millions of civil society constituents and activists working on behalf of civil society support and collaborate more effectively with the tens of thousands of transnational organizations to develop their self-organizing, self-directing and self-financing capabilities. By so doing, civil society's organizational members will be able to act independently of first and second force actors and institutions when their autonomy is essential to the protection of civil society.

A case in point is the current conflict in war-torn Iraq. It is the result of U.S. invasion of that sovereign country, an act that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has termed illegal. Military and intelligence analyses indicate that the conflict is increasing the size and militancy of Iraq's insurgency and terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, and worsening substandard living conditions in Iraq and distressed regions surrounding it. To stop the conflict and reverse these trends, one of the most effective strategies is for civil society constituents, activists and organizations around the world to unite politically to negotiate and enforce cease-fire and peace accords, and replace the unilateral U.S. forces in Iraq with nonaligned multilateral forces comprised of nation-states and nongovernmental organizations committed to the protection of human rights and security. These forces can and should include indigenous constituencies and stakeholders playing central and decisive roles in them. The potential of such multilateral forces to protect civil society from being overwhelmed by terrorist-related violence and conflicts is described by Mary Kaldor's book mentioned above, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War .

Nonaligned multilateral forces are ideally suited to:

1. Negotiate and enforce ceasefires and peace accords that address and reconcile the concerns of all interested parties;

2. Provide long-term policing, in accordance with international law, to protect human rights and human economic, political and social security;

3. Administer short, medium and long-term humanitarian relief;

4. Assist local constituencies, in concert with economic development partners, to create sustainable livelihoods and flourishing fair and free market economies that assure economic justice and protect livelihoods and natural resources from internal and external predators;

5. Assist local constituencies build communities that create democratic governance processes that guarantee inalienable political rights to all citizens.

The Role of the Third Force Network

The Third Force Network will address global power shifts that have created deepening conflicts among the major forces that shape human affairs and international relations, placing civilians in harm's way on a scale unprecedented in human history. Two of these forces, the nation-state, and the market economy, grew up along side emerging civil society and the ordinary people who comprise it, and the voluntary organizations who work on their behalf outside of government and the marketplace. Within the past 100 years, however, these two forces have begun to dominate civil society in many countries around the world to such an extent that they have dramatically increased global poverty, insecurity, violence, warfare and terrorism. (See the seminal analysis of this global economic and political power shift by Robert W. Cox in 1992, "Globalization, Multilateralism, and Democracy").(7)

Civil society is commonly understood to comprise individuals and groups favoring the use of reason over force to resolve differences, and the rule of democratically-formulated laws to govern human affairs and protect human rights. Formulating and enforcing laws is viewed in this context to be the province of popularly-elected representatives who are voted into office through free and fair elections. Organizationally, civil society is understood to comprise millions of voluntary organizations that work on its behalf, meeting needs that are not met by government or the marketplace, and solving problems that government and the marketplace have neglected, failed to solve, or created in the first place.

As the Secretary General of Civicus, Kumi Naidoo, has pointed out, civil society includes a broad array of heterogeneous civic institutions that go well beyond community-based organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and individual civil society constituents who are active in the public sphere to protect and promote the interests of civil society. (2) These institutions include trade unions, foundations, affinity groups such as gender-based and religious groups, and social movements and networks. Of increasing importance is the growing number of transnational NGOs that now number in the tens of thousands, whose vital work is cross-national in scope. As discussed below, they not only provide a wealth of direct services to civil society constituents, but play an increasingly pivotal role in influencing the formulation, implementation and enforcement of policies that protect human economic, political and social security within and across borders.

As Keck and Sinkkink have pointed out in a pioneering study, these transnational NGOs band together and form alliances with a variety of partners in the public and private sectors. Such alliances enable these organizations to pick and choose from the full range of political influence strategies and tactics those needed to build consensus within and across borders and continents. This flexibility enables them to attain transnational objectives that often overcome the initial objections of particular nation-states and inter-governmental organizations, in what Keck and Sinkkink refer to as a "boomerange effect". (3) (See Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998). Because of the growing political influence of these transnational organizations, they are increasingly referred to as a political movement, a global civil society movement, even though they do not have or need a centralized governing structure, as discussed below. The Third Force Network is designed to promote the transformation of the global civil society movement into a politically-powerful third force capable of defending the interests of civil society against nation-states and market forces that jeopardize them. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the U.S.-declared "war on terrorism" are a case in point.

Historically and chronologically, in Western Europe and North America, the political struggles and economic productivity of the individuals who were part of emerging civil society created the governmental and economic institutions belonging to the first and second forces that now prevail around the world. Civil society emerged after the feudal era in Western Europe as common people gained ascendancy over feudal lords, and gradually began separating the secular realm from the control of organized religions. They delegated their sovereign power to governmental officials they elected so that these officials could make and execute laws in their name. Their labor created the second force, the market economy, by producing goods, services and wealth that in turn led to the establishment of economic and financial institutions through which enterprises could be financed and transactions could be carried out locally, regionally and transnationally.

By the opening of the 21st century, however, the first and second forces appear to have turned the tables on civil society and the individuals from whom they originally derived their power and influence. In many countries that were once considered democracies, first and second force institutions now exert a determining, unaccountable and often adverse influence over the lives and livelihoods of the countries' citizens. In many countries that do not have robust civil societies, democracies, sustainable economies or needed livelihoods, first and second force influences are interfering with their development.

While these power shifts appear to be the result of inherent and inexorable generic processes that foster first and second force dominance, equally powerful generic forces make it inevitable that civil society will eventually reassert itself and become the dominant force. After all, the rights of the citizenry, and the earning power and productive capacity of working people, are the original sources of the political and financial power that first and second force institutions and actors have accumulated to attain their 21st century dominance. Moreover, the number of working people and civil society constituents all over the world drawfs the number of first and second force actors. If the political power of the citizenry is severely curtailed, they will mobilize their political resources to outmaneuver and oust their oppressors. If their buying power is severely diminished and they cannot buy the products and services offered by second force institutions and actors, these institutions and actors will go bankrupt.

21st century terrorist conflicts will further fuel the resurgence of civil society as people realize that their own governments cannot protect them even through the use of overwhelming military force and the killing and detention of large numbers of suspected terrorists abroad. These conflicts and casualties, which have claimed the lives of more than 100,000 innocent civilians in Iraq alone, are forcing civil society constituents to realize that they must act through their own nongovernmental organizations to protect themselves from the crossfires in which terrorist networks and their own governments and economic institutions have trapped them. They are also realizing that their best strategy for stoping these conflicts is to join, support, fund and help shape the priorities of NGOs who can take initiatives with others to create nonaligned multilateral forces that can define and implement their own mandates with those who need their help. For only these forces can intervene to negotiate and enforce cease-fires in terrorist conflicts, and provide long-term policing to enforce international laws that protect human rights and security.

These citizens and civil society constituents will support NGOs that can operate on the ground to stop violent conflicts by providing emergency relief and livelihood support to destitute populations and combatants willing to lay down their arms. They will finance organizations that know how to facilitate local efforts to create self-reliant, democractic communities and sustainable indigenous economies and livelihoods that can eventually be integrated into national, regional and global economies through non-predatory economic development and fair trade practices. In short, civil society constituents and transnational NGOs will put civil society in charge of human affairs.

Third Force Network Services

The Network' strategy for helping NGOs increase popular awareness and financial support is modeled after one of the most successful Internet-based, grassroots mobilization and fund-raising campaigns in history, that of Howard Dean's 2004 U.S. presidential primary campaign. The strategist behind that campaign, technology and political consultant Joe Trippi, outlined the core elements of the model in his recent book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything (2004).(8) 600,000 grassroots supporters contributed $50,000,000 to the campaign over a record-breaking period of less than a year because the campaign gave them an outlet for their anti-war sentiments opposing U.S. invasion of Iraq, a bully pulpit from which to issue a rallying cry to like-minded activists throughout the U.S., and state-of-the art information and communication tools provided by the Internet. These levers empowered them to create a combined online community and political movement that took on a life of its own. Howard Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq, and his campaign website's blog, online newsletters and steady stream of fund-raising solicitations brought hundreds of thousands of people together in a crusade to stop the war by defeating the president who started it.

Even though Dean did not become his party's candidate, his campaign organization broke the mold for political mobilization and fund-raising, hand-in-hand with the members of Dean's grassroots community that eventually came to provide most of the momentum behind its own emergence. As Trippi points out, one of the campaign's most important accomplishments was its demonstration of how the Internet will become the primary medium and fulcrum around which future political constituencies will mobilize themselves outside the control of political parties, government, mainstream media and the financial interests that provide the lion's share of the money that underlies their economic and political power not just in the U.S. but throughout the world.

The Network will follow the example of the Dean campaign and leverage Internet technologies to strengthen the continuous cross-fertilization of ideas already underway among civil society activists and supporters, and between supporters and the civil society organizations they fund. In this way, the Network will strive to enhance the self-organizing capabilities of the members of the movement as it expands its global influence and becomes increasingly effective in protecting the core interests of civil society, as well as its emerging interests. It is expected that this process will encourage continuous dialogue and bring to the surface diverging as well as converging ideas about where civil society organizations should be headed and what their strategies should be, thereby helping to keep the movement and its organizational members close to the hearts and minds of the people they serve.

The Third Force Network will help NGOs increase popular awareness of their accomplishments and potential with respect to preventing and ending conflicts and eliminating inequalities. It will help them mobilize popular political support, increase their funding, and pool their resources by hosting online dialogues, conducting debates and polls, and encouraging face-to-face meetings through Meetup.com technologies among civil society constituents, activists and organizations throughout the world. By encouraging these online and face-to-face interactions, the Network can help them identify like-minded allies, set common goals, develop action plans, pool their resources and use the full panoply of nonviolent political strategies and tactics to mobilize the popular, governmental, nongovernmental and private sector support they need to implement their plans and programs successfully.

The Network will also publicize, support, co-sponsor and initiate nonviolent political and economic mobilization and action at all levels, especially at the grassroots. Priority will be given to those that protect human rights and security, end conflicts, and provide economic justice and inalienable political rights to all. It will help establish mediation processes and peace tables, and help those who organize peaceful demonstrations and conduct petition drives and lobbying campaigns to influence decision-makers. It will develop alliances to create and support political parties and candidates for elective office who are focused on the creation and protection of sustainable livelihoods and local/regional economies, and on maximizing citizen participation in decision-making processes that affect the allocation of public revenues, resources and assets.

The Network will also cooperate in efforts to influence corporations and financial institutions to support the creation and protection of sustainable livelihoods, using the full range of pressure tactics, including boycotts. It will support alternative economic development strategies, organizations and capital providers in creating community-based assets and public-private partnerships that build sustainable livelihoods, grassroots economies, and democratic processes.

More specifically, the Network will provide the following services:

1. NGOs and Multilateral Forces in Action. As war-making countries go bankrupt trying to stop global terrorism militarily, civil society organizations and their nation-state allies are removing its economic and political roots by helping the oppressed build sustainable livelihoods and acquire political and civil rights. Their efforts chronicled in this blog will bring peace to our troubled world as increasing numbers of civil society constituents and activists among the Internet's 900,000,000 users invest the funds these organizations need directly, via their URLs provided.

2. Third Force Network Grassroots Hotline. The Hotline will enable civil society constituents, activists and NGOs around the world to post messages on the Third Force Network website reporting violations and threatened violations of human rights, as well as acts and threats that compromise human economic, political and social security. These postings can contain requests for assistance and contact information.

3. NGO Emergency Requests Helpline. The Helpline will enable NGO's to post requests for emergency financial, technical, in-kind and organizational assistance, especially for support that enables them to intervene in complex emergencies at the grassroots that threaten human rights and human economic, political and social security.

4. Livelihood Lifeline and Third Force Network Bank. Individuals and groups whose livelihoods are threatened or have been lost will be invited to email or phone in their needs and ideas for restoring them, once this feature is activated. These alerts and requests will be publicly posted so that NGOs, individuals and groups who can help them can contact them directly. If, however, the lives of those posting requests may be in danger, they will be able to submit their requests using aliases.

In addition, the Third Force Network will forward their requests for livelihood help to NGOs and other resources, organizations and institutions and individuals who may be able to come to their aid. The Network will assist them in their efforts to identify sources of credit, loans and capital that provide financial resources on a fair, non-predatory, long-term basis designed to build sustainable grassroots livelihoods, businesses and economies.

The Third Force Network will also establish its own bank and help others establish similar banks that do not engage in predatory investment and lending practices. The goal of the banks will be to enable civil society constituents, activists and allies to invest their money in institutions whose sole purpose is to build sustainable enterprises that create sustainable grassroots livelihoods wherever they are needed -- especially in conflict-prone areas like the Middle East. A related objective is to replace predatory banks whose sole goal is to achieve the greatest and quickest return on their investment without regard to their destructive impact on livelihoods, economies and environments.

The Third Force Network Bank will provide consultants to groups, organizations, businesses and individuals who are seeking to build commercial enterprises that provide sustainable livelihoods and leverage community-based assets to build sustainable grassroots economies, particularly in the high-tech field. They will share expertise, "best practices" and proven, innovative models for fostering community-based asset building that generates and retains wealth, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities at the grassroots level. The expected outcomes include a more equitable distribution of wealth and capital throughout the world, and greater participation of all groups in democratic decision-making at all levels in all sectors.

The "Build a Livelihood and Stop Terrorism" Campaign. The Third Force Network will develop programs with the Third Force Network Bank to encourage civil society constituents and their allies around the world to help people without adequate livelihoods build sustainable livelihoods. Along the lines of the "Save the Children" model in which individuals "adopt" children in need, one program under consideration would be for the Third Force Network Bank to invite civil society constituents to help specific individuals build livelihoods by making interest-bearing deposits that will be earmarked for them in the form of loans. Such depositors would be able to contact the individuals who borrow money from the bank, and give them encouragement and advice, as will Bank lending officers. When the individuals repay their loans, the depositors will receive interest on their deposits.

While many civil society constituents will be attracted to the campaign because it gives them the opportunity to bypass ineffective, wasteful and predatory "foreign" aid programs, other constituents will be attracted to it because it eradicates one of the primary root causes of terrorism, which is poverty and adverse economic and political conditions. Aggrieved individuals and groups who have acquired a stake in their communities in the form of livelihoods and assets to which livelihoods can provide access, tend to turn away from individual and collective violence and embrace democratic forms of governance once their immediate survival needs are met. The Third Force Network "Build a Livelihood and Stop Terrorism" campaign is designed to empower civil society constituents everywhere to take direct and immediate action to end poverty and stop terrorism simultaneously.

5. Livelihood Index. The purpose of the Livelihood Index is to encourage grassroots communities throughout the world to create, maintain and publicize policy-oriented indices that chronicle increases and decreases in livelihoods and equality over time. The indices will also seek to identify the causes of changes in livelihoods and equality so that they can be used to develop public and private sector policies that favor the development of sustainable livelihoods and grassroots economies, and reduce economic, social and political inequality.

These indices and analyses will be based on current and emerging indices and instruments for measuring human development and inequality developed and utilized by national and international agencies, including those of the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report. They will depict the gains and losses of diverse groups and individuals as measured by a broad spectrum of variables, including health, employment, income, asset ownership, indebtedness, as well as access to capital, insurance, education, etc.

Civil society constituents and organizations at local, regional, national and transnational levels can use livelihood indices to judge the performance of governmental officials and the impact of public policies, as well as the policies and practices of private sector institutions such as banks and corporations. They can use livelihood indices to rouse public opinion and spark debate about the causes of livelihood gains and losses, and build consensus about corrective actions that need to be undertaken by public and private actors and institutions to reverse losses, mitigate inequities, stop unfair practices and leverage employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Once civil society constituents, activists, organizations and their allies have identified predatory influences and threats to livelihoods and increased equality, they can use livelihood indices as rallying tools to mobilize political support for political and economic action campaigns. They can create common fronts to overcome these threats and influences using all legal, nonviolent political and economic tools, including political campaigns to oust government officials and transnational economic boycotts to end unfair trading policies and practices.

6. Global Civil Society News from the Frontlines This online newspaper and newsletter will contain newsfeeds from other organizations and original stories written by professional and grassroots reporters and media, including bloggers. It will also publish featured stories and profiles of NGOs, their leaders, staffs and supporters designed to familiarize the global civil society community and the public at large with their accomplishments, goals and needs. (Click here for the Third Force Network Blog.)

7. Global Civil Society Directory. The Network will compile and maintain on this website a searchable online directory with links to the websites of civil society-related nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as service providers and vendors that offer specialized services to civil society. Civil society constituents and activists who are subscribing members of the Third Force Network will also be listed in the directory, with links to their websites.

8. Third Force Network Founder's Blog. The blog provides a center stage and behind-the-scenes look at the movers and shakers whose efforts to protect civil society are transforming the global civil society movement into a politically powerful third force -- one that can end poverty and eradicate the economic and political causes of violence and terrorism.

Membership and Finance

The Third Force Network will initially target the 11 million anti-war activists around the world who marched in protests against U.S. invasion of Iraq. Many of these protests were organized through the Internet. The Network will be financed through modest voluntary annual membership dues, donations, grants and fund-raising drives.

Notes
(1) Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998.

(2) Jessica T. Mathews, "Power Shift: The Rise of Global Civil Society", Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, Number 1, January/February 1997.

(3) Jessica T. Mathews, "Match Iraq Policy to Reality" Washington Post, Thursday, September 23, 2004.

(4) Ann M. Florini, Editor, The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, Washington, D.C.: Co-published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Japan Center for International Exchange, 2000.

(5) Mary Kaldor, Helmut Anheier and Marlies Glasius, Editors, Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004/5, Centre for Civil Society and Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004/5.

(6) Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003.

(7) Robert W. Cox, "Globalization, Multilateralism, and Democracy", United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Providence, RI: Academic Council for the United Nations System (ACUNS), 1992.

(8) Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything, New York: HarperCollins, 2004.