DICTATOR WATCH

Contact: Roland Watson, 1-202-258-8511, roland-AT-dictatorwatch.org

NOTE: This press release is being sent to media outlets, activist organizations, government officials, universities and members of the general public in a total of over 160 countries. (Our apologies for multiple postings.)

Announcing the launch of a new not-for-profit organization:

DICTATOR WATCH AND THE ACTIVIST EXCHANGE
www.dictatorwatch.org

The mission of Dictator Watch is to keep track of the dictators of the world, and to see that they pay for their crimes. We seek the end of dictatorship, in all of its manifestations, including in all of our social institutions. Among these institutions we include political, military, religious, educational, economic, and media entities; and for dictatorship we refer to all of the ways in which they shape us - manipulate us - to get us to think and act so as to suit their purposes.

The Activist Exchange is the logical partner of Dictator Watch. The reason dictatorship is so prevalent is that the system of checks and balances that maintains the balance of power between social institutions, and between such institutions and individuals, has failed. Our only way left to challenge these institutions, which now act solely for themselves rather than for the publics that they are supposed to serve, and thereby to achieve our community goals and a true and harmonious social equilibrium, is personal activism.

The goal of the Activist Exchange is to encourage such activism: to energize as many people as possible to get involved, and to bring activism into the mainstream and make it as conformist --- to work to resolve problems - as it is now viewed as irregular.

The basic assumption underlying Dictator Watch is that for real and positive social change to occur, we must solve our underlying problems, not only treat their observable symptoms. Much activism is dedicated to the latter, and even when it is successful, the success is often only temporary as the symptoms subsequently recur. Also, many other symptoms likely surface as well, for which there is no treatment at all.

The theory we use to approach the underlying problems is based on understanding the prerequisites of global system change. Our ideas derive from the mathematics of chaos and topology and also evolutionary theory. We have developed a new analytical methodology, outlined in our Chaos Analysis Questionnaire, which represents a shift in thinking analogous to the transformation in physics caused by relativity theory. Our first application was Burma, in our article Burma and Chaos - Updated. Regarding human dictatorship over all other forms of life, we prepared Social Evolution and Chaos. We intend to apply the methodology to all types and specific instances of dictatorship, e.g., draft an analysis for China, extreme Islam, advertising brainwashing, etc. In this effort we hope to work with the many activist groups that are already devoted to these causes.

However, we are more than just a "Watch." In cases where the analyses reveal opportunities to instigate global change, to overthrow specific dictatorships, we will seek to participate in realizing these opportunities, to the extent that a role exists or can be created for Dictator Watch. For example, we could work to help coordinate and orchestrate groups which comprise the opposition to such a dictatorship, or develop a means to educate all who are subject to its repression in how, where and when they can resist it.

In Burma, we have ongoing involvement with the Karen people and their Karen National Liberation Army, publicizing their struggle and providing assistance. Our photo exhibit Burma at War documents the construction and operation of a KNLA special forces training camp.

Dictator Watch has been developed as a means to implement the ideas in the book Freedom From Form, which is now in print and available for order. The organization has seven campaigns, or campaign areas. Each campaign has a two-fold structure: what we would like the general public to do, or learn; and what we intend to do.

Dictator Watch is an organization for everyone. Our goal is to start a global grassroots movement for REAL change. Please forward this to everyone you know who has had enough of the repetition of history.

Latest activity:

We began a collaboration with the Earth First! Journal, published in the current edition, to identify, systematically, by industry and other groups, the specific individuals responsible for environmental destruction around the world.

We issued an open letter to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's democracy leader, calling on her to consider ending her secret dialogue with the military dictatorship.

We were interviewed by the BBC and asked to defend our position in this letter.