Rebecca Solnit :: We Are What Will Happen

We Are What Will Happen
(short talk for an anti-Kavanaugh rally in San Francisco)

This conflict began as a question about the fitness of one man to sit on the Supreme Court. But now it’s about much more. It’s about who this country is for and who matters, who decides, who can be heard, who will be believed and respected. And with that it joins the battles we’ve called Black Lives Matter and #metoo and Dreamers and voting rights that are part of a long, long project of making this a country for everyone, a country that lives up to its old unfulfilled promises of equality.

This conflict is about that old white male elite versus the voices of women, of immigrants, of people who aren’t rich or straight or white or male or cis-gender. It’s about the refugee children they put in concentration camps. It’s about the Muslim ban. It’s about Standing Rock and indigenous rights. It’s about an old war to keep women silent and out of public life so that men could perpetrate violent crimes against us in private with an impunity some are still shocked to be losing.

It’s about white patriarchy’s assumption that it controls the truth and the facts and the story. They assume their authority is so great that their assertions will override witnesses, evidence, the written record, that theirs are the only voices that matter. That they can have whatever facts they like and make other facts go away.

We are facts who will not go away.

Sexual assault means being stripped of the right to say no, of the right to self-determination and safety and dignity, of the voice that is inseparable from who each of us is. And when sexual assault is denied, trivialized, mocked, or celebrated, when victims are treated as less credible and made less audible than the people who attacked them, that’s exactly the same kind of silencing and dehumanization and devaluation, done by the judicial system or the university or in this case the Trump Administration and half the US Senate.

Survivors, I hear you, I know your value is beyond measure, I send you our love and our pledge that we will change this world for you and with you. We are changing it. We will not stop. We are claiming our voices. With them we will tell our stories and your stories, we will mourn and we will celebrate and we will open all the doors they nailed shut. We will sing until our voices shatter their windows. We will set free the truths they imprisoned.

The conflict about the direction of the country is out in the open. We may not win this round. But we are winning the war, which is why they are so angry and so frightened. It is they who are the backlash. Will we go forward to a country that lives up to those dreams and promises of equality and inclusion? Or will we go back to their frat-house nightmare of white men who can rape and lynch and destroy with impunity and keep us silent? I believe that we will win.

We are the great majority. Our love for each other, for the right of everyone to have a voice and to live in dignity, is stronger than their hate.

Do not ask what will happen. We are what will happen.

I believe that we will win.



"Good Government", On Governance, #fucktrump, #MeToo, #Resist, #BLM, #Dreamers, #Equality, #VotingRights, #FuckKavanaugh, #OldWhiteMaleElite, #FuckTheGOP, #RapeCulture, Rape Culture, We are here to kill rape culture

Restorative Justice

One of the things I love about Facebook is my exposure to new "stuff". I've heard the term "restorative justice" before, but have never looked into it, and therefore never really understood what it was all about. Facebook is opening my already open mind on a daily basis. It is a portal to my continuing education.

But I'm preaching to the choir. I'm sure y'all feel the same way.

So here's the excerpt from the article in Psychology Today that resonated in my heart:

Restorative Circles provide a way for individuals and communities to handle conflicts compassionately rather than punitively, as well as to heal and learn from these conflicts. These days when I say I want justice, this is the kind of justice system I have in mind -- a system that values everyone's needs and is designed to address those needs without either blame or compromise.

How is it that a concept like this, which is so close to the fundamental truth, so right, so "just", is so far from our minds (here in the U.S.)?

How is it that something that makes so much sense, seems so obvious, yet seems so far from our collective consciousness and from a new and willfully manifested reality?

I wonder. I do know that it starts here and on Facebook and on Twitter - by sharing and reading and pondering. Planting the seeds of change.

Real change. Real. Change. Of the "fundamental truth" variety. Not the namby-pamby politi-speak mealy-mouthed bullshit we hear so much of today. All talk and no action.

Have a great new day y'all....




Our Justice System Requires Us To Punish Wrongdoers. What If There Were a Better Way?
Is there a better way of "doing justice"? The alternative may surprise you.
Published on August 18, 2010 by Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D. in Between the Lines

We think we know what it means -- that we who want justice are willing to fight for it. The words have a deeper meaning, of course. They are intended to remind us that it is not possible to have a peaceful society as long as there is injustice, because inevitably those who are oppressed will rise up.
As slogans go, this one is pretty clever, so clever, in fact, that it's easy to get caught up in the words and forget to think about what they actually mean.

What is it that we really want when we say we want justice?

A year ago I would have easily answered "true equality under the law" -- as opposed to our current criminal (in)justice system, in which race clearly plays a major role. More to the point, I would have said that I wanted the determination of guilt and the administration of punishment to not be correlated to race or any other demographic characteristic.

Today, I'm no longer satisfied with that.

For those of us living in the United States, "doing justice" is mostly synonymous with administering punishment. We may not literally follow the Biblical edict of "an eye for an eye", but most of us still believe that "the punishment must fit the crime". Indeed, many of us would be hard pressed to even come up with an alternative justice system.

Yet alternatives abound in the form of restorative justice.

There are many restorative justice systems. The one I've been studying is Restorative Circles (RC), a system developed by Dominic Barter in the shanty towns of urban Brazil and now spreading across the world as a means of promoting and facilitating social justice, group cohesion, resilient relationships and personal healing.

Restorative Circles provide a way for individuals and communities to handle conflicts, including racial conflicts, compassionately rather than punitively, as well as to heal and learn from these conflicts. These days when I say I want justice, this is the kind of justice system I have in mind -- a system that values everyone's needs and is designed to address those needs without either blame or compromise1.

To the uninitiated, restorative processes may appear idealistic and naive. After all, they reject the two core aspects of the traditional justice system: the assignment of blame and the administration of punishment. Instead, the goal of the Circle is for the parties involved in the conflict to first gain mutual understanding of the others' experiences and needs and then to restore or build a mutually satisfying relationship.

Talking is involved, so is listening. Lots of listening. But it's a decidedly different type of talk than people usually engage in2, and it's not just talk.

The restorative process is designed to lead to voluntary (and they really are voluntary!) acts offered to repair or restore the relationship. The two words are not synonymous. Reparative acts have to do with compensation -- paying for a broken window is a reparative act -- while restorative acts are those whose value is largely symbolic, a heart-felt apology may qualify, or a basket of vegetables from one's garden, or an invitation to dinner. It's certainly not surprising that people prefer to have both, but it turns out, Barter explains, that if they can only have one, there is a strong preference for acts that are restorative.

And yet, Restorative Circles aren't, at the heart of it, about apologies or even about restorative acts more generally. They're about mutual understanding and connection. Too often racial conflict is addressed with (legitimate) accusations. Denial ensues. Feelings are hurt. At the end, no one feels good about what happened.

Restorative processes offer an alternative, one that connects people by allowing them to not just understand each other but experience each other's humanity. That's why restorative acts are offered. That's why they are experienced as restorative. There is nothing like it in our current ways of doing justice.

In his trainings, Barter weaves in multiple examples from a variety of contexts. In one, a masked thief enters a small convenience store and robs the owner at gunpoint. He is apprehended a short while later and agrees to a restorative process. In that process, he explains that he did what he did because he was pressured to do so by a gang in order to demonstrate his commitment. The store owner shares how, weeks later, he still felt traumatized by the incident. It takes more than an hour to work through the nuances of understanding each other. When they finally reach the action phase of the process, the store owner offers the would-be-thief a job in the store.

Skeptical? I was too. And I wasn't about to be be convinced by testimonials and personal anecdotes. I wanted hard data, and I knew how to find it. What I found was one empirical study after another that demonstrated the effectiveness of restorative systems. Indeed, a review of research on restorative justice across multiple continents showed that restorative systems reduce recidivism in both violent and property crime in comparison to traditional justice systems and provide a variety of benefits to the "victims", including improved mental health and greater satisfaction with the justice process (Sherman & Strang, 2007).

Such a profound process should be difficult to facilitate, intimidating to even contemplate. It isn't. Part of the reason is that Barter has whittled the RC process to the bare essentials, which are few and relatively easy to learn, if not master. Another part is that Barter encourages a minimalist approach. "When I facilitate a circle," he says, "I intensely desire everyone's well-being and that's why I try to do nothing to help them." The statement seems paradoxical, but Barter is making an important point: The power of RC rests in the process, and it is the structure of the process that creates change, not the facilitator, whose job is merely to create and hold the space for the process to unfold.

Barter says the facilitators he enjoys observing most are those under the age of 10. Why not? In Dominic Barter's world, schoolchildren spontaneously break out into a restorative circle during recess. It seems downright inconceivable at first, but after a few days with Barter, the message sinks in: Facilitating a circle is child's play. Anyone can do it.

Given the level of conflict and injustice in our world, I wish everyone would.

Footnotes:

1. In regard to the "No Justice. No Peace" banner, in the context of restorative justice, the two concepts are not just interdependent, they are indistinguishable from each other. That is, justice is a way of resolving conflict compassionately by addressing everyone's needs, while peace is a way of living with conflict by engaging it effectively and compassionately.

2. Describing the actual process is beyond the scope of this particular piece, but interested readers should visit the restorative circles website.

The Fable of the Century, by Robert Reich

By Robert Reich, Thursday, April 5, 2012...

Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation’s total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Most of the middle class’s wages keep falling and their major asset – their home – keeps shrinking in value.

Imagine that the richest people in this country use some of their vast wealth to routinely bribe politicians. They get the politicians to cut their taxes so low there’s no money to finance important public investments that the middle class depends on – such as schools and roads, or safety nets such as health care for the elderly and poor.

Imagine further that among the richest of these rich are financiers. These financiers have so much power over the rest of the economy they get average taxpayers to bail them out when their bets in the casino called the stock market go bad. They have so much power they even shred regulations intended to limit their power.

These financiers have so much power they force businesses to lay off millions of workers and to reduce the wages and benefits of millions of others, in order to maximize profits and raise share prices – all of which make the financiers even richer, because they own so many of shares of stock and run the casino.

Now, imagine that among the richest of these financiers are people called private-equity managers who buy up companies in order to squeeze even more money out of them by loading them up with debt and firing even more of their employees, and then selling the companies for a fat profit.

Although these private-equity managers don’t even risk their own money – they round up investors to buy the target companies – they nonetheless pocket 20 percent of those fat profits.

And because of a loophole in the tax laws, which they created with their political bribes, these private equity managers are allowed to treat their whopping earnings as capital gains, taxed at only 15 percent – even though they themselves made no investment and didn’t risk a dime.

Finally, imagine there is a presidential election. One party, called the Republican Party, nominates as its candidate a private-equity manager who has raked in more than $20 million a year and paid only 13.9 percent in taxes – a lower tax rate than many in the middle class.

Yes, I know it sounds far-fetched. But bear with me because the fable gets even wilder. Imagine this candidate and his party come up with a plan to cut the taxes of the rich even more – so millionaires save another $150,000 a year. And their plan cuts everything else the middle class and the poor depend on – Medicare, Medicaid, education, job-training, food stamps, Pell grants, child nutrition, even law enforcement.

What happens next?

There are two endings to this fable. You have to decide which it’s to be.

In one ending the private-equity manager candidate gets all his friends and everyone in the Wall Street casino and everyone in every executive suite of big corporations to contribute the largest wad of campaign money ever assembled – beyond your imagination.

The candidate uses the money to run continuous advertisements telling the same big lies over and over, such as “don’t tax the wealthy because they create the jobs” and “don’t tax corporations or they’ll go abroad” and “government is your enemy” and “the other party wants to turn America into a socialist state.”

And because big lies told repeatedly start sounding like the truth, the citizens of the country begin to believe them, and they elect the private equity manager president. Then he and his friends turn the country into a plutocracy (which it was starting to become anyway).

But there’s another ending. In this one, the candidacy of the private equity manager (and all the money he and his friends use to try to sell their lies) has the opposite effect. It awakens the citizens of the country to what is happening to their economy and their democracy. It ignites a movement among the citizens to take it all back.

The citizens repudiate the private equity manager and everything he stands for, and the party that nominated him. And they begin to recreate an economy that works for everyone and a democracy that’s responsive to everyone.

Just a fable, of course. But the ending is up to you.

My letter to the President this morning...

Thanks to Nello Latini for sharing his photo of the White House on flickr!


Dear Mr. President,

Over the past week or so, there has been a great deal of chatter on Facebook about Monsanto, GMO's and Whole Foods.

The entire issue is very confusing and complex, and it's difficult to get at what's actually going on with regard to government regulation of GMO's and biotech companies like Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, Syngenta, et al.

My concern is that unregulated and unsupervised, these companies are potentially harming the environment, the balance of ecosystems, our food supply, and ultimately the health of humans, domestic animals and wildlife. Because of the unknown implications/ramifications of this research and technology (much of which is apparently already being implemented into widespread use) - I feel that a danger exists to all flora and fauna and the ecosystems of the entire planet.

We have many, many very grave issues before us, and I appreciate the monumental job you have before you. When everything on the to-do list is of the highest priority - well, I do feel for the huge responsibilities you face.

If you could point me to an agency website, or if a staffer could fill me in on this (very broad) topic as far as your administration is concerned - your specific policy towards GMO's - and your specific regulatory approvals and other actions within the USDA and possibly other departments (such as the EPA), I would appreciate it.

I'm also concerned about Tom Vilsack's close ties to Monsanto and the biotech industry.

It also appears that several former Monsanto executives/employees have been appointed/hired to key positions within the USDA. Not to question your judgement in this matter, but this smacks of, well, the old "inside the beltway" of doing things.

I would like a specific response to your reasoning behind appointing industry insiders to key positions within your administration - where these individuals may be inclined to steer policy in favor of their former employer/industry, in lieu of steering policy/regulations in a direction that provides the maximum benefit for "We The People" and the (hopefully) wholesome ecosystems we all depend on for healthy life and sustenance.

For reference, here are the two articles that I read on Facebook this morning that prompted this letter to you.

A story that appears to get at the heart of the Whole Foods/Monstato/GMO/USDA matter: http://goo.gl/AUwMe

and from a year ago, an ABC news story about the deregulation of GMO alfalfa: http://goo.gl/o28Nx

Thank you for your time, and keep up the good work. But, and there always is a but, you can do better.

Sincerely yours,

Alex T. Fuego
Driftwood, Texas

(I'll let y'all know when I receive a response...)

Follow up...

Here are two more really good articles from mi amigo Colby:

"Did Whole Foods Sell Out to Monsanto? The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: Now What?"

and

"19 Studies Link GMO Foods to Organ Disruption"

And lastly, the link to write to the President, your Senators, and Representatives...and State Governors and State Legislators as well...

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

President Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address - Full Text

My sound card is busted on my laptop and I don't get TV way out here on the eastern fringe of the Chihuahua Desert. So, I couldn't watch President Obama's State of the Union Address. I searched around for the full text - in pdf format so I could download it and print it out and read it in bed - but it was nowhere to be found.

So I created it myself to share with y'all and the world. I expect millions and millions of hits from people wanting to do the same - download/print/read/keep/reflect/ponder/comprehend/actively bear witness to effect change in the world versus passively listen/and begin to act with regard to their own governance...

Yeah right. Anyway, here ya go. Have at it. Nighty night.

The White House President Obama State of the Union Address 2012 Full Text PDF

Our Economy Was Built on Bull. Until We Admit That, We’re Screwed

Here's a great article by Kai Wright/ColorLines - very well written - and it mirrors my views on the subject. This is something that is close to my heart and mind on nearly a daily basis as I watch our world devolve into something new and possibly highly unpleasant for large numbers of our fellow citizens. Hell, it already is highly unpleasant for large numbers of our fellow citizens.

I've been wanting to write a post like this for some time. Kai Wright has done it for me - more eloquently than I could have. Definitely more succinctly than I would have. Or could have. Besides, I'm on vacation - the first "real" one in a long, long time - me and sweetiepiehoneybunch and Diggeroo. So I'm taking the lazy way out and cross-posting his piece.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/12/get_honest_about_economic_justice_in_2012_or_live_to_regret_it.html

I've been saying this for years, that our heads are in the sand regarding the real truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As long as we the people continue to ignore and refuse to acknowledge the truth about what is going on across the board and across the planet, we are collectively pissing in the wind. Meaning, we are pissing all over ourselves whilst "trying" (in our beluded state - belief and delusion at the same time) to "solve" "our" "problems" and "issues".

What greater gift could we give to ourselves, our children, their children, our fellow citizens on this planet, the entire planet itself - what greater gift could we give than to be brutally and unequivocally honest about the root causes of the challenges that face us?

What greater gift could we give to the world for our leaders to "man up" and lead with maturity, insight, thoughtfulness, awareness, open-mindedness, and love? To move the profit motive lower on the list. Much lower. Maybe even at the bottom of the list.

I wonder what that economy might look like...?

Without the basis of the fundamental truth as a starting point, we are deluding ourselves that long-term solutions to the issues that face us can be found.

Anyway, I could go on and on, so here's the article:

At the foot of Manhattan’s Broadway Ave., just below Wall Street, stands one of the city’s most reliable tourism draws: Arturo Di Modica’s 3.5-ton statue of a charging bull. Since 1989, the sculpture has been an iconic symbol of American wealth, of the aggressive capitalist spirit that, it is argued, made this country great and powerful. Visitors flock from around the world to rub the bull’s horns for good luck. Or they used to, at least. Now, tourists snap pictures from behind police barricades.

For more than two months, the raging bull of wealth has sat caged, facing eye-to-eye with a New York Police Department cruiser as cops have worked around the clock to protect it from the Occupy Wall Street movement. The park’s administrator called has the security “Orwellian.” That’s to say the least.

If you’re looking for visuals to encapsulate 2011, look no further than the bizarre scene at Di Modica’s bull. Daily, the country’s largest police force mobilizes to protect the idea of American prosperity from an imagined threat, while the actual economy lays gored and gutted by demonstrable and ongoing crimes.

In the immediate, this perversity results from a spectacular failure of political leadership. We traveled a long, winding road to the point at which no-brainers like a modest payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits demand political brinksmanship. People of varying ideologies and partisan affiliations may debate endlessly who’s more at fault, but to do so is to truly miss the forest for the trees. The ugly reality is no leader in either party has yet shown the mettle to rise and meet the enormity of today’s challenges.

That’s not to suggest moral equivalencies. Republican leaders have been openly obstructionist, preferring a broken economy to a successful Obama presidency. Their cynicism has rarely been as bald as this week’s House vote on the payroll tax cut, but they’ve never made much effort to conceal it.

Still, even if President Obama had been given a willing Congress, the solutions he has championed aren’t nearly on par with the problem. Like his congressional opponents, he insists the structural foundation of our economy remains strong. Rather than confront the core issues—inequity and instability—Obama has thrashed around with Republicans in the margins—over how to control debt, over the degree to which health care should be a commodity rather than a right, over which borrowers were the least irresponsible and thus deserving of help. Meanwhile, at each crucial juncture in his reform-branded presidency, Obama has left financial players to voluntarily take responsibility for their behavior. They remain steadfast in their refusal to do so.

These bipartisan leadership failures have prolonged the immediate crisis, which dates back to 2007, when the foreclosures that would bring down the system first began consuming working-class communities of color in particular. Four years later, Republicans and Democrats alike are still working off of the optimistic notion that we need only contain the immediate problem until we can get back to growth—that we need only protect the bull with barricades until those pesky protesters disappear and allow its charge to resume. With each year that our chosen leaders have indulged this fantasy, a cancer has spread. Each year has brought new records in the poverty, hunger and inequality that will ultimately consume this country.

But that’s just the immediate crisis. As we move into an election year, in which U.S. residents will have prolonged debate over our collective priorities and values, we must pursue answers to a broader question. Since at least 1981, when the Reagan revolution overtook public policy, we have built an economy on two related fictions. The first is that boundless growth is sustainable. The second is that unrestrained capitalism, particularly in the financial sector, will create wealth for everyone. These are discredited ideas, and the question of 2012 must be how we begin building a society based on something different.

This broader question is crucial because, in truth, the problem extends past the economy. Look around and you’ll find one broken institution after another, each of them buckling under the weight of the late 20th century consensus that greed is good, that a winner-takes-all individualism will somehow improve our collective endeavors. Industries, communities, natural resources, even sports leagues have collapsed as Ronald Reagan’s corrosive vision has become dominant.

Meanwhile, racism and racial injustice remain rooted in our society in no small part because they are necessary to explain why unrestrained capitalism and unfettered growth fail so spectacularly in creating widespread wealth. The entrenched, generational poverty that has gripped so many black communities and the yawning racial gaps that persist in wealth and income, among other things, can only be explained if they are blamed on the individuals hurt by them. Thus “welfare queens” and “super predator” youth and cheating “illegals” and “lazy Indians” and on and on. These caricatures continue to inform public policy on poverty, education, immigration and more. They continue to explain away inequity and provide villians against which struggling whites can define themselves without questioning the larger system. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quote about slave owners—the original unrestrained capitalists—still rings true: “The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow.”

Di Modica offered a quote on capitalism, too. In November, Newark’s Star-Ledger asked the artist what he thought about the security around his statue. He didn’t like it. “The bull is for the people,” he declared. “The bull is for everyone, the people with money and the people with no money.” If only it were so.

Wall Street’s bull markets have proven to be for the benefit of a very few. But as the financial industry’s largest players have been unleashed to pursue profit for themselves at all costs, the dreadful consequences have surely impacted everyone. Pensions have been wiped out. Family homes have been stripped of value, many taken away altogether. Small businesses have been locked out of credit markets. More than 14 million people are exiled from the labor force. A galling one in three black children and nearly as many Latino children are growing up in poverty right now, while the president brags about ferreting out fraud in the food stamp program rather than getting more money for it.

Our chosen political leaders have tolerated all of this in order to maintain the fiction that our economic system still works, that the organizing principles of our society remain valid. So the central question of 2012’s likely all-consuming political debate must be simple: How do we acknowledge that our current economy is built on lies and then start erecting a new one based on equity and sustainability?

Again, here is the original article by Kai Wright...

The Deficit Tango or, The Federal Budget Put in Simpler Terms

(Note: the best part of this post is all the way down at the bottom...)



Sorry folks, but no, this is not my post about how much my tango has cost me over the past seven years. Or is it eight? I dunno. Some day I may get around to writing that post. It would be an interesting one, especially when you factor in lost opportunity costs and loss of profit. I get this nagging retro rearview don't want to look at it was it all a dream feeling that my tango came at great cost to me. HUGE investment. The return on that investment? Hmm. You'll have to stay tuned whilst I ponder and cipher on that one. And I'm not talking about greenbacks. Well, maybe kindasorta that too. Whatever. But I digress. (grin)

This one is about Warren Buffet's op-ed in the New York Times about the super-wealthy getting preferential treatment by Congress and not paying enough taxes. I haven't actually read it yet, but I wanted to post it before I get too far down the road and forget.

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

And then there's this little tidbit from Warren - thanks to La Reina for sending it to me:

The Federal Budget put in simpler terms...

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is, so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000

• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)


It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385

Rebuild the Dream | This Weekend

Van Jones has formed a new organization called "Rebuild The Dream" as in the American Dream - emphasis on "Jobs" and "The Economy", with some other really good ideas that we've all be thinking and talking about. And *not* talking about.

Organization, or "movement" - it appears there might be a possibility to get some steam going on the grassroots level. We've got the Tea Party, the Coffee Party, MoveOn.org, and several others I'm sure, and now we're going to have #RebuildDream. The folks who are gonna tell Congress how it's gonna be? This might be a dream. But it's worth a shot.

Don't get me wrong, I think my tone may be coming across as cynical. I'm into this, I really am - I'm mjust a bit concerned that we may yet again miss the mark and miss out on a tremendous opportunity to effect change and ultimately lose steam. Some vitally important marks in my view. Marks or targets across the board in our world today. I could go on and on and get all verbose and blogarrheal, but I won't. I just wanted to share the agenda/talking points for tomorrow's House Meetings which are being held across the country. Actually they're calling them "Dream Meetings". Kind corny, but I'll go with it. I'll be going to one in Austin - it's filled up at 100 enterprising attendees. I've been looking for a way to get more involved in my own governance. It will be interesting to say the least.

One thing - I'm with sweetiepiehoneybunch on this - the phrase "The American Dream" is so cliche'd to the point of being hackneyed, overused, misunderstood, misdreamed, misdirected, misinformed and exclusionary to the point of being insulting and delusional. It was our collective pursuit of "The American Dream" that got us here. Follow the "The American Dream" formula and you'll get the house with the white picket fence and 2.3 kids, a dog, a cat, a boat or Harley or both and live happily ever after.

I'm not sure I, or we, want to "rebuild" "The American Dream". I think we need to re-think it first. Re-dream it? Re-evaluate it? Re-up it? Re-deconstruct it? Re-name it? Vision? Mission? Construct? Contract? Covenant? And it can't be just "American". Sure it can start here - but it must include a global vision in cooperation with our fellow inhabitants of the planet. Not "our" plan/vision/dream/construct foisted on "them", but our plans in coordination and cooperation with their plans.

I'm with Van and his people on the Top 40 list in the agenda. Narrowing it to 12 as the basis of "the contract" to "Rebuild" "The Dream" will be a little difficult - but do-able. I would go with the Top 40 as the contract, but y'all know me - Mr. Long-Winded Man I Am. So much for not getting verbose in this one. (grin)

Let's call it "The New Global Vision For The Long Term Sustainability and Viability of Humanity and All Critters and Ecosystems to Ensure We All Survive For at Least Another 1,000 Years and Hope that the Aliens Rescue Us with Some Cool Technology By Then" or something along those lines. Start taking care of ourselves AND our neighbors AND Mother Nature. Someone with more time on their hands can come up with something snappy, an acronym, and a logo with some good PR "ooomph". Muscle, horsepower, punch. Something to get everyone's attention and keep it for the next 50 years.

I just thought of a good one, but I also just censored/filtered myself. Y'all will just have to imagine. It was colorful, damned colorful I say.

Anyway, 'nuff said. Here's the agenda for tomorrow's meetings across the country. More to follow in August - August 10 is our "Action Day" - getting the message (gelled from tomorrow's meetings) to Congress during their recess. And then more House Meetings in September. I'm thinking we'll host one out here. We'll see.

Y'all have a great weekend! Time to run the ranch and mow the yard.


Rebuild the Dream Dream Meeting Agenda

Two Dreams

A couple of weeks ago, a couple of tango friends on Facebook were lamenting the cancellation of the fireworks to celebrate July 4th here in Austin this year. Actually, fireworks have been banned throughout the Texas Hill Country because of the extreme drought. Zero tolerance.

I commented something lame like "Let's use the funds that would have been spent on fireworks to build rainwater collection systems..." A noble thought, perhaps. I thought I was being creative to tie the cancellation of the fireworks due to drought back to the drought itself.

What I really wanted to say is this. "Wouldn't it be amazing if we could gather en masse, without the need for fireworks, and celebrate and honor and ponder and discuss the true meaning of the Independence Day. Not just way back in the good 'ol days - the meaning of the Declaration of Independence - not just that auspicious July 4th back in 1776. But the words themselves. The meaning behind the words. The intent. The vision. Take that and transport it forward to today and what does it mean now? Examine it. Feel it. Inhabit it."

Imagine a true celebration and honoring of a concept. A concept applicable to all of humanity through all time. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." A celebration and honoring with families and friends and strangers talking about what it meant and what it means. No fireworks, no apple pie, no homemade ice cream, no BBQ, no American flag. Okay, maybe that's a stretch. That would be like celebrating Christmas by going to church and serving soup at the homeless shelter y nada mas. Perhaps. Maybe. Probably not. But it's the thought that counts, right? We Americans would never give up the pleasure centers, the purely hedonistic, the capitalistic aspects of a holiday - to reflect deeply and inwardly about the true meaning of a concept such as this.

We like to have fun. And that's okay. That's a good thing. Have fun and shoot off some fireworks. Celebrate. It's just a little bit sad that we all don't think a little more about what's behind it all. Like we've lost or maybe even willingly given up on all the stuff that's behind it.

So then this past week I've also been pondering The American Dream. I got an email from MoveOn.org about a "house meeting" in a couple of weeks, which I do plan to attend. Actually lots of house meetings across the country - to meet with like-minded folks and talk about Van Jones' "Rebuild The Dream" "American Dream Movement". As best I can tell, it's mostly about correcting income inequality and strengthening the middle class. It reminded me about my pretty much inactive and languishing cuz I never did anything with it Facebook Group called "The New American Dream". Which I created after reading a Vanity Fair article on the subject - I've posted about that before in here. But that's not what this post is about.

Anyway, so I go to NPR this past Sunday to check out the latest show at Krista Tippet's "On Being". It's titled "The Inward Work of Democracy" - an interview with philosopher Jacob Needleman, author of "The American Soul".

I'm started listening (and have yet to finish listening) and got to clicking around and came across his essay "Two Dreams of America", which is part of The Fetzer Institute's project, begun in 1999, called "Deepening the American Dream". You might recall The Fetzer Institute's "Charter for Compassion".

So, get to the point Alex...I find it interesting that a person can open their heart and mind, have a little tiny epiphany about something, ponder it for a few days, and then be led directly to it by happenstance.

I could go on an on about the essay, but I'm running out of time. Gotta go water the bamboo and catch the latest installment of True Blood. I'll leave it to you guys to dive in a read.

Perfect for some introspection on the subject of freedom and democracy on July 4th.

An absolutely perfect way to celebrate and honor this, and every, Independence Day.



Two Dreams of America | Essays on Deepening the American Dream | Jacob Needleman

A voice of reason

Phyllis Bennis, Director, The New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Profound. Lucid. Must hear.

Political Tango :: Jon Stewart's Profound Speech

Here is the full text of Jon Stewart's speech at the end of his "Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear)" last Saturday [October 30th] on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Full credit for the transcript to Ryan Witt and Liz Brown at Examiner.com and Rolling Stone Magazine.

"I can't control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

Unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country's 24-hour politico pundit panic conflict-onator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems and illuminate problems heretofore unseen, or it can use its magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous-flaming-ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rich Sanchez is an insult -- not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put forth the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything we eventually get sicker. And perhaps eczema. Yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a funhouse mirror, and not the good kind that makes you slim and taller -- but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass like a pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is -- on the brink of catastrophe -- torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don't is here or on cable TV. Americans don't live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that our just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it’s something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises."

Stewart then plays a clip of cars merging before entering the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey

"These cars -- that’s a school teacher who thinks taxes are too high…there’s a mom with two kids who can’t think about anything else...another car, the lady’s in the NRA. She loves Oprah…An investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah…a Latino carpenter…a fundamentalist vacuum salesman…a Mormon Jay Z fan…But this is us. Everyone of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear -- often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile-long, 30-foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river…And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go -- oh my god, is that an NRA sticker on your car, an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s OK. You go and then I’ll go…"Sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare and he is scorned, and he is not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. You’re presence was what I wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."

Jon Stewart's America is the America I believe in.

On Prison Reform :: Argentine Tango Therapy

In the past, for its shock value, I've jokingly referred to myself as a radically conservative ultra left-wing fundamentalist liberal extremist. Although, I don't think it's really a joke.

My views on prison and justice system reform are very similar to my views on capitalism, consumerism and government funding of failed private sector business models. Cash flow fuels the system. Profits fuel the system. Special interests fuel the system. Justice has absolutely nothing to do with it anymore. Prisoner rehabilitation has nothing to do with it anymore.

Prisons have in fact become a criminal welfare system. Prison is no longer a deterrent to crime, in fact, I would offer that in many cases, it is an incentive to commit crime. Want to get away from the nagging wife and whining kids? Bored with your job? Wanna kick back with the boys? Wanna hang out, work out, sleep a lot, get fed three square meals a day, read, watch TV, live the good life? Then commit a crime that will get you three to five years in the pen.

My beef with the system is that it doesn't work, and when something doesn't work, the solution is not to build more prisons and throw more money into the system and throw more people into jail to give the illusion that the system is now working "better".

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not pro-crime or criminal. I'm pro-justice. I'm pro-human rights. I'm pro-helping a man when he's down. I'm pro-helping a man be a better man. I'm also pro-education - which I believe to be another broken system that feeds into the criminal justice system.

I'm pro-fiscal responsibility and pro-social responsibility at the same time. I'm pro-death penalty and pro-rehabilitation at the same time. I think the system costs way too much money - mainly because there are too many people in the system. There are too many people who shouldn't be in the system, caught up in it because there were no therapeutic alternatives to prison. Mainly because most states don't make the prisoners work for their rehabilitation. And of course there is the graft and waste and inefficiency - always that to deal with.

There's one guy in the Senate who is speaking out on the topic - Virginia Senator James Webb.

Here is a New York Times editorial.

Here is a Washington Post article.

Oh, I almost forgot - re: the Argentine Tango Therapy, that was underhanded on my part - to entice you to read the entire post. Sorry.

But I have sometimes wondered if tango could rehabilitate a hardened criminal...?

Dear Alex

November 24, 2008


Dear Alex:


I received your request, indicating your disapproval of a bailout for Chrysler, General Motors and Ford. As you know, I voted against the earlier Wall Street bailout because it did not have enough limitations on Wall Street or protections for taxpayers. Even though there was no vote on any new bailout, last week, I introduced legislation to stop guidance secretly issued by the Treasury Department that gives away billions of dollars to banks.



I am attaching excerpts from a recent Washington Post article that describes how Treasury quietly issued this guidance that would create a $140 billion loophole in the tax code. It is fundamentally wrong that while aid for struggling families and other important national priorities must survive a long and difficult legislative process, $140 billion is handed out Treasury's backdoor to subsidize banks.



Be assured I will continue my hard work combating special interests and closing tax loopholes like these, which only increase the burden on families and small businesses.



I would also appreciate your thoughts on other issues that may be considered in Congress. If you have not done so already, please take a moment to visit my website at www.house.gov/doggett where you can complete a survey online.





A Quiet Windfall For U.S. Banks
With Attention on Bailout Debate, Treasury Made Change to Tax Policy
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 10, 2008; A01

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious. Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin.

"Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no," said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes. "They basically repealed a 22-year-old law that Congress passed as a backdoor way of providing aid to banks."

The story of the obscure provision underscores what critics in Congress, academia and the legal profession warn are the dangers of the broad authority being exercised by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. in addressing the financial crisis. Lawmakers are now looking at whether the new notice was introduced to benefit specific banks, as well as whether it inappropriately accelerated bank takeovers.

The change to Section 382 of the tax code -- a provision that limited a kind of tax shelter arising in corporate mergers -- came after a two-decade effort by conservative economists and Republican administration officials to eliminate or overhaul the law, which is so little-known that even influential tax experts sometimes draw a blank at its mention. Until the financial meltdown, its opponents thought it would be nearly impossible to revamp the section because this would look like a corporate giveaway, according to lobbyists.

Andrew C. DeSouza, a Treasury spokesman, said the administration had the legal authority to issue the notice as part of its power to interpret the tax code and provide legal guidance to companies. He described the Sept. 30 notice, which allows some banks to keep more money by lowering their taxes, as a way to help financial institutions during a time of economic crisis. "This is part of our overall effort to provide relief," he said.

The Treasury itself did not estimate how much the tax change would cost, DeSouza said.

A Tax Law 'Shock'
The guidance issued from the IRS caught even some of the closest followers of tax law off guard because it seemed to come out of the blue when Treasury's work seemed focused almost exclusively on the bailout.

"It was a shock to most of the tax law community. It was one of those things where it pops up on your screen and your jaw drops," said Candace A. Ridgway, a partner at Jones Day, a law firm that represents banks that could benefit from the notice. "I've been in tax law for 20 years, and I've never seen anything like this."

More than a dozen tax lawyers interviewed for this story -- including several representing banks that stand to reap billions from the change -- said the Treasury had no authority to issue the notice.

Several other tax lawyers, all of whom represent banks, said the change was legal. Like DeSouza, they said the legal authority came from Section 382 itself, which says the secretary can write regulations to "carry out the purposes of this section."

Section 382 of the tax code was created by Congress in 1986 to end what it considered an abuse of the tax system: companies sheltering their profits from taxation by acquiring shell companies whose only real value was the losses on their books. The firms would then use the acquired company's losses to offset their gains and avoid paying taxes.

Lawmakers decried the tax shelters as a scam and created a formula to strictly limit the use of those purchased losses for tax purposes.

[.]
The notice was released on a momentous day in the banking industry. It not only came 24 hours after the House of Representatives initially defeated the bailout bill, but also one day after Wachovia agreed to be acquired by Citigroup in a government-brokered deal.

The Treasury notice suddenly made it much more attractive to acquire distressed banks, and Wells Fargo, which had been an earlier suitor for Wachovia, made a new and ultimately successful play to take it over.

The Jones Day law firm said the tax change, which some analysts soon dubbed "the Wells Fargo Ruling," could be worth about $25 billion for Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo declined to comment for this article.

The tax world, meanwhile, was rushing to figure out the full impact of the notice and who was responsible for the change.

Jones Day released a widely circulated commentary that concluded that the change could cost taxpayers about $140 billion. Robert L. Willens, a prominent corporate tax expert in New York City, said the price is more likely to be $105 billion to $110 billion.

Over the next month, two more bank mergers took place with the benefit of the new tax guidance. PNC, which took over National City, saved about $5.1 billion from the modification, about the total amount that it spent to acquire the bank, Willens said. Banco Santander which took over Sovereign Bancorp, netted an extra $2 billion because of the change, he said. A spokesman for PNC said Willens's estimate was too high but declined to provide an alternate one; Santander declined to comment.

Attorneys representing banks celebrated the notice. The week after it was issued, former Treasury officials now in private practice met with Solomon, the department's top tax policy official. They asked him to relax the limitations on banks even further, so that foreign banks could benefit from the tax break, too.

Congress Looks for Answers
No one in the Treasury informed the tax-writing committees of Congress about this move, which could reduce revenue by tens of billions of dollars. Legislators learned about the notice only days later.

DeSouza, the Treasury spokesman, said Congress is not normally consulted about administrative guidance.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member on the Finance Committee, was particularly outraged and had his staff push for an explanation from the Bush administration, according to congressional aides.

In an off-the-record conference call on Oct. 7, nearly a dozen Capitol Hill staffers demanded answers from Solomon for about an hour. Several of the participants left the call even more convinced that the administration had overstepped its authority, according to people familiar with the conversation.

[.]

Lawmakers are considering legislation to undo the change. According to tax attorneys, no one would have legal standing to file a lawsuit challenging the Treasury notice, so only Congress or Treasury could reverse it. Such action could undo the notice going forward or make it clear that it was never legal, a move that experts say would be unlikely.

But several aides said they were still torn between their belief that the change is illegal and fear of further destabilizing the economy.

"None of us wants to be blamed for ruining these mergers and creating a new Great Depression," one said.

Some legal experts said these under-the-radar objections mirror the objections to the congressional resolution authorizing the war in Iraq.

"It's just like after September 11. Back then no one wanted to be seen as not patriotic, and now no one wants to be seen as not doing all they can to save the financial system," said Lee A. Sheppard, a tax attorney who is a contributing editor at the trade publication Tax Analysts. "We're left now with congressional Democrats that have spines like overcooked spaghetti. So who is going to stop the Treasury secretary from doing whatever he wants?"





Sincerely,
Lloyd Doggett
Congressman
U.S. House of Representatives
25th District of Texas

Smart folks in Clayton County Georgia

I've been digging around for some time on this. It's an NPR piece on an innovative way to treat wastewater by using a system of wetlands. I'm sure there may be other small towns, municipalities and other government entities that may be using this "technology". Although it's not really technology, just some common sense, some engineering, and some earth moving. I bid on a few of these plants many years ago when I was in the water/wastewater treatment business - as a general contractor - but I never actually built one.

Note that the caption on one of the photos is incorrect. It says they started building the wetlands back in 2000, when in actuality, it was back in the 1980's. They had that much foresight that long ago to realize that water scarcity was going to be an issue. They had the vision and the determination to 'do the right thing' and 'do the thing right'.

Plus, not only is it good for water, and good for the environment, but it's good government because they are saving money (tax dollars and lower water bills) by doing it this way.

Kudos to those folks!

Anyway, here's the link - it's titled "Georgia Wetlands Offer Cure for Drought", by Kathy Lohr

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90043021

Check it out.

P.S.

I hope everyone realizes that when you flush your toilet (and shower and sink "grey" water), it goes through a piping system to the treatment plant (or reclamation facility as they are calling them now) where it is treated (many nasty nasty stages/processes), then chlorinated, dechlorinated (although now the technology is UV irradiation and/or ozonation systems), and then it runs into the nearest river or stream as "effluent". You can't drink it at that point. And I wouldn't be doing any fishing for many miles downstream.

I hope everyone also realizes that we draw our municipal/drinking water from the same rivers, or a lake, or a reservoir. The drinking water is filtered through multiple sand beds, ozonated and/or UV'd and then chlorinated and flouridated for your drinking and bathing pleasure.

They are smart enough to build the water treatment intake structures UPSTREAM from the poo-poo plant effluent.

But still. You wouldn't believe what's in our water. More on this later.

Ron Paul::Liberty

I don't know much about Ron Paul...but I like this message...his message...I will be finding out more about him in the coming days...I thought I would share this video...it's very powerful...