True Patriots

A true patriot is a patriot who knows the truth. There are many people who believe they are patriots, but are merely duped fools and schills for anti-democratic traitors.

The truth is that climate change is a real and pressing danger.
The truth is that corporate power has corrupted our polity.
The truth is that the USA has a gun problem.
The truth is that our country has a militarization problem.
The truth is that corporate media is part of the problem and FOX is an enemy of Uncle Sam

It is time for a True Patriot movement of We The People to push back against the duped fools and traitors. Spread the word

It's important to know that government can be good. Go to governmentisgood.com and you can find a wealth of information on the subject, although the reading is rather long. Monte Asbury gives us a list of gov't goodness that's far easier to read. He also has losts of comments and I'll add my own, good job bro.

Anti-government sentiment is a poison in the body politic and a tool of anti-democratic forces. A true patriot understands that. Do you?

corporate rule

Doing a little homework about how corporations rule the world and what that means for the majority of us...I just have to get a copy of When Corporations Rule the World and start from there. The Global Patriot is my kinda guy. There's dieoff.org which has some interesting stuff....and corporations.org which has a How to Overthrow Corporate Rule, yah, good luck with that. The Brits have a corporate watch spinoff, Corporate Rule which could be useful.

leading from the left

The lack of  a single coherent plan by liberals can be a problem. While the Occupy movement thought that a lack of a definitive leader and the lack of a definitive plan was a strength, it is now obvious that this view was, well, wrong.

Aaron Huertas wrote, "He says liberals should learn to be more decisive and cites the Occupy Wall Street movement and the ongoing European debt crisis as typical liberal discussion-fests lacking clear leadership, focus or a willingness to make decisions. Heck, the occupiers designed their movement to avoid classic leadership. Sometimes one plan, any plan, is much better than endless debate." 

Finding that leadership is part of the mission of Integral Activism. Organizing that leadership is part of the mission of IA. 

Bold Progressives have a plan to take back democracy, but I don't see how they're getting the message out to the greater masses. Perhaps the Save Uncle Sam campaign could help to popularize these efforts. How do we get people to rally together and stop the endless duplicating of efforts? It is our future so ask yourself as I ask myself, how do we coalesce?

The Center for Economic and Policy Research seems like a great resource that I'll have to study more. 
Thom has written another great article, The Real Boston Tea Party.....this is just one more piece that builds the greater narrative of how our political system(s) have been gamed by monied interests. There are lots of good books on the subject and this view is part of the required curriculum. 

The Climate Reality project has produced some great videos. I especially liked Doubt
 

Social Security

Social Security is an outdated notion. Todays' ruling powers prefer social insecurity and favor divide and conquer tactics to retain the undue power and wealth they now exercise or aspire to.

Some people understand that Social Security program has no honorable place within budget negotiations. Most Progressive Democrats understand that too. This is the kind of information that you will never find covered by corporate media. Do you wonder why?

Presdident Dwight D Eisenhower's Cross of Iron Speech is well worth the read, even with the typos.

Ronald Reagan explained to the people that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Watch it for yourself.

hang together

We shall hang together or hang separately.
New rule - if you vote against all abortion then you must adopt an unwanted child.

Looking to create the new Illuminati- here are some possible candidates

Sam Harris
Bill Maher
Thom Hartmann
Robert Reich
Michael Moore - get him to film the new narrative
Paul Krugman

STFU, Conservativescorruptpolitics
46% of Mississippi Republicans say inter-racial marriage should be illegal, to 40% who say it should be legal. I just had to save that.

I watched a Conspiracy Theory show with Jesse Ventura and it was pretty darn wild. I had to follow up on this and found Project Camelot. Aliens as time travelers seems as plausible as anything, I guess. AlienScientist thinks Dan Burisch is a fraud, so he probably is....

I also need to create my own map. Maybe you should make one too.

And here's a site I haven't seen in years, but it is a good one....Disinformation....and there are cool links within

Overwatch does seem scary and here's a forum I need to join...

Bad news is that the powers that be are allowing more media consolidation which means that an evil arm of the right that's way wrong can continue the propaganda that is polluting the American mass mind.
The good news is that there are smart and sane people like Thom who educate us about history and prudent ways to raise revenue and regulate the banksters. Here is an essay that lays out the real plan for the New World Order.

I sure would like real justice for the real culprits of 9/11. I like this site which debunks the debunkers. I'll have to check out some of thier links like the peace team.

How credible is G Edward Griffin's The Capitalist Conspiracy...there sure seems to be a lot of credible evidence....informationliberation says it has the news that the powers that be don't want us to know.

Integrative Activism

Integrative Activism is a plan, a vision, a model and a business for making the world a better place.

One of the best ways anyone can help is to support those doing good works. Integral Activism therefore works as a fundraising entity for a wide variety of organizations and causes. There are currently over a million non-profit organizations making it difficult to choose in a comprehensive and prudent fashion who to support. IA helps to simplify this process of wise selection for charitable contributions.

This plan for charitable contributions depends on an adequate and accurate analysis of key leverage points to make investments most effective.

The Model of Integral Activism is essentially a model of concentric spheres of concern and more theoreticly an AQAL model. We need to work at local, regional, national and international levels simultaneously to be most effective. For example; environmental toxicity vs environmental purity cannot be adequatley managed without addressing multiple levels or geographical contexts. One may attend the environmental integrity of one's immediate environment, but if toxins are introduced upstream and or upwind, local efforts will prove futile. Damage to the ozone layer is a good example of the need for international cooperation and is representative of other concerns.

Aside from environmental concerns (yet related), are other matters vitally important to the health and well-being of civilization. The health and functionality of the global financial system is profoundly important to us all. We need a proper and prudent analysis of global financial and economic systems to make wise adjustments in the systems and to create new institutions to address these new concerns.

IA proposes the mitigating economic disparity project to address this issue. It is important to understand that dramatic changes to the distributions of "wealth" can undermine the stability of financial and economic systems that form the basic structures and rules of commerce.

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The PLAN if IA is to

    - create a fundraising business to facilitate comprehensive prudent charity...local, regional, national and international
    - create a virtual storefront to generate funding in a format as above where a percentage of proceeds is dedicated to various NGOs
    - establish a variety of educational campaigns and issue advocacy programs
             ---the mitigating economic disparity project
             --- the 99 for 93
             --- saving uncle sam
             --- a well regulated militia
             --- publishing the best of charts and graphs from sources such as those used in Mother Jones, It's the Inequality Stupid and Union Membership and the Middle Class

   - development of an essential insights compendium.....the formation of the Neo-Illuminati - a closed community of adequately educated individuals who are dedicated to the principles of democracy in a contemporary version of the Founding Fathers of the USA...remasons?
We shall hang together or we shall hang seperately.

---development of a social networking subscription site functioning essentially as a non-profit to further the above aims and the formation of new international democratic institutions.


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The model - Integrative Activism serves as a model





 

Who Rules

Who Rules America is a great site with a wealth of information that is very hard to find anywhere else. A Fresh Start for the Left provides good advice and should be used in any integral activist's plan.

Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership a Global Coup? Sounds scary and I fear it may be true. Glodman Sachs' Global Coup D'etat is an article that I've been waiting for.

There was a Triangle Shirt Factory style fire over in Bangledesh that killed a bunch of workers. 

These things can be and should be used to bolster more coordinated movements to create more global democratic institutions. There are currently few if any. Certainly there is nothing compared to the forces of the republic banksters or republic corporatists.

The cost of war.com is a site we should keep an eye on. There are new projects in the works for them. It's the work of Robert Greenwald who helped bring us ALEC Exposed and other great stuff. He's a great patriot, unlike these Nine Greedy CEOs or public enemy number one, Grover Norquist.

More on Inequality

I was looking for a chart that Lawerence O'Donnel used in The Last Word last night, 11/20/2012. I didn't find it, but I did find this and appreciate the comments. I need to check out the link to the Hans Rosling video...I love his work.

Here's a TED Talk I might want to consider while I try to create my own.

Bernie is working his own petition to overturn Citizens United. Have you signed one?

Hacking Democracy is a film that every concerned citizen should watch.

A new report by the G20’s Financial Stability Board finds that the world’s “shadow banking” system has grown significantly and is now worth more than $67 trillion. The shadow banking system is a largely unregulated, debt-driven market for complex and often risky financial instruments. Since 2002, the shadow banking system has nearly tripled in size and is today worth roughly half of all bank holdings in the world. It’s also bigger than the entire global GDP.

At $23 trillion, the United States has the world’s biggest shadow banking system. This is what’s replaced good ol’ manufacturing and the creation of actual wealth in the United States. Now we have an economy dependent on banksters manipulating money. We must rein in Wall Street before it’s too late with new regulations to turn banking back into the boring and useful industry it used to be. Otherwise, we could be heading toward another financial catastrophe very soon.  - Thom Hartmann

and Poly added this farther down the page..."Global dervative bets now approach $1,000 trillion. Not enough money on the planet to bail that one. The entire planet only produces $47 trillion per year in economic activity"

I've written about this before, but finding good sources for these figures can be hard to find.....but it is getting easier...Global Research has this article and I don't know who Jutia Group is, but they've written about it. Washington's Blog has a well written entry on the subject and it looks like the site deserves some more attention.

There was recently a fire in a Bangledesh textile factory, horribly reminisent to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that illustrates the need for greater international cooperation for worker rights and protections.

So here we are with corporate profits at an all time high, wages at a low and corporate media as shallow as they can be. The Mondragon corporation is an example of an alternative corporate structure.

Would it help to deny Congress a paycheck or could they simply outlast us? They're mostly rich guys anyhow. Not enough people really see the big picture or hear the dirty truth that Crystinia Freeland speaks. That's why I keep plugging away with IA.

Thanks to Mother Jones and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities we have a better idea how much we really spend on the non-working poor. How many people fall into that category?

For those who might like charts as much as I do, here are some concerning wealth inequality.

 

The bane of Romney economics is the boon for the 1%

That aint right for north carolina because  it's the work of the right that's just so wrong

Maybe the institute for global citizenship can......yeah, right.

How the right is wrong

The Top Ten Conservative Myths is well worth reading. Yep, conservativemyths.com is a jem.

Communism is only evil when evil men are in charge. The early Christians were communists. -- "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every
man had need. -- Acts 2: 44-45

The Media Reform Information Center contains a nice graph of media consolidation over the last thirty years.

MoveOn.org has a nice page with lots of links concerning media ownership.

and then there's 5 conservative economic myths that occupy wall street busts.....and then there's the 5 biggest lies about public schools debunked, also from alternet.
What the heck, we'll go with one more from the same source and be reminded why the rich deserve our contempt.

 

graphic realities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're still undecided

It's good to be king. It's pretty damn being rich too. The rich seem to be getting all the breaks, especially tax breaks. The richer a person is in this country, the more tax breaks they get.
When most people think of taxes, they tend to think about Federal taxes, but in all fifty states the rich are taxed at a lower rate than the poor. It sucks to be poor.

The Republicans often sell themselves as fiscally responsible, but the truth of the matter is that the US economy does statistically better under democratic leadership, take a look.

Now let's take a look at the defict and how party leadership effects that. It's pretty obvious that democrats are better at balancing the books. Check out zfacts too. If you'd like a more academic perspective then try this.

You might want to consider or reconsider positions concerning Unions. Middle class income has an extreamly strong correlation to union membership.  Why would anyone be anti-union, besides wealthy business owners and their managers?

There is new call for global democracy. Common Dreams published an article and linked to the Global Democracy Manifesto which doesn't seem to be able to find much if any public awareness. Peace news also covered the story, but who ever heard of them?

There is the Global Democracy Project that seems to be mostly an African grassrots work and Building Global Democracy, but these organizations....

Middle Class

A Pew Research Study has a great graphic....let's see if I can get it in..... okay, I can't, but check ir out!

There's 84 stats that prove the dicline of the middle class, but you have to make your own mind up about what makes it so...

and go figure, US News gives us figures demonstrating that the decline of a middle class is a first world problem.

We the People of these United States of America recognize the corrupting influence of money in our body politic and acknowledge that our elected representatives are unable to reform a corrupted system of campaign finance that they are beholden to,  and therefore do hereby amend the Constitution of The United States in an attempt to restore integrity to our campaign-finance and election processes by:

establishing publicly financed elections to  abolish any undue influences of monied-special-interests,

to ensure that money is never again confused with and equated to free speech,

abolishing the system of legalized bribery of elected represtentatives known as lobbying.

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The above is one initiative of Integrative Activism, a business designed to promote the common good through,
----establishing a more comprehensive charity system supporting those doing good works

---- the creation and promotion of public education campaigns

Asheville Water

The vultures are trying to strip the flesh from Asheville's infra-structure, the water system in particular. Yep, there's big money to be made by a few at the expense of the many. Fortunately there is a good man working to bring the facts into the light. I hope that we rally together and Save Asheville's Water. Hopefully Tim Moffit won't get the evil gang to void our City charter in an act of vengence or desperation.

Don't Roof Rack Me Bro is a video you ought to watch. ABC, CNN and a bunch of others covered the story, like Cognitive Dissidence....a great site!

It's amazing that the Republicons are supporting Mitt Rob-me and Paul Lying, but hey, they have control of most of the voting machines and they have passed some great voter supression laws. Pennsylvania is an incredible case.  Despite overwhelming evidence that there has never beenone documented case of in person voter fraud and explicit language in the state constitution, the judge upheld the law, crazy.

Ohio is playing dirty too, at least the Republicons....

saving uncle sam

The super-rich may be hiding 20 Trillion dollars in offshore accounts. I don't think they're using that money for the common good. Some of them may even be domestic enemies of the USA.

 It's important to acknowledge that there are people working to undermine and destroy the USA. Liberals tend to focus on foriegn enemies and often underplay these threats. Conservatives  more commonly focus rhetoric on what they claim are threats to our country and way of life. Liberals rarely if ever point to domestic enemies of the state while conservatives are quick to villify anyone and everyone who hold views different than their own. The right-wing takes this to extremes and even claim that the President of these united states is a socialist. It is time to correct this imbalance. 

An easily identifiable domestic enemy of the state is Grover Norquist who famously stated that he, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub".

The villification of government is a poison in the body politic. It must end. Countless patriots have fought and died in many wars to ensure that our government survives. The government of the USA is the collective expression of the citizenry. It was the first modern democracy that inspired and changed the world. Every patriot that died in war, died for our government. A true patriot fights to make our government functional for We The People. A false patriot works to undermine a government designed to be Of, By and For The People. Anyone who works to "drown government in the bathtub" is obviously an enemy of the state.

It is time for good and true patriots to rally around the flag of liberty, identify the domestic enemies of our way of life and save Uncle Sam.

No one really likes to pay taxes. No one really likes to part with their hard earned money knowing that part of those funds will go for things that they don't want to support, but paying taxes is part of our civic responsibility. President Kennedy urged us to "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Paying one's fair share of taxes is a minimum of what a citizen does for their country. Voodoo economics is a treasonous policy rejected former President George H. Bush and promoted shamelessly by today's Republican Party.

Uncle Sam needs your help. Save Uncle Sam from the domestic enemies who have poisoned the body politic.

Good News

The good news is that we may soon see peak population of humans on the planet. Ten billion people should about be our maximun population, so Hans claims.  

The solar road project seems pretty darn cool. I hope it is really viable. he DOE doesn't have anything on it that I'm aware of, but it does report that wave and tidal energy production has great potential. Maine is even developing the first commercial grid connected tidal energy project.  And if you like that, you should witness the hope shared by Justin Hall that we may have clean energy freed from the grids. Angela Belcher is growing energy and engineering evolution. Yep, growing energy. She thinks that we can design bacteria or viruses to utilize each element within the periodic table. Amory Lovins gives us a 40-year plan for energy that utilizes present technology and could save us trillions of dollars.

If that seems thrilling then you might want to check out what Juan Enriquez has to say about the life-code that will reshape the future. Yes it's more utopic vision from someone who knows a few things about genetics.

Technology is enabling us to code a better government and citizenship, good citizenship is working to make our society a better place. Perhaps someday the villification of government will cease to exist and our institutions will be restored as a source of pride.

We might even achieve human security if you believe Jody Williams and understand the vision she shares with us.

So much of the promise of a better tomorrow depends on the continuation of good science. Unfortunately there is an abundance of bad science polluting the noosphere. Perhaps we should work a bit reforming media because mass media.....well, media matters.

Tim Jackson delivered a great talk titled An Economic Reality Check that I have to view at another time. I have other things to do so I only was able to view bits and pieces today.

The Planet Wreckers have had a bad few weeks and you can read about that here.



Perhaps at a later time I'll post my own talk about my dream and the journey that created the dream, the dream of integrative activism...charity, education and civic duty.

Overkill

We thought one thing, then another thing happened. Well that's just what nature does. We hardly could even think about extinction, but Pliestocene extinctions seemed to follow humanities spread.

It's okay to be wrong. some people even say that it can be awesome.  Heck, it's better than that. Yet it can be even better to realize what you don't understand....but not to deny what you think you know. Just don't let what you think you know from learning what truely is.

Some where along the line, most of us become confused and concentrate too hard reinforceing  to be right

Finding the origins of humanity is an ongoing process like learning about any subject can become.  It's not hard to learn if one has an open mind. A little empathy can take one incredibly far. It's really not such a radical experiment, but it does need to be practiced.

I didn't realize that there is a Bold Predictions, Stearn Warnings theme at TED....let's take a look...
yeah, I had to start with Hansen....he didn't dissapoint. In that talk he stated that there are predictions that we may see 20-50% species extinctions by the end of the century....yeah, that's just in a century. What could happen in the next century, or the one after that? Too bad we don't have a better moral operating system. We are working on it though. Damon Horowitz calls for one and I've used "what should I do?" as a koan for many years now.

Integral Activism is an expression, a byproduct of that question and influenced in part by contemplating the eightfold path....and by lacking a career path. I also think that we can create a database of people along with what they have intellectually consumed....and by creating a ciriculum of what is most important to understand to become the best person a person can become. What are the most important insights? Perhaps I can find this discussion or create it on the TED site. Maybe that way we can cultivate wisdom so we don't have Our loss of wisdom....

Richard Wilkinson explained How economic inequality harms societies, another fantastic talk.



I just love those correlates.