Friday, February 04, 2005|
The think tank will meet again Feb 13 at 4 pm. Please email naomi@observationdeck.com if you'd like to come or bring a guest. At our last meeting we decided to focus on educating people as to the cost of the Iraqi war. We want to reach out to the soldiers and their families, so please pass this on to anyone you know who is connected to the military. Please also send it to anyone who is for the tax cuts because they feel we waste too much money on taxes. Help them see how their money is being spent. Barry Wildorf has just written an important piece that reveals who is making money off the war in Iraq which is posted at www.agauchepress.com. I am reprinting it here with his permission: THE WAR PROFITEERSBarry S. Willdorf - 2005 In the spring of 2003, when millions demonstrated in the streets of the world's major cities against the impending attack on Iraq, the chant was "No Blood for Oil." The protesters understood instinctively that the war was about profits, not weapons of mass destruction or terrorists. However, they misread the plan. It was not entirely about oil. It was also about the Republican remedy for the corporate malaise in which the U.S. was then mired.
1:40:17 PM 
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Tuesday, December 21, 2004|
Case Wagenvoord discovered the site through Salon, so when I mentioned the November 9th meeting he said he was sorry he couldnt come since he lives in New Jersey and works in Brooklyn. He'd love to start a think tank group in Brooklyn, so if you know of anyone in that area, send them the link to the blog and have them read Gar Alperovitz's living room study action group proposal, posted 12/13/04. They can email naomi@observationdeck.com and I can hook them up with Case. Case recommends "Growth Fetish." by Clive Hamilton, which says, "...a social democracy that does not strike fear in the boardrooms is no social democracy." This is the problem with the DNC. He goes on to say: The Ukranians have a lot to teach us about protesting a rigged election where the media is in the ruling power's back pocket and the opposition candidate is fed a diet of dioxen. I don't have the details, but I believe they reduced their protest to one word and the color orange. Sophy Burnham writes I have great faith in history. It's time the US fell from being the ONLY superpower. That is an unhealthy position for a state to have. It makes us arrogant and cocky. The one rule in life is that all things change. Usually faster than we imagine! Sophy has a new name for our secretary of state: candolevil rice. She goes on to say Remember that Bush is already a "lame duck" president -what a curious term - and can't be re-elected, and after the flush of victory from the election (so called) people including republicans will start to look at him and knock him down. That's always the way with American presidents. We elect them and then tear them down! The things that upset me are the coincidental (?) similarities to what happened in Germany in the 1930s, with an unchallenged premier who became a dictator. Why is no one studying history? But all is not lost. By no means at all.
12:27:03 AM
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Monday, December 20, 2004|
Jon C thought a better term for groups like the NRA & Drug Industry would be "assholes" But if we're trying not to alienate people like my sister, should i leave the response out - even if I agree? Rob Osborne wrote: I say we embrace the NRA. The NRA touts their support of ALL the Amendments, saying ‘once one Amendment goes…. Blah blah blah’. Gun control shouldn’t even be on the radar. I’m putting a NRA sticker on my truck, right next to my “Liberalism: it’s not just for pussies anymore” bumpersticker. ...By the way, the drug industry isn’t the enemy; its unfettered capitalism and corporate greed/control. Maybe we should call them "carpetbaggers"
11:33:28 PM
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Barry Wildorf wrote: I find it difficult to lump together NRA, which is a not-for-profit organization with a for-profit industry {like the drug companies]. I have a hard time distinguishing the NRA from the ACLU as to form. It is more a matter of content. Industries that put profits ahead of the common good are "profiteers." Organizations, whether we like them or not, perform an important function in a democracy. The First Amendment gives us the right to assemble peaceably. If I had my way, I'd call them all "First Amendment Groups" and drag them into the same primal soup as the ACLU whether they like the company or not.
To which Jack Glaser responded:
I agree with Barry in principle, but that kind of principled, semantic hairsplitting is EXACTLY what puts liberals at a huge disadvantage. We need to start calling the NRA and like-minded conservative groups names that better depict them and what they do. 11:19:03 PM
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Last week I posted the following challenge:Let's come up with a new term to replace"special interests" or "monied interests." A term that we can use to describe groups like the drug industry & the NRA - groups to whom the Republican administration is beholden. The strongest response came from my sister Julia who wrote: I worry that your website – which has been created to invite discussion – may be intimidating or discouraging to a part of the audience you seek, because of what I perceive as a hostile undertone. Statements like, "groups to whom the Republican administration is beholden.” and , although the United States government is under the control of people we may not like ..." strike me as the angry, accusatory type of rhetoric I find so distasteful in the conservative ine of thinking. Therefore, did I not know you personally, I would be wary of aligning myself with your Blog. I think that you seek the input of a wide audience – including those who perceive themselves as non-partisan who simply want to restore/ensure civility and a strong civic spirit. I replied that I wasnt sure that this blog was intended for that audience. but should rather be a place for people mindsets similar to my own. But I am taking it under advisement and will try to practice what I say we are trying to preach - ie more effective communication. 11:01:48 PM
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004|
This week's Challenge: Let's come up with a new term to replace"special interests" or "monied interests" that we can use to describe groups like the drug industry & the NRA - groups to whom the Republican administration is beholden. Email your ideas to Naomi@observationdeck.com or hit the tiny yellow envelope at the bottom of this site. (Please, can someone help me move and enlarge the yellow envelope or add pictures to this site? I need to change the format of the site so we can have sidebars etc but I dont know how...) 1:19:31 PM
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Monday, December 13, 2004|
It is time for new ideas It is also time to look at what is already being done to take back control of our country. We have to remember that, although the United States government is under the control of people we may not like, we can fundamentally change the system by taking care of our needs at the local, regional and state levels. It is the States that have the power to charter corporations and it is the States that can take those charters away. It is the cities that pay the police and fire departments It is local taxes that fund education. Our national government has become an institution whose only purpose is to make wars and enrich its corporate sponsors. We need to disempower that government and support institutions that protect our interests We cannot save the people who voted to elect George Bush. We must work to improve society in the areas we can control . We must set higher standards for air quality, business practices and education on a local level. We must support companies that do good business and boycott those that do not* And we must figure out how to stop paying tribute to a national entity that no longer serves our needs. Last week I had the pleasure of driving Gar Alperovitz when he was in the Bay Area promoting his new book America Beyond Capitalism.-Reclaiming our Wealth, Our Liberty, Our Democracy. Over lunch at Oakland's LeCheval, Alperovitz helped alleviate my post election blues with tales of people who are reshaping the systems that govern their lives. Here are a few examples: •The state of New Jersey recently approved a tax for people making over $500,000 – which is used to offset regressive property taxes for lower and middle income people. California has just approved taxes for those making more than $1 million–to help pay for mental health services. Obviously the press doesn’t cover these and many other innovative progressive strategies very well.... We think it’s time for progressives to get together and learn about what’s new out there, talk about it, and to begin to develop some real action efforts to move forward “beyond the usual” ways of doing things.
Please email me if you would like to start a political study - action group. And let me know of any ways to improve Gar's proposal, which I've reprinted at the end of this posting
*Marilyn Scholze presented the following suggestion for disempowering companies that do not support our interests:
We might use Move On's large membership to put pressure on large companies that support only Republicans. Andy Neuschatz wrote the following in response to Barry Willdorf's piece:
The essay about being "victims of bad management" (reprinted in lighter blue below the Alperowitz proposal ) rang very true to me. I'd love to hear politicians talking about how "Those Washington insiders have given away our airwaves to people like Rupert Murdoch" or "Those Washington insiders have given our land to companies that pay us with nothing but pollution and toxins" and the like -- WE own it, it was taken from us. I'd think we don't want to say anything about "power to the people", because for some reason in America when we hear "the people" we don't picture ourselves but mobs of angry dark-skinned weirdos. Focus instead on property ideas: it's our land, it's our airwaves... it's our lungs... (I find myself supporting a draft, because if Americans are going to support a war, we should do it thinking that it's OUR children, the neighbor kid, etc. who might die, not just some guy we don't know.)
As for "ownership society" -- can we get Dems to consistently use the phrase "owner/debtor society"? If that's what we're going to have, certainly nobody wants to be a debtor, but nobody would even want to be an owner if they know it means others are their debtors. It reminds us of the ugly underside of the every-man-for-himself philosophy: that some will lose. I wonder how many people think their investing skills are better than average.
Proposal to Develop and Test a “Pilot” Model For Living Room Political-Study-Work-Action Groups A great deal of new political energy was obviously developed during the recent election campaign–energy which gave people a sense of hope, and what we might do if we acted together. Moreover, a very large number of new people came into action–many for the first time. Many things need to be done in the coming period, both to capture the energy and keep up the momentum. These include direct political engagement, sharpening the framing of issues, developing new funding strategies, and–perhaps critically–getting people involved, directly, in things they can do locally to build up power and policy for the long haul, and for ultimate national action. A great deal has been written about how conservatives re-organized politically after the 1964 Goldwater defeat–and suggestions have been made that progressives now undertake the same kind of re-organizing effort. There is every reason to do so. But it is often forgotten that the post-1964 effort built upon at least a decade (or more) of serious conservative work to build up ideas and practical things people could do, state by state. (Just two markers: The American Enterprise Institute was established in 1942; Bill Buckley’s National Review was founded in 1951.) One lesson is obvious: Progressives need to find ways to truly develop new ideas and new strategies in politically relevant ways even as new organizing efforts are explored. Moreover, we need to do this in ways which involve new people–not just Washington think tanks. And we need to do so in ways which permit action at the local and state level, where people are and where the problems are building up–and above all, where they can find new ways to work together to support each other. If we are serious the kind of ideas and related concrete projects we undertake should also have two quite specific characteristics: (1) They should give people a sense of historical perspective and moral relevance–so that specific projects are intimately (not superficially) connected to deep values; and (2) Whenever possible they should reach across the traditional partisan divide to achieve left-right backing, especially at the local and state level, where common realities (and growing local pain) on the ground often make this possible. The kind of work that needs to be done also should aim to build intimate local group support–friends and neighbors, not outsiders. Possibly the kind of people who assembled in Moveon.org living room parties... but not exclusively so. No one has a clear formula and answer for how to do this. We need to explore new strategies, and test new ideas. Period. For the last several years we have been assembling information on positive new strategies which can be undertaken at the local and state level–and we have also been assembling information on “new thinking” about the relationship between values, on the one hand, and structural and policy proposals on the other. What we propose to do is attempt to test how we might best organize “Living Room Political-Study-Work-Action Groups” which might draw upon such materials with a view both to learning about the new values-structure theoretical work, and about the myriad possibilities and precedents which now exist for local and state action. Our hope would be to develop and refine a model (or models) for how best to do this among larger groups, possibly along the Moveon.org model, at a subsequent stage. In the first instance, we would also test how the new book “America Beyond Capitalism” worked to stimulate the kind of discussionaction we hope for. (The book summarizes a good deal of practical on-the-ground work, and new thinking by various authors and activists.) However, we would also like to test possibilities with various other books, pamphlets, etc. as time goes on We also would like to perhaps develop and test a modest video as one vehicle to help stimulate living room discussion.
Any ideas you can contribute will be greatly appreciated. (go to the yellow envelope at the very bottom of this website) A MESSAGE TO THE SHAREHOLDERS IN AMERICA By BARRY S. WILLDORF © 2004 Thomas Jefferson wrote: “That to secure these rights (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness) governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We Americans are fortunate that our country was founded on such principals. Tom Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin and their like made us the owners of our government. Over time, and due to the collective wisdom of our ancestors, today we together are shareholders in the greatest venture presently existing. Collectively, as Shareholders in America, we own vast tracts of land, forests, rivers, large swaths of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. We own enormous stretches of sky. This is our birthright and ought to be our children's inheritance. We are landlords. Among our tenants are some of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations on the face of the planet. We lease mines and oil fields to these corporations. We give them rights to use our forests, to fish in our oceans, to graze their cattle, to send their messages over our airways. With all of this wealth, we should be very rich. We should be collecting considerable rents and royalties that could fill the national coffers. We Shareholders in America should be getting dividends for the use of our resources, as any reasonable group of shareholders might expect from an enterprise that possessed such enormous wealth. Yet this is not the case. Many of our Shareholders in America can’t even afford to spend a weekend on their own land. They can’t enjoy the benefits of medical breakthroughs developed in our own laboratories. Only the citizens of Alaska enjoy oil royalties from the use of government lands by energy companies. We are the victims of BAD MANAGEMENT. Our present CEO doesn’t even recognize that we Shareholders in America are the owners of these things. He treats our property as if it were something he can give away to his friends. A good example of this is the Social Security System. It is our insurance company and sells a pretty damn good product, an annuity that keeps many of our Shareholders in America out of poverty when they get old. Our CEO says that if we stop investing in our insurance company, we can use that money to invest with his friends who run stock brokerages and mutual funds. He says that we will then become “owners” in America. Well, here’s some news for Mr. Bush and his ilk, WE ALREADY OWN AMERICA, and it’s about time our CEO and his Board of Directors recognize it. What kind of CEO tells his shareholders and his customers that they ought to be doing business with his competitor? What kind of CEO gives away the property of the company he has been entrusted to manage to his friends? What kind of CEO works to diminish the value of his investors’ shares? The same kind of CEO that ran into the ground every other company that he got his hands on, that’s the kind. We, the Shareholders in America, ought to demand that our elected managers start running our collective enterprise more like a business and less like a drunken fraternity party. It’s high time we made deals where our tenants pay market rate for the use of our property. We have a right to demand a great big cleaning deposit from those oil, lumber and mining interests that rent our land. Those airwaves that belong to us should be accessible to us. Whenever a lease or license comes up for renewal or modification, we should demand better terms. We should make sure that the deals we made in the past are not currently in breach. Most immediately, we should demand that if our CEO thinks that his friends on Wall Street are selling a better product, he should implement changes that will make our product more desirable. Instead of closing up shop and leaving us Shareholders in America without our insurance company, he should be working to make us more competitive, more profitable and collectively wealthier. He should quit binging and start acting like a CEO.
9:38:03 PM
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Wednesday, December 01, 2004|
the think tank
for freedom friends family
and feedback!!! Thank you thank you thank you for all the email. The teeeny tiny yellow envelope at the very very bottom of the page may take a while, but click it and you're message will fly through space and land here very soon. Thanks to Nancy Levine, author of The Tao of Pug who suggests: Instead of calling the environment Mother Nature, we should refer to it as God's Earth. This way we appeal to Christians of all stripes, even the creationists. We actually do have important pro environmental allies in the Duck Hunters of America, who want to preserve the nature they love. How do we reach out to other hunters around the country? Most members of the National Rifle Association are hunters, maybe we allign ourselves with the NRA! I happen to be a supporter of the second amendment, even though I do not own a gun. The Founding Fathers wanted to be sure that citizens could defend themselves if ever a tyranical government should try to depriive them of their rights... Rob Osborne writes that he thinks the title Troublemaker's Toolkit may put too many people off. He suggests a less contentious title. I could call it The Citizen's Action Pack. What do you think? Rob Osborne also says "Nobody is fooled by the term ‘progressive’; it sounds like liberals being condescending and elitist; we’re Liberals, we should just fucking say so proudly." Should we call ourselves Liberals? Progressives? Is there an even better name? Sydney Osborne suggests we help people understand the implications of Bush's "ownership society": "When the repugs talk about the Ownership Society, we should make it clear that there will be an ownership class (vs. the debtor class, perhaps)."
I like her term repugs,
As someone who has worked with dreams for many years, I know that unconscious associations operate just beneath the surface of rational thought. Therefore it is imperative that we Progressives stop referring our opponents as The Right. Because the opposite of right is wrong, and we don’t want to be Left behind. We can’t continue to call the Bush-Cheney gang Conservatives, because they're not into conserving energy; natural beauty; or even precious capital. The only thing they are into conserving is power, their own power. Meanwhile our power as a nation is diminishing as the dollar drops, and we bungle through a war we cannot win. We who want to conserve traditional values like liberty, freedom of speech and the separation of church and state called ourselves Liberals until our opponents turned liberal into a dirty word - pairing it with “elite,” “knee jerk,” “tax-and-spend” We’ve replaced the term Liberal with Progressive in recognition of our effort to promote peace, equality and prosperity. Perhaps we should call the other team the Regressives, as they long to return to the 1950’s when men made all the decisions and plastic supplanted glass, wood and stone. Those on the right who advocate pre-emptive war have adopted the proud descriptive Neo Con (short for neo conservative) yet there is nothing really new about greed or the lust for power. So let’s drop the neo and simply call them Cons. And we become the Pros. While Pros provide programs to protect the people, Cons conspire to convince these folks to constantly consume… conspicuously.
We cannot condone the Cons’ behavior as they conspire to compromise our Constitution. We must protest; protect our eConomy; and produce a Progressive Congress.
The little yellow envelope is way down at the bottom of the page. If you know how to move the envelope and make it bigger, let me know. But for now, press the yellow envelope and let me know what you're thinking.
5:39:53 PM
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think truck stop thinking at all
Its time to start thinking about language Its time to start playing with metaphor Its time to start talking about real values It is time to take our Country back! And one tool we have is reframing...Changing the terms of the argument. Evoking images that will bring out the best in our fellow Americans, even as certain forces strive to bring out the worst. Many people were scared into voting for the current administration because they had become convinced that terrorists were about to strike; that Gay men were going to seduce their husbands or gay women would turn their wives into Lesbians. They were convinced that Satan was hiding in the bushes and if they chose to heed his call they would burn in hell. We must appeal to the goodness in people. We must remind them of why America is great and help them make it even better. An Invitation You are cordially invited to further the progressive cause by thinking up new ways of framing important issues - Please contribute new sound bytes, slogans, ads, calls to action by emailing them to me at this site. I will publish the ones that members of The San Francisco Thnk Tank find most effective in the hopes that you will adapt them and pass them on. Each week we will pull 3 cards from the Troublemakers Toolkit - a value card; an issue card; and an action card. See if you can find new ways to combine those 3 elements to produce an effective phrase or action. This week members of the San Francisco Think Tank pulled the following cards from the Troublemaker's Toolkit: Action: Create a Sound byte or Slogan Issue: The Future of Social security Value: Fairness Using these three cards the following phrases emerged Are we becoming a Debtor Nation? A debtor society? We had a contract... they're trying to break it Do we want other people's children gambling with our retirement money? Why trust Wall Street to protect our savings? the house always wins in the end After the think tank meeting was over, Barry Willdorf went home and wrote the following: A MESSAGE TO THE SHAREHOLDERS IN AMERICA By BARRY S. WILLDORF © 2004 Thomas Jefferson wrote: “That to secure these rights (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness) governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We Americans are fortunate that our country was founded on such principals. Tom Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin and their like made us the owners of our government. Over time, and due to the collective wisdom of our ancestors, today we together are shareholders in the greatest venture presently existing. Collectively, as Shareholders in America, we own vast tracts of land, forests, rivers, large swaths of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. We own enormous stretches of sky. This is our birthright and ought to be our children's inheritance. We are landlords. Among our tenants are some of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations on the face of the planet. We lease mines and oil fields to these corporations. We give them rights to use our forests, to fish in our oceans, to graze their cattle, to send their messages over our airways. With all of this wealth, we should be very rich. We should be collecting considerable rents and royalties that could fill the national coffers. We Shareholders in America should be getting dividends for the use of our resources, as any reasonable group of shareholders might expect from an enterprise that possessed such enormous wealth. Yet this is not the case. Many of our Shareholders in America can’t even afford to spend a weekend on their own land. They can’t enjoy the benefits of medical breakthroughs developed in our own laboratories. Only the citizens of Alaska enjoy oil royalties from the use of government lands by energy companies. We are the victims of BAD MANAGEMENT. Our present CEO doesn’t even recognize that we Shareholders in America are the owners of these things. He treats our property as if it were something he can give away to his friends. A good example of this is the Social Security System. It is our insurance company and sells a pretty damn good product, an annuity that keeps many of our Shareholders in America out of poverty when they get old. Our CEO says that if we stop investing in our insurance company, we can use that money to invest with his friends who run stock brokerages and mutual funds. He says that we will then become “owners” in America. Well, here’s some news for Mr. Bush and his ilk, WE ALREADY OWN AMERICA, and it’s about time our CEO and his Board of Directors recognize it. What kind of CEO tells his shareholders and his customers that they ought to be doing business with his competitor? What kind of CEO gives away the property of the company he has been entrusted to manage to his friends? What kind of CEO works to diminish the value of his investors’ shares? The same kind of CEO that ran into the ground every other company that he got his hands on, that’s the kind. We, the Shareholders in America, ought to demand that our elected managers start running our collective enterprise more like a business and less like a drunken fraternity party. It’s high time we made deals where our tenants pay market rate for the use of our property. We have a right to demand a great big cleaning deposit from those oil, lumber and mining interests that rent our land. Those airwaves that belong to us should be accessible to us. Whenever a lease or license comes up for renewal or modification, we should demand better terms. We should make sure that the deals we made in the past are not currently in breach. Most immediately, we should demand that if our CEO thinks that his friends on Wall Street are selling a better product, he should implement changes that will make our product more desirable. Instead of closing up shop and leaving us Shareholders in America without our insurance company, he should be working to make us more competitive, more profitable and collectively wealthier. He should quit binging and start acting like a CEO. Please email any ideas you may have for ways to convince people that the privatization of Social Security is bad for our nation. Think tank members ask"are we being swindled... conned...ripped off?" What do you have to say? What language can we use to help people see that the man they see as the current father of the nation doesnt have our best interests at heart? Please send in any catchy phrases you might have on any subject relating public policy We like: Corporate Media instead of Mainstream Media Mother Nature instead of the Environment What do you think? Ask your friends if they have any good ideas and send them in. Hit the yellow envelope image at the bottom of the page to email your responses.
1:52:23 AM
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Last update: 2/4/2005; 2:02:07 PM .
