I have been watching the Occupy Wall Street protest and following several other efforts around the country to get the message across to our leaders that they need to change the way that they govern.  There is a problem though with all these protests and rallies:  Besides the fact that they are not working, they have no single message except that Americans are unhappy!  “So what if they are unhappy”, is the reasoning of the Koch Brothers or Karl Rove or Barack Obama or Bill Clinton?  “They are not the ones who fund our campaigns anyway.  And by the way, what exactly is there problem?”  And therein lies the problem with the rallies and protests.

When several people were asked why they were at the Wall Street protest and what they were protesting about, the response was varied and finally one organizer states on Countdown that they were still working on getting a consensus so they could make a demand!  WAITING FOR A CONSENSUS!?! For heaven’s sake, if you do not know what you are protesting for you will never be taken seriously by anyone!  No cohesive message because everyone has something different to protest is the problem with these movements we are seeing crop up – they all have different agendas and offer no solutions!  The protests of the 1960s and 1970s all had cohesive messages:  End the War! and civil rights and women’s rights.  And they were always focused in each rally or protest on just one of these things so the media could attack or support the idea on its merits.

On October 6th there will be a rally in DC to address a variety of issues – but here again, not just one issue with one message.  They have not yet reached a consensus of what Americans want or what the message should be.  Well, here is a suggestion:  stop looking at all your various special causes and focus on just one collective cause.  I call it the 4Es: Economy, Environment, Energy, Education!  These are all interconnected and have a basis in solving the problems we face today.  If you look at them as a whole and demand action that addresses them as a whole from this government, then you have a cause and you have a message.

I can even offer a solution:  federal jobs programs that focus on all four at the same time.  Three programs that deal with energy, the environment, and education, while paying a living wage to address the economy.  Simple solution for a message.  Follow it up with a concentrated political campaign based on the idea of voting for America first: putting American jobs, American family farms and small businesses, American free public education, America the Beautiful up against offshoring, mega-corporations and banks, polluters, energy dependency, industrial ag, privatized schooling.  If all these organizers and protesters would focus on just this message and demand this kind of jobs program, we would have start for a real revolution of the electorate across this nation.

Right now what we have is a group of people who are being demonized in the media as “young hippies”, “violent protesters”, and worst of all, being ignored.  Organizing protests is great, it starts the ball rolling, but if you do not have a message – a demand if you will – that is clear and easy for these clowns in DC to understand; if you do not have millions of people backing the idea because they can understand it without being confused by multiple issues and opinions; then you have little power and no relevancy.  Sadly, that is the way it works in America today.  FIND THE MESSAGE – PUSH IT AT THE RALLIES – STOP THE CONSENSUS BUILDING AND START OFFERING SOLUTIONS!  When you do that, then the progressive American movement will spread like wildfire.  Until then, you have little to offer and little relevance to the people in power except numbers of people with a confused and incoherent message.

I noted today in a blog posting on the unemployed that in order for America to get back to work, we need a plan.  Apparently, the GOP held House and the Democratic Senate seem woefully ignorant or unwilling to do that.  We need politicians who have a vision and who have a plan to address this problem and we need them now.  That, however, is an entirely different can of worms and can best be addressed in 2012.  For now, I would like to offer up a plan to put America to work that even the GOP should like.  (I should say that I am an accountant by experience and education, so much of this may be seen as financial slight of hand, and I make no bones that this is so.)

In our country today we have 14.1 million unemployed and growing.  This number does not reflect the nearly 12 million who are underemployed or have given up looking for work or who no longer receive unemployment benefits.  This means that approximately one-quarter of our workforce is not working, and that number is growing exponentially if the GOP continues to have its way.  We need a plan, and one that can be permanent, not temporary, and can benefit not only the country as a whole, but all factions of our economy at all levels.  Please read the plan through in its entirety before you react, since there will be parts that on their face may seem unfair, but which later in the plan are clearly not.  Be patient and try to see the plan as a whole, long-term program that will benefit Main Street, not necessarily harm Wall Street, and help millions of Americans rebuild this nation.

Part One:  Job Creation

I propose that four work programs be established:  A Public Resources Program; A Natural Resources Program; An Energy Development Program; and an Expanded Americorps Program.

The Public Resources Program is along the lines of the WPA of FDR history.  It will rebuild our roads, build a high-speed rail system across the nation, rebuild and build new public schools, refurbish buildings held by HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA to create new low-income housing and inner city homesteading programs, maintain our public highways, and refurbish or build new government buildings. This program would also incorporate putting teachers back to work in public schools in low income districts to improve the quality of education currently available in lieu of federal government education subsidies to cover such expenses. The base will start at $15.00 per hour, which is what is required for an average standard of living today.

The Natural Resources Program is similar to the CCC of the 1930s.  It will work at maintaining our natural forests, state parks, and local parks.  It will also work with farmers to create local food resources, allowing farmers to continue to be food competitive and organic in food production, by providing farm labor with housing at government expense instead of agricultural subsidies.  It will also create restoration projects of land that has been over farmed or subjected to clear cutting or other industrial uses so that the land can be put back into our farm system or into other natural habitat programs for conservation purposes.  It will NOT work to build pipelines or develop the depleting of natural resources for private industry.  The base will start at $15.00 per hour.

The Energy Development Program is not unlike the TVA of the 1930s.  It purpose will be to build a new energy grid made up of localized or regional micro-grids using alternative power resources which can be disconnected without affecting the nation’s grid as a whole in case of power outages.  As the new grid comes online, the old grid will be phased out and the workers will work at the safe, environmentally sound dismantling of old plants and equipment.  The base will start at $15.00 per hour.

An Expanded Americorps Program (Yes, I can hear Michele Bachmann screaming now) will include new components.  Each group of young people, ages 16 to 24, will be assigned to work with one of the other three programs as apprentices.  (This program will be entirely geared towards creating a future of trained professionals to continue the above three programs.)  They will be required to complete a GED or High School Diploma while in the program, and if they are college students, they will be eligible for an expanded Pell Grant if they work with the program one semester for every three in school towards their degrees.  (This has the advantage of getting low income students into college as well as giving them practical experience that they can pair with their degrees in the future.)  These young people will be provided with a salary of $10.00 per hour and housing if necessary on job sites.

These are the general parameters of the programs.  Now on to the nitty-gritty of this program.

Part Two:  Changes to Unemployment, Food Stamps, and other GOP Demons

Many of things that the GOP and Tea Party crowd want to eliminate are currently being overused, not because they are not good programs or the people using them are lazy.  They are being overused because they were never set up to handle the demand we see today for their services.  Top of the GOP hit list:  unemployment benefits; housing vouchers; food stamps; TANF.  All programs that work for the unemployed, low-income, and underemployed.  Basically 99% of Americans these days.  This program I am suggesting will make the GOP happy little campers, it gives them political cover with their owners and constituents, and it allows them to say that they eliminated these programs, while actually funding their replacement programs.

Unemployment:  States currently offer between 12 and 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, with the feds providing the emergency extension monies up to 99 weeks.  This plan would eliminate the federal programs and require states to pay up to 9 months of benefits.  At that time, if a person has not found a job, they must sign up for one of the work programs and start drawing a paycheck or go hungry, unless they can prove a severe medical disability, in which case they would go on Social Security Disability.  Since we have so many 99ers currently, they would be the first hires, followed by people who have been unemployed more than 9 months, and finally those who would be coming off of the 9 month benefit program.  People who have been underemployed would be able to join at anytime.

Food Stamps:  Currently food stamps are given to those who are in need of TANF services automatically, who live below a specific level of the poverty line, and many retirees.  Under this program, food stamps would be available while a person is receiving unemployment benefits (other cases would be dealt with under other programs, such as Social Security) only.  Once they are deemed eligible for the work programs, they would receive one month’s worth of food stamps, and then their food stamp benefit would end.  At the pay rates set for each program they would be earning enough to feed themselves and their families again without assistance within one month.

TANF:  Currently these benefits are limited in duration, often create a slave worker force of parents working multiple jobs to keep their heads above water, and often do more harm than good.  I would suggest that this program be eliminated completely.  In its place would be the worker and education programs here; with no time limits on how long you remain in the program.  At the pay rates listed, a person can support a family comfortably.  The only payment that would be carried over is child care coverage so that parents can work and be assured that their children are safe.

Housing:  We have millions of homeless in this country as the result of foreclosures, job loss, and returning from war.  The U. S. government, state and local governments have millions of acres of land and empty buildings in inner cities that generate no income for the government at any level.  As part of these programs, there would a homesteading component for low income and homeless families.  In exchange for farming land in rural areas (including building eco-friendly homes) or rehabilitating buildings in inner cities to use for housing as well as small businesses and schools under these work programs, participants would be deemed homesteaders who in addition to their pay would be working for ownership of their homes.  This program would cost the government less than its current costs of voucher programs, low income housing projects, and temporary housing options combined, and would generate more income over time than current BLM land fees or the costs of keeping the buildings vacant.

Medicaid/Medicare:  Under these programs, a person would receive a paycheck from which would be deducted taxes, Soc. Sec., and Medicare payments, as well as child support if owed.  Instead of providing private insurance to workers and their families, while they are unemployment they would receive Medicaid coverage paid by their home states, but once they are working under these programs, they go into the Medicare program.  For a family of four to be covered under Medicare would cost less per month than private insurance, and once they are employed again in the private sector they would fall under the current health care reform act.

Part Three:  After the Work Program

While these programs would be permanent as an alternative to unemployment insurance, they are not meant to be permanent work for many people, especially professionals who were making well above the pay rates here.  For that reason, this program also has a component for helping people leave it.  Many of those who will work in these programs will want something different over time, especially as skills change or improve.  For that reason, this program will also provide business incubators, in rehabilitated buildings, where workers can come during their time off to develop plans for small businesses or career changes.  The program will create collaborations with local banks and communities to help workers advance into new businesses by offering them low cost start up loans; business planning services, mentoring, and guidance; access to low cost business locations; and resources as needed to get a business successfully started in their communities.  People in the homesteading part of this program will be encouraged to develop multi-use facilities in rehabilitated inner city buildings so that their home and their businesses are within the same building or within walking distance of each other, while rural homesteaders will be given help in developing organic sustainable farms with strong local market outlets.

In short, this program would allow us to cut out many programs that the GOP finds abhorrent, while helping Americans get back to work.  It would improve our infrastructure, lead us towards energy independence, insure a safe healthy environment and food sources, improve our tax base so that we can address national debt honorably, give people a helping hand not a handout, and allow us to train the next generation of Americans not only in skills, but in appreciation that by pulling together we can build our way out of a bad situation.  (It doesn’t hurt that the GOP gets the sense of cutting out programs that they hate, even if the money is merely changing bank accounts.)  Now all we need is people to actually run for office who will back such a plan.  Any takers?

Today I received an e-mail on a new book by Eric Posner (The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic) about the idea of what a modern president should or should not be.  It is coming out March 16th, so I have not read it.  On this I want to be perfectly clear – I HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK!  I state this so that people will understand that even without reading it, I am afraid of this book and what it has to say.  The comments on it by legal writers are all very nice and scholarly, but they, like most academics, live in an isolated world where the written word does not often have serious repercussions.

As I understand it, Posner puts forth that an imperial presidency, not constrained by laws but rather by political realities, is what is needed to lead a nation like the United States today, regardless of whether we are at war or not.   He is applying the teachings of one Carl Schmitt to the governance principles of the United States.  In case you do not know who Schmitt was – he was a Nazi who justified the rise of Hitler as being a good thing for the German people and nation.  He wrote that only the political machine could constrain a president and that the laws of the land did not have any affect on how a president acted or should act. In other words, a President of this country could break the law of the land with impunity, and that only through our elections or through the actions of a political entity could such a president be contained.  Posner supposedly argues that an imperial presidency is what is needed today in this country because it is the only way to get anything accomplished of any significance, and that the public will act as a check-and-balance on such a presidency in a way that Congress and the Supreme Court could not.  He does not apparently factor in the influences of the corporate structure or the religious influences of today’s political structure into his work.

Now as I stated at the beginning, I have not read this book, only the reviews and write-up on it, so my comments are based on those things and on reading about Carl Schmitt (whom several of the comments referred to).  If Posner’s book is in fact what it is implied to be, then book is a dangerous justification for the war crimes of any president, the economic policies that have crippled this country in recent years, and will be the justification document for every president going forward who does not feel that the American people have the right to hold them accountable under the rule of law.  This is the kind of book that FOX News will wave around as being sound, and the GOP/Tea Party movement will use as justification for a GOP presidency that will make George W. Bush look like a piker.  Carl Schmitt was an apologist for the Nazi party – and gave them a veneer of academic wisdom which they did not deserve.  Schmitt was a fool of the greatest kind, and that such a presidency as he helped create in Germany in the 1930’s should be acceptable in the US in 2011 is unthinkable.  Posner’s book, if it is as reviewed, will be embraced by the GOP and will be lauded by the likes of Bill Clinton and the Bush family, and probably by Obama as well, although I would hope he would see the danger in such a book.

Apparently Posner was not around in this reality, maybe because of his scholarly pursuits in writing this book, during the last decade.  Perhaps he is not a scholar of history who sees what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945.  I do not know, but I do know this:  his book is dangerous because far too many people are going to buy it and accept it as realistic or something we should strive for in this country.  We have seen how a quasi-imperialistic president acts:  lies, leads us to war, favors special interests over public good, supports religious theology over good governance, trashes our economy, all while being considered above the law.  History will look back on the presidency of Barack Obama and say that by letting the violations of the Bush Administration go unaddressed, he allowed the ideal of an imperial presidency to stand as a testament that the President of the United States is above the law.  It will be the greatest failing of his presidency.

Posner is wrong in his premise.  He believes that the people of this nation and the political structure of this nation will keep a check on an imperial presidency.  To have that be a valid assumption, you need an independent press, an engaged, educated electorate, and a free society where special interests do not control the political atmosphere.  None of these things exist in this country today, and therefore, the rise of the imperial president is a danger to our democratic republic, just as it was in Germany in the 1930s.  Madison and Jefferson understood that a free democratic republic required an educated populace, a free trade of goods and services, and that the government be responsive to the people, with no one branch of government being stronger than any other branch.  They fought against an imperial presidency, and it was only in the last 30 years that we have seen the rise of one as a viable option.  Posner rubber-stamps this with his book, and states that it is a good thing.  Let’s get this straight:  AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY IS NOT ACCOUNTABLE TO THE LAW OF THE LAND, AND THEREFORE, IS A DICTATORSHIP BECAUSE WHEN ONE MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW, THEN NO MAN CAN HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE!

Posner’s book may make great academic reading and arguing, but make no mistake, this book is dangerous in the hands of politicians and the Tea Party movement and the likes of Rupert Murdoch and his puppets at FOX News.  Posner is the American version of Carl Schmitt and an apologist for an administration that bankrupted this county, put us into two wars, and now would bankrupt us again, abandon our people, and support a corporate/theocratic state in this nation.  In other words, he is giving reasons for the rise of an American Hitler and American-style Nazi party.  This man’s writings are dangerous.  Read the book when you can, consider the work of Carl Schmitt, and then rise up against anyone who would embrace such insanity when you see them running for office.  You might start with Carl Walker and his fellow governors who think that the American worker should be without rights.

I write on a variety of blogs, and often run across the same trolls on them under many different names.  You can tell they are the same because of several things:  they are always spouting the same propaganda and lies; they use the same writing style; they are not imaginative in anyway; and they are hateful in their responses when you call them out on their lies.  Now there is a part of me that says the simplest solution is just to ignore them, but apparently they are too dense to get it that they are not worth responding to in writing.  So I figure that it is better to address them head on, which is often the most frustrating part of my day.

So, you may ask, why bother?  I sometimes wonder that myself, but it all comes back to the same answer:  the only way to fight ignorance is with knowledge and facts.  I seriously doubt if I would ever change the mind of one of these trolls, as they are usually close-minded and unwilling to consider any opinion but their own, but other people read what is written, and those minds are open to learning.  When you or I respond to a troll, we may not educate them (although there is always hope that they will learn something), but rather we educate those who are reading what you write and seeing the falsity of the postings of the trolls.  Sometimes it is like preaching to a choir, but sometimes, just sometimes, it is providing new insights or new information or new ideas that lead to better discussions on blogs.

In a country whose education system is in the tank, and who is not showing any great effort to change our public education system, it becomes just as important for us as citizens to not only spread the facts through good journalistic efforts, but also through the dissemination of facts through our postings.  We become the final line of defense in the spreading of honest truth, not the kind of truth spewed by the likes of FOX News and their pundits or CNN or MSNBC (although they try to stay relatively close to the truth).  We become the teachers of facts and disseminate knowledge through our interactions on blogs and through various news sites.  It is imperative that we address trolls within these venues to make sure that facts and truth become the norm, not the garbage spewed by trolls who are ignorant of either of these things because they prefer ignorance to reality.

It is time to address the trolls on Alternet and on all other sites that publish honest journalism.  It is time to send these trolls back under the bridges where they prefer to live apparently – the bridges of ignorance, arrogance, war-mongering, oil dependency, racial hatred, ethnic bigotry, climate change denial, and corporate schooling for drones.  Those who blog on these sites and refuse to address the postings of trolls fail to bring their lies to light and as such allow them to stand.  And as Karl Rove has shown us over the early years of this century – when you say a lie often enough, people begin to think it is the truth.  WE MUST NEVER LET THAT BE OUR WAY – RESPOND TO THE TROLLS AND SHUT DOWN THE LIE MACHINE NOW!

GENERAL STRIKE WITH A PURPOSE

This post was started on April 7, 2010 and finished on May 10, 2010.

Today on Alternet there were articles about the hate groups being egged on by FOX News and Glenn Beck, and the revision of history by the current Texas State Board of Education.  As I read the articles I found myself thinking about why would people want to commit such acts in this country.  For someone like Rupert Murdoch who was given the opportunity to build his fortune here as an immigrant, it is repugnant to think he would use his opportunities to support what is nothing more than sedition in this country.  For someone like Glenn Beck, it is truly just about fame and money by preying on the fears of others and his own paranoia.  For the Texas Board of Education, it is about pandering to a group of religious zealots and Confederate losers in order to forward an agenda on the rest of the country that the rest of us have rejected.  So what is the reason behind all this insanity?  Is it about education or about ignorance, solutions or just blatant destruction?  And what should the rest of us be doing about it?

Education was something that Thomas Jefferson (yes, the same one that the Texans are taking out of there textbooks) felt was an imperative in a free democracy.  He believed in a free public education for every citizen, and in this he was considered liberal and radical by his fellow leaders.  But he understood that an educated electorate was the only thing that could, and would, sustain a strong democratic republic.  Just as Plato and Socrates believed that such education would insure a strong democracy in Ancient Greece, only to see it supplanted by war and irrational thought, as we see today in this nation.

We have become a less educated society starting with the youngest baby boomers and all our children and grandchildren that followed.  Why?  For many reasons, but mostly because we allowed ourselves to be sold out to teacher’s unions (yes, before you scream foul, I agree you need more money and better tools and more supportive parents and administrators, but your union leaders supported No Child Left Behind and sold you out as well as the children) who negotiated for smaller class size while negotiating pay raises that did not even come up to a decent standard of living for teachers.  Parents objected to paying more for education where their children were getting a poor education through bond issues forcing school districts to cut services or comply with odious federal policies to get money.  It was a vicious series of cycles that essentially weakened our education system, until No Child Left Behind was instituted that put the final nail in the coffin of educating our children.

I am 57 years old, my class sizes were never under 35, and without exception, my classmates and I did well on tests, could spell, do math in our heads, and write papers using good grammar by the time we were out of sixth grade, and our teachers did not have classroom helpers, it was just one teacher and 25+ students.  We understood the basics of music, art, history (both American and World) as well.  We understood the connection between genetics of peas and the animal world, and we were physically fit because of mandatory physical education.  We built on these basics as we moved into algebra, research papers in history, English, biology and chemistry, health education and sex education, and a variety of other subjects, including music appreciation and art and theater appreciation.  And we did it all in classes of never less than 25.  So why are teachers upset at having to deal with this number of students?

Ironically, as the class sizes have reduced, instead of getting better educated students, we have segregated out those students that educators do not want to be bothered with so that only the top students are allowed to excel, instead of forcing the poorer students to work to achieve their potential.  The result:  70% of our students who enter high school do not graduate.  The ultimate result:  this group is prey for the likes of Murdoch, Beck, and the radical right/religious zealots – and a nation on the brink of violence.

So now the argument becomes is the current educational system leading to ignorance rather than knowledge; is it offering us solutions or is it sowing the seeds of our destruction?  By all appearances, it is not helping and when the Texas Board of Education can rewrite our very history as a nation to meet their twisted sense of priorities without an outcry across this nation to the publishers to stop this insanity, this level of ignorance is only going to increase.  We as citizens of this nation can step back and let this kind of education continue and walk blindfolded into the kind of future that many Third World nations are experiencing today, or we can change how we approach education.

There are many dedicated and wonderful teachers in our schools today who are frustrated and going broke trying to teach our children.  They need the support of parents and students, not administrators or school boards or unions, to do their jobs.  They need to be able to encourage children to think through problems and lessons, not just memorize facts like they were computers, not human beings.  They need to know how to teach, not just coach to a test.  They need to know that the children are not going to be drugged up or dangerous to others because they have been strung out on prescription drugs.  These teachers need to stand up and say that their classes are for educating children, and these children deserve better than what we as a community are doing for them.  It may mean standing up to your unions who have allowed this to happen; to the administrators who encouraged it to happen; the politicians and corporations who were more than happy to let this happen; and finally, to the parents of these children who stood by and trusted that you and the others would care for, teach, and protect their children while they went on about their adult lives of feeding, housing, and clothing these same children.

Our current educational system has failed.  On that I think there is little doubt.  Charter schools are nothing more than publicly subsidized private schools, and they are a tool for teaching only the elite of our nation, not future generations of children as a whole.  (Any doubt about that is stopped when you look at the voucher program and its qualifications, leaving the rest behind in underfunded public schools.)  Many of them teach along prescribed religious or corporate ideologies that essentially deprive many children, even the elite, of the ability to function in the rest of world because of a skewed view of that world.  These schools are not the answer.  I am not sure that there is any one answer, but I do know this, unless we find a way to re-educate our society, from the bottom up, we are going to continue in this cycle of destruction until there is nothing left.

On my website, which has changed focus recently, I have proposed a new form of educational approach that takes both the kind of education I had as a child and couples it with modern technology and a broad based philosophy to teach our children to think critically and creatively, and to stress physical and emotional fitness as well as knowledge acquisition in creating a new kind of citizen and person.  It is not an easy program and it is not one that will appeal to many people, but my goal is to create a system of free schools eventually where these goals can be met by those who wish to create a different, healthier, sounder approach to how this nation moves forward.  (See <a href=”www.letfreedomring.community.officelive.com”>Let Freedom Ring.Community</a> for the information)

Education can be the building blocks for a great civilization or it can be the seeds of its destruction.  Our current system of education, which only coaches children to take tests effectively in order to avoid school closures or teacher layoffs, is sowing the seeds of destruction by failing to produce children who can think, be creative and innovative, and who will not settle for being a third world declining nation.  We need to create new building blocks for education that can offer growth into the future, not of an empire, but of a nation that is honorable, hard-working, charitable, honest, and compassionate while moving forward as a world leader and great power for good.  We do this by creating those kinds of leaders through excellent education and encouragement of all our students to strive to be the best that they can possibly be, not drones to a corporate system that is failing.

Please join me in trying to create this kind of change in education and to work within your communities to institute similar programs in your public schools if possible.

<a href=”http://www.letfreedomring.community.officelive.com”>Let Freedom Ring.Community</a>

First, as many people here at Alternet know, I am against ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.  I am a fourth generation descendant of LEGAL immigrants and I find this current desire by certain elements in our society to condone the breaking of our laws of entry to be disturbing.  We often read in various articles and blogs here about how corporations are taking away our freedoms, but then the issue of illegal immigration hits the headlines and suddenly it is perfectly all right for non-citizens to come across our borders to work for these very same corporations while Americans go jobless.  What hypocrisy!

The current laws in Arizona are not racist, except in the eyes of those who want you to believe as they do.  I have lived in Arizona off and on over the last 30 years, and I have yet to meet more than two police officers that were not Hispanic.  I am sure that there are more non-Hispanics, but you do not see them very often on the streets – except maybe in SWAT gear.  That is first. So this new law is one that while some officers may use racial profiling, I seriously doubt if the vast majority of them will.  They are too sensitive to it personally.

Second, if you were born after 1960 in a hospital here in the US, you were issued a birth certificate and a Social Security card at the time of your birth.  By the mid-60s your parents had to get you one so that you could be deducted on their IRS tax returns, so if you were a citizen you got a SS card then through your parents.  It was rare that this did not happen, so any officer on a lawful stop who asks you for a driver’s license or state ID, will also ask for your SS card.  That is all.  If you are here legally, they will ask for your driver’s license or state ID and your green card, period.  If you are here visiting from another country, thanks to the Patriot Act, you will have a passport or visa, which you will be asked to produce (and which if you are traveling you should have on you anyway).  If you cannot produce any of these documents, then they may arrest you for whatever they stopped you for originally, and sort it out with a family member at the station.  By the way, a lawful stop means you have committed a felony crime, traffic violation, or misdemeanor, for which you would be stopped anyway if seen by a police officer, so I would not be wasting too many tears on those who are stopped.  The stop must be reasonable, it cannot be random – our laws prevent that, even in Arizona.

Now, since people of all races and ethnicity have been stopped for these kinds of things and have been asked to produce ID for nearly a century, my problem with this is why suddenly Hispanics are claiming that this is racial profiling.  It isn’t.  It is, however, codifying a common practice as a way of addressing an ILLEGAL immigrant problem that has led to human death and crime in much of Arizona.  Anyone who has lived there can tell you how much has changed in the last 35 years, and for someone such as myself who moved in and out of the state about every 5 years, I can tell you the changes are dramatic.  This law is not aimed at Hispanics or anyone group of people, but because most ILLEGAL immigrants in Arizona are Hispanic, it will affect them more.

But perhaps someone should GOOGLE what I did this afternoon: legal immigrants against illegal immigration.  There are 711,700 possible sites for this.  Go and read some of those sites.  These are people who find themselves profiled because of the ILLEGALS, and just like non-Hispanic American workers have found their jobs cut in favor of low-wage illegal immigrants; their neighborhoods become shooting galleries for drugs, human traffickers, and gangs; and their children being forced into classes which they do not want to take because of their ethnic background. LEGAL immigrants resent the presence of the ILLEGAL immigrants almost, if not more, than natural born citizens, and with better cause.

In Arizona when Reagan granted Amnesty and suddenly everything had to be bi-lingual, their budget took a serious hit from which they had a difficult time recovering.  Schools had to cut programs in the arts and special education to cover the costs of mandatory ESL classes.  Social services were swamped in Arizona, and because they were not allowed to ask for proof of citizenship, many that could have qualified did not because there was no money for them.  American citizens and legal immigrants did without because the ILLEGAL immigrants were swamping the system, a fact that still holds true today  (and do not tell me that this is a lie, because too many people who have to deal with the system know that it is spending more on ILLEGAL immigrant needs than they pay in for taxes from their low wage jobs.  The numbers published by state agencies and federal programs each year are fairly accurate on this issue.)  At the time, a single person who needed assistance got $117 per month, and $75 in food stamps, while families with multiple children who were not citizens were getting upwards of $1000 per month plus $500 in food stamps.  (I know I was disabled at the time, and until Social Security disability came in I was dependent on state assistance, and was told this one day by a very disgusted caseworker who wanted to help me more, but could not.)

So my question now, as a fairly progressive liberal, is why should I be upset that Arizona is passing laws that allow law enforcement to do what they have always done – ask for ID that now includes a SS card, passport/visa, or green card – and to re-instate programs that meet the needs of all students, or delete ones that are not all-inclusive or preach sedition and treason?  From what I can see, they are the only ones acting with any sense on this issue.

They go after drug trafficking operations, gangs, human trafficking and kidnapping operations, and they are trying to make the schools for American citizens (after all that is what our public schools are for) less exclusionary in their curriculum as a cost cutting measure, which considering that every other school in the country is having to cut programs seems only fair.  So again I come back to the question of whether I am the only person in the blogosphere who understands that these laws are being made to seem racist because they are addressing the needs of US citizens, naturalized or legal citizens, to be educated, and they are allowing local law enforcement to do what the Border Patrol, which is badly under-manned, cannot, which is enforce the law and at the same time find ILLEGAL immigrants for return to their homelands.  Since they are virtual slaves to corporations here – why is everyone so upset that they are being sent back home where they can be free?

Simple questions that no one is asking.  Why support a corporate agenda that makes people slaves?  Why prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs?  Why cut school budgets for inclusive programs, but allow exclusionary programs to stay because of their topic?  These questions are at the root of the laws everyone is so upset about, and it would seem that the only ones who are making a noise are the very people who will suffer most from not enforcing these laws – the ILLEGAL immigrants themselves, because their corporate controlled advocates need to control the discourse through misrepresentations.  LEGAL immigrants do not want them here.  Natural born citizens, by a vast majority, do not want them here.  So, why are we advocating for keeping them here in virtual slavery where they are not welcome?  Right, because corporate America wants them here and people who do not understand what they have been pawns in allowing to happen – the greatest loss of American wages and jobs in history!  But, hey, if that is what you want to support, go for it.  I cannot, as a fourth generation LEGAL immigrant granddaughter, believe that this is what we as Americans stand for – slavery and ignorance – but maybe I am wrong?

It is amazing that the likes of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck can use their theatrics and phony behavior to lead people into believing that white is black and enslavement is freedom, but I guess anything is possible in America these days.  With the GOP finally giving in on debate on the floor on Wall Street reform, you have to wonder if this is just another smoke and mirrors show that will ultimately give them what they have wanted all along, just like the mandatory health insurance law in health care reform.  How do you combat a group of politicians, media idiots, and corporate powers that are determined to undermine this nation and lead her to destruction so they can make a few bucks?  Where do you start – to fight back, to get even, to stand up and be counted?  How do you take words that once held real meaning for people but are now twisted into something unrecognizable, and make the words whole again?

There are several things that are currently wrong in this nation, and everyday we read about them in the news, and on the Internet.  We have people whose sole source of information is a news network that would not know the truth if it walked up and bit them.  They talk about things like insurrection, and taking back our country from a form of government that our Constitution enacted (but of course they say that is not the kind of government we have).  They blather on about abortion and that a woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term without recourse because they do not care about the child or the mother, but rather the power to control someone else’s life in the most horrendous ways imaginable.  They talk about rioting in the streets and then are surprised when people become violent.  They talk about killing and then are surprised when someone does exactly what they said should be done.  This is the pattern of FOX News and it is both dangerous to people, and to our society as well.  Unfortunately, while they would deny others the right of free speech in disagreeing with them, they scream like stuck pigs if someone even suggests that they be shut down for acts of sedition or incitement to kill a President or Speaker of the House.

Words have power, and we as a nation have forgotten the power of words because we have forgotten how to use them.  We no longer adequately teach English in our schools – you know the kind of thing like parts of the language, sentence structure, constructing a research paper, reading comprehension – and instead, pander to groups who undermine our language programs because they claim they are discriminatory.  We have forgotten that the use of words correctly will allow a person to communicate ideas and ideals, create open discourse without misrepresentation, and lead to better public policy.  We must re-educate ourselves in how to use the English language.  That would be a good place to start.

Another place to start would be in teaching our children about history and our Constitution, and how our Founding Fathers were liberals – after all you do not start a revolution against the most powerful nation of your time without being a little liberal!  You teach them that this is not a Christian nation, and was founded by many Deists, not Christians, and it was control of the church by the state that led to many of the complaints of the colonists who were not Church of England.  It is important that they understand why this separation is so important in a nation where we have hundreds of different religious denominations or faith systems or religions  and that we recognize in our nation no one faith can dominate not only people but government.  That would also be a good place to start.

A third place to start is with local governments taking control of how their communities act, and working towards each community being independent from state or federal controls on such issues as education, energy, climate, food, transportation.  This is what the Transition Initiatives have begun to work on and it could be a very effective starting place.  But, it requires us to be pro-active in this process as community members, and that means we must turn off our TVs and start talking to our neighbors.  This would also be a good place to start.

But in the end, it all boils down to we must educate ourselves honestly and we must make sure that our children are educated with facts – provable facts – and taught to think critically.  We absolutely must work together to create a new type of nation where the people actually have the ability to control what happens, without mega-corporations or TBTF banks, and that means working at the local level to create a new approach to governance and community action.  And to do this we must educate ourselves and our futures depend on educating our children differently.  This is the first step in actually creating lasting, sustainable change in our society – and we must move now, even in these tight economic times, to do this.  We have no more time to waste – we are running like an out of control train heading for a wreck, and we must be able to take care of ourselves because no one now is going to do it for us.

I am working at trying to start a new type of school – videos about it are on YouTube under Devon Noll (Common Sense Initiative School Mission)- and reaching out to people to educate them on what our possible future may be if we do not envision ways that we can work differently and create something better.  This is not something that one person or even a small group of people can accomplish alone.  It requires each of us to come together and work as a collection of community members to change our communities and work to create new policies that make our communities independent.  Only when we have the ability to reach out in this manner can we find a common place to start to overcome the damage of the last 30 years of poor climate, energy, economic, and other policies that the dying world of the GOP right-wing are fighting so violently to hang on to.  We must determine where we are to start, and it starts with each of asking “Where do I start?” and then taking that first step.

See http://www.letfreedomring.community.officelive.com for more information on what I am doing.  Please post here what you might do in your community as your first step.  Good luck!

I have been inspired by the drive by Alternet to create a positive vision for our country.  It is an ambitious plan, I will admit, but one that I hope and believe may be a good start for a better nation.  And, now I need the help of people from across this nation and the world who come here to Alternet to read and debate on the future of this nation and the world.

As many of you know, I have over the last year tried to generate a populist drive to DC to support our government while asking it to address the real needs of Main Street, but health stopped me.  I have tried a series of educational videos on American History, Critical Thinking Skills, US Constitution and Government, and Sustainability and Civic Participation, but technical problems and a lost video camera thwarted by efforts at consistency.

And at the same time I was working on a dissertation that was not getting to the root of the problem of civic participation in sustainable governance the way I had hoped it would.  This gave me pause over the last few weeks to think about what was truly needed if this nation is to change, and I realized that it has always come down to the way we educate successive generations of our children.  The last truly innovative generation, as a whole, was my grandparents’ generation – those born before 1910.  This was the generation that survived the Great Depression, WWII, and Korea.  It was this generation that built our national highways, Hoover Dam, schools and universities, sent us to the moon, and developed computers and many of the mechanical things we take for granted today.  It was the generation that gave us the automobiles and airplanes we have today.

I am a baby boomer, and my parent’s generation built on this foundation, working side-by-side with their parents to give us a better life than they had had.  The baby boomers were saved from having to live through a serious depression until 2006 or so, and many of the things that have been lost with the passing of our grandparents and parents will have to be relearned from books and those few still alive to teach us.  We were so intent, or at least our business leaders were, on building paper fortunes and living la dolce vita we failed to realize that at some time you have to pay the piper – or in our case, the credit card companies and banks.  We have failed as a generation to properly teach our children, and now our grandchildren, about things like compassion, honor, hard work, nature, and humanity, not to mention reading, writing, math, history, or just that their food comes from other than McDonalds or Pizza Hut.  We need to change this, and that is what my new project is all about – changing how we educate the next generation and the next and the one after that.

This project is about free education, paid for not with tax dollars from DC, but rather from donations from private citizens within communities who will benefit from what they all learn.  It will be financed by educational grants that will not have strings attached from private resources who believe that education that builds a better generation of citizens and thinkers and small business people is worth investing in.  This project is about innovation and reskilling and preparing our children for a world that will be totally different from what we have today because of the lack of cheap oil (or any oil at all for that matter) and ever increasing climate change.  It will allow them to develop knowledge and skills that will make the economically resilient and adaptable to hard times without sacrificing their quality of life.  It will teach old skills like preserving jam next to new skills like computer design; farming with horses alongside solar technology; auto mechanics alongside furniture building.  It will have trained teachers and it will have knowledgeable volunteers to teach our children and ourselves the skills that can build a new word for the next generation.

We can build a new world if we start now, but it requires us as baby boomers and GenXers to re-train ourselves in the skills of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, so that we can pass these skills along to our children and grandchildren.  We need to start thinking about how we can help them create a better world to live in, and help lay the foundation for that world today.  That is what this school/farm/training center is all about – and it must be free to those who attend the K-12 program so that it can be made available to anyone who wishes to attend school there for the next generation of citizens.  And those who come to Alternet can help to make this all possible.

Please go and watch the video at YouTube – Devon Noll. It is in two parts and is titled “Common Sense Initiative School Mission Video”.  (The URLs are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHILxeSw4rQ – Part 1, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0_T2PxUH8g – Part 2) By then I will have put up the school program on my website at http://www.letfreedomring.community.officelive.com, as well as a donations page.  Please re-read my post on what a future world (A Future for My Grandchildren – A Vision for A New America) could be like, and if you agree with the video and with the previous posting, or even only partly agree with it, please contact me, or donate to this effort.

Alternet has asked us to be visionaries this year.  We must all embrace that if we are to get out of the mess that our government and our corporations have put us in.  We must not only work diligently in the present, but we must train and educate our children to meet the future and we MUST insure that they have the ability to create a better world than this one.  I am going to work to make this first school happen within 5 years, and I hope others will work with me to start similar projects across this nation.  Thomas Jefferson believed that a free public education was needed to insure a free democracy through the involvement of educated citizens.  This project is going to move forward on the premise he put forth is correct – and a free education for the next generation and those that follow must be supported by the society in which it is provided.

Please follow the vision, and contact me through my website so we can work together to make this a reality.  It is only a beginning, but like the garden in the video, it will provide a great deal to a great many people if only we work at it.  Thanks for any and all help, now and in the future, as you pass the word along, help to raise funds, offer to volunteer, or attend a program once it is up and running.  And many thanks to Alternet for making the idea of a vision something positive and possible.

I am not sure what emotion is raging in me right at this moment – but I can tell you it is somewhere akin to murderous rage and homicidal inclinations against the pharmaceutical industry and the irresponsible people who prescribe drugs to our children.  I cannot call these people “doctors” because they are nothing but legalized drug pushers!  As for the parents of small children who allow these corporate drug pushers to prescribe anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, and all the rest of the psychiatric pharmacopoeia for their children – they should be arrested for child abuse and endangerment.  This behavior is intolerable in our society and needs to be stopped!

I have worked with children who had serious problems as the result of trauma in their lives off and on for many years.  I was a registered counselor in Washington working with these children for many years.  I never met one child that required the level of medication described in the Alternet article today, and NEVER, NEVER would have considered an active toddler as needing medicating.  Children between infancy and puberty are usually (exclusive of mentally challenged children as the result of physical illness or birth defect) active and sometimes they have temper tantrums that can last for hours.  They are not hyperactive – they are healthy children that have not been turned into drones by a school system that restricts their ability to be active.  They are not usually aggressive or violent – they are the usual children who squabble over toys or playmates that we all were as children.  THEY ARE CHILDREN! We have a responsibility to teach them to control their anger at life’s unfairness, to find ways to constructively use their energy to be creative and innovative.  They are NOT abnormal – they are NOT mentally ill.  THEY ARE CHILDREN!!!!

As for the parents of this generation of children who think that such drugging is acceptable – WAKE THE HELL UP! You gave birth to these children and unless you are totally ignorant of how children behave, you should not be allowing any doctor to use these drugs on your children.  Learn to care for your children.  Except for wellness check-ups or medical emergencies, stop listening to these drug pushers.  Infants and toddlers do not usually have mental illnesses that are not physically connected to drug or alcohol abuse by the mother, birth defect, or post-birth trauma like neglect or abuse.  Contrary to what some doctor tells you, your child is being normal when they cry, run, play, get angry, laugh, talk, and want your attention.  The fact that this kind of behavior is being diagnosed as mental illness is disgusting.  IT IS CALLED CHILDHOOD! It is the child’s way of sharing their world with their parents, and if you did not want that responsibility – you should never have had a child!  Stop looking for chemical solutions, and start paying attention to your child.  Stop putting your life first – you gave up that right the minute you conceived that child.  Start being an involved parent and stop listening to overworked teachers, school counselors, and doctors who want to drug your child!  Take them outside to play, spend time with them learning about their day and their interests, include them in your plans for the family, spend time interacting (not fighting) as a way of encouraging them to explore the world.  In short, start parenting and stop listening to so-called “experts” and drug pushers posing as “doctors” or “social workers”.

(Note:  to those parents whose children are affected by physical or mental results of abuse, drug or alcohol fetal syndrome, birth defects, or other verifiable health causes, my comments do not refer to your specific problems, and reputable doctors can help you deal with them.)

It is up to us as responsible adults to get our government to put a stop to this kind of abuse of our children.  Oh, what am I thinking?  The government that allowed the pharmaceutical industry to control health care reform?  Not likely to happen – so it becomes the responsibility of the parents to act.  Demand that the doctors present you with proof that your child has a verifiable source for the diagnosed mental illness, and not just assume that they are acting in your best interests.  If you are tired or overworked, do not ask for something to control your child’s natural behavior.  Instead, take your child outside and play with him/her.  Let the child run around with other children or if the child is an infant under 3, take them for a walk and play with the child at home to stimulate them mentally.  You will find that your child will sleep better at night, which means you sleep better at night.  IN addition, by bonding with your child in this manner, you both begin to form ways of communicating that will assist you both in living together peacefully.  Remember, small children cry, yell, throw temper tantrums, laugh, run, jump, crawl, and get into to just about everything.  This is not mental illness – this is childhood.

I raised a daughter and she and her children lived with me while they were infants and toddlers.  I established a three-strike rule for all behavior, except one.  The rule worked like this:  when a child broke a rule or acted badly, they were told why the act was bad, that it was not be repeated, and that was the first strike.  If the behavior was repeated, they lost a toy or a privilege, and had to earn it back.  But, it was clearly understood, that if there was a third strike, they had better not be anywhere around when I found out.  I never said what I would do, but they never pushed me to find out either.  The only exception was on the question of drugs – and on that there was only one lesson:  you do drugs, I would take them out of this world as surely as I had brought them into it!  That rule has NEVER been challenged, not once ever in 37 years!

I took the time to spend time with my daughter – we traveled together, talked together about everything, I held her when she cried and we laughed together, when she threw a tantrum I told her I was not impressed and let her work it out – then I talked to her about her problems, in short we worked together from the day of her birth to build a loving, supportive relationship.  She has done the same thing with her children, and they are a closely knit family that supports each other.  None of her children ever needed to be put on drugs, and neither did my daughter.  They were allowed to play outside, laugh, cry, argue, and yes, even throw temper tantrums (which did not work for them any better than they did for their mother).

I look at children in our schools today, and I cry for the loss of the generation that is currently being denied a decent education and are being told that living on drugs for your whole life is normal.  IT IS NOT NORMAL – AND IT MUST BE STOPPED! If we, as parents and citizens, demanded better from our schools by demanding the return of recess and physical education as part of the K-12 curriculum; the exorcising of poorly educated school guidance counselors who think drugging our children is good classroom policy; and a return to programs that give our children thinking skills, encouragement in innovative ideas, and nature/community oriented curricula, we might find that our children do not need drugs to control their moods or their ability to think.

If people want to protest something in DC, why not protest for the future of our children – free from prescription drugs, an ability to think and reason, and re-connection with their communities, their families, and nature without living in a drug induced haze?  Have we become so blind to the dangers of what is being pushed on us and our children that we feel no sense of outrage at articles like the one on Alternet today that we are not going to organize a march to DC for our children, but will do so to protect an un-threatened right to carry a gun?  If these are our priorities, then we are lost.

I will not give up on our children – and to that end, I am going to start to raise money for a school/farm that will teach our children how to live in harmony with nature and their communities, without drugs, and with self-respect, patriotism, tolerance, and creativity. I hope those who read this will help me achieve this goal.  Look for my videos on YouTube this week, and a re-designed website within the next few weeks.  The children of this nation are our future – and unless we start to change how we address them NOW, there will be no future for any of us!