A Serious Proposal to the Wacco Community

[decterlove]

I was just listening to KQED this morning and there was a show on the proposed 10% budget cuts and how they will disproportionately affect programs for childcare across the board, especially foster children. The interviewees, (sorry, don't have the names here...I was multitasking), were attempting to explain that while the cuts were only 10%, the same families, childcare providers and kids were being hit disproportionately because A., they often were signed up for multiple programs, and B. the Federal government provides matching funds, so any cuts at the state level are multiplied in their effects.

Now there are a lot of very bright minds here in Wacco. I'm quite sure I'm not the brightest bulb on this block...I'm probably just a nite lite. But I am by nature a creative, out of the box thinker, and I think I may be capable of seeing larger patterns perhaps as well, or better than some. And here's what I observe:

A. This decline in services and cut in Federal programs is just going to continue and get worse and worse. It's obviously been going on since the Reagan administration in California, education has gotten worse...if anybody can name something that's gotten better, I'd love to hear about it.

B. Obama, as per Gonzales, as per Mad Miles recent post, is probably not the answer. Just more of the same, cloaked in "progressive" clothing.

C. The U.S. is heading more and more towards resembling, if not becoming a Third World country.

D. The situation in 4 years maybe become exponentially worse...I've expressed my intuitive guess regarding Arnold's ambitions recently, and whether or not I'm correct regarding his future political career....there simply are no bright spots on the horizon. Hillary and Obama are as GOOD AS IT WILL EVER GET on the national level of politics.

Okay, that's my first set of observations. Here are my second:

A. The Progressive community has the right ambitions and goals to move America in the right direction but has been, in my mind at least, quite ineffective, and perhaps even irrelevant at the national level. Can anyone name one single agenda or issue that Progressives have achieved in the last 30 years? I mean, even marijuana is still illegal and the prisons are filled up with minor drug offenders!

(I may be overlooking some achievements...correct me if I am, and I recognize the despair that can arise in the face of the ineffectiveness I am observing here in this regard. Perhaps, the Left IS effective in some local issues and in providing a local sense of community with a network of people helping each other on a local level.)

B. The Left has never adjusted it's thinking in regard to it's effectiveness or strategy to my knowledge. (again correct me if I'm wrong...) It tends to be locked into blame and victimization. I'm starting to sense that if we, as a people overall, cannot transcend this chronic blame and victimization, we are simple doomed as a nation. THE LEFT HASN'T REALLY BEEN CREATIVE SINCE THE DAYS OF YIPPIES AND ABBIE HOFFMAN AND THE CHICAGO 7!!!! (not that I necessarily want to bring back those days...the times are VASTLY different...but if we don't think outside the box...we will remain INSIDE THE BOX!)

C. What is missing in the Progressive and in the Culture as a whole, is the ability to think 3 or 4 moves down the line, as a chess player needs to. We are always fixated on past or current injustices and lack. Borrowing from the LOA or Secret debate of last summer...I think one can muse at least that if the Progressive culture as a whole is ALWAYS FOCUSED on what it doesn't want.....well, maybe that's just way to proceed and create a better world.

D. On that note...I also will offer the parallel observation, that in the face of all these draconian budget cut proposals and all else....it's possible that many members of the "Alternative Community" is also being sidetracked and dangerously deluded that they can avoid all this collective misery and consequence simply by closing their eyes and focusing on what they want. If this ship sinks much further down, the chaos that will ensue will drown us all.

So in the face of all of this, what do we get from the Progressive line of thinking?

Ralph Nader running for President again.

Now, it is not my intention to spark a micro-debate on the merits and wisdom of Nader's choice in particular. That would be just one more useless diversion from what really matters in my mind. What I wish to point out simply is this. Nader and Gonzalez probably are very smart minds with lots of connections and the ability to raise funds to some degree in this "SYMBOLIC GESTURE" that they are choosing to make.

WHY CAN'T THEY TAKE THAT COLLECTIVE ENERGY, INTELLIGENCE, AND THOSE RESOURCES AND USE THEM TO ACHIEVE ONE SMALL ACT OF REAL CONSEQUENCE AND NOT ONE THAT IS MERELY SYMBOLIC?

My proposal to the Wacco community is essentially to do the same. And here is my idea...

What if we could create and agree upon a simple set of strategies that could indeed have real consequences for real people across the nation in say four years from now THAT TOTALLY BYPASSED WHATEVER THE FEDERAL OR STATE GOVERNMENTS CHOOSE TO DO OR NOT DO ON OUR BEHALF.

We would need some REAL CREATIVE THINKING here to achieve this.

One of the two thoughts that cross my mind is A. To approach the ultra wealthy people with progressive inclinations, ie...the Streisands, the Onos, the Alec Baldwins and get them involved not only in the funding of such efforts but in further fundraising.

For example, what if by using private funds, a "franchise" of day care centers or foster homes could be created across California that would be profitable to some extent themselves.

What if real affordable housing clusters, ie small starter homes, again with profit potential, could be created to offset the spiraling cost of home mortgages, etc.

What if a franchise of real food fast food restaurants could be started that might help change America's eating habits and reduce the impending health care crisis.

Or how about approaching single Corporations directly and asking them to fund a specific cause such as education or daycare and holding the consumer power of boycott if they aren't willing.

And lastly, an emphasis should be put on regionalism in implementing ideas and possibilities. While the civilization at large is very much connected by the economic grid and the global economy, when real disaster on the scale of Katrina or worse hits, the worst effects will be felt locally. In this regard, could funding from Hollywood icons, for example, help restore local radio stations that might be relied upon in crisis? Or should all Waccobians be encouraged to have short wave operations?

It may be useful as a start to discuss what the top three or top five issues really are in America today...what impacts people more than anything else and WHAT MOST DESTROYS THERE CAPACITY AND WILLINGNESS TO ACT AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS WITHIN THE LARGER FRAMEWORK? One of the things I observe most about the Bush Administration is that by systematically further destroying the Middle Class, they are also systematically weakening all possible resistance down the line to further destroy any real democracy that remains in America. One of my pet theories is that if housing prices were what they are now back in the sixties, the "Sixties" would have never occurred.

The above ideas are.........to be frank............. probably flakey ideas!

I offer them up only to point in the most general direction of potential real grass roots efforts. And I realize that many, many noble and effective things are already being done at the grass roots level. I AM ASKING MINDS BETTER THAN MINE OF THE WACCO COMMUNITY TO HONE THESE IDEAS OR DISMISS THEM AND COME UP WITH SOME BETTER ONES OF THEIR OWN.

My central point is this...............We need to FIND WAYS OF BYPASSING THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS TO GET SYSTEMS IN PLACE THAT WILL SUSTAIN US WHEN THE SITUATION DECLINES FURTHER AND FURTHER.

I don't claim the above to be an original idea......I just don't think there has been sufficient dialog across the board in Progressive and Enlightened circles to really truly focus intently on achieving real goals in this direction.

What I am proposing to the best MINDS of the Wacco community at large is this....

Why not start by debating some of the above ideas back and forth and brainstorming even silly ideas of how to truly break free of the BOX.

Why not carefully hone just a handful of mutually supported ideas, whatever there nature might be, until we as a progressive community are fairly satisfied with them....if that is indeed possible with the many conflicting ideas and beliefs systems we span as individuals.

And then............find ways to disseminate them to the Progressive/etc community at large via the Web 2.0, etc.

Please forgive whatever fuzzy thinking or fuzzy typing I am guilty of in this post and accept it in the spirit it was given which is simply the impulse to light some candle in all this darkness and impending doom we find ourselves increasing immersed in. Pardon my caps and explanation points. I simply have noticed that people all over seem to be discussing their concerns and serious misgivings, now often openly in public. Everyone feels this country is seriously heading in the wrong direction. There are many of course that believe a change in Presidential leadership will have the desired impact but I suspect that this view is not as widely held in the Wacco community.

In closing I suggest the following guidelines to any further discussion of my efforts.

A. Whatever is discussed must transcend mere political theory and dogma and be above all else PRACTICAL.

B. Likewise initial discussion should include HIGH LEVEL THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX......CREATIVE INITIALLY TO THE EDGE OF PERHAPS EVEN BEING SILLY.

C. Detachment from directly involving and depending upon the Culture and Political system at large to change.

D. Leading to some real actions that again, break the mold, and stretch across boundaries to achieve beneficial results to the community at large.

That's all I got this morning........gotta go.