Trickle Down Garbage

It is rage-inducing to be treated like an idiot.  Can't help it, it started with the young and the uniformed on my mind and how they are being preyed upon by those in power.  Remember when the Denzel Washington character, Joe Miller, in the movie "Philadelphia" would amend his questions with, "Now tell it to me like I'm a 4-year old."  Hence the 30 year history of the gigantic lie that won't die - trickle down economics - offered today in as simple a narrative as possible. The special appeal is the facts are simple, despite our all being told for decades that this is so highly complex.  Translation: you are all too stupid to understand economics.

Update: Apologies for the lack of clarity here.  Rage will do that.  The clip is childishly simple, yet it is effective in conveying a point.  The rage, the criticism was based on 30+ years of being told the economics behind trickle down was so complex most of us wouldn't be able to understand it.  *snort*  Sorry for the confusion.

Reminder - Rally a New Beginning Today

Open Government Advocates Rally at City Hall Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Lisa Shaffer (760-518-0533) or Tony Kranz (760-487-8513)

August 3, 2012
Encinitas, California

On Thursday, August 9 at 5 p. m., Encinitas City Council candidates Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz will finish a three-block walk at Encinitas City Hall, where the candidates will submit their official paperwork for the November election.

To symbolize the history of Encinitas as the “Flower Capital of the World” and to remember the late Maggie Houlihan, the group will carry flowers on their walk from the Old Schoolhouse on the Pacific View site. Houlihan served on the City Council for nearly three terms and made environmental issues a priority throughout her life. Before she died of cancer in September 2011, Houlihan endorsed Shaffer and Kranz as Council candidates. The candidates will speak briefly about what they want to accomplish as Council members.

Shaffer, who teaches business and personal ethics at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, pledges to work to change the atmosphere at City Hall. “There’s a disconnect between the wonderful City of Encinitas, with its cultural diversity and community roots, and the highly partisan, disrespectful way the City Council has operated in recent years. I want the community to be proud of our elected officials, and to feel welcome to bring their dreams and concerns to the Council. As a Council member, I pledge to represent all the people, and to ensure we are open, accessible and spending our tax dollars effectively and responsibly,” she said.

Kranz has deep roots in Encinitas and is a strong advocate for open government. He is a 1977 graduate of San Dieguito High School and was a 2010 City Council candidate. “Our city spent almost $100,000 on a lawsuit they lost to a city taxpayer who was just trying to get public documents related to a report on the condition of the city’s roads,” he said. “As a City Council member, I will work to ensure the people’s business is conducted in a way that builds trust between the community and our local government, while enhancing public safety and protecting our financial and environmental resources.”

Shaffer and Kranz have expressed concern about the mismanagement of the General Plan update process. While the candidates see some additional development as inevitable, they also feel it is the City Council’s responsibility to protect our quality of life, ensure we address traffic concerns, and maintain our unique community character.

Registered voters in Encinitas will elect three Council members in November. The incumbents are James Bond, who plans to retire after 20 years of service; Jerome Stocks, who has not announced his electoral intentions; and Mark Muir, who has obtained the paperwork to become a candidate for a Council seat, having been appointed earlier to complete Houlihan’s term.

Shaffer’s and Kranz’s websites are http://shaffer4council.com and http://tonykranz.com.

Quote of the Day

I think every year:

-every driver should have to spend two weeks as a cyclist, and
-every customer should have to spend two weeks as a restaurant server.

Tongue-in-cheek comment at post on an innovative idea for including bike riding proficiency as part of a drivers license test. It's all about empathy and perspective.

Tuesday is Dues-day: Ethics of Linking

Today is Dues-day, but what are the dues?

Paying attention . . . Yes, by simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported you can legitimately call yourself a citizen, an advocate for democracy.

Citizen Tip = Blogs link to connect you to knowledge

Jay Rosen of NYU and PressThink describes the ethic of the link used in blogs, connecting people to knowledge.  This is the tool of the web - to inform without cost or consumerism messaging.

It seems to EYNU that the use of links is not understood in local news sources or familiar blogs. Indeed, very few who comment on news articles, letters or commentaries in the online press even consider linking to blogs, like this one, with video clips and commentary related to articles. Lisa Shaffer has been a notable exception along with several others.

Since blog readership should be growing exponentially, it is clear that blog readers and their friends may not grasp how the linking - the connecting people to information sources is done by individuals. But, people are learning how to follow links and return - how to find their way around and share information - without waiting for permission from a news outlet or official.

We are poised at the onset of the campaign season and time to take off the training wheels to spread information, ideas, events far and wide. In the next 12 weeks there will be more in Tuesday is Dues-day posting about journalism, the press because the standards have seriously broken down.

Most of all, a word of encouragement to all who intend to turn off the television and the media horse race of campaigns for entertainment rather than news reporting to reality where we live.

Rethinking Growth

click on image to enlarge

Who are we? The speaker below shares a story about us, about our being persuaded in our current economic system to "spend money we don't have on things we don't need to create impressions that won't last on people we don't care about."  Clearly, the system is at odds with what we need.  He is questioned at the end about politicians. 

Making some connections from this talk by Tim Jackson to Friday's post where Robert Litt, the Oakland Teacher created a computer lab for free, made possible with donated hardware and a free operating system, Ubuntu Linux. Two completely different men, topics, nations, audiences and goals each connecting to an African concept, and African word. The word seemed to beg for a paragraph of its own.

Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained Ubuntu in 2008: One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

The source of this TED Talk was an article titled "Rethinking Growth" from newdream.org, a link provided by Councilwoman Barth in her newsletter last week. These are valuable resources and potential community strengthening conversations we could be having.  First we need a new city council with open minds like Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz. Lisa's website has addressed some of these very themes.

Rally at City Hall August 9

Open Government Advocates Rally at City Hall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Lisa Shaffer (760-518-0533) or Tony Kranz (760-487-8513)

August 3, 2012
Encinitas, California

On Thursday, August 9 at 5 p. m., Encinitas City Council candidates Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz will finish a three-block walk at Encinitas City Hall, where the candidates will submit their official paperwork for the November election.

To symbolize the history of Encinitas as the “Flower Capital of the World” and to remember the late Maggie Houlihan, the group will carry flowers on their walk from the Old Schoolhouse on the Pacific View site. Houlihan served on the City Council for nearly three terms and made environmental issues a priority throughout her life. Before she died of cancer in September 2011, Houlihan endorsed Shaffer and Kranz as Council candidates. The candidates will speak briefly about what they want to accomplish as Council members.

Shaffer, who teaches business and personal ethics at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, pledges to work to change the atmosphere at City Hall. “There’s a disconnect between the wonderful City of Encinitas, with its cultural diversity and community roots, and the highly partisan, disrespectful way the City Council has operated in recent years. I want the community to be proud of our elected officials, and to feel welcome to bring their dreams and concerns to the Council. As a Council member, I pledge to represent all the people, and to ensure we are open, accessible and spending our tax dollars effectively and responsibly,” she said.

Kranz has deep roots in Encinitas and is a strong advocate for open government. He is a 1977 graduate of San Dieguito High School and was a 2010 City Council candidate. “Our city spent almost $100,000 on a lawsuit they lost to a city taxpayer who was just trying to get public documents related to a report on the condition of the city’s roads,” he said. “As a City Council member, I will work to ensure the people’s business is conducted in a way that builds trust between the community and our local government, while enhancing public safety and protecting our financial and environmental resources.”

Shaffer and Kranz have expressed concern about the mismanagement of the General Planupdate process. While the candidates see some additional development as inevitable, they also feel it is the City Council’s responsibility to protect our quality of life, ensure we address traffic concerns, and maintain our unique community character.

Registered voters in Encinitas will elect three Council members in November. The incumbents are James Bond, who plans to retire after 20 years of service; Jerome Stocks, who has not announced his electoral intentions; and Mark Muir, who has obtained the paperwork to become a candidate for a Council seat, having been appointed earlier to complete Houlihan’s term.

Shaffer’s and Kranz’s websites are http://shaffer4council.com and http://tonykranz.com.

Tell-A-Vision: We Are Not Your Human Resources

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861

According to a National Law Project report, 1 in every 4 jobs is a low wage job in our country and predicted to remain that way to 2020.  In Encinitas this seems emphatically true.  Practically the only jobs coming to our community this year were the shamefully ill-paid big box retail, fast food and the most contemptible (in treatment of workers), Walmart. There is a generation who has never known what has been stolen of their future.  This is all they have known. A year ago I read the following about the debt ridden middle class, and it stuck with me. David Michael Green stated in his piece with the same name, "We.  Are.  Not.  Your.  Human.  Resources."

"The truth is, the one percent in this country sees the rest of us – not as equals, or even as human beings – but as commodities put on this earth to serve them, no different from machines or infrastructure, computers or chemicals.  We are their resources, who just happen to have bodies and minds somewhat similar to their own (though of an entirely different class, of course!).  Which means we’re a pain in the ass because, unlike machines, we have an annoying tendency to want a moderately decent salary and time off to spend with our families, not to mention bathroom breaks on the job.  What a drag, eh Thurston?!  To them, we’re not human beings entitled to human rights and empathetic respect.  We are, instead, the frustratingly-expensive remaining elements of a wealth-production machine that cannot (yet) be replaced by computers, robots or Asian peasants."

Now for the Tell-A-Vision portion of this situation, is the primary vision of a populace aware of this beyond simplistic blame regurgitated from hate radio and cable tv.  A community awareness of the shared challenge of less capital could invite greater respect for the labor opportunities that are gone and probably not coming back. This is pretty fantasy land thinking for 2012's most publicized Encinitas, a community accustomed to wealth and prosperity. But, for the large slice of humanity living on low wages in Encinitas, being seen simply as resources and ascribed moral blame for poverty is a miserable place to be.

Part two is the re-education of our perceptions of value judgements.  As Lincoln said, labor is the superior of capital.  The video clip below captures this in the actions of an Oakland Teacher who created a computer lab for his school with no money at all.  His labor, his imagination and reaching out to the internet, to community and his willingness to try is an inspiration. Robert Litt website

Building a shadow economy is something the very poor have a better handle on than the well to do.  Barter is the backbone of this in every culture.  It's primary attraction for many is building community, like our own Encinitas resident, Isabelle Baril-Ortley who does food swaps for this very reason.  Regardless of what a person's economic standing, the skill and creativity of preparing food of all kinds is a wonderful community connection.

Both of these examples are celebration of labor over capital. These encourage us and our children to see beyond obstacles in problem solving.  They empower us to rely on our own abilities rather than to depend on experts, money, leaders and others to do it for us. Lack of capital isn't the end of the world.  This doesn't mean we don't insist on a decent quality of life for ourselves and a real future for our children.

These are just a couple of examples of envisioning a different approach to fulfilling our needs.  In this last month of summer before Labor Day, there will be more posts on our human labor and finding renewed value in skills for a transitional economy.  Nothing and no One thing or ideology will change our broken system, but it is irrational to keep expecting an economy that was built on paper to return.