Organizing links from days gone by...

...and here are some highlights with brief comment:


Sites checked out Wednesday, August 20th, 2008:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45752 is an article sent to me by my Soolay Brother in Portland now but by way of ORS at SDSU (which eventually morphed into the Leisure Connection- or Leeesh, Brew). An interesting read and provides a great intellectual lude for those seeking an excuse to not do anything about anything going on in the too far gone world we live in. You know: make your separate peace in the over privileged segment of the world's economic reality that we middle class or better semi educated American perpetual adolescents occupy- and oh well- as the great social philosopher and artist Sly Stallone said when explaining why he would not be going to Iraq early on in that fiasco resource appropriation/ occupation (ostensibly to comfort and entertain our troops there who were "fightin' for freedom and good to the core...-apologies to David Alan Coe-)... anyway, Sly said something to the effect that no, he wasn't going to Iraq because "I gotta nice life..." and he had no intention of jeopardizing that reality by doing something as risky as going to a war zone...
Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I know it's a stretch their. And I personally agree with Sly's perspective. I mean I feel bad for the misled innocent kids who wound up cannon fodder for the Neo Con Nut Jobs view of how to lead America into a disastrous new 21st century policy- but Sly doing his Rocky impressions wasn't going to bring them home any sooner and safer. Soooo....

Sites checked out Tuesday, August 19th, 2008:

http://www.populistamerica.com/why_dont_you_shut_up a far outside the mainstream take on the Russia-Georgia conflict and the Bush Administration/ Neocon Nutjob role in it.

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx?s=mahacup.0 a retail shop for sundry protest gear and the like...

www.cafepress.com a retail and possibly more of a community site that dialogD might try to affiliate with

As I blog along I wonder...

...what can come of "all of this"- nay all of these- drops of mist in the ocean. Which is about what an individual blogger or his or her respective posts amount to. I will continue to muddle along with my misting droplets and gain what traction I can as I move to the next and new phase of trying to communicate and enlist the help and support of all the great and good progressive creative and productive folks and peeps "out there" who are seemingly somewhat harmoniously atuned to the need for similar kinds of radical evolutionary changes that I am trying to call for in dialogD and here there and everywhere- so to speak and to coin a phrase but in reality with all do respect and apologies to Lennon and McCartney.

Sooooo..... check out http://www.mahablog.com/ and
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx?s=mahacup.0 - a retail shop for sundry protest gear and the like...

An outside the mainstream look at the Russia-Georgia military confrontation...

... the link provided by a would be dialogD poster who for professional reasons deigns to remain anonymous. any way check out: http://www.populistamerica.com/why_dont_you_shut_up and see what you think.

Calling for Constitutional Ammendment Level Campaign Finance Reform...

... along with major electioneering law reform. This is and pretty much has to be a cornerstone to any meaningful change in direction in American politics and economics as well as a prerequisite for "We the people..." to be able to undertake the work we need to in order to address the large issues of social justice and the reasonably equitable opportunity structures that are necessary for a "civil society" to exist outside the gated community (literally and figuratively) lifestyles of only the most overprivileged segments of our citizenry. http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php is one of the best nonpartisan sites I have seen for the general information on the level of corruption too much money infesting our Democracy causes. My call for constitutional ammendment level reform: http://dialogdemocracy.org/campaign_finance_reform_constitutional_ammendment.htm is I think the central basis for forming a real world ongoing activist progressive movement in the United States. Citizen groups in all 50 states can be formed just like the Nader groups or GOTV groups or labor/union groups that canvass and collect money and signatures at various times for various causes only this one could be the major boots on the ground community by community organizing effort that forms the heart of the dailogD "2nd American (Peaceful and Democratic) Revolution".

Reconnecting with the dialogD effort...

...and sometimes it don't come easy.

Distractions distractions distractions... and now the conventions are upon us and the sporting event insipidness of this seemingly eternal Presidential selection process only worsens. The issues are so off and daffy: when does human life begin? What Supreme Court Justices would you not have nominated. Sometimes it is just real hard not to blame the stupidity and cowedness of the American people for the so called leadership they get from their so called "Democracy".

But I know from being out there and one of them that it's that We the people have been getting hoodwinked for so long that it's hard not to attach to some brand of misinformation or get focused on one single issue ruse or another- all while we lose more and more of our collective effective control over the larger forces that shape our lives, families, local communities, and opportunity structures.

More work to do from road trip this week...

...and I know, I know- that's no excuse to pander to the Presidential campaign debacle and all the up to the minute coverage and commentary on every phony, high production values advertisement. But since I actually got this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fvvNU7fBxk from a friend and my former tech guru who I want to be involved in "getting this whole thing started" and who also believes things could be changed in time- in a minute or almost overnight- if "We the people..." get our respective and collective acts together.

In the meantime- you go Britknee; you go Paris Hilton Paris Hilton...

And oh yeah, win this thing Barack. That is not a forgone conclusion. Look out voter rolls in Florida and voting machines in Ohio. 2000 and 2004 were OJT for the Hard Strident Right "Election Mechanics." Easily as impressive as any Nevada and Texas true card mechanics of the mythological good old days of "professional gamblers."

A pre road downs lull...

... which is to be expected with the road, AC, The Shore, The Hollow Deck, and getting back to "the life" looming. I will try to get "work" done as I can. For today I will only say that the path forward has to entail narrowing the scope or at least articulating some specifics about the major issues that a fairly radical progressive grassroots solidarity movement would have to embrace in an ongoing activist manner in order for any progress toward the substantive core sea changes that are needed and being called for in our business and politics to be even remotely approachable.

Here are the ones that always seem to come to mind off the top of my head whenever I start thinking about what has to be considered in this regard. The major issues and or slash proposals that I will focus on are:

• Constitutional Ammendment Level reform of the money in politics cancer that is an ongoing worsening problem and deterrent to "our Democracy."
• The "Bipartisan" problem of "our" gridlock and incumbancy corrupted two party system. Among the first reforms related to this quagmire is to eliminate the Electoreal College altogether or- if people want to keep it for nostalgia's sake just make it be a figurehead entity by having the Electoral Votes for each state be divided proportionately and have the number for each state be exactly a function of said state's population. I am sick of my vote counting less than any other American's based on the density of the population of our respective environs. And I also think that no President should ever again be sworn in who didn't get the most votes by the people of this country. Much much more on this "Electioneering Reform" part of "the movemnt"
• Single payer national health care- a no brainer to everyone but the Insurance company and big pharma PR legions and and all the politicians in their respective but none too respectable hip pockets.
• A complete overhaul of our public education and social welfare priorities and approaches- most especially as these institutions fail in our major urban centers and fail the people and children most at risk because of the social problems and economic and opportunity inequities exacerbated critically by the dysfunctional operations of current status quo "business and politics as usual."
• The need to develop a major new Federal Project called, for lack of a better term, the "Department of Peace." Eventually this department would become equal to on funding and scope levels as the current "Department of Defense", or the "Pentagon System for a planned economy," or the "Military Industrial (and Congressional Incumbency) Complex.
• Calling for a "Brand New and Green This Time New Deal for the American People. It's possible that this "new green deal" could be part of the above "Department of Peace" and could also be closely aligned with the new kinds of "Fair Trade" and "Fair Exchange" trade and treaty agreements we need to enact in the face of climate change and "Peak Oil and Everything Else, Too" that we will all be dealing with as we move forward into our collective, local, and global futures.
• And finally, an overhail of our archaic, draconian, and failing "War on Drugs" system of drug laws, incarceration policies, and arbitrarily unjust and unequal enforcement policies.

Addressing these at length and coming up with proposals and very specific calls to organized activism around those proposals will be where this blog and www.dialogdem0cracy.org focus for the most part for the next couple weeks. On that and on occasionally lamenting the sad state of our Democracy as the Presidential Election Seasons Prime False Advertising Campaigns heat up.