The 30% solution...

... as the G-20 meetings take place in Pittsburgh- just 100 or so miles to the Southeast of where I sit now in a 9th and 10th grade day of "intro to life science" classes... subbing my brains out... and these kids, more the cool hip kids than your College Prep Ap set- show a fundamental reality of the Great Divide in the economy, in education, and opportunity structure.
The elephant at the dinner table of any talk of Democracy, development, change, justice, jobs, globalization (it's simply inevitable according to wunderkind Bary `O Bama, which of course means that pretty much all of the fundamental "reforms" or core changes that are needed, many of them he gave support to that helped him get elected on the hope for meaningful change that he partly inspired and partly he simply, as it turns out, utilized to get elected... in other words he road the wave of hope for real sea change only to come to power already marginalized and co-opted be the structures of economic power that override any attempt at Democratic power over their operational structures and systems that give us a world and conditions that those of us who yearn for that change live in the "RealEconomique" consequences of every day. Not to mention the social, cultural, educational, and political consequences of...
Which brings us back to the 30% solution- to be discussed next post...

The Great Polarization Divide...

...is really nothing more than the current incarnation of the culture wars of the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and of course- the Oughts. Which up until Obama got himself elected meant the Age of the Cheney-Bush-Neocon Nutjob Ascendancy that started with the stealing of the 2000 Presidential election from the guy who won the popular vote and Florida but who stepped aside politely because, hey, that's what mainstream Democrats do: they wimp out in the face of right wing extremist bluster because in the final analysis they don't want to believe that the system they do so reasonably well themselves in could be as corrupted and in need of radical overhaul as it is. That, and the way that corruption works is that they get their share and the Right wing reactionary zealots get theirs and if our good Nation and Democracy itself are in peril then hey, we'd better not point that out too stridently or we might be schmeared as un-American commie socialists and lose our slice of that juicy and ever more corrupted pie.

Restarting with a vengeance...

...well, restarting anyway. And this time it's with an eye to making the pro Democracy activist thing a party styled real world entity- and that means party in the sense that we, once this deal is launched and it's more than just a me thing, stage events and shindigs of all shapes and styles in order to help raise the monies necessary to carry on the necessary work proposed all the "our democracy first" writing and proposals I throw out there...

Using the potential of social networking to fundamentally change the mainstream...

... woops- I started out in that title talking about changing the "painstream"- what a classic freudian slip. And of course, we have heard already about first how television and then the Internet and then blogs were all going to make possible the radical positive changes that are needed at the bedrock of our social, economic, and political Democracy. You know: the kinds of changes that are required if the vast majority of us... We the people if you will... are going to live in any sort of a civil society with much hope at all for meaningful work, secure career, safe communities, stable families, reasonably sane kids- in short, all the sorts of things that go into allowing an indidvidual a shot at much of a self actualized life.

And obviously, social networking as it can be applied to grassroots and progressive organizing in the direction of my old "EPGTDS" (Evolutionary Progressive Grassroots Transformational Democracy Solidarity) catch term... though, to be honest, it never caught on much cuz nobody hardly ever saw my, like, "work"... Anyway social networking combined with and used to enhance some new styled bricks and mortar boots on the ground movement that does a better job of mobilizing and articulating the positions on issues that will deliver on big ticket quality of life, social justic, peace and freedom, security and prosperity, and all around equal opportunity structure types of issues- that's what all my effort is to be all about addressing.

It's not all meant to be tweets and blogs and trying to monetize my work as a writer slash thinker poet philosopher adventurer explorer type of hunter and warrior fellah. I have to work up the gumption to combine that kind of New Media sort of advocacy to actually throw some events in the real world around the general notion of launching a real world activist organizational entity that promotes the ideas and positions that I articulate, propose, or call attention to in, like, the writin'.

Now that I have the new Credit Billing cycle to work with I will splurge for my new Web Space and domain registration and start the ball rolling. The readiness is all! That's write, I used an exclamation point.

Thinking about the phases and stages of life, man...

... Sometimes the personal just overwhelms the careerist secular side of the times we have. I will get going soon, I have faith- cuz you gotta have faith, eh? In any case the welling up of childhood memories and ongoing life reflection precipitated by the closure surrounding the loss of parents, the reconnection with the oldest and in some ways most fundamentally deepest and closest friends... who are dealing with many of the same or parallel kinds of things and wrenching emotions that me and my sister and brother have been dealing with really since our mother died suddenly and accidentally just over nine years ago- and we began the long slow goodbye with our father who could barely stand to "just hang in there" after his wife left but had to strong a constitution and life force and core will to live despite his deteriorating and shrinking self to get out any earlier than this past December.

And then, coincidentally, the passing of Miss McMillan- the elementary school teacher of all of us- who was one of the other majorly influential adults of our childhood- all four of us I'm mostly referring to in this post- it all leaves me feeling oddly still in my prime and profoundly alive and pretty strong pretty fast like I can still go two tree rounds with the world... but that this euphoric high is self aware of its own tenuous gossamer vulnerability like perhaps never before. I feel like it is an adrenalin surge i must take advantage of to finally make something of the ongoing work I have been dancing around doing for my entire adult life.

Onward... Farward and faiyaka. Minnotuh- and den goasaka...

So it turns out the hippies were right about just about everything...

...well that might be just a wee bit of an overstatement but I am intentionally hyperbolizing here. And I'm not really just talking about "the Hippies" in any official monolithic sense but rather those who by choice or otherwise have given voice to opposition to the PR hoodwinking voice of the mainstream: media, junk culture, chamber of commerce cheerleading for the beneficiaries of how the economy does or doesn't function. And of course that means in large part the overbearing industrial economy most extremely illustrated by the merger of Big G'uvment, Big Military, and of course- Big Corporation. It has been a menage a trois made far from heaven but that in general operates falsely as if it is indeed all things God and Country. When of course the results of its inevitable agenda (unless We the people insist it be stopped- and we haven't been able to do so effectively yet) have little to do with the best interests of most of the people, communities, ecosystems, critters- not to mention the very Democratic ideals, institutions, and potential of these United States of America.

Those of us who have bothered to notice this reality have got to find a better path to create a different destination to the one the fundamentalist business right neocon coalition have us railroaded toward. It's not to late- but hey, time is of the essence.

Obama's window of opportunity along with the hope and possibility his ascendancy on the political landscape has catalyzed will wisp away quickly if his being head of the Executive Branch of mainstream government (that is way too far right of center- so much so it makes my head spin- with apologies to old Nixon cronie John Mitchell) is allowed to gridlock its way to stagnation while being challenged too meekly by Obama. If he doesn't use his 12 or 13 million member mailing lists effectively to help him really deliver the truly significant liberal, progressive, radical- whatever you want to call it- change that he was elected to bring about then he will be abandoned to the apathy and genuine lack of political will and informed outrage that really seem to be the keys to the status quo of the last 40-70 years being able to run roughshod over the basic quality of life realities and opportunity structures of a huge and growing segment of the American people.

To help make sure that doesn't happen We the people... of the progressive radical creative and working class left need to build our own social network of lists and operatives both large scale and individual to help the President not get to comfy with the notion that him making it to the mountaintop is enough. He needs to lead us to the promised land of a more just, fair, egalitarian, and civil society. We need a more Democratic divvying up of the opportunity, wealth and power that our Nation and Economy can create.

"A people that has lost control of its food supply...

...cannot possibly consider itself free" Which is a quote used by Wendell Berry in either The Unsettling of America (http://www.allbookstores.com/book/9780871567727/The_Unsettling_of_America_Culture_and_Agriculture.html) or What Are People For? http://books.google.com/books?id=qAgkGwAACAAJ&dq=Wendell+berry

These are both classics in the argument that how we use our land, resources, and people is in damage mode and needs adjusting. Makes me glad to be back to my role as all around cowboy at an organic garden center where producing the highest quality food is the top priority- cuz hell- there ain't no money in it. The agribiz model of disease and strip mining the topsoil and destroying rural communities and households sees to that. Corporate and shareholder profits yes- fair sustainable prices to real farmers and producers no.

And some dare call it a miracle of the modern age. Hah!