Here's where we start: First remember the major problem of government is that the ideas that would actually help the change the system for the better, are not the notions that we actually implement.
For instance, each time an assembly member or congressman writes a bill, there is always, and I say always, some sort of rider on top of the actual intent of the bill.
This happens because we don't have an effective system.
What if we could write bills which were comprehensible and understandable and not necessarily backed by the richest and those with the most interest in how it all plays out?
Wow, we could make some progress.
So, we need to write a bill about how bills are written. This has been tried before, but much like term limits, it is not well accepted by those in power.
We put them in power, we gave them the power, or did we just give away our own power?
If you cast your vote and then walked away thinking "I'm a good citizen" then you have been fooling yourself for a long time.
Follow the vote. Who did you elect, what have they done in the past, what are they doing now, who put the money in their campaign, who has an interest in them?
You vote, but that is not enough. You have to oversee your employee, your government employee.
You can follow them on the internet, CSPAN, newspapers, and so on, and find out what they're doing.
If you don't agree, and find that the person you voted for is not fulfilling the promises they made during the campaign, it's time to ask some questions.
How do you do this? It's easy write to them and ask what is going on?
Again, you hire them, and you fire them.
So, how do you get rid of them if they didn't do what they said they would?
Start by writing letters and talking to others who may have voted for that person. Get as many people as you can to write letters to the public official, the local news outlets, and to different government watchdog groups.
The internet is a great place to get support for ousting a mediocre or ineffective politician.
Where's the resume and what qualifications would you need?
I've thought about this for years, as I have owned my own business, and have had to hire employees over the years.
Depending on the position I was hiring for, I had a certain set of qualifications I was looking for that would help me decide who would most likely be the best candidate for the position.
What qualifications do you need to be a governor or a state senator or a congressman? Well, not much.
Again, the campaign reform could never pass because both parties are equally afraid of the potential onslaught of legislation which could limit the power and even possibly bring about a higher ideal: Service to community and country.
We expect our soldiers who risk their lives to "serve" their country, but we see little in the way of serving others and more about serving themselves. There are exceptions, but they generally never go past a certain level, as the people living in the penthouse suite have everything they need.
But it's campaign reform that's needed and the only way it's going to happen is if, we the people, are the one's who push forward with it.
Simplify and it will attract the swarm
Let's say we want a Governor for our state of California. We do a search, yes, I said, search, we look for the people rather than them coming to us.
We establish a general set of qualifications and basically put out a "want ad."
Needed, FT, Governor, must be bi-lingual, but English is the primary language, has to be 40 years old, education: minimum master's degree, recommended types of courses and background: History, philosophy, economics, business, anthropology/sociology/psychology, geography, business management, education and definitely, spelling.
I see we need people with a background that is not tied directly to lawyers, corporations or acting. Not that these careers would necessarily put them out of the running, but target new perspectives.
Campaign reform, or the real deal, would have to come up from the grassroots tangling up the feet of those who have made a career for themselves as a politician.
Service to the people
Career politicians know everybody and they have ties to big business, oil resources, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and all the rest.
They mooch off the people. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like at 30 year old living at home, watching tv all day while reclining in an armchair: not exactly the attitude which should be running the government, but it is.
Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, no doubt. But not all kids at school did their homework, and I'm sure that we see that with our politicians everyday.
CSPAN Scares the hell out of me, when I hear the politicians outside of the soundbites. It's like they're naked and real now. They say things they know won't be reported and it's generally something they know nothing about.
I remember turning on the TV while an Indiana congressman went about telling what was supposed to be a sad story of a woman who consumed too much marijuana and died. "It was terrible," he said.
I wrote to him and asked for actual proof of this story, that a woman died of an overdose of marijuana. What I found out was the woman was apparently a drug addict, and the other drugs, most specifically alcohol killed this woman. But right there in our faces we get lied to and we're supposed to be okay with this?
I'm dealing with a public healthcare district where two current board members actually aided and abetted a CEO who allowed the residents of the nursing home be utilized as test rats for a whole array of psychotropic drugs. Sleeping patients don't need full staffing.
These people will not give up their power and guess what? Neither will I.
We the people, I the person, whatever, will take a stand and continue to push for some justice and some change.
Progress does not come without pain
When we are unhappy, like the whole country is right now, we tend to get tired of not having any control over our lives.
We do have control over our lives. I'm not talking insurrection, I'm talking about following up on campaign reform.
It's our first line of action. It's not the term limits that were damaging us: it was the campaign and the political environment which stops progress.
Cam-pain in the ass
Oh, we could streamline this whole process and not even start a committee, couldn't we? But the old guard is going to fight that tooth and nail.
Politicians spend half there time in office campaigning. Do you really think that is how you want your representative to be spending his or her time?
No. They need to stay focused on the ever changing needs of this diverse state and country.
Stop the campaigning entirely. Does that sound blasphemous?
But start the research, background checks, ties to corporate businesses, any conflict of interest, first, then we can have a mini-campaign.
After we select the best candidates to run for office, then we may need more information which could easily be passed along via the Internet.
I can almost predict what readers will think of this blog, this idea, to stop the campaigning entirely and not just reform it.
There are modern tools for this type of things.
California, you're going to be the first:
Not known for doing much to help itself, California, can and really should try it out, something new.
But we have to deal with the constitutions both state and federal to even begin to straighten this problem out.
How does the great big oligarchy keep us from doing just that: they know it will take time. And they have the ability to slow down progress so that they can scoop in those extra dollars before the loophole (AKA money portal) closes up.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Pick Pocketing the Poor: California's strategy for creating an impoverished population
Well, if your goal, California Governor and Legislators was to create a population of grossly impoverished citizens, you did it!
I hadn't thought of it, taking money from the poor, and pushing it back up the pipes to the sordid business of job creation in California.
Yes, I'm sure that will be highly effective, as the people on the lowest echelon, the people with disabilities (we're useless aren't we), mothers with children, will soon starve or be dislocated because of the cuts.
Then we can use that money we're saving by cutting out health and mental health programs, and give that to law enforcement who will drive off these people as they begin to collect at the local parks and on the streets.
Okay, we take the money from the disabled and poor, create whole new programs to help the poor, but not the way we did it before.
Now we have to get some committees together to figure this problem out. We will need some money for that. And they will need a place to meet and discuss the latest plans on how to deal with the poor. We're going to need a lot of money to figure out how to deal with the most impacted segments of the California population.
Okay, so we've taken away food from a lot of people, and that may satisfy the governor as he does not like the obese. He's rather feverish about it, I'd say.
But with the coming mass dislocation of the poor out onto the streets, we now have a secondary problem: disease.
Oh, yes, you and I both know if you get run down and stressed out, you don't sleep well, or eat right, you're going to get sick.
I would say having your house foreclosed on, and your family in limbo, would be some stress. And if you make it all the way to homelessness, I'd say that would be the most stress of all.
People are going to get sick, and they are going to go to the hospital. So, we have laws which require that California hospitals take patients who cannot pay.
But the hospital's are now taking the brunt of the situation: now they have to struggle with all this bad debt.
Okay, we need another bill, another committee, we need to really spend some money thinking about how to save the hospitals from the uninsured or previously insured through California health plans which have been quashed in the budget battle.
I guess you may have gotten my point, but it's ridiculous.
There are better ways of doing things, so let's try that. (I'm going to start a committee right now...of volunteers who just want to do it right. Not of leeches who bleed this system of all it's power. We're not poor or even in dire straights, we have not been wormed of our parasites and until we do, the game continues to be, take it from the poor. Sad and pathetic.)
California series: Part two: how do we make us better? Hey, we're California, anything goes...
I hadn't thought of it, taking money from the poor, and pushing it back up the pipes to the sordid business of job creation in California.
Yes, I'm sure that will be highly effective, as the people on the lowest echelon, the people with disabilities (we're useless aren't we), mothers with children, will soon starve or be dislocated because of the cuts.
Then we can use that money we're saving by cutting out health and mental health programs, and give that to law enforcement who will drive off these people as they begin to collect at the local parks and on the streets.
Okay, we take the money from the disabled and poor, create whole new programs to help the poor, but not the way we did it before.
Now we have to get some committees together to figure this problem out. We will need some money for that. And they will need a place to meet and discuss the latest plans on how to deal with the poor. We're going to need a lot of money to figure out how to deal with the most impacted segments of the California population.
Okay, so we've taken away food from a lot of people, and that may satisfy the governor as he does not like the obese. He's rather feverish about it, I'd say.
But with the coming mass dislocation of the poor out onto the streets, we now have a secondary problem: disease.
Oh, yes, you and I both know if you get run down and stressed out, you don't sleep well, or eat right, you're going to get sick.
I would say having your house foreclosed on, and your family in limbo, would be some stress. And if you make it all the way to homelessness, I'd say that would be the most stress of all.
People are going to get sick, and they are going to go to the hospital. So, we have laws which require that California hospitals take patients who cannot pay.
But the hospital's are now taking the brunt of the situation: now they have to struggle with all this bad debt.
Okay, we need another bill, another committee, we need to really spend some money thinking about how to save the hospitals from the uninsured or previously insured through California health plans which have been quashed in the budget battle.
I guess you may have gotten my point, but it's ridiculous.
There are better ways of doing things, so let's try that. (I'm going to start a committee right now...of volunteers who just want to do it right. Not of leeches who bleed this system of all it's power. We're not poor or even in dire straights, we have not been wormed of our parasites and until we do, the game continues to be, take it from the poor. Sad and pathetic.)
California series: Part two: how do we make us better? Hey, we're California, anything goes...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Oh, California I do love you...but you've become a piece of crap
I love California and I love calling myself a Californian, true to the shaky ground we live on in every way these days.
There was a time I thought California should even secede from the union, I know fighting words, you say.
But my place of origin, LA, Los Angeles, became part of me, my personality.
What does it mean to be a Californian?
There's the geography aspect, envied by those landlocked folks in the midwest, we have the beaches. And down the sloping shape of the state we have a variety of elements which have created unique terrain stretching from the northern rugged, rocky beaches to stretches of silky sand just short of our Mexican Border (which is another issue I would like to talk about).
So, I guess I associate my California personality with variety. Some ruggedness, some grandeur of Yosemite,which is inspirational if you've had the chance to visit.
There are so many places in California to discover over your life...and of course, we Californian's like or even love would not be stretching it, the adventure of California.
It's in our self image here.
There is still a vastness, a feeling of places untouched, that makes us believe the universe is expanding and so are we.
My spiritually could even be connected to the California part of me.
As it has become internalized in me, I feel the pain we are experiencing with our own image, as a state.
Divided we stand, united we fall: California politics
That's another trait of Californian's is diametrically opposed viewpoints living next door to one another, driving on the freeway at 3 miles an hour together, and the ethnic mixture that can only be a strength and not a weakness.
The weakness has only been in our inability to effectuate our high ideals. Make it happen baby.
Most major changes are either catastrophic in nature or they're slow growing and evolving. Maybe both.
Sometimes something comes along to finally knock off the piece of branch left broken and hanging after the storm has passed.
In the case of institutionalized racism, remember, we had to have a political maelstrom which brought the issue to the forefront and finally a day has come where there is a dark skinned President. Pigment has been the problem.
(Personally speaking I would like some pigment myself. I envy it. And so it goes.)
So, since the inception of this country and its constitution we have excluded rather than utilized the diversity as a positive force, which it should be. It took almost 200 years before this country finally admitted to the ostracizing people, this was the 1960's which was the erupting of mount stupidity.
Yeah, we were stupid, scared mostly.
Here in our California of today, 2009, nine years after the year 2000 cataclysm of fear we experienced because of some reason I still don't know, we are in a huge change cycle.
When I hear people back east talk about us as a liberal state which will always give up its electoral vote to the Democratic party in the Presidential and federal elections.
That's another thing California has the most electoral votes, yes, we are a big guy in the scheme of things: we can make or break you in an election.
We're quite important strategically in any election.
So, Californian's believe we are important. And we are.
How you treat your most vulnerable says it all
I'm in shock about the cuts coming in the tangled budget we are apparently in denial about,
in California, falling on those who have the least and have the least amount of hope because they are caught in a system which is discarding and degrading people.
Yeah, we are experiencing racism here and if not just that, but exclusivism, (is that a word?) which I will define as a territorial thing. We want the resources, or at least control or, no, at least a hand in it.
And a discriminatory, outwardly, apparently, system which discards people we pretend to help.
Let me talk about health issues. Our Governor who has had an expensive heart operation or two to make him live a stronger life, he will be back.
His health is driven by a system of big money. Remember the terminator who is firing people left and right, gutting a state system that didn't work. Is it all bad?
No, not at all. These programs need to be reformed, but standing in the way, are the people feeding off the various programs. Nobody wants to give up their share. It's an immaturity, its a lack of faith in the bounty that is here all around us, more so, I think, here in California.
What I would like to see done that they cannot do, quite yet
If there were changes available to us, I could go right now on an urgent visit to the Governors office, and throw a bunch of ideas at him.
"Governor, there is no reason we cannot take care of our poor and there is equally no reason they can't take care of us."
"What are you talking about crazy lady?" (sorry, my dialogue skills are limited)
"Yes, sir in all due respect, could I ask you a question?"
"If you have to waste my time with public opinion which is not my opinion, so I will only half listen if you don't mind." (again, I'm sure he's had better writers writing for him)
"If you saw someone fallen in the street asking passer's by for help up, would you extend your hand and lift him up?"
"I could lift them and over my head and do my daily weight training reps at the same time."
"Good point. You give and get at the same time. But imagine later on, this person you helped, now has been able to help another person. Hey, you remember that movie, "Pay it Forward?" A similar principle needs to apply to the systems which handle people who are no longer able to hold down certain types of employment, but that doesn't make them useless."
"They just want a free ride in my Hummer and they're hustling us."
"So, with that attitude sir, you will be wasting human energy, which needs to be utilized. I recommend that we change our system in California, to begin an on-going program of compassion and effective rehabilitation, an adequate word, for those who want it. And we will not reprimand those who can't."
"Okay, get it started. Oh, I like the blog, the one about Jerry Brown. He's a thorn in my side right now."
Part one of the "I love California" series. Next: California Creativity, what can it potentially do and splitting the state? The ultimate in gerrymandering.
There was a time I thought California should even secede from the union, I know fighting words, you say.
But my place of origin, LA, Los Angeles, became part of me, my personality.
What does it mean to be a Californian?
There's the geography aspect, envied by those landlocked folks in the midwest, we have the beaches. And down the sloping shape of the state we have a variety of elements which have created unique terrain stretching from the northern rugged, rocky beaches to stretches of silky sand just short of our Mexican Border (which is another issue I would like to talk about).
So, I guess I associate my California personality with variety. Some ruggedness, some grandeur of Yosemite,which is inspirational if you've had the chance to visit.
There are so many places in California to discover over your life...and of course, we Californian's like or even love would not be stretching it, the adventure of California.
It's in our self image here.
There is still a vastness, a feeling of places untouched, that makes us believe the universe is expanding and so are we.
My spiritually could even be connected to the California part of me.
As it has become internalized in me, I feel the pain we are experiencing with our own image, as a state.
Divided we stand, united we fall: California politics
That's another trait of Californian's is diametrically opposed viewpoints living next door to one another, driving on the freeway at 3 miles an hour together, and the ethnic mixture that can only be a strength and not a weakness.
The weakness has only been in our inability to effectuate our high ideals. Make it happen baby.
Most major changes are either catastrophic in nature or they're slow growing and evolving. Maybe both.
Sometimes something comes along to finally knock off the piece of branch left broken and hanging after the storm has passed.
In the case of institutionalized racism, remember, we had to have a political maelstrom which brought the issue to the forefront and finally a day has come where there is a dark skinned President. Pigment has been the problem.
(Personally speaking I would like some pigment myself. I envy it. And so it goes.)
So, since the inception of this country and its constitution we have excluded rather than utilized the diversity as a positive force, which it should be. It took almost 200 years before this country finally admitted to the ostracizing people, this was the 1960's which was the erupting of mount stupidity.
Yeah, we were stupid, scared mostly.
Here in our California of today, 2009, nine years after the year 2000 cataclysm of fear we experienced because of some reason I still don't know, we are in a huge change cycle.
When I hear people back east talk about us as a liberal state which will always give up its electoral vote to the Democratic party in the Presidential and federal elections.
That's another thing California has the most electoral votes, yes, we are a big guy in the scheme of things: we can make or break you in an election.
We're quite important strategically in any election.
So, Californian's believe we are important. And we are.
How you treat your most vulnerable says it all
I'm in shock about the cuts coming in the tangled budget we are apparently in denial about,
in California, falling on those who have the least and have the least amount of hope because they are caught in a system which is discarding and degrading people.
Yeah, we are experiencing racism here and if not just that, but exclusivism, (is that a word?) which I will define as a territorial thing. We want the resources, or at least control or, no, at least a hand in it.
And a discriminatory, outwardly, apparently, system which discards people we pretend to help.
Let me talk about health issues. Our Governor who has had an expensive heart operation or two to make him live a stronger life, he will be back.
His health is driven by a system of big money. Remember the terminator who is firing people left and right, gutting a state system that didn't work. Is it all bad?
No, not at all. These programs need to be reformed, but standing in the way, are the people feeding off the various programs. Nobody wants to give up their share. It's an immaturity, its a lack of faith in the bounty that is here all around us, more so, I think, here in California.
What I would like to see done that they cannot do, quite yet
If there were changes available to us, I could go right now on an urgent visit to the Governors office, and throw a bunch of ideas at him.
"Governor, there is no reason we cannot take care of our poor and there is equally no reason they can't take care of us."
"What are you talking about crazy lady?" (sorry, my dialogue skills are limited)
"Yes, sir in all due respect, could I ask you a question?"
"If you have to waste my time with public opinion which is not my opinion, so I will only half listen if you don't mind." (again, I'm sure he's had better writers writing for him)
"If you saw someone fallen in the street asking passer's by for help up, would you extend your hand and lift him up?"
"I could lift them and over my head and do my daily weight training reps at the same time."
"Good point. You give and get at the same time. But imagine later on, this person you helped, now has been able to help another person. Hey, you remember that movie, "Pay it Forward?" A similar principle needs to apply to the systems which handle people who are no longer able to hold down certain types of employment, but that doesn't make them useless."
"They just want a free ride in my Hummer and they're hustling us."
"So, with that attitude sir, you will be wasting human energy, which needs to be utilized. I recommend that we change our system in California, to begin an on-going program of compassion and effective rehabilitation, an adequate word, for those who want it. And we will not reprimand those who can't."
"Okay, get it started. Oh, I like the blog, the one about Jerry Brown. He's a thorn in my side right now."
Part one of the "I love California" series. Next: California Creativity, what can it potentially do and splitting the state? The ultimate in gerrymandering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)