 |
I believe that the right to a Jury trial in Civil trials is a fundamental right that ought to be up to the discretion of the litigants and not the judges. And I believe that the 7th Amendment establishes that right. I also believe that it is our Justices and Legislators who are infringing on that right by denying people access to Jury trials, illegally reducing their findings of fact on Jury awards, and using "standing" arguments to deny due process in civil proceedings.
I believe that people have a 7th Amendment right to a jury trial in civil proceedings if they wish it and that the case for that is established in the history of Common Law and the creation of the 7th amendment.
Our system is vulnerable to interruptions. It is especially vulnerable to interruptions in food supply. Currently we import food from as Far away as China and Chile, India and Africa. That's okay. But what happens if our traffic gets disrupted? What happens when in some future moment there is a massive drought in the West and the wells run dry? We can feed and electrify our lands now. The concepts are there. All that is needed is the execution. One of the projects I'm working on is supporting DC's efforts to create food hubs. this blog entry is based on that effort:
The following image is from a brochure on Food Hubs in DC by Sabine O’Hara:
And she writes:
"Food security demands a diversified food system that includes urban communities as locations for food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste reduction/reuse. The Urban Food Hubs concept of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) tests the feasibility of small-scale urban food systems that include these four key components."
It's possible to produce food everywhere, and set up means to get it to everyone.
"The heart of the CAUSES Urban Food Hubs are high efficiency food production sites that utilize bio-intensive, aquaponic, and hydroponic production methods. Co-located with these urban food production sites are commercial kitchens that serve as business incubators and training facilities for food processing and nutritional health related activities. Given their location in urban neighborhoods, the Urban Food Hubs also focus on waste reduction and reuse through composting, water management, and related approaches to minimizing pressure on urban land and infrastructure systems. In addition to improving food security, the Urban Food Hubs thus also contribute to job creation and urban sustainability in its economic, social/cultural, and environmental/physical dimensions." [www.thesolutionsjournal.org]
The goal here is to encourage a system that is fair to both cities, that are often currently food deserts and to rural areas that are usually money deserts, subject to abusive extraction and constant looting, and yet could be in a symbiotic relationship with the cities were it not for our centralizing organizations.
At one private Grocery chains acted like Food hubs. But conglomeratization and buyouts have led to them failing in that role. In my area Giant has become a giant company operating out of Holland. Safeway also a conglomerate. And they aren't even interested in serving under-served areas. They mostly seem to compete for the same yuppy upper middle class neighborhoods.
We obviously need an alternative, and reformed, system. And I'm working with friends to build one.
In 2013 I introduced the idea of "Organizing Communities Around the Post Office" based on some readings (among them "the Kings Best Highway") about the early networked Post Office the US colonies had in New England before we became a country. At that time the Post Office was networked in a way similar to how our current internet is organized. Around that time I started realizing that our country needs a third force in addition to State Governments.
The national dialogue acts like our choice is between centralizing power in National Corporations, centralizing it in a Federal Government or centralizing it on States and Counties. But those are false choices. But A genuine equitable "third way" requires empowering boroughs, towns and cities as well as State Capitals or county seats. Centralization without these attributes is by it's nature "private, separate advantage" [tyranny].
It needs a healthy "polity"; cities, towns and counties in addition to States and the Federal Government. And power needs to be distributed in a manner based on the principle of "subsidiarity" -- but as it should apply in a Republican context: Local affairs controlled locally with Republican forms replicated locally. [See article on Republican Principles]
The reason we need this is that while the country is more robust if we are integrated both globally and locally. If both local governments and central governments are robust and resilient then they can aid each other in need, and provide checks on each other when folks get "consumed by their passions" and start going down a wrong path. A Genuine Democratic Republic replicates Republican forms while dividing up the responsibilities, down to the smallest possible unit of government. We are stronger together not just nationally but also locally when we are organized well.
I have a lot more to say about this. But it wouldn't require any constitutional changes to elect Post Masters and/or use them to organize fair elections, city and town participation in local governance, and local participation in control of our networked energy and communications systems. All it takes is restoring some of the ideas we had in our Colonial times. Having a post office should be a right for local communities. And local control over local communications and transport should be a right within a networked framework. We do that and our system will function a lot better.
I've got a friend named Michael Jackson. Joe Orlow and I met him while I was trying to help Joe get his Farmer's market product sales going. He in turn is friend with some other folks in my old home of NW DC including Andre Carley who is a Neighborhood representative and Toussaint Tyson. He's trying mightily to improve things in his neck of the woods for all the people who live in DC (and of course generally) and the DC area. Anyway, he's working to get Georgia Avenue designated a commercial corridor and to that aim he and his colleagues have created Georgia Avenue Business Improvement District & Development Corporation Non-Profit Organization, or GABIDDC.
"Michael Jackson started GABIDDC. Michael has been a community activist for many years. He also teaches at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). Michael picked the upper corridor of Georgia Avenue to work on as far as improving business there. He formed GABIDDC to pull together the many threads of his activism: working with youth to train them and find them employment, inviting businesses into the city, and promoting academic research that will lead to tangible results as far as increasing employment and attracting businesses." [http://gabiddc.blogspot.com/2015/06/welcome.html]
Also: https://gabiddc.wordpress.com/contact/
Some of my other friends have connected to him and I'm trying to help him, from my distant (semi) retirement at the 55 mile mark of the Great Chesapeake and Ohio Tow Path and former canal, once known as Berlin, then Smoketown and now known as Brunswick. I don't have much to say except most of my help so far has been volunteer stuff. We are pushing a health/medical readiness effort connected to disease outbreaks. We are getting ready for the DC Fair....[https://dcstatefair.wordpress.com/] On Saturday September 12 2015
DC having a Fair???? Yes!
Yes, amazingly Amazingly:
I think Hillary is starting to get the message of the "black lives matter movement." But I'm not sure that my former Governor O'Malley and Bernie understood what was going on. Looking at the tape I thought they were being Breitbarted by Republicans. But what the "Black Lives Matter" folks are doing, is what we all should be doing. Indeed it's what Bernie Sanders has been doing on the Liberty and Economic Justice issues around our Privateering Financial vulture so-called "capitalists."
In order to get what we want we have to be loud and let folks know loudly that our agenda needs to be on the agenda. But I can understand where they are coming from having watched the insane police and political responses of my fellow white folks in Ferguson, New York, Cincinnati, etc... It's pretty obvious that we need some major changes in Policy, Training, Discipline and Culture in our society still.
 |
I am a Democrat. That means I'm closer to being an independent voter than most folks who style themselves an "independent." I love the history of this party and it's ties to Jefferson and Madison. I even love the darkside of our party and our ties to Andrew Jackson. 1828 was his year. I love Andrew Jackson as a populist. He too fought a rigged financial system. He also engaged in some of the darkest behavior of our history with the Indian Removals he instigated. Our country has always had to push from the bottom to have any democratic features in this Republic, and the natural tendency of our purported leaders is oligarchy. We call our party "democratic" because that is what we are about. And in our system that means choice in the primaries. The Daily Kos is running an article accusing you of rigging the election towards Hillary Clinton.
I don't believe that allegation. I think maybe you just need some help organizing a strong primary challenge in order to vet our candidates. If it were true that you were trying to rig the primary, then it would be incredibly stupid. The Reason Bernie Sanders is in this race is that there has been a sea change in the consciousness of the Democratic Rank and File and a lot of us, even those of us who love Hillary and Obama, know that this country needs more than to simply run a slightly better alternative to the fascism of the Cons. We don't need to be deprogrammed from the Con Artists in the GOP, but many of us are outraged at the continuing behavior of Wall Street, the Revolving door among our officers, Citizens United, Spying and the unwillingness of law enforcement to prosecute our biggest criminals on Wall Street while they go after School Teachers for downloading music from public websites. Now I understand that a lot of Democratic funding comes from Wall Street. But it is in the interest of Wall Street to obey the law, and it is in our survival interest to start reigning them in and getting them to pay for their privileges, or they will succeed in bankrupting our country. They already have ruined the lives of a lot of us. And we are angry and demand change. This is not a season for Triangulating or glad-handing. We want real change.
A 50 state strategy is a start. We need a 3,144 Counties and 19,509 Cities,towns and villages strategy. And right now we need to be sponsoring robust primaries in all our states so that the people can thoroughly vet our candidates. If there is anyway I can help I'd love to. It's a gargantuan task. But that is where real democracy is. It's when the people rule, when we step up.
What you can't do is a sloppy primary.
I looked at your website. No mention of Wall Street and our issues with them. Also You should be talking about our Infrastructure and how we need to rebuild it. Also, when I click on "2016" I want to see our candidates first. Not a really poor quality set of graphics on the evils of the GOP. I'm looking at the DNC because I want to know who among our leadership is standing for the people, for reforming Wall Street, preventing another financial meltdown, rebuilding our infrastructure, etc.... I think most people entering the site are looking for information on what we are going to do in 2016, not the dark side of our unhappy opponents. Maybe a Tab that says "Democrats in 2016" and "What we Face" might work better. It needs a list serve, and to be more closely integrated with the State Websites. And we need to facilitate democracy in our party.
Project Ivy is a page right now. I'd really like to see it as a portal to 3,144 Counties and 19,509 Cities and more closely integrated with the State Democratic party orgs. You've got a webpage to the various Democratic State Organizations. That needs to be integrated. Each of them should have a website, two way communications, a database, and the ability to query candidates. If you could get hold of the team that runs Obama's website it would help.
Each of them should have people on hand to get out the word. We need to make our party more democratic. I know we really want to win in 2016. But process matters as much as outcome. We can do it Ms Schultz. I know most of us love Hillary, but we should be listening to Bernie. His plank expresses a common theme. If I can help I will.
I guess we Dems are going to have to fight to get our plank out there. For now I'm taking Bernie's plank as a starting point. Please consider adopting it as the Dem Plank. We'll be following your efforts and whether you (and Hillary) do.
