Forum Post: Can Change Occur Using the Same Basic Beliefs
Posted 10 years ago on June 21, 2013, 12:58 p.m. EST by Phanya2011
(908)
from Tucson, AZ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
It appears that everything we have been taught about history, religion, economics has been so distorted that we need to start over with basic values. I think the biggest lie that we bought into was that "human nature can't change." We are changing, though. This forum and the worldwide uprising were triggered by the blatant inequality in the world. That will not go away unless we figure out a way to live without money. BradB has an idea that led me to start a screenplay about how such an idea could materialize and how it would work. Consider a different way of seeing equality: rather than equal pay for equal work, how about equal pay for every hour worked -- an hour is as important to me as it is to Warren Buffet, because we all have limited hours. Wanna' help me with the screenplay?
This is the storyline/characters (rough rough draft): be different -- don't just say "can't be done" and ignore it.
http://createyourownreality-parksview.blogspot.com/
I'm sure that people will agree that working an hour in a cozy cubicle and working an hour digging a ditch are not the same. It's bad enough that the person who's time in the cubicle is valued more than the time of the person digging a ditch but providing equal pay to a person who isn't physically exhausted and sore and sweaty at the end of the day and in need of extra medical care due to extra physical stress is never going to seem fair to the ditch digger.
Well, we should not ever have to have living people perform such work.
The work exists because the job has to be done and a machine has yet to be made that can do it cheaper on short notice with little hassle. Once that's done, someone will go from being sore and unappreciated at the end of the day to being unemployed.
We have the ability and knowledge to make all that different; clearly the screenplay is not about today's world -- it is about a world we could start creating today, step by step. There are a lot of folks talking about ways of fixing this world as it exists, but I do not see many people envisioning the ultimate result if things are fixed. If we cannot even imagine the world we want to create, we sure as hell cannot create it, and it will not happen by itself. Your statements are valid today; I do not want them to be valid in a decade.
A or perhaps THE problem is that we don't all want the same world. Devoted Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, and others don't all want the same world. Indigenous and non-Indigenous don't want the same world. Nudists and non-nudists don't want the same world. Conservatives and Liberals don't want the same world. Capitalists and Communists certainly don't want the same world. Within each of those groups, all of those people still don't want the same world. And its been that way since cities arose and political disputes have divided people into factions.
Unfortunately, what it takes to fix things is a very dramatic change in the way industrial society is structured. Self-sufficient families having equal amounts of land to do with as they please would be a major step to fixing things but this would require an abandoning of the current cities to create the kind of city blocks of equal and adequate size to accommodate a self-sufficient family arrangement. There is neither a government nor public will for pursuing such an endeavor thus things will have to meet with a total collapse before any real motivation comes about to move in that direction. In short, we have the ability and knowledge to make a change for the better but as a whole we have never had the will. Revelations about the predatory banks and government spying are coming forth almost daily and yet We, the People, still don't have the will. This very forum is supposed to facilitate people coming together for positive change and yet We, the People, still can't get beyond bickering with each other over how we want the world to be. In ten years, it will be no different than it's been for 10,000 years. People will continue to put their petty desires above the greater good until conditions force them to come together.
When conditions force people to come together, such as a disaster, the human spirit appears. Whether it's in the US when a tornado hits Oklahoma, or Hurricane Sandy, or another country where a building collapses on thousands of people, the human spirit appears and we all want the same world.
This human spirit eventually goes away after the disaster is over. People never regret the exhaustion they felt while helping others, but they rest and then life continues. Petty differences resurface.
How can we use the human spirit for more than disaster relief? Can we recognize that democracy is a true disaster and use human spirit to solve the issue? We would need to take turns to prevent ourselves from being constantly exhausted, but the spirit could be constantly present, and the rewards would be an advance in civilization.
It's easy for people to come together for immediate emergencies. Their differences are always there but the needs temporarily out weigh those differences. Even under the conditions of a total collapse of global civilization, those differences will remain and only the most powerful factions among those differences will arise to direct things in the direction they desire.
People have had 10,000 years to change for the better both locally and globally and have yet to show any collective desire for an over all solution to the world's woes. The masses are preoccupied with just making it to the next day while those of a higher standard of living are only concerned with what they can enjoy in the moment. Too few people actually have the desire to improve the conditions of humanity and when a means of improvement is realized, it's automatically coopted by the powers that be.
If there were a significant number of people who were willing to move to a low populated state, they could become the political majority and bring about the social solutions they think would make a difference. Then, everyone could see and copy their successes. Nevertheless, the will to change for the better would still be required. After all, the state Bank of North Dakota isn't anything new but it's only now that a few state legislatures are considering creating their own state banks and it's the legislatures, not the masses of voters that are merely considering it. The same goes for actual democracy. There are 24 ballot initiative states in which the voters can determine desired legislation for themselves yet the masses of voters in the other 26 states present no indication whatsoever of wanting that right for themselves. Even when the right does exist, the voting majority of California voted against being aware of GMOs. Then there's the example of Switzerland, the only democracy on the planet that has been such for over a hundred years yet no people has ever expressed a collective desire to become the world's second democracy, settling at best for a representative democracy they know to be owned and elected from among the wealthy class. Thus, even when steps towards the right direction are achieved, the masses capable of copying those steps nevertheless ignore them and continue along the path of despair.
That's a well written description of the human condition with appropriate examples. I hold out hope for people coming together for issues other than immediate emergencies but history doesn't provide any examples for me to describe.
The idea of becoming a majority in a low populated state is fascinating. I had a similar idea focusing on congressional districts. If one of 435 districts elected a representative to Washington that would make every minute of the term transparent to everyone, would that accomplish anything? Use their staff members for the purpose of recording everything possible with no time spent raising money. Have a website devoted to direct democracy where anyone could watch and listen to any activity either live or recorded, with quick and easy access to the recordings. Include forums for comments. Include the entire working schedule of the representative's calendar, and a set time for a daily report of any events.
This would require that this district understand that their representative is NOT in Washington to bring home the bacon, but to represent them in a very different way.
The idea of essentially colonizing a low populated state has been around for decades yet no group has ever had the collective will to do it.
A political experiment could be attempted in starting a Direct Democracy Party in which candidates wouldn't even engage in debate but would only sign affidavits of commitment to representing the will of their district's voter majority on every issue. Registered voters of a district would have accounts at a website to review legislation and arguments and vote online by established deadlines for a given issue determining the way in which their elected representative would vote on that issue. That would be truly revolutionary and certainly feasible while revealing where the majority of each voting district truly is on democracy. Would the majority of the voters go for it or would the majority of the voters reject it in continuing to vote for the established duopoly? I think the latter would be true but I would love to be proven wrong.
The experiment wouldn't have to include a political party. Combine your ideas with the cameras making the ultimate reality show! This would supply the interest needed from the masses. No secrets and allow everyone in the country to watch and make comments on the web site, though only the people in the district could vote on issues.
There would be 4 to 6 hours per day that every other representative would spend begging for dollars, that time could be spent working or making discoveries for the people.
"the ultimate reality show"
The New Daily Show -- hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert; direct access via internet to congresspeople of your district. Real...Time...Politics. :)
It would be real time politics but not comedy. Much of it would be boring, but direct access via internet to everyone, not just the district. People in the district would be the only people allowed to vote on issues.
I'm not sure since I don't have cable or dish channels but isn't Congress already televised? Are state legislatures televised as well? Nevertheless, even televised proceedings would have to be mainly accessed online since most people wouldn't be able to view them live due to work.
An actual political party would be needed since no duopoly candidate would ever be able to vote the way of their district majority being pre-committed to their party's objectives and more importantly to their corporate owners. A representative would have to be free of such commitments going in to it and the voters would have to elect that person based upon the appeal of the Direct Democracy Party platform rather than upon any appeal for the candidate.
I am proposing much more than C-span, which is very limited.
All government work done by the representative would be recorded, in his office or anywhere else. This would include the staff. This representative would not be invited to back room deals of course, but might be able to find out about them. Any legislation discussion would be on the web site immediately with summary or detailed explanations, including revealing secret motives.
The web site would allow anyone to very simply select any time, event, or issue of any day to watch and listen for themselves to the actual event. Daily reports would be posted with summaries of proceedings. Any information possible could be easily accessed. All media in the district would have the same information.
The candidate could not be part of the duopoly because of the reasons you mentioned. The platform would be simple and wouldn't have to be a named party, although Direct Democracy Party is excellent if a name is necessary.
If candidates are being run across the country for the same ideal of direct democracy, some kind of reference is needed for simple identification.
We are not meant to want the same world. We seek a world which supports your freedom to be yourself. Diversity enriches us all. This is a relatively new way of thinking, being put on the fast track by the quickened awareness of people around the world, via global media and the internet. See http://amerrika.com/ for a full essay on the new paradigm.
People devoted to some of the groups I referred to don't support anyone else's freedom to be themselves in the world they want. That's the problem. The two rules of life are
Grow
and
Diversify.
The remaining rule of intelligent life is to
Integrate the Diversity.
Many devoted to some of the groups I referred to are only interested in growth, not diversity, and certainly not integrating the diversity, and they will kill and destroy to have their way. That's the problem.
Awwww. You're trying to discourage me :) May I put some of your ideas into the mouth of one of my characters? I assume anything said on this forum is pretty much available for use by anyone. I would, of course, let you know the name of your character and always invite you to edit what is said -- that would make it much more believable, don't you think?
Sure, you're welcome to use my words for your characters.
You might want to consider a character based on a modernized version of Étienne de la Boétie
http://occupywallst.org/forum/free-democracy-amendment/#comment-902070
No change ever occurs because the same ideas are re-entered. A novel thinking has to occur; one that acknowledges that we are one part of the whole. We need to treat each other, animals, and the environment with the same respect we expect to be treated ourselves.
We cannot expect answers from politicians who are intimately linked to corrupt Mega-Corporations and Banks; we need to see them as ONE. These alliances have to be broken up and re-integrated into a healthier society, one that has a social and environmental conscience. America has been poisoned and needs emergency care.
That is the purpose of my screenplay, to establish an entirely different thought process about what we as people can and cannot do.
I am asking everyone who has an entirely new way of thinking, or a new approach to an old idea, to read over the basic summary, and then click the link at the bottom and go to the summary of the script so far (not far!), and if it triggers an idea or a comment or an objection in you, please join the blog and post a comment. I am starting from the premise that absolutely everything we do not know from experience is probably wrong or distorted. Too many lies have been perpetrated by governments and religions over the centuries, so we must indeed question everything. This forum is what got me started on the screenplay. Novel thinking is exactly what I'm looking for. Also, the best way to create a character with a different perspective than my own is to have someone with that perspective write the character's dialogue -- it makes it much more believable.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/how-would-you-structure-the-government-andor-econo/#comment-981903
positive change??? fuck no.
I disagree, but would not dream of attempting to change your mind. Thank you for your input, though.