The World We Want

Peter Karoff on The Global World We Want

The World (5 minute podcast): Peter Karoff with anchor Lisa Mullins on our obligation to invest in the global community to create the kind of world we want.

We Interrupt the World We Want to Post on The Military Commissions Act 0f 2007

"Welcome to the New America (I am Scared)", by Ezekial Edwards at DMI Blog, via Gayle Roberts. Is this the world we want? Come out come out wherever you are, my fellow citizens in hiding. The longer you delay, the higher the personal cost. Bullies don't stop with bullying the person next door. Once you prove that you will not act for your principles, are easily cowed by force and injustice, that you are blind to it, you as a citizen have given permission to act with brutality in your name.  The rest is inevitable, one step at a time, all in the name of Freedom.  Peter has written of Sleepwalkers. Maybe he meant historically, in some other nation. Some other time.

Ghosts

A reader writes,

A couple blocks from my apartment is an historic building which houses a corner cafe/market in a that's been in operation since about 1795, in one form or another. Not my local store of convenience. When I first moved here it was an understocked grocery store where you could get beer, milk, sandwiches and coffee. Then a CIA-trained chef rented it and turned it into a place so fancy that I only went in twice. He went out of business a couple days ago and now it's going to be a market again where you can buy beer, coffee, sandwiches and milk.

Yesterday, on the community bulletin board that hangs on its exterior wall I noticed a poster, handwritten, on lined school paper:

"Got Ghosts?

http://www.isisinvestigations.com/"

That's all it said.

Last night I'm sitting here a my desk by the window, and outside, on the dead-end cul-de-sac I overlook - a vestige of an old railroad bridge that no longer exists, abutting the river - there's a bunch on people talking into walkie-talkies, or the cellphone equivalent. Beeps and camera flashes. One of the group was wearing a suit and tie whose style suggested he was a government agent, but he appeared to be about sixteen years old. They kept saying shit like "D-21 to base, we're moving into the park."

There were innocent people out walking their dogs who they appeared to be interrogating.

I was laughing my ass off.

The weirdest thing is I don't think it had anything to do with Isis investigations.

That spot has housed a public market since 1795.

A city with 100,000 housing units populated by 60,000.

30,000 employees laid off by GE since the 70's.

I live in the city center. There are no delis, bodegas. The nearest grocery store is two miles away.

There's a chain-owned milk, ice cream, junk food convenience store, beneath the railroad tracks, staffed by reluctantly brown-uniformed (like cows, get it, it's a really sick branding strategy) sad dirty hippies who assist the remaining population in abusing themselves with bad coffee, lottery tickets and Old Milwaukee twelve packs.

What is the space that you want to build? An empty cafe offering leafy vegetables I don't know the name of?

30 feet from where I'm sitting George Washington schlepped here.

Ghosts.

The space I want to sit in is one in which voices like this are heard, acknowledged and honored. Social change will not happen from above, driven by ownership, management and the capital markets. From conversation to consciousness, and from consciousness of ourselves as a people, or community, and from that to collective or community action. Funding might help open a few doors, but we have to walk in. "Philanthropy," per Peter, "is private action in a public space." I am looking for public action in a public space for the common good. Private funders to help out with what they can contribute, and eloquent leaders to lead. I imagine George Washington would have called that democracy.

Zooleo: If You Could Ask Candidia Cruikshanks Just One Question

Fascinating new technology for bubbling up questions from  ordinary people to  extraordinary people.  Soren Gordhamer,

If you could ask Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, just one question related to social entrepreneursim, what would that be? If you could ask Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, just one question related to social entrepreneursim, what would it be? If you could ask Pierre Omidyar, founder of Ebay and ON, one question related to social entrepreneursim what would it be?

The questions are rated by users, then Soren will ask the leading lights to answer the highest rated question. The leading lights may or may not respond.  I am impressed with the technology, so I asked the Happy Tutor for his thoughts. As usual, he was quite a jerk.

Phil, if a drop cash box were included perhaps Soren could get our elected representatives to respond to one question from "we the people."

Perhaps with Zooleo Peter Karoff at "The World We Want"  could get the big donors in his book to answer one question from we the little people.   

My question for the bigshots is, "Why in a democracy should we the people not confiscate 100% of your wealth at death and distribute it to the people, as in Monopoly we put all the money and properties back in the box at the end of each game? Why should wealth, power and privilege be hereditary, since the world we want is not an aristocracy?"

Well, that is Tutor for you. He obviously has not read Adam Smith. I doubt his questions will "bubble up" in Zooleo or get an answer if they do.  In working with wealthy people I have found you get better results with honey than with vinegar. My generous patron, Candidia Cruikshanks, when I question the world she wants says, "Kiss my boots," and I have to respect that.  Whatever she says we want is fine by me. 

A Free and Independent Press

What are the mainstream media like in the world we want? How does that differ from their peformance in the world we have? Digby speaks out. And some say the NY Times commits treason when it reveals what the Commander and Chief declares secret. I asked Sen. Dick Minim (D. MA.) over in Wealth Bondage for his opinion and he said, "While I certainly support an independent press, there must be limits so evil doers don't kill us all, particularly me or Mummy. My fellow Americans! We all have reason to be afraid. We should scared that our liberties are being systematically eroded, and we should be afraid of Terrorists too. Under the circumstances we should probably all keep our heads down and say as little as possible. I must bid adieu. More anon. Must scoot."