We Are All Eaters: Our Farm Bill

A new Farm Bill comes along every five years or so and I am yet to witness a national dialogue or debate on it. It not only effects our national debt, but also what we eat and how much our food costs. It may determine the price of rice in Vietnam and the cost of corn in Mexico. It is our main strategy for feeding ourselves. We, as a people have never taken the time to talk it over.

Most of us, including our legislators, consider it boring, incomprehensible, and unimportant. Its out  Bill,: we can make it as interesting, understandable and important as we want.

We can educate ourselves. We can learn. We can create bills that are much easier to understand and we can talk over the issues and our policy. When the Bill is easier to understand we will probably find it more interesting. We may find ourselves giving our children a better chance of eating well at lower cost!

The Farm bill is important. We would benefit by putting our agricultural policy in better alignment with our public health needs and our environmental needs. We can use the Bill to make it easier to feed our children fresh food. We could make sure that farmers got a fair price with out giving them subsidies which distort their lives and ours.

When we are willing to talk with one another, we can get the issues on the table where we can look them over.

We move toward slavery so long as we do not expand the circle of citizens who decide how we shall get the food we need and want.

Michal Pollan, than you for the reminders.

FoWL

FoWL is an organization begun by persons interested in WikiLeaks. I am not a member, but I do tend to check into it?

I am asking for your comments and critiques. Please enter them below.

I'm just taking my first look at FoWL information. I have printed out a  page from the web. It's title is "Join FoWL."  Subtitles are "How is FoWL different?" and "Why FoWL?"

The organizations stated purpose looks to be "... build a mass global movement." Nearly their first words are, "Your privacy is our core concern." Oh, FoWL stands for Friends of WikiLeaks.

I'll begin with the "manifesto." It's divided into two parts. The first part is is a brief statement of five ideals. The first "ideal" on the list is the longest.. I'll write it out just below:
"1. The right to communicate, including the right to speak, and the right to listen, the freedom of thought, the right to communicate privately, and the right to communicate anonymously."

The writing and punctuation seems awkward., but I think that I understand what they intend to say. I suspect that I may agree with that which I imagine they have intended.

I claim and support the right to communicate, speak, and listen. Freedom of thought sounds right too. I know that I don't want anyone messing with my mind.
"The right to communicate privately," sounds right. Keeping the whispers and writings between my lady friend and me seems fair. If my younger brother tells me in confidence that he intends to vote Republican and has had me agree not to tell my older brother, that is fair too, isn't it?
We have long agreed that a private letter or or phone conversation ought to be private.

I seem to have some reservations about communicating anonymously that I don't completely understand. One thing I am certain of, I need to identify a person with whom I am conversing. According to the FoWL literature; if I join FoWL, I will be communicating directly with as many as a dozen persons. If one of them, say, sends me an email saying one thing and later sends my another email say that which seems to contradict the earlier message,  I want to be able to say, "Now wait a minute Mr X, you said such and such in a message in an earlier message, but in this recent message you say such and such; I see a contradiction, don't you?"  I don't need to know that according to his mother and father his name is Ben Franklin, but I do need to know that the same person wrote those two messages. I need to get to know Mr. X.

On the other hand if you want your comment  below to be anonymous. I am fine with that.

To be continued:

Our Story

I intend to to start a new blog at Word Press called Our Story: as I see it today. I plan to make "Our Story" post about 'governance' and 'history.' The idea is to publish all future posts dealing with governance and history at "Our Story" on Word Press rather than at "Then What" at blogspot.




Check out Constitutional Questions at my WorldPress blog.

What's Fairness Got to do with Obeying the Law? | Aaron Ross Powell | Libertarianism.org

What's Fairness Got to do with Obeying the Law? | Aaron Ross Powell | Libertarianism.org

I believe that this article can lead to a useful dialogue on basic assumptions that can help us better understand one another.

I'd love to hear your comments.

When the Gods of Men Die

When the gods of men die there is often a lose of social order. So it is among the people we have called Maya. Once, after witnessing the death of their gods, they dispersed, then managed to build new lives.

I can't tell that story because I do not know it. I can recount a small mosaic of attitudes an bits of information they carried into that dispersal and beyond.

There were among them those with great knowledge of the living of life and the counting of time.

They valued dignity.

They named the new places for what men did there or for the animals found there.

They understood government. Advice they gave governors included the following:

~ Live justly.

~ Listen to the advice of everyone, and follow the best.

~ Do not fear the truth, even if it is bitter.

~ Being kind comes before being just.

~ Remove from your hear all feelings of vengeance.

~ Respect he voice of the gods, but do not be deaf to mankind.

~ Do not despise the poor.

~ Do not confide in the powerful.

They were realistic and reasonable, but were capable of believing a liar.

They found underground places. They found that voices from one cenote could be heard in another cenote.

Flowers were important to them. They were medicine as good as fruit. Flowers were like people. They were like beautiful women, pretty good and not so very bad.

They grew four kinds of beans.

Starve or be Eaten

Most of us Earthlings still depend on rule by less than 2% of our number. Such tiny oligarchic rule can work in certain times of abundance and calm. In most times it does not work very at all,  well except for the very small ruling class. Times of change or scarcity call for more participation. Even in times in times of abundance that 2%  oligarchy relies on the support of armed power to keep them where they are. That 2% takes wealth from most of us, to arm some of us, to keep the rest of us consuming and serving.

Few, even of the 2%, plan this arrangement. Of course, there are those who do. However, mostly it is the result of our being too lazy to educate ourselves, or organize ourselves to participate.

In times of want or great and rapid change 2% cannot rule. If they cannot rule well enough, they do not rule well enough. The middle does not hold and society moves towards chaos. Sometimes it rushes or falls to chaos.. You know what a governor is, right? It is the mechanism which keeps the engine from stalling or from speeding up in such a way as to causes it to fly apart.

I believe that we need and active 20% or more of us to govern ourselves well enough. To secure a practicing ruling group of 20% it is probably necessary for 50% of us to be well trained to govern.

What happens to kingdoms, empires, nations? Why do even our public schools still teach the lessons of history? Why have the ruling classes of  Persia, Rome, China, England, France, Japan taken such pains to use their best schools to teach their sons to rule? Why did the king secure the the best tutors to prepare his heir to rule. Institutions of higher learning in most nations, kingdoms, and empires were not used to teach workers, merchants, or servants. The purpose of those institutions was, and is, to teach rule and governance.

If you would be well governed, if you would have the good of our culture survive and thrive you will help your sons and daughters learn to rule and govern. Those who would rather not see much of the best of our technology and culture dead and buried or slowly withering have much to do. You can begin to teach children to identify and use the tools of governance in about the 2nd grade. You can help them to continue learning the skills of governance as long as those offspring of yours will let you. If they do not learn to cooperate to govern well they may find that thinks like medicine, health care, schooling, and shelter from the storm may be beyond the reach of their children. Much of the good things of life will be out of their reach. Rights and justice will not be their.

In the end, those who do not govern because they have not learned to govern will starve or be eaten.

There is lively satisfaction in self rule.

In Your Own Mind

Never give up.


Those who were our judges are being bought by men who don't know us. We haven't supported our judges very well.


A significant number of those who were our Senators and 'Representatives' have already sold out. We haven't even watched them.


Our Presidents are well on their way to becoming tyrants. Who nominates them?


We know what we can do:
~ We can find ways to know who we are.
~ We can find ways to share more useful and trustworthy information which is meant to be real, true, and honest.
~ We can continue to educate ourselves in inclusive, effective, self-governance.
~ We can persist and thrive through our own honest actions.

Defining "Politics"

It seems that in the 7th century BC Zaleucus, writer of the Locrian Code, thought that the purpose of politics was to reconcile societal fractions and to uphold equality before the law Sounds like good politics to me today

Men, know to us, have been defining 'politics' for about 5000 years. It seems that for most of that time it has been about citizens. Politics, these days in a republic, is that which citizens do as citizens. Its how people make collective decisions. It is a learned art and skill. We taught our children a bit about it at home and in their civics classes at school. In a republic politics are the affairs of citizens.

To be a citizen one need be the citizen of something. These days the thing (or process) is often called the state.

Politics may be called the art of civil administration. It is the way we do governance. That is, politics is the act of people practicing governance. It is the duty and honor of  American citizens to understand and participate in the governance of Country, State, County, City, etc. Its the way we decide who gets the gold and who goes to jail.

Other political duties of citizens of the republic are to oppose corruption, and to support equality before the law, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. It used to be important to be civil too.

The skills and art of politics may be practiced where-ever resources are used or cooperation is desired: church and corporation are institutions that come to mind.: school, sports, and marriage are others.

A principle constituent of the art of politics are the skills of that purposeful, cooperative talk often called dialogue.

Some young neighbors of mine call it a fair-fighting way of getting what you want.

Global Integrity - About Us: Our Organization

Global Integrity - About Us: Our Organization

News, corruption, governace.

Careless and Unethical

In the United States there is careless and unethical governance of corporations, unions, and municipalities. There is no reason for surprise at finding both at State and Federal levels. Who among a people is responsible for taking care of things ethically? Who among a people is responsible for State and Federal governance? Who is responsible for the governance of your city your town? Who is responsible for the governance of your union?
Who is responsible for the governance of your corporation? Who is responsible for the care and ethics in your life?

What do you care enough to do?
What do you think it would be a good thing for me to do?

Despisers

The despisers of the Americans on the lower 90% of the the economic pyramid, are those who support top down governance and trickle down economics. These despisers of so many Americans do not trust the people and fear participatory democracy. They cause biological, emotional, and economic depression.

Jesse Ventura

Would it have be fair to have call Jerssie Ventura a populist?