Work to promote smart growth. That’s the gist. Smart growth. As opposed to growth that is not smart. I.E. dumb, silly or foolish growth, looking backwards, or regressing. That is the heart of sustainability and where it’s taking us.

With 6+ billion people on the planet and a projected 10 billion possible by mid-century we will need plenty of growing, building, and progressing if we’re going to deal with the many issues we have now and will have in the future. If we’re going to get away from the American style of 4 extra planet living, we need to be smart about it.

We’re on the brink. Not of death and destruction, but of a new, smart revolution, and it’s feeling pretty good. (more…)

profits are up, people are down, and the symbol for health care in america is burned black — tattered, torn, cracked and crumbling, despite patchwork attempts at reform. ha! the sad fact: we have the most pathetic, inefficient, ruthless health care system on the planet. and we have an ingrained aversion to the -ism we dare not speak and government intervention we claim so feverishly to be the most hideous of outcomes. as it will apparently lead us to a weak, dependent society. and with that, complete moral decay. or something like that.

as a system, the headline reads: just don’t get sick. in the vocabulary of pre-existing conditions, “experimental” surgery, and high risk, the business of health is a highly profitable, money-making machine. it’s a racket. and a disgrace to the idea of life and liberty. while the ever-so-simple-answer of single-payer is mocked in the establishment press and denounced as some great evil.

well maybe, but you tell me another way to create a simple answer to the most budget-crushing question of our time and i’ll be happy to forego my demands. those being: cover everyone, and treat us like people. -jk-

The future belongs to the society that best educates its citizens. And we citizens should determine the success of our nation, city or community not by what we can collectively destroy, but what we can build. In a world where the old norms have been wiped from the earth and everything is undergoing a grand remaking, it’s time now, to demand, the investment in our minds that will spring us into the next.

Right now, we, the United States, spend more money on our military than the rest of the world combined. And a culture of militarism persists. In these last decades, we have chosen to cut funding and ignore our crumbling services that are the very nature of what a government is supposed to do. We have allowed our schools to degrade into a shameful apparatus of failure while pumping more money into that which kills: more bombs, more tanks, more robots for war.

Continuing to spend half our budget on our war machine and expect our tools of government to foster prosperity is preposterous. We can no longer underfund education, thereby funding costly ignorance, and expect to lead in this world. We’re falling behind. In business, invention, technology, and ideas. We get what we pay for. In the uncertainty of “what is next,” will we be the ones able to comprehend the transformative thinking necessary to participate in life on this planet after we’ve come to realize the existential changes coming at us at increasing speed? -jk-

This beginning is fresh. The forecast is for sunny. Though the problems are many, big, and scary, the will to solve them is great. What we set out to do now until May 1 will have profound effects into the long-term that is our future in this country. In this world. So, what’s it gonna be?

What are the priorities? What next? What is the most important things to do in this moment?

Universal Health Care? Green Collar Economy? Renewable Energy Future? An Investment to Eradicate Poverty? A Push for Peace?

We can’t do everything, but what we decide to do must include a holistic view of the total. One that employs thinking in the long-term. A view that will set us on course for a brighter tomorrow and creates the needed momentum to take us into a sustainable and just world.

Until January 21st…
-jk-

The “War On Terror” has shaped our thinking for far too long. It is time we cease using such an outmoded way of viewing the world. Wars aren’t a proper frame for our existence. We’re in the midst of a new creation. A new vision. A new dawning of what could be our finest era of progress that sets out our future in the long view.

We’ve come a long way these last eight years. We’ve grown up a bit. And we’re in the process of coming of age in a transforming world. One challenging in its complexity yet inspiring in its connectivity. Both ruthless and blessed. At times full of hate, other times full of hope. Most of all, full of energy. People are energized. People are hopeful, working for a brighter tomorrow. We’re moving beyond petty bickering, bitching, slandering and whining. We’re acknowledging the negative and focusing on the positive. Because cynics are a dime a dozen.

With so much going for us, so much possibility, it would be best, for our frame of mind, in an act of unwavering confidence, a cathartic act of vindication and honest relief, from this day forth, that we toss out that tired slogan known as the “War On Terror.” (more…)

by Justin Kemerling

One of the most powerful, single images of the last seven years has been that figure. Standing there isolated. Arms outstretched, wires attached to his fingers. That hooded figure. Beckoning for some sort of reason in the madness. A why. A how. And there is one explanation in that inhuman display that strikes the root problem of our democratic experiment.

The people are at the mall.

We the people say it’s terrible, horrific, but… we’re in the war on terror, we have to defend the nation. Part of that is ramping up the consumer engine of shop-shop-shop so there’s no time to second guess. We must continue our spending resolve so the terrorists don’t win. The hood might as well have polka dots on it, the new fall fashion. We probably would pay more attention. Really, if it’s not on sale and doesn’t fill up our tanks at less than $3 a gallon, then we don’t care. (more…)