Wanna help me triage our situation based on our values and priorities?

[OneGrassRoot]

Last edited Thu May 2, 2013, 09:45 AM - Edit history (8)

EDIT TO ADD: I realize this is a political discussion board, but if we can expand beyond legislative issues/actions, that would be great. Include those, but let's step outside that box in assessing not only issues we're faced with but what can be done -- what IS being done within the States as well as in other countries -- about it on a grassroots level.

It's too easy to get overwhelmed by the plethora of critical issues Humanity faces. People turn away because it all feels overwhelming and even hopeless. They feel helpless. I want to narrow the focus from the perspective of the average citizen.

Maybe answering this question is easier if you literally list what you value most in your everyday life? Sounds silly or simplistic, but we need to re-evaluate our priorities, don't you think?


In anticipation of launching a project fairly soon, I want to essentially triage our situation, nationally and globally. There are so many issues facing us -- both chronic and critical situations -- leading to unnecessary suffering by more and more people each day.

I'd like to list SIX of our most pressing issues based on your values and priorities. If one list is needed for US/domestic issues and another for global issues, that's fine.

Along with listing what you feel are the most pressing problems, please provide a potential solution, such as in the form of an organization working on it or your own ideas. (Several of the OWS offshoot groups are doing great things, imho.)

We have so many critically important issues we're faced with that a triage approach is in order.

I'm not going to list my thoughts just yet, as I'd rather you answer this with what comes to mind first for you.

Thanks so much.

[graham4anything]

1. Gay marriage, Immigration, Guns, Gay Marriage, Racism/Sexism/Anti-semitism/homophobia/Women's rights

Immigration path to citizenship and voting rights
Reinterpreting the 2nd amendment
Gay marriage,
Racism, Sexism, Anti-semitism, Homophobia,
Woman's equality-the need for a woman president who is a democratic party person

anything after this is secondary and just political wedge issues.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I'd also like to focus on grassroots solutions to poverty and wealth inequality...

I'd like to think beyond the US political system, as well as the issues you've named.

Thanks for your list, graham4anything.


Edit to add:

[Bonobo]

5. LOL nt

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. Halting corporate over reach, intrusion at the community level.

With the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. It's apparent we
Can't stop them at the government level with congress bought and sold by corporations.
So we must try at the local level.

Mission Statement

“Building sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature.”

Why this?

We believe that we are in the midst of an escalating ecological crisis, and that the crisis is the result of decisions made by a relatively few people who run corporations and government. We believe that sustainability will never be achieved by leaving those decisions in the hands of a few – both because of their belief in limitless economic production and because their decisions are made at a distance from the communities experiencing the impact of those decisions. Therefore, we believe that to attain sustainability, a right to local self-government must be asserted that places decisions affecting communities in the hands of those closest to the impacts. That right to local self-government must enable communities to reject unsustainable economic and environmental policies set by state and federal governments, and must enable communities to construct legal frameworks for charting a future towards sustainable energy production, sustainable land development, and sustainable water use, among others. In doing so, communities must challenge and overturn legal doctrines that have been concocted to eliminate their right to self-government, including the doctrines of corporate constitutional rights, preemption, and limitations on local legislative authority. Inseparable from the right to local self government - and its sole limitation - are the rights of human and natural communities; they are the implicit and enumerated  premises on which local self government must be built.

Bring a Democracy School to a town near you. http://celdf.org/-1-50

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Excellent! This is a new organization to me...

Thank you!!!

[Sherman A1]

6. Distribution of wealth

I believe it applies in both domestic and foreign, but certainly much more in domestic issues.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Indeed. That's my personal focus.

When a handful of people want (and can) buy resources like water (Nestle), well....I have no adequate words.

Thanks.

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. My six things.

1) Physical management of resource depletion.
I'm talking about issues in coming decades, where millions of people don't have access to quality food, energy or drinking water, and its become a global security issue. The major players, with the 160 IQ guys working for them, are ON THIS:
http://www.businessinsider.com/lockheed-martin-desalination-graphene-filters-2013-3
And the rest of us should be too.
2) Psychological management of resource depletion.
The extreme issues of lack of resources won't hit those of us in the 1st world as those in the "developing" world, but the major issues we will face will be a search for personal value and meaning with much less "success" in our lives. We need to cultivate psycho-social frameworks to aid people in finding happiness and meaning with less, even though it runs contrary to the current narratives of our consumerist culture. Doing so could mean the difference between a decent peace, and a period of almost endless insurgency, even in countries like ours.
3) Proactive countermeasures to climate change.
The Djinni is out of the bottle at this point, and we now realize there is no force strong enough to counter global market demand for fossil fuel in the world. That means we need to get creative, think of ways to get that carbon energy without the emissions, or ways to convert that carbon in the air back to O2. Ideas like bio-engineered algae to convert C02 to 02 shouldn't be off the table, we need any ideas we can think of.
4) Continue at all costs the global connectivity of the Internet, as our main defense against WMD proliferation.
Above all, people in all lands, at all times, need to keep talking, to brew rich ideological diversity in each place. A good city anywhere in the world should know that it has within it: capitalists, communists, libertarians, jihadists, jews, blacks, whites, asians, latinos, russians, europeans, rednecks, and any other group I didn't think of. The world needs to become distributed and mixed, so any attack on a geographical location is an attack against ALL ideologies, ALL peoples, ALL religions, and all creeds. We should embrace efforts of other countries to integrate with us, as well as all kinds of weird ideologies, and expect their blessing for us to integrate with them.
5) Seek the empowerment and education of all our people with knowledge of science and math.
Bottom line? Its about to get weird. Techno mind reading, AI stuff. Well, hell, it got weird a long time ago..the last article I saw was on glow in the dark sheep that were just genetically engineered. But all of these things are hints to the future we are going to face, and some of these technologies will determine world destiny. The only way to preserve the American way, of a country by the people for the people, is if Americans are able to fully understand this new tech, and make wise decisions about it collectively. That requires a populous informed and empowered by reason and science. Do this one thing, and racism, sexism, and heterosexism with vanish with the rest of the ignorance.
6) Beer, hugs, and dancing.
Any rational person can tell you that there are serious hard times ahead for many people. We mustn't forget our countermeasures against sadness that we have employed for centuries: holidays and hugs, dancing and beer, art and song. We shouldn't be afraid to put these good times front and center, and to demand all partake with stone cold seriousness. We've got some hard times ahead, and the only hope we have of getting through is each other.

Peace and hugs!
ME.

[OneGrassRoot]

9. Thanks for taking the time to type that out!

I agree: Bear (or wine), hugs and dancing are MUSTS on our to-do list!

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. My thanks are to you, that was a provacative question!

Its really something to ask yourself "what 6 things are most important?" and to make yourself type answers out to all of them. Its a great exercise in reason, I feel like I have more direction for having thought about that and hammered out an answer.

And yes, the beer and hugs are important. There may come a time in the difficult period a few decades off, when we liberals must go house to house to the preppers - and while they scream about how their guns will be pried from their dead fingers, we must convince them instead to grip a jug of beer, and to come out and dance to some p-funk, until they realize that we are all in this together. Challenges ahead indeed.

Lol! PEace.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. 400ppm.

Climate catastrophe has to be on the list. We are going to blow past 400 this year on our way to 450? 500? More? The effects are going to dwarf all other issues.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. Definitely.

Can you perhaps triage this one specific issue and any groups you can recommend focusing on specific solutions?

Thanks much.

[dawg]

12. Money in politics.

Our government is now based on a system of legalized bribery. Until that is fixed, we will make little progress on anything else.

[OneGrassRoot]

16. word. n/t

[ananda]

14. hmm

Make gerrymandering illegal.
Make corporations corporations again, not people - Undo Citizens United
Reform campaign finance so that corporations and rich donors are out of the picture.

[OneGrassRoot]

17. Agreed, ananda. Thanks. n/t

[LWolf]

15. Okay.

1. Destroy neoliberalism and the accompanying privatization and labor degradation.
2. Reform elections: 100% publicly financed, with equal press time and equal talk time in every debate; plus IRV.
3. PEACE: quit waging war.
4. Domestic Investment: in infrastructure, in JOBS.
5. Dump free trade for fair trade based on labor and environmental standards.
6. Support PUBLIC education with funds and policies that actually HELP, rather than degrade.
7. Healthcare, jobs, and safe shelter as a RIGHT.
8. A many-layered safety net for seniors and the disabled.

Sorry. That's 8. Some of them can probably be combined. # 6 can go under the umbrella of #1, # 7/8 can be combined.

[OneGrassRoot]

18. Thanks for the list, LWolf!

MUCH appreciated.

[LeftInTX]

19. Distribution of wealth

I think this issue could use a PR push. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html

Bush sold his tax cuts based on the, "job creators". However statistics show that the "job creators" are just getting richer and are not sharing their profits with their workers. Also, the crash of 2008 showed that cutting taxes on job creators did not help employment.

I don't necessarily believe it is the most important issue in the world, but I think from a grassroots issue, it can be addressed with a PR campaign. It can influence citizens. It can influence how they vote and what legislation they support.

Ditto for defense spending.

Thank you for asking !

[OneGrassRoot]

20. I agree wholeheartedly. I push that info a lot...

I'm active on social media and push wealth inequality and CEO-worker pay ratio stats frequently.

It is, quite simply, OBSCENE.

Thanks, LeftinTX.

[zipplewrath]

21. Okay, the top 6

1) Health care: It is bankrupting us all. ACA didn't do squat for that problem.
2) War/war powers/foreign policy: We use our military first and ask question later. We need to get on a solid "peace footing" and start leading with our hearts and head instead of our fists. The State Department should be renamed the "preventing war department".
3) Education: We're poorly educated. Math, science, history, and logic are woefully understood even by college educated people. It has to start very early and be sustained for decades. Focus on STEM, yes, but not at the expense of a solid "liberal" education.
4) Legal/criminal: Our "justice" system is beyond broken. We incarcerate way too many people, too many INNOCENT people, and it bends way too much against poor people. Or civil system is expensive, takes too long, and is capricious.
5) Mental Health: We treat too much as a crime (addiction), too little as a disease, and that which we treat, we do so mostly with segregation and ostracization.
6) Economics: We have a system which blatantly serves the 1% and has undermined the middle class. Income AND wealth disparity are way too large and it is undermining may of the solutions to the previous 5 problems (save maybe 2).

[OneGrassRoot]

22. Thank you, zipplewrath!

I appreciate it!!!