REALLY taking America back...

Are you guys sure about this?

2009-07-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was a County Commissioner once. I let with a pretty high opinion of local government, or at least its potential to serve people the way they want to be served. So I wince every time I hear "Government" slammed as some kind of lumbering monster, with no sense that the process is very different, with very different accessibility for citizens who care, at the national, state and local level.

Once in a while, though, local leaders do something that seems to prove the critics' point that they don't know what life is like for folks struggling to make a living. I pointed out a clasic example in this week's column and suggested a remedy. I'm wondering if anyone cares.

Today's Patriotism

2009-07-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

This blog's called "Really Taking America Back." Last week's column is about that, too. And about patriotism. And how they might be the same thing.

How much sense does this make to you?

When it comes to health care, who and what is "radical"?

2009-06-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

The health care debate we're watching just about stuns me. With all the damage the for-profit health industries, especially the insurance corps, have done to individuals, families, businesses, with the demonstrably better outcomes in virtually every other prosperous countries, all of whom involve government in insuring their people, the fact that we still might not even get a "public option" for people who want it, is very hard to accept. In this week's column I call the situation radical, and implicitly ask if reasonable people can think otherwise. The comments from readers following the column answer that question: yes.

And you? What's "radical?"

Dense? Yeah, maybe so

2009-06-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

One of the folks posting on the Tidings online forum after this week's column called me 'dense.' You know, it just could be. I've read a lot of online responses to the question that I've asked for two straight columns now: What is it about the human body that we don't want our children to see? I still don't get it, and I don't think I'm all attached to not getting it.

I'm moving onto other things, no wiser than before. Got anything on this that hasn't shown up before?

Cover your Kids' Eyes...

2009-06-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

I gave this week's column the title "Still Clueless After All these Years," knowing that I was lobbing a fat slow one over the middle of the plate for readers less than thrilled about my take on life. Sure enough, here was one of the online comments: "I must say that BEFORE I read his comment, it made me laugh out loud to see the photo of Golden, under which are the words "Still Clueless After All These Years"."
Yeah. Well, I am clueless after all these years a the charge so many seem to have about the human body. Or at least enough people to shape the social norm.
I asked the question in the column not to be a smartass, but because I honestly want to know straight-up why a naked man walking around Ashland is such a huge deal.
Do you know?

Are we forgetting a little something here?

2009-06-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

If you read this space much you've probably picked up on how much I like the move towards local economies. It's the lynchpin to stepping through the chaos of coming months and years to a world that offer our kids and theirs a chance (who knows how big) at decent lives. So why is it that every month I'm shipping $30-50 that could stay in my community to Chase Bank? Because I'm a convenience weenie, maybe? See here if you can relate...

It's All About YOU? I think not.

2009-06-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

No, actually it's All About Me. Or at least it's ridiculously easy to think so. I caught myself cold doing that the other night, and wrote about what it did to my evening... an evening I'll never get back again.

Interplanetary attempts at commmunication

2009-05-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Most of the newspaper columns I write draw some juicy disagreement. That's good. I'm not wild about the name-calling stuff that points out what a moron I am without bothering to look seriously at the issue or topic at hand, but getting challenged on my analysis and perspective is what op-ed journalism is all about.
Occasionally I'm baffled that two people living on the same planet could see things so differently. That happened this past week, and I wrote about it.
(The limited format of this online column, with no italics, makes it a little hard to tell who's saying what where. I don't like that, but maybe it fits the chaos of the public conversation...)

Do we get what free speech means?

2009-05-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

I wonder sometimes. And I wonder about the widespread fear that hearing twisted vicious messages will make us, particularly the younger among us, more twisted and vicious. I think the young Neo-Nazis I wrote about recently do a pretty good job disproving that premise. This week's column strongly hints that others see this differently, and some of them work in state government.
What exactly are we afraid of?

A nudge from 'me' to 'we'

2009-05-09T22:08:00.001-07:00

Here's one that's starting to percolate in Ashland: one of the reason that power and water rates are going up (the city owns these utilities itself) is that people heeded the call to conserve and use less.
That just doesn't sit well with some folks.
I don't think you have to spend too much time reflecting on this before it's clear that there's no trickery or bad faith a work here. This week's column tries to offer perspective before the serious shouting begins.

Does this one have an answer?

2009-05-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

The appearance of some young not-too-sophisticated Neo-Nazis in Southern Oregon, which I wrote about in the previous post, triggered a juicy community conversation. Apparently we're still not jaded enough to ignore or tolerate this kind of ugliness. But the best response to it? I admit here to not having a good clue to the answer to that one.
Do you?

Not in our valley

2009-04-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

When the Medford paper prominently reported on the appearance of a new "official" white supremacist headquarters in the small town of Phoenix, I wondered who would pay attention. That was the spark for this week's column.
It turns out a whole lot of folks were paying attention, and were quick to take a stand. In these swirling times, I took that as an encouraging sign that there are some things that we don't make too complicated.
Thanks to those who stand up.

Hand me a teabag

2009-04-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

There were some odd, even ridiculous aspects to the "Tea Party" Protests on Tax Day last week, and some cynical political tactics, too.
There was also an opening to a transpartisan political conversation about what's wrong with our economy and financial system, the kind of conversation we badly need if we're going to move through all this to a tolerable economy and society. As per the title of the column I wrote to expand on the point, we can think better than this.

Persistence

2009-04-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

I've persisted in making the point that persistence is the most important quality missing from political and social activism. We haven't overcome the big obstacles to realizing democracy because, with few exceptions, we haven't kept at it the way, say, big-money lobbyists do.

Well, here's an exception. He proves the point.

Food fighting in Ashland, again

2009-04-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

Were you around for the battle over the Ashland meals and beverage tax in 1993? It made much of the struggles we've seen since look like high tea. And there's probably a reunion tour coming up, the topic of last week's column.

In it I vented some skepticism that the meals tax is much of a problem for many people. What's it been like for you?

Putting together two real big pieces

2009-03-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

It's hard not to notice two things going on at the same time right now. To pull from the beginning of a long-ish magazine article I just finished for Sentient Times, "The first is that large numbers of people who may never have felt fully comfortable with where they’ve parked their retirement savings and investment accounts are desperately wondering how to keep what’s left of them from vaporizing in the global meltdown. Over time some of these folks have been watching the “relocalization” movement — the cluster of efforts to strengthen and grow sustainable locally-owned enterprises so that resources circulate in the community instead of leaking to far-off corporate headquarters — with more and more interest. That’s condition number one. The second is that a growing number of creative local people want to start enterprises that would support their families (and other families as well, in some cases) and serve their community in healthy ways. What often holds them back is the absence of capital to start or expand their businesses."
So how to put these two pieces together? The answer, I think, is a vital key to building healthy community out of the ashes raining down on us. If the longer piece linked above is more than you want to read, I digested in in this week's Tidings column.

Now we know how they felt...

2009-03-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

If you think back on it, as I did in this week's column, the big timber collapse of the late 80s and early 90s was a pretty accurate sneak preview of what it means to live beyond our means.
We're all loggers now.

Cluelessness on parade

2009-03-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

You remember this guy? "What we've got here...is a failure to communicate."

A few Oregon public employees have been reminding us of that by complaining that losing a few work days to "unpaid furlough" is an unbearable burden.

But in the scheme of really grim contemporary events, is that cluelessness a big deal? I think it's more of an annoying distraction. This week's piece asks whether downstream blaming or making decent decisions upstream is more likely to get us what we want.

It's not like a drive-up window...

2009-03-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

A month ago I laid out in general terms the Big Stick Theory, i.e, those who wield the biggest stick in the halls of power get their way in our form of government. If instead of whining, we'd like to that to be us, we have to 1) assemble the biggest stick we can, 2) learn to use it carefully and selectively, and 3) commit to carrying it permanently. I wrote earlier columns about 1 &2; this one's about commitment. It's where we Boomers, IMJ, have most obviously dropped the ball.

Does this square with your experience?

Naive? You tell me.

2009-02-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

Last week's column was naive. That's according to a reader who weighed in online. What he actually said was "As with all government policies, the devil is in the details. Agreeing on ends doesn't mean agreeing on means. Golden's 'vision' of an army of like-minded citizens wielding a 'big stick' is naive at best."
At best, yet. I actually think there's some good thinking there, especially in the ends-versus-means business. "Naive?" Well, he made me think harder about it, never a terrible thing.
So here's what I think.

On Big Sticks

2009-02-19T10:08:00.000-08:00

I have a pretty simple view -- and the line between simple and simplistic can be thin -- on what it will take for the so-called Voice of the People to matter in this country. It's about sticks, and has three parts, beginning with this week's column. One reader thought it was naive, which turned out to be a good launching pad for a second column, soon to be released.
Naive?

Priming the pump

2009-02-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

In Ashland there's a lot of chatter about whether the pushing innovative sustainability projects should be the business of government or private people and interests. The answer is 'yes.'
There are some intriguing possibilities waiting to be borne out there . Seems to me city government could provide the nudge it takes to turn ideas into reality, all for what's sometimes called "decimal dust" in the annual budget. This week's column describes how.

Are we making any progress

2009-02-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

It all looks so dumb to me, this snarling at other folks who care about the future and the planet as much as you and I do, because... well, that's where I get stuck. How come we take our eye off the ball so easily whenever we get dinged? It's a mystery--until I'm the one who gets dinged.
"Take nothing personally-- least of all ourselves!" You remember where that's from? And what do you suppose could happen if we all took that advice?
It's a stunning thought.

Yeah, it felt great, Now what?

2009-01-31T17:06:00.000-08:00

I think there's a useful way think about if, and more importantly how, all the good juju of the inauguration and ascendancy to leadership of a good man can actually fuel the changes e;re craving. This column lays out the basic framework. More to come.

"Sustainability?" It's kind of the whole deal

2009-01-21T13:40:00.000-08:00

If we wanted we could probably spend a lot of time and words debating what "sustainability" is, but a) that gets real boring, and 2) we've got more important things to do, and time's short. In an important way, sustainability pulls together just about everything we're talking about, or should be. Or that's how I see it.

Puzzling the Martian again

2009-01-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to use my weekly column to look at some prevailing consumption habits that would stagger a visiting Martian anthropolgist. One that comes up for me practically every time I visit the post office is about newsprint and other kinds of paper. I know you've noticed it. I wrote it up in the most recent column to see what might stir.

Any thoughts?

New Year, Mayor, President, Chance and Commitment

2009-01-09T10:14:00.000-08:00

The year's new. So is the world.

Everyone who dares to think openly knows that we won't thrive, or maybe even survive, without a big shift towards sustainable habits and lifestyles. And "sustainability" means...well, there are plenty of dictionary definitions, but I'm not sure any of them grab us in a way that energizes. Maybe, like art or obscenity, we only know it when we see it. That's why I asked readers in my New Year's column to ante up very specific ideas about sustainable change.

What's yours?

Did Rodney King ever get his question answered?

2008-12-26T09:03:00.000-08:00

Do you remember Rodney King, the guy in LA who was videotaped as cops used him as a pinata? There was a riot in LA when the cops were acquitted of all charges, and Rodney was famously quoted as saying "Can't we just all get along?"

A lot of my columns ask more or less the same thing. Haven't really heard much in the way of answers. In this weekend's column, I want to know -- I really DO want to know -- why it often seems we can't. We're still fighting over such stupid stuff. Would it help to understand why?

I keep thinking so.

How to make a Martian's jaw drop

2008-12-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

There are lots of ways, actually, and they're all around us. I'm calling them SHTIPOOFs. A lot of them have to do with cars, so that's where I chose to start the inquiry in this week's column. Enjoy.

Guns make us crazy

2008-12-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

You may not know about Barack Obama's agenda to take everyone's guns away. The Oregonians who are hip to this have been flooding gun shops to stock their arsenals before he takes the oath of office.

Where's this headed? And can we even talk about it without foaming at the mouth?

I'm trying to find out here.

Whose problem is hunger?

2008-12-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

This isn't a theoretical question. The economic meltdown that's worrisome and nerve-wracking for most of us is becoming life-threatening to more and more people in our own country. In an earlier newspaper column I asked readers to be honest about whether or not they think this is their problem.

Most of them answered that they do. They even have some answers that worth thinking about. See what you think.

"Yes, we can." But will we?

2008-11-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

The clearest thing Barack Obama said election night was "This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change."

If you want this election to be more that an isolated feel-good moment, spend 3-plus minutes with this insightful Youtube video. Then visit the Just 6 Dollars site to join a national effort that can make change more than a campaign slogan.

"Yes, we can." But will we? This is a crucial first step.

Immensely Possible Abundance

2008-11-26T21:52:00.000-08:00

In just about thirty hours, people all over America will crawl into sleeping bags in mall parking lots in order to be first in line when big-box stores open at 5am on the morning after Thanksgiving. I am, of course, not making this up.

You know what? There's another way.

Not the biggest surprise

2008-11-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

We're hungry. Where I live, and increasingly around America. We're getting hungrier.

Nobody paying attention to the big picture right now can be too surprised. What I asked this week was this: Is mushrooming hunger any of our business? And if so, how do we plan to take care of business?

A chance to cut through the bogus polarization

2008-11-12T17:13:00.001-08:00

Obama's reminded us every way he can that he's not Superman. Hearing the bliss of the last week, I'm not sure we've fully heard him. He aptly pointed out last week that what we've won is not change, but the chance to create change.

Here's what I wonder this week in my Saturday column: do we have the chance to bust the paralyzing myth that this country's hopelessly paralyzed?

Does Joe the Plumber still matter?

2008-11-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I think he does. Barack Obama was talking about him the other night, too, though not by name.

So I decided to write Joe a letter....

UNAFRAID's triggering some unafraid conversations

2008-11-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, it's been a while. Mostly I've been focusing on getting UNAFRAID, which you can sample online, out into the world.

What I especially like is how UNAFRAID has led to juicy conversations about how leadership and citizenship are joined at the hip-- if we want great things from the first, we better bring great things to the second. But how do we do that? I'm so glad you asked. I was on a great

panel at the Book Group Expo last weekend that nailed it. Hope you enjoy viewing it.

Welcome to Unafraid the Blog

2008-07-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

This marks a pivot point for Really Taking America Back, a merger, really, with the project that's taken most of my energy for months, and will until the election: the launch of UNAFRAID into the world.

UNAFRAID is a particularly powerful vehicle for much of what I have to say about Really Taking America Back. One of the first steps is to remember, despite the powerfully discouraging news around us, that we still can. Another way to say that: a foundational task is to decisively expand our notion of what's possible in politics and public life, to break out of the cynicism that shackles our efforts and hugely serves those who hold power over us today. That's the exact core of As If We Were Grownups, which you see promoted in the right-hand column.

UNAFRAID takes that same thread to a general fiction audience, posing an answer to what Boomers like me have wondered over the last 40 years: how would history have unfolded if JFK had survived Dallas and gone on to serve two full terms in the White House? The plot lets us imagine a leader who is, in his own words, unafraid of the American people.

So if unafraid is the mindset we need from both leaders and citizen/activists (that would be you and me) to Really Take America Back, and if we now have UNAFRAID the book ---excerpts from which you can easily read --- what if we make our interactive discussion UNAFRAID the Blog?

Welcome.

Cockeyed Optimist? "Cockeyed?"

2008-06-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a while. Changes are underway (oh, really?) that will bring my manias -- really taking America back, boosting citizenship, building common ground, revving up realistic hope -- together in one place. More on that later.

My energy has been going almost fully to pushing Unafraid into the world. Haven't heard about it? It's right here.

Which earned me the tentative title of "cockeyed optimist" on the front page of a Sunday LIFE section in southern Oregon, You know--I've been called worse.

We want it because...well, we just do.

2008-04-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we don't get what we want because we don't know exactly why we want it, or how much we want it compared to other things with a claim on our limited resources. Know what I mean? No? Well, this column is a prime example of what that can look like.

OK, so what do they want anyway?

2008-04-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

If you're over 45 or so and don't have strong and not-very-comfortable feelings about the social, political, environmental and economic legacy we're leaving to the next generations, then this week's column probably won't speak to you.

There's not much value in beating our breasts and wailing about the raw deal we're passing on. Hearing from younger folks, though, about the support they need as they step up to take on this deeply bruised world -- that's worth our careful attention. This is an important list.

First Obama, then Obubba: Medford's on the map

2008-04-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

One week after Barack Obama's flashy mid-March visit, Bill Clinton strolled into our off-the-fast-lane town of Medford. He was at the top of his game at North Medford High, reminding a crowd of a 1000+ and (through the national media) everyone else, that it's not over until it's over.

That's because most of the Democratic superdelegates. When you really start thinking hard about the superdelegates, you get close to the center of what's wrong. That's what I did this week, and this is what came out.

Obama's stated but unheard message, #2

2008-03-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

This column is mostly a shortened, op-ed version of the previous post, noting how much Obama is talking about REALLY Taking America Back and wondering if we're listening.

What do you think?

And most importantly: should it be "Obamamania" or "Obamania?"

Using Obama: A Context for Immense Possibilities Radio

2008-03-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama blew through our little town of Medford last weekend, dishing up hope and an unexpected opportunity to talk about how my new venture, Immense Possibilities Radio, fits into the mix. I accepted an offer to write a long-form article for the fascinating Ashland periodical Sentient Times to announce IPR's launch into the world. The link between Obama's visit and IPR came to me at the end of his Medford speech, when after listing great goals he said “That’s what can happen when YOU set the agenda. When democracy works the way it should. It requires you to be involved. It’s not enough just to vote…you and I together, we can change the country and change the world!”

What struck me was how often we've heard that in stump speeches and how little we act on it. That's exactly what I want IPR to take on, and that informed the essay. See what you think.

Some brilliant specifics on what we've been talking about

2008-03-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine has hit it out of the park again, putting into very clear terms what leadership that fosters true, necessary citizenship would look like. Take a look at this excerpt from one of his recent postings.

I highly recommend Tikkun, not least because of its laser clarity on the Middle East mess.

The Real Reason We Have to Take Names

2008-03-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

People in my town argue over whether those who post comments on the newspaper's public forum should have to identify themselves. Some say that would put one more hurdle in the way of free expression, which is in short supply as it is. Others say posters would be less brazenly obnoxious, and the level of discourse would rise, if everyone gave had to pin a real name to the post.

I think something more serious is at stake here. That's what Tidings column #4 is about.

Where's Square One?

2008-03-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

My third Tidings column admits that I might have overshot by assuming that most people are ready for a kind of Golden Rule of Discourse -- receive others' attitudes and perspectives as you would have yours accepted, grasshopper. I leaned on the practical, not the moral, imperatives for treating people right. I thought that could work as Square One for raising the abysmal level of discourse.

I may have been wrong. Your take is especially welcome on this one.

By Request: A People's Manifesto for Community

2008-03-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

On an earlier post ("Selling Common Ground," October 20, 2007) you'll find what's becoming my stump speech to just about any civic group that wants to give me a microphone. Tonight I gave a version of it to the brand-new Medford (Oregon) City Club, a group on exactly the right track for Taking America Back.

In it I read a short manifesto about investing in community, a modest little document that I'd like, oh, about 200 million Americans to sign. During the Q&A I was asked to post it online. So that's what I'm doing here .

Does the same thing drive us all crazy?

2008-03-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

In my second Daily Tidings column I wonder whether everyone goes on tilt when his/her motives and intentions are dissed. Or is it just me?

Plus...an old Walt Disney memory from almost a half-century ago. Isn't it strange what we remember?

The Columnist Returns

2008-03-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

This may blow my cover and reveal me as a Baby Booming Luddite, but for all the ease of blogging I sure enjoy reading and writing op-ed columns. I've had the chance to write maybe 300 of them over the years, and they're just plain fun.

I've recently been given the central space on the op-ed page of every weekend edition (Saturday only) of The Daily Tidings in Ashland, Oregon. I'm going to use it primarily not to opine but to explore why the prevailing level of public discourse is so lame, and what we might be able to do about it. And I'm going to run it like a talk radio show. The ongoing name of the column, in fact, is "Talk Newspaper."

The first one ran last three days go on Saturday, and this is what it said. I'll post future columns after I write them. Comments always welcome.

A Valentine's Day Challenge

2008-02-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

I LOVE my friend Steve "Swami Beyondananda" Bhaerman's newsletter, Beyondanews. It's trenchant, smart and funny. In his latest issue he relates a story that I find barely believable...but believable. I figure if it's even one-quarter accurate, it has clues we'd better pay attention to.
It goes like this:

In her book, Not By the Sword, Kathryn Watterson tells the story of Michael Weisser, a Jewish cantor, and his wife Julie. They had just moved to their new home in Lincoln, Nebraska in June 1991, when their peaceful unpacking was interrupted by an ominous threatening phone call.

Shortly after, they received a package of racist flyers with a card announcing, "The KKK is watching you, scum." The Weissers called the police, who told them it looked like the work of one Larry Trapp, a self-described Nazi and Grand Dragon of the local Ku Klux Klan. Trapp, in fact, had been linked to fire bombings of African-American homes in the area and a center for Vietnamese refugees. The 44-year-old Trapp was wheelchair bound and suffering from diabetes, yet was a leader of the white supremacist movement in the area. At the time, he was making plans to bomb B'nai Jeshuran, the synagogue where Weisser was cantor.

Julie Weisser was frightened and even infuriated by the hate mail, but she also felt a spark of compassion for the man in the wheel chair who lived by himself in a one-room apartment. She decided to send Trapp a letter every day with passages from the Proverbs. When Michael saw that Trapp had launched a TV series spewing hatred on the local cable network, he called the Klan hotline and kept leaving messages: "Larry, why do you hate me? You don't even know me."

At one point, Trapp actually answered the phone and Michael, after identifying himself asked him if he needed a hand in doing his grocery shopping. Trapp refused -- politely -- but a process of rethinking began to stir in him. For a while he was two people -- the one still spewing hateful invective on TV, the other talking with Michael Weisser on the phone saying, "I can't help it. I've been talking like that all my life."

One night, Michael Weisser asked his congregation to pray for someone who is "sick from the illness of bigotry and hatred." That night, Trapp did something he'd never done before. The swastika rings he wore on both hands began to itch, so he took them off. The next day he called the Weissers and said, "I want to get out, but I don't know how." Michael suggested that he and Julie drive to Trapp's apartment so they could "break bread together." Trapp hesitated, then agreed.

At the apartment, Trapp broke into tears and handed the Weissers his swastika rings. In November, 1991 he resigned from the Klan, and later wrote apologies to those groups he had wronged. On New Year's Eve, Larry Trapp found out he had less than a year to live and that same night, the Weissers invited him to move in with them. Their living room became his bedroom and he told them, "You are doing for me what my parents should have done for me."

Bedridden, Trapp began to read about Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and learn about Judaism. On June 5, 1992 he converted to Judaism -- at the very synagogue he had once planned to blow up. Julie quit her job to care for him in his last days, and when Larry Trapp died on September 6th of that year, it was with Michael and Julie holding his hands.

This is one extraordinary story, perhaps the exception that proves the rule. I'm willing to bet there are thousands and thousands of other stories like this one. Remember, forgiveness doesn't excuse or condone a hateful, violent act. Rather, it releases us from what has been done to us, and frees our emotional energy to move life forward. This seemingly "selfless" act is actually quite selfish, only on a higher level.

Maybe, then, "higher selfishness" is the way of the future.

A smart new use of citizen wisdom

2008-02-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

There's a new project in Oregon that could be the prototype of a great TAB tool. It's called the Citizens Initiative Review (CIR) and it could help make direct democracy work better.

We're seriously attached to citizen ballot initiatives in Oregon as a way to reclaim some governing power. But they can be crude instruments, subject to a lot of deception, covert agendas and (supposedly) unforeseen consequences.

Can citizen-initiated lawmaking work more like it's supposed to? Here's a letter I just got that starts to explain CIR and the group behind it. See if you're intrigued by what they're up to.

Must See un-TV

2007-12-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's been a while.

If you could get 20 minutes of attention from every man, woman and (especially) child in this country--Republican, Democrat, Independent, complete apathetic drop-out to obsessed news junkie--what would you put in front of them?

Here's a great choice.

Sit back, plug in earphones if you have 'em, enjoy. Let me know what you think.

Public Campaign Financing... Ho-Hum?

2007-10-23T11:41:00.001-07:00

All this creative & occasionally smart talk about Really Taking America Back is nice and all, but it won't happen until we peel the $$$ monkey off the back of candidates. I'm completely convinced that public campaign financing is the only effective way to do that, and made the case as well as I could in "You Should Pay for My Campaign," chapter 1 of As If We Were Grownups (if you comment on this post and ask to see Chapter 1 I'll send it to you).

Public financing is getting traction faster than I would have guessed. There's a really good website tracking it's progress, and a break-through column in this week's Newsweek. If you have any doubts about the issue's importance, or its political viability, go to these links. Please.

Does anyone doubt how core this is?

Selling Common Ground

2007-10-20T14:39:00.001-07:00

A core premise of this blog (and this may be a 'duh') is that Really Taking America Back requires a critical-mass majority of Americans coming together as an effective political force...which in turn requires the development and promotion of Common Ground to trump the cynical Wedge Issues trotted out every election season to keep us divided.

So I'm selling Common Ground. I had a particularly good opportunity to do it in front of about 100 Medford (Oregon) Rotarians yesterday at their weekly lunch meeting. This club was not exactly my cheering section when I was a tree-hugging County Commissioner some years ago, so I really wanted to engage them with this. Here's what I told them . What do you think?

A Great Teacher

2007-10-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

I want to introduce you to Randy Pausch, who was introduced to me online yesterday. He's the most powerful walking promotion for tenacity, gratitude, and making the most out of each day that I've seen or heard in a very long time. All of those are qualities important, maybe essential to the task of TAB.

Randy's a brilliant Carnegie Mellon professor dying of pancreatic cancer at 47. He gave a last lecture recently to his campus family and -- well, just check it out. Through his website he gives you access to an 4-minute "trailer" of sorts or the full 1 hr 25 minute version. I don't have time for videos that long online. For some reason I made time for this one, and I'm glad I did. It's remarkably wise, fun and un-maudlin. Check it out. See what you make of his Brick Wall.

A Shot of Hope

2007-10-05T09:16:00.001-07:00

If you're at a low point in your hope cycle, seriously doubting that we have the energy or brains or tenacity or resources to take America back (and are they any of us who haven't been there?), spend some time with a connected activist under 30. I was with four of them recently at a Reuniting America Conference near D.C. Picked me right up.

Some of them recently came together to put forward what they call Democracy 2.o. I want you to see their brief and clear statement.

What's clear beyond their passion is their connectedness, an indispensable quality for a people wanting their country back. We Boomers have much less of it. Could it just be we have something to learn here?

If you're inspired you can contact a key Democracy 2.0 organizer at maya@mobilize.org.

A Smart Swami Speaks

2007-09-28T09:16:00.001-07:00

Can I tell you about a guy doing stellar work to help us take America back? His name’s Steve Bhaerman, though you might be more familiar with his inspiringly zany alter ego Swami Beyondananda, who’s wickedly good punmanship over the years has helped keep many of us from spiraling into terminal self-seriousness and gloom. Steve’s laughing a little less these days (though still more than many of us) as he charts the mind-numbing crimes and misdemeanors of our ruling elite and the destination towards which they’re leading us.

AND (and this is the point that matters when it comes to ReallyTAB) he’s pointing the way toward some practical, high-leverage things we can do about it. While I’ve been a fan for a while, his contributions came into clearer focus when I read the latest edition of his e-newsletter Notes from the Trail. This one’s titled ""An Inconvenienter Truth: Global Warring Could Do Us In First, and sorry if you’re busy, but you have to read it (won’t take that long). After you read it come back here and tell me what you think of Swami’s offering. I’m guessing you’ll want to stay plugged into his website.

Thank you, Swami.

It's the kids

2007-09-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

The kids may be the only ones who can unite us to take America back. There is a human instinct to leave our children a world as good as the one we've inherited--better, if possible-- which is not exactly what we're doing. I wrote As If We Were Grownups (on the sidebar to the right) in part to suggest that an effective, unifying politics for grownups would take us back to that principle. What if we insisted on leaders who, on the brink of every major decision, asked themselves this touchstone question: Of the options available to me here, which one is best for my children and their children?
But nothing my generation writes or says can move us like the kids can. This 13-yr-old Canadian girl spoke to the Rio summit in the early 90s. Just notice what shifts as you listen to her.

"Transpartisan"...maybe not the most elegant label, but...

2007-09-16T15:53:00.002-07:00

I've been blessedly far away from computers for a week, pedaling through up and down the Cascade Mts on the 20th edition of Cycle Oregon. A good meditative, if butt-chafing, break from the standard fretting. Tomorrow I go for a week to an east coast conference with "Reuniting America," which is riding point on the movement to build more common ground among political adversaries. Put another way, the task is to help us to heal the intentionally manufactured wounds in the body politic and rediscover our common dreams, values, priorities, which are so much vaster than immediately meet the political pundit's eye.
The relevance to Really Taking America Back is apparent enough not to need commentary, wouldn't you say?
If you think this "transpartisan" hub-bub is so much happy talk without enough real heft to be worth your attention, check out this fine, not-too-long article by Mark Satin, one of the really brilliant folks working on this. The protagonists of his article are Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bloomberg.
I am not making this up.
Something is really happening here. How much traction will it get? We can find out.

Can you do video? This looks like fun ---thanks, Al

2007-09-07T12:02:00.001-07:00

This one tickled me. Al Gore and his folks are doing world-class work to engage folks at a deep & lasting level. Could this one be for you? Quick... it has to be in by September 12.

Connecting makes us smarter

2007-08-31T23:32:00.001-07:00

There's a smart new tool under development that could strengthen what you might call the policy infrastructure for taking America back. It has the potential to capture the brightest ideas we can co-create together. According to the project's initial website

Democracylab is a non-partisan, non-profit website built upon the idea that technology can enable us to harness freedom of speech and the power of the vote in ways never before possible.

See what they're up to.

Standing up

2007-08-27T14:56:00.001-07:00

I think I may have already cited YES! Magazine and the Positive Futures Network as magnificent resources for the work of taking America back. Their coverage of wonderful community-building work around the world is blasting big holes on the implicit social/poltical myth that the way we're doing things in this country is pretty much the only "realistic" way to do them. Well, no, each issue of YES! proves, in fact that's not true at all.

The current edition of YES! grabs the horns of the Big One. It's theme is "Stand Up to Corporate Power." That's more combative than some of the uplifting citizenship-building stuff that I'd like to see us sharing on this forum. Does that make it a turn-off for some people who want to take their country back. I hope not, because we're not getting anything back if we can't grapple with this hard reality. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Television to TAB by

2007-08-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

If you would agree that taking America back means good clear information about what's going on, and that a whole lot of people will continue to rely on TV to find that out, I think you'll want to know about this.

Upside Down Spending

2007-08-22T21:42:00.000-07:00

I spent today (Wednesday) in the Wayne Morse Federal Courthouse in Eugene, watching and testifying in a hearing to determine whether Pete Seda should be freed from custody while awaiting prosecution on terrorism-related charges. Pete, a casual friend of many years, is accused of laundering money through an Islamic charity to a Chechnyan group that the Feds have designated a terrorist organization. Pete returned voluntarily last week from four years of quasi-exile to face the charges, which makes the central question of this particular hearing—whether Pete’s a flight risk—a little peculiar. There’s more to the story than that. If you can figure out why the Feds have their teeth so deeply into this particular case, there’s a lot of us who’d like to know.

And this has what to do with Taking America Back (TAB)? It’s the venue. The new courthouse, named with no apparent intended irony for Oregon’s icon of the common man’s rights, covers most of a city block and looks like a titanium outpost from Star Trek. This is not a building that says to the people of Eugene “This land is your land.” It looks more like the fortress of an occupying power. But that’s just one guy’s opinion. More specifically and to the point, why exactly are we spending $ 75 million on a new Federal Courthouse (a whole bunch of which, based on my visit today, was spent on gorgeous natural wood paneling and elegant metal sculpture work) while Oregon counties are shutting down libraries, sheriff patrols and health departments? There are lots of ways you could put this question; this version happens to come to me as I recover from the sensory overload of this gigantic, architecturally lush building.

What we have here, seems to me, is one of many concrete (sorry) reasons that so many of us feel our country isn’t ours anymore. And it’s more than a feeling. While our local governments and communities are pushed to and past the breaking point, the federal government cruises along spending tax dollars pulled out of our community with no noticeable restraint or accountability. Every tax $ Congress spends is a $ that cash-strapped communities can’t use for vital services.

This is not rocket science. Consider the way local services are withering on the vine. Consider news stories like the recent admission by the Pentagon that it simply can’t account for two trillion (that’s with a ‘t’) tax dollars. Put them together and we might have the seeds of an agreement, and a big one, among Americans of every political stripe: our public spending is upside down, and life is only likely to get harder in this country if we don’t turn it around. That might be one of the most powerful and actionable elements of the “hidden agreement” I wrote about a few posts down. Which means it can be an important tactic for TAB.

More about this later. Today I’m just struck by how this damn courthouse rubs our face in it.

Nobody can do it for us. Yet...

2007-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

"Dan" had a response that caught my eye about the video just below this post, which is a tribute to the unorthodox courage of famous leaders most of us admire. In part he said

"One individual is not enough, I think we need bigger change. The [video] is great in spirit but at the same time, it's an affectation.. it's a bumper sticker, it's an effing Che Gueverra T-Shirt. It's lip service it's dissent conveniently packaged with the teeth removed... one cant do it alone.. we've proven that to ourselves time and again. We don't need Ghandis or MLKs or JFKs, that takes the onus off of 'us' and 'ourselves' while we wait for the next 'great hope' to come along and deliver us from ourselves. But what we really need is each other. Then we've got a movement that will transcend race, income, education, religion, political party and country.

Then we CAN change the world."

Yep. I really had a sense of that this year when people reacted to Obama galloping over the hill on his steed: "Maybe he's the one." This notion that we can get the country back if only we invest power in good enough people comes from the child in all of us (I think it's all of us) that wants Daddy or Mommy to clean up this awful mess. TAB is a job nobody else, no matter how wonderful, can do for us.

And yet...didn't we need those folks in the video to get some great stuff done? Leadership seems to be an elegant balance of inspiring people with power (a noticeable, "famous" function) and getting out of the way so that they can effectively use it (not something high-level politicians tend to do well). Does that sound right? What leaders in your experience pull that off?

What's out there to help wake us up?

2007-08-19T15:50:00.001-07:00

"Steve" offered a response to the last post (about "The Hidden Agreement") that reinforces a key principle of this blog: we're looking for the good stuff that's helping people believe in themselves and choose more engaged lives, no matter where it comes from. So whenever the spirit moves you, please send in links to extraordinarily energizing sites that you've found. I'll comb through and use my, um, rigorous criteria to select the ones that seem most resonant with our focus at REALLYtab. Rigorous criteria: I'll probably pass on New Age sites and the political sites that offer astute ongoing commentary on all that's wrong, though there are plenty in both categories doing terrific work. What I'm more interested in is those sites that speak with special power to the emerging activist in you. I'll list those on the right-hand sidebar for you find and visit.

Steve offered up two sites that fit the bill: Zaadz and Global Mindshift. I was taken with the short video at Zaadz that showed who we are. Or can be. Thanks, Steve...

Here's the Big Premise. Is it true, 1-10?

2007-08-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

Naming a blog "REALLY taking America Back" strongly suggests faith that it can happen. I remember exactly when I got the faith. It was probably the juiciest aha moment of my ten years hosting talk radio on an NPR regional network. I couldn't get it out of my mind until I laid it out in a magazine essay called "The Hidden Agreement," which was reprinted at the end of As If We Were Grownups (I'll try hard not to overpitch that book in this blog; if I'm not trying hard enough I'm trusting you'll let me know).

I hope you'll take a few (5-10) minutes to read "The Hidden Agreement." This is important, because if its central premise doesn't work then the chances of taking America back drop down to, oh, about...zero, best I can tell. Go ahead, I'll wait...

...Okay. I'd like your gut check on this essay, ranked 1-10. 1 means "this essay's a complete crock" and 10 means "this is EXACTLY how it seems to me." Any particular experience about all this come to mind?

Let's get started

2007-08-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

“Let’s Take America Back.”

That’s the slogan I chose for the prospective U.S. Senate campaign I’ve been exploring for the past two months. For me its power comes from ten years hosting a daily public radio talk show, listening to countless callers say pretty much the same thing: “What country is this we’re living in? And what did they do with the one I learned to love as a child?” It didn’t matter which party they belong to or where they stand on today’s issues. They all want their country back.

Some of my callers would explain, often in well-informed detail, how America’s corporate elite have Congress, the White House, the mass media, the election process and the financial system wired up so tight that We the People can never regain power (and what fun and merry conversations those were). Certainly true… if that’s what we believe. And if it is then we’re saying that a couple hundred thousand elites can permanently keep three hundred million of us from having what we want.

I’m sorry, but that’s just too embarrassing to accept. So what if we don’t? What if instead we remembered that we still openly elect our leadership in this country (we’ll talk another day about the growing scale of electronic fraud that brings that premise into question), which gives us some power and responsibility to move this country towards what we want it to be? What would happen if we took that belief, and the work/pleasure of citizenship necessary to animate it, much more seriously?

That’s one question that drove me to look hard at a run for the Senate. And the first thing I noticed was that just about every non-incumbent campaign I can find is making some kind of reference to “taking our country back.” Seems like we have an early nominee for the most overworked cliché of 2008.

Fine. So what does it mean? And how do we do it? This post begins a campaign to answer those questions. We start with a conversation, but conversation alone isn’t enough.. Remember this one?

Network came out in 1976. Think how much we have taken in the thirty years since. In the real world. sad to say, ‘not taking it anymore’ demands more of us than screaming that we’re not going to take it anymore.

I'm committed to challenging all of us to discover and advance whatever it takes to really take our country back. A partisan run for the U.S. Senate, boxed in by the demands of 10-second sound bites, dialing for dollars and delivering the goods to campaign contributors, turns out to be a poor way to do that. And it’s not just the campaign process that’s taken America astray; we have to take a fresh look at the core notion that everything will be fine if we just put good people into office. I'll bet you remember this one:

That fictional Mr. Smith held forth in 1939. Maybe back then white knights like Jimmy Stewart were enough to save the day (I doubt it). Today we know better. We can send the best people we know into the entrenched power matrix of Washington and they won’t take our country back for us. They need us with and behind them, actively, persistently, sometimes raucously, to overcome the huge hurdles that a century of big-money politics has set in place.

Did I mention that this revived citizenship has to be satisfying and (at least occasionally) fun? That’s because if it’s not, we won’t take it on. If you’re not thinking that your life is too busy to take on any more responsibilities, you’re unusual. The biggest challenge to taking our country back is finding ways to engage that enrich rather than drain energy from our lives. The activism we’re here to foster will flow from what we want more than what we “should” do.

Here’s the good news: a lot of activists within reach of this blog have experience and ideas on how to do that, and we’ll find out what they are. Better news: America's bursting at the seams with all kinds of smart, creative groups and organizations devoted to taking our country back. We’ll link to them to learn what works, what’s enriching and productive, what isn’t. I don't know about you, but when I get excited about a project I can forget that there are usually a lot of terrific ideas already out there for the sharing; it’s far too late in the game to burn up precious energy reinventing wheels. In the words of the Hopi Elder Prayer,

"This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly... Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate…. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!”

Okay. Let’s gather ourselves.