Sender: "Bruce Schuman"
Subject: Single Issue / Multiple Issues / All Issues
Date: Mon, Mar 24, 2014
Msg: 100843

My name is James Davis, I am the founder of The Amalgamist, a non-partisan page on facebook that has gained lots of attention and now has nearly 7,000 followers. I have come up with a platform on my own and I would be interested in feedback.

-Opposed to closed primary elections where 1st amendment rights are infringed upon that discriminate against non-partisan voters. -Stop Gerrymandering by having an independent government funded program that does not take money from any special interest groups and draws districts according the the polygon methodology. -Fiscal responsibility and no more wasteful spending. -Rejecting the tax and spend mentality. -Understanding the difference between wasteful spending and investing in the future. -Streamlining government processes and reducing the size of government by cutting the red tape that hinders innovation and creativity. -Implementing a policy that ensures an Inspector General will be present in every corner of the government to ensure fiscal responsibility. -Encouraging entrepreneurship. -Giving as much of the public sector back to the private sector while maintaining efficiency and cost effectiveness. -Rational understanding that certain government institutions need to exist but that they should be held accountable and made responsible through biannual auditing. -Against overtaxation while understanding that taxes in general are necessary for the basic functions of a non-anarchist society. -Raising the minimum wage above the poverty line. -Stop the spend it or lose it mentality of the federal budget. -Eliminate overlap in government programs. -Close down government buildings that are unoccupied. -End offshore tax shelters and loopholes. -Have non-partisan committees set up district lines to eliminate gerrymandering. -Reform the primary process to promote moderate candidates. -Encouraging the best and the brightest from all walks of life from all over the planet to flock to the United States by reforming our immigration process with a realistic and responsible pathway for amnesty. -Securing the boarder and keeping out illegal immigrants who bypass our tax code. -A respect for private property and individual land ownership. -Deportation of illegal immigrants who seek healthcare. -Tuition at public Universities should not exceed the rate of inflation. -Student loan interest rates on private loans should not exceed 3% and federal student loans should not exceed 1%. Public institutions of higher learning should look at Oregon as a blue print for how to pay for college with their "Pay It Forward" system. In this system graduates form public universities pay a certain percentage of their annual income to the institution they graduated from at an inte -Against the for profit prison system. -Term limits on all congressman set to 5 terms in office. -Legalization of Marijuana by using Colorado as a model. -Accepting that 97% of the scientific community is right with its facts on environmental issues. -Incentivizing the private sector to develop sustainable forms of energy. -Rejecting crony capitalism and embracing responsible capitalism. -Encouraging people to eat healthy because the only real way out of the health crisis is personal responsibility. -Against Citizens United which creates money in politics that manifests itself as corruption in Washington. -Solving the future problems of social security and medicare now by raising the cap to $500,000 as an income level for who has to pay into the program. It would also be an interesting idea to do health inspections at age 60 to see if people are not up to par for their jobs and then do this inspection again every year. If you are fully capable of performing your desk job till 67 you should, if you are a carpenter with a bum shoulder at 60 that should also be acknowledged. -A chained CPI for social security that will reduce deficits by a 1/4 trillion over a 10 year period. This will decrease the COLA of individuals compared to current CPI models but we must all make a sacrifice for the fiscal security of the future. -Freedom of religion means all religions, not just your own. -Separation of church and state, not because we think it is right or wrong, but because the constitution says so. This also means that churches and religious organizations have the right to refuse gay marriages within their convents. For the federal government to say that these institutions must hold these ceremonies is a merger on church and state within its-self. -Understanding the role that religious institutions play in real progress for local communities. We want you to get out there and help your fellow man! The only way for people to not be dependent on a centralized government system is for communities to come together again. -Disbanding the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA. -Equal rights for the LGBT community because freedom for ALL is the ultimate way to be a freedom loving, American flag waving patriot. -Fighting welfare fraud by making sure only the proper people are receiving welfare by creating a better auditing policy for recipients. -Funding for high school trade programs is very important. We need to encourage skilled labor. We can do this through education programs, and fund it by cutting certain aspects of the welfare system to fund government contracts to private construction companies. -Understanding the importance of the 2nd Amendment and the role it plays in standing up to tyranny, while also having a working sense of history in that Ghandi was able to overthrow the British empire without a single shot fired. We also need to explore the option of linking gun ownership to the private sector through an insurance program. This way lower insurance rates would be given to individuals who have a clean bill of history and who can prove lock and key ownership. Also the private insurance company would be able to explore the family situation and the mental state of a household. This would keep the federal government out of the way and ensure that responsible people were carrying weapons. We should also abolish the gun show loop hole.

-Being pro-life also means being pro-adoption. Reject hypocrisy. If you are willing to promote a passionate resentment towards abortion, you should show an equally empathetic passion towards adoption. If you are not willing to make this stance a reality in your own life then you have no right to decide the stance others take with theirs. We must also understand that Roe vs. Wade was not the beginning of abortions, it was the end of a black market for them. Easy access to affordable contraception is key to alleviating a significant number of unwanted pregnancies. At the end of the day abortion laws should be kept out of the federal government and left up to each state to decide what their particular demographic wants. -Open up the conversation to include means testing for abortion. If you can afford a child and the pregnancy was not established out of rape and does not hurt the mother than we need to take a serious look at the situation. Preventing life simply because of inconvenience is morally wrong. -Having a strong paid maternity leave program for new mothers. -Reforming the adoption process because adopting a child should not cost more than aborting one. -Allow federally funded stem cell research. -Having a head start program that actually does useful things and not having it just be a glorified federally funded day care service. -The death penalty should be legal with each state deciding if they want to adopt it or not. These convictions should only be carried out if there is irrefutable evidence and if the crime was particularly heinous. -Ban stop and frisk. -Euthanasia should be legal if the individual has zero chance for recovery. -A foreign policy that encourages the diplomatic relations of the United Nations. -When Western world interests are at stake we must act multilaterally and not unilaterally. -We need to dwindle down our overseas bases in Europe and work towards shrinking the DoD budget in general. -Decreasing the NASA budget and scaling down our space exploration programs until we get the budget under control. -Recognizing the strategic interests of having overseas bases in the Pacific. -Authorization to mobilize American armed forces should be a congressional decision not an executive one. -Analyzing every possible angle of our foreign relations policy with a working sense of history so that we do not repeat our past mistakes. -An ideal that promotes personal responsibility and accountability. -Reinstating the Glass Steagall Act to break up the institutions that are "too big to fail." Letting institutions that are acting irresponsibly fail is a pillar of capitalism. Having a large central government taking the risk out of capitalism will only have short term benefits. -The implementation of a wage ratio that would essentially set minimum and maximum base wages. This would not include stock options. We feel that trickle down capitalism can work, as long as the water in the glass pours over when it fills up. Today it seems like the glass magically keeps getting bigger. -Elimination of taxes for all small businesses for the first 2 years of their existence. This would create a great climate for entrepreneurship in America and would be a huge engine for job growth. -Giving businesses who hire veterans a tax break. -Eliminating the tax free status of the NFL. -Scaling down the scope of the NSA while understanding the delicate balance between security and freedom. -GMO foods should not be banned because there certinaly are benefits to a drought resistant product, but people in a free nation should be informed enough by package labeling to be able to make an informed decision if these products may have health consequences. -Having better oversight over the wasteful spending that happens between government contracts and union contractors. -Encouraging democratic institutions to promote a society that feels safe and respected in their day to day lives while at work. -Reducing the size of government subsidies for large sections of the industrialized economy that are doing fine on their own. Examples would be the oil and agriculture sectors. -Giving tax breaks to small, local, organic farmers. -Reforming the North American Free Trade Agreement and other free trade agreements like it that serve to ship good middle class American jobs overseas. -Welfare should not be eliminated in its entirety but we can do better. We need a government that does not try to solve our problems by throwing money at the issue. Instead we need to take a page out of the 1930's and put people to work re-building our infrastructure. We need to take the wasteful spending out of our governments social programs and demand that individuals who are 100% reliant on government assistance go through a certain training program that teaches them a skill, a skill that we will all benefit from when we put them to work. -For disabled individuals who cannot work and must depend on welfare we should have a drug testing system, but not like the one that failed in Florida. Florida's system was way to inefficient and way to expensive and have terrible results. We need a cost effective random drug testing system that cannot be manipulated. If individuals are found to be on drugs then there needs to be a 3 strike policy implemented where individuals are treated like medical patients. After three strikes the individual will have to be treated like others in society with no self control and be sentenced to prison. -Random drug tests in prisons where if convicts are found using will either have to give up the supplier or face a length of time in isolation to quite cold turkey. -Closing the Halliburton loophole on fracking that allows the natural gas industry to sidestep common sense environmental protections. -Against the monopolization of any industry. -Understanding the difficulties of having capitalism and the health care industry co-exist because it is impossible for individuals to negotiate prices for not dying. This creates inelastic demand and is bad for our economy. But lets open up the conversation and start talking about how we can reform our health care system. Obamacare seem's doomed, but it will be years before the verdicts out. Maybe we could break the health care industry into pieces where only the emergency room and inpatient surgeries are covered by a federally funded mandate where the federal government negotiates with private companies for cheaper health care, something that would actually drive competition. On the flip side outpatient procedures, dental care, and routine visits could be covered by an extremely cheap private insurance premium. This frankenstein of a system would be complicated, but sometimes the right answers require a new way of thinking. -Opening up the discussion on tax incentives for a healthy lifestyle and tax punishments for individuals who throw inhibitions to the wind and lack any sense of personal responsibility. -Rejecting the ALEC and other institutions that foster plutocracy. -Advocating the "Financial Transaction Tax" which would be a .03% tax on stock, bond and derivative transactions. The idea behind this would be to put a tax on speculative banking which would generate nearly $40 billion annually. This tax would only have to be a fraction of a percent, we are talking a few cents for every 100 or so transactions and would really do a great deal to offset our budget imbalance while curbing the casino mentality of wall street. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_transaction_tax#United_States ) -The government should prosecute copyright violators but not regulate the internet. -We should offer social programs to address poverty regardless of race or ethnicity. -Limit the Federal governments powers when it comes to the Patriot Act. -Military sexual assault cases need to be handled by private prosecutors. -Stop using drones as a weapon of terror. Too many innocent people are being killed and we are only breeding more dangerous and desperate people through these programs. -End the trade embargo and travel ban with Cuba. -Military support for Israel is essential to a stable middle east. Palestine should also have UN charter recognition. -Foreign terror suspects should not be given American constitutional rights but should be tried at a military tribunal. -Support a national base education standard but allow states and local districts to customize their implementation. -Local and state police should be monitored while on duty to make sure that they are not abusing their power. -Our regulation, tax code and laws need to be simplified so that it does not take an army of lawyers to decipher them. This complexity creates an unfair advantage for small business owners who do not have the resources to decipher these complex regulations and tax codes. -We need to stop using an oversimplified axe approach to cutting the DoD budget. We need to use a scalpel, we need to make sure we cut the fat while leaving the lean meat intact. We can accomplish this by setting up a policy where we train financial specialists in every command who are able to create a stable budget for each sailor, soldier or marine while also helping them save for retirement. The excess needs to be eliminated. This can be accomplished through micromanagement. The same can be said for defense contractors. I don't want to read anymore stories about how the United States spent billions of dollars on a fleet of aircraft just to have those aircraft be stationary in some hanger in the middle of no where. -During times of peace we need to restructure our military. An extravagant standing Army seems unnecessary, while a strong Navy that protects shipping lanes and economic activity does seem like a necessity. Finding the balance here is essential to proper Pentagon budgeting and we need to always be striving for efficiency. We should also strive to implement technology and specialized forces into this equation. The better our technology gets the less need we will have for massive numbers of boots on the ground and the more money and lives we can save. -A return to the enforcement of the Sherman Anti-trust act of 1890 so that we can have more competition in America. -Establish a carbon tax. We need to take a look at what Ireland has done recently with its carbon tax that has had great success. Americans need to come to accept a harsh reality. This reality is that no matter what, carbon fuels are finite. This resource may very well last a hundred or so more years, but it will eventually run out. We can either hit the wall in the future, or starting preparing for the transition now. A carbon tax that generates $25 per ton of carbon emitted, if made a global initiative would generate $783,761,375,000 annually. If the world came together and used this money to invest in algae fuel, solar electricity and other renewable resources we could realistically become carbon neutral very quickly and ensure a better future for generations to come.

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 9:53 AM, Bruce Schuman wrote:

I?ve been wanting to post something about inclusion and simultaneity and ?holistic thinking? ? by which I mean ? find ways to ?include everything? ? and pretty-much ?all at the same time? ? with ideas on how this becomes feasible.

I?d make the argument that this idea is the essence of ?transpartisanism? ? and also represents the huge challenge we are facing if we want to realize our hopes for a transformed new politics.

Transpartisanism generally means ?consider all sides of an issue?. Maybe in a broader sense it means ?consider all sides of ALL issues? ? a lot harder to do, and kind of a mind-blowing thought. But maybe ? as I would argue ? this is a skill or capacity we must master.

**

We are all familiar with concerns about ?single-issue politics?.

Some voters ? sometimes (perhaps rudely) called ?low information voters? ? are motivated by one issue only. Guns ? abortion ? immigration ? something on taxes or ?government intrusion? perhaps.

Others pick a few issues ? and generally bundle them together. This kind of packaging generally creates ?political parties?. Democrats/blue-state people are concerned with a specific set of issues ? Republicans/red-state people are concerned with a different set. Get them to look at the same issue (guns, abortion, taxes, etc.), they are likely to take very differing positions ? often, obviously, in confrontational and demonizing ways.

The big challenge ? that tends to overload our cognitive capacity, no matter where we are on the political spectrum ? involves taking on an awareness of all the contingent simultaneous interdependent issues we are facing, all at the same time. It?s those issues ? all of them ? in some balanced and proportional and equitable way ? not just whatever happens to be claiming airtime on cable news ?that we must responsibly and wisely confront as citizens of the USA or the world.

**

I was looking at the website this morning for founders of this TRANSPARTISAN discussion ? the Mediator?s Foundation. There are projects described there on globalism and global citizenship. This is an inspiring breadth of vision, and one I am convinced we must embrace.

http://mediatorsfoundation.org/projects/

For me, this concern with globalism, in the end, is the container that we must adopt. The very issue of ?where to draw the boundaries? ? on just about anything ? is in negotiation these days. It?s all transient, despite some of us yearning for the good old days when structures seemed stable. National boundaries, legal boundaries (?when does life begin??, ?what should our immigration policy be??, or something as simple as a speed limit ? ?how fast is too fast??) -- it?s all in negotiation today, all concerned with drawing boundary lines ? and we are finding ourselves embattled on just about everything, and fighting with each other over everything in unpleasant and destructive ways. What should we do in Ukraine? Perspectives range across a wide spectrum. It?s a fast-moving thing ? and tomorrow it will be Syria again, or Iranian nukes, or North Korea. Hard to keep up, and it?s all embattled.

Looking at this concern just now, I came across a great graphic. It too is mind-blowing. This stuff is coming so fast, in such tremendous volume ? it puts us all in an entirely new world, that ? in my opinion ? demands an entirely new way to think. Some call this ?The Shift? ? and there?s a beautiful website called Kosmos Journal that talks about it. It?s all about ?global citizenship? and the role of the commons in the human future.

http://kosmosjournal.org

This is graphic describes the amazing/stunning information flow happening today ? right now ? across the internet. What happens across the internet in one minute?

We need to get this through our heads. This isn?t science-fiction. This is happening now.

Let?s not be discouraged because low-information voters or obstinate partisans won?t step up to the high standards of Deliberative Democracy. Let?s give them a break, meet them all on their home turf, create an inviting pathway that can hear and respect their concern, and make it easy for them.

We need to get on top of the power and information-flow suggested by this graphic. This super-high-capacity network power probably gives us the capability to support the inclusive transpartisan conversation of our dreams. Just get the engineering right, and follow the great advice and insight of so many experts in NCDD. Thanks!

http://www.intelfreepress.com/news/networks-strain-to-keep-pace-with-data-ex plosion/191

*********

Bruce Schuman

NETWORK NATION: http://networknation.net

SHARED PURPOSE: http://sharedpurpose.net

INTERSPIRIT: http://interspirit.net

(805) 966-9515 , PO Box 23346, Santa Barbara CA 93101

From: List for transpartisan leaders and innovators [mailto:TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG] On Behalf Of John Steiner/ Margo King Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 1:47 PM To: TRANSPARTISAN@LISTS.THATAWAY.ORG Subject: [TRANSPARTISAN] NETWORK NATION - Paycheck to Paycheck

Friends,

Bruce sent this out to the NCDD list serve and seems appropriate for the Transpartisan listserv as well. Thank you Bruce.

Very best, John

From: Bruce Schuman Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 08:04:45 -0700 Subject: [NCDD-DISCUSSION] NETWORK NATION - Paycheck to Paycheck

Good morning, People, thanks for all of this. Just want to pursue the Zeitgeist here, and follow up with a few more thoughts and possibilities. This is just an initial draft over a first cup of coffee ? but I?m feeling lots of possibilities. Hope I make sense?.. NETWORK NATION

There?s something appealing about this phrase. When the Internet was just a gleam in the eye ? or a academic network in the hands of ArpaNet ? some early experimenters created something called the ?EIES? system. This was the late 1970?s. Visionary writers like Ted Nelson had some fabulous ideas about interconnecting everything and everybody, and a book was published with the title NETWORK NATION ? by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff. ?Remarkably prescient? says the Wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_society http://www.amazon.com/Network-Nation-Revised-Communication-Computer/dp/02625 81205 http://kk.org/writings/the-birth-of-a-network-nation.php (WELL writer Kevin Kelly) The book made a big splash on The WELL (?Whole Earth ?Lectronic Link ? http://www.well.com ) where I was an avid participant in their bohemian ?café? environment (Stewart Brand, Howard Rheingold, Douglas Rushkoff, etc.). This was a hot-bed of creative network activism in the late 1980?s, and tons of things that were to become the internet were under excited discussion (at 1200 baud, pay by the minute!). This is where I first heard the phrase ?netweaver?. Thanks to this interesting NCDD conversation on stewardship of the CC momentum, I was flashing on some possibilities. What about picking up this concept NETWORK NATION ? as a framework for hundreds of interlinked conversations, on any subject anybody thinks is important?. ?NET NEUTRALITY?

Many writers in the NCDD conversation have mentioned the issue of ?competition? between various methods, the importance of NCDD retaining their role as a neutral convener rather than an advocate. Point taken. Let?s keep this in mind ? and yet, still keep pushing for the broadly inclusive vision? So here?s a thought. What about ? doing a side-by-side comparison of as many group process methods as might make sense ? and looking for the basics of their ?common ground? ? maybe in some formal careful politically-sensitive way ? but aiming for a broad ?conversation convention? (set of guiding principles) that just about any group or method could share? Citing Conversation Café and Living Room Conversations is just the barest beginning. How many other methods belong in the broader ?all purpose? conversation framework? Let?s make a list ? get their bullet-points and methods as clear as possible ? honor the specific details and points of difference, recognizing that these differences are valuable and maybe essential in different contexts ? but still, keep aiming to clarify and precisely define what they have in common ? points they could all agree on, regardless of other specifics where they might differ. It might be hard to do that in writing, in words ? people can argue about words forever ? but if we took a low-key relaxed friendly approach, and just tried to sketch this out ? we might start coming up with a set of basic general-purpose conventions that work in most conversational environments where tensions might be running high and good protocols very important. A CONSTITUTION FOR THE NETWORK NATION

Ok, just humor me (thanks!) Let?s say this happens, we get 17 methods on the table, get a long list of bullet points taken from them all, and schmooze around until we maybe got 6 points that seem to hold up in all contexts. Then we start negotiating some kind of broad agreement among interested parties ? where we say ? can you guys live comfortably with this general set of 6 points? If that works, and people start getting excited ? we might then start envisioning this emerging ?Network Nation? that NCDD and compadres might be able to spin out into reality. Fundamentals: 1) Basic general agreement for all conversations running under this common-ground convention 2) General-purpose shared set of ?tags? or ?keys? that we use to hold together 500 separate conversations on 61 separate subjects or issues (what are the issues, what are the categories ? we agree on common wording, and agree to share these integrating keys. Yes, this involves some homework, and could become a bit mechanistic ? but we look for ways to keep it simple and easy to live to with, and as practical as possible in an actual conversational format) 3) Basic/simple technology convention to share protocols for web sites and smartphones and other electronic network support 4) Periodic network update process ? where all groups upload their new keys and subjects/themes into a common pool, that gets schmoozed and cleaned up and simplified, and sent back out to the entire Network Nation and the entire process grows another notch?. PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK

Just this morning, Maria Shriver came on MSNBC?s ?Morning Joe? program to talk about her new project and film ? ?Paycheck to Paycheck? ? about the struggles of working people on low wages in today?s economy. This is a big issue, with a lot of heat behind it. Maria had a beautiful lady with her, a healthcare worker with 3 beautiful kids, working for $9.49 an hour ? a tough-to-impossible assignment. All this makes sense, and Maria has a strong website for this project. http://shriverreport.org/film/

(and PS, Maria also has this thing called A WOMAN?S NATION ? so maybe that too blinks on a few lights) But here?s the thought. On Morning Joe, Maria said she already has 500 people who have signed up to have conversations around the USA on this subject. When I heard that, I got out of bed to take some notes (Morning Joe starts in California at 3am ). Maria?s conversations should be embedded in our national NETWORK NATION. We should be interconnecting conversations like this in every direction ? under the illumination of a shared highly-articulate and broadly-informed convention, formed through collaboration/dialogue by NCDD people. What would it take to get the CC conversations right now into the context of the Paycheck to Paycheck conversation? Could Living Room Conversations connect with Maria and support what she is doing? How about other NCDD groups and methods? Could we start sparking some collaboration and growth around this important human issue? (Hmmm ? is this too far afield? How about a connection between ?Mom?s Rising? (Joan Blades) and A Woman?s Nation? If those two groups can?t get along ? what does that tell us?? JJ -- we gotta make this work! Everybody step up! Or maybe it?s already happening?.. JJ ) Ok, that?s it for now. Lot to think about. Might be hugely exciting if it starts coming together. Thanks to all, thanks to Kenoli for these good thoughts, thanks and Hi to Debilyn, who I haven?t seen since ? Veteran?s day in Fresno in 2009? Or was it the ?Engaging the Other? conference with the Common Bond Institute ? in that session organized by Joseph McCormick, that brought together Joan Blades and Max Pappas and Michael Ostrolenk? You still working with Annabel? Blessings. - Bruce Oh, PS, here?s a table card that Joseph McCormick was using. I might have picked this up at the event in Fresno?

Bruce Schuman SHARED PURPOSE: http://sharedpurpose.net INTERSPIRIT: http://interspirit.net (805) 966-9515 , PO Box 23346, Santa Barbara CA 93101 *************** Hi Everyone! I hope you have all been following the discussion Sandy started on Monday about the opportunity for NCDD to steward Conversation Cafes. Over on the blog (http://ncdd.org/14379) there has been over 50 comments, with members supporting CCs and NCDD's potential to support and steward them, as well as asking some important questions about resources, implications for NCDD's reputation and mission, and alternative options. I also want to make sure you read the posts that have gone out to this listserv, including some interesting ideas posed by Bruce Shuman yesterday (separate email titled "Democracy in the Cloud") and Kenoli Oleari today. Both have outlined ideas for ways to catalyze more expansive, collective, and effective work, and reflect some of the comments and ideas others have shared, as well as Sandy's idea of utilizing CCs for rapid response to issues and to introduce newcomers to dialogue. Be sure to join us on the