> Ah, but it has changed the balance, albeit in a
> small way. Those 100
> people at Twin Oaks are not taking jobs from local
> employers, and
> that means either 100 jobs are available for others
> to take or that
> 100 less people are on unemployment, welfare, or
> penniless.
Actually the area Twin Oaks is located in is probably in worse shape economically than when the community started.
> It also
> means that products are available on the market that
> were locally
> made, so less shipping would be involved for those
> same products if
> they were purchased elsewhere. It means socially
> responsible
> purchasing for the people who use their products and
> less equivalent
> purchased from socially irresponsible sources. It
> means contribution
> to the tax base to benefit others and unfortunately
> to support war.
> It means additional markets for vendors to Twin
> Oaks. You simply
> can't say it has no impact or it leaves the balance
> unchanged. And
> if others did their small part, maybe we'd see more
> and more impact.
> This small "votes" add up.
So is it possible that everyone in the United States, or even a simple majority, can start living like they do on Twin Oaks? I spose all those folks living in urban public housing and working minimum wage are just wasting their time, being too "materialistic"?
> What free ride on industrial society? They have
> done this without
> capitalist investment.
Where would the dumpster-diver-- heroically recycling and eating food that would otherwise be wasted-- be without that upscale gourmet food store on Broadway throwing out its trash every night. Where would the can collector be without Coca-Cola bottling Co.? You realize they have done all this hard work without capitalist investment...
> Seriously, the reason I'm leaning that way is
> because I no longer
> think gov't can help us as it is too corrupt. So
> I'm no "big gov't"
> fan. The Republicans used to say they didn't want
> big gov't either.
> But the Republicans lied. They do want big gov't so
> they can use it,
> its tax base, and its military to pursue their
> capitalist business
> interests.
>
> What I'd rather see is distributed gov't, with the
> tax collection
> processed turned upside down, local townships
> collecting taxes and
> sending it up the ladder to the state, who sends it
> to the central
> gov, instead of the other way around like it is now.
> Those who
> control the money control the power, so let's keep
> the power
> localized where we can keep an eye on it and get to
> it. Let's take
> the power away from DC and its one stop lobbyist
> shopping mall. The
> local mayor would have more power than the POTUS.
> Give the central
> gov't what the Constitution mandated to them and
> nothing more. Their
> "small Navy" can be the Coast Guard. Our miiltary
> would go back to
> being state or local militias. That way, if the
> blue states didn't
> want to contribute to the war in Iraq, they'd simply
> not fund it.
> Let Texas fund it.
Let's compare that to an excerpt from Newt Gingrich's speech after the "Contract with America" was passed in 1995. See anything in here that you're at odds with?
http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_102/newt4.htm NEWT: "So what I want to talk with you about tonight is not just what a new political majority on Capitol Hill has accomplished in 100 days, but how all of us together, Republicans and Democrats alike, must totally remake the federal government, to change the very way it thinks, the way it does business, the way it treats its citizens. After all, the purpose of changing government is to improve the lives of our citizens, to strengthen the future of our children, to make our neighborhoods safe and to build a better country. Government is not the end. It is the means.
"We Americans wake up every morning, go to work, take our kids to school, fix dinner, do all the things we expect of ourselves, and yet something isn't quite right. There's no confidence that government understands the values and realities of our lives. The government is out of touch and out of control. It is in need of deep and deliberate change. Americans will be able to sleep a little better at night and wake up feeling less anxious about their futures.
"I represent the people who work at the Ford plant in Hapeville, Georgia. The Ford Motor Company, like all the domestic auto industry, faced the need to change in order to keep up with tougher competition. Today they produce twice as many cars per employee at three times the quality. And General Motors and Chrysler are doing the very same thing. So are America's small businesses. They're all rethinking the way they operate. Should government be any different?...Of course not.
"We sincerely believe we can reduce spending and at the same time make government better. You know, virtually every institution in America except government has re-engineered itself to become more efficient over the last decade. They cut spending, provided better products, better education and better service for less.
"But I believe we must remake government for reasons much larger than saving money or improving services. The fact is, no civilization can survive with 12-year-olds having babies, with 15-year-olds killing each other, with 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, with 18-year- olds getting diplomas they can't even read. Every night on every local news we see the human tragedies that have grown out of the current welfare state.
"As a father of two daughters, I can't ignore the terror and worry parents in our inner cities must feel for their children. Within a half-mile of this Capitol, your Capitol, drugs, violence and despair threaten the lives of our citizens. We cannot ignore our fellow Americans in such desperate straits by thinking that huge amounts of tax dollars release us from our moral responsibility to help these parents and their children. There is no reason the federal government must keep an allegiance to failure. You know, with good will, with common sense, with the courage to change, we can do better for all Americans.
Another fact we cannot turn our head away from is this: No truly moral civilization would burden its children with the economic excesses of the parents and grandparents. Now, this talk of burdening future generations is not just rhetoric. We're talking about hard economic consequences that will limit our children and grandchildren's standard of living. Yet that is what we are doing for the children trapped in poverty, for the children whose futures are trapped by a government debt they're going to have to pay. We have an obligation tonight to talk about the legacy we are leaving our children and our grandchildren, an obligation to talk about the deliberate remaking of our government."
> My thinking about small is more in terms of
> redundancy, not simply
> small. I'd like to see MIcrosoft broken up into
> separate operating
> system, office systems, server systems, network
> system arms-length
> subsidiaries like was done to the Bell System in
> 1984. Then other
> smaller businesses would have a better chance at
> success in
> competition and redundancy.
Right, and, 20 years later, the "Baby Bells" are now two huge companies with all of the market share, one with drastically more. Success?
And here's more Newt:
> I absolutely disagree. The USSR failed because of
> corruption.
> Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We can't trust
> government to do
> right by its people. They have too much to gain by
> not doing so. We
> need to bust up central power and distribute it out
> to where we can
> keep under control. The writers of our Constitution
> realized this
> truth and we've seen it displayed too well not to
> realize the wisdom
> of what their thinking and intention was. Huge
> central gov't is
> causing our problems. How can we expect it to solve
> them?
....
> I say let's leave it up to the regions to decide for
> themselves. I
> bet we'd see the blue states institute social
> reforms while the red
> states would continue to favor corporate reforms.
> Let the people
> move to the places that serve them best in a
> decentralized
> environment. Let Texas and the rest of the South
> fund the wars,
> breathe their own polluted air, and sicken in their
> own waste
> disposal. I'll move to the blue state. That way
> each side can have
> just what they want and we'll see who does better.
"Mary Poppins is alive and well in Argentina, she sends her regards." - Rod McKuen, The Mud Kids
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