I just want to ask this question:
Are we making enough progress on climate change & inequality – the 2 biggest political issues I know of?
Antibiotic-resistant disease from using antibiotics too much is another large threat – 300,000,000 people are projected to die from it in the next 35 years. That’s about 27 Holocausts worth of deaths.
We must understand this problem, our options & situation, & choose among them in accordance with what is best in all terms, but especially the long-term — that is the one we will be feeling the longest.
Thank you for all the leaps & bounds we are making, we will not only be reaping the bounties of all this hard, smart work, in our time now, but we WILL be an inspiration for a long time to come.
Thank You Everyone.
The last post’s follow-ups can be traced back something like this, for the record:
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in 2010 I began talking about something I didn’t know anyone to be talking about: this link has got a sample you really should read from, especially the ideas in philosophy forums there.
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Even President Barack Obama eventually said two things I had previously said:
After that 2010 floe just shared, just before the U.S. elections in 2012, I had been hammering this graph from our emerging culture, included in a Mother Jones page – something that, altho not part of popular culture when I had had that floe of rhetoric, above, economists like Robert Reich had already been talking about:
Barack Obama put forward the same idea here, in Dec. 2013, for the first time . . .
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I crystallized this & another issue as central issues here: the 2nd being Climate Change; I projected it like a ray into our culture: deep, & also strongly; & like the miracle of a seed that produces the first shoot in Spring, he said similarly here, about 5 months later.
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Going back a bit further, even before these caught flames & Occupy Wall Street emerged, I went further: I was the first person I knew to be citing The Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln’s renowned speech) again, when fighting for increased democracy in a time tending toward oligarchy & improved communications media – 2010:
From IRC Undernet #political logfile, July 12th, 2010:
[17:19:28] <lakitu> a fourth american government branch with equal power as a check & balance: The People
[17:20:23] <lakitu> poguemahone: we built a good gov, possibly the best in history: the american government
[17:20:46] <poguemahone> lakitu… sure.. in 1776 it was very good.
[17:21:26] <lakitu> it is a good gov – but we could improve it now that a better more people’s-choice,-people-powered government is as-neverbefore feasible: direct democracy using the internet
[17:21:36] <lakitu> it at least stands suggestion, & contemplation
[17:21:47] <lakitu> at least blog about it on your facebook ;)
[17:22:01] <human810927> Let a state try it lakitu
[17:22:38] <lakitu> sure – i say let it run on “training wheels” as a website, without any power: trial run. doing a pretend “prototype” would be the best way to tell if it’s practicable
[17:22:41] <lakitu> & worth the change
[17:24:28] <lakitu> i.e., a website where you read senate & congress literature, & other government literature (including bills), discuss them, & vote freely for them; this with no real legislative power, as a pretend trial run mock 4th Branch (The People), & see if it’s sensible & barcleared worthwhile
[17:25:48] <lakitu> Lincoln called this A Government Of The People, By The People, & For The People. what could be more coherent with his philosophy
I didn’t know of anyone proposing government sites, especially ones giving The People much more voice in government.
& Then after that – say what you will, in late 2011, “WeThePeople” was introduced. I must say it is important to note: my idea reaches farther than the site that was made.
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In this vein, & I am overjoyed that the currently leading presidential candidate – leading by miles & miles, last I heard – said what I had mentioned as an idea, & later pushed as a bit more important idea here & here & here, within the last month: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/16/profit-sharing-makes-good-business-sense-hillary-clinton-says/?_r=0.
In fact it’s a centerpiece of the leader’s economic platform, according to The New York Times.
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(I am not trying to toot my own horn, but: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WFs76IQnOw . . . )
Thank You; & Good Day.
Joseph Jerome Valentyn
Owatonna, Minnesota, The United States Of America