Earth Rights and the Next Economy _ Saving Mother and Child

[Raleigh Myers]

Raleigh Myers
Ra Energy Fdn,
Founded in 1973
Ra-Chi is our agenda http://ra-chi.org/ought.html

Much of what we do, is to give talking points to focus the conversation
on lowest common denominator solutions and thinking. Many have seen some
of these points before, how about those you might share this with...
Creative Commons encourages you to share and enhance...

Notes between the lines RA

When we look at the planet as a mother suckling a child we need to save
both if we are about to succeed...

Democracy, Earth Rights and the Next Economy
http://www.earthrights.net/docs/schumacher.html
presented by Alanna Hartzok
Twenty-First Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures
Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
October 27, 2001

Contents:

Human Rights to the Earth
The Enclosures
Martin Luther
Early Christian Teachings
More Enclosures
John Locke and the Crack in the Liberty Bell
Thaddeus Stevens and the Civil War
Martin Luther King on Viet Nam and Land Rights
The Carter Doctrine and US Imperialism
Joseph Stiglitz on Land and the Global Elite
What are We Going to Do About It?
Direct Action by Exploited and Mobilized Citizens
Enlightened Earth Rights State Institutions
Politicians Who are True Representatives of the People
Enlightened Vote of the Citizenry
Environmental Tax Reform
Work in Progress
Earth Rights and Information Technology
Conclusion
Alanna Hartzok bio
E. F. Schumacher quote
About E. F. Schumacher Society

Introduction by Susan Witt,
Executive Director of the E. F. Schumacher Society

How can the young be expected to defend their homeland when they come
home
to find they have no stake in the land? The inequitable distribution of
land ownership affects our society, our politics, our environment, our
communities - and ultimately our sense of well-being as a people. Alanna
Hartzok has worked tirelessly for more than twenty-five years to right
this
injustice. It is not surprising that it was Robert Swann, founder of the
Community Land Trust movement in this country, who recommended Alanna as
a
Schumacher Society speaker.

Alanna Hartzok is United Nations nongovernmental organization
representative for the International Union for Land Value Taxation. She
is
vice-president of the Council of Georgist Organizations, which has
thirty-five member organizations nationwide, and she is state coordinator
of the Pennsylvania Fair Tax Coalition. In 1993 she initiated tax reform
legislation and helped work it through the state legislature to nearly
unanimous passage of Senate Bill 211, signed by Governor Thomas Ridge in
November 1998.

Alanna's published articles on tax reform have been useful to legislators
in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and New York. She is
one of several people featured in Planet Champions: Adventures in Saving
the World: New Paths to Peace, Prosperity, and Human Rights.

Please join me in a big Schumacher Society welcome for Alanna Hartzok.

I am truly honored to have been invited by the E. F. Schumacher Society
to
be a lecturer today. I admit that "Democracy, Earth Rights and the Next
Economy" is a big topic for a lecture series traditionally based on the
idea that small is beautiful. Yet to be fully aware of the particulars of
the small - whether in terms of a small community or town or in terms of
working to build a more locally based appropriate economy - as the E. F.
Schumacher Society and the Institute for Community Economics, both of
which
were founded by Robert Swann, have done so steadfastly over the years, it
may be necessary, or at least useful, to grasp the biggest and most
expanded perspective in which that smallness is contained. From that
vantage point, combined with the unique particulars of our special place
on
earth, we can then more clearly know what seeds had best be planted in
that
smallness of our local towns and communities.

In this lecture I will be addressing the land problem and how to solve it
in such a way that we could release billions of dollars of funds to
invest
in the natural capitalism Amory Lovins described to you earlier today.
Amory talked about low-cost bamboo strong enough to build houses. A
little
bit of land can provide enough bamboo to grow your house out of that
land.
But what if you have no land? I will also elaborate on the concept of
earth
rights, pinpoint the fatal flaw in democracy as currently constituted,
explore the history of the problem, and, lastly, describe work in
progress
which would seem to be essential building blocks of the Next Economy.

It is clear to so many of us now that our current form of economy - some
call it monopoly or corporate capitalism - does not serve the highest and
best interests of either the people or the planet. Permit me to dream for
a
moment, for sometimes out of our visions flow new realities. Here is my
wish list for the Next Economy:

The Next Economy will be deeply unifying. Moving beyond either/or to
both/and, it will embrace the diversity of human cultural expressions.
The
Next Economy will be built upon the highest values of both the Left and
the
Right. It will be a fair economy and a free economy, using but not
abusing
the earth and her many resources. It will steadily, and in some places
rapidly, grow out of the old economy as more and more humans grasp its
principles and implement its policies. The Next Economy will have first
and
foremost the well-being of all the people on this planet. It will be
based
on the triple bottom line of social justice, restoration and protection
of
the environment, and the strength and stability to provide security in
basic needs.

The needs of the people and the needs of the planet are one and the same:
protection, care, validation, respect, appreciation, creative expression.
Thus, the ethics of the Next Economy will flow out of a profound
perception
that the rights of human beings and the rights of the planet are one and
the same. The Next Economy will be founded on ethics so simple and basic
that thoughtful human beings will say, Yes, this is true. The force
of truth is a liberating force, always has been and always will be.
Mahatma
Gandhi knew and taught this. Gandhi lived according to this sattyagraha,
the truth force.

Let us explore these truths, starting with a most obvious one: Would you
agree that everyone sitting and standing in this room, no matter where on
earth they originally came from, is a human being? Does this seem so
obvious that it is not worth mentioning? Years ago a friend named Gene
Haggerty took upon himself a one-man mission. He traveled around the
world
asking political and other leaders to sign a statement affirming their
belief that, beyond the colors and shades, the faiths and creeds, we are
all human beings. Although I could not grasp the Zen of it at the time, I
now understand that this was Genes ingenious way of reminding them of
this most basic truth - the primal holism of the human experience on
earth.1

Other basic questions: do human beings have a right to exist? Is this an
equal right? Does the planet have a right to exist? Are these important
questions, or are these absurd questions? Is existence itself a right
or is it a miracle and a mystery? The great ideals of human rights and
equality are based on a recognition that you and I have an equal right to
exist. The fact that we are all human beings with equal rights to exist
is
the truth upon which were built important agreements such as the
Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the International
Declaration of Human Rights. Alas, these fine declarations, like so many
others that have been agreed upon by governments and their citizenry,
have
not yet brought us a world of peace and plenty for all.

In August, I spent some time one afternoon in Baltimore talking with
Councilwoman Bea Gaddy, who passed away a few weeks ago from breast
cancer
at the age of 78. Dr. Gaddy, an African American, had for many years
worked
to take care of basic needs for food and shelter in the inner-city
neighborhoods. We sat together for a while that sweltering afternoon,
talking and sipping ice water at a card table in front of the row house
that was her social services home base. Dr. Gaddy said, I grew up poor
in Baltimore, but I never thought I would see things get worse and worse
here as they have the past few decades. People call me sometimes in the
middle of the night, saying Ms. Gaddy, I cant sleep, Im just
hungry.

We in the United States freed the slaves, but we have not freed all the
people - not even in Washington, New York, Baltimore, and Boston, the
cradles of our democracy - from the pain of hunger. As we fully confront
the reality of hunger, homelessness and basic needs insufficiencies in
this
country and in the many other countries that now call themselves
democracies, it becomes starkly clear that there is a major flaw at the
core of how democracy is constituted. Surely persistent hunger and
homelessness in America is not what the founding fathers envisioned for
the
year 2001!

Ra Feeding 100 lbs of feed to cattle while geting 3lbs of food to humans
is not hapening.

Human Rights to the Earth

We are all human beings with equal and inalienable rights to life. Yet
there is a crack in the Liberty Bell, there is something not sufficiently
well crafted, some dimension not understood or perhaps not able to be
fully
affirmed by European men at the time of the founding, no matter how well
intentioned and thoughtful some of them might have been. This
imperfection
was destined to divide the rich and the poor, to protect the powerful and
neglect the needy in our country and throughout the earth. We did not
have
the industrial technology to form a large durable metal bell at the time,
nor did we have the political technology to form a fully and fairly
functioning democracy.

Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Tom Paine understood that their work
was just a beginning step, that the venture of democratic governance
would
need to proceed with periodic revisions and perhaps even revolutions,
hopefully non-violent. Over the years - step by step, struggle by
struggle
- the full right to participate in the experiment of democracy yielded
the
right for all to vote and own land - if they could find a way to buy it.
While many are comfortable, the fact remains that there are far too many
Americans working too hard for too little. The widening mouth of the
wealth
gap now threatens to consume many who had made it into the middle class.
In
the USA today the top 1 percent of the people has more wealth than the
bottom 90 percent.2

More questions in search of first principles: Who are we human beings?
Where did we come from? Where are we going? What we do know for certain
is
that the human body is composed of earth elements. We are walking,
talking
bags of rock and salt water, recyclers of plant and animal material,
inspiring and expiring the gaseous fires. There is no ultimate separation
but rather a unity, as our earthly bodies are bound to the enlivening
energy of the sun and, in subtle ways yet to be fully realized, we are
galactic beings as well and are mysteriously related to the entire
universe.
Our existence as creatures of flesh and bone is totally dependent on the
land and natural resources of the earth. This earth, which no one of us
made, is simply a given.

Eli Siegel, an American poet and philosopher, in his 1946 essay
Ownership: Some Moments, stated,3 How the earth should be owned is
the major economic question of this time; as it is the oldest. In
another essay, Self and World he declared: The world should be
owned by the people living in it. Every person should be seen as living
in
a world truly his.

Ra This Land is made for you and me... anthem
http://raenergy.igc.org/ought.html#anthem

Other voices on earth rights:

Thomas Berry: Humans in their totality are born of the earth. We are
earthlings. The earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, our
guide... Thus the whole burden of modern earth studies is to narrate the
story of the birth of humans from our Mother Earth.

Chief Seattle: This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man
belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the
blood
which unites one family. All things are connected.

Ra We are all one people we are all one name we are one and the same PPM
http://raenergy.igc.org/onepeople.html

Patricia Mische: The more we grow in awareness of our own sacred source,
the more we discover that our own sacred source is the sacred source of
each person and all that is in the universe.4

Henry George: Do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real and lasting
until we secure to all the first of those equal and inalienable rights
with
which.... man is endowed by his creator - the equal and inalienable right
to the use and benefit of natural opportunities.5

The important and vital truth not enunciated or affirmed in our founding
democratic covenants is the truth that we, each and every one of us, has
an
equal right to the earth as our birthright. How did we lose this simple
truth, the primal perception that the earth is the birthright of all
people?

Ra Take this to the people and vote it to happen...
http://raenergy.igc.org/teninic.html#ten

In his essay The Problem of the Modern World John Mohawk6 states,
When land became a commodity and lost its status as provider and
sustainer of life, Western civilization began its history of subjugation
and exploitation of the earth and earth based cultures. For nearly five
centuries people have been coerced from their landholdings. The problem,
in
the English-speaking world, has its roots in the sixteenth century.

The Enclosures

To understand how it came to be that this most basic and obvious human
right - the right to the earth - was somehow left out of the founding
documents of democracy, it will serve our purpose here to go back to the
centuries of European history that Mohawk is talking about, to the
Enclosure Period. This is the time of violent direct suppression of the
indigenous people of Europe. Between the thirteenth and seventeenth
centuries, masses of peasants were evicted from their holdings or saw
their
common lands fenced off for sheep.7

Ra We now feed cattle before people...

The Enclosures began after the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. This
was
the great charter that King John was forced by the English barons to
grant.
Traditionally interpreted as guaranteeing certain civil and political
liberties, the right to land for the common people was not among them.
The
first legal act to enforce enclosures was the Statute of Merton of 1235
which spoke of the need to approve (meaning improve) the land in order
to extract greater rent. From whom do you think they were extracting
those rents?

The enclosures redefined land as private property and thereby gave it
the status of a commodity, tradable within an expanding market system.
Since the majority of people were denied access to the land and were
forced
to become wage laborers, labor also became a tradable commodity. The
enclosures were justified by its perpetrators as necessary in order to
make
improvements.

The words of Robert Ket, who led the Peasants Revolt of 15498 against
the enclosures, heavy taxes, and other abuses, are quoted in the 1992
Special Issue of The Ecologist, Whose Common Future?:

The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our
children are taken away. The lands which in the memory of our fathers
were
common, those are ditched and hedged in and made several; the pastures
are
enclosed, and we shut out. Whatsoever, the fowls of the air or fishes of
the water, and increase of the earth - all these do they devour, consume
and swallow up.... We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel
injury; neither can we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness,
excess and pride of the nobility.... While we have the same form and the
same condition of birth together with them, why should they have a life
so
unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling?

The rebellion of 1549 was one of many peasant revolts in old Europe.
Sixteen thousand insurgents formed a camp near Norwich and scoured the
country around, destroyed enclosures, filled in ditches, leveled fences.

A poem from the Enclosures period has the line:

The law hangs the man and flogs the woman
Who steals a goose from off the commons
But turns the greater scoundrel loose,
Who steals the commons from the goose.

Martin Luther

Until the 16th century the Church was the Catholic Church. Its
corruptions
provoked the rise of Protestant Reformism. In 1524 the peasants of
Swabia,
a region in what is now Germany, brought Martin Luther a document Twelve
Articles, appealing to him for his understanding. The peasants said it
was
their intention to excuse in a Christian way the disobedience and even
the rebellion of the peasants and to describe the basic and chief
articles ... concerning the matters in which they feel they are being
denied their rights. The peasants based each one of their Articles9 on
specific chapters and verses of the Old and New Testament. They requested
release from serfdom, relief from heavy taxation, fair and just laws, and
access to what was once their commons - the forests, fields and water
resources - to meet their basic needs. In response Luther wrote his
Admonition to Peace urging the princes to be kind and the peasants to be
peaceful and the appointment of an arbitration commission. Before the
Admonition to Peace could be published, the land was flooded with
insurrection, arson, pillage, and murder.

The disturbances among the peasants were establishing an association
between the Reformation and revolution that was alienating many of
Luthers supporters while his refusal to identify the Reformation with
the program of The Twelve Articles antagonized many of the common people.
For Luther the real problem was to defeat the Devil. It was more
important
to him that law and order be maintained and the gospel be preached than
that the pleas of the peasants be addressed. The peasants had gone to
Luther for moral and spiritual support and to respectfully communicate
their conditions and requests to him. Instead of standing in solidarity
with the poor and oppressed as Jesus had done, Luther wrote pamphlets
calling for the punishment of the thieving, murderous gangs of
peasants.10 Regarding the peasants as unruly pagans, Luther believed
their rebellions were instigated by Satan.

Ra Religions were infiltrated by Manchurianized zealots to divide...
http://raenergy.igc.org/religiousharmonization.html#thousands

Beginning with the first act of enclosure and throughout the following
period of several hundred years, as the land was enclosed the women and
men
and the earth based religion of the peoples of northern Europe were
brutally repressed. Women who practiced healing and agriculture, who had
their own lands and were leaders of their communities were tortured,
hanged, or burned at the stake. The Holy Inquisitions was a womens
holocaust; about 85 percent of those killed were women. Some say their
murders numbered in the millions.11 I consider this to be the most
significant story of the past two thousand years for women of European
descent. Much of what we have learned about history is just that - his
story. The womens holocaust is a terrible her story and my
sisters are still recovering on deep levels of their collective psyche
from
that horrific repression, torture and murder. The European indigenous
women
were strong and clear wild women with equal status to their men. They
could
stand their ground because they had access to the common lands. The
imperial forces called them witches. Martin Luther said, I would have no
compassion on the witches! I would burn them all.12

How did the forces of Christianity, based upon the stories of a loving,
healing Jesus, come to be aligned with the forces of an imperialist state
and a corrupted church? To answer this question let us now fast forward
to
the twentieth century and the questions of a man in another part of this
world.

Early Christian Teachings

Charles Avila was a Catholic seminarian in the Philippines in the 1960s.
One of his professors in the Divine Word Seminary constantly criticized
the
Churchs utter lack of identification with the poor. He persuaded Avila
and other students to accompany him on his regular visits to prisoners in
various Philippine jails. During his visits Avila heard story after story
of how these people had been evicted from lands they had tilled for
generations. He came to realize that what was referred to as the Peasant
Question was literally that: the question the peasants asked. It was a
question on the level of first principles which are very rarely
subjected to review, but which form the threshold of all our thinking.
The
Peasant Question was this: What is just with regard to the land?

Avila learned from the leading lawyer in the peasant movement that the
philosophy of ownership which was the basis of property laws and
practices
in the Philippines, as well as of most modern legal systems, actually
went
a long way back in history - all the way back to Roman law. Roman law
developed the ownership concept which legitimized the accumulation of
wealth by a few at the expense of the impoverishment of the many. As
Avila
was thinking about a topic for his seminary dissertation, he wondered
whether there might be early Christian philosophers of the period of the
Roman Empire who had anything significant to say about the ownership
concept. Most of the faculty warned him that he would be wasting his time
pursuing this topic; his social justice professor, however, urged him to
dig into the Latin and Greek writings concerning that period.

Avila scoured through 383 volumes and discovered that the early Christian
leaders indeed had all dealt with the question of ownership and Roman
law.
The writings he discovered were of great assistance to the Filipino
peasant
movement. In 1983 Avila published his research and these patristic
writings
as a book entitled Ownership: Early Christian Teachings.13 Over and over
again, Avila found, early Christians had railed against the Roman law
concept of ownership as an exclusive and unlimited right to dispose of a
thing, to the exclusion of all others. The Roman land law of
dominium meant the legalization of property in land originally
obtained by conquest and plunder. The original Judeo-Christian land ethic
had been that of koinonia - land was Gods gift to the community as a
whole for the autarkeia or self-sufficient livelihood of all.14

One of Jesuss tasks was to restore the original intent of the Jubilee,
the period every fifty years when lands were to be returned to their
original owners or their heirs: [The Lord] has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor..to proclaim release of captives...to set at
liberty
those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.15
As theologian Walter Brueggeman explains in Land: the Foundation of
Humanness the acceptable year is the year of the Jubilee. The
release of captives is the release of debt slaves who had lost their
land because they could not pay their mortgage. A crucial aspect of
Jesuss mission was the re-assertion of the land rights of the poor and
displaced. The Bible expresses the fundamental recognition that the earth
is the Lords, to be fairly shared and stewarded by all:

The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are
but strangers resident with me. (Lev. 25:23)

The profit of the earth is for all. (Eccles. 5:9)

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till
there be no place. (Isaiah 5:8)

Restore, I pray you, to them even this day, their lands, their
vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses. (Nehemiah 5:11).

Ra The Jubilee is the key to unraveling the left behind mess of falling
empires and the land appropriated with Ponzi usury based fiat currencies
and fractional lending... http://tinyurl.com/y85q6sa

Christianity lost its mission of economic justice when it became the
official religion of the Roman Empire and was adapted to or grafted onto,
the Roman land law of dominium. From that time forward Christianity went
hand-in-hand with the forces of conquest of the land-grabbing imperialist
state. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, Before the Europeans came
to Africa, we had the land and they had the Bible. We bowed our heads to
pray, and when we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the
land.

We are searching for clues for how it came to be that fewer than three
hundred multi-billionaires now have as much wealth as three billion
people
- half the population on earth at this time.16 We are asking why millions
of people die from hunger and disease each year when there is enough to
meet basic needs for everyone. Let us journey back now once again to our
old country before returning to our new country in America.

Ra Feeding cattle before people has a lot to do with it
http://raenergy.igc.org/ncrational.html#food

More Enclosures

Thomas More (1478-1535), Chancellor of England, who some say was the most
learned justice and scholar in the realm at the time, made passionate
pleas
against the cruel injustices when whole villages were being pulled down
to
make way for the more profitable industry of sheep farming and families
were turned adrift onto the roads to starve. His plan for a better
England
was based upon a thorough Common Ownership.17 More was murdered as a
martyr. The root meaning of this word martyr is one who remembers and
cares.

In England in 1648 the Diggers were sounding a lot like land rights
prophets. Gerrard Winstanley, in his New Law of Righteousness, clearly
saw
the forces at play when he said, The rich, in their enclosure saying
this is mine and the poor upon the commons saying this is ours,
the earth and its fruits are common. ... Leave off dominion and lordship
one over another for the whole bulk of mankind are but one living
earth!18

Over several hundred years 4,000 Private Acts of Enclosure were passed
covering some 7,000,000 acres. Probably the same sized area was enclosed
without application to Parliament. About two thirds involved open fields
belonging to cottagers while one third involved commons such as woodland
and heath. In the census of 1086, more than half the arable land belonged
to the villagers. By 1876, only 2,225 people owned half the agricultural
land in England and Wales and that 0.6 per cent of the population owned
98.5 per cent of it.19 As newer agricultural methods and technologies
were
applied, landowners could raise the rents of their lands by phenomenal
amounts. As the cash economy developed, the rent money accumulated into
the
hands of the landholders and the plight of the people worsened. To
survive,
they sometimes were forced to borrow money from the landholders at high
rates of interest.

Irelands story at the end of the Enclosures period is that of many in
the Third World today. In 1801 Britain made Ireland part of its empire
and
dissolved the Irish Parliament. By now the Protestants had the upper hand
and were given a voice in the British Parliament while the Catholic
majority had none. Heavy taxation was placed on Irish goods, and the
British controlled almost all of Irelands farmland. Tenant farmers had
to give their entire crops to the landlords as rent. When their
subsistence
potato crops failed from blight, there was nothing to fall back on. Some
three million people died of starvation and disease between 1845 and
1849,
while one million fled to the US and Canada. Irelands population of
eight million was cut in half. During the famine Ireland exported to
England enough grain, cattle, pigs, butter and eggs to feed the Irish
people twice over as one Irish historian put it. This information is
from an article by Elizabeth Ward called When Ireland was Europes
Ethiopia.20

Let us go to America now and examine the foundations of liberty and
democracy.

John Locke and the Crack in the Liberty Bell

To fully understand the severe limitations in our current form of
democracy
it is necessary to trace the thread of the democratic ideal back to its
fundamental tenets. Pondering the problem of persistent poverty within a
democratic system of government, Richard Noyes - a former recent New
Hampshire State Representative and editor of the book, Now the Synthesis:
Capitalism, Socialism, and the New Social Contract - identifies the
current
land tenure system as "the one great imperfection, the snag on which
freedom catches."

Noyes shows us that the "Age of Reason gave us a thesis with flaws."21
John
Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, the political bible of the
founding fathers, held that the great and chief end of men's uniting
into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government is the
preservation of their property." The central understanding was that only
through the guarantee of property rights could the individual really be
free.

Ra Getting this to everybody is by vote the first incident get this to
all and every citizen by them voting for it en masse...
http://raenergy.igc.org/globalvote.html

In further defining property rights Locke stated that "every man has a
`property' in his own person, so that anything a man has "removed from
the common state," anything with which he has "mixed his own labor," is
rightfully his own. The securing of this right was to be the main duty of
a
democratic government. Locke also affirmed that "God has given the earth
to
the children of men, (Psalm 115:16)."22

But the trouble lies with Locke's Second Proviso regarding property. He
maintained that it was correct for the individual in a state of nature
to mix his labor with land and so call [the produced wealth] his own
since there was still enough [land] and as good left, and more than the
yet
unprovided could use." Locke said that people in England who wanted land
could go to America to stake a claim from the vacant commons, the terra
nullia of Roman law.23 This was justification for the Europeans to take
land from the native peoples. Because they didn't have titles to the
land,
that made it vacant.

In the Second Proviso the reasoning of the primary mentor of the founding
father was faulty and limited. In his justification for land enclosures
and
privatization Locke failed to grasp the consequences for democracy of a
time like ours when so few humans would come to control so much of the
earth, to the exclusion of the vast majority. Nor could he have known how
the forces of a industrial economy would drive land values to such
heights,
to the benefit of landowners and bank lenders rather than wage earners.
The
property-in-land problem, insufficiently scrutinized by John Locke and
the
founding fathers, is the crack in the Liberty Bell. It is the root
dilemma
of democracy. Having life and liberty without land rights breeds
unhappiness, unemployment, wage slavery, suffering, militarization and
even
death. Democratic government as presently constituted, because it is not
grounded and embedded in the principle of equal rights to the earth,
cannot
build a world of peace and justice.24

Thaddeus Stevens and the Civil War

Thaddeus Stevens was a Civil War congressman from south-central
Pennsylvania, where I come from. He was Speaker of the House for many
years, a radical advocate of the abolition of slavery and the major
proponent of land reform during Reconstruction. He wanted the fertile
plantation lands of the South to be allocated to the freed slaves and
poor
whites. In his view this plan would also help to solve the race problem
by
uniting freed slaves and poor whites on an economic basis.25

No people will ever be republican in spirit and practice where a few own
immense manors and the masses are landless, said Stevens. Small
independent landholders are the support and guardians of republican
liberty.26 Stevens wanted the large landholdings seized, with forty
acres and a mule to farm them allotted to each former slave. This would
do
justice to those whose uncompensated labor had cleared and cultivated the
southern land, he reasoned. He envisioned a land of productive and
independent small farms. After this allocation there would still remain
millions of acres - 90 percent of the land in fact - which could be sold
to
help pay the national debt, reduce taxes, and provide pensions for Union
soldiers and reimbursement for citizens whose property had been destroyed
during the war.

Confiscation was very much a live political issue in 1867, but the forces
against Stevens prevailed and his land reform work failed. Even a
respected
radical journal of the time stated that for the government to give land
to
freedmen would suggest that there are other ways of securing comfort or
riches than honest work... No man in America has any right to anything
which he has not honestly earned, or which the lawful owner has not
thought
proper to give him. As if the slaves had not worked long and hard
enough! Yet William P. Fessenden, one of the most powerful Senate
Republicans at the time, commented, This is more than we do for white
men.The New York Times expressed most clearly the fears felt by northern
men of property:

If Congress is to take cognizance of the claims of labor against
capital...there can be no decent pretense for confining the task to the
slave holder of the South. It is a question, not of human loyalty, but of
the fundamental relation of industry to capital; and sooner or later, if
begun at the South, it will find its way into the cities of the North...
Any attempt to justify the confiscation of Southern land under the
pretense
of doing justice to the freedmen, strikes at the root of all property
rights in both sections. It concerns Massachusetts quite as much as
Mississippi.27

The final step of the Second American Revolution, the provision of an
economic underpinning to the blacks newly won freedom, was not taken.
Later, visionary social justice activists like Bob Swann inspired by his
mentor Ralph Borsodis thinking on trusteeship, launched the Community
Land Trust movement to secure land rights for some. After studying the
Jewish National Fund in Israel and the Gandhi-inspired Gramdan movement,
which placed donated land in trusteeship for the benefit of the poor,
Swann
then worked with Slater King, a cousin of Martin Luther King, Jr. They
secured 4,800 acres of land in Georgia for African Americans. New
Communities and the Featherfield Farm project remains the largest Black
owned single tract farm in America.28 Despite isolated examples like
this,
economic injustice - the land and land rent problem, combined now with
the
money and interest problem - is grounds for the next revolution of the
American people.

Martin Luther King on Viet Nam and Land Rights

Martin Luther King, Jr., another prophet and martyr, saw that our
governments resistance to land reform extended beyond our own borders.
In Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break silence, a speech delivered on
April 4, 1967, in New York City, he said:

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right
of
independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their
abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. After the French were defeated it
looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the
Geneva agreements. But instead there came the United States, determined
that Ho [Ho Chi Minh] should not unify the temporarily divided nation,
and
the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern
dictators -- our chosen man, Premier Diem.
The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly routed out all
opposition, supported their extortionist landlords and refused even to
discuss reunification with the north. The peasants watched as all this
was
presided over by U.S. influence and then by increasing numbers of U.S.
troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had
aroused.... [T]he long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no
real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.29

King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham City Jail:

I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial
social analyst who looks merely at effects and does not grapple with
underlying causes. 30 True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a
beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs
restructuring.

An intelligent approach to the problems of poverty and racism will cause
us
to see the words of the Psalmist - "The earth is the Lords and the
fullness thereof" - are still a judgment upon our use and abuse of the
wealth and resources with which we have been endowed.31

The Carter Doctrine and U.S. Imperialism

Let us now focus for a moment on Jimmy Carter, an American president who
started out with kind intentions and ended up with cruel ones.

The Carter team had pledged itself to non-intervention in the Third
World,
to a sincere commitment to arms control, and to work for worldwide human
rights. Carter accomplished much along these lines in the beginning of
his
term in office, but in the end he reversed himself and fell victim to
Cold
War fever.32 Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980
President
Carter issued his famous statement to a joint session of Congress in
which
he said, An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian
Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the
United States of America (and) will be repelled by any means necessary,
including military force.33

As Michael T. Klare so clearly describes in his important new book,
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, the United States
began a military build-up in the Persian Gulf area at that time which has
continued to this day. The Carter Doctrine was invoked during the
Iran-Iraq
war of 1980 - 88 and again in August 1990 when Iraqi forces occupied
Kuwait.

How is it that Jimmy Carter, our best-intentioned of Presidents34 is
remembered as the proponent of a doctrine of US national security based
on
might makes right? The remarkable transformation of
Carter-the-kind-Christian from peacemaker to warmonger showed his
susceptibility to Cold War fever and lack of any firm ground to stand on
regarding the relationship of human rights to land rights and democracy.
He
played into fears that the godless communists were conspiring to take
over
the world, ignored the true economic principles of the Judeo-Christian
tradition, and seemed to be unaware of the imperialist forces at play in
the U.S. government.

When the first President Bush sent American troops to Saudi Arabia in
1990,
Klare quotes him as telling the nation: Our country now imports nearly
half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic
independence.... [T]he sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital
interest to the United States.35 The Carter Doctrine continues to be
used to justify elite vested interests wresting control of land, oil and
mineral resources in many areas of the earth in the name of the American
people and the security interests of our democratic state. We the
people of the United States, who comprise 5 percent of the worlds
population, now control 30 percent of the worlds resources. All over the
world we are claiming vital mineral, oil, and land resources as part of
our
national security and militarizing those areas. Today we are playing the
great game for control of the three trillion dollars worth of oil and
gas resources in the Central Asian republics. George W. Bush, our new
kind-Christian-president, tells he is trying to be careful. What or
who will stop us if we cannot stop ourselves?

Joseph Stiglitz on Land and the Global Elite

Joseph E. Stiglitz is one of three economists to win the Nobel Prize in
economics in 2001. In 1999 he was fired from his position as Chief
Economist with the World Bank after he began to speak about his concerns.
In an interview in 2001 with Greg Palast,36 a writer for The Observer
(London), Stiglitz described in detail the four-step plan used by the
international banking institutions to extract wealth from around the
world.
In his view the process leads to financial barbarism, pillage and plunder
and has resulted in immense suffering, starvation and destruction. It
has condemned people to death, Stiglitz said bluntly in the interview.

When Palast asked Stiglitz what he would do to help developing nations,
Stiglitz proposed radical land reform and an attack at the heart of
landlordism, including excessive rents charged by the propertied
oligarchies worldwide. When Palast asked why the Bank didnt follow his
advice, Stiglitz answered, If you challenged it (property rights in
land), that would be a change in the power of the elites. Thats not high
on their agenda.37

Growing numbers of us are appalled and chilled to our bones at what the
World Bank (in which the U.S. Treasury has a 51 percent controlling
interest), the International Monetary Fund, and other instruments of
international finance and control are doing to our world. The
anti-globalization protesters of today represent the voices of the
worlds peasants, past and present, now joined by middle-class people
from many countries. Placing our country and our state, county and city
or
town on the firm and fair foundation of the human right to the earth is
one
of the most important endeavors of our age.

What Are We Going to Do About It?

In 1979 I was giving a workshop in Pasadena about Henry George and land
rights economics when an elder raised her hand and said: We know this.
Now what are we going to do about it? I did not know at the time that
she was Mildred Loomis or who Mildred Loomis was, but she was to become a
great friend and mentor of mine. Some called her the grandmother of the
counterculture. She was a close friend of Ralph Borsodi and in
association
with him played an influential part in founding the modern intentional
community movement. Mildred also kept in touch with the land-value-tax
movement and clearly understood how both of these approaches to land
rights
drew from the important work of Henry George.

I have thus far presented several dimensions of the great and unsolved
land
problem from various vantage points. Now I will describe five way by
which
the earth can be claimed for the benefit of the people as a whole,
detailing ways and means for securing common rights to water, oil and
mineral royalties, and the rent of surface land:

* direct action by exploited and mobilized citizens;

* enlightened earth rights state institutions;

* politicians who are true representatives of the people;

* enlightened vote of the citizenry; and

* environmental tax reform.

Direct Action by Exploited and Mobilized Citizens

An example of direct action by exploited and mobilized citizens is the
story of the Bolivian Water War, as Maude Barlowe told it in her article
on
water privatization in the summer 2001 Bulletin of the International
Forum
on Globalization.38

International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies have given corporate
access to many water systems in developing countries. In the city of
Cochabamba the Aguas Del Tunari company, a local subsidiary of the San
Franciso based Bechtel Corporation, was the only bidder for the citys
water supply. After privatization, with the water system in the control
of
this company, rates increased and even tripled for some of the poorest
customers. Water was shut off completely for others. No infrastructure
improvements were made. Citizens who had built family wells or water
irrigation systems decades earlier suddenly had to pay the company for
the
right to use the water.

An alliance of labor, human rights, environmental, and community leaders
organized and fought back with peaceful marches. A public referendum
showed
that the vast majority wanted the company out, but they were either
ignored
or met with police violence. Using Gandhian tactics they engaged in
strikes
and blockades to take back their water. The government declared a state
of
siege, arrested the protest leaders, shut down radio stations, and sent
in
a thousand soldiers. A teenager was killed and many others wounded. After
weeks of confrontation the government backed down and ended the contract
with the corporate raiders. Bechtel then threatened to sue the national
government for lost investments and potential lost profits based on a
bilateral investment treaty.

No one was providing the city with water while the government and the
corporation were in dispute. Then the water company workers began running
the water system themselves with the help of the coalition that had been
built. The water workers held regular community meetings to determine the
need for water; they reduced prices, built new tanks, and laid pipes to
bring water service to neighborhoods that had never had it before. The
service was fairly and efficiently cooperatized with the full support and
inclusion of the workers and the community.

The Cochabamba Declaration, the basis for coalition actions, follows:

1. Water belongs to the earth and all species and is sacred to life,
therefore, the worlds water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected
for all future generations and its natural patterns respected.

2. Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded
by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified,
privatized or traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be
enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international
treaty must ensure these principles are noncontrovertable.

3. Water is best protected by local communities and citizens, who must
be respected as equal partners with governments in the protection and
regulation of water. Peoples of the earth are the only vehicle to promote
democracy and save water.

Enlightened Earth Rights State Institutions

Under the Alaska Constitution all the natural resources of Alaska belong
to
the state to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of
the people. The Alaska Permanent Fund was established in 1976 as a state
institution with the task of responsibly administering and conserving oil
royalties and other resource royalties for the citizenry.39 The principle
of the Fund is invested permanently and cannot be spent without a vote of
the people, whereas the income can be spent.

In 1980, after a four year debate, the Alaska Legislature established the
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation to manage the assets of the Fund. That
same year the Legislature also created the Permanent Fund Dividend
Program
to distribute a portion of the income from the Permanent Fund each year
to
eligible Alaskans as direct personal dividend payments.

Individuals who received the annual dividends each year from 1982 to 2000
have received a total of $18,511. In the year 2000 more than half a
million
citizens received dividends of $1,963 per person, which amounts to nearly
$8,000 for a family of four. Overall, the dividend program has dispersed
more than $10 billion into the Alaskan economy.40

There is strong citizen interest in the Funds operation and activities.
Earnings of the Fund undergo special public scrutiny. Beautifully
designed
literature describes in detail the various components of the Fund. An
Annual Report is distributed each year. There is an extensive
accountability program and open meetings with opportunity for citizen
participation. The Alaska Permanent Fund website keeps current all
investment and distribution activities of the Fund. The history of the
development of the Fund, its incorporation, details concerning its
management, and information on the Fund portfolio and dividend pay-out
amounts are on the website. One can email questions and receive a direct
reply from a knowledgeable Fund trustee or employee. Also posted on the
website are stories, puzzles and games for teachers to use in their
classes
to educate their students about the Fund.

The Alaska Permanent Fund is a well managed and transparent earth rights
institution. It is a remarkable pioneering model of a fair and effective
way to secure common heritage wealth benefits for the people as a
whole.41

Politicians Who are True Representatives of the People

Public officials who sincerely see their role as servants of the common
good can be found in most of our towns and cities. Once they understand
practical earth rights policies they will help put them in place. This
has
been true in Pennsylvania, where local officials are implementing a
property tax reform which is direct lineage of the land rights ideas of
Henry George and, even further back, of Thomas Paine.

Paine came upon the idea of land value taxation in France in the days
preceding the French Revolution when the Physiocrats, the court
socio-economic advisors, were whispering into the ear of King Louis XIV,
Poor peasants, poor kingdom; poor kingdom, poor king.42 Quesnay and
Turgot were telling the king he must tax the land and not the common
people, but it was too late and events turned bloody.

Paine said: Men did not make the earth.... It is the value of the
improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual
property...
Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which
he
holds.43 Ground rent is the value that accrues to the land alone apart
from any improvements created by labor. This value is created by the
existence of and functioning of the whole community. To allow this value
to
be appropriated by individuals means that land can be used not only for
the
production of wealth but also as an instrument of oppression of human by
human. This leads to severe social consequences which are everywhere
evident.44

In Pennsylvania civic officials in twenty municipalities are implementing
a
local tax reform based on this understanding. Pennsylvanias pioneering
approach to public finance decreases taxes on buildings, which encourages
improvements and renovations, and increases taxes on land values to
discourage land speculation and profiteering. Shifting the tax burden
from
buildings to land values promotes a more efficient use of urban
infrastructure and urban land while decreasing the trend towards sprawl.
The benefits of development can be broadly shared when housing maintains
affordability and public coffers are solvent. Pennsylvanias capitol city
of Harrisburg was in shambles in1980 when it began to shift to land value
tax; now the city taxes land values six times more than buildings.

Harrisburgs mayor, Stephen Reed, sent the following letter to Patrick
Toomey, businessman, civic activist, and member of the Home Rule
Commission
of Allentown:

The City of Harrisburg continues in the view that a land value taxation
system, which places a much higher tax rate on land than on improvements,
is an important incentive for the highest and best use of land in already
developed communities, such as cities....

With over 90 percent of the property owners in the City of Harrisburg,
the
two tiered tax rate system actually saves money over what would otherwise
be a single tax system that is currently in use in nearly all
municipalities in Pennsylvania.

We therefore continue to regard the two tiered tax rate system as an
important ingredient in our overall economic development activities.

I should note that the City of Harrisburg was considered the second most
distressed in the United States twelve years ago under the Federal
distress
criteria. Since then, over $1.2 billion in new investment has occurred
here, reversing nearly three decades of very serious previous decline.
None
of this happened by accident and a variety of economic development
initiatives and policies were created and utilized. The two rate system
has
been and continues to be one of the key local policies that has been
factored into this initial economic success here.45

Here are a few of the improvements mentioned in the Harrisburg
literature:

* The number of vacant structures, over 4200 in 1982, is today less
than 500.

* With a resident population of 53,000, today there are 4,700 more city
residents employed than in 1982.

* The crime rate has dropped 22.5% since 1981.

* The fire rate has dropped 51% since 1982.

Enlightened Vote of the Citizenry

The city of Allentown, also in Pennsylvania, showed us how this policy
can
be voted in by an enlightened earth rights citizenry.46 Joshua Vincent,
director of the Center for the Study of Economics, recounted the fierce
recall battle that ensued in Allentown after citizens voted in a city
Home
Rule Charter that included a change in property taxes to a two-tier
system
that would, gradually over five years, shift the burden to land values.

Vincent saw that the effort to put the land tax back on the ballot and
defeat it was being driven largely by used-car dealers with large lots
and
shareholders of the Allentown Fair Grounds, an immensely valuable 42-acre
site in the middle of the city that had always enjoyed a sweetheart
property tax deal. With the help of money from statewide car dealer
associations, the opponents bought television and radio time and used
billboards and airplane trailer banners to paint Henry Georges ideas as
"socialist." They warned (falsely) that churches would have to pay the
land
tax. But the pro-land-tax forces, lead by a former city councilman who
had
been pushing for it for twenty years, mounted an intense grassroots
education effort -- and the tax passed again by a comfortable margin.

Since the move towards land value taxation, Allentown has been
experiencing
steady gradual improvements, as have all the Pennsylvania cities that
have
been implementing earth rights policy.

Environmental Tax Reform

The state of the earth now requires that the costs of industrial
production
and human commercial activity no longer be externalized onto the global
commons. The environmental movement has been discovering how to harness
tax
policy in order to protect the earth.47

Sufficiently high user fees and pollution permits encourage business and
industry to find more efficient and cost-effective controls. Pollution
taxes function as pay-for-use fees for common heritage resources of land,
water and air and make the tax system work for the people and the planet.
Green taxers also aim to eliminate numerous subsidies deemed no longer
necessary, environmentally or socially harmful, or inequitable. Green tax
policy is poised to radically redirect the incentive signals of the
world's
taxation systems that now promote waste, not work. Enviro think tanks
like
Worldwatch Institute, Center for Sustainable Economy, Northwest
Environment
Watch, and the Institute for Ecological Economics are building the
conceptual framework.

A look at the current approximate composition of the world's $7.5
trillion
tax pie reveals that 93 percent of taxes fall on work and investment
while
only 3 percent is collected from environmentally damaging activities. A
mere 4 percent of global tax revenues is captured from natural resource
use
and access fees.48 The challenge before us is to bring about change in
tax
policy all around the world so that people will pay for what they take,
not
what they make.

Work in Progress

This past decade the Russian parliament, the Duma, has been grappling
with
the question of land privatization as it relates to the transition to a
market economy. As Joseph Stiglitz observed when he was with the World
Bank, Russias natural resources have been pillaged for the profits of a
few. Earth rights colleagues in Britain and the US - Fred Harrison, Nic
Tideman and others - have been working quite closely with certain Russian
leaders as they search for a different kind of economy, one beyond both
Left and Right. Many Russian officials in positions of power are pushing
the policy of land rent for the people. This effort is an uphill struggle
against the neocolonizers and the international banking institutions.
Battle lines are drawn between those who would privatize rent, meaning
concentrate land wealth into the hands of a few, and those who would
socialize rent, which means basing the Russian state on the common right
of
the people to the land of mother Russia as financed by land rent for the
people as a whole.

In the Dominican Republic my friend Lucy Silfa is hard at work as she has
been for the past fifty years. As director of the Henry George School of
Social Science there, she has educated tens of thousands of people about
earth rights principles and policies. Journalists, government
representatives, economists, military top brass, and prisoners have
graduated from her classes. The President of the Dominican Republic was
one
of her students. Recently he gave her a letter to take to others in the
government. The essence of the letter is, Open your door to Lucy, listen
to her and do what she says.

She is now trying to pry land ownership and valuation information out of
a
bureaucracy so that a feasibility study can be done before recommending a
tax shift plan for this small island state. As in Russia and almost
everywhere else, we are up against the international banking
establishments plan for this country.

Philadelphia, where Henry George was born in 1839, is one of the most
exciting points of play in the land value tax movement at this time. The
citys first tax law was a land tax voted into place on January 30,
1693.49 Over the ensuing centuries Philadelphia lost its land tax and
fell
prey to one of the highest wage taxes in the country. There has been
sporadic interest in land value taxation over the years, but the movement
is coming into its own. In 1998 we organized a Public Finance
Alternatives
Forum attended by around sixty people, among them an Assistant City
Controller. After reviewing the evidence for the benefits of the switch
to
land value tax in other Pennsylvania cities, the Controllers Office
hired one of our land value tax colleagues to help research the
possibilities for Philadelphia.

Support for the idea is rapidly growing. A number of informative and
favorable stories have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Public
Record and Philadelphia City Paper. Leaders in the anti-globalization
movement and Green Party like Mike Morrill and Anne Goeke are supporters
along with the leadership of the Greater Philadelphia Association of
Realtors and the Chamber of Commerce. Strange bedfellows, eh? Well, land
value tax is a pro-active, practical and sensible approach to the
revitalization of the city. It is highly unifying because nearly everyone
benefits. Those most likely to be against it are land speculators and
people who profit from high land and housing costs. There is a
possibility
that certain banking interests could also try to stand in the way, the
reason being that when land becomes more affordable and purchasing
capacity
rises as the result of shifting taxes from labor to the land, banks will
then be unable to capture as much interest from mortgages. These vested
interests will be outvoted and voted out as the people learn once again
how
to make democracy work for the good of the whole.

Earth Rights and Information Technology

The powerful tools of information technology can well serve our work in
securing the earth as our birthright. Cities and towns are putting
property
values and tax information into computer databases and onto the web,
where
this information is transparent and easily accessible. Geographic
information systems (GIS) are computer maps containing detailed data. The
use of GIS for land value tax research is being pioneered by city
assessors
like Ted Gwartney and political scientists like Bill Batt.

Information technology will be of great assistance to us in finding
answers
to these important questions: Who owns the earth? How much do they
profit?
How much land rent do they pay into the common fund? LANDSAT satellite
technology can help us determine if land, water and air resources are
being
polluted or destroyed. Those indicators can serve as red flags indicating
the need to levy pollution taxes or fines. All of these concerns can be
monitored by the masses via computer technology. Safeguarding the planet
and the people will become the best game on earth.50

Conclusion

The Next Economy will deeply respect and value all life on earth. It will
recognize that we as human beings are trustees and caretakers of the many
life forms that dwell here with us. The Next Economy will extend the
democratic mandate to solve the land problem by affirming the equal right
of all people to the earth. It will have a balanced and just relationship
of citizenry to government with enlightened public finance policy based
on
land and land rent for the people. Money will be issued and circulated as
a
service for the people as a whole rather than used as a mechanism for the
exploitation of the many by the few. As land and natural resource rent is
socialized and wages are fully privatized (meaning untaxed) capital will
cooperatize in ways similar to the Mondragon cooperatives of the Basque
region and the models described by E. F. Schumacher, Louis Kelso and
others.

The Next Economy will be global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders
and boundaries and claim the whole earth as their birthplace. It will be
highly decentralized as well, with people living and producing for their
basic human needs within the constraints and parameters of local
ecological
systems. The Next Economy will build a world that works for everyone,
with
plenty of time to expand our minds and elevate our spirits. Will we live
to
experience the Next Economy? Will we see it come of age? We each have a
role to play to bring it forth. Lets get to it!

Alanna Hartzok is an educator and activist in the areas of economic
justice, land rights, and tax reform. She represents the International
Union for Land Value Taxation, a non-governmental organization at the
United Nations. The Union has sixty member organizations worldwide.
Vice-president of the Council of Georgist Organizations, which has
thirty-five member organizations nationwide, and state coordinator of the
Pennsylvania Fair Tax Coalition, her published articles on tax reform
have
been useful to legislators in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New
Jersey, and New York. She is one of several people featured in Planet
Champions: Adventures in Saving the World: New Paths to Peace, Prosperity
and Human Rights by Jack Yost.

In 1996 she founded the Earth Rights Institute to provide an
organizational
base for her research, writing, and speaking.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.424 / Virus Database: 270.14.52/2483 - Release Date:
11/05/09 19:52:00

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WE need to rattle the cage a bit here with a global consciousness uptick,
or put another way, a mass realization that the waking of the Collective
Consciousness are destined to become WeThePeopleIsm 1775...
http://tinyurl.com/yzqkepg

On the solution side above and beyond nations and parties... Before we
have a revolution lets have a global election of We The People by We The
People for We The people as a bill of rights voted with We The People.
This land is Your Land, This Land is My Land, This land Is Made for You
and ME as we have been singing around the world in a hundred or so
languages for the last fifty years _ we have already voted....
We have a way out with the global vote _ a covenant between ourselves _
WeThePeopleIsm 1775 planet wide...
Lowest Common Denominator in human equality is a covenant between
ourselves
http://raenergy.igc.org/globalvote.html

All GDP FICA based Medicare talking points... http://tinyurl.com/nk8aoz

WE already have GOP approved PUBLIC OPTION flood insurance...
http://tinyurl.com/yar6u8e

Harvard Study: Lack of Insurance Causes 45,000 Deaths Every Year
By Staff, AlterNet
That's one every 12 Seconds on average.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/142723/harvard_study%3A_lack_of_insurance_causes_45%2C000_deaths_every_year
_

Top Five Health Care Reform Liesand How to Fight Back
http://pol.moveon.org/truth/lies.html?rc=tw

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Are We The People Worth Healthcare Or not _ Ask Around _ Tweet etc.

We can provide healthcare for all at half the cost and give K through
college European style for what we are paying.... more talking points on
paying for wellness, Withholding is insurance not tax ...
http://tinyurl.com/laxe75

Beyond all our other failures, when all is said and done we can
accommodate all on Earth in a universal standard of living for what we
pay for 37th place health care in the USA today...
http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html#trillion

These videos tell it all... War on Triage by Arbitrage Corporate health
care... 20 trillion in 10 years for 37th place health care

Trailer to Sicko _ Lets stuff the swiftboating where the sun don't shine
_ Twitter these... http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/trailer.html

California OneCare: Full Care, For All, For Less
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEi0OveTtO8

Healthcare industry Whistleblower Wendell Potter formerly of Cigna
Insurance ... Profits Before Patients...
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html

Everybody in nobody out... http://www.everybodyinnobodyout.org/

VIDEO | Keith Olberman: Legislators for Sale
http://www.truthout.org/080409B?n
Keith Olbermann, MSNBC Countdown: "Finally tonight, as promised, a
Special Comment on Health Care Reform in this country, and in particular,
the 'public insurance option.'"

Raleigh Myers
Ra Energy Fdn.
Founded in 1973
Ra-Chi is our agenda http://ra-chi.org/ought.html

Op Eds more of the latest going back decades http://tinyurl.com/yggkq5x

Videos Ought 2010 A Transcendence Odyssey a movie where ALL the worlds' a
stage Everyone is in it _ See Currency The Redistribution of TIME and
Digging Slavery's Grave, the secular version.
http://ra-chi.org/ought.html

Let us experiment with laws and customs, with money systems and
governments, until we chart the one true course - until we find the
majesty of our proper orbit as the planets above have found theirs. And
then at last we shall move all together in the harmony of our sphere
under the great impulse of a single creation - one unity, one system, one
design.
Roger Bacon

Let WE The People vote on a covenant between ourselves...
http://raenergy.igc.org/globalvote.html

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Ought 2010 by Raleigh Myers is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 United States License.

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