Talk:WG/Strategies/Ideas/Three Tier Vision

Issues discussion

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 3:23 pm

I am proposing that we can organize all of our demands into the framework of Commons, Affordability, and Accountability.

Protecting the Commons includes government access, environmental preservation and improvements, infrastructure and internets, the Marketplace, and so on...

Affordability is the demand that Government Access (Courts), Loans (Education and Mortgages...), and Health Services and Cost of Living must stay Affordable if our country is to thrive. (This doesn't mean it has to be easy. Just possible, which it currently isn't for many people.)

Accountability is straighforward, but demands transparency and action on profiteering in economic times like these. It is broadly anti-corruption as well. I like the term Accountability better than Transparency since it's more about action than access.

Feel free to debate this, or to start aligning our interests under these banners.

-Tank-

re: Issues discussion

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 3:46 pm

I'm liking what you're doing with my text! Good formal-speak!

I'm sending the wiki link around to the Facilitator and Transparency groups. I want to ask them, at the very least, if we can get someone from Anti-Oppression to weigh in on this as we massage it for GA presentation.

re: Issues discussion

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 3:57 pm

Thank yo, Eli! I am finished for the time being! Have at it!

re: Issues discussion

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 4:07 pm

I wrote a bit and kept all your changes.

re: Issues discussion

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:36 pm

can y'all comment on each of the three sections in the overall list of posts? So it can help get the conversation started. I've got a few people coming online to look soon.

re: Issues discussion

user:reyraton Thursday, 3:45 pm

Clean it up and use proper capitalization? :)

re: Issues discussion

user:Sage.Rad Yesterday 5:51 am

I am trying to understand where this Three Tier Vision is being proposed to fit in the Occupy movement. If it's as an overarching "vision" for the movement, then I must disagree with it. I do not think that all or even most issues can fit into this framework, and I don't think that it's generally helpful to use this framework for all aspects of a vision, or to present it in this way. To me, this vision is formalistic in the way of 18th century political philosophers, who i think were limited in their scope to the questions that came to mind to mainly privileged members of society, in general ... Hobbes, Locke, those sort of people .. even the "founding fathers" of the U.S. .... limited in scope by the structure, and i don't see the point in starting from such a place here, where we have the advantage of a wider consciousness and wider participation. For example, where does freedom from gender-based oppression fit in? Where does a vision of a city with lots of bicycle paths fit in? Where does anti-racism fit in? Vision is not just protecting those things that we will call the commons, but also building up new things of beauty and inclusiveness.

re: Issues discussion

user:reyraton Yesterday 6:55 am

Do you really think that demanding more bike paths is going to excite America? Or do you think couching that in terms of infrastructure investment under development of the Commons is a better idea? Because that isn't going to matter to someone in rural America as much as, say, bridges.

America is seriously in need of Big Ideas, and the more one drills down the easier it is to pick things apart. Formlessness is a virtue here. Specificity can come later. America remains a factional society and nation and if we can't keep things to a commonly-agreed consensus as to how things are awful and how they need fixing, we're going to marginalize ourselves.

re: Issues discussion

user:Sage.Rad Yesterday 9:51 am

Yes, i think that a new vision for cities where bike riding is easier will excite some people. Other things will excite other people. There are millions of people with different minds. "America" -- who is that? Are we going to do some market research style thing? I guess we can. Anyway, it was one example i pulled out of my hat to illustrate something. I don't see "Commons" as a natural category for this exercise, nor the other two categories. I don't really see the need for finding categories for everything. I see a need for more democracy, a better process, for deciding what we all want to do. This addresses the negative we want to dismantle -- inequality, corruption, etc -- and the positive we want to build -- bridges, farmers markets, etc ..

I don't see the need for a "Big Idea" -- shall we propose going to Mars by 2020? Or are you saying that a "Big Idea" can be so vague as to mean nothing really? Then my "big idea" is that I want bad things to be better. I'm not trying to be a semantics person. I guess you're looking to organize idea into categories. I'm looking for one main "big idea" which is the process, not the result -- more real democracy.

re: Issues discussion

user:reyraton Yesterday 10:34 am

Until ideas are organized, they aren't really worth much for action. In my opinion, releasing a laundry list of demands is a sure-fire trip down the trash chute: "oh, the hippies are asking for bike paths".

Spelling out that the American Society of Civil Engineers puts American infrastructure shortfall at $6.6T and suffering from chronic underinvestment (ie., $6.6T to bring America's roads, bridges, sewers and other infrastructure up to snuff) is a sign of government's abrogation of responsibility to the Commons, to maintain the underlying, literally physical structures of America.

City bike paths are installed as part of municipal actions based on budgetary calls, with input from state governments where additional money is needed. The federal government provides money to states for infrastructure development, but doesn't generally allocate money to individual projects unless they've been earmarked as such. In any case, "bike paths" as a budget line item would have to be part of a larger infrastructure spending bill... something that would address the tremendously neglected infrastructure component of the Commons.

That's the Big Idea.

Demanding bike paths is akin to demanding more water fountains in parks: it's not what the federal government does, not directly. Not only that, but if the feds don't give more money for development projects, then asking for bike paths essentially means asking for money to be re-apportioned from somewhere else in the city's budget. It's a request that doesn't address the larger concern, which is that the government's responsibility for development and infrastructure have been neglected for too long.

re: Issues discussion

user:eli_gottlieb Yesterday 1:03 pm

I think Sage has a decent point about the fact that our framework currently doesn't have a place to fit matters of civil rights and liberties.

Where goeth the Patriot Act? Where goeth anti-racism and anti-sexism? Those things do deserve their place. The tough bit is that once you create a category called "Human Rights" or "Individual Rights" or "Civil Rights", or, frankly, anything with the words "rights" or "liberties" in the title, that tends to turn into a catch-all category. People just start writing down whatever it is they want in life as a "right".

This isn't to say that freedom from discrimination isn't important, but there are plenty of capitalist folks who will come down here and tell us that they have a right to unlimited accumulation of capital, a right to move their wealth into a tax haven, a right to limited liability through incorporating themselves, and a right to give unlimited campaign contributions. Anything you want can be declared a "right" if you rationalize it adequately.

So could we maybe come up with a catchy way of saying "Anti-Discrimination", and add another pillar for that? It is a very real problem, and it addresses the whole range of identity-politic issues that otherwise don't fit into the existing framework.

re: Issues discussion

user:terrawiki Yesterday 1:29 pm

Sage,

The 3 Tiered thing may not even go into the final doc. I see it as a tool to keep us talking...to make sure we cover everything. We may just end up with a list of rights and actions to demand. I'm willing to let it go for a while and see how it works. Let's just get everyone's ideas and I'll find a place for them. I may make up a page for people to submit to, for inputting, so I don't have to scour all of the posts. I forget where I left off.

T

re: Issues discussion

user:terrawiki Yesterday 1:30 pm

Sage,

I forgot to reply about bike paths. I'll add that in. The other rights stuff is on the rights page. Look to the left, choose issues, then choose ideas. I'll make sure to edit that to say "rights".

re: Issues discussion

user:terrawiki Yesterday 1:36 pm

OK, Sage, I put this into the Rights Page, under what I'm calling "Actions"...but which is just a place holder til we get integrated with the Ideas people. So right now, it's just a list of Actions, that captures things we're pretty sure we want...like AFTER we've sorted stuff out in the Specific Strategies forums. Like if it's simple and straight forward, just add it to the list. If it's complicated, then I want to put a link to a working page in the Specific Strategies section. Have patience with me. I'll sort it out. Just keep firing at me what's missing.

- dramatic change in public investment to facilitate non-combustion engine transportation and virtual worker incentives. - dramatic change in public investment to facilitate non-combustion engine transportation and virtual worker incentives.

Here's what I put in for bikeways: dramatic increase in public investment to facilitate non-combustion engine transportation and virtual worker incentives.

re: Issues discussion

user:terrawiki Yesterday 1:41 pm

Reyraton...please be patient. We'll get there. I have a background in fiscal modeling and budgeting, as well as project mgmt. This "is" a wishlist. But we'll evolve it into more. We want all voices to be heard and recorded at this step. We can prioritize and formulate action steps next.

Format/Construct

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:11 pm

If you have comments about the format of the document, please post comments here.

re: Format/Construct

user:Sage.Rad Yesterday 5:53 am

I posted this under "issues" but i think it fits better here. Would someone tell me what the goal and purpose of this statement of vision is? Who it will represent?

I am trying to understand where this Three Tier Vision is being proposed to fit in the Occupy movement. If it's as an overarching "vision" for the movement, then I must disagree with it. I do not think that all or even most issues can fit into this framework, and I don't think that it's generally helpful to use this framework for all aspects of a vision, or to present it in this way. To me, this vision is formalistic in the way of 18th century political philosophers, who i think were limited in their scope to the questions that came to mind to mainly privileged members of society, in general ... Hobbes, Locke, those sort of people .. even the "founding fathers" of the U.S. .... limited in scope by the structure, and i don't see the point in starting from such a place here, where we have the advantage of a wider consciousness and wider participation. For example, where does freedom from gender-based oppression fit in? Where does a vision of a city with lots of bicycle paths fit in? Where does anti-racism fit in? Vision is not just protecting those things that we will call the commons, but also building up new things of beauty and inclusiveness.

Editing the Page?

user:Anonymous_Hand Thursday, 8:27 am

How exactly does one edit this page? Do I need approval from a page owner?

re: Editing the Page?

user:Anonymous_Hand Thursday, 8:50 am

Nevermind - got it now. Thanks.

re: Editing the Page?

user:terrawiki Thursday, 7:45 pm

I'd say that you need or want to be "respectful".

THE COMMONS

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:10 pm

Please post comments to this section here.

re: THE COMMONS

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:29 pm

I want to make sure that we eliminate the ability for corporations and the state to allow a development/construction project that threatens the health of a town's eco-system. This may include reversing references in case law suggesting that corporate personhood gives corporation the same rights as human beings. It may mean changing the constitution so that corporations do not have more rights than people. I might even go so far as to make it illegal for any corporate rules to force employees to chase profits over people.

re: THE COMMONS

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 5:15 pm

The Commons is literally everything we share to keep our economies ecosystems, and social systems flourishing!

I believe that as an organizing frame it is unifying.

Rallies, demonstrations, and festivals all utilize Commons. Commuting and travelling all utilize the Commons. Energy production is an enterprise of the Commons. The internet is the frontier of economic growth (and job creation), and it must be protected-- net neutrality. Transportation systems. Clean air. Clean running water. Political access is part of the Commons.

re: THE COMMONS

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 6:36 pm

As noted on the mailing list, a municipality is certainly an excellent example of a commons.

Zoning, however, is a thorny issue. Terra, I know that you've seen an endless number of cases in which a Municipality-as-Commons would have had an obligation to protect townspeople by prohibiting a construction project that would have harmed the local ecosystem. What makes it thorny is that there are also many instances in which municipalities have faced citizen outcry for allowing developments that would have made living in a certain town/city doable for minorities and the lower-paid (my fiance's town of Milton, MA has a gap in property values between the all-white side of town and the mixed-race side of town... guess how that price curve runs?).

On the upside, strong and clear commons laws specifying the fiduciary responsibilities of an ecosystem trustee would provide grounds for possible discrimination suits: if a town official blocks something and can't actually demonstrate the real harm to the ecosystem, a court could rule that they've simply engaged in disguised discrimination... right?

And on the other hand, plenty of towns and cities already have discrimination issues up the wazoo, so I guess that a change that helps the ecosystem without fixing discrimination is a positive step, even if it doesn't do nearly as much as we would like :-(.

re: THE COMMONS

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 7:57 pm

Relative to Eli's zoning comments, yes, I agree that overriding "some" local zoning for affordable housing is warranted. But I think that the important part of agreeing now, in this forum, is whether we agree that "some" affordable housing is necessary for "some" people. Or whether "any" housing is necessary for "all" people. For example, suppose we said that "basic shelter" could be a tent in a park. If that was acceptable, that would be fairly easy, fiscally. But if we said that everyone had to have two bedrooms and an office per person, and marble counter tops, then that starts getting unsustainable. Further, if we decided that "some" people would get the two-three bedroom townhouses and others got tents, then that doesn't seem fair either. So I feel like we need to agree on what "basic" housing is. And then make sure that everyone has access to that. THEN move into the well, if you have a little more money, then what. But for this forum, I'd like to agree that "basic shelter" is a right. And later, we can decide what basic means. And then move on to deciding what mechanisms and steps we support to get there.

Relative to the internet, how do we feel about a "carrier" and their rights to own their "outside plant" cables? I've often wondered about that, having a background in telecom. We "sold" our airwaves to the highest bidder, instead of renting it to them. I find that fascinating. I would have rather rented it, so we could have taken it back if we didn't like what the carrier did.

re: THE COMMONS

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 8:09 pm

I would rather have rented the airwaves, not only for the public control over them but to enforce things like net neutrality... and also to simply make telecom companies pay for their making private profit off of a public resource.

Ditto on the cables. Frankly, most of the wired carriers actually took public subsidies at some point. If anything is public property subject to public supervision, it's free government cash.

AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:09 pm

Please post comments to this section here.

re: AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 5:27 pm

I believe this section captures a growing frustration and concern about our economy.

CEOs and upper-level management of institutions and corporations are getting bonuses and raises as the working people are asked to take furloughs, pay cuts, and pension reductions. Unions are being busted to prevent any struggle by the workers. A business can be run into the ground, and the execs can take the lion's share while the workers have to fight to get paid for work done.

Debt is out of hand, and part of the problem is that rampant speculation and misleading marketing surrounding basics such as home ownership, education, and health insurance.

Farm subsidies, as an example, perpetuate a system that puts local farmers in debt for the work of big corporations.

Copyright and patent law protects big corporations at the expense of inventors and entrepreneurs who cannot afford to defend their fair use and fair competition. It inhibits the growth of clean energy, and it scares away talent from taking healthy risks.

re: AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 6:26 pm

The flagrant underpayment of taxes has also left public services and public goods run into the ground and decimated the living in once-honored professions.

Principals and administrators take home six-figure salaries while teachers spend their evaporating take-home pay to buy the kids pencils.

Young doctors are so burdened with debt that they literally cannot afford to work as general practitioners, even as our country faces a growing shortage thereof.

In real, inflation-adjusted dollars, funding for scientific research hasn't risen in years, even decades. University chancellors and football coaches take home millions while grad students are stuck eating ramen noodles.

Monsanto and its captured regulatory agencies have done their study best to drive independent farming to extinction through abusive monopolies, abusive monopsonies, and frivolous lawsuits.

Utility companies have done their best to suppress job-creating innovations in telecommunications and energy while pocketing as much money from their natural and municipal monopolies as they can.

Grrrr....

re: AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 6:40 pm

A story I've heard from Reddit recently: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/lf2nn/heres_the_thing_all_you_people_with_two_jobs_and/c2s6a2r

I'm older than you by a bit, I'm 36.

When I was 18 I was earning 40k a year as a carpenter. I had good health benefits. I had savings. I did not have student loans yet, but if I had I could have paid them easily. I worked hard for that money but working hard has never been the issue for most of us.. it's finding decent work that can pay the bills.

Even at that time, 20 years ago or so, I did not have it as good as my father did 20 years earlier. There was a time in this country where one working class man willing to get up in the morning and put in a solid days work could support a family in a comfortable manner.. without sacrificing health insurance or skipping meals.. without having to work 7 days a week and cut corners.

I fear many of you younger guys don't realize that. It was not always like this. That it's all you know doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it has to be this way.

It's not "work hard and sacrifice and you'll be able to barely get by." That's not the way it's supposed to be. Don't settle for that.

re: AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

[[user:

         ]] terrawiki

It's all so very sad. And yet, here we are, with the skills and the time to make a difference. And for that, I'm joyful. Decades ago, when I noticed this stuff starting to happen, I felt so hopeless...to the point of crying late at night for the future of humanity. And my lack of ability to do much of anything about it. So I'm grateful that you guys are all here helping to make productive change.

re: AFFORDABILITY / FISCAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

[[user:

         ]] eli_gottlieb

As requested on the mailing list, a side-note about affordable housing and gentrification:

I don't think we'll ever get a broad swathe of the American public to agree that housing, or food, or any other good someone has to actually supply, is a "right". That is, I don't think we'll get people to agree that someone should give me housing for free if I can't get my own housing.

What I do think we could get people to agree to is an "Affordability Basket": a set of goods and services deemed so basic that we run economic policy around keeping their prices at a set level of affordability. For example: if we deem the "living wage poverty-line" to be half the median yearly income (roughly $25,000/year for a household, or about $15,000/year for a single individual over the whole country, if Wikipedia is right), the twenty-fifth percentile, then we could say that at least 25% of rents must be at or lower than $521/month for a household or $312/month for an individual (AFAIK, 25% of monthly income spent on rent is deemed Good Household Budgeting). These numbers could only rise if the median income rose.

I know that's a bit more geekish and complicated an approach than talking about Human Rights (which really do sound nice as lofty moral ideals), but the idea is that while most people wouldn't agree you have an abstract "right" for the municipality to just *give* you a housing unit, they would agree that society has an obligation to supply safe, habitable housing units at a price even the poor (which won't just be the long-term poor but the short-term unemployed or students, too) could afford.

Speaking of students, I think one immediate, low-level reform to pass is to have the Cities of Boston and Cambridge require the universities to build new housing units from their own damn budget whenever they raise their enrollment quotas. They've been passing on their housing costs as an externality to the Boston-Cambridge rental market as an externality for too damn long!

I'm actually seriously into that idea about the universities. I like universities; I like students. I was one just a short while ago; I hope to be a grad-student some day in the future, and I hope to see my little brother go to university and do well sometime soon. I just don't like the idea of universities adding tens of thousands of people to the local population and dumping them on the rental market as an externality.

So there's a VERY simple idea for a housing reform in Boston and Cambridge: fine every college/university $12,000/year for each student they enroll but cannot house on-campus. $1000/month/person should be enough money to support the new dormitory, dining-hall and low-end apartment construction the universities won't do... or enough of a penalty to make them either do the construction themselves or decrease enrollment (which, given the way they treat student enrollment as a source of financial revenue rather than academic prestige these days, wouldn't be entirely a bad thing).

Summary Sections

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:10 pm

Please post comments to the text outside of the main three sections.

re: Summary Sections

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 5:17 pm

I like adding a paragraph or two capturing the essence of each section, and it helps motivate appreciation for the framework.

I agree that discussion of those blurbs should occur off-page, and then be adapted as we see fit. (The collective "We", of course.)

re: Summary Sections

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 7:59 pm

I'd say, "go for it"... or maybe draft something and post it here for people to look at...

ACCOUNTABILITY / CORRUPTION

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:09 pm

Please post comments to this section here.

re: ACCOUNTABILITY / CORRUPTION

user:qandnotq Wednesday, 5:29 pm

End corporate personhood. Establish consumer protections. Penalize profiteering, especially in a recession. Make campaign financing transparent. Prosecute private militia's abuses of foreign citizens in our name.

re: ACCOUNTABILITY / CORRUPTION

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 6:28 pm

I think we can shorten that last one to "prosecute private militias". The whole point of government is to have a MONOPOLY ON LEGALIZED FORCE. We need laws to ensure that NOBODY other than the government can employ military force on our soil or in our name.

re: ACCOUNTABILITY / CORRUPTION

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 7:50 pm

A friend who works in DC suggested that the Senior Executive Service needs some work. Also, better whistle-blower protection.

I can't comment on the monopoly of power, because I haven't thought about it much. But it seems worth talking about.

Strategy for bringing this to GA

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:11 pm

Please post comments here about how to bring this to the GA.

re: Strategy for bringing this to GA

user:eli_gottlieb Wednesday, 4:16 pm

We've got the wiki link sent out to Transparency, Facilitators, and Media, alongside the old SPP/Visions mailing list. I want to get it to the Anti-Oppression Folks, just to make sure it's general enough for them.

re: Strategy for bringing this to GA

user:terrawiki Wednesday, 4:35 pm

I'm focusing on getting a few people from the public. Can you everyone get one person involved?