Book Talk
Updates, Additions, and Conversation

What do 'we' want society to look like?

What are the Basics?

I advocate that all people living on this planet should be afforded the basics requirements for living. This would include clean water to drink, sufficient food to eat, a shelter to protect them from the climate and provide a sanctuary. It would include clothing to protect people from the elements. It would include healthcare so they are well and they do not spread diseases. It would include the full and complete world citizenship so that they are privileged citizens with all the rights and freedoms enjoyed by other citizens with none above them and none below them.

New Goals for a Focused Society


Primary Goals in The Book:
Ending poverty, hunger, and war
Ending human violence and exploitation
Building a worldwide middle class
Establish consumer and worker protections
... and culturally organize society within civility, the common good for human progress.

The Basic Goals


There are the Top Specific changes listed in the Handbook for Political and Cultural Change:

1- A living wage with disposable income and a minimum wage at two times the poverty level. Overtime for nights, weekends, and holiday and for more than 8 hours a day and 35 hours per week. 4 to 6 weeks of vacation that can be used for maturity leave as well. There will be tax incentives for corporations to become partially employee owned.

2- Caps on home mortgage interest rates at four percent and five percent for installment loans

3- Universal healthcare for those wo want it

4- A graduated flat tax for revenue collection
No increase in taxes for the middle class a 35 percent
cap on the total tax burden for the middle class.

5- A wealth tax of one to five percent to help those who struggle.

6- Election changes for non partition elections that are open to everyone and use of the rank voting method.

Internationally:

7- Freezing the borders. Historically independent provinces can become independent and no country may invade the border of any country

8- Demilitarization. Countries shall downsize their militaries to defensive purposes only. They must remain inside their own country.

9- A ban on WMDs

10- A system of checks and balances to limit nations from engaging in armed conflicts.

11- Software programs that will enable people to communicate directly with one another across the world and much more....

The Nature of Modern Work continuing the discussion..


If you want to look at defect human behavior look no further than the US military and more probably any military for that matter. They say they take new soldiers in and tear them down to nothing. Then they rebuild them onto the people they want and need them to be. They build people who will follow orders. I suppose they build them in people who would kill people they do not know all in the name of country. Presumably the other side has done similarly and so we have two groups, or more, who are willing to kill people on site and in mass. Thus we have war.

Also in the military are levels of command. Soldiers take orders from above and more than occasionally they take abuse to let them know they are subordinates. This unnecessary for the structure. It is just part of nature integrating into the military. This environment alone is enough for me to advocate terminating the entire military organization and starting over with how we defend our nations, and others, for security.

The m
ilitary should be like all other work. People should be free to leave it at any time it is not in their interests to stay. That would end the abuse almost immediately. Also it would end the notion of invading a place when it is being done for something than the national interest. If the soldiers were not convinced it was not a worthy venture to go and fight they should not be compelled to go fight. This must become a world wide rule.

Working in corporate America is not that different. Employees supplement their interest for the interest of the corporation. In return they are paid a weekly fee until they no longer needed. This is in place of working together toward a common goal for the mutual benefit of all and for the direct benefits of each person. Then in the end all members share in the ownership of what they created. Each person brings something of value to the effort and that value is still there in the capitalist system after they corporation terminates the employee. So all corporate work should be with work partnerships.