Here is a guy bucking the trends. Good for him.
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Urban Survival...
Although many of the 'tea party' protests may have been initially seeded by republicorp operatives, they have continued to 'get traction' and in most states, like Washington, there are plenty of 'tea parties' being planned.
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"Leading" implies being in the lead...as in 'in front of'...developing problems, rather than the current state of affairs, always behind the eight-ball, reacting to this problem or that, in a way that works out according to whatever haphazard set of interests shows up and agrees on whatever the course of least resistance is right then and there with no regard for the longer view.
While it's true - and frighteningly so - that America really could blow 234 years of nationhood as early as next year, I hold that hope remains IF we can just muster up a little gumption; some real leadership.
What's missing in America is what I often tell consulting clients who come to me and want to kick-start their companies: Leadership begins at the top and it begins with a clearly articulated vision.
That's what I don't see: A clearly articulated, equal opportunity description of the 'next economy' and a New America that we can all get to work building right now. Nope. Instead, we're going from bailout to bailout. On this course, I agree that as long as we're in the reactive mode, the future isn't just bleak...it really is over. "Toast 2010" would be a good label for it.
But there is a way out: I call it The Leadership Option.
Wouldn't it be grand if had a national vision, meaning agreement on some very simple, easily action steps that virtually all of us could buy in to? Here are some thoughts, and while it's by no means complete, it's a starting point and you can add, or subtract, as you please:
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America is going to be the first country to harvest the benefits of information technology. We are setting as our key objectives:
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A 20-hour workweek (or)
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A 40-hour workweek commanding a high enough wage such that only one family member need work to support a family of four.
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We hold as a national objective the reinvention of the family as a solution to health and social ills.
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In addition, we will offer incentives to families that care for aged relatives at home. We are going to value family values in a meaningful way instead of lip service.
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We will achieve massive energy reduction though three major initiatives:
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Ending regulations that are keeping small highly fuel efficient vehicles off our roads while in places like Europe that have proven their value.
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Insulation retrofitting of every home in the country to reduce energy consumption by 50%.
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Conversion of all lighting to energy efficient LED and other technologies.
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Government will offer every family that lives off the grid for 30 days, or more, an income tax credit. The more off-grid time, the larger the tax credit.
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We will establish an organic food supply and will achieve organic food independence again within five years.
These combined should reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 30% - or more.
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We will require that every company selling manufactured goods in America demonstrate that all its workers, whether overseas, or in the US, are paid at least the applicable US minimum wage. Those companies which can not do so will be taxed in the amount equal to their exploitive labor practices and the revenue from that tax, equal to the amount of foreign worker underpayment, will fund unemployment and healthcare for American workers. And more; so great is the exploitation of developing country labor.
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Further, we will require that any company doing business in America document its revenues coming from America and be taxed on those. Over the next ten years will will phase in a program whereby if a company sells goods in America, only expenses incurred in America will be allowed to offset that revenue before a revenue tax is applied..
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We will reestablish sound money. We all know that the purchasing power of the US dollar has declined from $1 in 1913 to just 4.6-cents today. We are going to hold that value, and in doing so, we will again become a nation of savers. We will reinstitute gold and silver convertibility.
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As we return to sound money, and the value of savings is restored, we will reinvest in American infrastructure. Except now, instead of making assembly line jobs, we are going to automate everything we can to harvest the bounty of technology.
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We will institute a national usury law of 18%. This will apply to all companies, including and especially credit card operators.
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American-English is the only language of the country and we will end all programs that are not part of a migration to our single tongue. While we respect differences of our cultural heritage, we must be able to communicate with one another.
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We will set up a web site (www.redreamamerica.gov?) and we will find even more, better, and immediately actionable ideas.
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Finally, we will create and install a system of government accountability with the following features:
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We will strictly regulate lobbying with 100% disclosure and reporting.
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We will ensure that no more legislation is ever passed that has not been read by each member of Congress voting on it.
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We will install a recall system to hold Congress accountable and an online voting system, so that members of Congress can see what their home district wants at any time, and so that voters in the home district can see how their wishes are being carried out by folks who are supposed to represent them.
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I call this the leadership option. It's not going to be popular, but it's where I believe America needs to go - and if you agree with some of these points, it's time we start demanding, from the folks we elect, the one thing that we're not getting right now:
Leadership.
Were there is no vision, all perish. And that's isn't the America I dream of.
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I've had employers and clients who really 'gotten' the visioning process. They were (and are) the folks who understand that the most important job of the CEO is not 'counting beans' or coming up with sales plans; it's holding and articulating a company vision and teaching/sharing actionable pieces of the vision with everyone in the organization.
One company I was with - where I learned some of this firsthand, had the vision sharing so damn right that the company grew from 13-employees in 1985 to over $7-billion in annual revenue. That's the power of this vision process.
I think it was Dr. Wayne Dyer who said "You'll see it when you believe it." That's how visioning work. I don't have a really nice life because I let it happen. Things don't work that way. I spend about 10-minutes a day visioning.
You get a great life, good health, and emotional happiness, and let's throw in love, too, by actively working on a vision. If you don't have the kind of life you want - right now - then either you a) don't have a vision, or b) you aren't doing the work achieving your vision requires. It's easy enough to spot the people who are bullshitting themselves on visioning; an amazing number of people don't do the work.
Coming back to the point of this morning's note: I did a lot of sailing during the 10-years I lived on my sailboat....and my favorite point of sail -- the 'which way are you going relative to the wind' -- was going into the wind; it's called beating or 'going to weather.'
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A sailboat can't go directly into the wind. At best, you can go upwind about 45-degrees to the true wind. When you're sailing inland waters, at some point, you'll get close enough to shore that you'll have to 'tack'...which means turning the boat to the other 45 degrees off the true wind, such that you sort of zigzag uphill into the wind; working to weather it's called.
Now when the boat is 'tacking', or 'coming about', the wind momentarily is head-on. Sails flap. Seems like no progress is being made.
But if the tack is smartly done - if the captain has confidence and a sure hand on the helm - the boat's forward momentum carries it through the 'no wind in the sails' part of the tack and the wind fills the sails on the opposite tack and the journey upwind continues with only a few moments of disturbance and only a small/momentary loss of speed.
There's a danger in tacking though - and it's analogous to the danger in the economy. If the boat doesn't have good speed when the tack begins, or if an inexperienced sailor tries to tack too slowly, it's possible to get the boat 'stuck' midway though the tack - the process is called "being in irons."
There's a way to recover, of course: The boat starts to go backward, and as soon as it goes backward with enough speed, the rudder is thrown hard over and the bow of the bow falls off the wind, and the sails can fill again. The economic equivalent is a depression. Things go backward just so far and then a new consensus emerges.
Where America is right now is in the process of 'tacking.' Except I don't hear anyone articulating it causing me to wonder "Is anyone at the helm of this thing?"
I didn't hear a strong voice in the Bush administration saying to all of us "Gonna be tacking soon, all hands ready about!" If we'd had such a captain, we would have been able to do a better job of anticipating the financial storm which is in danger of locking us in irons. I didn't get a 'New America vision' out of Bush.
Nor, do I hear the next move of the great ship of state being articulated by the current captain. The danger was, and is, that we will be locked in irons, go backwards, and further into depression.
So while this morning's email raises a fine question "has your mind been captured?" I don't think so. I'm just waiting for America to figure out what its next tack will be amidst news reports hinting that the captain and the crew in Washington don't seem to understand the concepts of tacking and keeping boat speed up.
Nevertheless, I hold that there is always hope, because leadership is still an option.
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