What we should do First, Second, Third....

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Comment by Larry M. Aden on September 15, 2008 at 4:08pm

Hey, Donna, thought you might be interested to read my blog - http://push.pickensplan.com/profiles/blog/list?user=1gzub16oqme8a
Also, I just got a group up on here - ,http://push.pickensplan.com/group/amass
You being one of the greater minds I have come across on here, I would appreciate it if you would take the time to join.
I think you would find it very stimulating to discuss the weightier questions of the day with other big thinkers!
Waiting anxiously for you next post, Larry M. Aden

Comment by Larry M. Aden on September 15, 2008 at 10:14am

Oh, Donna,
By the grace of God, I wish I could have found a helpmate like you in my youth!
We could have changed the World, and saved All Creation a lot of suffering!
What a wonderful mind!
Keep those big dreams coming, Girl!
If you are ever looking for a little mental stimulation from another over-active mind, I would love to brainstorm with you!
If you really want to make those big dreams come true, contact me at your earliest possible convenience!
In the meantime, I submit this for your perusal -
This is to introduce you to AMASS, and its concepts of cooperative self-reliance.
AMASS is the Assurance Mutual Association for a Sustainable Society, an international financial group for grassroots cooperative assistance to the fundamental productive sectors of free economies throughout an increasingly populous world.
Since its inception in the fields of America in 1987, AMASS has been conceived, designed and refined to act as the ultimate tool in support of a new socio-economic model - a more efficient, equitable, responsive and sustainable system of distribution of essential goods and services to the free, peaceful and productive people of the world.
AMASS is constructing a free and open membership five-tiered cooperative association based on a cellular structure of local production co-ops, served by area logistical co-ops, feeding regional industrial processing co-ops, supplying national distribution co-ops, all integrated into, and advised by, an international financial assurance mutual, AMASS.
AMASS is founded upon the realization of the fundamental and universal principles that:
1. All ‘Real’ Capital is the product of solar energy striking the Earth, and, thru some thermo-dynamic, thermo-chemical or photo-chemical process, storing that energy in a form useful to sustain life, or perform work. Capital is merely stored energy!
2. All economies are, therefore, and of necessity must be, based upon the primary production of those food, fuel and fiber forms of stored energy needed for the sustenance, shelter, security, transport and productivity of the Citizenry. The better an economy serves these basic needs at the grassroots local level, the more stable and productive that Society will be!
3. Every society must seek sustainability thru more prudent and proper care, use and conservation of all of her productive resources, and the more equitable distribution of the resultant production to all its Citizens, to forestall its own demise. The more equitable and less wasteful a Society, the longer-lived it will be, and the faster it amasses wealth!
4. Every economy based upon best harnessing the energy and creativity of its Citizens thru the free exercise of their own individual nature, initiative, competitive spirit, private ownership and personal gain will continually out-perform every other economic model. The more unfettered and egalitarian the competition, the more productive and wealthy that society will be!
5. Every Citizen has the inalienable right to life, liberty, property, self-defense and self-determination, along with the responsibility to hold the rights of others harmless from their exercise thereof. Inherent in that right to life for any material life form must be the right of access to the basic necessities of life - clean air, pure water, wholesome food, direct sunlight (or some stored energy) and space sufficient to sustain ones continued existence.
Thus, we can see that all new ‘wealth’ is only harvested from the farms, forests, seas, and mines of our biosphere, or is value later added by further processing those same commodities into products more useful for life.
The “service” based economy, as well as every other, other than the ‘primary production’ based economy, is a cruel and fraudulent myth!
An even more ‘criminal’ myth is that of the universal benefit supposedly received by human society from all trade in our “Global Economy”!
Wealth is never generated from any form of trade. In fact, there is an inherent loss in every form of trade, as it burns some of the energy stored in that commodity in the process of moving the asset from producer to ultimate consumer.
If you burn more energy in a trade than is stored in the commodity traded; you have entered into negative territory and a wholly unsustainable business practice!
Air freighting truffles to the super-rich around the world is a perfect example of this, but it is also one of the few kinds of ‘wealth redistribution’ that is moral, as it remains a private contract between a willing buyer and a willing seller.
Now, if only we could train pigeons to use oxygen masks, the jet-stream, and climate-controlled boxes to deliver the truffles, collect payment, and return in the same day!
Therefore, AMASS insists each co-op should operate a central marketplace for provision of basic needs from the most local production possible, as the less transport involved in any trade, the less energy is expended, and the more wealth is retained.
With this conservative strategy, AMASS will re-build our Society from the ground up. As opposed to the “Rich get Richer, and Poor get Poorer” effect of the current inverted construct of our economy, which concentrates capital in an elite class at the top of a house of cards, in a stable pyramidal structure, AMASS distributes the greatest mass of capital where it belongs at the base of the economy, in primary production, and every economic sector above that must add value to that production, rather than consume it.
The inefficient, irresponsive and fraudulent wealth creation schemes common throughout our current government-instituted, bureaucracy-regulated, monopoly-based, purely-partisan and oligarchic, predatory capitalist system can never result in resolving humanity’s problems, but can only result in generating more human misery!.
With the current “credit crisis” fresh in our minds, we should be able to plainly see the folly in the present inverted construct of our economy. Predatory Capitalism is at its end!
The logical forces of Laissez Faire Capitalism, Compassionate Conservativism and Christian Cooperativism must immediately stand up to rescue us from certain disaster!
Our forefathers survived the wild frontiers and built this country upon cooperative effort, we will need these skills again to survive this challenge we now find ourselves in!
Only by returning to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, insuring the free and open association of sovereign individuals in an unassailable state of equal treatment under the law will be able to save us from this ‘uncontrollable tailspin’ we are entering into.
We can all see that we are at a turning point in history, where a paradigm shift in Social Justice and Responsibility is imminent. Will we make logical sustainable changes for the future of all life, or continue on the path of purely personal immediate self-gratification?
Will we drive these developments, or be driven by them like sheep to slaughter?
We all like to talk the talk, but when given the opportunity to help change the unjust way this irresponsive and inefficient system works, will we walk the walk?
In the Good Book, we are instructed to “Tithe” 10% of our net income to maintain communal stores of all essential commodities sufficient for surviving 3 years of severe drought. This ‘tithe system’ was designed, not to support an elite clergy, but for the security of the nation in times of hardship, and the ultimate support of widows, orphans, and other truly indigent citizens as those stocks are rotated out and replaced with fresh. Where are these stores? How will we survive without that insurance?
If we wish America to continue to secure the blessings of our God-given Liberty, we must follow these commandments, and restore grains and other essential commodities to our now-empty storehouses for weathering the coming calamities!
In this life, we never know what the future holds, but we know there will be challenges, wise and prudent people keep good insurance policies against those eventualities!
You are just the person this world needs to help solve the problems that plague us all.
So, I am asking you to invest your sweat-equity in helping to build this private social security system to provide the basic necessities of modern life, from insurance to electricity, clothing to tools, bread to gasoline, thru thick and thin, to all those willing to live, and work, in peace with their fellow man!
I am sure that you can see 'the handwriting on the wall'. Most people alive today see the Signs! This World of Lust and Greed is not long to God's Good Green Earth.
Man seems Hell-bent to destroy himself thru an unfettered avarice for more-more-more, his abysmal stewardship of Creation, and violent Tribulation (Tribal Conflict).
The God of Our Fathers has promised to “destroy those destroying the Earth”!
That is a chilling indictment for all of us!
Will we heed these warnings, and return to the Wisdom of the Ages, or will we follow our own greedy desires into the Abyss?
I hope you will be moved to respond to this, and work with me to build an international cooperative network to provide clean, renewable food, fuel and fiber to a hungry planet.
America needs you, Earth needs you, to serve in this her hour of great challenge!
Let us show the World that we are more than “Summer Soldiers and Sunshine Patriots; that we will not be blown away like chaff in the wind!
.If you are truly serious about working to develop a new system of distribution of essential goods and services for the equitable sustenance of all Men of Peace, you are invited to join this group and post important communications here.
You may send me your request to join, any proposed postings, and your answers to the following questions:
1. Do you believe in the existence of a power higher than Man?
2. Are the answers to Man’s problems purely spiritual, physical, or a balance?
3. Does right/good and wrong/evil exist, or is everything grey area and relative?
4. Are we genetically predisposed to good, or to evil, purely products of our environment, or predisposed, but also masters of our own destiny?
5. Who is responsible for the long dark history of Mankind’s past failures?
6. Who is to blame for our present situation?
7. Who is responsible for insuring the sustainability of our future?
Please feel free to be as curt or as ‘windy’ as you desire, but be as honest and introspective as is humanly possible, in your responses.
In closing, remember that all Governments, by their very nature, are bought and paid for by selfish special interests! They are not responsive to the needs of all of the People! Even if politicians wanted to deliver more than empty campaign promises, Governments can never solve all of our problems for us!
Working together, at the local level, we can solve our own problems! Working together, we will overcome all hardships, survive to fight again, and, one step at a time, win a better life for all on this beautiful planet for generations to come!
Larry M. Aden, President,
AMASS (Assurance Mutual Association for a Sustainable Society)
2694 180th Street, Nemaha, Iowa 50567
Ph. 712-636-4490, email: lmaden@frontiernet.net
Please feel free to contact me, only if you really want to build a better, brighter world!

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 11, 2008 at 8:26pm

A note written to Monte, thought might better explain my views along with this blog...:

The more I read on this venue, the more I learn and am very interested in most.

For years waking in mid of night, daytime, drawings, always around things that are discussed right here. Imagine that. My dreams brought me here, oh dear me, gotta get better dreams.... Anyway, it's been on my heart for a long time that we should be smart and saavy enough to make use of the extreme conditions in parts of our land. Say, Death Valley. With it's unwaivering heat, what could that heat do for us?? Bet there are many scientists in different fields who could come up with many different creative proposals from eco systems to quick farms, to desalinization plants to solar systems. Since have never been there, wonder about the wind with all that heat... Anyway, I've dreamed of having plantations of covered fields [like the old tobacco plantations] where the coverings would protect from that blistering sun, but then wait, why not have solar collectors protecting the plants, providing the energy to bring forth the water, desalinize it and in various stages, create eco systems, then on with the purer water product to the plants and people.... anyway, that's me mind...
In my dreams, I've re-written the criminal code to absolute restitution in all cases, and the incarcerated were employed in large installations out there too, and the Army Corps of Engineers were overseers of giant projects of river overflow diversion projects that moved the water in a pattern all over the country that prevented future floods. I don't dream small.
I've owned a solar control product company years ago and found it fascinating and the prospect of having every roof top you can see be a collection site for energy that will help the "little people" [NOT THE BIGGIES - they don't need it]. Every, rooftop, barn, house, farm could all be collection points, right now that help that individual house, barn, farm or business, or school or hospital, provide for their own energy needs and give to the community around them as well, [NOT HAVE TO BE PIPED FROM SOME DISTANT PLACE], In addition to residential WIND turbines for all those same places for the same reasons. PLUS, small to medium electric cars for the neighborhood running that has to be done every day, and NG for the bigger and also hydrogen and other means now being experimented with and tested. When proven, then add them. There's more than enough room for all of them.
The time for the few holding the throats of the rest of us should be over.
Monte, my mother just passed a few months ago. For the past 15 years I've been here taking care of Mom & Dad till they passed on. I watched them sweat and worry over being able to pay the light bill, water bill and buy food. After my Dad working 2 jobs fulltime for more than 22 years, and a corp. raider walked off with his retirement funds right before his retirement, and just before the laws were written to protect. To have 1/3 to 1/2 and even more of your total income go to electricity in some of these 100+degree summers we've had here in Texas, sit beside a hospital bed in the den constantly rinsing and wiping the sweat and treating the resulting bedsores while some get rich off the energy, just to me isn't something we could call part of an American Dream. Each house has a roof and as so, could and should be collecting that sunshine and utilizing it, as well as the wind.
I believe with my heart, we should be about getting the energy collectors first to the people who need to benefit from it the most, then on up the scale till every building has it in place and is pouring energy into the grid from all directions. I believe that by doing that we will be less vulnerable to calamities from Mother Nature and any attacks against us.
If we are all dependent upon a few, wipe them out and we're all out. I don't think that is a good way for us to go.

Thanks for asking,
Donna

On the other hands, my tastes go to the church, music, opera, art, theatre, medical science, ....... Delete Comment

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 11, 2008 at 8:06pm

Received a caution today from a very trusted advisor about being very careful to research WELL the credentials of Judges up for election and re-election. With so many activists wearing robes and using the bench for "their ideas" rather than ruling through the Constitution, we need to know as much as possible about them BEFORE we vote.

Also, as we brace for the hit of "IKE" here in Houston, appreciate your prayers and to remember what we are doing should make it better for those of us who have to "hunker" down and survive these situations. We have such wonderful "thinkers" out there, we should be able to come up with ways to not only survive them, but make money off them. Good old American ingenuity... am I right?

With my passion for solar control products and wind control products I'm just "itchin" for a way to get sustainable power through an beyond these seemingly increasing storms.

One of my sons came in last night with a battery run fan he bought for himself. I said, "Gee thanks son, for thinking of me too." Well anyway, it works very well and should he not have any electricity, he won't swelter as before. They sold out like hotcakes. Why can't we do the same for a way to cook small amounts? Like travel with for those thousands on the road right now searching for a place to nod that safe and not going to blow away. Or, why can't there be an easy financing incentive package especially for people who live within a 4 county distance from any coast to get natural gas stoves, [there used to be, a very long time ago]. Hey, Mr. Pickens, what do you think about financing something like that for a looowww interest rate? Hmmm?

Listening to the sound of the many, many cars off in the distance heading toward safety, it sounds a lot like listening to the surf from a distance. No beach.
Take care,
Donna

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 10, 2008 at 11:43pm

We are wanting to know who is voting for what. Simple .

Names, position, voting for tax credits, or against.

No rhetoric please. Just report what you find so others can VOTE accordingly.

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 10, 2008 at 11:41pm

Comment to Lawrence Murray. Yes we will surely be exporting our expertise, and doing it well, AFTER we get our own up, running and polished. HOME comes first! Houses, stores, hospitals, schools, businesses, buildings self sustaining solar, wind, ng generators, all forms of energy that can sustain a building, per that geographical place, it's gifts in energy potential. There is still going to be a need for the big installations like Boone is doing. There is still going to be the necessary niche for oil and there is a special place for ng now! You need to get the various parts of this group to producing their contributions and letting the proof get in the pudding. Where we find success, let's get behind it. We need it here, right now.

Comment by Luane Todd on September 10, 2008 at 5:39pm

This is a very good start. Keep thinking and refining and spreading your ideas.

Comment by Lawrence Murray on September 9, 2008 at 8:13pm

Hi Donna,
One big problem is one size does not fit all! So states need to do their part by helping get off oil, tax people and corporations for the best outcomes-progressive sales tax and pollution surcharge, and help local governments. My plan for California can be seen at CoolingEarth.org California can be carbon neutral. The national government would have its hands full helping with nuclear power plants that produce bio fuels, new dams, and begining a new system of pipelines for hydrogen. Then all electricity can be turned into hydrogen that is not used locally. This hydrogen is liqified to run superconductors where electricity is moved. We have to have as many people for our plan as we can! Therefore, we have to go green. One more thing, we have to make this technology available to other contries to make earth sustainable.

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 9, 2008 at 7:57pm

Wups...a typo on the referenced Bill ... it's S.3335 per Tom.

Comment by Donna L. Hill Powell on September 9, 2008 at 7:43pm

I just a great website called www.opencongress.org! It has the results from the initial senate vote on the renewable energy tax credit bill S.335. This might be the golden key we were looking for! I found it by typing a google search for S.335. It came up as the second result.

Here's the link:
http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/show/4940

Thanks,
Tom Zellars