governance

Voter Empowerment Project

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As should be obvious from our relatively infrequent posts, as of January, 2019 this blog has shifted its focus from shorter, more “newsworthy” explorations and announcements to long form, in-depth, mostly psycho-philosophical posts. However, when we received the weekly post from Jen Hofmann (Americans of Conscience Checklist), we could not help but consider suspending our reticence for a brief shout out to someone worthy of praise for her diligence and support for the worthwhile endeavors she sends our way.

Specifically, you might want to check out Jen’s site to learn more about the June 2019 event focusing on “strengthening the integrity of the 2020 elections”.

Big

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Sometimes, size matters.  Sometimes, we can only accurately define “size” within specific contexts. Most times, the situation is not about “size” per se but something considerably more profound. This post is a bit different from what usually appears on this blog.  It is meant to be heuristic rather than specifically informative. This is to suggest, that as you work through the superficially different videos below, ideally, you will come away with an integrated idea that no one video presents on its own.  Hopefully, you will develop ideas regarding large and small actions in the world, actions which uniquely apply to your own life situations. As always, as has been a major orientation of this blog, indoctrination is not the goal, but rather, expanding opportunities for personal enablement through information and imagination. So imagine this … (more…)

Exploring Morality

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Word Tag Cloud Design

Multiple times in the since mid-2017, this blog have made reference or presented ideas relative to Moral Foundations Theory (MFT).  While we do not wholly agree with all of the proposals of the theory, while we have found the “universality” of its proposals somewhat wanting and while we have questioned the motivations of its founder, Jonathan Haidt, we do believe the framework presents a worthwhile configuration of morality categories, if only for its heuristic value.  Apparently, a blogger who writes under the moniker “Moral Navigator” shares an interest in this set of ideas.  Check out one of his recent posts called “Which Moral Foundations Do You Value?”

The seekingGood blog addresses a wide range of topics.  Out of deference to a known portion of our readers, often, we fall short of the depth we might prefer as well as the academic rigor with which we are more comfortable (the language of which we must actively—sometimes unsuccessfully—resist).  Moral Navigator’s blog appears to reflect no such limitations, focusing on morality topics written in a learned yet very readable style (complete with multiple references).  Take a look at his blog.  You might find a new home.

What if We Owned the Banks?

Economic Inequality: Part 3

In June of 2015, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Barclays, among other Libor-rigging giants, pleaded guilty to felony charges related to the [Libor] conspiracy and greed to pay more than $2.5 billion in criminal fines to U.S. regulators.

Protesters and Chase(AP Photo / Edouard H.R. Gluck)

Representing only a single instance of a commonplace practice played out the world over, this corporate criminality instigated the outage of Craig Brandt, an attorney from Oakland, California. He set out to enact an audacious plan. With other individuals, Mr. Brandt endeavored to have the Oakland City Council “take radical action to combat plutocracy, inequality and financial dislocation”. Mr. Brandt wanted to create a city-owned “public bank”.

Recent posts on this blog have explored economic inequality and its ramifications. The post this week continues this series, beginning to focus on potential solutions to what some see as a looming economic catastrophe. As Part 3 our Economic Inequality series, consider this article by Jimmy Tobias: “What if People Owned the Banks Instead of Wall Street?”

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