Here is a plan for posterity: Bernie Sanders for president, and Dennis Kucinich for vice president.
Bernie Sanders is a U.S. senator from Vermont. Before serving in the Senate, he served in the House of Representatives. He was also the mayor of Burlington, the largest city in Vermont. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, and he has praised Scandinavian-style social democracy.
Dennis Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative from Ohio, serving from 1997-2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.
Recently the House of Representatives voted to give more money to Ukraine. Rep. Ron Paul, on December 6, 2014, in a Global Research article, entitled “H. Res. 758: Reckless Congress ‘Declares War’ on Russia,” wrote about what he considered was the worst piece of legislation ever! On December 4, the US House passed H. Res. 758, strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin. Ron Paul said this resolution is provoking a war with Russia that could result in total destruction! Ron Paul believes this will re-ignite the Cold War, and it will vastly increase military spending on an annual basis. Is that what we really need right now? Sadly, there were only ten representatives who voted against the bill!
Many people are not aware that in February 2014, the US government created, promoted, and orchestrated a coup d’état of the Ukrainian government! Our CIA helped remove a democratically elected leader, and then helped install a fascist or Nazi-type leader who is waging war on South Ossetia in Eastern Ukraine which is 90 percent pro-Russian. That is how I understand it.
According to Eric Zuesse in his OpEdNews article on December 4, 2014: “It [House Resolution 758] is a bill authorizing Obama to supply weapons to the bankrupt Ukrainian government to exterminate (and drive out into neighboring Russia) the people in the area of Ukraine’s southeast that had voted 90 percent for the [previous] Ukrainian President, Victor Yanukovych, whom Obama overthrew in a bloody coup in February 2014.”
Dennis Kucinich, through RootsAction, has promoted a petition for people to say No to War, Hot or Cold, with Russia. I urge everyone to sign the petition.
According to the Roots Action petition, we must “reverse the steps taken in the recently passed resolution H. Res. 758, which distorts facts and hypocritically condemns actions the United States is itself guilty of in order to antagonize Russia effectively declaring a new Cold War. The resolution demands that Russia be isolated and that the U.S. and NATO be prepared for war. This approach should be unacceptable in a new head of the Pentagon, and Congress should replace militarism with diplomacy toward Moscow.”
In an AntiWar.com article on March 15, 2014, entitled “Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997,” Chris Ernesto reported that “last year when Ukraine’s now-ousted president Viktor Yanukovych surprisingly cancelled plans for Ukrainian integration into the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia, the US may have viewed Ukraine as slipping even further from its reach. At that point, with the pieces already in place, the US moved to support the ousting of Yanukovych, as evidenced by the leaked phone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When peaceful protests were not effective in unseating Yanukovych, the violence of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party and Right Sector was embraced, if not supported by the west . . . Understanding Brzeziniski’s long term view of Ukraine makes it easier to comprehend why the US has given $5 billion to Ukraine since 1991, and why today it is hyper-concerned about having Ukraine remain in its sphere of influence.”
And considering the recent police shootings, are things really this bad in the world right now? I am afraid they are, unless we have a plan for posterity. Do we really want to ignite another Cold War with Russia, and possibly add China, too, this time? Can’t we be smarter than that? Haven’t we learned lessons from all of the countless wars throughout history?
The Germans made big mistakes in both World War I and II, yet now it is interesting that prominent Germans are calling for diplomacy, not war with Russia, according to a recent Global Research article. If that is true, then their sins are forgiven in my opinion. War is not the answer. Love and forgiveness is what we must show.
Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Elizabeth Warren, Kshama Sawant, Cornel West, Ron Paul, and Cynthia McKinney are the eleven leaders that I would recommend in this plan for posterity. But how do we plan for seven generations? We can promote hemp and solar, and encourage ongoing spiritual revival.
In a Huffington Post article, the many virtues of hemp are listed. In a video about how passive solar energy can reduce winter and summer fuel bills by 80-90 percent, one can see that there are alternatives to fossil fuels and planetary destruction.
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business and the growing inequality in our country—employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities, according to a documentary that was to have its world premiere on October 18, 2012 in Oakland, CA. The documentary highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain. Popular Marxist Professor Richard D. Wolff has promoted the Mondragon experiment.
The book Democracy For the Few by political Professor Michael Parenti is an outstanding scholarly textbook review of capitalism as a social system, not just as an economic model. The book has gone through at least nine editions. I also recommend youtube videos of various lectures given by Michael Parenti. According to Professor Cornel West, an honary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, “Michael Parenti is a towering prophetic voice in American life. We need him now more than ever.” The Democratic Socialists of America, by the way, are calling for Bernie Sanders to run for president.
Kshama Sawant, a Socialist Alternative party organizer, software engineer, and member of the Seattle City Council, was instrumental in getting the $15 an hour wage law passed in Seattle. She is a woman who can make a difference.
Some progressive activists are promoting Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, to run for president. Elizabeth Warren can challenge the Clintonian orthodoxy, as stated in The Nation this past September.
Both Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader ran for president on the Green ticket at different times.
So there you have it—a plan for posterity using the gifts and talents of Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Cornel West, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Kshama Sawant—the eleven leaders I think and believe could make the greatest difference in implementing a plan for posterity.
In a New Republic of Texas article, a website that aims to expose liberal hypocrisy, U.S. national debt hit $18 trillion for the first time, according to the U.S. Treasury Dept. In a National Review article dated December 9, 2014, Stephen Moore’s article “The United States of Debt,” also explains that the national debt hit $18 trillion—and we’re still borrowing.” Stephen Moore is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
At the website National Debt Solutions, Carl Milsted, Jr., Ph.D argues that we need a safety net we can afford from current tax revenues. Paying for social programs with deficit spending subsidizes the rich, which defeats much of the point of progressive government. Milsted points out that taxes need to be higher, and we need real spending cuts. “Higher taxes are not enough. Even at peak postwar tax levels . . . we would not have a balanced budget. We need to cut spending: both discretionary and entitlements.”
However, this writer would emphasize that drastically reducing military spending about 90 percent, and creating a new era of peace-making diplomacy and transparency in government would be the best solution, as we close the 700 U.S. military bases around the world and bring our troops home to just protect our borders.
The greatest threat to world peace is the increasing discrepancy between the rich and poor within a nation and the increasing discrepancy between rich and poor nations. Radical egalitarianism is needed. People throughout the world need to be paid fair wages. What is needed is a progressive income tax, even more progressive than what we had under Eisenhower, a Republican.
But how do we create a spiritual revival? The study of yoga, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the practice of meditation, and the reexamination of progressive Christian theologian Paul Tillich could be a step in the right direction.
In this plan for posterity, the legalization of marijuana-hemp-cannabis is advocated in the belief that it has many medical benefits, and its recreational use might reduce alcohol and cigarette consumption, which would be a good thing. Biodegradable hemp is the most versatile plant on earth, and it should be cultivated for its countless technological uses, as an ecologically friendly alternative. Solar technology must be promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels and climate change. Employee ownership and workplace democracy must be promoted as an alternative to the tyrannical hierarchy that is found in the average workplace.
With an emerging spiritual revival that fosters making a transpersonal shift in awareness to the consciousness of the One Mind, we may be able to create a spiritual and political revolution in a way that everyone welcomes.
I’m not sure how many progressives would agree that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Kshama Sawant, Elizabeth Warren, Cornel West, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, and Cynthia McKinney are the top eleven leaders that we progressives should put our trust in for the 2016 presidential election, or whether or not these eleven individuals would even agree to work together, but it’s worth considering, as a plan for posterity.
We must start planning for the presidential race in 2016. It is urgent right now that we put our best minds and hearts together, as never before, or we may not be able to prevent an Armageddon, the end of the world, and we can do better than that.
Having a lot of personal debt is not a good thing. Therefore, no one can convince me that deficit spending for the nation is a long term solution because it is not. Is there a fair way to cancel all national debts and start all over? The Bible in the book of Leviticus describes the Year of Jubilee, after every seven times seven weeks, or every 49 years, in which land is returned to original owners, debts forgiven, and prisoners freed. I am not so sure about doing all these things in today’s society, but I know there is power in forgiveness.
We have a United Nations but there are five permanent members on the Security Council, which is unfair. Why not give each nation one vote on every issue? Let us abolish all nuclear weapons now and eventually abolish all nuclear power plants as a long term strategy. A democratic world government could ultimately be considered, but it would have to be built from the bottom-up, not from the top-down. Otherwise, it would become a New World Order orchestrated by the wealthiest one percent.
There is a way to reform the public schools in a way that has never been tried before. It is a way that promotes grassroots democracy, decentralization, and local self-determination. Using a new model, we can encourage the residents of every public elementary, middle, and high school to democratically determine their own school philosophy and educational curriculum, using public funds. This method would encourage residents to have deep discussions about how and what to teach their neighborhood children, and it would promote neighborhood togetherness and a sense of community in the process. Every neighborhood school district could become an intentional community.
Everyone should know that our two-party political system and the mainstream media are controlled by wealthy elitists. Neither party wants to encourage or empower third parties. We should instead empower and level the playing field for the seven largest national political parties and then use proportional representation to elect members of the House. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear daily discussions of politics, economics, and foreign policy on mainstream television from the perspective of seven political parties instead of just two?
Under proportional representation , if the Greens, for example, get 15 percent of the national vote, then 15 percent of the House would come from state Green parties. Some day the U.S. Senate should ideally be abolished when you consider that California has a population 70 times greater than Wyoming, and both states have the same number of senators, 2. We could then have a unicameral national legislature.
Ultimately down the road we need to pass a constitutional amendment that revises Article V, so that it will be easier to pass amendments to the constitution in the future, and some day it will be easier to have a Constitutional Convention in a very fair and orderly way to create a new national constitution, and also establish a precedent for creating better national constitutions in future generations. At my website, I propose a new national constitution. The Electoral College System for electing a president must go, and instant runoff voting can be used more.
I am not so sure how my eleven admired leaders would respond to my specific proposals for long term strategies and solutions, planning seven generations ahead. But wouldn’t it give us renewed hope for our nation and the world if these eleven people would start working together in preparation for the presidential election of 2016? Do we need to live simply, so that others can simply live? Yes, but when everyone is fed, we can be extravagant if we collectively choose. War is dumb! It is foolish and wrong, if not evil. We can create peace on earth if we choose.
Roger Copple is 64 years old. He retired 4 years ago in 2010 from teaching general elementary, mostly 3rd grade, and also middle and high school special education in Indianapolis. He now lives in Bradenton, Florida. Roger is especially interested in political theory and U.S. foreign policy. He also enjoys playing chess and tennis, walking, participating in a Bhagavad Gita study group, and doing insight or vipassana meditation. Roger grew up in a United Pentecostal Church family and remembers going to church 4 times a week. His parents have always voted Republican. Roger can be emailed: roger.copple@gmail.com His website: www.NowSaveTheWorld.com.
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A plan for posterity: the presidential election of 2016
Posted on December 16, 2014 by Roger Copple
Here is a plan for posterity: Bernie Sanders for president, and Dennis Kucinich for vice president.
Bernie Sanders is a U.S. senator from Vermont. Before serving in the Senate, he served in the House of Representatives. He was also the mayor of Burlington, the largest city in Vermont. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, and he has praised Scandinavian-style social democracy.
Dennis Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative from Ohio, serving from 1997-2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2004 and 2008.
Recently the House of Representatives voted to give more money to Ukraine. Rep. Ron Paul, on December 6, 2014, in a Global Research article, entitled “H. Res. 758: Reckless Congress ‘Declares War’ on Russia,” wrote about what he considered was the worst piece of legislation ever! On December 4, the US House passed H. Res. 758, strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin. Ron Paul said this resolution is provoking a war with Russia that could result in total destruction! Ron Paul believes this will re-ignite the Cold War, and it will vastly increase military spending on an annual basis. Is that what we really need right now? Sadly, there were only ten representatives who voted against the bill!
Many people are not aware that in February 2014, the US government created, promoted, and orchestrated a coup d’état of the Ukrainian government! Our CIA helped remove a democratically elected leader, and then helped install a fascist or Nazi-type leader who is waging war on South Ossetia in Eastern Ukraine which is 90 percent pro-Russian. That is how I understand it.
According to Eric Zuesse in his OpEdNews article on December 4, 2014: “It [House Resolution 758] is a bill authorizing Obama to supply weapons to the bankrupt Ukrainian government to exterminate (and drive out into neighboring Russia) the people in the area of Ukraine’s southeast that had voted 90 percent for the [previous] Ukrainian President, Victor Yanukovych, whom Obama overthrew in a bloody coup in February 2014.”
Dennis Kucinich, through RootsAction, has promoted a petition for people to say No to War, Hot or Cold, with Russia. I urge everyone to sign the petition.
According to the Roots Action petition, we must “reverse the steps taken in the recently passed resolution H. Res. 758, which distorts facts and hypocritically condemns actions the United States is itself guilty of in order to antagonize Russia effectively declaring a new Cold War. The resolution demands that Russia be isolated and that the U.S. and NATO be prepared for war. This approach should be unacceptable in a new head of the Pentagon, and Congress should replace militarism with diplomacy toward Moscow.”
In an AntiWar.com article on March 15, 2014, entitled “Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997,” Chris Ernesto reported that “last year when Ukraine’s now-ousted president Viktor Yanukovych surprisingly cancelled plans for Ukrainian integration into the European Union in favor of stronger ties with Russia, the US may have viewed Ukraine as slipping even further from its reach. At that point, with the pieces already in place, the US moved to support the ousting of Yanukovych, as evidenced by the leaked phone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When peaceful protests were not effective in unseating Yanukovych, the violence of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party and Right Sector was embraced, if not supported by the west . . . Understanding Brzeziniski’s long term view of Ukraine makes it easier to comprehend why the US has given $5 billion to Ukraine since 1991, and why today it is hyper-concerned about having Ukraine remain in its sphere of influence.”
And considering the recent police shootings, are things really this bad in the world right now? I am afraid they are, unless we have a plan for posterity. Do we really want to ignite another Cold War with Russia, and possibly add China, too, this time? Can’t we be smarter than that? Haven’t we learned lessons from all of the countless wars throughout history?
The Germans made big mistakes in both World War I and II, yet now it is interesting that prominent Germans are calling for diplomacy, not war with Russia, according to a recent Global Research article. If that is true, then their sins are forgiven in my opinion. War is not the answer. Love and forgiveness is what we must show.
Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Elizabeth Warren, Kshama Sawant, Cornel West, Ron Paul, and Cynthia McKinney are the eleven leaders that I would recommend in this plan for posterity. But how do we plan for seven generations? We can promote hemp and solar, and encourage ongoing spiritual revival.
In a Huffington Post article, the many virtues of hemp are listed. In a video about how passive solar energy can reduce winter and summer fuel bills by 80-90 percent, one can see that there are alternatives to fossil fuels and planetary destruction.
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business and the growing inequality in our country—employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities, according to a documentary that was to have its world premiere on October 18, 2012 in Oakland, CA. The documentary highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain. Popular Marxist Professor Richard D. Wolff has promoted the Mondragon experiment.
The book Democracy For the Few by political Professor Michael Parenti is an outstanding scholarly textbook review of capitalism as a social system, not just as an economic model. The book has gone through at least nine editions. I also recommend youtube videos of various lectures given by Michael Parenti. According to Professor Cornel West, an honary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, “Michael Parenti is a towering prophetic voice in American life. We need him now more than ever.” The Democratic Socialists of America, by the way, are calling for Bernie Sanders to run for president.
Kshama Sawant, a Socialist Alternative party organizer, software engineer, and member of the Seattle City Council, was instrumental in getting the $15 an hour wage law passed in Seattle. She is a woman who can make a difference.
Some progressive activists are promoting Elizabeth Warren, the U.S. senator from Massachusetts, to run for president. Elizabeth Warren can challenge the Clintonian orthodoxy, as stated in The Nation this past September.
Both Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader ran for president on the Green ticket at different times.
So there you have it—a plan for posterity using the gifts and talents of Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Cornel West, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Kshama Sawant—the eleven leaders I think and believe could make the greatest difference in implementing a plan for posterity.
In a New Republic of Texas article, a website that aims to expose liberal hypocrisy, U.S. national debt hit $18 trillion for the first time, according to the U.S. Treasury Dept. In a National Review article dated December 9, 2014, Stephen Moore’s article “The United States of Debt,” also explains that the national debt hit $18 trillion—and we’re still borrowing.” Stephen Moore is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
At the website National Debt Solutions, Carl Milsted, Jr., Ph.D argues that we need a safety net we can afford from current tax revenues. Paying for social programs with deficit spending subsidizes the rich, which defeats much of the point of progressive government. Milsted points out that taxes need to be higher, and we need real spending cuts. “Higher taxes are not enough. Even at peak postwar tax levels . . . we would not have a balanced budget. We need to cut spending: both discretionary and entitlements.”
However, this writer would emphasize that drastically reducing military spending about 90 percent, and creating a new era of peace-making diplomacy and transparency in government would be the best solution, as we close the 700 U.S. military bases around the world and bring our troops home to just protect our borders.
The greatest threat to world peace is the increasing discrepancy between the rich and poor within a nation and the increasing discrepancy between rich and poor nations. Radical egalitarianism is needed. People throughout the world need to be paid fair wages. What is needed is a progressive income tax, even more progressive than what we had under Eisenhower, a Republican.
But how do we create a spiritual revival? The study of yoga, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the practice of meditation, and the reexamination of progressive Christian theologian Paul Tillich could be a step in the right direction.
In this plan for posterity, the legalization of marijuana-hemp-cannabis is advocated in the belief that it has many medical benefits, and its recreational use might reduce alcohol and cigarette consumption, which would be a good thing. Biodegradable hemp is the most versatile plant on earth, and it should be cultivated for its countless technological uses, as an ecologically friendly alternative. Solar technology must be promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels and climate change. Employee ownership and workplace democracy must be promoted as an alternative to the tyrannical hierarchy that is found in the average workplace.
With an emerging spiritual revival that fosters making a transpersonal shift in awareness to the consciousness of the One Mind, we may be able to create a spiritual and political revolution in a way that everyone welcomes.
I’m not sure how many progressives would agree that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Richard D. Wolff, Kshama Sawant, Elizabeth Warren, Cornel West, Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, and Cynthia McKinney are the top eleven leaders that we progressives should put our trust in for the 2016 presidential election, or whether or not these eleven individuals would even agree to work together, but it’s worth considering, as a plan for posterity.
We must start planning for the presidential race in 2016. It is urgent right now that we put our best minds and hearts together, as never before, or we may not be able to prevent an Armageddon, the end of the world, and we can do better than that.
Having a lot of personal debt is not a good thing. Therefore, no one can convince me that deficit spending for the nation is a long term solution because it is not. Is there a fair way to cancel all national debts and start all over? The Bible in the book of Leviticus describes the Year of Jubilee, after every seven times seven weeks, or every 49 years, in which land is returned to original owners, debts forgiven, and prisoners freed. I am not so sure about doing all these things in today’s society, but I know there is power in forgiveness.
We have a United Nations but there are five permanent members on the Security Council, which is unfair. Why not give each nation one vote on every issue? Let us abolish all nuclear weapons now and eventually abolish all nuclear power plants as a long term strategy. A democratic world government could ultimately be considered, but it would have to be built from the bottom-up, not from the top-down. Otherwise, it would become a New World Order orchestrated by the wealthiest one percent.
There is a way to reform the public schools in a way that has never been tried before. It is a way that promotes grassroots democracy, decentralization, and local self-determination. Using a new model, we can encourage the residents of every public elementary, middle, and high school to democratically determine their own school philosophy and educational curriculum, using public funds. This method would encourage residents to have deep discussions about how and what to teach their neighborhood children, and it would promote neighborhood togetherness and a sense of community in the process. Every neighborhood school district could become an intentional community.
Everyone should know that our two-party political system and the mainstream media are controlled by wealthy elitists. Neither party wants to encourage or empower third parties. We should instead empower and level the playing field for the seven largest national political parties and then use proportional representation to elect members of the House. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear daily discussions of politics, economics, and foreign policy on mainstream television from the perspective of seven political parties instead of just two?
Under proportional representation , if the Greens, for example, get 15 percent of the national vote, then 15 percent of the House would come from state Green parties. Some day the U.S. Senate should ideally be abolished when you consider that California has a population 70 times greater than Wyoming, and both states have the same number of senators, 2. We could then have a unicameral national legislature.
Ultimately down the road we need to pass a constitutional amendment that revises Article V, so that it will be easier to pass amendments to the constitution in the future, and some day it will be easier to have a Constitutional Convention in a very fair and orderly way to create a new national constitution, and also establish a precedent for creating better national constitutions in future generations. At my website, I propose a new national constitution. The Electoral College System for electing a president must go, and instant runoff voting can be used more.
I am not so sure how my eleven admired leaders would respond to my specific proposals for long term strategies and solutions, planning seven generations ahead. But wouldn’t it give us renewed hope for our nation and the world if these eleven people would start working together in preparation for the presidential election of 2016? Do we need to live simply, so that others can simply live? Yes, but when everyone is fed, we can be extravagant if we collectively choose. War is dumb! It is foolish and wrong, if not evil. We can create peace on earth if we choose.
Roger Copple is 64 years old. He retired 4 years ago in 2010 from teaching general elementary, mostly 3rd grade, and also middle and high school special education in Indianapolis. He now lives in Bradenton, Florida. Roger is especially interested in political theory and U.S. foreign policy. He also enjoys playing chess and tennis, walking, participating in a Bhagavad Gita study group, and doing insight or vipassana meditation. Roger grew up in a United Pentecostal Church family and remembers going to church 4 times a week. His parents have always voted Republican. Roger can be emailed: roger.copple@gmail.com His website: www.NowSaveTheWorld.com.