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About Groundswell: Recently we posted a Message to Simpletons on the Wesoomi website. We thought it was important enough to be very visible and easily accessible. So, the link to the essay can be found on the links frame of our home page. In that essay, we mentioned Groundswell. Now it is possible that some readers do not know what we mean by that even though I have discussed it in this philosophy series. That is one reason for his particular essay. I want to bring all the discussion on Groundswell together here. The other reason stems from my concern about the ever diminishing perceptive ability of our government complemented by the ever increasing insanity at all levels of government. Three recent events serve to highlight these rather serious charges I make against government. First is the 150 Billion dollar pork bill which we noticed in the Weekly Notes of October 25, 2004. According to ABC news, a huge pork tax bill went through. It started as a 50 million bill to help American exporters compete. It ended up as a 150 billion for pork. This was a massive demonstration of nonpartisan cooperation. Pork went to everyone and they all approved of it. Isn't that swell how they cooperate when things are really important? It seems McCain may be the only nearly decent man in Washington. He actually criticized this bill. This is just one reason why we need Groundswell. Second is more of a crisis than an event. I speak of the shortage of energy which I will give more coverage to in a future essay. This crude oil debacle is no longer just an annoyance. It will not go away. It will get worse. The demand is outreaching supply by a great deal and the gap will only widen. We should have solved this problem two decades ago, but we did not. Now we are running out of time. We desperately need an energy alternative to oil. With all of the world increasing demand exponentially and a fixed supply, disaster is guaranteed. If we do not solve this problem, the whole world will become a third world. Western civilization will be doomed. Modern civilization cannot function without energy. Third is about our military people. This was partly addressed in the Weekly Notes of November 1, 2004. It seems our heros are returning to disaster. Kids that were wounded, maimed, and disabled in George's war are coming home. They are not being treated like heros. They cannot get compensation. They cannot get jobs. Many of them are living in poverty. They cannot get help from our government. In fact, they have been abandon by their government. This is the same government that recently passed the 150 Billion dollar pork bill for cronies of the legislators. Lets get very clear on why the government must change. The government must provide uniform justice for all people. Besides the needless war and the total disregard for ethical behavior, there are basic things we are not doing. We must see to some of the basic rights of our people that have been too long set aside for too many people. If we cannot fix these things, we will and should go the way Rome went. Here are a few of them. No one should be hungry. No one should be afraid. No one should be cold. No one should have to choose between medicine and food. No child should ever be made to feel ashamed of himself. Ever child should have a clear opportunity to reach for excellence. If we cannot see to that, we ain't worth spit. Right now, we have a government that ain't worth spit. Everything else hinges on strong leadership. Our democracy has not been good at producing strong leadership of late. In fact, our recent and current leadership has been disgraceful for a free people. To lead people, you must first win their hearts. You do not do that by pandering to their basest character attributes. You do it by telling them the truth, about themselves and about the situation. You do not win the peoples hearts by promising to give them things they have not earned and do not deserve. You win them by demanding and drawing out their best behavior. You offer them leadership by setting the example of ethical behavior. A leader cannot be "only human, you know." A leader must be superior in every way. If you need more reason than that for a new approach, to government, just read this entire philosophy series or start noticing the daily news. If you are still not convince just keep your head in the sand. History will roll over you just as it did over Rome. Unless we change the way we do things and the way we approach government, Western civilization is doomed. We do need a new approach and Groundswell is what this is about. I can borrow some words from other philosophy essays in defining Groundswell and what I expect it to do. What we are trying to do is restore the rule of law in America. We can only do that be replacing the current government and returning to a real representative democracy. Restoring the rule of law means restoring the government. It is that simple. Restoring the government means throwing out all of the hacks on both sides of the aisle and replacing them with superior dominants. There are no politicians in Washington who deserve to be there. For any thoughtful person, the notion of a house ethics committee has to be a very bad joke. Please understand I have no intention whatsoever to discredit democracy or the great men who founded it in America. The idea is to understand the causes of our current moral crisis with an eye toward redirecting our course toward a more stable and lasting democracy. I have always believed that representative democracy is the highest form of government ever developed by mankind. Until we evolve further than we now are, representative democracy is the best possible form of government. Perhaps someday we will not need a government at all. I think communism has successfully proved that time is not yet. Until we have arrived, let us try to fix the vehicle we currently have. Unless we do that, we will not evolve at all. We have a great deal of work to do. One large part of that work will be to liberate our children so they can evolve. I don't see how we can do that within the situation we now find ourselves. We could probably go into a hidden corner and save a few kids, but that's not a worthy enough goal. We should want to save all of the kids. We must have a better, more ethical government to manage that. We must have a government that will put our resources into our kids rather than urinating them down the rat-holes of pork barrel and ill advised wars. I think one major problem is our current electoral system, which is based in party politics. It has undermined the basic premise of representative democracy. Of course, that is that it should be representative. If it is not, it is not democracy at all. That is where we have arrived. Our government is not representative of the people and it is no longer a real democracy. It is nothing more that a tool of special interests. The point is, we can change that. We can take our government back and make it what our founders intended it to be. Remember, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? To restore that concept we desperately need thoughtful, ethical, intelligent leadership. We need superior people in government. We need people who will put the long term interests of America and the American people ahead of their personal agenda. We need leadership that will put American goals ahead of party politics. We need George Washington, but we do not have him. Someone else will have to step up and fill the role, someone who can think and behave ethically. There is a reason why more than half of the people who are eligible to vote don't. The political hacks like to toss off an easy word. Apathy, they say, meaning voter apathy. I will suggest that voter apathy is a result, not a cause. It comes out of knowing that the choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee is irrelevant. It does not matter which one gets to play the buffoon. It is not worth the effort to pretend it does. Choosing between them is an exercise in futility. We know that in our guts. I still vote for what seems to be the least evil candidate. I hope to someday have an ethical candidate to vote for. There is no one on the political scene who comes even close to that standard of behavior. So, we need to create a forum where that person will come forward. We, need, in fact, to build a new political system, one dependent not on special interests, but on people. We need a grassroots movement where people are talking to people. We need to go back to basics. This is about taking back our government from the political machines and thugs who have hijacked it. Demagoguery and massive fund raising from special interests can have no place in that. We must achieve power without the influence of special interests. Once in power we must change how things are done at all levels of government. All of this implies that we will have some kind of political organization with candidates. So, what I'm talking about, what we really need, is a political action group or organization. What kind of organization? For sure, not another party. Perot tried that and turned the idea of a third party into a very bad joke. What I am really talking about is a peaceful revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. The two party crap has degenerated into an unworkable comedy. What we need now is a coalition of nonpartisan superior people. This is more of a grass roots kind of organization. It should be an organization of people cooperating at the local level. I think we must keep it basic with many small groups of people. We do not want to fall into the convention trap where it becomes about back room deals and fixes. We do not need to have masses of silly true believers and brass bands to use as window dressing to hide what's really going on. We need a lot of people who can become part of the process, believe in human ethics, and work like heck to bring it off. As to the organization, our motives should be very, very clear. It's to take back the government. We can have no secrets in that regard. What and how we are doing is probably not going to be secret. We can communicate by e-mail. If we need secrecy for some reason, we can encrypt our communication. At this time, I cannot visualize a need for secrecy at any time. We should be clear that secrecy and subterfuge are some major government behaviors we hope to end. I said we do not need conventions. In fact, we do not need large meetings of any kind. We need many small action groups communicating all of the time and perhaps a central coordinating and communication committee. We need many local organizations. I see these as action and discussion groups, but we must not get bogged down in discussion. That can become an excuse for inaction. We will also need someone to go between the groups and make sure of communications, call them travelers if you wish. This organization needs to be completely outlined. It should not be totally defined by me, but I do need to fill in some of the details so people know what I am talking about. I see it as the task of the many communities to fill in the flesh of this organization. There will be questions of how candidates are selected and how the groups are organized to be answered. There will be many questions. I do not see it as my task to answer all of the questions or even to think them up. That is why we must have organization. One thing I am sure we must do is declare candidates at all levels. That, after all, is the point. To take back the government, we must occupy the positions. We must run for office. We must run for all offices in all jurisdictions of America. To do that, we will need a lot of tough dedicated people. We need people in all corners of the country who can and will adhere to a philosophy of impeccable personal ethics. We need people who can deal with losing and not quit. To be sure, we won't win at first but we will get noticed and other people will come to us. They will come because they think we are true to our ethic. If they find we are not, they will quickly abandon us. That is as it should be. In the meantime, we can keep working and talking. To be effective we have to keep talking about what we are. We can talk in taverns, town halls, grange halls, and auditoriums or anywhere else that people will listen. For that we need motivational speakers all over the country. Our message, out theme, what we are selling is personal ethics with no expediency. That is the basis of our movement. We live our ethic and we demand it from others. We get our message out by speaking directly to other people. We can speak one on one, to small groups, and to large groups, whoever will listen. If each of us does their part we will not need much in the way of funding. We will not be running expensive loud dishonest ads. We will not be bad mouthing other candidates. We will not be having massive rallies or expensive shindigs. Our message is about personal ethics and all of those political activities belie that. We will need some funding to pay filing fees and the like. Much of that can come from small personal input. As our message gets better reception, we can also get income from speaking engagements. Our message is, for all practical purposes, a motivational message. People will pay to hear that as our influence grows. Here are some of the things a peoples organization will need. We will need a symbol. I have thought about that and will continue to do so. We do not want to look like the thugs so we do not need a uniform even if it's only a silk suit with wing tip shoes, but we must be recognizable. Our symbol should do that for us. Along with an identity we also need a website. It should be simple, easy to understand and navigate. It should be about our message and what we are doing, nothing more. For security, we will need our own impregnable servers. We cannot depend on third party service providers for that. It's too important and too easy to invade. Of course, we will need a name. Personal ethics should be part of it or be implied in it, but it should not be cumbersome. That is another item I am thinking about. Right now I tend to favor the simple name, Groundswell. Still, it's something to think about. How we behave comes out of what we are and what we want. We are a group of people trying to create an ethical society lead by superior ethical people. So we strive to behave like the superior person we wish to become. For sure, I don't know or know of anyone who is a superior dominant. I sure am not, but I strive everyday to act the way I think a superior dominant would act. What do I mean by a superior dominant. I will borrow from a previous essay I wrote on this. A superior dominant is the perfect fusion of the conscious with the unconscious process. She has made peace with her natural, childlike, animal self and integrated that fragmented personality into her total being. She is not a party pooper. In fact, one of her important characteristics is the ability to let go and become playful. She is able to be playfully creative to produce new ideas and solutions. She is also able to put in the long hours of dedicated effort to bring those ideas to fruition. She tends to see the totality from the fragment. She can complete the gestalt given the current reality. She is Maslow's self actualizing person. She is Jung's individuated human. She is Whyte's Unitary person. She is Evie's God Aware person. She is psychologically healthy. Whatever others call her, I choose to call her the superior dominant. She is the true dominant who does not control, but guides and leads. The superior person has not achieved a mastery over self, but a synthesis of the total self into a single personality. As a person of God Awareness, she approaches the ideal of total awareness of everything. She knows that nothing is unimportant. That is the person we must attempt to become. In every way possible, we must behave as though we had arrived at that level of growth. We must do that in our personal lives and in our public lives. We live our ethic even when no one is watching. We live it when the temptations to cheat are compelling. We live it when we are under duress. We live it when we are betrayed. In short, our ethic is our behavior which is also the essence of our campaign. We don't do politics or campaigning in the traditional sense. We teach ethics. We demand ethical behavior. We do not promise anything to anyone. Our goal is to motivate people to behave ethically. We cannot do that by promising them something they have not earned. We must demand that people fulfill their own promise, fulfill their own duty to themselves and their community. We keep Ben Franklin's ethic and we demand that everyone else keep it. If there are to be criminals in our culture, let them be our political opponents. Let it be the people now in power, not us. It is very important that we do everything right. We don't take shortcuts. We don't shade the truth. We do not interfere with other peoples activities. We do everything by law. Civil disobedience is for fools. We work through law to restore law. We achieve power legally. Green Freaks and others who break the law are no different that those they oppose. They are criminals. In a democracy, no matter how dysfunctional, there is no justification for criminal activity as a political method. We must clearly and continuously disavow those who so behave. They are not welcome in our organization. So our method is teaching not campaigning. We must teach ethics constantly and consistently to everyone. In a very real sense, everyone of us must become motivational speakers. We are not all Ciceros, but we can all speak. We speak best when we speak of something we believe in and love. Some of us will do better than others in this. Some will become sought after motivational speakers. They will command larger audiences and perhaps fees. That is good, but it does not relieve the rest of us. We must all take every opportunity to speak out about what we are and what we expect of others. I have said it before and I say it again. The essence of what we teach is this. We strive to build a viable community wherein everyone is part of the process. To support that concept we must behave ethically at all times. We do not lie, we do not cheat, we do not steal, and we do not hurt other people. This is the puritan ethic with the magical creature removed. It's what we were taught as children. Sadly, those who taught it to us did not believe it or live it, so we did not believe it. Just the same, it's the right way to behave and we all know that. So, while teaching this, we must live it. We must act ethically
at all times. We must not offer or promise anything to anyone.
We must insist that people do their duty. Visualize a blend of
the best of the personal qualities of the Spartans and Athenians.
That is the humanism of an Athenian melded into the rigorous
self discipline of a Spartan. That is what we want to aspire
to. That is what we want all citizens to aspire to. We should
aspire to become a pure and noble people. Anything less is a
negation of our human potential.
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