Freedom from Choice

In ancient rome
There was a poem
About a dog
Who found two bones
He picked at one
He licked the other
He went in circles
He dropped dead

Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want

"Freedom of Choice"
by Devo

The Meaning of 21st Century Socialism for Venezuela

The following article written by Gregory Wilpert originally appeared on the VenezuelAnalysis.com website, July 11, 2006. This is a revised version of a paper that was presented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Havens Center, April 11, 2006.

In what appeared to be a surprise to almost everyone, on January 30, 2005, in a speech to the 5th World Social Forum, President Hugo Chavez announced that he supported the creation of socialism of the 21st century in Venezuela. According to Chavez, this socialism would be different from the socialism of the 20th century. While Chavez was vague about exactly how this new socialism would be different, he implied it would not be a state socialism as was practiced in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe or as is practiced in Cuba today. Rather, it would be a socialism that would be more pluralistic and less state-centered.

“We have assumed the commitment to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism and to contribute to the socialist path, with a new socialism, a socialism of the 21st century, which is based in solidarity, in fraternity, in love, in justice, in liberty, and in equality,” said Chavez in another speech in mid 2006.[1] Also, this socialism is not pre-defined. Rather, said Chavez, we must, “transform the mode of capital and move towards socialism, towards a new socialism that must be constructed every day.”[2]

Given this rather vague explanation and the concrete policies the Chavez government has pursued in the past seven years, is Venezuela really heading towards something that could be called "Socialism of the 21st century"? That is, is Venezuela heading towards something that might be called a post-capitalist order in which the age-old dream of individual freedom, equality, and social justice (liberté, egalité, et fraternité, to use the motto of the French Revolution) becomes a reality for all its citizens?

Before we can answer that question, we need to clarify exactly what is meant by the term capitalism, which is a notoriously vague term. A relatively simple definition of capitalism identifies at least three predominant elements in a social order for us to call it capitalist. First, a capitalist order involves the private ownership of the means of production, that is, of land, factories, and other forms of capital that allows the production of sellable goods and services.

A second crucial element of capitalism, in its "pure" form, is that distribution and exchange are regulated via competitive markets. Competitive markets are an essential and integral aspect of capitalism, which help regulate not only distribution, but also prices and thereby guide what things are or are not produced. As long as owners are interested in making sure that they do not lose their investment to competitors who try to maximize their profit and who reinvest this profit in their business, all owners must aim to maximize profits. That is, private ownership of production combined with competitive markets also necessarily implies the pursuit of profit maximization.

Finally, the third essential element of capitalism is a regulatory system, a state, which helps correct capitalism's frequent dysfunctions and erratic behavior. That is, capitalism needs a state that not only makes sure that contracts between individuals, upon which exchanges are based, are adjudicated in cases where disputes arise, but also acts as a mediator in social conflicts, usually between owners and non-owners, who enter into frequent conflicts over issues relating to inequality. While social movements have historically managed to demand that the state responds better to their needs, mostly by democratizing the state, the state is to a large extent influenced by the owners of capital because these lobby, finance political campaigns and mass media, and generally wield much power in capitalist democracies.

Moving away from capitalism, however, does not, by itself, mean that a society is moving towards socialism. After all, it could move towards feudalism or towards some other form of undesirable social organization. What, then, would constitute socialism or, more specifically 21st century socialism? Rather than engage in a long theoretical discussion of the matter, I will just provide a rough outline, based on what it is not (capitalism) and the fulfillment of certain social ideals or values. That is, I would argue that in contrast to the actually practiced socialism of the 20th century (mostly in Eastern Europe), 21st century socialism would fulfill all three aims of the French Revolution. State socialism of the 20th century fulfilled only the aims of social justice (or solidarity or fraternité) and, to a limited extent, of formal equality (since party members were “more equal” (Orwell) than non-members). 21st century socialism would thus have to fulfill (completely) the ideals of formal equality, liberty, and solidarity (or social justice). In other words, for 21st century socialism to distinguish itself from 20th century state socialism, it would have to be a libertarian socialism, which assures that the “free development of each is a condition for the free development of all” (Marx).

---

[1] Linking Alternatives II Conference, Vienna, May 13, 2006 (www.gobiernoenlinea.gob.ve)

[2] Ibid.

Is Venezuela Moving towards a 21st Century Socialism?

The following article written by Gregory Wilpert originally appeared on the VenezuelAnalysis.com website, July 11, 2006. This is a revised version of a paper that was presented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Havens Center, April 11, 2006.

With these general definitions of capitalism and 21st century socialism, we can now see how the policies of the Chavez government compare to these.

Changing Ownership of the Material and Intellectual Means of Production

Taking each of the three elements of capitalism one at a time, one can first focus on the ways in which the Chavez government’s policies affect or transform the ownership of the relations of material (as opposed to intellectual) production. While the vast majority of Venezuela’s productive capacity is still either owned privately or by the state, one of the government’s main areas of emphasis has been to expand non-private forms of ownership and control, such as via cooperatives, co-management, and expanded state management/ownership.

For example, during the Chavez presidency the number of cooperatives in Venezuela has increased from about 800 in 1998 to over 100,000 in 2005 – an over 100-fold increase in seven years. Over 1.5 million Venezuelans are thus now involved in cooperatives, which represents about 10% of the country’s adult population.[3] The government has been actively supporting the creation of cooperatives in all sectors, mostly via credit, preferential purchasing from cooperatives, and training programs.

With regard to co-management, the government has been experimenting with several state-owned enterprises in this regard, such as the electricity company CADAFE and the aluminum production plant Alcasa. Depending on how these experiments go, the government is considering turning over more state-owned enterprises to co-management. These businesses will not be turned over to complete worker control, however, because, according to the government, they are too important for Venezuela to be governed only by the people that work there. That is, they have an impact for the entire society and thus, according to the principle of subsidiarity, the society, through its representatives in the state, should also have a say in how the enterprise is run.

Another strategy for changing the ownership and control over the means of production has been the expropriation of idle factories. Currently at least four production plants, which produce paper, valves, and agricultural products, have been expropriated and turned over to worker control. Working together with the national union federation UNT, the government is evaluating 700 other idle production facilities that could also be expropriated and turned over to former workers of these plants.

Finally, with regard to expanding state management, the Chavez government has created several new state-owned enterprises, such as in the areas of telecommunications, air travel, and petrochemicals. Also, it reined-in the previously semi-autonomous state oil company PDVSA and brought it under direct government control.

Of course, just because there are more enterprises that go against the logic of capitalism, that are in essence anti-capitalist endeavors, such as cooperatives, co-managed enterprises, and state-owned enterprises does not mean that Venezuela is now a post-capitalist society with regard to the ownership of the means of production. However, there is a definite movement in this direction. Whether such forms of ownership will become predominant within the Venezuelan economy it is too early to tell. The real test of the extent to which the government is willing to go in this direction will come if and when private capital is forced to become marginal in the overall economy. Whether such a direct confrontation will take place and how it will play out is impossible to say at this point.

However, creating a sphere of non-privately owned or controlled means of production by itself is not much of a change if such ownership and control follows the same principles as private ownership does, of maximizing profit above all else and of funneling non-reinvested profits towards elite consumption. Thus, so as to ensure that the cooperative, co-managed, and state managed enterprises follow a new set of principles, the Chavez government has created a new type of economic production unit, which is known as social production enterprise (EPS, in Spanish).

Social Production Enterprises are, “economic entities dedicated to the production of goods or services in which work has its own meaning, without social discrimination nor privileges associated with one’s position in a hierarchy, in which there is substantive equality between its members, planning is participatory and operate under either state, collective, or mixed ownership.”[4] In order to qualify as an EPS and thus for preferential treatment for low-interest credits and state contracts, companies must fulfill a list of requirements, such as to, “privilege the values of solidarity, cooperation, complementarity, reciprocity, equity, and sustainability, ahead of the value of profitability.”[5] If these values are indeed fulfilled, then one can say that with regard to ownership and control over the means of production Venezuela is moving away from capitalism and towards 21st century socialism.

Moves Away from Market Exchange

With regard to moving beyond market exchange for regulating production and distribution of goods and services, the Chavez government has mainly focused on using the state as a non-market based mechanism. That is, the state has been very active in redistributing wealth during the Chavez presidency, whether through its rural and urban land reform program, its oil revenue-funded social programs for free health care, education, and subsidized food markets, or the provision of subsidies and other support for key sectors, such as cooperatives and “endogenous development nucleuses.” Of course, while state redistribution mechanisms go against a basic principle of capitalism, these do not break the logic of capital as long as most exchange still occurs in a free market context, as is still the case in Venezuela. As such, such policies are more social democratic than socialist.

The principle of moving away from market-based distribution has also been valid in international trade for Venezuela. Not only has the Chavez government vehemently opposed the free trade agreements the U.S. has been promoting, but it is also involved in a large number of trade deals that are based on principles of solidarity instead of competition. For example, the Petrocaribe agreement provides for discounted financing of Venezuelan oil for Caribbean nations and also allows them to pay for oil with in-kind payments. In the most prominent case Cuba has been providing Venezuela with 20,000 doctors and medical assistants in exchange for Venezuelan oil shipments. Similar agreements exist with Argentina, Uruguay, and Ecuador.

Again, this kind of non-market based trade, which emphasizes cooperation, complementarity, and solidarity over competition is still far smaller than traditional market exchange. How and if the Chavez government can find ways to increase non-market based exchange mechanisms remains to be seen, especially since exactly how cooperative (instead of competitive) exchange could function on a large scale is still quite unclear in Venezuela.

Governance No Longer Guided by Private Interests

With regard breaking away from the third important element of capitalism—a system of governance that is under the sway of powerful private interests—Venezuela has advanced the most. There are at least three ways in which the Chavez government has done this over the past few years. First, it has had the opportunity to break free from the sway of private capital, due to the combination of massive oil revenues and the complete delegitimation of the old regime. Second, it has instituted forms of direct democracy and increased citizen participation in the state. Third, it has weakened the possibility that the military could be used to repress the civilian population, via what it calls civil-military union.

The first aspect is perhaps the most important because it has enabled practically all other anti-capitalist measures of the Chavez government. That is, Venezuela’s oil revenues, which increased, on a per-capita basis, from $226 in 1998 to $728 in 2005,[6] has been a bonanza that has given the Chavez government a tremendous amount of freedom from private capital’s ability to threaten with investment strikes. Also, the institution of capital controls in early 2003 further expanded the government’s independence from private capital. While most leftist governments, such as that of President Lula of Brazil, are constantly faced with the choice of pursuing progressive policies and alienating capital and thereby economic well-being or abandoning progressive policies and encouraging private investment, the Chavez government is by and large freed from this dilemma. Enormous oil revenues allow the government to invest, to pursue progressive tax policies and regulations, and to spend freely, without having to worry much about capital flight or disinvestment.

This freedom, combined with the opposition’s recurring self-destruction (via the coup attempt, the oil industry shutdown, the failed recall referendum, and the boycott of the December 2005 National Assembly elections) is perhaps the main reason why the Chavez government has been able to pursue increasingly more anti-capitalist policies with every passing year in office. This stands in stark contrast to the history of most progressive governments, which time and again start out with radical rhetoric, only to eventually succumb to the demands of private capital.

The second way in which the government is shaking loose the influence of private capital is by introducing participatory democracy in numerous areas of the state. This is happening through local planning councils, citizen participation in social programs, and a variety of other institutionalized mechanisms for civil society involvement in government (referenda, selection of high-level state officials, and citizen audits of state institutions).

One of the most important forms of citizen participation are the local planning councils, which were launched in Venezuela in 2001, but were at first stillborn due to a variety of limitations in the local planning council law, such as creating councils that were too large to be manageable or participatory. A new effort was launched in early 2006 with the communal council law, which bases councils on units of 200 to 400 families and which practice direct democracy in their communities, allocating financial resources and creating local ordinances.

Participatory democracy in Venezuela also takes the form of citizen participation in the recently created “missions,” which provide education, health care, subsidized food, social services, land reform, and environmental protection. These missions, rather than being just imposed from above are largely directed by the citizens in any given community, in the form of health committees, land committees, and educational task forces.

Finally, there are the constitutionally guaranteed rights to participatory democracy, in the form of four different types of citizen-initiated referenda (recall, approbatory, abrogatory, and consultative), the right to conduct citizen-initiated audits of state institutions (contraloria social), and the right of civil society organizations to co-nominate candidates to the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council, and the Moral Republican Council (consisting of Attorney General, Comptroller General, and Human Rights Defender).

Citizen involvement in all levels of government like this increases accountability and weakens the sway of powerful private interests. While citizens might still succumb to threats of disinvestment from private capital, at least they have more influence over decision-making than when elected representatives decide matters mainly under the influence of powerful private groups that are constantly lobbying them and paying for their electoral campaigns.

The third area where the Chavez government has made a conscious effort to enable a more direct democracy has to do with transforming one of the traditional means for suppressing citizen involvement and discontent: the military. Historically, the military in Latin America was used to repress the citizenry and to keep it from resisting the imposition of government policies it did not like. For Chavez and for most poor Venezuelans, the 1989 riots against IMF-imposed economic policies, which dramatically increased the price for public transportation and for many food staples, was an expression of discontent with the relatively undemocratic[7] government of Carlos Andrés Perez. This outburst of discontent was immediately suppressed with massive military force, which ended up killing anywhere between 300 and 3,000 poor Venezuelans.

According to Chavez, the reason Venezuela’s and Latin America’s military forces were able to repress their own populace so often and so easily was because the military was always kept separate from the population. That is, their lack of contact with civilians, their sequestration, made it easier for them to act without sympathy or remorse against their own people. In contrast, Chavez, following a Maoist maxim, argues that “the military should be to the people like the fish is to water.” The application of this principle is called “civil-military union,” and means, in practice, that the military should be as integrated as possible with the civilian population, being in constant contact with them and even taking on civilian tasks in the process. The military has thus become heavily involved in the various “missions,” often providing services such as food distribution, construction help, and transportation, for example. Furthermore, the civilian population is being asked to sign up for Venezuela’s military reserves, to learn to fight a guerilla war, should an outside force such as the U.S. ever invade. This, according to Chavez, is supposed to further strengthen the civil-military union.

Critics of this re-conceptualization of Venezuela’s military argue that it has militarized civilian society and could become a means for doing precisely what Chavez says it is supposed to ward against, of repressing the population. However, there is no concrete evidence for this. As any visitor to Venezuela can attest, the military in Venezuela has a far less militaristic presence in the general population than it did in countries where the military was indeed used for repression, such as in Argentina in the 1970’s or in El Salvador in the 1980’s. No one in Venezuela fears the military and its activity in the general population is limited to fulfilling the civilian functions mentioned above, but not to repress. Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch do not cite the military as being perpetrators of human rights violations. Rather, in Venezuela, the main culprit in this regard remains (since long before Chavez’s coming into office) the notoriously corrupt and local government controlled police force. In other words, it would appear that rather than militarizing civil society, the civil-military union has served to “civilize” the military.

These three factors, the tremendous oil revenues, the creation of a more participatory democracy, and the “civilizing” of the military, have meant that the Chavez government is far freer to pursue policies that are independent of the powerful private interests that normally shape government policy in capitalist countries. The freedom the Chavez government enjoys to pursue leftist policies is unique in comparison to most of the rest of world in many ways. While there are other countries that enjoy such a freedom due to their wealth in natural resources (such as a state-owned national oil industry), these other countries tend to be in the hands of extremely conservative authoritarian regimes (such as in the Middle East) and have no interest in pursuing progressive policies.

This freedom has allowed the Chavez government to pursue policies that clearly move away from private ownership and control over the means of production, away from market-determined allocation and distribution, and towards what could be called more socialist economic and governance forms. However, this is clearly not the state-socialism of the 20th century, as was practiced in Eastern Europe and China and still is in Cuba. Rather, it is a more libertarian form of socialism, in that it actively seeks citizen participation and even forms of direct democracy.

---

[3] SUNACOOP (National Superintendency of Cooperatives), www.sunacoop.gob.ve

[4] “Empresas de Producción Social,” article in PDVSA’s corporate magazine, Siembra Petrolera, Issue, No. 1, Jan.-Mar. 2006, p.55

[5] Article 3 of Decree No. 3,895, of September 13, 2005, published in Gaceta Oficial No. 38,271

[6] Author’s own calculation, based on data from Venezuela’s finance ministry, the national statistics institute, and the Central Bank of Venezuela.

[7] Chavez’s Bolivarian movement, as well as many outside analysts, considered the period of 1958-1993 to be a fairly undemocratic period because state repression and an elite pact (Pacto de Punto Fijo) between the two main political parties prevented challengers from coming to power in this period.

Obstacles for 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela

The following article written by Gregory Wilpert originally appeared on the VenezuelAnalysis.com website, July 11, 2006. This is a revised version of a paper that was presented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Havens Center, April 11, 2006.

The main obstacles to 21st century socialism in Venezuela fall into the two general categories of external and internal obstacles. The external obstacles are those that are external to the Bolivarian project, such as a domestic opposition that continuously seeks to undermine the Chavez government without engaging in the political process, a U.S. government that is intent on isolating the Chavez government, and domestic and international forces of capital that make 21st century socialism in one country extremely difficult to institute. The internal obstacles include the persistence of an anti-democratic political culture of patronage and of personalism.

The opposition includes practically all sectors that used to have a determining role in Venezuelan society, such as the former governing parties, the old union federation, the church hierarchy, big business, and almost all of the private mass media. The key problem for the Chavez government with this opposition is not so much its power, which it has lost steadily largely due to its own disorganization and failures, but its unwillingness to play the democratic game, as it did during the April 2002 coup attempt, the December 2003 oil industry shutdown, and the December 2005 boycott of the National Assembly elections. Rarely during the Chavez presidency has this opposition come forward with concrete proposals about how it would govern Venezuela differently. Currently the opposition is continuing on this track of denying the government’s legitimacy by threatening to boycott the December 2006 presidential elections, on the basis that the electoral registry is flawed. However, an audit by the Inter-American Human Rights Institute showed that errors in the registry were negligible. The gradual self-destruction of the opposition, though, has made the opposition less of an obstacle and has thus increased the government’s freedom to maneuver.

The second external obstacle to creating 21st century socialism is the Bush administration. From documents that have become available in the past few years it is clear that the Bush administration knew about the 2002 coup attempt in advance, but instead of opposing it beforehand or while it was in progress, Bush gave it support by denying that it was a coup and by blaming Chavez for his own downfall. Also, via the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) the Bush administration has been funneling several million dollars per year to opposition groups in Venezuela, in an effort to create an opposition in its own image. And, in terms of applying overt measures against the Chavez government, the Bush administration has been applying a variety of minor economic sanctions[8] and has been conducting a campaign to isolate Venezuela internationally. All in all, each one of these measures has been a relative failure. For example, the opposition, despite its receiving funds and advice from the U.S., is hopelessly disorganized and of little consequence in Venezuela, following its many failures during the Chavez presidency.[9] The economic sanctions have little effect, given that Venezuela’s foreign currency income comes almost entirely from oil revenues, which the U.S. will not cut off. Last, the efforts to isolate Venezuela have met with little approval elsewhere in the world.

Finally, the third external obstacle is for many countries the most serious obstacle to progressive governing because of its ability to initiate an investment strike if a government initiates too many policies against its interests. Venezuela, though, with the recent boom in oil revenues (essentially since mid 2003) remains a lucrative place for investment, despite the government’s anti-capitalist rhetoric and its frequent tax increases for the oil industry. Also, capital flight has been held in check via a restrictive exchange rate policy. As a result, domestic and international capital is not that much of an obstacle now as it was earlier in Chavez’s presidency.

The much more serious obstacles to instituting 21st century socialism in Venezuela thus are the internal obstacles. The most serious of these is probably the persistence of a culture of clientelism-patronage. That is, there is much anecdotal evidence that despite Chavez’s criticism that previous governments were riddled with patronage systems, new forms of patronage have taken their place. While previously it was practically impossible for people who were not members of one of the ruling parties to get government jobs or services, evidence has emerged that although party membership is not an issue now, officials in the Chavez government are often preventing anti-Chavistas, as Chavez opponents are known, from acquiring government jobs and some kinds of services.

The most notorious example of this practice has been the so-called “Tascon List,” which pro-Chavez National Assembly deputy Luis Tascon set up, which lists all Venezuelans who signed the petition in favor of a recall referendum against President Chavez.[10] The original purpose of the list was to allow Chavez supporters to make sure that they did not appear on the list because they were concerned that the list fraudulently included many who did not intend to be on it.

Patronage that gives government jobs and services mainly to Chavistas not only counteracts Chavez’s campaign promise of creating a government that will not exclude anyone, but it also undermines the rule of law, thus providing an opening for corruption and the delegitimization of the government and it counters the principle of formal equality. More than that, patronage systems encourage a limited form of solidarity, which extends only to one’s own group (in this case one’s political group) and is fundamentally at odds with an effort to create a society in which solidarity includes all people, regardless of nationality or political beliefs.

The second internal obstacle is the latent personality cult around Chavez and the tendency towards personalistic politics in Venezuela in general. On the one hand, Chavez’s ability to bring people together in a large “Bolivarian” movement for radical change in Venezuela is practically unparalleled in recent Venezuela history. On the other hand, this ability has resulted in an extreme dependency of the movement on Chavez, to the exclusion of a clearly defined political program or political organization. Thus, if Chavez were to disappear from one day to the next, the entire movement would fall into a thousand pieces because it would have lost it unifying glue. This extreme dependence on Chavez also means that it is extremely difficult for Chavez supporters to criticize Chavez because every criticism threatens to undermine the project because it gives rhetorical ammunition to the opposition. A further consequence is that the lack of criticism insulates Chavez and makes it very difficult for him to test his ideas and policies against the outside world. Criticism from within the ranks is rarely present and criticism from outside the ranks is easily dismissed. The result is a strong potential for wrong-headed policies.[11]

The third internal obstacle is a strong tendency towards top-down leadership, not only by Chavez, but by everyone in the public administration. Despite the very real pursuit of participatory democracy at local levels, the government bureaucracy is still by and large a top-down operation, which Chavez’s military instincts have reinforced. Such leadership in the public administration further exacerbates the problems mentioned of a personalistic political culture, so that questioning of one’s superiors and correcting errors in the administration of public policies is extremely difficult.

Prospects

It is very probable that the Chavez government will continue on its course of increasing radicalization because it has managed to either defeat or avoid nearly all of the obstacles to governing that progressive governments normally face. That is, most governments face what some political scientists have called, the “contradictions of the welfare state,” whereby democratically elected governments in capitalist countries have to answer to two contradictory masters.[12] On the one hand, governments have to fulfill the wishes of the population that elected them, lest they be removed from power in the next electoral cycle. On the other hand, they have to fulfill the wishes of capital, lest they face a capital strike and economic crisis. These two pulls on governments is a serious problem because they tend to pull in diametrically opposite directions. Citizens generally want the government to protect them from the ravages of capitalism (advocating for regulations on businesses, environmental protection, workplace safety, protection from economic crisis, etc.), while capital wants to be as free of government regulations and taxes as possible. Following an effort to at least partially resolve this contradiction via debt spending, governments in both the First and Third World borrowed heavily, so that they could fulfill the financial needs of the welfare state, without having to tax either capital or the general population. However, once the debt crisis became too much of a burden, governments cut back government spending and by and large adopted neo-liberalism as a supposed way out of the contradiction. Neo-liberalism, though, did not resolve the contradiction, but shifted the balance of power in favor of capital.

Recently, though, with the failure of neo-liberalism to provide for any meaningful increase in people’s standard of living and with a dramatic increase in inequality, the peoples of Latin America have been voting against neo-liberalism and in favor of a wide variety of leftist governments. The contradiction between the pulls of capitalism and of the general population remains in nearly all of these countries. The only exception seems to be Venezuela, which, by virtue of its oil wealth, is far less dependent on private capital and thus on its demands. Added to this economic independence comes the Venezuelan old elite’s repeated failures to topple Chavez. Chavez, who started out as a fairly moderate politician in 1998, could thus easily afford to become increasingly more radical with each subsequent defeat of the opposition. Also, as someone who was not formed politically by a political party or ideology, but more as a result of his confrontations with state power, Chavez steers a path that is pragmatic and free from orthodoxies of any kind, thus opening him up to steering a more radical path, should opportunity and his perceived analysis of what Venezuela needs lead him in that direction.

In other words, while further advances in defining and applying 21st century socialism in Venezuela are very possible, due to the relative lack of external obstacles, it is the internal obstacles of the cultures of patronage and personalism that are most likely to threaten to derail the project. Figuring out how to overcome these obstacles, which would require a re-building of the state, in order to overcome patronage structures, and the creation of an effective political movement that does not depend on Chavez, in order to overcome personalism, remain the greatest challenges for 21st century socialism in Venezuela.

---

[8] These sanctions are the result of putting Venezuela on a variety of lists, such as one of countries that are not doing enough in fighting terrorism, fighting drug trafficking, and in fighting human trafficking.

[9] These failures include the April 2002 coup attempt, the December 2002 oil industry shutdown, the August 2004 recall referendum, and the December 2005 boycott of the National Assembly elections.

[10] There are probably nearly as many accounts of opposition employers using this list to weed out Chavez supporters. However, this does not excuse the practice, especially not for a government that originally campaigned against patronage systems.

[11] An example of such a wrong-headed policy is the recent passage of changes to the penal code, which slightly broadened penalties for insulting government officials. The law has been on the books for decades, but an increase of the maximum penalty for such offenses is anti-civil rights and did not serve any useful purpose.

[12] One of the main theorists of this thesis was Claus Offe, in his book, The Contradictions of the Welfare State, 1984, MIT Press

Web 3.0 : The Semantic Web

The following commment by Rod Petrovic appeared in a discussion on Digg.com regarding Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comment on the Web 3.0:

Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web and I believe it was correctly described by Schmidt: a "cloud" of data, which can be used by a large number of small, ubiquitous applications.

I have nothing against describing clearly identifiable trends on the web by version numbers, pet names or any other ID. I totally understand it: Web 1.0 was a web with few content providers and many users. Web 2.0 is a web where users are content providers, too. This was made possible by an evolving technology (AJAX, RSS, web services and APIs) and, consequently, application providers who use that technology (blog engines, social networks, etc.).

On the current web, application providers use RSS and APIs to occasionally "open doors" to their data, while they still keep it inside . On the Web 3.0 - the Semantic Web, data will be outside - distributed (see RDF and OWL W3C standards, for example).

I know this concept might be hard to grasp at first, so let me give you an example: If I have a friend in my LinkedIn social network and I open a Facebook account, as well, I'll have to add that same friend again, since LinkedIn's data is owned by LinkedIn and Facebook's by Facebook. On the Semantic Web, the data about me, my friends and our relationships will be distributed - open for all applications. It will be somewhere on the web in a form of RDF/XML and all applications will be able to access it. Application providers, like LinkedIn or Facebook, will then offer me innovative ways to use this omnipresent data. I can use one, two or all applications, on different platforms and for different types of services - it doesn't matter. What matters is that I have access to the same data from any application and I'm not being blackmailed into using any of them just because "all my friends are there" or "all my data is there".

Web 3.0 will be a mother of all mashups and a father of all social networks.

US vs. THEM Part III

While the facts behind 9/11 are so far obscured by American Patriotism that one must simply accept it as a tragedy which demanded justice, the WMD hunt in Iraq which ended an execution raised enough eyebrows for people to look at what the United States is actually doing in the Middle East. In the third act of the War Against Terrorism, we see the US preparing to do battle in Iran, starting with an obfuscation of the facts, illegal wire tapping, along with other signature maneuvers of the Bush Administration.

Recently, Democracy Now! reported the head of the UN Nuclear Watchdog Committee and Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei had stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency has "no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." Some may recall that his similar findings regarding nuclear capabilities of Iraq resulted in the United States illegally wiretapping his conversations with foreign diplomats in an attempt to force him from the head of the IAEA.

Four years later we find that nothing has changed, as today the United States rolled up several war ships filled with tens of thousands of soldiers off the coast of Iraq in an attempt to place even more pressure to comply with UN sanctions. As for the lies, the United States has stated that the IAEA has compiled "a laundry list of Iran's continued defiance of the international community," a statement which plainly contradicts the findings of the agency.

ElBaradei did, however, warn of nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East due to the secret activities of the Israeli government -- a fact that has been omitted from the American press, along with the incredible amount foreign aide we give to the one country which actually has a nuclear program which is developing warheads. Figures show that one third of all foreign aide goes to Israel, along with additional loans from the US Military, in a staggering figure which simplifies down to the fact that Israel receives more support per person than the average American citizen. Strange considering that Israel is on technological and economic par with the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, the majority of Americans have become entranced by American Idol, focusing instead on the trials of Paris Hilton without seeing their government boldly ignoring the Geneva convents with the illegal torture and imprisonment of suspected terrorists. The fact that the Bush administration is clearly ignoring the United States Constitution with illegal wiretapping while pushing an unsupported war into its third stage of conflict is of little concern to a cowboy nation which is thrilled by the blood-thirsty prospects of kicking even more Middle Eastern ass.

Thanks for All the Vacuums

Over the weekend I decided to take the first step towards getting my house ready to sell. While the notion of buying a vacuum would certainly be small to most -- it was a great undertaking for me to personally find the perfect vacuum. Until then I had gathered three our four rundown cleaners that were stacked up in the basement. Some of them had only lasted a year before they were rendered useless. I pulled out my handy mobile phone and browsed the reviews on Amazon.com. As it turned out, the returned unit which was out of the box and missing a few pieces had the highest user rating, and cost a 1/3 less than the competition.

While one could fascinate on the "make believe" pennies earned through Amazon.com, you'd be missing the point of the power of the people. The largest corporations spend billions on marketing -- at times, a full 60% of the manpower. This means that image is everything to a corporation. We control that image and reward them for gaining it by buying what they're selling. The mobile Amazon.com model shows us that we can share our knowledge and thus control the industry with a higher degree of accuracy. Imagine simultaneous support of products & services with real-time impacts on massive corporations.

The larger they are, as they say.

And therein lies the problem: Where many would cry the failure of Socialism is the ability of one man to persecute a nation. We could argue this of our current president, but I believe there are larger forces -- forces which naturally grow in the fertile soil of Capitalism. The Corporations. Growing larger than countries with virtual borders that extend across the great oceans. And like their Fatherlands the private institutions will break away from the governance of the State. This will begin the end of Government and the rise of the United Corporations of North America.

From our immediate past we also see the fall and rise of the Church. With Science and Reason taking a stab at its last leg, Religion is moving to overtake the rule of Government. However, this is little more than two left wings flapping for control, ultimately strengthening the grip of the right. In our case, big business controls the food, big business controls the medicine. Big business is degrading the quality of public services and will soon control the education as it does all the other services: electricity, water, gasoline. We already see the signs as today's fragments of Democracy are simply the bureaucratic machinery behind the wheels of the Corporations.

This is why I sincerely say "Thanks for all the vacuums." No matter how large the Church or Government, no matter how All Powerful the Corporation, WE are ultimately IT. IT is OUR Faith, OUR Beliefs, OUR Support that drives those forces towards success or failure. WE have a tool that allows us to speak with one another directly, in order to form the first True Democracy ever witnessed in the History of Man. We can now connect into one cohesive body which truly represents each and every individual through the power of their own voice. This is where we take a stand. This is where we claim the throne. This is when it all begins:

Standing in the Mall buying a used vacuum.

Thanks, again, for all the vacuums.

America: Empire or Republic?

Future of Freedom Foundation
May 17, 2007
by Jacob G. Hornberger

We now live in a country in which the president wields the power to send the entire nation into war on his own initiative, without the congressional declaration of war required by the Constitution.

We live in a country in which the president and the military wield the power to arrest an American citizen and incarcerate him in a military installation for the rest of his life on suspicion of being a terrorist, denying him due process of law, trial by jury, and other procedural rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

We live in a country in which the president wields the power to conduct warrantless searches and seizures, regardless of the provisions of the Fourth Amendment.

We live in a country in which the president wields the power to ignore any law passed by Congress simply by signing a statement, in his military capacity as a commander in chief, indicating an intention to ignore the law.

In fact, we live in a country in which the president effectively wields the same power here in the United States that he wields in Iraq, given his belief that the entire world, including the United States, is a battlefield in the "war on terror."

How did it all come to this? How did a country that once prided itself on being the freest nation in history end up with a ruler who wields such omnipotent powers?

Read the full article!

What is Free in America?

My grandfather once asked, "America: Land of the Free? What's free in America?" While my passion for this country dwindles each day I try to remember that it isn't as bad as it obviously is elsewhere. In fact, whenever I voice my distaste for America the Pride and Glory's tell me I'm an idiot. Apparently, there is no greater place on Earth than the United States of America.

In reality, this country is in the middle of most charts that include key concerns such as health, welfare, and education. The only statistics we really top are waste and pollution -- that is why most of the globe actually view us as greedy, capitalistic pigs. Imagine all of our grandparents mending their own clothes, or their parents actually making them from cloth! Now picture our parents buying our clothes at the department store. Our generation currently buys two to three times more clothing than them.

So we are greedy and wasteful. That's Capitalism. But that's also the reason why we all get to live our cozy iPod lifestyles, buying middle classed houses which cost a quarter million on the low end -- half million in the middle. But consider that a shell that paints a separate reality from what exists in the core. Our inner cities are war torn countrysides. Don't consider it to be a race issue: it's a class struggle -- something else we painted as a problem "somewhere else."

Few of these realities actually pierce the Power Ranger veil we place around ourselves and our children. In response to the governor of Ohio putting an end to school vouchers which give state money to send students to private schools, one woman got on the radio crying her heart out. She called for the governor to look her little girl in the eyes and tell her she had to go back to all the guns and violence in the public school system. Her greatest desire was to have her little girl get a privately funded education.

This woman is obviously aware of the war in our country, but she missed the fact that these class struggles exist because of our lack of social welfare. Most of us are aware that the rich are getting richer but we believe this is happening evenly across the board. We call it inflation. We also call corporations people. That means your middle class, fifty thousand paycheck somehow compares to the billions corporations earn each year. Millions in the country live under the poverty line. I'm sure they want to know: "What is free in the Land of the Free."

If we are to believe that our voices are free then we've missed the riots in L.A. where millions of Latinos were shot at by the local authorities. Those thirteen million illegal aliens have come here looking for the milk and honey and instead found themselves being rounded up in concentration camps as possible threats to our National Security. Our conversations are recorded, our actions monitored by satellite technology, and our rights to eat and live sold to the corporations. What is Free in the Land of the Free? Why do so many want to live desperately in a place which sickens me?

I believe it has something to do with the image we're selling on television. When you look at the world through the eyes of American media you'd see Russia as a cold, desolate wasteland; South America as a hot bed for blood-thirsty revolutionaries; Canada as a bunch of moose-huggers; Europe as the Dark Ages; Asia as a gigantic sweat shop; and of course the Middle East. That goes without saying. Apparently the only civilization worthy of First World status is the U.S.A. Everybody else is obviously second class citizens.

And yet, the more I see of the Green Revolution taking place in Europe, the more I wonder why we would allow all the solar energy technology to be shipped over seas instead of over-hauling the corporate grip on our basic necessities -- food, energy, transportation. Realize that we're developing nanotechnology in this country which can be painted on our rooftops and siding. This means that your entire house can generate enough electricity to power your cars and appliances, and have enough left over to SELL BACK to the electric country at the end of the day!

Nothing is Free! We don't even own our property -- the BANKS do! While I do have issues with calling us Wage Slaves (being that it lessens the experience of actual SLAVES) I know that I cannot live without a job. Furthermore, I cannot live WELL without a corporate job. This country is a rich tapestry of farms woven together and yet we have few choices other than factory food and livestock? And yet after decades we are still blind to these truths because of the reality they're selling us on television!

So if nothing is Free in America, I want a revolution before things get any worse. I tell myself that the buildings aren't on fire without realizing that they're rotting from the inside instead. I see the progress on the fringes and know it to be a lie. I want the truth. I want the truth to be heard. I want what our forefathers promised: I want freedom. I want what they're selling to Iraq: I want Democracy. And I'm not alone. This is what America wants -- what America believes in.

If we're fighting for it in other countries, shouldn't we be brave enough to fight for it at home?

Back in the Summer of '96

My recollection of the past is sketchy at best. What I do remember is that sometime after I entered into college I began learning how to publish my writing on the Internet. Before long I had a couple dozen stories hosted on a free server, tied together with a personal biography along with a list of authors that inspired my writing. As the story goes, the traffic started to travel towards the information I gathered about Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, with little attention paid to my writing. Shortly after, I gathered the list of authors onto their own site and called it the Bohemian Ink.

Over a decade later I find myself on a similar path. "The Collected Works of Christopher D. Ritter" -- also known as Corduroy's Coffeehouse -- has long been forgotten, and in it's place, this blog; while the Ink has added a few letters and become Impresto. I've even met a couple great people from a start-up right before entering an awesome job at a big design firm. I'm hoping that history continues to repeat itself and offers a great position at a company that I truly have my heart in. Of course, being bought out by corporation after corporation did suck the first time around.

And all the while life moves as wildly as it pleases. I continue to hold on to each passing cloud, hoping someday that the rain will cause the crops to grow. I plant this seed of insanity in hopes that it will blossom into a dream -- one empowered by the social web, bringing this fully connected world back home to reality. I see so many problems all around and I realize that it is time to bring about the rise of an Open Society, allowing each individual to contribute their ideas, and evolve, as a species, into One.

Let's just hope I don't go crazy in the process!

Livn Flickr '06

Saturday morning at the newly renovated Golden Nugget begins by standing in a long line waiting to be seated. My recent conquest over checking my gMail account using an old crappy phone made me curious to see if Flickr worked just as well. My thoughts were that capturing the moment on "mobile film" would help tighten the gap between technology and life. Unfortunately the amount of time it took to sign-in and eventually fail at uploading my picture proved the opposite; the bright side being that I essentially got to blank out during the line standing experience.

The only reason why I thought to do this over breakfast was that most of yesterday and today has been spent learning the Flickr way. A couple weeks ago I uploaded a bunch of my designs but lost my hard drive in the process. I can't begin to count the amount of music, writing, and old design examples I lost in that crash. Getting back on Flickr was frankly too depressing until I got a call from Ning.com with a request to see my design portfolio. Thanks to FactoryJoe for showing me the way! (And thanks to Anton Barbeau for chanting "I'm gonna live forever 'till the day I die!")

So back on the Flickr trail I managed to scour the web in search of my old designs that managed to permeate the web. The bulk, of course, coming from both McAfee.com and NeoWorx, as Cybertrust (and their high security corporate policies) never released anything to the public but their earnings report. I uploaded these along with a couple screen shots I took from the Web and uploaded an incredibly professional portfolio on Flickr. Really makes me regret all the hours I sunk into web and PDF portfolios in previous lifetimes.

Standing in line at the Golden Corral I thought of all those moments that had come and gone; how the technology of paper and trinkets is so temporary as to be lost in a moment of forgetfulness; that the social web is an evolution in our thoughts as a species; how mobile connects our minds more substantially than quick conversations and instant messages. Livn Flickr '06 was an expansion of consciousness if not for the fact that the technology hadn't quite caught up to Dayton, Ohio 2007. None of it, really, worked.

Back at the homestead on my decade old PC I managed to meander down memory lane recalling all the old sites I uploaded to Flickr. It was great to include a line or two about the politics at play with the work, as well as locate the position of the contract on a Google map. Unfortunately, as websites tends to do, this pushed me out of my immediate contacts to deal with those far and wide. Doesn't quite feel as advanced as I had hoped -- but BOY does my portfolio look fantastic! Stop on by and leave some comments. Help me look good for my future employer!

(You know who you are.)

A Message to MoveOn.org

I find it most unfortunate that your organization removed access to the public forum so far in advance of the elections. It seems as if the moment people begin selecting the right candidate that one of the strongest tools on the Internet would be taken away for "bandwidth" reasons.

This decision seems to follow an underlying contradiction to your message. While I see the promises of working with the Christian Coalition on Internet Freedom along with the opportunity to discuss our ideas in a public forum, I also see that you strongly oppose electronic voting machines in favor of paper ballots.

While I am still young I remember recent examples where paper trails consistently followed the lies which continue to lead this country around in circles. The answer is simple: Open Source Voting. But before this is possible, we require machines which would allow anyone to vote -- regardless of them owning a personal computer.

Before that happens it seems quite obvious that further education is required of those who begin online democratic forums without realizing that the Internet is evolving into a Social Web. We are coming together as human beings for the first time since we sat foot in this world.

Denying the technology which is enabling the Social Web only goes further to build a wall between those who have -- in this case, access to the paper trails -- and those who have not. Open Source voting is transparent enough for everyone to count.

Please stop campaigning for paper trails and help support the Open Source and Free Culture Movement.

The Free Culture Movement

Noam Chomsky has seriously impaired by ability to appreciate NPR. On the worst day of civilian casualties in Iraq the American Media was overtaken by a crack pot with a gun. My image of NPR as a "fair and balanced" news source was flooded every fifteen minutes with an update on Virginia Tech. The media has sensationalized the tragedy to the point that we overlooked our President sending even more of our children off to die. The simple bait and switch routine gets us every time.

But the trick of it is that you've got to have a big enough flash to get our attention. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have us all watching the same show. This is how we lost control of our Freedom. This is also how we have arrived at a turning point in our culture. The shows they once controlled on our televisions and radios are being replaced by an open source: shared videos on YouTube, free software on Linux, public audio through podcasts, along with an overwhelming explosion of social networks.

This is the beginnings of the Free Culture Movement.

Elsewhere on NPR I was disappointed with an interview on Fresh Air where the host repeatedly attempted to shred the creator of Wikipedia. For those of you yet to be addicted to knowledge please know that everyone from my grandmother to my daughter has fallen in love with learning thanks to his site. The interviewer's constant criticisms of the accuracy of Open Knowledge felt like Fear to me. The fires she doused on his Free Culture Movement made it difficult to understand what he was talking about. Thankfully, he's got a website!

The Free Culture Foundation

After the interview I caught PRI blending the two subjects together on a discussion on Open Source Terrorism. The idea being that terrorist cells are evolving along an open source frameworks. This means that structures, which once had a core that could be attacked, are now composed of individual nodes which work in conjunction with one another towards a common goal. The common goal, in their case, being to overthrow the Capitalist Empire of the United States -- their words, not mine.

And like a perfectly organic, open source, social web, the jihad is spreading from the Middle East, across Europe, into Africa; connecting the strong network in Cuba, and the whole of South America. In plain terms, we're fighting a war using 1950 military tactics, relying on our superior technology to overwhelm the enemy in their home territory. Just like Vietnam all over again. What you don't see is a bunch of long haired hippie types tied up naked to a tree.

This generation is tied to their keyboard, putting the words of Karl Marx into action by providing software which is free and open to everyone to use and benefit from. But that is barely the tip of the iceberg. Free Culture seeks to explore the furthest reaches of what a Free and Open Society truly means. Please sign up and show your support by using free software such as FireFox and OpenOffice, and building social networks on Blogger, Wordpress, and Ning.

The future is happening now. Get involved!

The Next Mimsy

At approximately 3pm this afternoon I leaned against the sunny side of my office enjoying a cigarette when my body began to buzz. My initial thoughts raced around the crazy lines of logic I followed last summer -- imagining that the resonance of my body was operating at a different frequency, as if the electricity which was racing through my cells was evolving my DNA and all that nonsense. I stomped out my smoke and passed through the security checkpoint, walked up the stairs and sat in the middle of a complex filled with cubicles as far as the eye can see.

Currently I'm involved in the redesign of a major corporate website. My job is to switch outdated code with the current trends. Typically I entertain myself by listening to podcasts such as Democracy Now! Since Monday they've been interviewing Noam Chomsky along with his friend and fellow philosopher Howard Zinn -- who just so happened to author a book I'd love to get the Cliff Notes for: The People's History of the United States. (I say Cliff Notes but actually I would prefer a YouTube video. I am the child of the media culture for Your sake!

To illustrate my point: On the car ride to the movies with my two little ladies I was attempting to interest my daughter on The People's History of the United States. I said that "I'd trade something to get you to read that book in tandem with your lessons at school." Undoubtedly she's forgotten the proposal and the name of the book by now. Still, I feel it is my duty to come up with something tempting enough to get her to read the book.)

In the last series of interviews, Noam Chomsky told a story about listening to NPR and becoming so angry that he didn't notice he was speeding -- apparently an unacceptable excuse to the cop that wrote him the ticket. The story on the radio told all about the "Great Black Hope," Mr. Barak Obama. "He got a really good response from the crowd. Everybody seemed to love him. There was a lot of energy amongst the crowd on such a cold and rainy day."

And I heard the sales pitch that Mr. Chomsky pointed out when he said that "the same people who sell you toothpaste sell you the next President of the United States." And I knew that I wanted to vote for Mr. Obama in the next election but I didn't know why until then. But when the show on the radio suddenly started talking about an actor on a popular television show considering his name for the Republican ticket, I knew every mention of the word Reagan was intentional (from a radio station I considered to be unbiased).

At the age of 33 my interest in politics absolutely astound me. What I'm piecing together about the process of information being filtered from the AP newswire to appease the advertisers -- I realized that it took me too long to begin to see the world around me for what it really is. And I wondered how my little girl would ever see past the bright lights of the millionaires to see what she was put here to do; or if she would have to wait until her thirties just like her old man.

When I heard Noam mention that "if the War in Vietnam was actually taught in schools the War in Iraq would have never been fought." What little manages to make it to the media struggles to make a mark in the publishing world. As far as the history books which our children study are concerned, the war was fought and America left, with a bunch of hippies doing things kids shouldn't do in between. Thankfully I had He-Man and G.I. Joe to teach me right from wrong. That's more than I can say for my daughter now that the Powerpuff Girls are off the air.

After the three of us managed to inhale a bag full of burritos we bought our tickets to see The Last Mimsy. Up until this point I was assuming we were watching a movie about time traveling bunny rabbits. The plot sounded a lot safer than the rash of Mexican PETA porn we've been watching. By the time we got to the real toys I was amazed. I felt as if I was watching my daughter's generation's Neverending Story; her Dark Crystal, or Labrynth. The crazy part was that the movie inspired every interest I had last Summer -- of the Mayan maps of the universe and the Evolution of our Species.

Every reason why I write this blog is stuffed inside The Last Mimsy. What's more is that those same voices which help guide me through the packaged products my government is selling to me, my daughter now has the most important thing of all to give to our youth: Hope. If my crazy theories are correct, that resonance carries outward and shapes the world around us. The message of the Bush Administration is Terror, which leads to fear -- shaping the very fabric of our DNA and destroying our race.

Bug whispering sounds a hell of a lot cooler.

Resistance to Civil Government

While Walden can be applied to almost anyone's life, "Civil Disobedience" is like a venerated architectural landmark: it is preserved and admired, and sometimes visited, but for most of us there are not many occasions when it can actually be used. Still, although it is seldom mentioned without references to Gandhi and King, "Civil Disobedience" has more history than many suspect. In the 1940's it was read by the Danish resistance, in the 1950's it was cherished by people who opposed McCarthyism, in the 1960's it was influential in the struggle against South African apartheid, and in the 1970's it was discovered by a new generation of anti-war activists. The lesson learned from all this experience is that Thoreau's ideas really do work, just as he imagined they would.

"Civil Disobedience"
by Henry David Thoreau (1849)

Part One - Part Two - Part Three

The Healthy Americans Act

It’s time to fix health care and provide universal coverage to all. After decades of talk and study, it’s time for action. Fixing health care is not as complicated as one might think. Start by eliminating the inefficiency, beginning with when a person signs up for coverage. Get citizens good outpatient health care so they don’t go to hospital emergency rooms when it is preventable. Reward prevention – health care, not sick care. Beef up the quality of care by reducing medical errors in our hospitals. The Healthy Americans Act does this. The legislation provides a guarantee: Private coverage—at least as good as Members of Congress receive—is a right of all Americans that can never be taken away. With this guarantee, there will be universal coverage for no more than America spends as a nation today on health care.

THE HEALTHY AMERICANS ACT

…guarantees universal, private health insurance for ALL Americans.

Under the new system, every American will have the power to choose a comprehensive health insurance plan, and—with individuals, employers and government each investing something into the system—insurance will be guaranteed to be affordable for every American.

The Healthy Americans Act will match insurers with health care consumers in an environment designed for competition. Each state, with financial support from the Federal government and insurance companies, will establish a Health Help Agency. Health Help Agencies will lower administrative costs by coordinating payments from employers, individuals and government. These agencies will also provide consumers with unbiased information about competing private health plans and determine premim reductions that will ensure every American can afford their health plan. With the resources to compare plans based on quality, cost and service, individuals—rather than their employers—will be empowered to choose the health plan that works best for them and their families.

Government will be responsible for ensuring that every American has and can afford health insurance. Every time an individual interacts with state, local and federal government—registering their car, enrolling their children in school, applying for a driver’s license or paying their taxes—they can be required to verify their enrollment in a private health insurance plan. Government will in turn ensure that every American can afford health care by working through the Health Help Agencies to lowe premiums and by providing standard health care tax deductions for individuals and families.

Read the full PDF by clicking here.

Fast Food Renationalization Project

Every now and then you find a movie on the wall of the video store that you were one excited to see but had somehow forgotten. The title alone is enough to evoke an instant guarantee of a night of pure entertainment; such that on the way home you would practice your interviews for when they asked how you got involved with the film. I would tell the press that I knew /Fast Food Nation/ was another quick investment from someone in Hollywood looking to make a couple bucks -- but /Fast Food Nation/-- the Opportunity to work on a movie adaptation of such an important book is a rare chance in a lifetime.

What really sold me on picking up the movie was a conversation my daughter and I had the day before. Apparently she has reached the point in a young girl's life where the consumption of meat is called into question. The stories of animal parts and other crap falling into the low quality meat served as the foundation to her wanting to explore the vegetable side of the plate. Her only reservation was the fact that, aside from pickles and potato chips, she didn't really know what other options were available. My hopes were that providing an all-star cast of Hollywood liberalism was a good way to help her begin to explore.

When we finally got situated we started by watching some of the cartoons in the DVD extras. These were wonderful little PETA-lite commercials with cows and pigs acting out roles from the Matrix. They called it /The Meatrix/ and tied the three shorts together with a website to help kids learn more about where the meat comes from. The last cartoon didn't have so much to do with Morpheus but did involve a lot more intestines being pulled out of cute little animals than I would have preferred my little girl watching. Then we got to the movie and I realized that those little critters didn't hold a candle to what was in store.

** WARNING : SPOILERS FOLLOW **

/Fast Food Nation/ can best be described as Mexican PETA Porn filled with plenty of blood and drugs and hamburgers. The wonderful little tidbits of liberal one-liners were drowned out by the cameras attention to the lusty little immigrants. The big names like Bruce Willis and Kris Kristofferson were but momentary flashes of greatness before a grand slaughterhouse finale which led to the main character going right back to working for the man. Ultimately I would have thought the entire movie to be a complete loss until I saw the making of the film.

I believe that the real film may actually be on the cutting room floor of an underpaid editor who decided he wasn't making enough money to finish the job. If this is the case we might have the opportunity to petition Richard Linklater to post the full movie on BitTorrent. Movie editors from around the country could submit different variations of the final movie -- some dry, witty humor or bloody gory mutilation -- whatever the director feels represents his message to the audience. A certain 911 exposure film did the same thing recently. It's the least he could do after introducing my daughter to the wilder side of Mexico.

The Fall of MySpace.com

A couple days ago an alter ego of mine whispered the headline of an article in my ear from a magazine that I've forgotten. The words on the psychonet state that MySpace.com is a fad lead by the youth who have been hopping from one social network to the next for the last several years. Each year the snowball effect gets larger and larger, as the hundreds of thousands on DiaryLand turned into millions on Friendster. A couple years later and we've gathered tens of millions on MySpace.com, and before long the migratory digital herd will follow the next trend while the steadily growing older take a little longer to catch on.

Fascinate yourself awhile on the subject of human evolution in cyberspace. Information is at a tipping point about to spill every fact we know. Less than a decade ago this idea would have terrified us. Imagining every action to be filmed, our transactions recorded. We painted a Big Brother looming over our heads with the sign of the Beast microchipped below the surface of his skin. And then something changed. We gave them the technology and they recorded everything for us. They unlocked the doors to their lives and shared it on their profiles and recorded it in their blogs. Then they started sharing their songs on podcasts, and have just begun to take over the television stations through YouTube.

Something is happening, and people smarter than you are starting to realize that the world is rapidly changing into something very different from what we already know. The blind have been lead to believe that the Al-qaeda are the masterminds behind global terrorism, and those asleep have been fed the dream of Democracy from a country which blatenly practices Global Domination. The lazy have resigned to the fact that renewable resources will be replaced by something different which solves all the problems of Global Warming. The cynics and the Saints preach to us that this is simply the end of our species, while the bankers pay the marketing department to sedate us through entertainment literally designed for morons in order to make a profit from it all.

Take another step back and look at all of it as possibilities. The Internet Culture is about to grow mainstream and take control of our consumer spending, along with our prime time viewer interests, target markets, and focus groups. This means instant messaging, file sharing, and video streams. The individual is about to become a part of the whole through the power of the Internet. They are about to become One, and lose grasp of any boundaries between languages or religions. They would be the Internet Culture if they weren't already in our schools evolving the way we educate our children. The Internet Culture is already here. And by the way: They're big on sharing.

The fact that MySpace.com is being farmed by Rupert Murdoch for fame and fortune condemns News Corp for spending billions on the ownership without sharing a penny of the profit with his followers. Websites such as SecondLife has made millionaires of its members simply for playing the game. MySpace.com makes millions simply for advertising on the front page. YouTube joins with other companies to offer prize money to video makers while the guy that owns practically a third of the world media promotes his movies and television shows. Once something better comes along the cracks in the system will spring a leak, and all the traffic will flow somewhere else.

The future as I see it looks a lot like MySpace.com. Every man and woman of every race, color, and creed will have a profile that represents every side of their emtions. They will contain a beautiful movie with blogged narration, and generate demand for a free and open source government. The resources of the world will be distributed where necessary by the agreements of everyone involved. The value of the dollar will disappear to the value of life, and they will share world with everyone. You read their words right and you'll feel a little song deep inside your chest. You already know all if this is happening now. We need to recognize the Truth and plan accordingly.

MySpace.com is about to fall.

The OregonDistrict.com is open for business!

The Origin of Feces

As I continue to discover the Truth of our time
I consistently find myself at the base of Darwin's mountain
looking high into the clouds for a peak at the fittest
and wondering which of us were meant to survive.

Meanwhile Dante's simplist vision of Hell plays out repeatedly
as billions of humans push a rock up the side
only to watch it fall back down on payday
when the tax men collect their dues.

For whatever reason could this illusion exist
than in the metaphor of a promised land filled
with all the weath promised by our movie stars?

And so we work as individuals to collect our fair share
only to find ourselves divided against each other
racing towards the top of the mountain.

Boycott Holiday Spending

This holiday season -- when you gather the children round the Christmas yule -- instead of filling their eager little ears with a story about reindeers, do a little research on the Father of Christmas. Skip past the propaganda you've been telling them about a pagan ritual celebrating the end of winter. It doesn't involve a 4th Century bishop of Asia Minor riding around on ten tiny little reindeer to remind us of the birth of Christ. The Real Father of Christmas also happens to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud. His name is name is Edward Bernays.

Take a look at the beginning of the Christmas Season that starts the day after Thanksgiving, also known as Black Friday. Think about how American's celebrate this day -- by getting up at 5 am to catch the early bird specials, flocking to catch the sale of a century generated by advertising in the early part of the year. The day is called Black Friday because a majority of businesses run at a loss until the holiday season when they earn nearly 40% of their yearly earnings. They're counting on us to shop, and every year we buy into the dream at a price that few of us can hardly afford.

Edward Bernays took a close look at Uncle Freud's work and found a way to manipulate large groups of people through their primal instincts. He founded the field of Public Relations and made a fortune selling big business the secrets to getting people to buy their products. Before Bernays the manufatures worried what would happen when everyone owned one of their products. Afterwards they learned how to hook us into next year's model, and eventually taught our children how to influence our purchasing decisions.

My favorite story is best shared while walking around the shopping malls. Should luck lead you to a Banana Republic, take a moment to consider where the retail outlet got their name. The Ghost of Christmas Past is at it again in Honduras, working with the United Fruit Company to provide millions of Americans their daily potassium. The company set the wages for pratically the whole of the country which inspired the citizens to rise up against the government. Bernays reponded with anti-Socialist propaganda and turned the country back around to the control of Capitalist leaders.

The truth is that these same Capitalist leaders have hijacked the sleigh and taken us on a debt-ridden ride through long lines filled with angry people fighting over worthless trash that will be obsolete in a year. The spirit of giving is a flimsey excuse to spend so much money over the holiday season, which is why I recommend highly that everyone reading this BOYCOTT HOLIDAY SPENDING. We have final control over the system, and can easily enact the TRUE spirit of the season by following these three easy steps.

1. Visit with your friends and family and bring them good holiday cheer that can typically be communicated with a smile. Some holiday phrases which might come in handy include: "Happy Holidays," or "Merry Christmas!"

2. If you're gathering for a festive occasion which involves food, bring over a dish that you've made yourself -- even if you can't cook! The spirit of giving involves a bit of self-expression, which is most certainly rewarded around the holidays.

3. When children are involved, satiate their hunger for consumerism with something fun that everyone can enjoy. That way everyone can have a good time catching up with family members they haven't seen in a year.

If you must purchase something to put under the tree: Shop Local. The businesses in the district include silver shops and antique dealers, hair salons and music stores. There's a story to be had when you buy something unique from a business in your local neighborhood. Get the folks a gift card to a popular local restaurant, or get the kids a new whiney new Emo tattoo. The community becomes tighter when you show your support and sees more success than the stress filled months typically produce, resulting in everyone shopping happily ever after.

Isn't that a better story than the one's you've been telling your children?