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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]: Seemingly \Seem"ing*ly\, adverb In appearance; in show; in semblance; apparently; ostensibly. This the father seemingly complied with. --Addison. From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]: adverb 1: from appearances alone; "irrigation often produces bumper crops from apparently desert land"; "the child is seemingly healthy but the doctor is concerned"; "had been ostensibly frank as to his purpose while really concealing it"-Thomas Hardy; "on the face of it the problem seems minor" [syn: {apparently}, {ostensibly}, {on the face of it}]From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]: 48 Moby Thesaurus words for "seemingly": allegedly, apparently, artificially, as it seems, as it were, assumably, assumedly, assumptively, at first sight, conceivably, erroneously, evidently, factitiously, falsely, feasibly, in name only, in seeming, nominally, officially, on the surface, ostensibly, outwardly, plausibly, possibly, presumably, presumedly, presumptively, prima facie, professedly, purportedly, quasi, reputedly, speciously, spuriously, superficially, supposably, supposedly, suppositionally, supposititiously, synthetically, to all appearances, to all seeming, to the eye, truthlessly, ungenuinely, unnaturally, untruly, unveraciously
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Are You STRESSED OUT ?
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Occupy Wall Street
In the beginning, there was The Sword. And those who mastered The Sword became The Kings. The Citizens living on The Land were Slaves who paid taxes to The Kings. Then The Kings started selling The Land. Those with the most money bought The Land and became The Landlords. The rest of The Citizens were Slaves who paid rent to The Landlords, who became even more wealthy. Occasionally, The Citizens mastered The Sword and took The Land back from The Kings. But far and wide, it was The Landlords who kept control of The Land, and The Citizens in greater and greater numbers paid more and more rent to The Landlords, who became The Bankers. A bank is just a database in a computer. The only reason a bank, in the 21st Century, requires labor, is for the low-paid Slaves to count the cash and read the writing on checks. The loan approval process is now automated by expert systems and risk analysis formulas that depend on data from Experian, Transunion and Equifax. If we were to eliminate the cash and checks and give everyone a $200 smart phone like a Wi-Fi enabled iPhone that can exchange network-based currency units between phones, we could completely automate the banking system. We could consolidate all the banks into a single internet-connected automated database, thereby eliminating the need for all bank employees and executives, with the exception of the service workers responsible for keeping the wireless telecommunications networks and computers running. Since the entire banking system would be automated, we could give each Citizen a single, non-transferable voting share. Since all the money would be in one place, there would be no need for governments to collect taxes, as the bank could simply pay for all social services. There would be no need for insurance companies, Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security or even Nation-states or taxes. When accidents or illness happened, the bank could simply pick up the tab to pay for the health care costs or property losses, with a set of first principles to prevent abuse and fraud. This would eliminate the entire banking and insurance industries, leaving the financial services sector largely automated, just like the rest of the manufacturing and farming sector before it. Now that all The Bankers and Insurers are unemployed, just like all the manufacturing workers who have been automated out of their jobs or displaced from their jobs through globalization, they would look for solutions to their new found state of poverty. One potential solution, since all the money is electronic, would be to develop two separate currencies. One gold-backed and persistent, that can be saved so workers and entrepreneurs can save and accumulate wealth. The other currency would be fiat currency that is temporary, perhaps lasting only a month or so just so all The Citizens would have enough working capital to live a high standard of living and to provide a safety net for all the unemployed workers and Bankers and Insurers - without causing inflation. To get THE WHOLE WORLD off to a good start, since there would be no need for nation-states, we could have a one time JUBILEE. Since The Citizens now control the banking system, they could forgive all debts. Rich people could keep their mansions and cars and toys and boats and airplanes Scott-free and retire comfortably. Landlords could be awarded electronic credits equal to the fair market value of their rental properties, so that all the renters, largely unemployed, could become homeowners and land owners. Each Citizen of Planet Earth would now be COMPLETELY FREE from the tyranny of governments and tax collectors and all The Citizens would have private property and there would be no more need for a Department of Defense. Now that the social services and economy are fully automated, the bank could purchase all the public utilities and energy companies, as well as all the green manufacturing companies, releasing the patents and factory designs for solar panels and wind turbines. We could replace the entire petroleum economy with a 100% green energy economy. There would be universal health care without taxation. This is a private sector Libertarian solution to poverty and unemployment that eliminates ALL TAXATION and gives ALL Citizens freedom and private property. Do you think it would be in the BEST INTEREST of the MAJORITY OF THE Citizens to do this, given where we are technologically with computers and robotics and automation? | |||||||
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NOW PLAYING: Ken Playing With SONAR Tempo Delays And Resonance And Feedback Levels On His New PC. ![]() NOW PLAYING: The Day The Earth Stood Still. (Click here to learn how to do this.) Let's Give Majority Consensus-Based Democracy A Try For A Change! A GLOBAL REFERENDUM Concerning Our ENVIRONMENT, the BANKING INDUSTRY and Our Collective LIBERTY. Make Your Opinion Count - CAST YOUR VOTE and See the Latest Results Live! WHAT IF WE CAN ALL JUST START OVER TODAY? WE CAN DO MUCH BETTER TODAY than what we're doing NOW. Will you vote, if given the opportunity, to forgive all debts, public and commercial, with the legal provision that you be allowed to keep the home that you live in, the car that you drive, and all your personal possessions free and clear, without owing debts or mortgage payments to any commercial banks, so that you can live freely, without fear or threat of homelessness or eviction? A Safe Home and a Car and a Whole Lot of Freedom: Yes or No?
Enough is enough. Our global petroleum-based economy and international commercial banking systems are in desperate need of reform. Our central banks are secretive, non-transparent and often corrupt. They have become organized criminal shell games, casinos and ponzi schemes managed and controlled by Wall Street insiders and shadowy international bankers who have completely taken over our increasingly secretive political systems. Their lobbyists and puppet politicians ignore proven science, sound reason and basic human compassion in order to perpetuate obscene corporate profits. Their combined public environmental protection and poverty relief efforts are completely ineffective to the point of being farcically absurd. It is now without question or doubt. They absolutely do not represent the best interests of the majority of the people - the common citizens of our planet. This is not to say that all bankers and politicians are evil - they most certainly are not. But the whole concept of for-profit banking is no longer serving the general public good. The grossly disproportionate concentration of wealth and distribution of power and influence throughout the world has gone too far. We need to step in. We have to act. Thanks to the internet, we can do much better now than what we are doing today. We have the tools, the technology and the know-how to simply start over from the ground up, with a much improved, much more humane, much more intelligent system of economics and democratic governance that is designed to serve all of Earth's people, not just the rich and powerful, ruthlessly selfish, corrupt and privileged.
The simple truth is that the average human being is very poor at long-term thinking and even rudimentary mathematics. Ordinary, hard-working, honest and well-intentioned people are lured by immediate rewards into becoming voracious dumbed-down consumers who accept debt-plus-interest credit obligations that are nearly impossible to repay, by intentional design of the money lenders who prey on this fallacy of human nature. As a result, the overwhelming majority of citizens have managed to end up deeply indebted to the richest of the rich and the greediest of the greedy - the international corporate for-profit banking institutions. The exceptions are the billions of people who are trapped in never-ending poverty because they are unable to receive credit or grants in the first place.
It's time that we put a stop to this large-scale, wholesale, systematic, institutionalized, government-sanctioned plundering of our liberty and freedom and environmental health. We need to level the playing field, wipe the slate clean, and start fresh with a new nonprofit banking system, directly owned and democratically controlled entirely by the citizens - all of us - one person, one non-transferable voting share each. This new democratic bank, with the authority to create capital as society demands, could honor the insured deposits of the too-big-to-fail commercial banks, which would be allowed, at last, to fail. This true bank of the people, as a nonprofit, will grant loans at zero interest, which is, after all, the only fair rate there is.
With this new fresh start, we could immediately replace our petroleum-based economy with a truly Earth-friendly green economy, making the economics of clean energy affordable to all at last. We could buy up and apply an Open Manufacturing Model to the best of the green technologies. This would enable us to completely eliminate taxes. It would also enable us to provide the poor, unemployed and retired with a Basic Income Guarantee sufficient to provide a high quality of life in modernity and much-needed Universal Health Care. This would render our IRS, government-based welfare programs, unemployment insurance programs, Social Security and Medicare programs, all insurance companies and many humanitarian non-governmental organizations unnecessary. Will you vote, if given the opportunity, to forgive all debts, public and commercial, with the legal provision that you be allowed to keep the home that you live in, the car that you drive, and all your personal possessions free and clear, without owing debts or mortgage payments to any commercial banks, so that you can live freely, without fear or threat of homelessness or eviction?
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Here are some FREE 1920 x 1080 x 30p HD kaleidoscopes, including one feature-length slow-moving kaleidoscope that is designed to sooth troubled, disturbed, frightened, frustrated, confused or overwhelmed minds. Excellent for meditation or just relaxing and relieving stress. These should play fine on any home theater media player or PC that isn't too ancient. Of course, if you are just going to be watching these videos on your computer, the High Definition YouTube versions should be sufficient. On the other hand, if you plan on promoting this website on television, download the broadcast quality versions below. These are completely FREE, but if you really enjoy them or wish to support the other FREE content on this nonprofit website, please feel free to make a $5 donation via PayPal by clicking on one of the buttons here. This is the only revenue model for this website in its current form and pays for the videos that are streamed from here. http://hdcolors.com/Magical-Thumping-Kaleidoscope-3D-for-2012.mp4 (643 MB) http://hdcolors.com/Magical-Thumping-Kaleidoscope-3D-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (643 MB) http://hdcolors.com/Barrage-of-Images-with-Cool-Music-for-2012.mp4 (1 GB) (YouTube http://hdcolors.com/Barrage-of-Images-with-Cool-Music-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (1 GB) http://hdcolors.com/Grateful-Dead-Fire-on-the-Mountain-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (392 MB) http://hdcolors.com/Magical-Thumping-Kaleidoscope-for-2012.mp4 (636 MB) http://hdcolors.com/Magical-Thumping-Kaleidoscope-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (636 MB) http://hdcolors.com/Barrage-of-Images-with-Cool-Music-3D-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (1 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-for-2012.mp4 (8.4 GB) (YouTube http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-for-2012.mp4 (8.4 GB) (YouTube http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-for-2012-with-Pot-Leaves.mp4 (12.6 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD5-NTSC.iso (4.5 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD5-NTSC-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (4.5 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD9-NTSC.iso (8.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD9-NTSC-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (8.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD5-PAL.iso (4.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD5-PAL-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (4.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD9-PAL.iso (8.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-DVD9-PAL-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (8.4 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-BD25-NTSC.iso (23 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-BD25-NTSC-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (23 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-BD25-PAL.iso (23 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-Kaleidoscope-Video-v1-2-BD25-PAL-with-Pot-Leaves.iso (14 GB) http://hdcolors.com/The-Splendor-of-Color-3D-for-2012-(Side-by-Side).mp4 (10.1 GB) I would appreciate it if you decide to share these videos with other people that you do so with unedited versions of the videos, complete with disclaimers and credits. So, in terms of copyright, please feel free to copy to your heart's content - you have that right - I just kindly ask that you keep the titles so people can find the musicians and fractal flame artists and kaleidoscope programmers on the web. OBVIOUSLY, the whole point of these videos is to steer people who like this kind of stuff towards this GLOBAL REFERENDUM in order to capture their VOTES and SUPPORT. | |||||||
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The videos on the nonprofit websites define.com and videocritter.org are for our friendly, peaceful, benevolent and nonviolent community of potheads, psychedelic trippers, Pagans, Druids, Atheists, Buddhists, Libertarians, Independents, Scientists, Academics, Engineers, Programmers, Artists, Musicians, Directors, Dancers, Actors, Gamblers, Self-Employed Prostitutes, Drug Addicts, Renters, Poor People, Drug War Prisoners, People with Mental Illnesses, Homeless People, Automated and Outsourced Unemployed Workers, Time-Traveling Aliens from the Future, Compassionate and Empathetic Android Mascot Sleeper Agents Who Think They're Human, Mental Health Professionals and all the rest of us Riffraff and Troublemakers who just like to feel SAFE IN OUR OWN HOMES while we chill-out and meditate to complex symmetrical patterns set to cool synthesizer music. Maybe we should all come together and have a PARTY? There are The Powers That Be, and then there are those of us who until now have been without representation. Perhaps we can UNITE for a moment or two in order to get some things done around here that need very badly to get done to restore some sanity and peace and tranquility to this dreadful situation. It's time to get the Old Fashioned Show wrapped up so we can move on to bigger and better things. I think we've all had enough of slimy lawyers, fat-cat bankers and lying, Narcissistic, egomaniacal, secretive, controlling, smooth-talking, good-looking, charismatic businessmen hero politicians who wear stiff, uncomfortable business suits right out of the 1980's. All we want is nothing more than to be left alone to do Our Own Peaceful Things in Our Own Peaceful Ways in Our Own Peaceful Places without interference from a bunch of authoritarian theocrats and greedy corporations who think they own our bodies, our minds and The Land we sleep on. All of my videos can be downloaded for FREE in broadcast quality high definition from my GLOBAL REFERENDUM page. Please VOTE in my REFERENDUM so we can ALL seriously put the "High" back into the term, "High Definition." This REFERENDUM is my serious attempt at solving all the world's biggest problems by giving the international public a web page to use as a focal point in a worldwide discussion about completely reforming the banking industry, beginning with a one-time JUBILEE and conversion to a completely automated banking model that uses smart phones as digital wallets. Remember - in a real Democracy - majority rules! I think the majority would like this very much. Plus, it would give all the Occupy Wall Street people and the rest of the 99% a major opportunity to make massive, BIG TIME changes to our WHOLE SYSTEM - much to the betterment of EVERYBODY (including the 1%). | |||||||
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Ours is a Democratic government Of, By and For We The People. So, in a very real way, all of this is All of Us:
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Cease and Desist Orders may be e-mailed to: custodian@define.com The Droid is locking on to its target:
Pot + Vaporizer = Problem solved. That's it. Game over. End of story. Period. We're done. Now go away and leave us all alone. Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Thought. Let US compete in the marketplace of ideas. Switching between realities. This is room and board. This is Alchemy. This is crazy. | |||||||
Have you had enough yet? What if we could all just start over today?
In the United States of America we enjoy something called "Freedom of Speech." That freedom is guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to our Constitution. It also guarantees us the right to Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press and Freedom to Petition the government for redress of grievances. That includes the freedom to openly organize, discuss and plan to radically restructure or even reduce or eliminate the government itself, as long as it's done peacefully. This video playlist and essay are examples of one American citizen exercising these rights up to, and perhaps slightly beyond, their legal limits. You can be the judge of that. You are the jury of my peers. The goal is to create the broadest worldwide consensus humanly possible at this point in our living history. We have finally had enough. We need to get this over with, and we now have the tools and the means to do just that. We intend to take back our freedom in a peaceful way, and in the process to return power to the people in a big way. This web page could become all of us taking over the money lenders and corrupt politicians, if we can form a consensus around this single point of focus. The word is define. This is what it looks like. Spread the word. This is how it all starts, by being curious and questioning authority on a large scale. This has never happened before, because we never had the internet before. Now that we've got it, let's do it! This could be HUGE, if we all decide to make it so. Metaphorically speaking, this discussion is as heavy as a neutron star. This web page could literally start a war. But of course, together, we will not let that happen. Luckily, you don't need to worry about this showing up in the corporately-owned and centrally-controlled television and radio mass media. They're not interested in the rambling manifesto of some crazy-optimistic unconventional thinker/futurist/dreamer on the web. They won't discuss it, lest it grow and spread much too quickly, which would be a huge risk that is just too dangerous to take. Besides, why should we all panic over nothing? It's only the total collapse of the stock market and the end of the world economy and all nation states that's at stake. Boring, trivial stuff that no one cares about. Like the end of wars, the end of poverty, the end of corrupt governments, and the end of banking as we know it. I hereby confess to seriously and transparently suggesting that we bring about all of the above. Go ahead and tell on me. Be my guest. Watch in amazement as absolutely nothing happens at all. No news here. The silence will be deafening. This is about achieving real Freedom, not some twisted Capitalistic or authoritarian religious perversion of the idea which leaves a select greedy few holding all the levers of power and control. However, the internet-based media is another story altogether. This is an internet and print-only phenomenon. For the time being, this is directed at people who read for their information, not those who watch or listen passively. You are one of those people, so I would like to invite you to join this conspiracy. When it comes to science, I'm definitely a layperson. But I like the goal: Seek the Truth. The scientific method consists of several steps in a logical progression.
This entire essay is basically Step One: DEFINE THE QUESTION. There's a little bit of Steps Two and Three to provide some food for thought and provocative fodder for discussion in order to draw interest and get a conversion started. And this whole website might be part of Step Four, since the site itself is a worldwide experiment. But it all boils down to asking a big "What If" question: What if the bottom 98% of the economic classes came together and formed a consensus to agree to forgive all debts, and start over from scratch with a new non-profit banking system? Could we do that? How could we do that? What might that look like? How could it be done without war and violence? What would happen? If we actually did run out of money, how could we all live comfortably with a high standard of living, an abundance of personal freedom, safety and security, and no more stress about having to pay the bills and struggling to survive? Would it be helpful if there was a single, easy to remember URL that served as a focal point for gathering the people together in order to reach this consensus? These are just questions that we all can answer together. I just want people to seriously think about it and to discuss these things openly without fear of being punished or imprisoned. So without further ado, this is my best effort. Here we go... Here's a totally hypothetical question: If there was an opportunity to change the system so that you could do whatever you want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, as well as eliminate income taxes, as well as make it so you can work less or not at all and still have an income sufficient to enjoy a comfortable and safe home, healthy foods, transportation and all the modern communication and entertainment technologies, the freedom and means to travel almost anywhere, as well as cutting carbon dioxide emissions significantly by getting millions of cars off the roads at rush hour, while eliminating poverty and healing the planet, would you like to switch to that system if possible? If your answer to this question is "Yes," then welcome to define.com, a place on the web for anarchists, extremists, socialists, gays, Pagans, Atheists, scientists and academics, prostitutes and drug addicts, thieves and adulterers, liars and killers, terrorists and cheats, subversives, Libertarians, radicals, reactionaries and revolutionaries of all shapes, sizes, colors and persuasions to come together and openly conspire to set ourselves free from The Powers That Be. Just plain normal hardworking middle-of-the-road moderate folks are welcome, too. We are all of them, and they are us. This website is all about forgiveness. Big time, major league, deadly serious, life and death, take no prisoners debt forgiveness and financial relief on a monumental scale that includes The Whole World. That would be for all of us, including you, your family, your friends, your neighbors and your co-workers. You have now discovered the public's secret weapon in the invisible class war that has resulted from the international banking industry's stranglehold on human civilization and governments. This is a very special place on the World Wide Web specifically reserved for forming the largest consensus ever created in the history of human kind. What follows is very unconventional economic common sense and some unorthodox ideas on how we can all give ourselves some major relief from our biggest problems. All it requires is a massive majority consensus in order to change a few rules. We need only a starting point that gets us all on the same page. Once we have that, the rest of the pieces will fall into place through the sheer power of electronic democracy. What we need to do is so simple that a child might as well be proposing it: get rid of the money lenders once and for all. Corrupt governments will follow. That will be the permanent end of war and economic slavery. So why don't we just get ourselves together and do it already? With this URL, I think we can. Here we are at last. We're on the same page. This is it. Let's just watch them try to stop us from gathering and organizing. Humanity is approaching that point in our history where the great majority of democratic masses, connected via the internet, will be united in a simple consensus: "Enough is enough. We've had it. Game over. We're done. It's our turn now. The time is right. We are taking charge of this situation, sooner rather than later. It's time for a major change." And this URL is where it's going to go down. Responsibly. Calmly. Safely. Intelligently. This time we will not be asking. We will simply insist, politely but firmly, without wavering or compromising in our resolve. The overlords will have no choice. The age of photogenic smooth-talking politicians and lying, narcissistic, charismatic egomaniacal hero/leaders will be finished. The people, at last, will take that one giant critical leap into a better world order, and we will once and for all truly govern ourselves AND our money. I've been guarding this magical domain for the last 16 years waiting for a good time to put it to good use. It doesn't really belong to me. It's all of ours. I'm here to sow the seeds of a civilized, high tech, democratic revolution, except this one will be done safely and in relatively slow-motion, so as not to cause too much disruption, upheaval and alarm. The situation is under control. We're all in this together, after all. In the end, nobody in particular will be in charge. It's better that way. We've seen the alternative and it just doesn't work. This is about what we could do with a few dozen trillion dollars, or the stroke of a few dozen pens and the shuffling of some stock inside the abstract virtual world of a few Wall Street computers. Either way, it's definitely doable. I should say up front that this essay contains ideas regarding freedom and liberty (from government) that should appeal to far right-wing conservatives, and it contains ideas about a basic income guarantee, health care and education for all, and finally eliminating poverty that should appeal to far left-wing liberals. In spite of appealing to those extremes, I'm hoping most to appeal to the reason and logic of the majority of the population that falls somewhere in the middle. In the end, it's simply about achieving a more perfect democracy in the age of the internet and smartphones, and finding a civilized and peaceful way to gracefully let go of our antiquated institutions of government and those parts of capitalism that have left the top 1% of the people with more wealth than the bottom 95% combined (actually, these figures can be disputed based on semantics and various different calculations, but the broader point of the obscenely disproportionate distribution of wealth remains without question). This system isn't working any more for the vast majority of us, We The People. We have to put our heads together, mobilize our academics and scientists, and put a stop to this tyranny. This essay is just me brainstorming on a large scale, but I don't claim to have the answers. I just want to get a conversation started about the benefits of just totally starting over from scratch. What comes out of the other end of this conversation may look nothing like what I'm suggesting here. That's fine with me. At the risk of repeating myself, I absolutely do not want to be in charge of anything. I have enough trouble just dealing with my own severe mental illness, which is called schizoaffective disorder. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you want. Basically what I'm proposing is that the people in the bottom 98% of the economic classes come together, reach a consensus that we need to start over, pool our resources, buy up all the oligopolies that control our markets, and create a new private market (a big non-profit international co-op) that is owned and managed democratically by the members, who each have a single non-transferrable voting share of the company. It's about equality, and making the most of science and technology to change the system completely and legally by working peacefully and calmly within the current legal frameworks everywhere to give us all a standard of living worthy of our scientific advancement and modern times. I think the only sane people who won't like this proposal are the bankers that we all owe money to. But we've got them outnumbered, so they can go away and play with their own lives and monopoly money instead ruining the rest of ours with their impossible-to-win game of never-ending debt and a constant state of war and conflict. And maybe also those elites who have somehow ended up owning our shared natural resources, such as oil and natural gas, coal and lithium mines and lumber forests. We'll help them all to retire comfortably and finally leave the rest of us alone. We don't need them. We only need each other, the internet, a large-scale consensus, some cool cell phones and a clean slate. And maybe a lot of optical fiber. The smart phones will be for mobile banking and electronic commerce, and anybody who voluntarily agrees to openly share their GPS coordinates with enough trustworthy people to keep them out of trouble will be awarded micropayments every second that their phone is voluntarily on the grid, so that at the end of the day, they will have enough credits in their account to cover the cost of existing comfortably with a high standard of living, whether they work or not. In the U.S., GPS is legally mandatory in our cell phones. Phone companies have this data. The NSA has this data. Except they don't pay you for the privilege of violating your privacy and knowing your whereabouts. You pay them. We can change that. This would eliminate most crime and make the society safer for all. Of course, it would also make a huge swath of government bureaucracies completely unnecessary, which would significantly shrink the role of national governments and return more power and freedom to the people. My job is simple: to act as a warm body to hold the free people's domain until society is ready and prepared to make this quantum leap safely and peacefully, and to periodically throw crazy ideas out into the herd in order to shake things up and break the spell that we've all been under since the invention of money, religion and authoritarian politics. This is a wake-up call of the highest order on the grandest scale. As for me: I am a completely expendable nobody. An irrelevant, simple-minded speck of dust that has been programmed with a singular mission. I have been prepared since early childhood to play this simple part in this grand play, and to receive unimaginable amounts of criticism, blame and humiliation. I take my job very seriously, and am completely OK with totally surrendering my personal privacy 24/7 if it comes down to it. This means ABSOLUTE TRANSPARENCY. But I doubt it will come down to that, since I'm basically just a typist who parrots other peoples' ideas - a boring, overweight, unattractive "crash test dummy" sticking his neck out because the important people are too smart to put themselves in harm's way. The ones who entrusted me with this domain weren't screwing around. They mean business. What if it went something like this: the bottom 98% of economic classes that is in debt to the top 1% of the economic class comes together and reaches a consensus that we need to start over. We forgive all debts, public and private. Everybody keeps the home they live in whether it previously belonged to a bank or a landlord. We form a new non-profit worldwide bank of the people controlled entirely by the citizens in a one-person one vote democratic fashion. Each person has one non-transferable voting share. This new bank has the authority to create money and it invests in infrastructure around the world with the sole goal of improving the quality of life of all citizens. The loans are at zero interest. Instead of working within the currently corrupted system to beg and plead for new rules that slowly widdle away the wealth so it transfers from the rich to the poor, why not use the sheer power of internet populism to simply demand a better economic situation, all at once, whether the rich like it or not? In biblical times, this was called "Jubilee," a periodic celebration in which the rulers wiped the slate clean and debtors and slaves were set free. Think of it as a kind of healthy "re-booting" of the system to level the playing field and restore equality and liberty. We are fast approaching the time when it is clearly and obviously in the best interest of the vast majority of citizens to be given this much-needed, much-sought relief. And since ours is a government, Of, By and For The People, We, as our own rulers, have the power to grant ourselves this gift. The only problem is that doing this would be illegal under the laws of our present legislators, who have become corrupted by the banking and insurance and oil and pharmaceutical lobbyists who now effectively write our laws from start to finish. But shouldn't an overwhelming majority of the citizens have the right to bypass those corrupt legislators and to change the rules of the game anytime we want, if it is deemed to be necessary and in the best interest of the vast majority of the citizens? We have the bankers (and the legislators) outnumbered by an absolutely, incredibly, fantastically overwhelming ratio. Is there any reason why the enslaved majority of citizens, in a democracy, couldn't just fire them all, all at once, to make a quantum leap forward in human progress? That's the short of it. What follows is a longer version that basically rationalizes this simple premise into some unconventional strategies for doing it legally in a very measured, calm, methodical, peaceful process that works within the present control structures. It introduces a new form of currency, never before possible in all of human history, that has a limited lifespan, which ensures that it is used in regular and frequent commerce in order to keep the economy running smoothly while eliminating inflation. I should add, this website is no secret. The authorities know who I am, and have elected to allow me to continue displaying this web page, in spite of it's potential for creating a large-scale consensus in some form or another. If it looks like there's going to be a problem and things start getting crazy, I'm perfectly happy to cooperate and tone it down. We're all adults here. Nobody wants to do any harm to anybody. We all want what's best for everybody. Like I said, "We're all in this together." If we reach a consensus and decide that we intend to act, we just need to keep up business as usual during a transition period, so that nobody panics and the economy keeps chugging along safely and securely while we figure out together what to do next. We just switch from thinking of our ordinary lives as a mandatory, monotonous, permanent routine, and start thinking of it as a kind of play in which we each have a temporary and important role that is essential to the Master Plan. With just a trifle bit of research it has become clear to me, as an American, that the whole process of how money is created and loaned out by the central banks is a criminal scam of biblical proportions. We pay rent to the landlord, who makes payments to the bank that truly "owns" the property. But who owns the bank, and where do they get their money? When you "follow the money" back through the banking system, you wind up learning something truly astounding and frightening. The central banks and governments just create it out of thin air! That's not fair. Some elite, completely private, secretive group of bankers gets special printing presses and a bunch of paper and literally makes a bunch of money, and suddenly they own all the land, homes, buildings and businesses. And nobody complains. What on Earth is going on here? Something is wrong with this picture. So let's get this over with. Someone has got to say this. I'll just spell it out in simple terms. Most people are purposely kept unaware of the fact that they are the living, breathing, slaving property of the international bankers who own our governments. We are so thoroughly distracted by the daily struggle to survive and an endless barrage of corporate entertainment and mass media diversions that we rarely stop to question the validity of The WHOLE System in which we are living. It's a gigantic, sadistic, worldwide monopoly game of unimaginable proportions that has been completely rigged. These bankers are absolutely, positively not committed to the citizens' best interests. They are all about enriching themselves, no matter what the cost to ordinary people, even if it means encouraging wars. If we applied our science and technology fully, the majority of us would not need to work at all. Furthermore, we could easily eliminate the conditions of poverty, hunger and ignorance throughout the world. Unfortunately though, our economic systems are based on the control and submission of entire populations through the perpetuation of individual, corporate and national debt with interest, as well as international conflict. First the central bankers print the money from scratch, then they lend it to the governments, who promise to pay it back with interest with money collected from the taxpayers through pure coercion and threat of imprisonment. And where do the taxpayers get it? In the end, it comes from work and various other sources that all wind up borrowing from the banks. It's that simple. We are the prisoners of the States' need for economic growth and the corporate imperative to make a profit, which is always at the expense of the citizens and their precious free time. This sucks big time. Sooner or later we the debtors are just going to have to say to the nations' creditors, "Sorry, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You're going to have to be satisfied with what you've already got, because you can't have any more. Enough is enough. We are taking back our freedom." But that would be considered treason or grand theft on giant scale. I definitely don't want to get arrested for plotting to overthrow the government or collapsing the global economy in such a way. So what can be done? Is there any sort of "legal" process that could be invented that would allow us to get our freedom back without all of us winding up in prison? Somehow, we're going to need to get together and conspire to find a way to get free that doesn't end up causing a World War. Basically humans are good-natured when given a choice. Most would choose to help others in need if they could do so without pain to themselves. This includes most of our corporate, government and military leaders, who are also unwilling victims of the same establishment monetary systems as the rest of us. Together, we are all owned by the same monumental government and banking institutions, like beasts of burden programmed to perpetuate the status quo. One thing that the rich and poor can agree on is that there's got to be a better way than this. For the vast majority of human beings living on this planet today, this system is Hell. Maybe it's time for us all to get together and start over with a level playing field. Really level. But how can we do that without some kind of revolution? I think the answer is to change the system from within by playing by the rules in order to change the rules. First, we have to acknowledge that our current system is broken, corrupt and fatally flawed. We have to peacefully dismantle it and replace it with something better and more democratic. In the end, it's our game. We can choose to redefine it at any time, if we can manage to break the spell of habit and take ownership of our individual and collective power. We have to create a stateless democracy that can exist within each of our host nations without causing chaos. In the end, one possible option is to simply pool our money and buy back our freedom in a way that will eventually starve the economic beast of governments by depriving them of funding until they are as small as possible, posing no danger to the citizens while providing the minimum essential services, such as protecting the people and the commons (e.g. water, air, forests and other natural resources that should not be privatized). Our governments are inefficient bureaucracies created by mostly well-intentioned people who reigned long before the creation of the internet. They are filled with paper, turf battles, infighting and politics at all levels. Twisted and tangled communication channels and favoritism, cronyism and corruption. Our systems of representation are based on old paper, word-of-mouth and face-to-face communication models that are long outdated, with feedback loops that take years instead of days to correct problems and adjust to changing circumstances and the people's will. They are all about making money, conquering territory, manipulating public opinion and getting re-elected at all costs. Sure, we love our nations and our values. But more often than not the corrupt, greedy and unprincipled people wind up with all the power and influence, and the average citizens are left with peanuts and debt that is impossible to repay. What if there was a way to do away with the need for money itself for billions of people? I think there is, but it will require privatizing massive portions of our economies. The manufacturing and food production industries that create most of the products we use and consume in daily life have become so automated that we are actually running out of jobs for humans. This pattern is growing, not shrinking. Those corporations that own these factories and farms get rich while the workers are seeing their wages cut more and more as a result of globalization. If most people had a choice, they would prefer not to work at all. Together, we can cooperate and create a new way of doing things that truly serves the people's interests in survival, comfort, entertainment, education and health care. . In the process, we can peacefully make a transition from the old ways to a better way without massive disruption, panic or war. We can clean up this mess by applying our industrial strengths to make things better for absolutely everybody. First though, we need to stop this ridiculous farce of demanding more jobs from our leaders. We don't need more jobs. We need more freedom and a better system of allocating essential resources to the people - all of them. Obviously, this whole issue is infinitely complex, but I'm going to break it down to a simplified version using examples that are familiar to most Americans. In my country, the small business merchants and manufacturers are disappearing as corporations consolidate and expand to take over entire markets. The corner stores have been replaced with Wal-Marts. Almost all of the local communities' money that goes into buying from Wal-Mart, with a tiny exception of the salaries of low-paid workers and some token charity, leaves the community. The same is true for our lumber yards, as they have been replaced with either Home Depot or Lowe's. Our electronics stores are nearly gone now and the winner is Best Buy. The small furniture stores have been replaced by IKEA superwarehouses. Little gas stations have been bought up by Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Texaco, Chevron, and BP. Our money goes into these large corporations and they use it to expand and overtake smaller and smaller markets. Most of our small, independent food stores have been replaced by supermarkets such as Safeway and Albertson's. They are filled with products that are nearly all made by a handful of corporations. The list goes on. Free market Capitalism has been a wonderful success for these businesses, but has resulted in job loss and bankruptcy for the citizens. The individual citizens are routing a large portion of their incomes into just a handful of companies, but very few of those customers are stockholders. We are overflowing with mass-produced consumer goods and material wealth, but that wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. As a human race, we have been marvelously successful at mastering technology, manufacturing and distribution. But as humanitarians, we have failed miserably. 2.2 billion people are living in poverty. More than 25,000 people die each and every day as the result of starvation, when we have food surpluses. We can fix this. We have the technology and the wealth to help these people. We can apply all of our wonderful production and distribution capability in a way that accepts the realities of big industry and helps everybody. The reality is that consolidation is not going to go away. The big get bigger and the rich get richer, and the small get swallowed up. That's just the way it is. What jobs remain are going to be low paid cookie-cutter retail positions, but there will be fewer and fewer consumers with the money to buy things, even as goods become less and less costly. In the U.S., we are now living in a sea of oligopolies. We are headed towards eventually accepting monopoly control of our most important markets. For the sake of keeping it simple, what if we just accepted massive consolidation as the eventual future outcome and just allowed it to take place right now, but in a way that served the citizens instead of the rich? What if a large number of people and private corporations pooled their money and resources to form a gigantic member-owned and controlled co-op called HUMANITY, Inc.? It could be managed mostly online by its members in a transparent, open source, open system, purely democratic manner. The general idea is that citizens should be able to cover most of their basic needs by shopping here. Assume that this co-op acquired and merged companies like Weyerhaeuser (they own the land that grows the trees that are turned into lumber that makes new homes), UPS or FedEx, Costco or Wal-Mart or TARGET, IKEA, Best Buy, Samsung or Sony, Safeway or Albertson's, Home Depot or Lowe's, AT&T or Comcast or Time-Warner, a successful automobile manufacturer, and any other combination of these massive scale industrial operations (and public utilities) to create a private manufacturing and distribution machine that is dedicated to improving the human condition? I realize this may sound absurd, but for the sake of a thought experiment, let's consider what could happen if it was done right. This new co-op would have a lot of real wealth, buying power and economies of scale. What if it bought up all the property debt? If you have a mortgage on your home, HUMANITY, Inc. would take ownership of that mortgage. If you are renting, HUMANITY, Inc. would buy out your landlord. HUMANITY, Inc. should be capable of providing everything that a citizen needs to survive in good health. Let's say this gigantic private organization was considered to be a "market" and this market had its own system of credits. GOLD CREDITS would be persistent and backed by the real assets of the co-op, and could be exchanged with existing world currencies. It could also have another type of credits (let's call them LUNAR CREDITS), which are temporary. These credits would last a month and be redeemable for all goods available in the co-op. For the people employed there, they would be paid in GOLD CREDITS, so there would be an incentive to work and contribute, and they would have the ability to save and accumulate wealth that could be used in other markets. Within this market, either kind of credit would be redeemable for products, but the "temporary" LUNAR CREDITS could not be directly converted into "persistent" GOLD CREDITS. The idea is that this would be a global organization, although it may have different physical appearances in different cultures so as not to be offensive. All people would be welcome to shop in this market and to use its products and services. However, membership in the co-op would require a small investment of time in a really simple process of education in civility, pluralism and social standards. This should be a simple and easy training process. Perhaps all members would be required take an online interactive video class in their own language that just covers a few hours of human history, mythology and comparative religion. Sort of an initiation process that gets people thinking on a global scale, outside of their mutually exclusive tribal boxes, and welcomes them into HUMANITY, Inc. Once they finish the course and pass the simple test that shows they understand the concepts, they become permanent members. As members, they earn exactly one non-transferable share of this corporation and it's a voting share. The big reward for being a member of this market is that you have something like an iPhone-linked account that is charged every day with enough LUNAR CREDITS to cover the daily basics (food, clothing, shelter, clean water, electricity, medicine, health care and internet access). Most importantly, if your mortgage or rent is payable to HUMANITY, Inc., that debt would be forgiven. You wouldn't have to work if you don't want to. Eventually, the credit system may become obsolete and everything will be free, but it could be used in the beginning in order to have some way of fairly allocating finite resources. This market would be controlled entirely by the citizens themselves and would be managed in an internet-based open and transparent process. This co-op could coexist with all the rest of the businesses in the larger society, but would provide a safety net for people to join as their jobs disappear. We could apply all of the proceeds earned by this organization to expansion into smaller and smaller markets in poorer and poorer nations and communities. By the time the co-op was ubiquitous, it would be providing the equivalent of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to all of the world's citizens, and would be completely member-owned and controlled in a way that is the absolute definition of egalitarian fairness. In the end, we will have applied all of our industrial expertise specifically and directly to the process of helping humanity and solving our world's biggest problems. Most importantly, becoming a voting member and shopping there would be completely optional, and this solution will exist entirely in the private sector. It would be like a mini-state, except it would make no laws, and it would control and imprison nobody. If this co-op was structured as a non-profit it would not have to pay taxes, and since the members are paid in LUNAR CREDITS (the perfectly legal equivalent of store coupons), their "basic incomes" would be tax free. Since these LUNAR CREDITS are electronic and have a limited lifespan, there would be no inflation, in contrast to paying people with physical money that is printed and entered into circulation. As more people became members, the size of government would need to shrink due to a decrease in tax revenue. In the end, the citizens will be free to spend all of their time as they choose, rather than slaving away endlessly as the human property of central banks and lenders who throughout history have forced citizens to work in order to grow economies and tax revenues. Instead of being forced to "be productive", human beings will be free to "Just Be themselves" and leave it at that. Instead of growing economies, trading dollars and polluting the environment, we could just grow and trade ever more potent varieties of cannabis buds and spend more time off the freeways and in our homes with our families, learning and exploring on the web, traveling the world and learning each others' cultures, or recreating outside while enjoying nature. That would definitely cut down carbon dioxide emissions in a massive and significant way and be infinitely better for the environment and World Peace than what we're doing today. The persistent link for this essay is: http://define.com/Enough | |||||||
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