A NEW WAY?

    Is there another way to rescue the American government?

Maybe. Some thoughts, rooted in history, follow below.

first, a breath of fresh air

fiscalini ranch preserve-cambria ca. 

nap time

a few of our marine cousins observing rest hour

 the guy below brings us back to the us congress

a third way

    Whether it becomes more than speculative, or a pipe dream, remains to be seen, but we are hearing more about political reform. Could a third party be a method of reform?

      There is no shortage of third parties in our federal elections, but to this point they have been merely symbolic or protest choices. Ralph Nader's campaign helped elect George W. Bush. They've had more impact, historically.

       In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party, aka the Bull Moose Party, shook up the nation and the Republican party by winning 88 electoral votes and 27% of the popular vote. 

       Racist George Wallace and his American Independent party won 13.5 % of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes in 1968.  

       Reform candidate H. Ross Perot won 18.9% of the popular vote, but no electoral votes in 1992.

minimum appeal

       The Third Party strategy began to play a role and shape parties and policies in the early 1800's. The list includes:

• Anti Masonic
• Free Soil
• Whig Americans
• Southern Democrats
• Constitutional Union
• Populist

      Today's list includes:

• Libertarian
• Green Party
• America's Party
• Constitution Party
• Solidarity Party
• Citizens Party
• Modern Whig Party
• Reform Party
• Unity Party
• Veterans Party 
• United States Pirate Party
• Communist Party
• Socialist Party
• Party for Socialism and Liberation
• Peace and Freedom Party
• Justice Party
• Socialist Workers Party
• Workers World Party
• Working Families Party
• Black Riders Liberation Party
• New Afrikan Black Panther Party
• Human Party
• Legal Marijuana Now Party
• Objectivist Party
• Prohibitionist party

  and believe it or not, there are more.  Clearly these parties cater to specific positions, splinter groups and attitudes-they are not mainstream.  

    So as observers ranging from party professionals, academics, analysts and voters look upon the failure and disgrace of the trump White House, the collapse of the Republican Party's ability to govern and the Democrats inability to keep their act together, there is growing talk about a new way.

maximum appeal

a platform for all

     I wonder if a kind of grass roots movement, pragmatic in nature, focused on mass appeal objectives only and deliberately geared to be anti polarizing, might not shake things up?   

•      Conservatives and liberals might agree with the idea that members of the federal government, especially the house and senate, must offer all Americans the same insurance and health care benefits they have, or theirs are revoked. 
•      Same for the practice of special "friends and family" insider investment information and opportunities. 
•      The salary and benefits of Senate and House membership would be trimmed to match the median wage of American workers. They would no longer vote for their own raises, instead they would be tied to COLA standards. 
•  PACs and Leadership Funds would be forbidden. Money could not be used personally or kept after leaving office. 
•      Once a member of the Senate or the House leaves office they would be forbidden from working for a consultancy or in a lobbying effort for as many years as they served. The exception is they could accept a position in a presidential administration or department. 

   There are probably other common core values that would appeal across party and ideological lines. 
    If the very definition and nature of the job and its benefits were changed we would find a different quality person willing to "serve."

    By backing out the influence of private wealth and organizational funding we could see a change in the character of the Congress and amongst seekers of public office. 

    I'd like to see restrictions on campaign funding-eliminating the legal influence of special interests of every stripe especially including those President Eisenhower warned us about-the military industrial complex that now controls and benefits from the federal dollar. 

excising the rot

    Donald Trump is the poster boy for a failure of government and the caving of American values.  He is the worst of America and millions of us, in fact the majority of Americans wonder why the hell he was not, or has not been stopped or removed from office. He's not the cause of the rot in our federal election system and inefficiency in government, but he is the face of the cancer and toxic in his own way. 

    Electoral politics is now an industry.  Government is now a business. It is time for a fundamental change and realignment or we are doomed to become a Greece, or Italy, if we survive the antics of the jack ass who is president. 

    A well organized and structured third party-or middle way effort that can unite D's, R's, Liberals, Conservatives, and appeals to all demographic subgroups could change the way the game is played and the power is brokered. 
    There will always be ideological and philosophical differences, but if the idea is about governance and not the aggregation of power or politics by bludgeoning, we could witness our government work the way it was imagined and created by the founders-give and take-compromise-governing for all.

    A fanciful though perhaps, but there have been "inflection" moments in our history and this is certainly one.  Wouldn't you hate to see it stay the same or get worse. It is action time. 

    See you down the trail.

    

PERPETUITY and AN INNER MEASURE

Sequoia National Park

      Being in the presence of an ancient can do a lot to widen your view. Beholding a 2-3 thousand year old tree puts a perspective on human endeavors and foibles.

 Audubon Society Sweet Springs Nature Preserve Los Osos Ca.

    Even a less august eucalyptus grove displays endurance,  the contortions, changes and adjustments demanded of life. 

     Are humans any less subject?

 Sweet Springs Preserve

    And we are grateful for green spaces, preserves, national and state parks where that which is older is paid respect. And where we can rest, focus and gain clarity.

    Do you think we'd see a different behavior if House and Senate members did a nature centered retreat-a kind of outward bound recess? I like to think that a thread of decency would appear even in the contemptible Mitch McConnell.

    He's even more of a "gloomy Gus" these days, a weakened and failed leader who has presided over a colossal failure and collapse of majority politics. 

    It is good for all of us the mean spirited and punitive Republican Health Care plan seems to be dying. Surprising that a party that controls everything-White House, Senate, House and that has been shrilly condemning the Affordable Health Care Act for 6 years, can't govern, can't legislate and has no vision for America and can't do what they said they would do "on day 1." It is a disastrous administration and nations see us as weaker and unreliable.

    So maybe a couple of weeks of hiking and camping in Yosemite, or the Bridger Teton Wilderness or in Denali could do our Senators and Representatives a world of good, and us too.

    I wish we could get our bloated, sexual predator and lying tweeter in chief into the wilds. Oh boy, could you imagine? But that would probably result in a blown body part and would sadly end the camp out.

    Being in nature however clarifies an undeniable truth. Behind our politics, regardless of stripe or affiliation is an assumption about the power of human life and its durability. We move through our days owning an attitude of perpetuity. It ain't so!

    We are merely passing through. The best we can hope for is 7-9 decades. We are all amazed at how quickly it passes. 

    So why do we behave the way we do? We damage, scar, despoil, deplete our planet. And we brutalize, terrorize, destroy and kill, including each other. And for what ends?

     The health care plan is a case in point. Since all of us, even the most healthy, have limited days how can we be punitive or restrictive? 

      Providing health care to everyone is right. Arguing "there have always been the poor," or the fact that some can't afford coverage is "just the price of modern life" or "the way it is," is wrong.  Politics that enshrine those attitudes are mean and venal.

     Health care should not be a political doctrine, it is a matter of health, and if it is not a right, then it is our responsibility to each other. There is also the deep and complicated topic of the role of "profit" in the practice of health and healing. 

     I am one of those who believe our higher aspirations and greater good is to be just and merciful. Any thing else is delusional bull shit, the sort of which that leads humanity to our inhumane treatment of each other and our only planet.

     See you down the trail. 

    

    

    

EXPECTING ORDER

   The linear orderliness of this lovely scene does more than remind me of those summers when I baled hay, though a moment of regression might be helpful.
    We were not paid much and the work was hot and hard, but lunches were amazing. Someone, usually the farmer who had hired us or his wife would bring full picnic baskets and pitchers of lemonade or iced tea to the shade of a tree where we paused. At one farm the basket might be full of fried chicken, heaping on a platter and pies. Or the basket might be full of sandwiches and cookies or pie. We were young, lean, always hungry and able to sweat out a morning, stop and eat like horses and then go back to grabbing the bales with a hay hook as they came off the baler and stacking them on wagons as we bumped our way over a field.
     Order and foundational values were important to us. We'd stack the bales high and they needed to stay in place as we jostled along. They also needed to come off the wagon in order so we could load them onto a conveyor lifting them to a hot, dusty and miserable hayloft where we off loaded and again stacked them neatly where they would summer and winter until the farmer busted them down for livestock.
     The work was honest and we were happy for the pay, no matter what it was. We worked all day, counted on each other and again needed to be orderly in everything we did.  I think about that as I anguish over American politics and government.

        There seems to be no order at work in this era. The Democrats are leaderless and in disarray. The Republicans are shattered, led by the least popular and most unfit president in history. We are in crisis.

        Though they control the House, Senate and White House the fractured, shattered, souless GOP seems intent on suicide. As universally hooted as the House health care plan was, Senate Republicans are retching a version that will also do harm and damage to millions while rewarding the wealthy with a tax cut. And of course they've done it in secret, a place where you sell your soul. It is as though they are giving the Democrats tickets to GOP beheadings, but it is the Democrats after-all. 

        A Democrat party that has its act together could sweep to power in 2018. They don't need to do much, the Trump follies and the sinister dramas of Ryan and McConnell have done and will do immense damage, if people are paying attention. And of course the Democrats need a generational adjustment and a bit of skill. So, given the all the odds there is no safe bet.

     What I am missing most is an explanation from anyone about what we are doing to protect the 2018 election and beyond from further Russian meddling. 

     When and how are we going to get answers from someone in Washington as to

•   What did the Russian's do?
•   How extensive was the attack?
•   Did they affect vote counts or registration?
•   How did they do it?
•   How deep have they gone?
•   What are we doing in a defensive way?
•   Can someone guarantee it won't happen again?

     The absurdest follies of Washington is distracting, sadly, from the worst attack on America since 9/11, but damned if anyone seems concerned. That is more than worrisome. It is deadly frightening. Thinking Americans, young and old, waver between depression and despondency.

      One does not need to tilt left or right to know our system is in a spasm. We have become dysfunctional and it's annoying because we are used to order and for things to make sense-that has been our history-it is what has set us apart. 

      Now we are learning why "the old folks" used to long for the good old days. I've heard people say even Tricky Dick Nixon sounds good by comparison-now that's frightening!

      See you down the trail

      

       

A "MIRACLE", BRACKET RE DO's & OLD VINES

A MINOR MIRACLE

     You may find this hard to believe during this time of acrimony, division and rancor.  Yesterday a group of about 50 Cambrians with enormously divergent political and philosophical views sat together in a moderated discussion on American Health Care.  It was a time of fellowship and social mixing, but the agenda was a discussion of what to do about American Health Care.  I can not state emphatically enough how divergent were the views.  Well, after a couple of hours this group agreed to ten basic principals. There was discussion, debate, soul searching and these people from the right, left, republican, democrat, Christian, objectivist, agnostic, libertarian and Buddhist  agreed on ten principals.  It gave this old boomer a sense of optimism.

FOR TRUE BASKETBALL JUNKIES

     Don't you think there should be some way to re-do your brackets, now that Syracuse star Fab Melo has been declared ineligible?  The 7 foot Brazilian is a key weapon for the Orangemen and with him out, the highly rated, and in some cases favored, Syracuse will likely not be as strong.  I know

I wish I could re-do my bracket.

DAY BOOK
CENTRAL COAST SCENES

              Some of the oldest vines in California are Zinfandel vines in Paso Robles and these are among the oldest in the region. They some of the old Pesenti vines, on  the west side of the 101 above and on the east side below.  

Though we remain well below our average rain this year,
the passes along the Green Valley remain green.

See you down the trail.