Dear Mr. President

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Dear Mr. President.

For you, yours and all the rest of Humanity, I am not wishing but insisting, that we have a wonderful and happy 2014. It's time! I think we have earned it. Enough with the irrational. Time for a little Pure Reason, wouldn't you think?

It is along this line of Reason that I write you today. As Bucky Fuller could clearly see, it is pretty much Humanity's destiny to eventually live off of the dense physical plane of the Planet. So, a tiny step in that direction, the eventual appearance of "Drones" in the skies, was unavoidable.

You are perhaps a bit tired of hearing about Drones. Heaven knows that the Congress is full of such beings who do not work but do a lot of buzzing around and are able to fertilize various irrational pieces of legislation. And of course there those which fly around from time to time blowing up some bad people and the unfortunate individuals who happen to be hanging around. Typical example, by the way, of how irrationality seems to guide our ingenuity and imaginations to come up with stuff to first kill people and only then to make applications that will actually help.

Refreshingly, I read in this morning's New York times  a lengthy article on drones that says the Federal Aviation Administration is authorizing test sites for the commercial applications of drones. A big Hallelujah is appropriate for this decision which is tending toward a rational use of resources to benefit the Common Good, something seldom present in the present actions of Capitalism.

However, I saw nothing in the article that speaks to the People's interest in the creation and use of these machines. Their use will do away with a multitude of tasks that people presently do, thus eliminating the contributions, what we call taxes, that each employed person makes to the Common Good, contributions that support the health and welfare of the People. They will be using the People's energy and air space to do their tasks. They will require the creation of whole State and Federal departments to license and regulate their comings and goings, and what they can and cannot carry, or deliver, or do, plus a whole bunch of other stuff that we can only guess at just now.

Exclusivity has always been irrational. It does not exist except in an illusion. We really, if we are going to be rational about this, we really need to start figuring out how we are going to include these human created machines in the complex of our interrelated existence. As I mentioned in an earlier note to you, We need to figure out how they will make a contribution to the Common Good in which they operate.

2014 is going to be a very interesting year. I feel a growing awareness in the people regarding the irrationality of "business as usual."  Big changes are coming. Expect a great year, hard, but great!

lots of love

-tom

Dear Mr. President

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

As I watched and read your eulogy of Nelson Mandela, I strange feeling came over me. I realized that I was crying and that I was feeling proud to be an American, proud that my President was standing there in that stadium saying the things that you were saying about Nelson Mandela and by extension Humanity because Nelson Mandela, like those before him whom you named, was first and foremost simply a man, a human being. He was a living example of what it means to be a  human being, of what anyone of us can be regardless of our place on the planet.

It was so refreshing to hear you extend the principles upon which our country was founded, and is still based, to all of humanity, to the One Humanity. By doing this you aligned and identified us with all people in the world who strive for what we have, freedom, liberty, justice, and the opportunity, as you put it, to work hard and to achieve a decent living for one's family.

This speech signaled to the world a major shift in the direction of our vision. We know that it was not the first time that you have so signaled, or that such a speech has been made by one of our previous Presidents or great leaders. However, as we have seen, over the past 55 years in particular, such signals have to be given over and over for there are still many who consciously resist, and many others who are simply heart blind and deaf to the expansion of the concept of Democracy and the appreciation of our indivisibility both from each other and the Planet.

I think that through making this speech, you helped release the energy that was Nelson Mandela, the energy that made of him a messenger, a forerunner, a way shower, and hero into the hearts and minds of many, many of our sisters and brothers. Watch for the results.

I thank you for that.

lots of love

-tom   

Dear Mr. President

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for your talk of December 4. It was wonderful.  I hope to see/hear many more such talks over the next months.

The 2014 election cycle is presenting us with an enormous opportunity to bring balance back into our systems. Balance means that the system is supporting the Common Good and the General Welfare as opposed to the insane kind of distribution we have at present.

At the breakfast table the other morning, Mary and I who have a relatively secure middle class retirement income because we worked for Los Angeles County whose retirement system is sound, and because we have decent Social Security incomes as well as Medicare, were talking about the impact of robotics on employment and how it is and will continue to be putting people out of work. There are lots of good sides to this, such as freeing individuals from tedious and repetitive labor, and not so good sides, such as how are these people going to make a living?

The employment issue can be largely solved by adding many millions of teachers and support staff to the educational systems, many millions of doctors and support staff to the health systems, and many other human relation roles that machines cannot do. Humans caring about and for each other seems kind of natural, doesn't it?

The loss of jobs to robotics, however, does affect  FICA and income to the Government from tax on wages. There is no reason corporations who "own" these huge manufacturing and distribution systems should benefit from not having to pay humans wages and support the Common Good which consumes their products.

An Idea surfaced: Each robotic device that replaces a human worker should be taxed at some level and made to contribute to the FICA system. The "owners" do not have to pay actual wages, but are still responsible for income tax and FICA for each worker replaced by a robotic device. Why Not?

lots of love

-tom