Slaying a Dragon

There were a dozen conventions leading up to the 1787 Federal Convention at Philadelphia which drafted the Constitution. From there the people of the thirteen states had to then be persuaded to embrace it. The final argument of the Federalists, No. 85, explains that if Congress ever becomes so corrupt it no longer expresses the will of the people--if corruption becomes institutionalized at the federal level--the displeasure of the states, registered by a numeric count of applications, forces Congress to issue the call for a convention. Everyone alive at that time knew what one was for--to address concerns in a non-binding deliberative assembly so that when it was time to vote for change everyone had an understanding of issues. Ratifying conventions were held in each state to see what everyone thought, and then there was more voting. So how could our nation have survived all these conventions which took place at our founding, but now somehow, the same process is a huge question mark fraught with fear? We today, after fifty-plus years of military/industrial nonsense have forgotten what a convention is and why 3/4 ratification is overly sufficient to block divisive issues from becoming law. Fear that a convention will propose the most corporatist, draconian, and/or fundamentalist ideas is one thing, but to fear 38 states agreeing to them is not only irrational, but illogical as well: 75% means the idea must have overwhelming and broad support, that whether conservative or liberal it must win support of all one side, plus half the other. In other words it’s mathematically impossible for a divisive issue to be ratified. To put it another way, if you fear a convention it’s because you irrationally/illogically believe issues like abortion and marriage are so easily agreed to they could achieve 75% overall consent. 

On the other hand, there are issues that are easily agreed to: Electoral Reform in general, creating standards for transparency in the voting process, and removing money from politics, in particular. Electoral Reform always scores 80-90% approval. Removing money from politics has been an on the lips of Americans for over a century, and guess what we’ve never had in that century? A convention. 

Congress refuses to issue the call even though applications have been submitted by the hundreds. A new legal challenge is about to prove once again that Congress refuses to obey the Constitution and issue the call. So where does that leave you and me? All it means is what Presidents Jefferson, Lincoln, and Eisenhower have said in so many words: It doesn’t matter what the Congress or Court thinks, only what We The People think. As soon as we galvanize a tipping-point around the idea that there is nothing to fear and everything to gain from a convention, Congress will do what it’s always done: play dumb, then manufacture consent for what the people want (this time we don’t want a new amendment, we want a convention to consider a number of them--some concerned with how Congress operates).

Our trick now is to gather political groups and individuals from across the land and political spectrum to join in the call for the Article V Convention. Government here in the USA has been overtaken by corporate and foreign interests, legislation is now written by those who fund campaigns--banking interests, big business. Now is the time to hit the reset button on governance with a convention. How? Within the political environment of a convention discussion is removed from another corrupt, tired two-party affair, to that of how 38 states might alter and abolish the status quo. Whether or not any idea can indeed garner the approval of 75%, the constitutional process of a convention is a three-part national discussion that in and of itself alters and abolishes the status quo. In other words, all we need to do is build the pressure upon Congress to issue the call and once that goal is accomplished we are immediately, literally overnight, delivered from the hell of politics as usual.

The Rule of Law is that there are laws and they are to be obeyed. Of law, there is the letter of it (how it’s written/what it states) and the spirit of it (why it states what it does). Those unfamiliar with the Article V Convention and the numerous Supreme Court decisions directly related to it or an aspect of it (such as election of delegates), must first ask themselves if they’re clear on the distinction between subjective opinion and objective law. If at present you believe the Article V Convention can be limited in any way, you are applying a subjective standard that doesn’t exist and was never meant to. To limit a convention to one or more subjects, or to believe applications need be submitted within a “reasonable” time period, means you have not read the letter of this law nor understand the spirit of it. The letter of Article V is that upon the application of 2/3 of the states, with no other terms or conditions and without debate, the Congress “shall” issue the call. The spirit of Article V is that any generation can alter/abolish the status quo of a two-party system at any time the desire is strong enough. There are no limits, terms or conditions on the applications, except that one has been cast, and hundreds have already been cast. Nor are there any limitations on the convention once convoked. Hopefully, you will come to realize the Article V Convention is untouchable: as soon as one attempts to put a single limitation upon it, where does one stop? Where you think it should stop? Where I think it should stop? Where Newt Gingrich thinks it should stop? You cannot apply subjective criteria to an objective law which has no terms or conditions, unique in all the world. That’s what we should all understand finally, that there is nothing like the American constitution in all the history of civilization. The idea of a “runaway convention” is a myth and such fears are unfounded based on reason and logic. The Article V Convention is an assembly of the states to discover if indeed there is anything that 3/4 might agree to. Simply working to discover what might garner such approval in and of itself will put the hurt on the two-party corporatist state of affairs, and the system we’ve all come to loathe.

Late Notes

Wanna hear a facebook story? A childhood friend who had gone on to some success in the music world (a hit rock album in the 90s), over the past two years or so, put up his late tracks/videos of his band. I’d been meaning to listen and comment to his latest stuff, finally got around to it, and suggested he get a young singer to belt out his tunes, while he focused on songwriting and his own rad guitar playing. He defriended me. I actually woke up today thinking about maybe commenting again, letting him know it was just a thought, wishing him all the best this year. But the comment was gone and so was he. I wish he would’ve had some retort or something I could have worked off, redirected, but instead, silence. Still wish him the best, hope I hear his guitar over the radio, and he sells many records.

I’m very involved in trying to figure out how to crack the political science nut. We’re so close with NYCGA. Why the admin/mods of PAER are so covetous of the OWS brand, I can only guess, we could really be using it right now, just as a working group. Arizona is casting a new application for a convention. I hope I’m wrong and this isn’t just another UFPJ scenario, like back in 2004. Time will tell.

Was finally able to get all excerpts for the next novel together. Pieces large and small were strewn over a number of different files, so today I created one titled NovelSequel and dumped ‘em all in there. It’s going to be a sequel to the first novel, but will write it as a stand-alone piece, like if someone finds it on a coffee-house bookshelf they won’t have to have read the first one.

Also have been able to read a few plays, I still have a burning to write them too, though the novel is starting to bang pretty loud, so don't know. But while sorting through files for the novel, also created one for all my scripts/plays and fragments.

In the meantime, I can’t believe where I’ve landed. I’m living in the most perfect place for a guy like me. I put my bed up on cinder-blocks so when I go to sleep/wake up I’m looking right down on the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Cruz Island across the way. The last few days have been glassy heaven. Today it started out that way and then for a time I saw a fog bank move in. Beautiful.

Such extraordinary times we live. I love you and am wishing you the best.

Late Notes/First Notes 2012

Life is wild, so magical, all the same old stuff keeps happening: I reach a place of change, get afraid, depressed, and lose hope. Like Montaigne said, I’ve suffered many horrific tragedies that took place in mind and nowhere else.

I thought I was moving to this place in Montecito, up the street from where I’d been the last ten years; then things fell through (because I talked politics), and miserable wondering where I was going to land, found a place on the Mesa. I had half my stuff loaded, showed up after the holidays and had a falling out with the landlord. There were red flags leading up to it, caused the falling out on purpose. Threw stuff in storage, freaked, no cool place to land. Then got a call. Turns out this place is not only better than the Mesa, it rivals the place of the last ten years. For me, perched on a hill in Summerland, my window the Santa Barbara Channel, I wonder if I could be happier. This new place has space for my table too, to make colorfields. Life is wild, can’t wait to finish painting, new carpet, all that.

The political science is active, still working with the NYCGA. Like I figured, based on past experience, they’re balking at dropping the squirt gun and picking up the fire hose. I think some people like the idea of working for a convention more than actually having one.

Brain Sand and the Solstice

Brain Sand is known scientifically as corpora arenacea--crystal structures in the pineal gland, a small pine cone-shaped thing, middle of our brains. Mystic religions see the pineal gland as transmitter/receiver of all things psychic, i.e. the Third Eye. However one looks at it, the older you get the more Brain Sand you have so that it becomes visible on X-rays and is sometimes used as anatomical landmark for X-Rays. Brain Sand is made up of phosphate salts and calcite minerals. Calcite is of the trigonal crystal system, i.e. crystal the shape of quartz. I like that human beings have Brain Sand, in the grand scheme of things, somehow it makes sense. Salts and minerals, the lens between the real and the dreams. I’ve been thinking over this stuff for most of this year. Now it’s a new year.

The solstice occurs when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the Sun; the Arctic Circle is now in darkness, and the Antarctic Circle is now 24 hours daylight (66.5 degrees above/below latitude: 23.5 + 66.5 = 90 [90% angle to the Sun]). As a human being, sometimes you forget you’re walking around, laying down and sleeping, and then walking around again on a planet. The solstice is a great reminder. I so love the Sun’s light when Earth is tilted back.

I’ve always loved the colors the Sun creates, but over the years I’ve come to love the Sun itself as much as its affects and effects. This year I’m coming out as a Sun-Taoist--a new religion I invented. I treat the Sun like Christians treat their god. I thank it, talk to it, marvel at it. When I was Christian I would have considered it absurd--to worship the sun? God created the Sun! Why worship what was created when you could worship the creator? But since the Sun sustains life, and humanity is part of life and has gods, then isn’t it that the Sun created all gods? Humanity started talking about Jesus long after the Sun had been sustaining life. The Sun wins, at least that’s the way I see it. If you’re going to formulate a way to perceive creation and existence, why not with that entity that makes life possible at its center? The Sun--something so never-endingly magnificent and beautiful.

This year really has been another amazing year. I feel blessed to have had so many amazing years now. True, not all things have turned out, but I’m quite cognizant of how fortunate a life I’ve lived and am still living. I wouldn’t mind financial success with the Shakespeare book, so I could focus on new books and art, but now it’s 2012. Can you believe it? It’s really NOW when supposedly something--many things--everything--is going to change somehow. I hope it will be in line with the Maya and Hopi, the idea that it’s the end of one world and the beginning of another. I’m hoping it has to do with consciousness alone. If indeed it must be physical, then I hope it is the idea where Earth’s core flips, leaving the surface in its same positioning, as opposed to an entire pole-shift of Earth. Whether or not such things or anything else happens, I feel excited to live in this year, like each day is a heaven unto itself. That's how I’m going to view and live this year, each day a special day, a new day to thank the creator.

Late Notes, Just Before Christmas, 2011

“It looks like it really, really might come true.” I found myself thinking it again. A whole life of going on like that. Interesting. Time will tell.

Latest text I might send to the NYCGA:

The Constitutional  Convention Sub Group:

PAER is all about how to get money out of politics and arguably the biggest reform of all, removing private source code from tallying votes in public elections. Political/electoral reform needs to happen first, it’s the problem once fixed makes a bunch of others go away. And it’s non-partisan, which is nice. No rocket science.

With everything we know to be true today (such as members of Congress practicing insider trading in the People’s house), then of course, objectively, nothing short of the Article V Convention is a chance in hell of placing government back in the hands of the people.

Those who go vertigo in fear that a convention would produce social amendments, i.e. amendments to ban marriages, etc., are absurd. All history shows those fears irrational/illogical. You want 100% assurance that if we have a convention you’ll like/approve everything? Guess what asshole, you’re an asshole. We all have an idea what would be best right now. Until we gather in a convention we’ll never know what 75% of Americans actually approve of. If you’re American and afraid of finding out, you should shoot yourself in the head. Get it? It’s time for a convention. The time for half-measures and patches are over. Be a fascist if you want, evidence is the universe is against it.

If the administrators/moderators of PAER don’t fast-track Article V to a working group status to start work to bring about a convention, they have become the very thing all in solidarity with the movement are against.

Life Lately

So, last summer I found out my landlord had stopped paying the mortgage and the title was swooped up by someone else. Suddenly, after living in Montecito for almost ten years I was adrift. I really did love where I was living. I could walk to the beach or get on my bike and ride up into the Santa Ynez Mountains. After a court battle and settlement with the company that bought the place (2.5 million property for 560 grand), I then had to find a new place. It’s always dicey finding a new place, but I found out today I was once again lucky. Turns out the new place is right up the street from where I live now. Also built in the 1920s, and with really cool people.

The political science appears to be evolving. Time will tell.

Open Letter To Occupy

Dear Occupy, I’m an educator in an average-sized American city. I’ve been a political activist for a quarter-century and have come to learn how the two-party system destroys political movements for change. The two parties differ on social/economic issues but are united in preventing alteration to their system, so that it’s become a form of institutionalized corruption. The two-party system is the graveyard of movements for change. No one elected to it, and no amount of legislation issued from it, is going to reform it. This is nothing new under the sun, humans have faced various forms of tyranny before, but in our case today this means America needs an amendment.

Before considering the language of such an amendment, consider that there are only two ways to propose one: Congress or Convention. Although Congress may occasionally put lipstick on a pig, so to speak, it’s not going to propose an amendment to effectively reform the two-party system. Therefore we’re meant to utilize the only alternative, a convention for proposing amendments.

For many decades both Democrat and Republican politicians have told Americans that if a convention were ever held it might runaway into a national catastrophe which removes rights and/or destroys the Constitution itself. Yet, the two-party system, in practicing politics as usual, providing cover for institutionalized corruption, already has become a national catastrophe, already has removed rights, and already ignores the Constitution. Occupy is a political movement in response to this national catastrophe.

In my years as an activist I’ve been involved in one federal lawsuit and one federal criminal case, both concerned with the convention clause of Article V, and I’ve come to know things about a convention which most citizens do not. First and foremost, while a convention does debate and draft amendments, it does not and cannot make those amendments law. For an amendment to become law it must win approval of the states--not a simple majority of states (50%+), but a supermajority (75%+). This requirement of a supermajority demands a healthy mix of different groups and political persuasions. It demands that an idea must have overwhelming and broad support or it will be discarded. This is a principle based on common sense, not the self-destruct button politicians have told us about. In other words, because supermajorities are required for ratification--a special mix of different constituencies--we can trust in that. We can let go and trust the people and the constitutional process as to what amendment would win approval--and if we don’t trust in that, guess who we’re back to trusting?

Groups diverse as Occupy and Tea Party Patriots and others are displeased with the status quo. While these groups may perceive problems differently, the overall level of dissent is sufficient, making the time ripe for fundamental change. Americans from across the political spectrum are ready to exercise the ultimate right--that of Alter and Abolish. In our constitutional republic we’re meant to do that by convoking a convention of state delegates. Occupy could and should lead the way with the idea that amendments need to be discussed on the authority of the Constitution rather than in parks or on the internet; that a convention is a national discussion which the two-party system does not currently have to address and/or react to. Therefore, logically, simply holding convention, and going through the processes, in and of itself alters the current state of affairs while at the same time putting the entire nation through a grand lesson in civics.

Occupy is composed of many groups and many cities. Throughout all these groups/cities are individuals who profess to have amendment language which should be given top priority. What Occupy as a movement must become collectively conscious of now, is that there is no chance any one of these ideas will be proposed to the states without a convention on the authority of the Constitution. Occupy currently has the opportunity to lead America into a new era by directing focus on the solution: a convention for proposing amendments.

There are two things now required of us--talent and guts. Talent is not a problem, talent is the pride of the nation--we have the talent to hold a convention, we have the talent to construct amendments which can win the approval of supermajorities. The other part is the guts--do we have the guts to make our government address our demands?

The convention clause of Article V has been satisfied, there are hundreds of state applications on record and one session of Congress after the next simply ignores its constitutional obligation to issue the call. All reformations the world over since history began all come down to one thing: a tipping-point. All we need is roughly 15-20 million Americans cognizant of what a convention is, why the two-party system has done everything within its power to prevent one, and how it will deliver us from the institutionalized corruption of today.

If OccupyWallSt put out the call to all other Occupy cities, and they in turn redirected focus in calling for a convention, we will have one, and in a natural progression of events our high law will deliver us from the two-party system.