Gearing Up for the New Year

I wonder: What day will be best to launch a new project? I want to ride the wave of enthusiasm that the New Year brings in, but I don’t want to try to engage people while they’re still wasted. Options are: Thur., Jan 2; Fri., Jan 3; Sat. Jan. 4, or; some later date. What do you think?

Having been out of the country during the holidays, I’ve missed the festivities, but the peace and quiet has enabled me to be productive. Maybe even creative. But as Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, it’s best to just do the work and leave the quality to God!

In response to “New Projects for 2014,” a young Australian who’s often offered me valuable feedback, Yahya Abdal-Aziz, commented:

Happy holidays! 

Yes, yes and yes!  I like what you're about, about now.  Maybe you needed a little distance (from the US) to be able to see more clearly? 

…The questionnaire is too long; it has too many questions.  I suggest rewriting it at about one-third or one-quarter the length.  Then it wouldn't be too daunting a task to give you some useful input in, say, 5 to 15 minutes.

As for your "personal-political support" or "holistic support" circles, I think you'll find the first name too unwieldy and the second carrying too much baggage ...  How about something simpler, say "growth ring"?  That one also evokes the metaphor of a sturdy tree growing steadily through the years, potentially into a formidable giant.

I think your goal of establishing such circles of trusted friends is achievable.  However, please don't make it feel like a major life commitment to join in the fun and camaraderie.  Our members won't be joining a monastic order, will they?  (Possibly an "intentional community," just the same.)  Consider such "fraternal" organisations as Rotary and Lions clubs, and even some lodges: they meet monthly for a meal and company, devise and promote useful projects within their community and overseas, and engender many long-lasting friendships and commitments.  They may be a fruitful model AND starting-point for creating fully transformative "growth rings".

I replied:

I agree the survey was too long. I've shortened it, but it may still be too long. I include it at the end of this email. If you can give me more feedback, I'd appreciate it. 

I like your reference to the Rotary and Lions clubs and agree that such efforts should not demand too much and should include fun. 

I agree that both "personal-political support" or "holistic support" are problematic. However, the women's movement used "consciousness raising groups" and that phrase is somewhat unwieldy too. One argument for "personal-political support circle" is that it may better describe what is distinctive about this idea. 

Your "growth ring" is intriguing. What about "growth circle"? Here are the options so far:

• Personal-political support circle.
• Holistic support circle.
• Holistic circle.
• Growth ring.
• Growth circle.
• Growth group.

Other ideas?

Your comments, dear subscriber, would be appreciated as well.

And if you want me to visit you during my April/May road trip throughout the States so we can have a cup of tea and a soulful conversation face-to-face about whatever is on our mind at that time, please let me know.

Living-wage Jobs Campaign (12/27/13 Draft)

Following is the latest draft of the key content for the campaign that Michael Stein and I are planning to launch early next year on the powerful, new Causes.com website. The economist Dean Baker, co-author of the recently published, excellent book, Getting Back to Full Employment, has offered valuable input. The underscored text indicates future links. The text in bold indicates the Causes.com framework, which cannot be altered. By default, the title and the URL for the campaign consist of the text in the Goal.

Your feedback would be most welcome.

Goal (limit: 60 characters): 
[I want to] get Congress to guarantee living-wage job opportunities.

Short Description (limit: 120 characters): 
Everyone needs the opportunity to work at a living-wage job in order to develop their potential and serve their community.

Full Description (no known limit):

Most Americans believe that our society should assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity. In a March 2013 article, “Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans,” Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright reported that 68% of the general public believe “the government in Washington ought to see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job” and 78% believe that the minimum wage should be “high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below [the] official poverty line.”
 
So far there’s little grassroots pressure demanding action to achieve this goal. But some signs suggest that such movement may emerge in the near future. You can encourage activist organizations to take on this issue by signing our petition: “We, the undersigned, call on Congress to see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a living-wage job.”  You can also pledge to recruit additional signers and start your own “personal campaign” on our site to gather more signers. If you join us, we’ll keep you informed about other efforts to guarantee living-wage job opportunities as we become aware of them. (We will not share your email address.)

As citizens, we need not prescribe precisely how the federal government should achieve full employment. The experts and the policy makers can make those decisions. Our job is to determine if they have accomplished that goal and keep pushing them until they do. They managed to save Wall Street and our car companies when those industries were on the verge of collapse. Surely they can figure out how to enable every American who is willing and able to find a living-wage job.

Without dictating the exact methods, however, we can indicate that our mission is realistic by outlining the problem and suggesting some concrete options in terms of solutions. (As conditions change and we receive feedback, we’ll modify this statement from time to time.)

First, the federal government could enable the working poor to lift themselves out of poverty by increasing the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit to levels necessary to assure that workers earn a living wage.

Second, the federal government could send funds to local governments to hire public-service workers to meet needs that are currently being neglected. Those needs include teachers’ assistants, in-home caregiving, nursing home staff, child care workers, park and recreation staff, substance abuse counselors, neighborhood center staff, and environmental cleanup.

By relying on revenue sharing with local governments, we could minimize problems associated with “big government” and give people a greater opportunity to have a voice in how funds are spent. Citizens can more easily impact City Hall than they can the federal government.

By requiring local governments to maintain current spending levels, we could assure that they did not simply use the new funds to reduce local taxes.

By steadily increasing such funding each year until those jobs go begging due to lack of applicants, we could reach full employment. When such funding is no longer needed, it could be decreased.

About 10 million individuals are officially unemployed. But if more living-wage job opportunities were available, several million more under- and unemployed workers might take those jobs. Because a major national jobs program would boost economic growth, many workers would take jobs in the private sector. In addition, mandating paid sick time, paid family leave, and four weeks of paid vacation, as do all wealthy countries except the United States, would lead businesses to hire more workers.

To get a rough idea, let’s estimate what it might cost the federal government to fund five million living-wage public jobs at $12 per hour. Since a full-time worker at that rate earns $25,000 annually, total wages would be $125 billion. Add on another $25 billion for supervisory and administrative costs, and the total is $150 billion.

Where might those funds come from? Without increasing income and payroll tax rates, the following deficit-neutral options include:
• A small tax on financial transactions would discourage unproductive, destabilizing speculation and generate $100 billion or more.
• Reducing wasteful military spending could free up $60 billion per year or more.
• Tens of billions in increased revenues would be generated from the boost to the economy that would result from full employment.
• Billions would be saved from decreased social insurance payments to people who would no longer need assistance.
• The Federal Reserve Bank could buy municipal bonds, which would lower borrowing costs for local governments and help them pay salaries and invest in infrastructure improvements.

If those measures were insufficient, the government could borrow money. (Annual interest payments on the debt have declined from 15% of the federal budget in the 1990s to about 5% now, so we could afford this option.)

Measures such as these would enable us to move toward full employment. After gauging our progress, if more funding were needed, a one-half-of-one-percent wealth tax on the top 1% could generate $100 billion. (More than one-third of the nation’s $60 trillion wealth is held by the top 1%.)

So clearly lack of revenue is no reason to back away from guaranteeing living-wage job opportunities. The United States has more than enough money to assure living-wage job opportunities.

The standard argument against full employment has been that it would cause excessive inflation. But partly due to global competition, it’s unclear how much inflationary pressure would result. From 1997 to 2000 the unemployment rate was below 5% and falling (approaching full employment, for some workers will always be between jobs), and from 2003 to 2008 it declined from 6.0% to 4.6%, but the core inflation rate has averaged less than 3% since 1997, which is acceptable.

True enough, higher than expected inflation does hurt Wall Street. The price traders pay for financial instruments is based on expected inflation. When they sell, if inflation proves to be greater than expected, the purchasing power of the money they get is less than what they anticipated. Inflation erodes their assets. And this creditor class has great influence on public policy.

But if wages keep pace, some inflation is beneficial to the economy, partly because it gives companies confidence their profits will increase.  And multiple measures are available to handle excessive inflationary pressure, including indexing Social Security to inflation and raising interest rates.

Steadily increasing federal revenue-sharing year-by-year would enable the whole country to monitor whether reducing unemployment was contributing to excessive inflation. This decision needs to be made openly following full discussion. What is worse? Stagnant wages for the middle class, severe poverty, and widespread unemployment, or some inflation that benefits most people? How much inflation is acceptable? Historically, most countries have managed quite well with inflation rates that have been much higher than in the United States. But the official Federal Reserve Bank policy, also adopted by other central banks, is an unjustifiable goal of 2% inflation.

In Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People, the economists Dean Baker and Jared Bernstein argue that if and when inflation became a serious problem, we could deal with it then.

The issue is one of relative risks. We understand that as the unemployment rate falls to lower levels, the risk of accelerating inflation increases. But if the rate of inflation is not accelerating, there is the risk that people are being needlessly denied the chance to work and wages for those at the bottom are being held down by bad government policy. Based on the relative costs, it seems far better to take the risk of a short period with rising inflation than maintaining a higher-than-necessary level of unemployment…. Few would agree that it is appropriate to keep millions out of work and deny wage growth to tens of millions simply to reduce the risk of modestly higher inflation. [emphasis added]

In a recent interview with Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, Bernstein stated:

The largest group of beneficiaries of full employment is not the un- and underemployed. It’s people with jobs. It creates enough pressure on the compensation system such that the bottom two-thirds of the workforce, for whom growth has been pretty much a spectator sport, get back in the game.

Klein concluded, “Full employment gives average workers the power to demand a better deal from their employers and thus reduces inequality by giving the working class an overdue raise.”

As former union leader William Winpisinger argued:

Official government policy declares unemployment is necessary to combat inflation. For two decades we've used high unemployment to combat inflation. We've had mini-recessions, mild recessions and severe recessions. We've sacrificed the unemployed and their families on the altar of fighting inflation and managing the economy. All we have to show for it are a decline in real incomes for American workers and their families, a growth in poverty-level jobs, and the wasted lives of nearly 10 million people marking time in the ranks of an army of unemployed. 

Trading unemployment for price stability is like burning down the barn to get rid of the rats. We lock up people who practice arson as a rodent control policy. Those who promote the conscious use of unemployment to manage the economy are even more dangerous. As a national policy it is hypocritical, bankrupt and bereft of intelligence. It is long past due for this nation to commit, absolutely and unequivocally, to full employment as its number one priority.

The remaining question is how to build a movement to see to it that everyone who wants to work has a living-wage job opportunity. If you support the ““Get Congress to Guarantee Living-Wage Job Opportunities” campaign, sign our petition, and get others to sign, you’ll encourage activist organizations to take on this issue and we’ll keep you informed about opportunities to get more involved when we learn about them.

1/2/14
(The substitution of future versions will be noted here.)

New Projects for 2014

Next year, I plan to undertake four new projects:

1. Wade’s Monthly, a listserv to which I’ll send one email each month reporting on my work, as well as my inner experience.
2. A Causes.com campaign calling on the federal government to guarantee a living-wage job opportunity.
3.  A “The Personal, the Social, and the Political” survey to gauge interest in developing a network of “personal-political support circles.”
4. A road trip. Beginning March 25, I’ll travel throughout the United States meeting with friends, old and new, to have a cup of tea and discuss whatever’s on our minds at that time. If you want to meet, please let me know.

The first step will be to invite more than 1,000 individuals in my Address Book to subscribe to Wade’s Monthly. That invitation will also include information about my other projects. Later, I’ll submit articles to various websites for publication and do other outreach.

Below are the latest drafts of content for those projects, including:

1.  The invitation to subscribe to Wade’s Monthly. 
2. The content for the Causes.com campaign.
3. An essay promoting that campaign.
4.  The content for the survey.
5. An essay promoting that survey.

I would appreciate your feedback. Words of encouragement would be appreciated. Suggested changes and additions are welcome. Though I suspect the basic thrust of these projects will remain the same, I frequently edit these materials. So if you want to offer considerable specific feedback, you may want to get the latest drafts beforehand. If you schedule a time and let me know, I’ll email you the latest drafts as an attachment at the time you specify. Or you can Skype me at "wadehudson" or call me on Vonage at 849-624-5928 and I’ll send you the latest draft immediately.

Thanks much for whatever help you can provide. If you want to collaborate more fully beyond offering feedback, please let me know. Regardless, I hope you participate in some way next year!

Stoking the fire,

Wade Lee Hudson

+++

“Wade’s Monthly” Invitation

          NOTE: Underscores indicate links to be added later.

SUBJECT: “Wade’s Monthly” (Please Subscribe)

Dear

Please reply YES to this email if you want me to subscribe you to Wade’s Monthly, a new listserv to which I’ll send one email concerning my work each month. I very much appreciate our previous connection and would like to stay connected in this way.

Please reply REMOVE if you want me to remove you from my Address Book so that I never again send you an email except in reply to an email from you.

While staying here on the north coast of the Dominican Republic since mid-October, some new conclusions and a new attitude have formed. My primary commitment remains the same. I still want to foster communities that facilitate individuals supporting one another in their self-development, community building, and political action – in order to help make our society more just, democratic, and compassionate.

However, in the future I will:

• Engage with greater self-confidence.
• Worry less about how others react.
• Feel less need to prove myself (to others or myself). 
• Stop trying to do so much so quickly and accept that I can only do what I can do.
• More frequently remember to love the Universe and take time to enjoy myself. 
• Engage more from my heart, be more present and responsive to those I encounter, and listen more carefully, while being less judgmental.
• Trust more deeply that humanity will eventually evolve into a caring community dedicated to the common good of the entire human family.

As the New Year begins, I’m concentrating on these new projects:

• The “Tell Congress to Guarantee Living-wage Job Opportunities” campaign on Causes.com. To consider supporting this campaign, click here.
• A Guaranteed Living-Wage Job Opportunity: Support the Cause,” an essay promoting that campaign.
• “The Personal, the Social, and the Political” questionnaire. This survey is designed to gauge interest in self-development, community building, political action, and methods for individuals to support one another in those efforts. To complete the survey, please click here. 
• “Let’s Get Real: A Call for Personal-Political Support Circles,” a manifesto that sums up my current thinking.
• A road trip. I’ll be in Scottsdale, AZ for Giants spring training February 26-March 25 and in New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival from April 11-14. Otherwise, I’ll be driving throughout the United States into May to have tea and discuss whatever’s on our minds with friends, old and new. Please let me know if you want to meet.

If you subscribe to Wade’s Monthly, you will receive reports with highlights about these efforts and others that develop. I’d really like to stay in touch. Please consider subscribing.

To subscribe to Wade’s Monthly, reply YES to this email.

Stoking the fire,

Wade Lee Hudson

PS. I also continue to work on these projects: 

My autobiography, draft chapters of which will be posted here. So far, I’ve completed first drafts of 12 of 32 chapters with about 50,000 words, or 100 pages, approximately half of the projected total. I hope to finish the first draft prior to Spring Training and then turn it over to an accomplished editor.

Wade’s Weekly. The blog I’ve been doing for a few years.

Wade’s Wire. A new blog to which I most no more than one item of interest each day.

Reform-Wall-Street.org, to which I post information and analysis about the need to restructure our financial system.

Again, to subscribe to Wade’s Monthly, reply YES to this email.

Causes.com Campaign

NOTE: The text in italics below indicates content that can be changed. Underscores indicate links.

Goal (limit: about 60 characters): [I want to] tell Congress to guarantee living-wage job opportunities.

Short Description (limit: about 100 characters): Everyone needs the opportunity to work at a living-wage job in order to develop themselves and serve their community.

Category (one): Economics

Issues (four): jobs, economic security, living wage, public service.

Full Description (no known limit):

This campaign calls for the federal government to send funds to local governments to hire public-service workers to meet pressing needs that are being neglected. These jobs include teachers’ assistants, in-home caregiving, nursing home staff, child care workers, park and recreation staff, substance abuse counselors, neighborhood center staff, and environmental cleanup.

Those funds could be generated primarily by increasing taxes on the top 1%, roughly 1.2 million households whose average income before taxes in 2012 was $1,873,000. So their total income was $2, 250 billion. Their effective tax rate (what they paid in taxes as a percentage of their income) was 20.6%. In the late 1970s, they paid 35%. If they had paid 40% instead of 20%, that would have generated an additional $450 billion in revenue.  

About 10 million individuals are officially unemployed, but if living-wage job opportunities were available, another 10 million might take those jobs, or 20 million total.  A full-time worker paid $10 per hour earns $20,000. So with $450 billion we could hire 25 million workers at $10 per hour. 

These numbers indicate that achieving full employment is achievable. Additional costs not detailed here would be involved, but additional revenues would also be available, including taxes paid by the newly employed and reducing wasteful military spending (cutting the military budget by 10% would free up $60 billion per year).

Sources:

Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans

List of countries by number of households

Effective tax rates

The Obsession with Nominal Tax Rates or the Twinkie Romanticism

Twitter profile: @LivingWageJobs: Supporting the Causes.com campaign to tell Congress to guarantee everyone a living-wage job opportunity.

Primary Leader (more can be added later; let me know if you’re interested in helping to administer the site): Wade Hudson

PETITION:

Who Are You Petitioning: The United States Congress

What Should The Petition Say: We, the undersigned, call on Congress to assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity.

How will this petition help? By signing this petition you can demonstrate support for the 68% of Americans who believe "the government in Washington ought to see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job" and the 78% who believe that the minimum wage should be "high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below [the] official poverty line." And you can indicate to organizations that push Congress to guarantee everyone a living-wage job opportunity that you will be available to support their efforts.

Source: http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf

PLEDGE:

What do you want people to do? I pledge to share this campaign with people you know.

How will this pledge help? You can help gather support for this campaign as a way to encourage activist organizations that decide to push Congress to guarantee everyone a living-wage job opportunity.

FUNDRAISER:

Who are you raising money for? [I’ve asked the Movement Strategy Center to receive such donations.}

How will this fundraiser help? [To be determined by the recipient.]

BACKGROUND:

The new Causes.com tool enables campaigns to email supporters. (I don’t know how frequently.) There currently is no campaign on Causes.com related to “jobs” or “job.”

The campaign is activated with the first post. There are four types of posts:

Photo: Explain the story behind this photo.

Video: Add YouTube link. Explain why people should watch this video.

Story: Tell a story about why this campaign matters

Article: Explain why this article matters.

I plan to activate the campaign early next year with the following article.

Causes.com Article

A Guaranteed Living-Wage Job Opportunity: Support the Cause

NOTE: Underscores indicate future links

Most Americans believe that our society should assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity. In a March 2013 report, “Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans,” Benjamin I. Page, Larry M. Bartels, and Jason Seawright reported that 78% of the general public believe that the minimum wage should be “high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below [the] official poverty line,” and 68% believe “the government in Washington ought to see to it that everyone who wants to work can find a job.”

So far there’s little grassroots pressure demanding action to achieve this goal. But some signs suggest that such movement may emerge in the near future. You can help encourage this development by supporting the “Tell Congress to Guarantee Living-Wage Job Opportunities” cause on Causes.com, which includes a petition directed to Congress that states: “We, the undersigned, call on Congress to assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity.”

If you do, the campaign will keep you informed concerning organized efforts along this line as we become aware of them. (We will not share your email address.)

As we see it, the best way to achieve full employment is for the federal government to:

• Increase the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit to the level necessary to assure that workers earn a living wage and index those measures to inflation.
• Increase taxes on the top 1%. 
• Send funds to local governments to hire public-service workers to meet needs that are currently being neglected. 

Those needs include teachers’ assistants, in-home caregiving, nursing home staff, child care workers, park and recreation staff, substance abuse counselors, neighborhood center staff, and environmental cleanup.

By relying on revenue sharing with local governments, we could avoid problems associated with “big government” and give citizens a greater opportunity to have a voice in how funds are spent. Citizens can more easily impact City Hall than they can the federal government.

By requiring local governments to maintain current spending levels, we could assure that they did not simply use the new funds to reduce local taxes.

By steadily increasing such funding until jobs go begging due to lack of applicants, we could assure full employment.

The principle argument against full employment is that it would create excessive inflation. But given global competitive pressures, it’s unclear that serious inflationary pressures would result. Regardless, as I argue in the “Controlling Inflation” section of Economic Security for All, multiple measures are available to handle any such excessive inflationary pressure, including indexing Social Security to inflation.

As former union leader William Winpisinger argued:

Official government policy declares unemployment is necessary to combat inflation. For two decades we've used high unemployment to combat inflation. We've had mini-recessions, mild recessions and severe recessions. We've sacrificed the unemployed and their families on the altar of fighting inflation and managing the economy. All we have to show for it are a decline in real incomes for American workers and their families, a growth in poverty-level jobs, and the wasted lives of nearly 10 million people marking time in the ranks of an army of unemployed.

Trading unemployment for price stability is like burning down the barn to get rid of the rats. We lock up people who practice arson as a rodent control policy. Those who promote the conscious use of unemployment to manage the economy are even more dangerous. As a national policy it is hypocritical, bankrupt and bereft of intelligence. It is long past due for this nation to commit, absolutely and unequivocally, to full employment as its number one priority.

Another argument against guaranteeing a living-wage job opportunity is that it would be too expensive. But that argument does not hold water. There are roughly 1.2 million households in the top 1%. According to wikipedia, their average income before taxes in 2012 was $1,873,000. So their total income was $2, 250 billion. Their effective tax rate (what they actually paid in taxes as a percentage of their income) was 20.6%. In the late 1970s, they paid 35%. If they had paid 40% instead of 20%, that would have generated an additional $450 billion in revenue.

A full-time worker paid $10 per hour earns $20,000. So with $450 billion we could hire 25 million workers at $10 per hour.

About 10 million individuals are officially unemployed, but if living-wage job opportunities were available, another 10 million might take those jobs. So 20 million people might take living-wage jobs if they were available.

These numbers indicate that achieving full employment is achievable. Additional costs not detailed here would be involved, but additional revenues would also be available, including taxes paid by the newly employed and reducing wasteful military spending (cutting the military budget by 10% would free up $60 billion per year).

The remaining question is how to build a movement to achieve it. If you support the ““Tell Congress to Guarantee Living-Wage Job Opportunities” cause, you’ll encourage activist organization to take on this issue. We’ll keep you informed about opportunities along that line.

LINKS TO BE ADDED LATER:

http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf

http://shults.org/wadehudson/esfa/chapxiv.htm#5

http://shults.org/wadehudson/esfa/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Effective_income_tax_rates

http://www.baldingsworld.com/2012/11/30/the-obsession-with-nominal-tax-rates-or-the-twinkie-romanticism/

Holistic Support Circle Survey

NOTE: Ample space will be provided for the open-ended questions. The yes or no questions will be followed by:

___Yes  ___No  ___Not sure    Comments:

The Personal, the Social, and the Political: A Survey

Introduction

This questionnaire is intended to gauge interest in personal growth, community development, and political action.

Responses will be kept confidential unless otherwise indicated.

A report on the results will be shared with all respondents who ask to receive it.

Respondents will also be invited to participate in a follow-up online discussion about how we might improve our society so that it better supports personal growth, community development, and political action.

The Survey

MUTUAL SUPPORT

Do you have close friends with whom you: 

• Feel free to be yourself 
• Have fun
• Express deep feelings
• Listen carefully
• Give and receive support
• Get to know each other
• Share happiness
• Discuss the meaning of life 
• Evaluate what’s right and what’s wrong
• Help each other become better human beings
• And consider how to improve governmental policies and our social institutions

If you do have close friends of that sort, would you like to have at least one additional close friend of that kind?

                If you do not want to have at least one additional close friend of that kind, why?

If you do not have any close friends of that sort, would you like to?

                If you do not want to have any close friends of that sort, why?

Do you have a group of close friends with whom you gather to engage in the kind of activities described in question #1?

If you do, please describe the group, including how often you meet.

If you do not, would you like to participate in that kind of group?

                If you would not like to participate in that kind of group, why?

Do you believe that other individuals could benefit from the opportunity to participate in that kind of group?

Do you believe that our society should support the development of those kind of groups more than it does?

Do you believe our society should assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity, partly so that people could more easily participate in those kind of groups?

PERSONAL GROWTH

In the last month, have you worked on your personal growth?

If yes:

What issues have you addressed?

How have you addressed them?

If no, would you like to do so in the future?

                If you would not like to do so in the future, why?

During the next month, do you plan to work on your personal growth?

If yes:

What issues do you plan to address?

How will you address them?

If no, why?

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

In the last month, have you tried to help improve a social institution (or organization), such as a workplace, spiritual community, school, neighborhood center, or an informal community of friends?

If yes:

With what organization have you been engaged?

How did you try to contribute to that community?

If no, would you like to do so in the future?

                If you would not like to do so in the future, why?

During the next month, do you plan to engage in efforts to help improve a social institution or informal community?

If yes:

With what organization or community do you plan to be engaged?

How will you try to contribute?

If no, would you like to do so in the future?

                If you would not like to do so in the future, why?

POLITICAL ACTION

In the last month, have you engaged in efforts to impact public policy?

If yes:

What issues have you addressed?

How have you tried to impact public policy concerning that issue?

If no, would you like to in the future?

                If you would not like to do so in the future, why?

During the next month, do you plan to engage in efforts to impact public policy?

If yes:

What issues will you address?

How will you try to impact public policy concerning that issue?

If no, would you like to in the future?

                If you would not like to do so in the future, why?

FOLLOW-UP

Would you be interested in participating in an online discussion about how to encourage the development of mutual-support groups that foster personal growth, community development, and political action?

Will you tell others about this survey by sending them this link: [link].

Please tell us something about yourself and why you are interested:

May we identify you as the author of your comments?

Would you like to receive a report on the results of this survey?

Name / Email (we won’t share your email)

Holistic Support Circle Article

Let’s Get Real: A Call for Personal-Political Support Circles

Human beings are freedom-living and compassionate. But society suppresses our ability to be true to ourselves and act effectively to help improve the world. Small circles of trusted friends can help us deal with those realities. Members of such circles can support one another other in their efforts to be more fully human and help create a more just, democratic, and caring society.

Most people want to be happy and want others to be happy. We want to speak from the heart and listen carefully when others do the same. We want to be open, honest, and full of life, and we want the same for others. We realize that if others do well, we benefit. We love others as we love ourselves. We affirm neither selfishness nor self-sacrifice. We want to steadily improve ourselves and the quality of our lives, partly so that we can better serve others, and we want others to fulfill their potential as well. Most of us want to nurture spiritual growth and enhance self-confidence, both in ourselves and in others. Because we believe in personal responsibility, liberty, and self-empowerment, we want our society to maximize democracy and offer everyone a real voice in affairs that affect them. We want to protect our environment, relieve and reduce suffering, and help make the world a better place for everyone. We want our society to assure everyone a living-wage job opportunity and nurture caring communities whose members support one another in their efforts to be fully human. Even if we only have limited time for activities beyond our work and immediate family, we would like to help improve governmental policies and our social institutions (such as our workplace, spiritual community, school, food bank, or neighborhood center).

But with its rapid pace, constant pressure, hyper-specialization, and fragmentation, the modern world makes it increasingly difficult for many of us to live our dreams. We learn to do what those with power over us want us to do, often so that we can get a good job and keep it. We stuff our feelings and learn to censor what we say because others might use what we say to hurt us. We wear masks and stop being present, spontaneous, and transparent like young children. We compete with others so much, we’re constantly trying to prove ourselves to others (and ourselves) and don’t develop the self-confidence we need to be free because we always fall short. We see so many others become so greedy and immoral, we’re tempted to start looking out only for ourselves and our families. Ever more it seems, people just talk and talk, without really listening. Most Americans have only one or two people, or no one, with whom they can discuss personal matters. Those with work are worried about losing their job, and the unemployed are struggling to survive. It’s hard to get the government to listen to ordinary people. Most of our social institutions fail to empower their workers or their clients.

In the face of these realities, many of us would like to have a safe place where, with a small circle of close, trusted friends, we could:

• Be real. 
• Feel free to be ourselves.
• Have fun.
• Express deep feelings.
• Listen carefully to each other. 
• Give and receive support.
• Get to know each other. 
• Be happy.
• Discuss the meaning of life.
• Evaluate what’s right and what’s wrong. 
• Help each other become better human beings.
• Consider how to improve governmental policies and our social institutions.
• Reflect on how we might better achieve those goals.

In a personal-political refuge like that, even if members met only once a month to share a meal and have a two-hour focused conversation, they could explore how to cope with the modern world. By articulating deep feelings and listening to others do the same, they could learn better how to take care of themselves and their loved ones and improve the world by having a positive impact on public policies. They could become better, happier, more responsible human beings. Without a trained facilitator, they could simply meet face-to-face to have soulful conversations, enjoy life, and steadily deepen friendships.  

Most people want to have a voice in improving public policy, beyond voting. They want to devote some time to trying to have a positive impact on our government, because they feel it is their responsibility as a citizen. They know that if more people spoke up, it could make a big difference. They realize we need strong activist organizations with committed members who help build and sustain effective campaigns on concrete issues, like climate change and the need for living-wage job opportunities. But many of these Individuals aren’t currently engaged in such activity.

One reason is that most activist organizations are impersonal, top-down machines that use people as objects to be mobilized, rather than growing compassionate communities that empower their members and help them develop their potential. Activist organizations, for example, rarely facilitate their members consciously, intentionally supporting one another in their personal or spiritual work. A personal-political support circle could counter these tendencies, add a human element to activist activities, and attract new members with contagious happiness and rewarding social activities.

Another reason for inactivity is discouraged individuals don’t see how they can be effective. If they found a meaningful way to do so, they could easily become engaged.  A personal-political support circle could help them find those opportunities.

At the same time, in our busy world, many of us don’t take time to care for ourselves and strengthen our abilities. We need to acknowledge mistakes and resolve to avoid them in the future. From time to time, we need to reconsider our approach and try to improve it. This introspection is often private, internal. But it helps to express our thoughts verbally and share them with close friends. Even if others only listen, putting important thoughts into words is usually beneficial. A personal-political support circle could help facilitate honest self-reflection.

In addition, those groups that do engage in personal or spiritual work rarely support people in their desire to be politically active. Tax-exempt organizations, like churches and social-service organizations, are limited in their political activity. But they can encourage and support their members or clients to determine on their own their own political activity, whether as an individual or in small unaffiliated groups. Some informal groups like book clubs or study groups might want to expand their focus a bit. A personal-political support circle could nurture focused political activity.

Likewise, many individuals who are not currently engaged in volunteer efforts to build or strengthen community-service projects, such as food banks, Meals on Wheels, homeless shelters, and environmental cleanup, would like to become engaged in such efforts. A personal-political support circle could help them get more plugged into that kind of compassionate action.

In these ways, personal-political support circles could help counter hyper-specialization by addressing the whole person, including our personal, social, and political responsibilities. They could enrich our lives, enhance our friendships, and help us be more involved in our community.

If participants knew that other small circles elsewhere were engaged in similar activities and connected with one another through a loose network, it could provide a rewarding sense of community rooted in a shared commitment and help inspire others to create their own circle and affiliate with the network.

A network of personal-political support circles could welcome diversity with regard to ideology and theology. Members could merely agree on general principles and values like those articulated in this essay.

This project would not aim to create a new organization. Rather it would encourage and support participation in existing organizations – in order to help make those organizations and our society more democratic and compassionate.

Some of these personal-political support circles might consist of members who belong to the same organization and support each other with their efforts to strengthen their organization. Other circles might consist of individuals who are active in various organizations. Yet other circles might consist of people who aren’t regularly involved in any particular organization but want to exercise their social and political responsibilities as individuals.

The potential value of a network of personal-political support circles seems clear. The dilemma is how to foster them. What principles should they share in common and how should they structure, or organize, their activities?

Unfortunately, so far I only know of one example of a current project that clearly, explicitly focuses on providing mutual support for both personal growth and political action (if you know of others, please let me know). That example is Mujeres Unidas y Activas, which has “a double mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice.” Their program includes “mutual support meetings that provide a space for women to tell their own stories in a safe and confidential environment and receive support from other women who have had similar life experiences.”

When I return to San Francisco in late May, I’ll once again try to convene a personal-political support circle. In the meantime, I’ll continue to discuss these matters online while I’m here on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.  And in April and May I’ll travel throughout the States to investigate what folks are doing in this vein, whether or not it is explicit and intentional, and discuss these ideas with interested individuals.

If you would like to experiment with methods for conducting personal-political support circles, please do so and let me know the results. Also, please tell me if you would like to discuss these matters via Skype or in person. And please consider answering the brief The Personal, the Social, and the Political survey.

If those of us who share these concerns put our heads together, perhaps we can develop a network of personal-political support circles, unless we find an already existing network with which we can affiliate.

One way or the other, we must try to fundamentally re-form our society into a truly compassionate community dedicated to the common good of the entire human family.

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NOTE: That completes the draft of materials that I plan to have ready in early 2014. Your feedback would be most welcome.

The Road Trip Shapes Up

Spring training here I come! From the first (Feb. 26) to the last (Mar. 26) day, I’ll be in Scottsdale Stadium for every Giants game. Tickets go on sale January 9. Now I just need to figure out how to get good seats. What about sitting in the same seat right behind the dugout for every game? Not very likely, but that might be one way to get on a first name basis with the Panda, the Baby Giraffe, or the White Shark.

So come on down, baseball fans, and join the fun. Through Airbnb, I’ll be staying in a private home with some well-informed locals walking distance from the park, so I should know the ropes quickly. And you could hang out with me in my comfy digs. The Motel 6 on Camelback Road is about a mile away and there’s a bus stop nearby. Airbnb spots are filling up and may all be taken soon.

Or join me in New Orleans April 11-14 for the 30th annual, free French Quarter Festival, reportedly better than the Jazz and Heritage Festival. As stated on their website:

French Quarter Festival is dedicated to supporting Louisiana’s music community. The festival only contracts local musicians. No matter what style of music you enjoy, you'll find it at French Quarter Festival. French Quarter Festival has over 20 outdoor stages featuring every genre from gospel to jazz, from funk to classical, from Cajun & zydeco to brass band. Over 1,400 musicians will perform at the 2013 French Quarter Festival.

I’ll be staying at the affordable Crescent Palms Motel and will have a rental car, so I could pick you up at the airport. You could sleep in the second bed or get your own room (book soon, for hotels are filling up).

Before returning to San Francisco on June 1, I plan to rent a car and, if I can manage it, play blackjack in Nevada, clean my mother’s grave, visit with friends (including my sister Sara) in Los Angeles, St. Lake City, Kansas City, Dallas, Austin, East Texas, Atlanta, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, New York City, Rochester, Seattle, and Olympia, go on an individual retreat at stone circles http://www.stonecircles.org/, and do some sightseeing. So it looks like wherever you live, if you want to meet for a cup of tea, please let me know and let’s try to arrange it!

I’m making good progress on my autobiography, with about 80 pages and 40,000 words written.

Once or twice a day I post highlights from the Web and other material on Wade’s Wire in the following categories: Essays, News/Opinion, Photos/Videos, Quotes, Resources, Wade’s Journal. You can review posts there either by clicking on those categories in the left column and scrolling down in chronological order in the right column. To subscribe and receive each post via email, go to the homepage, enter your email address in the “Follow Blog by Email” box at the top right, and click Subscribe.

If you have material that you want to recommend for Wade’s Wire, please bring it to my attention.

Usually, once a day, I post a philosophical comment, sometimes a quote, on my Facebook status. The one yesterday generated some interesting comments. That thread reads:

Wade Hudson:
I did not hurt your feelings and you did not hurt mine. We are responsible for our own feelings. Stick and stones hurt, but words do not.

Rene Burke Ellis:
Bingo.

Roy Harrison:
Is this message really coming from you Wade, it is hard for me to believe

Wade Hudson:
Yes, it is Roy Harrison. And you did not hurt my feelings by asking. :-)

Rene Burke Ellis:
Words only hurt when we give them the meaning and the power to do so.

Laurie Pollock:
I was told by a wise person a long time ago that if words hurt, "consider the source."

Valerie Winemiller:
Sorry, I'm not willing to let this platitude absolve people of responsibility for what they say.

Susan Mahler:
Do no harm.....and I think that includes the hurt that words can cause.

Wade Hudson:
We are responsible for what we say. We should take care to avoid speaking in ways that easily LEAD to others feeling hurt. But there is no automatic cause-and-effect relationship. We can avoid feeling hurt, even when others want us to feel hurt. So I say it is not WORDS that hurt. As Howard Thurman, the great African-American theologian who was a mentor to Dr. King wrote, "Jesus...recognized with authentic realism that anyone who permits another to determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to his destiny. If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection. It is a man's reaction to things that determine their ability to exercise power over him."

Steven Shults:
It's a challenging concept. Yes, we have some control over how we respond to what is said to us, but that control is not 100% and to pretend that anyone, even a buddhist monk, has 100% control over the emotions they experience in response to stimulii requires some very serious denial of human emotions and intellect, and how the two interact.

This concept should be reserved for very specific, low-stake situations. E.g., if you make a suggestion to someone about how they could do a task more efficiently, and make the suggestion with no ill-intent, and they respond angrily that you hurt their feelings, when you were honestly trying to help them, that might be an appropriate scenario to express that sentiment.

But, as a defense against an accusation of, say, for example, sexual harassment, it's not acceptable to say "It's not my fault you were offended or felt harassed. I didn't mean it that way, I was just playing around." Well, no, you weren't "just playing around", you were being a sexist, misogynistic asshole and you are responsible for the results of your actions.

There are also workplace and domestic situations in which verbal and psychological abuse are very real and very damaging. Pretending otherwise is just blaming the victim.

Wade Hudson:
Well put, Steven. I largely agree with what you say, which, I believe, does not contradict what I said or what Thurman wrote. Certain words are not acceptable because they often lead to hurt feelings. But language matters. To say "you hurt me" gives you too much power and disempowers me. There are three steps: 1) You speak. 2) I process/interpret what you say, influenced greatly by deeply embedded core beliefs which I can change over time. 3) I have feelings about what you said. Granted, we're talking about an ideal. But we can steadily move in the direction of fulfilling that ideal more frequently.

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Suggestions for Wade?

I plan to remain here in the Dominican Republic four more months and then travel throughout the States meeting with people to connect/re-connect and discuss whatever is on my mind at that time, which may include a possible new project (more on that soon).

I welcome your suggestions concerning how I might best use these four months in the Dominican Republic, before I return to the States, which will limit my productivity.

I seem to be doing very well here. I feel that, after decades of trying, I’ve finally learned how to be alone for a long period, really enjoy it, and be productive.

As has been the case since 1967, my primary commitment is to foster the growth of caring communities whose members support one another in their efforts to integrate the personal, the social, and the political by: 1) consistently becoming happier, more effective individuals who feel free to be who they really are; 2) helping to grow alternatives communities that point the way to a better society, and; 3) engaging in political action to improve public policy.

This week, my plan is to take Saturday as a day of rest to explore this beautiful country and, when feasible, socialize with locals. On Sunday, I go shopping, get organized, follow football on the Internet in the background, and talk with friends on Skype. Following is my plan for Monday through Friday. (RWS = Reform Wall Street; FB = Facebook; WW = Wade’s Wire; tbtf = to be too fail). In addition to normal bodily functions and occasional brief periods of rest, I go through these tasks in the following order, set my timer according to the minutes indicated, stop each task when the timer rings, and check that task off in my Log.

Task  Min
Journal 15
Exercise 30
Write my autobiography 120
Read my old correspondence, journals, and other documents 120
Process personal email 60
Read other email, copy material for RWS and WW 60
Read Twitter, personal and RWS (search “tbtf”), copy material 30
Read FB, copy material 30
Post to WW 30
Post to RWS site and FB page 30
Participate in The Next Edge 30
Read a book/Kindle 45
Chill 60
TOTAL 660

I read news while eating. My exercise consists of a 30 minute walk to the beach. This week I plan to “chill” by walking to the beach and lying in a lounge chair for 30 minutes while listening to the surf and staring at the stars.

That’s my routine. Soon I’ll create a new blog for my autobiography, which is coming along well I believe, and post one or two chapters a week there, with photos. I start working after I wake, which is sometimes after only four hours sleep, and take a nap when I get sleepy. Most days, I get my eight hours eventually. I eat simply, the same items every day so I can easily modify what I eat if I need to in order to lose more weight (I’ve lost 11 pounds). As I mentioned, soon I hope to share my thoughts about a new, potentially exciting project that is crystallizing in my head and on paper.

In the meantime, do you have any suggestions concerning how I should proceed?

Several Opportunities: Subscriptions and Photos

If you have not done so already, you can receive my posts to Wade’s Wire via email if you click here and click on the Subscribe button in the left column. No more than three times a day, I post there “what’s on my mind” – Links to News/Opinion, Essays, Resources, Quotes, Photos, and Wade’s Journal.

Also, on Twitter you can follow @WadeLeeHudson, where I only follow people I know personally (so I have a good chance of seeing your tweets!). And you can follow Reform Wall Street, @HudsonWadeLee.

On Facebook, I’m at https://www.facebook.com/wadeleehudson.

It seems that with the new Flickr.com interface, viewers can more easily look at my photos – two at a time by just scrolling down the page. Click on the following links to see these two new sets of Dominican Republic photos:

Walk to Cozon-- Last Saturday I walked for one hour and forty-five minutes on the nearby beach to a small enclave near Cozon where I received a massage and ate lunch with some folks I met the previous Saturday because they were speaking English in a small restaurant. The photos include (the number of photos is indicated in parenthesis):
• Point Bonita, which is on the western edge of the beach where I walk almost every morning (2).
• My destination in the distance (1).
• Two women with Ipads considering the purchase of a lobster (1).
• An old rundown large beach house (1).
• My path (1).
• Modern beach houses (2).
• Where my path ends (1).
• A row of beach houses (1).
• An exclusive resort (2).
• Where I have to crawl through roots of fallen trees (1).
• Getting closer (1).
• Wade in the river (1).
• My acquaintances (1).
• The beach scene (1).
• Gary and his surfer son (1).

The next set includes six photos of A Night on the Beach, when I took Nico and Wilma, who own the complex where I’m staying, to an excellent, rustic restaurant on the beach in the center of town. They’ve lived here for 12 years but did not know about the group of down-scale eateries hidden behind the cemetery, which I discovered. The first two photos are of the full moon. The others are of the restaurant, including its kitchen, bar, cook, and a poster of a fishing tournament in which the owner participated.