Mumzee's Kitchen

I just bumped into this blog: Mumzee's Kitchen. More specifically its latest blog entry that was posted at another site: Howard Dean And The Demo Money Problem.

She has some great stuff to say. And she is not exactly under 30. Here are some samplers.

..... there were many of us "small people" who were willing to dig into our very shallow pockets to donate whatever we could spare ..... The progressives among us became understandably gun-shy. We are holding our fire and keeping our little bits of money in our pockets until we are sure that it will be used on behalf of those policies which we espouse ..... The great majority of us who are at the bottom of the human food chain have had enough of the same old "kiss the rich and screw the poor" choices that we have had for the last 24 years! We are sick and tired of being required to choose "the lesser of two evils" on election day, of holding our noses as we mark our ballots. We want to support someone who can think constructively, who will restore our democracy to "one man, one vote, and actually count the votes", who will stop spending our grandchildren's money on a needless and un-winnable war, and who will concentrate on rebuilding our national economy with real jobs by restoring our neglected super-structure and salvaging whatever is left of our damaged society ...... We need a candidate with guts, who will speak truth to power, a real barn-burning ass-kicker who is not afraid to tell the American people the truth about the liars and manipulators who have held our very existence in their hands for much too long ...... We hear our corporations complaining that the pension plans for long-term employees are crippling them financially. There is an answer to that problem and they should be made to understand what that answer is. The cap should come off the Social Security contributions to allow that program to grow as it once did and that pension expense would no longer be necessary. When they cry about the cost of maintaining employee health insurance, they should be reminded that universal health insurance, with an administrative expense of only the 2% cost of administering Medicare would relieve them of that responsibility. Those who complain about the taxes that would be necessary to pay for these programs should be presented with facts and figures on what they currently pay for private insurance compared to the taxes necessary to fund universal health care and learn that their own financial situation would actually improve ......

Some of the points on retirement and health insurance are great pointers. Got to crunch a few numbers.

Lee Metcalf Is A Naderite

Soviet Health Care In America

The proof is in the pudding. If the health care sector in this country were driven by market forces it would be at the forefront of adopting information technology. But it is dead last. Even the pizza industry, especially the pizza industry, is ahead of it in that adoption race.

Health care reform in this country has to be about introducing market forces into the sector. Costs have to be brought down for all participants.

Expanding insurance coverage has to start with children. Once you can make sure it is there for all children, and while you work it, there will open up ways to see how it can also be expanded among the adult population.

There are many ideas out there, many good ideas. The sector is such a huge chunk of the economy, any reform effort necessarily has to be a rather large conversation. A large, inclusive conversation that is also near transparent, that is the model I have in mind.

The last good effort was Hillary's but it did not fare well on the transparency part. She also drew a lot of flak as a woman steering policy. So a political fight against sexism has to be part of health care reform. And Bill Clinton was not sufficiently invested. For a president this has to be top priority.

And of course a culture shift from an illness-focus to a wellness-focus.

Politics At The Speed Of Thought

I think it was in 1995, Bill Gates came out with a book called Business At The Speed Of Thought. It was before he discovered the internet, so right now I don't know what that book was about, but I think my recent blog entry DFNYC, 100,000 Strong, Scalable Organization can be called Politics At The Speed Of Thought. The proposal quickens the pace of progress. The productivity goes up.

Race: A Volatile Topic

It is a volatile topic, for sure. But is has to be dealt with. It has to be talked about. Avoiding discussions makes it harder, not easier. We can start with the gentle topics in race. Heck, we could start with our hilarious experiences in race. I have quite a few, some of them are predictably to do with Homeland Security. Do I look Arab? Like I was in this office setting in Lexington, Kentucky, a few month after 9/11. And I overheard this guy in this next cubicle relating to someone on the phone in a toned down voice: "There is an Arab in my office!"

Pyramid Of 10

At first look the DFNYC, 100,000 Strong, Scalable Organization idea might look like an invitation to 100,000 people to stare at the computer screen for several hours each week. Screen time is part of it, but I believe the real story is Face Time.

You end up building a social unit.

Meetings I have gone to so far have tended to focus on mostly political talk. And then there is this undercurrent. Over a period of time you get to know a few people a little better. But that is hardly the focus. It is just supposed to happen on the side.

The ground rule is you can not make people do things. You can only suggest. But within that I think there should be a conscious decision to insert ice-breakers, and team building exercises, and get to know each other social exercises as part of the meetings.

I have not had a chance to think about this a whole lot. I hope I will do it more down the line. But let me go do a few Google searches.

Ice Breakers & Energizers
Educational Icebreakers
Ice Breakers - Exercises To Get Things Started!
Leadership - Icebreakers, Warm-up, Review, and Motivators Activities
Icebreakers to Inspire Communication : Eslflow webguide
BREAK THE ICE
Teacher Ice Breakers

If we are political activists, we should think ourselves as a sports team. Those teams do warm up exercises. We do ice breakers, kind of.

Team Building Exercises and Icebreakers
Fun Team Building: Team Building Exercises & Activities | Staff ...
Team Building: A Complete Guide
Team Building Games - Exercises & Activities - Teambonding - A ...

Something along those lines.

There will also have to be developed a mechanism to handle other scenarios. Some are to do with race, some to do with gender, some just plain interpersonal chemistry, some to do with miscommunication. When you bring people into groups, you end up with issues here and there.

There can be guidelines, suggestions, manuals, with the emphasis on creative approaches. Again, I have not thought a whole lot about this.