Organizing for Community

Doing some research into how to start a community development association. Ever since the Kenny Lake Community League refused to answer my question as to whether they have expanded their purpose to become a development league... I've been thinking of how to deal with that. It's pointless to write about them or try to engage them in legitimate debate. They publish one sided lectures against me in their communitarian local paper (The Copper River Record) and sneer at what they perceive to be my "selfish" character.

Our local community activists are lining their pockets with grant money that's supposed to be used for rural economic development. In my four years here I haven't seen them do ONE thing to boost the local economy. I have seen them enrich themselves and their private/NGO businesses after convienently writing themeselves into the Kenny Lake Plan. These people do not create jobs, they get grants that help them shut down the local resources to locals who don't live off the taxpayers. Grants that are supposed to be used to help promote locals and tourism are in fact used to promote the internationally protected heritage site called Wrangell St. Elias.

The Copper River Country Mapping Project is still underway, and it will not help local non Native/non enlightened businesses at all. The bottom line out here is the Ahtna Indian Tribe, the same ones who got the 5 million to improve community health, just hired 6 unarmed police officers to "help" the State Troopers patrol our roads. Land Protection officers are armed, so this is a new development for our area and I can find nothing online to corraborate the information about the new cops that came to me from a local resource. So who controls the land and the roads in the Copper River Valley? http://www.ahtna-inc.com/ldmt.html Last fall Ahtna was charging $1500.00 for a permit to cross their lands to get into public hunting grounds.

No wonder the issue of whether we should become a bourough is moot. The feds have a much easier avenue into our area called Tribal Government. It's a lot easier to convince the tribes to demolish freedoms guaranteed under the constitutions since they were not included in that deal. My personal theory is that genocidal Imperialism (practiced or admired by many Europeans in the Americas) was an absolutely necessary "step" to achieving global communitarianism. In my naive world view I used to believe the USA was expanding national constitutional protections to people of color and women. I used to believe my generation was going to be the one who truly broke away from the racism of our parents, and that's how I lived my life.

Thanks to Alinsky I now know the Declaration of Independence was unbalanced propaganda:

"Saul Alinsky uses the example of the American Declaration of Independence to elaborate on this statement: To the Colonists who drafted it, the Declaration was self evidently true; to the British, it deliberately ignored the benefits of the British presence. The colonists recognized at the time that the document was not balanced and was to some extent propaganda." http://www.infed.org/thinkers/alinsky.htm

Here's our local development association and their mission statement. I've been keeping tabs on their website since I built kennylake.com in February 2007. It's still under construction and has next to nothing at the site. What's almost funny is this is the group that helped write the Marketing and Branding Plan which said a website of the area would be a good idea couldn't manage it. They had a website making workshop, maybe even more than one. But their website remains so benignly empty... as if they're barely active at all. I'll base our mission statement on theirs, getting a feel for the lingo now. My comments are in red.

Our mission is to facilitate partnerships to improve the quality of life in Alaska's Copper Valley through economic development while protecting our natural and cultural resources. We serve the Copper Valley as an Alaska Regional Development Organization and Resource Conservation and Development Council.

Our mission is to restore confidence in the American work ethic and provide real jobs so people can eat all winter through building businesses based on profits while protecting all our right to be part of the local economy. We serve Kenny Lake and Chitina as an Alaskan owned operation, we don't have any affiliation with the federal or state government and do not survive off grants.

Copper Valley Development Association, Inc. is a non-profit (501(c)3) organization that serves the region as an Alaska Regional Development Organization (ARDOR) and Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D). CVDA is funding primarily through the ARDOR program, with federal support from RC&D Program with USDA Natrual Resources Conservation Service. Funds are also leveraged through various donations and fundrasing projects.

CVDA Helps Bring Economic Opportunities to the Region by:

Assisting Small Businesses (I have yet to see any evidence of this.)
Supporting Community Groups to Build Capacity and Develop Projects (Ohhhhhh.)
Coordinating Community Events and Workshops (Like the new nobiz tourist maps?)
Leveraging Funds to Provide Needed Infrastructure, Training, and Services in the Region (???)
Building Partnerships to Improve Communications and Share Resources (Partnerships with me?)
Providing Enviromental and Leadership Education for Area Youth (Enlightenment for all!)

http://www.coppervalley.org/

Why I Quit Facebook?

My new dog team - seven females!

Last night I "deactivated" my facebook account. I planned on deleting it, but that's not an option. I "can" return and reactivate my account at any time. How's that for information retention? During my deactivation session, the fb gods insisted I explain "why" I was leaving. I chose "other" from their list of reasons and then a popup box made me go back and explain further details. So I switched reasons and chose the box that said "Privacy Reason" and another popup stopped me and directed me to study more about my fb privacy. Then I still had to check another box so that I would not continue to receive emails from my closed account!

I'm doing some notes for an article based on a woman who has been an ACL supporter for years. She's also been an active Ron Paul supporter and fights daily for Liberty. I know many people like her, genuine and concerned, exist all around our nation and probably in every other nation. We are a very small, unaffiliated group of people who have chosen to accept communitarianism as REALITY. But the similarities pretty much stop there. I have never been a Ron Paul supporter, I gave up on the Libertarians within the first year of my ACL work. I have actually been very open in my opinion of Paul and his refusal to mention the words communitarianism or Agenda 21. I don't trust him because of it. I have been watching and listening to the Tea Party people, and the way I saw it develop the last couple years, I thought Gigi Bowman was at the center of that movement. Over the past few months (and thanks to fb) I realized she is not only not part of it, she openly opposes it! I'll be interviewing her in a series of written questions, it's the first time I've tried this and I think it'll be fun.

Terrain Depot plans coming together quickly, we will be open before June 1, shooting for Memorial Day Weekend. Almost everything is thawed in the yard, only a few chunks of ice here and there. My wood supply sucks again, burning green SAPA slab, but it was 38 above when I woke up at 8am so it's not life threatening anymore. I will need to find a more reliable source before next winter. My chainsaw broke down last month and I can't describe how that felt. Then my cart's wheel bearing broke and I saw my little supply of tools falling apart before my very eyes. It's a miracle I made it through the winter without any serious mishaps. After three winters camping I've used the hell out of everything. I have depended on that saw since I bought it the first summer I built gertee here, when Fred was born. I went from being terrified of chainsaws to loving them, and learning how to use saws changed my world.

Been having a blast "camping" in the new 10' gertee I put up in my backyard. I love going out there at night and experiementing with ways to make heat and fires inside. Last night I dragged a 12" metal stand in and put 2 pieces of 6" stack above it. Made the fire in the inside rim of a tire with 6" sides. Tim's got a new welder coming so I'm going to ask him to cut me a 6" hole in one of my big bread bowls and weld it to the bottom of the stack over the fire. I think it will catch ALL the smoke if I do that. Seems like it wouldn't cost that much or be that heavy either to make a hanging aluminum smoke cover for an open fire. Also thinking those Mexican stoves with the short stacks would work too. I can't seem to get the smoke to flow up and out the way it should with just the wall covers. It may be that I have to seal the floor with rugs and pull the outside walls up so the dang air can get underneath it! Cut the roofhole bigger to fit the roofring better and worked on ways to use safety pins to put up my inside fabrics. Borrowed the new materials I ordered for the 20' facelift, and I'm just going to have to include interior fabrics in the basic kit. It really does change it when you cover the inside frame with cloth, and I've got to when when I see open khana and roof poles it looks unfinished to me, even when the wood is pretty. I do like the modern classic yurt look, the beige canvas and white fabrics, beautiful wood floors and finish. That kind of yurt spells class and money and so yeah, why wouldn't I like them? My gertee is just more festive, she likes wearing different colors and textures during different seasons. And just like the woman who owns it, my gertees are always changing their clothes.

A special hello! to Sylvia in New Zealand, another gertee lover who builds her own too! I was going to upload pictures of her cute little yurts during one of my no pc times. Now I'm designing an entirely new gertee website and I'd be honored if I had permission to put them in our gallery.

It's been interesting and really uplifting to meet people from the "yurt community." It seems to be a very friendly, supportive bunch. I thought they'd all be full on communitarians because of the way the enviros write about them and the appeal yurts have in the sustainable "movement." I was wrong, as usual, because I'm meeting women and men, just like me, who only want to build a sweet little space they can call their own. Sylvia says she likes to keep hers at 8 to 10 feet max because then she can put it up herself. I know what she means by that because I have a "real" 10' gertee now too! I laughed the entire time I put the ring and roof poles up for the 3rd time in 2 days. After I stood the walls up and added the tension cable, I screwed 4 roofpoles into the roofring in the 4 directions and slipped it over the walls. It's so light this was nothing! Then I walked around the outside attaching each pole to the walls. Took five minutes. Yeah.

Oh happy spring!

World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth

Bolivian Government Outlines Strategy for International Climate Negotiations
April 21, 2010 in Press, Uncategorized
Robert S. Eshelman. Independent Journalist, Posted: April 20, 2010 09:29 PM

The Bolivian government detailed today a broad plan for future international climate change negotiations and how governments and social movements might work together to push for climate justice internationally.

Bolivian President Evo Morales opened the People’s World Conference on Climate Change this morning, strongly condemning capitalism and calling for a “communitarian socialism” that will provide for the material wants and needs of the world’s populations and promote a more sustainable relationship between humans and the natural world.

More here: http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/bolivian-government-outlines-strategy-for-international-climate-negotiations/

Bolivia is a leading communitarian nation now. Plurinational Communitarian is a new one on me!

The new Political Constitution of the State, approved by referendum on the 25th January by 61.4% of the votes and announced on the 7th February, is clearly of transcendental importance for the refoundation of Bolivia. Essentially, it establishes the creation of “a Unified Social State of Law whose character would be Plurinational Communitarian, free, independent, sovereign, democratic, intercultural, with decentralized autonomous departments, regions, municipalities and indigenous circumscriptions”. The recognition of individual and collective rights, popular participation, the principle of equality, and the end of all types of exclusion and discrimination are all present in the new constitutional text.

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2009/05/bolivian-foreign-minister-communitarian.html

The President Talks by Ezra Klein, WA Post

Obama's latest speech is being defined as "communitarian" in the conservative news?

http://www.conservativeforchange.com/2010/03/obama-we-are-communitarian-not.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/the_president_talks.html

Yet, Ron Paul told us today at lewrockwell.com that Obama's politics are called corporatism....

Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and hostility towards the truly free market. But a closer, honest examination of his policies and actions in office reveals that, much like the previous administration, he is very much a corporatist. This in many ways can be more insidious and worse than being an outright socialist. Socialism is a system where the government directly owns and manages businesses. Corporatism is a system where businesses are nominally in private hands, but are in fact
controlled by the government. In a corporatist state, government officials often act in collusion with their favored business interests to design polices that give those interests a monopoly position, to the detriment of both competitors and consumers.

A careful examination of the policies pursued by the Obama administration and his allies in Congress shows that their agenda is corporatist. For example, the health care bill that recently passed does not establish a Canadian-style government-run single-payer health care system.
Instead, it relies on mandates forcing every American to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. It also includes subsidies for low-income Americans and government-run health care “exchanges.” Contrary to the claims of the proponents of the health care bill, large insurance and pharmaceutical companies were enthusiastic supporters of many provisions of this legislation because they knew in the end their bottom lines would be enriched by Obamacare.

Similarly, Obama's “cap-and-trade” legislation provides subsidies and specials privileges to large businesses that engage in “carbon trading.” This is why large corporations, such as General Electric support cap-and-trade. To call the President a corporatist is not to soft-pedal criticism of his administration. It is merely a more accurate description of the President’s agenda.

When he is called a socialist, the President and his defenders can easily deflect that charge by pointing out that the historical meaning of socialism is government ownership of industry; under the President’s policies, industry remains in nominally private hands. Using the more accurate term – corporatism – forces the President to defend his policies that increase government control of private industries and expand de facto subsidies to big businesses. This also promotes the understanding that though the current system may not be pure socialism, neither is it free-market since government controls the private sector through taxes, regulations, and subsidies, and has done so for decades.

Using precise terms can prevent future statists from successfully blaming the inevitable failure of their programs on the remnants of the free market that are still allowed to exist. We must not allow the disastrous results of corporatism to be ascribed incorrectly to free market capitalism or used as a justification for more government expansion. Most importantly, we must learn what freedom really is and educate others on how infringements on our economic liberties caused our economic woes in the first place. Government is the problem; it cannot be the solution.

Using precise terms can prevent current debates from degenerating into dialectical arguments that lead everyone to the exact same compromise, called communitarianism. Why would Paul explain the merger between socialism and corporate fascism and then use the WRONG term to define the new balanced way of thinking?

Here's what happens when an American starts studying communitarianism:

http://www.floppingaces.net/2010/03/19/communitarianism-the-new-communism-reader-post/

Rights, Responsibilities and Communitarianism by Dr. Kelly Ross

I spent hours last night working out a new article for the Tea Party, but I just couldn't find the tone I wanted to set. So I'm on a borrowed pc looking for articles to inspire me and ended up back at this article by Ross. I hope he doesn't mind that I'm reposting the beginning here.

Rights, Responsibilities, and Communitarianism
http://www.friesian.com/rights.htm

For the wages of sin is death.
Romans 6:23

From wealth (khrémata) does not come virtue (areté), but from virtue comes wealth and the whole of other goods (agathá) for men, private (ídios) and public (demósios).
Socrates, Plato's Apology of Socrates, 30b

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...
Thomas Jefferson, "The Declaration of Independence," 1776

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now [i.e. under a State religion 1]. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as medicine, the potato as an article of food.
Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia," 1784

A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded....Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to
control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.
Abraham Lincoln

Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!
Frederick Douglass, "What the Black Man Wants"

The State...stands between me and my body, and tells me what kind of doctor I
must employ. When my soul is sick, unlimited spiritual liberty is given me by the State [2]. Now then, it doesn't seem logical that the State shall depart from this great policy...and take the other position in the matter of smaller consequences -- the health of the body....Whose property is my body? Probably mine....If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh, no.
Mark Twain, in "Osteopathy," 1901

While the Opium Registration Act of December 17, 1914, may have a moral end, as well as revenue, the court, in view of grave doubt as to its constitutionality except as a revenue measure, construes it as such.
United States Supreme Court, United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 1915

Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State.... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. Benito Mussolini, Fascism: Fundamental Ideas

The greater the readiness to subordinate purely personal interests, the higher rises the ability to establish comprehensive communities.... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise of every truly human culture. (emphasis mine)
Adolf Hilter, Mein Kampf, Chapter 11, Ralph Manheim translation

What matters is to emphasize the fundamental idea in my party's economic program clearly -- the idea of authority. I want the authority; I want everyone to keep the property he has acquired for himself according to the priniciple: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property. Adolf Hilter, 1931

If we are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because, without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, 1933

When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving [sic] a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly... that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare... However, now there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995,after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, two years after the massacre of the Branch Davidians at Waco

A decent society is not based on rights; it is based on duty....Our duty to one another...To all should be given opportunity; from all, responsibility demanded.
Labor Party Prime Minister Tony Blair, elected 1997[Washington Post, November 9, 1997]

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong. In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years. It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power. Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom, The Worldview That Makes the Underclass [Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2001], p.5

Sometimes so many people seem to be screaming about their rights, while neglecting to answer to their responsibilities, that many of us may become completely disgusted with the whole discourse of "rights." A whole movement exists, billing itself as "Communitarianism," that promotes an effort to restore the notion of responsibility and to establish a balance both between rights and responsibilities and between individuality and community. There has actually been talk of building a "Statue of Responsibility" on the West Coast as the counterpart of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. The movement is spearheaded by sociology professors Robert Bellah, in Habits of the Heart, and Amitai Etzioni, in The Spirit of Community. Their viewpoint is shared by many others, including historian Garry Wills; and it is reflected in the title of Hillary Clinton's book on the responsibilities of government in child rearing, It Takes a Village. Communitarians, however, promote a certain view of rights and responsibilities that is quite different from that of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc. It is more in the tradition of G.W.F. Hegel, where the community, or the state, is more real than the individual and the individual who does not fit in with the social norms or the law is objectively irrational. Hegel has been regarded, justly, as the father of modern totalitarianism. How different these attitudes are comes out in the Communitarian treatment of things like seat-belt and motorcycle helmet laws. Etzioni would deny to the automobile or motorcycle rider the right to decide for themselves whether to wear seat-belts or motorcycle helmets because, if they are injured, the public is liable to end up paying for their injuries. Thus the riders have a duty to protect themselves in such a way as to not impose a burden on the public through their injuries.

This is interesting reasoning, for the denial of the right of choice about seat-belts and motorcycle helmets is really predicated on the concession of another right: that the injured riders have the right to be treated at public expense. The claim of that right is then used to deny the other [3]. The question is not even asked: do those who don't want to use seat-belts or motorcycle helmets really want their liberty curtailed for the privilege of their injuries being treated at public expense? Evidently they are not even asked. The consequence, then, is not that Communitarians want to balance rights and responsibilities; it is that they want to deny certain rights in favor of certain other ones, without asking whether that is the particular choice other people really want to make. The rights that Communitarians seem to prefer curtailing are what traditionally are called "liberties," and the rights they seem willing to sacrifice those to are what traditionally are called "powers" or "privileges." A "right" can mean a number of things.

The Chitina Terrain Depot opening May 24, 2010!

We got the deal on the Wayside! I plan on building a 30' gertee to attach to the van with seats, a few gifts, a slideshow and a 16' wooden dance floor in the center. I've got a bunch of old 20s, 30s and 40s lps that I'll play all day long. I'm dancing every day and amazed at how stiff my body has become this past winter. I'm thinking our older customers might enjoy a couple dances before they get back in their vehicles for the long drive to McCarthy. My crew is the same locals who've helped me with the gertees over the years. Fishing season starts on the fishwheels the 15th (I think) and dipnetting opens sometime around the first of June. Still need to find out exactly what the communitarian regulations are about selling/cooking our own fish, but I'm fairly certain we'd have to buy it from a cannery and can't use the fresh fish coming out of the river. Which means I will be able to check into the whole salmon-roe patties idea from Lark. :)

I was hoping to find the time to write an article addressing the Tea Party before I get too caught up in the details of opening. They're still not addressing communitarianism in their arguments and when I asked Gigi on fb how many people she knows in the movement who are aware of the communitarian theory, besides her, she said maybe a handful. They need to know that if they do not address the synthesis they will never succeed in restoring constitutional government.

The problem is many of the Tea Party "patriots" are so embedded in their dialectical side that they refuse to consider their own contribution to establishing totalitarian communitarianism. The right insists on blaming the left as if their side is beyond reproach, when if fact it took both sides to achieve the middle ground between the two. Both sides keep their focus on the other side and never look at the middle "solution," they never question the need for a "balance," which is where ALL their arguments lead. Tom DeWeese wrote an article recently warning the Tea Party people to watch out for infiltrators like Alex Jones and Larouchies. You'd think if DeWeese really cared about our nation he would include the most critical information the Tea Party could USE right now. But not only does he not include communitarians in the movement as the most deadly of all the infiltrators, he endorses one of the biggest communitarian liars in the game, Sarah Palin. The right is just as communitarianized as the left, and maybe even more so.

If you ask a Republican who the enemy is, odds are good they'll name the Democrats. Neither side wants to admit they're helping to establish global supremacy of communitarian law.

http://www.chronwatch-america.com/articles/2768/1/To-Quote-Pogo-quotWe-Have-Met-the-Enemy-and-They-Is-Us/Page1.html

Article comes out today in the UK Column

Londoner's are being exposed to the ACL today in a special election edition of the UK Column, http://www.ukcolumn.org/. It's only available in hardcopy and must be ordered from their website. I will not be publishing it here. Many thanks to our ad sponsor, the angrycheese, for making it happen. As a longtime contributor to my blog the cheese has been a welcome addition and helped me to keep a focus on the communitarian similarities between our nations. With special thanks to my Nordica for cranking out the paper's ad with almost no time to spare!

Happy birthday and huge hugs to my only daughter, my ACL partner, my co-author, my best friend and the mother of my favorite grandson who I miss like crazy.

Gerteeville grows!

interior 10' pvc gertee for campers

neat way to heat and cook.. goes in the book!

Gerteeville, April 20, 2010

Put the new 10' camper's model in my backyard and started playing in it last night. Had my first outside pit fire of the season and burned everything not stuck in the ice still. We're making several changes to the model after this one, all the rest of the walls from now on will be riveted permanently. I can easily manage the zip ties, after 3 moves it's all holding fairly well, but I can already see how it will irritate people. Tim figured out the rivets so that's the way they'll be. Probably cut down on a lot of complaints. :)

I still want a frame-only package for the DIY crowd and plan to make them available too. The wholesale cost will be, for a ten foot wide, 77 sq ft with an 8 foot center with tarp covers (roof, walls, floor), $500.00. Please do not try to order one yet.. heh, and Sean A. and Darren K., you guys are already at the top of my list for promo testers, I'll be writing with details soon.

It's kind of funny having the "tent" model in my yard. When I went in my 16' home gertee after it got dark and cold last night I laughed because of the vast difference between the two models. The 16' just has a floor and more covers on the walls, it's really a tent, and it yet seems like a completly different unit.

Tim warned me last night to watch for bears when I'm back on the trails because there wasn't much food last fall and there isn't any for them now as they're waking from their naps. Like humans, some bears wake up grumpy and hungry. He burned all the carcasses from around the shop and I picked up the bones and scraps the dogs dragged into my space over the winter. Now that his dog team is gone there's not a lot to keep them from coming right into the campground. eep. Lock and load! :)

Finished a 4 page handwritten draft of a new article for the UK... now i just need to type it up and get it emailed to the editor. It wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be, but I haven't written anything by hand for over a decade besides my daily journals. I threw 20 pages away before I found my voice. Kept wanting to write a satire... maybe I will next time.

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring. It's amazing how good it feels to Alaskans every year, how suprisingly good it is to watch the snow melt into the ground and dry so fast if ya blink you miss it. It's hard to be depressed about the world when there's so much promise again. I've been listening to Tim's parent's record collection and singing along with GI Blues... forgot all about those songs when I made the Local agenda 21 for blonds video, coulda sang Elvis for my Nolan! - you ever get one of those days boys, you ever get one of those days? when nothing is right, from morning to night, you ever get one of those days? daysdaysdaysdaysdaysdaysdays...

"I've got those hup two three four occupation GI Blues.... GI blues..... "

Spokane, WA leads the nation in throwing the bums out!

Here's an educated and active bunch of American patriots. I kind of hate that term anymore, but these people look like they deserve the title in an honorable way. This really is fantastic news for us who oppose the entire sustainable development agenda. I just wished outloud on fb that the Tea Party would complain about something I can relate to and then I opened freedom advocates mail from Shaw. So hey Chris!!! Is this what happened with the info you took to Spokane last year? :)

Text of Charter Amendments submitted as follows:
Ordinance
Submitted by; Michael Fagan, 1523 E. Dalton Ave., Spokane, WA 99207

An ordinance relating to preventing membership in and relationships with the
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the United
Nations, and other organizations undermining United States Sovereignty; amending
the Charter of the City of Spokane adopting a new section 34.5, repealing
conflicting sections of the Spokane Municipal code, adopting a new section
01.04.035 to title 1 of the Spokane Municpal Code, and providing
severability.

WHEREAS, in the name of "sustainable development" as documented under United
Nations Agenda 21, property rights are often arbitrarily stripped of citizens in
the pursuit of a public policy that provides the community little to no tangible
benefits. Under the guise of environmentalism, Agenda 21 is a subtle attempt to
gradually take away the freedoms and liberties of ordinary Americans,
restricting them to urban centers where they can be more readily controlled by a
strong statist government. At the same time, through Agenda 21 implementation
and the associated Wildlands Project, people are gradually banned from large
patches of rural environment where they would more readily be able to escape the
increasingly Orwellian control structure of the government. Many of the
principles represented in Agenda 21 were recently promoted in the City of
Spokane by Envision Spokane via an initiative labeled a "Community Bill of
Rights" which would give rights to inanimate objects and restrict the liberties
of individual business owners and property owners.

the rest is here:
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/sustainable_development/kick_iclei_out%21_20100410407/

The snow's almost all melted!

Lake Redington

Counting the days until I can move big gertee and start using it again. The yard is a disaster as it always is in spring but most things are stil frozen to the ground. Keeping busy inside writing the gertee book and planning pvc gertee promotions. Can't even watch movies anymore so I'm getting a lot accomplished without my computer. Doing my last radio interview with Melodee and Lark on TruthQuest tomorrow at 9pm mtn. And it looks like I have an article and an ad coming out in the UK Column... may be writing it by hand and typing it into email..heh.

20' gertee and the Chugachs with Tim's camera

10' pvc gertee frame package weighs in at 75 lbs

20" gertee miniature living room

Will Cap and Trade grant control over private housing market?

Still using a borrowed computer so I don't have time to check the links to this story until later. I don't know the original writer but it came from my sister who doesn't fall for many online hoaxes or scams (not like me.. I used to fall for all of them!). Regulating private homes was part of the plans we found in 1999. If this email checks out it falls right into place with LA21 goals. Licensing privately owned houses used as rentals was part of the Seattle Neighborhood plans. I think this expands the whole concept to a level I could never have predicted. Thanks Kath!

"Check out the references at the end..... This has passed the House not in the Senate yet!!!

A License Required for your HOUSE?

If you own your home you really need to check this out. At the end of this email is the Google link to verify. If the country thinks the housing market is depressed now, wait until everyone sees this. No one will be buying homes in the future.We encourage you to read the provisions of the Cap and Trade Bill that has passed the House of Representatives and are being considered by the Senate. We are ready to join the next march on Washington ! This Congress and their "experts" are truly out to destroy the middle class of the U.S.A.A License will be required for your house...no longer just for cars and mobile homes....Thinking about selling your house? Take a look at H.R. 2454 (Cap and Trade bill).

This is unbelievable! Home owners take note and tell your friends and relatives who are home owners!Beginning one year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards
of this "Cap & Trade" bill, passed by the House of Representatives. If it is also passed by the Senate, it will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced.

The Congressional Budget Office (supposedly non-partisan) estimates that in just a few years the average cost to every family of four will be $6,800 per year. No one is excluded. However, once
the lower classes feel the pinch in their wallets, you can be sure that these voters will get a tax refund (even if they pay no taxes at all) to offset this new cost. Thus, you Mr. And Mrs. Middle Class have to pay even more since additional tax dollars will be needed to bail out everyone else..But wait. This awful bill (that no one in Congress has actually read) has many more surprises in it. Probably the worst one is this: A year from now you won't be able to sell your house without some bureaucrat's OK. Yes, you read that right. The caveat (there always is a caveat) is that if you have enough money to make required major upgrades to your home, then you can sell it. But, if not, then forget it. Even pre-fabricated homes ("mobile homes") are included. In effect, this bill prevents you from selling your home without the permission of the EPA administrator.

To get this permission, you will have to have the energy efficiency of your home measured. Then the government will tell you what your new energy efficiency requirement is and you will be required to make modifications to your home under the retrofit provisions of this Act, to comply with the new energy and water efficiency requirements. Then you will have to
get your home measured again and get a license (called a "label" in the Act) that must be posted on your property to show what your efficiency rating is; sort of like the Energy Star efficiency rating label on your refrigerator or air conditioner. If you don't get a high enough rating, you can't sell. And, the EPA administrator is authorized to raise the standards every year, even above the automatic energy efficiency increases built into the Act. The EPA administrator, appointed by the President, will run the Cap & Trade program (AKA the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009") and is authorized to make any future changes to the regulations and standards he/she alone determines to be in the government's best interest. Requirements are set
low initially so the bill will pass Congress. Then the Administrator can set new standards every year.The Act itself contains annual required increases in energy efficiency for private and commercial residences and buildings. However, the EPA administrator can set higher standards at any time.

Sect. 202 - Building Retrofit Program mandates a national retrofit program to increase the energy efficiency of all existing homes across America . Beginning one year after enactment of the Act, you won't be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with its energy and water efficiency standards. You had better sell soon, because the standards will be raised each year and will be really hard (expen$ive) to meet in a few years. Oh, goody!

The Act allows the government to give you a grant of several thousand dollars to comply with the retrofit program requirements IF you meet certain energy efficiency levels. But, wait, the State can set additional requirements on who qualifies to receive the grants. You should expect requirements such as "can't have an income of more than $50K per year", "home selling price can't be more than $125K", or anything else to target the upper middle class (that includes YOU?) and prevent you from qualifying for the grants.

Most of us won't get a dime and will have to pay the entire cost of the retrofit out of our own pockets. More transfer of wealth, more "change you can believe in." Sect. 204 - Building Energy Performance Labeling Program establishes a labeling program that for each individual residence will identify the achieved energy efficiency performance for "at least 90 percent of the
residential market within 5 years after the date of the enactment of this Act."This means that within 5 years 90% of all residential homes in the U.S. must be measured and labeled. The EPA administrator will get $50M each year to enforce the labeling program. The Secretary of the Department of Energy will get an additional $20M each year to help the EPA. Some of this money will, of course, be spent on coming up with tougher standards each year...Oh, the label will be like a license for your car. You will be required to post the label in a conspicuous location in your home and will not be allowed to sell your home without having this label. And, just like your car license, you will probably be required to get a new label every so often - maybe every year.

But, the government estimates the cost of measuring the energy efficiency of your home should only cost about $200 each time. Remember what they said about the auto smog inspections when they first started: that in California ? It would only cost $15. That was when the program started. Now the cost is about $50 for the inspection and certificate. Expect the same from the home labeling program. Sect. 304 - Greater Energy Efficiency in Building Codes establishes new energy efficiency guidelines for the National Building Code and mandates at 304(d) that one year after enactment of this Act, all state and local jurisdictions must adopt the National Building Code energy efficiency provisions or must obtain a certification from the federal government that their state and/or local codes have been brought into full compliance with the National Building Code energy efficiency standards.CHECK OUT a few of the sites;

Cap and Trade: A License Required for your Home http://www.nachi. org/forum/ f14/cap-and-
trade-license- required- your-home- 44750/
HR2454 American Clean Energy & Security Act: http://www.govtrack .us/congress/ bill.xpd? bill=h111- 2454
Cap & Trade A license required for your home: http://www.prisonplanet.com/cap-and-trade-a-license-required-for-your-home.html
Cap and trade is a license to cheat and steal: http://www.sfexamin er.com/opinion/ columns/oped_ contributors/ Cap-and-trade- is-a-license- to-cheat- and-steal- 45371937.
html

Cap and Trade: A License Required for your Home: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2393940/posts
Thinking about selling you House? Look at HR 2454:
http://www.federalobserver.com/2009/10/01/thinking-about-selling-your-house-a-look-at-h-r-2454-cap-and-trade-bill/ "

Making lemonade

Big gertee and two runaways

10 foot PVC gertee

PVC walls are tied just like the wood

My laptop crashed just after I made the last post. My entire gertee book was on it, as well as all my videos and pictures from the last 4 years. At first I was so bummed I almost cried. But then, within minutes actually, I thought (again) how much of my life has been spent on the computer since I began studying the communitarian takeover in 1999. And from that moment I decided to let it all go for now, maybe it can be recovered but even if it can't, I'm still going to write the book and make the DVD... it will just be written the old fashioned way, on paper with a pen, with all new copy, pictures and video of the new gertees I'm making now.

Besides all my spring cleaning and rearanging little gertee, I refinished the 20 inch miniature with scraps from a "Sweetheart House" Kathy gave me last year. It turned out so well I want to rebuild my full size 20 footer exactly the same way. But now I have a "real" mini gertee to show.

The best news right now is Tim made the first 10 foot PVC model gertee and it totally worked! I have ideas for 6 sizes, all adaptable to each other and 12 different styles for numerous uses. No pole is over 5 foot and it should pack up nice in a duffle bag with wheels. We're making metal roof rings too for the models that will use stoves. The whole project is taking on a new dimension and it's a good thing I don't have internet because a lot of what I'm doing requires thoughtful preparation and a slower approach. I'm also relieved to get a vacation from the people who keep finding my work and then expect me to be something that I'm not. There's a lot of suffering out there, much of it caused by communitarianism, but I cannot be the salve that heals those wounds. I just can't.

The worst news I've gotten lately was from E. Michael Jones in the latest issue of Culture Wars. His article and review of a book about Private Equity firms was the first time I've learned about how the communitarians buy up companies just to put them into debt. I may have read about Bush Sr. and Carlyle being PE in Tarpley's book, but it didn't have the impact on me that Jone's piece did. If your company has been purchased by a Private Equity firm (such as the former president's) ... be prepared to be looking for a job in 2012 when the loans come due. Beyond rude who these people really are and how little knowledge we have of their true colors.