Concerned Citizens Against ICLEI

Freedom Advocates' latest Newsletter included a link to this site. If I still had access to the ACL I'd surely add this to our LA21 page. Michael Shaw is speaking at the Freedom Action Conference this August. The "freedom movement" event is promoted by Tom DeWeese and one of the sponsors is the John Birch Society.. heh. No wonder I wasn't invited. :)

http://www.anticlei.com/index.php?pr=Web_Research

States Versus the Feds... another dialectic?

"A ruling Wednesday by a federal judge put on hold parts of the new law that would have required officers to dig deeper into the fight against illegal immigration. Arizona says it was forced to act because the federal government isn't doing its job to fight immigration."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZ8Gy51rOgX8-wDT3iqTGWw1uLiAD9H9I31O0

GISS Swiss Cheese / Watts Up With That?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/26/giss-swiss-cheese/

I need your help editing my name page at Wikipedia

I've decided to take control of my name and my work. I can't do it alone. Please feel free to make any edits to my page you think I missed or misrepresented. I tried to write as unbiased as possible but I didn't write anything negative. Maybe that's being biased by omission.

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

Communitarianism - Academic Analysis

Somebody removed all references to the ACL from the wikipedia page on communitarianism! I just re posted myself and the Anti Communitarian Manifesto under "opposition." We were on that page for years, all the older copies of that page had a direct link to the ACL. We have the only existing, published anti thesis against communitarianism and we were removed from the opposition category! We've also gained a lot more academic recognition since we first published. It looks like our argument is just TOO CREDIBLE to be allowed in the non debates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism#Opposition

It's been a very strange year. One thing I've noticed a lot more lately is the number of law firms showing up at our websites. After I published the articles about our local WISE ones and their enlightened god, it seemed to me I was being steadily scrutinized. It hasn't stopped either.

But, I never really concern myself with the issue of libel or "equal time" since I've always posted more of the comms side than my own. I only use direct sources in my articles, and I never say anything about the comms that they haven't said first. My journalism training was old school. I operate under the assumption that I can print anything I want about anyone as long as it's true. As the non Zionist gatekeeper of my media empire, I also make the calls on what to print since I'm the publisher and owner, and I have no advertisers I kowtow to. Of course this also means I often go without basic life essentials and could eventually starve to death because of my principles, but I'd rather die free than live forever in servitude to my inferiors.

The ACL, like my blog, uses mostly all direct links to source docs. The facts are always better than anything I could make up anyway. But I also think the blatant truth about the globalists is what stops people from commenting about what I write, because a lot of people are convinced that if they maintain anonymous silence they will be protected from the global communitarian program. I've been told more than once by family members and former friends that if I get arrested and shot it will be my own fault! Land of the free and home of the brave... what a joke.

Found an old revived thread about Cass Sunstein's position as Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Czar and did a search for "Cass Sunstein Communitarianism". This was the first return:

COMMUNITARIANISM
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/eamc_02/eamc_02_00539.html

Communitarianism is a political philosophy that emphasizes the good society's need for strong bonds of community, civic virtue, solidarities of CITIZENSHIP, and public deliberation about moral issues. It generally offers its vision as an alternative to contemporary LIBERALISM, criticizing liberals for overly emphasizing doctrines of individual autonomy at the expense of nurturing the social allegiances that give depth and substance to an individual's identity. Communitarians hark back to the traditional republican political theory which crucially taught that democratic freedom is accomplished not so much by leaving persons alone as by fostering the virtue it takes to govern according to the common good rather than self-interest.

As a matter of CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION, communitarians object to prevailing legal trends that insist government must be neutral as among the competing views and values of citizens. For instance, in FIRST AMENDMENT cases, the DOCTRINE of content neutrality means that government cannot regulate speech merely because it judges the subject matter of the speech to be unimportant, unworthy, or imminently dangerous. But communitarians argue that the lofty purposes of the First Amendment are trivialized when the public interest in FREEDOM OF SPEECH about commerce or sex is equated with the public interest in free speech about politics. For communitarians, freedom of speech is basic precisely because open, democratic government is impossible without it. The same heightened public importance is absent when courts analyze COMMERCIAL SPEECH or sexual speech and courts go too far, argue communitarians, when they read the First Amendment as if its purpose were to protect the individual's personal interest in self-expression. To interpret the First Amendment as if the Framers were neutral as between the importance in a democracy of free speech about politics and free speech about the price of commercial products is to trivialize free speech and to misread the Constitution as exalting protection of individual self-expression into a sovereign, absolute value.

Many communitarians also object to interpreting the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT DUE PROCESS clause as granting implicit constitutional status to a RIGHT OF PRIVACY, asthe Supreme Court did in ROE V. WADE (1973) and subsequent cases protecting a woman's right to choose ABORTION. The same purported right of privacy is at stake in cases involving state regulation of SEXUAL ORIENTATION and assisted suicide (or the RIGHT TO DIE). The problem communitarians have with the privacy cases is not necessarily with the results reached but with the legal reasoning that insists constitutional analysis must bracket or put aside any substantive moral discussion of the public good at stake when individuals make private choices. In regard to abortion in particular, communitarians thus would prefer to reframe the issue along lines suggested by Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG, who has argued that abortion regulations should be analyzed in reference to legal principles prohibiting SEX DISCRIMINATION as a violation of democracy's commitment to equal respect for all persons.

Communitarians also distinguish between two senses of citizenship implicit in the Constitution. One is the liberal view of citizens as individuals who enjoy the protection of legal rights against the state. The other is a stronger, republican vision of citizens who enjoy the legal status of participating in democratic self-governance and the rights and responsibilities of public service. This participatory notion of citizenship stands behind the constitutional status of TRIAL BY JURY of Article III and the Sixth Amendment's stipulation that criminal juries must be chosen from the district within a state where the crime occurred. The battle to amend the Constitution to protect the so-called jury of the "vicinage" or community affected by the crime, communitarians point out, was waged along civic republican lines and shows a continuing commitment among many in the Founding era to preserve opportunities for local communities, through the jury system, to participate in shaping governing principles of law. Likewise, the SECOND AMENDMENT embodies a philosophy of localism insofar as it protects state militias and the right to bear arms in them against the dangers of a single, standing national army. Historically, communitarians have also defended the constitutionality of the military draft (as in the SELECTIVE SERVICE ACTS) by stressing the Framers' commitment to the civic duty and public service obligations of democratic citizens.

When it comes to issues involving the state and religion, communitarians more readily accept the liberal view that RELIGIOUS LIBERTY should be the same everywhere in the United States, protected by federal courts against local, majoritarian preferences. For instance, communitarians' view of open and egalitarian communities premised on participatory opportunities for all leads them to accept the leading Supreme Court cases prohibiting public SCHOOL PRAYERS, which rest on the principle that public schools best educate children to be democratic citizens when they teach children both to respect RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY and to share civic ties despite those religious divisions.

Finally, communitarians balk at the increasing judicialization of politics, a process whereby resolution of core issues about justice and liberty is removed from the power of the people and entrusted to unelected federal judges. The result is dimunition of democracy and the disempowerment of citizens and their representatives. Communitarians concede that individual rights sometimes trump majority power in our constitutional government and that courts therefore need to enforce constitutional guarantees even against the contrary will of political majorities. But communitarians believe that a better balance can be struck between the rights-based liberalism that controls constitutional interpretation currently and the older, civic republican ideals of the Framers, ideals that stressed public duty as well as private rights and that praised participation in self-governing communities, rather than the protection of individual against community, as the key to political liberty.

JEFFREY ABRAMSON
(2000)
Bibliography

ABRAMSON, JEFFREY 1994 We, the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy. New York: Basic Books.

ETZIONI, AMITAI, ed. 1995 New Communitarian Thinking: Persons, Virtues, Institutions, and Communities. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

——, ed. 1998 The Essential Communitarian Reader. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefeld.

GLENDON, MARY ANN 1991 Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. New York: Free Press.

SANDEL, MICHAEL J. 1996 Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

SMITH, ROGERS M. 1997 Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

SUNSTEIN, CASS R. 1999 One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism and the Supreme Court. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

TAM, HENRY BENEDICT 1998 Communitarianism: A New Agenda for Politics and Citizenship. New York: New York University Press.

TUSHNET, MARK V. 1999 Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
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Communitarianism

Copyright © 2000 by Macmillan Reference USA

Wal-Mart plans to put RFID in clothing, by Katherine Albrecht

From our friend Darren:

From: Katherine Albrecht
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:48:19 -0400

URGENT ALERT: WAL-MART TO BEGIN ITEM-LEVEL TAGGING CLOTHING WITH RFID YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! PLEASE JOIN US IN OPPOSING WAL-MART'S RFID PLANS

Dear CASPIAN Members and Supporters,

Today the Wall Street Journal broke an enormous story: Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has declared war on our privacy. The giant retailer has announced it will begin placing item-level RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tracking tags on clothing sold in its stores.

THIS IS HUGE NEWS. It is the first step to the planned roll-out of the Internet of Things, where global corporations like IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart's technology partner NCR plan to equip every product with a tracking device and use a network of RFID readers to monitor and observe YOU everywhere you go. It is the frightening world detailed in our book "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," and it is finally coming to
pass.

Unless we stop it, Wal-Mart's roll-out is scheduled to begin next month.

Here is the Wall Street Journal article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704421304575383213061198090.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

And here is a WSJ poll where you can make your views known (today only):
http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/question-day-229/topics/do-you-have-privacy-concerns

As you know, RFID is a powerful tracking technology that raises unprecedented privacy concerns. Wal-Mart's plan does more than just threaten our privacy -- it is poised to become a direct threat to our
freedom and civil liberties, as I will describe in future emails.

It is imperative that we immediately act to oppose Wal-Mart's RFID rollout. I have placed calls and given Wal-Mart an opportunity to respond, but as of this afternoon, Wal-Mart corporate executives and
media representatives have not returned my calls.

In the meantime, we are formulating a response to Wal-Mart's plans that will protect consumers. I will keep you posted on this breaking story.

In freedom,

Katherine Albrecht, Ed.D.
Founder and Director of CASPIAN Consumer Privacy
Co-Author of Spychips
www.KatherineAlbrecht.com // www.spychips.com // www.antichips.com

==============================

=======================================
ABOUT CASPIAN

CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) is a grass-roots consumer group fighting retail surveillance schemes since 1999 and irresponsible RFID use since 2002. With thousands of members in all 50 U.S. states and over 30 countries worldwide, CASPIAN seeks to educate consumers about marketing strategies that invade their
privacy and encourage privacy-conscious shopping habits across the retail spectrum.

http://www.spychips.com/
http://www.antichips.com/
http://www.nocards.org/

You're welcome to duplicate and distribute this message to others who may find it of interest.

Very related article: http://www.activistpost.com/2010/07/ten-ways-we-are-being-tracked-traced.html

Soft Communitarian Approaches to the Future of World Order

Where did the Bill Clintons, the George Bushes, David Cameron and President Obama get their ideas for changing the world? Is Cameron bringing communitarian fascism to Obama like a Larouchie claims? Where did this movement toward global governance start? Who is exporting the communitarian philosophy to the world? What is the basis for "local control?" The answers to these questions are at the ACL, and I think it's time I wrote another introductory tutorial to the Plan. I don't think I need to title it "What Plan?" any longer.

Philip Blond is but the latest neo guru to arrive on the global farce stage. How can anyone write about the roots of communitarianism while leaving out any reference to the Zionist communitarian guru? Yes, the Fabian Society is a major player in the movement toward rebuilding the world, and the communitarian guru was weaned on it. Yes, Distributivism plays a role in shaping the communitarian theory. But if we ignore the Zionist aspects (including Etzioni's name) we miss the mystical religious basis for EU Talmudic Communitarian Free Trade law and we never even get close to exploring the communitarian war on terror.

Here's what/who the U.S Pentagon cites in Daily Briefings:

The Communitarian Approach to International Relations and the Future World Order, 2005, by Richard Falk, Princeton University, University of California-Santa Barbara

This article comments on Amitai Etzioni’s advocacy of “soft communitarianism” as the preferred approach to the establishment of a global governance architecture responsive to the current range of world order challenges facing the world and the United States. The article criticizes the effort to combine an insider discussion of American foreign policy with the presentation of a framework for ethical problem solving that has the potential for acceptance throughout the world. A related criticism is the degree to which the foreign policy agenda is discussed in the terms within which it has arisen in Washington, giving the communitarian approach a discrediting nationalistic tilt.

Here's Cameron's "new" Big Society idea as it was presented in 1998 by the experts in Israel:

The core idea presented in this paper is a model of the economic system that seeks a larger role for the domestic economy vis-a-vis the money economy. It is argued that labor applied in the domestic economy can add value in ways that can have a significant impact on the standards and quality of life for the poor. Cooperative self-help principles applied to families and friendship groups are the mechanism for mobilizing the domestic economy's forces of production with the mainstream cooperatives directing their existing member relations and member education facilities to act as promoters and facilitators of the idea. The strategy is presented as an alternative to the employment creation-oriented anti-poverty policies favored in the West. The author claims that the re-establishing of well-being and autonomy within the domestic economy will reduce pressure for jobs in the labor market particularly for marginal employment. This reduction in pressure for jobs will feed through to improve the relative balance of market power towards labor and at the same time take pressure off the national exchequers struggling with subsidizing the low wage-benefit supported labor market of the 1990s. The whole paper is presented as a speculation that is worth further consideration and research in the absence of viable alternatives to the present failed anti-poverty programs.

Responding to Poverty: Communitarian Solutions through Cooperative Facilitation of Primary Associations,"Davis, Peter, 1998, Journal of Rural Cooperation, Hebrew University, Center for Agricultural Economic Research, vol. 26. http://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/jlorco/62058.html

Sorry LaRouche. Cameron isn't exporting communitarianism to the U.S. It's been here for over a decade.

"Her Majesty's government has just launched its plan for implementing 'Fascism with a Democratic Face' throughout Great Britain. But beware: it is also coming to the United States. British Prime Minister David Cameron announced this as his "Big Society" policy at a conference in Liverpool, where he declared, "The Big Society is about liberation — the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man in the street." Behind this rhetoric Cameron outlined a plan for local control, on the communitarian fascist model, of local services which have hitherto been controlled by local, city and national governments, including schools, fire departments, transportation, museums, etc." Cameron bringing communitarian fascism to Obama

Big Mother's Vague Big Society has a Big Bad Bank

Huge thanks to Darren for sending us the link to Alan Watt's July 15 radio show about communitarianism and where I found this link! Cameron sure didn't waste any time, did he? Wow. How relevant does this make my article in the UK Column? (Thanks to Lark for sending the link!)

Nice to see the UK Telegraph cites a poll that backs up my main concern and explains my contempt for the whole cultural makeover these boys have planned. I think their one out of three is stretching it, but we all agree it's an undeniable fact that 2 out of 3 people still do not know anything about how far our social evolution has progressed. How many people can grasp the MERGER of libertarianism and communism? How many people are in the "club?"

David Cameron launches his Big Society

EXCERPT with emphasis added:

During the election campaign, Mr Cameron faced accusations, including from senior figures from within his own party, that the Big Society concept was too vague and intangible to attract voters. Polls showed that two out of three voters had not even heard of it.

But Mr Cameron hopes that putting flesh on the bones of his vision will persuade critics that it can be shared by millions of ordinary Britons who care about their community and are tired of having so many aspects of their life dictated from the centre.

He will say: “The Big Society is about a huge culture change, where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace, don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.

“We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.”

The four pioneer communities will be helped by dedicated civil servants who will give expert advice if they encounter legal problems or bureaucratic obstacles.

Officials will also identify local residents with a particular aptitude for taking part in Big Society projects – they will then receive training to become community organisers, motivating their neighbours to take part in action schemes.

They will also be able to draw on the Big Society Bank, which, Mr Cameron promised, would use “every penny of dormant bank and building society account money” to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/7897445/David-Cameron-launches-his-Big-Society.html

Now England has a Community Revenue Sharing Program just like Alaska and Kenny Lake! What a coinkydink. I wonder if the same "club" in Britain will be the "expert motivators" as the oh so WISE ones in our little enlightened neighborhood.

Alan Watt is a poet too! I love this bit, and I haven't even heard it yet! Hoping for a good enough connection to download it.

Alan Watt "Cutting Through The Matrix" LIVE on RBN:

New World Order -- Communitarianism:
Hundreds of Years in the Making,
Now Your Wealth They're Taking:

"Communitarianism, We're Told's the Plan We're On,
Individual Liberty and Choice to be Dead and Gone,
It's All Under the Guise of Sustainable Living,
The U.N.'s the Boss, So Get Used to Giving,
Taxed till You're Destitute, You Poor Old Soul,
To Build Factories in China, Guzzling Up Coal,
To India too, We Redistribute Our Wealth,
As We're Told to Go Vegan, Good for the Health,
Yet We Must Cut Back, Too Much Consumption,
We Should Nip this in Bud, If We've the Gumption,
Are We so Stupid We'll Pay Taxes for Breathing?
We've Already Lost Homes, the Banks are Seizing,
Stop the Madness Because it Grows, You See,
Carbon, Energy, Food Taxes, it'll Endless Be,
Masters, Minions Worked Up to Age Aquarian,
For "Big Idea," New Governance, Communitarian"
***Dialogue Copyrighted Alan Watt - July 15, 2010 (Exempting Music, Literary Quotes, and Callers' Comments)

***LISTEN / DOWNLOAD [about 10.6MB in size]


Topics of show covered in following links:

Ontario Eco-Fee (Tax) is Illegal

Enviro fees by Product Stewardship

The "Who Are We" of Above

"Our" Common Community--Implementation of Communitarianism in US and Britain

One of the Communitarian Sites--"The Big Society"

UN Gives Billions of Pounds of "Rich" Countries' Money to Energy Giants Companies to Build

Coal Fired Power Plants in China and India

Napa County Debates Communitarian Libertarian Communism

What is autonomous collectivism? What is Libertarian Communism? Is there a philosophy that combines both political theories into one perfect solution? Yes. It's called communitarianism.

The following letters were published in Napa Valley Register, California.

Sustainable nightmare to plague Napa County

By Kevin Eggers | Posted: Sunday, July 11, 2010 12:00 am Napa Valley Register

It’s been over three years since Napa County Supervisor Bill Dodd told me Agenda 21 was the plan for Napa County. Agenda 21 is the blueprint for implementing the United Nations (U.N.) Sustainable Development goals for “Economy, Equity and Environment.” These U.N. goals are in the Napa County General Plan. The U.N. continues to sell Agenda 21 as a sustainable utopian dream for Earth’s future, but Agenda 21 will be a sustainable nightmare for Napa County.

When I researched U.N. Agenda 21’s website and read related documents and articles in 2006, it was obvious the laws and regulations to meet Agenda 21’s international requirements were going to gradually smother our freedoms. Thinking I was doing the right thing, I hand-delivered Michael Shaw’s “Understanding Sustainable Development (Agenda 2l): A Guide for Public Officials” to Supervisor Dodd’s office in October 2006. Shaw was a member of the Agenda 21 bureaucracy in Santa Cruz, and described the scope of sustainable development in his guide. I was warning Dodd because we were already conversing about stopping Measure I. Dodd wasn’t in his office when I arrived, but Shaw’s guide was left on Dodd’s desk with a note from me. The next morning when Dodd called, I was shocked when he told me Agenda 21 was already the plan for Napa County. Until Dodd told me, I had no idea Agenda 21 existed in Napa County. Since then, I’ve done more research and learned from citizens exposing Agenda 21 in other communities.

I recently visited Niki Raapana, an expert on communitarianism, who has collected over 10,000 documents relating to communitarianism and Agenda 21. Communitarianism is the collectivist philosophy behind most of our government’s policies, including Agenda 21. While discussing how the health care bill passed, former president Bill Clinton said on ABC News that America is “more communitarian” than in 1994.

Communitarianism calls for “balancing the rights of the individual with the rights of the community.” Public officials decide what “community rights” are, which are really their goals. By convincing citizens, “we’re doing it for the community,” public officials believe they can balance away our constitutionally protected rights (through laws and regulations) to accomplish their goals. Raapana became aware of Communitarianism when Seattle officials were telling Raapana that America had “evolved” and her Fourth Amendment rights had been balanced against the rights of the community. Napa County’s General Plan also calls for balancing “the rights of the individual with those of the community.”

Agenda 21 is rarely called Agenda 21 and is usually called some kind of “community vision for the future” — they want citizens to believe their community plan was developed within their own community, not from U.N. guidelines. When Raapana confronted Seattle officials in 1999, she was labeled a “conspiracy theorist” for suggesting Seattle’s plan was U.N. Local Agenda 21. Originally denying it, now Seattle City Council member Margaret Pageler (who Raapana confronted in 1999) states on her website how Seattle’s plan “parallels Local Agenda 21.”

The Spokane Patriots (The Action-Driven Tea Party) discovered Agenda 21 in their city. The Spokane Patriots went through the legal process and are obtaining the nessessary signatures to get U.N.-connected organizations (and U.N. directives) on the ballot in November, to vote them out. This hasn’t deterred Spokane’s City Council that voted June 28 to adopt “sustainable development” as Spokane’s goal for the future.

Rosa Koire, a Santa Rosa resident, is a Democrat whose partner Kay was president of the largest neighborhood association in Santa Rosa. Koire discovered firsthand how government-sponsored “neighborhood associations” are being used to “create the illusion of community buy-in.” According to Koire, “The government wants citizen buy-in, but they actually manage it by creating their own government-sponsored neighborhood associations and then manufacture consent.”

Raapana also discovered how neighborhood associations “rule the community by consensus.”

Do neighborhood associations influence Napa’s consensus? Are they connected to Agenda 21? According to the Village Napa website, Napa City council member Peter Mott helped form a coordinating committee called Association of Napa Neighborhoods, which is “to assist and mutually coordinate neighborhood associations.” Village Napa describes how to organize your neighborhood. Village Napa also boasts how Cuba is the only country to meet the “minimum standards” for “sustainable development” and how Cuba is a “model of sustainability for the rest of the world.”

What freedom do Cubans have in their “model of sustainability?” According to Wikipedia, Cuba is guided by the ideas of “ ... Marx, Engels and Lenin.” Cuba’s constitution describes the Communist Party of Cuba as the “leading force of society and the state.” Cuba has a “state-controlled planned economy.” Cuba’s government “represses nearly all forms of dissent” and systematically denies nearly every “basic right.” Are these the lofty goals of Napa County’s Agenda 21 Sustainable Development plan?

Significant websites: Rosa Koire: www.santarosaneighborhoodcoalition.com; Niki Raapana: www.nord.twu.net/acl; Michael Shaw: www.freedomadvocates.org; and Spokane Patriots: www.spokanepatriots.com.

(Eggers lives in Napa.)

After months of emails and phone calls, Kevin and his wife came to visit me this past May. It was a short visit and all we did was talk. He told me he uses our book, 2020: Our Common Destiny in his speeches and presentations about UN Local Agenda 21 in Napa County, California. He brings copies of Etzioni's book and ours to show there are two underlying opposing arguments. He tries to make it clear that communitarianism is not the perfect solution to the conflict between the left and the right. He shows there is well referenced opposition.

When Marx said the final solution to all the Hegelian conflicts would be so perfect it gives rise to no opposition, he meant all opposition would be silenced. Our ACL arguments against the perfect solution prove it is not perfect, and that is why our arguments can never enter the (non-existent) national debates. That Kevin has managed to introduce the core opposition issue to Napa County is nothing short of a miracle. Of course it's possible most residents who read the Napa Valley Register have had no training or education in logic or critical thinking; this will make it somewhat difficult for them to identify fallacious reasoning. But, Americans can still see b.s. if they take the time to absorb the communitarian arguments for "community government."

This response to Egger's letter to the editor is a perfect example of how communitarians think. It's also revealing that the Napa Valley Register labeled the response an "alternative approach to communitarianism," when in fact the letter perfectly describes the communitarian synthesis!

The bottom line here is the communitarians think Americans are so stupid they will fall for this:

An alternative approach to communitarianism
"This model combines elements of the libertarian and communist philosophy."

By Alex Shantz | Posted: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 Napa Valley Register

On July 11, Kevin Eggers wrote a scathing article against communitarianism entitled “Sustainable nightmare to plague Napa County.”

Eggers states that communitarianism is a philosophy whereby individual rights are balanced with community rights. He then goes on to claim that “public officials decide what ‘community rights’ are.” It is presumed that under communitarianism (or likely any collective situation according to Eggers), community rights are determined by public officials rather than the people. This isn’t necessarily the case.

Allow me to put forth an alternative model. People gather collectively and autonomously, independent from any public official, to form their own associations. The people within these associations can structure their associations however they want. Perhaps some associations will have a voting system to elect leaders to make decisions. Perhaps some associations will have people vote on every decision made. Perhaps other associations will be entirely consensus based.

The functions of these associations would be to facilitate the process whereby people’s needs are met, conflicts are resolved and resources are combined and allocated.

This model combines elements of the libertarian and communist philosophy. It is libertarian in the sense that this model is radically decentralized.

The state would be entirely eliminated from the picture. Communities would be truly localized and entirely autonomous. However, this model would also be communist insofar as it would be a stateless and classless situation in which every individual would have equal say within the decision-making process.

The libertarian element would ensure that individual needs and desires are not overlooked by valuing autonomy while the communist element would offer a support system to alleviate certain burdens from the individual. This model could be described as libertarian communism or even anarcho-collectivism. {link added by niki}

Most importantly, and to dispute Eggers’ point, this model would necessitate the people determine the rights of the community rather then public officials.

While sustainability practices limit the individual freedoms in places like Cuba or Europe, it is not the philosophy of sustainability that is at fault, but the big government which oppresses the people.

Agenda 21 is merely an advisory plan, not a blueprint to Cuban-style statism. Need I add that there are thousands of people in Napa Valley that would fight to prevent a dictatorship from occurring in our cities?

To end on a personal note: in many regards I wish to see the Tea Party as allies. Their rhetoric claims to critique tyrannical government. However, they are inconsistent in terms of applying their critique of tyranny to corporations. Furthermore, their rugged individualist ideal undermines any notion of community.

A new generation is rising up. This generation is calling for an end to the tyranny of government and corporations while emphasizing the need for autonomous collectivism.

(Shantz lives in Napa.)

Notice Shantz uses ZERO references in his rebuttal letter, whereas Eggers gives numerous citations. Readers are to believe Shantz because...... well... just because.

Communitarians loosely base their autonomous collectivism on British/Dutch Imperialism, Fascism, Nazism, Marxism, Kibbutzim, the Kaballah, Gaia, Dagon, the Talmud and Christianity. They always insist America's rugged individualism is the big barrier to global communitarian peace and justice. But "rugged individualism" is just a replacement term for the U.S. Bill of Rights, which defines the LEGAL rights of individuals. Communitarian plans, programs, policies and Executive Orders change US Rule of Law into Global Communitarian Law.

Shantz does tell the truth about how communitarianism combines elements of libertarianism and communism. For this he could have cited numerous communitarian books by A. Etzioni and his followers. Hell, he could have cited our Anti Communitarian Manifesto to prove this point.

Shantz's biggest lie about communitarianism and LA21: "People gather collectively and autonomously, independent from any public official, to form their own associations. " There is absolutely zero evidence that one neighborhood meeting in the USA that planned a vision for the community's future based on sustainable development and LA21 was not started by communitarian agents for change. Most Americans still do not even know these meetings are taking place. This is nation taking by stealth and lies, and the less people know about it the better the comms' chances for successfully merging the United Soviet States of Russia & America with Cuba, China, the EU, the UK and Israel. LA 21 Plans exist for every nation in the world.

Notice Shantz never once addresses the fact that if sustainable development and LA21 were legitimate plans then the American people would have been asked to vote on adopting such dramatic and unconstitutional changes. Instead, because it's a total lie, these plans were introduced and passed across America by little groups of communitarians like Shantz.

Shantz claims, exactly like the theory of communism does, that once everyone agrees to adopt their noble collectivist principles, "The state would be entirely eliminated from the picture." Did anyone notice the Russians or the Chinese eliminating the State from the picture, even after they eliminated all the opposition? When did Castro hand over his power to the "people?" Did anyone notice how many "former" KGB agents and Chinese police chiefs are training American police in communitarian policing these days?

Why didn't Shantz use what communism did for Cambodia in the 1970s as an example?

Where is there one shred of evidence that communist leaders eliminate their state power once they gain power? They don't. It doesn't exist. But gee, maybe... since millions already fell for that lie... and the rest were shot... millions more will keep falling for it. Right Shantz?

My depressing vision for the future

Nolan and Nordica

please don't shoot the messenger!

Finally got to spend a few days with my son while he was home on leave. It's been years since I had both my children under my roof; I felt very blessed and grateful that I'm not dead yet. It's the first time he's been around our lifestyle and he seemed to really like our gertees. We ate, talked music, movies, politics (but not communitarian war), books, played spades, shot pool and this mother of a US Marine was sure happy to see her boy can shoot. It was also good to hear a bit about what his deployment was like, where he was and how he lived over there. Said my gertee camp is nicer than theirs was. He was in a rural, undeveloped, poor area where the conditions are primitive and the biggest threat is the road bombs. I found myself wanting to believe the role he plays there is as a peacekeeper... it would be so much easier on me.

He hasn't had time to read the books I sent to him, but before he left he commented, like so many people I know I have said to me, that my vision for America's future sure is depressing. "It's not my vision," I told him, "it's Etzioni's." Etzioni just knows how to make it sound better.

10 foot pvc gertee's new set-up in backyard

I'm disappearing..... :)

Is Communitarianism the "new normal?"

It's been a while since I spent the time looking through the search returns for communitarianism. Now that I've gone back to it I'm finding more people who are under the impression that the term defines a grass roots movement of real people doing real good things for their communities. Now when Americans pull together and take the initiative, it's called communitarianism. Why? Who among us labels our actions with a legal term most people cannot define or pronounce?

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2010/06/the-new-normal-a-communitarian-moment/

Spent - America After Consumerism by A.Etzioni 6/17/2009

Just found this article Etzioni wrote last summer about how Americans should be forced to replace their consumer culture with a communitarian culture. The New Republic features Will Galston (a prominent communitarian during the Clinton years). The comments are priceless.

http://www.tnr.com/article/spent?id=80661c9c-9c63-4c9e-a293-6888fc845351

Nose-picking Prevention: A Responsive Communitarian Approach (Part 1), by Amitai Etzioni

Like the War Against Smoking, the global War on Obesity is another perfect example of the Hegelian dialectic in action. We are entering the final stage of all the "conflicts." The solution is forthcoming. This is the decade leading up to 2020, the UN's target year for full implementation of their global communitarian system. We are deemed ready to be introduced to the global communitarian solution to obesity, by none other than the communitarian guru himself.

The fight against overeating was started by communists in the UN in 2004 and carried into the US by communitarians on the right and the left. This is but one of many identified human behaviors that threaten the health and well being of the community. It most often comes under the heading "epidemic."

In 2004 the US (under Bush) stalled UN plans to fight obesity. In 2005, the United Nations again called the "worldwide overweight and obesity problem staggering." By 2006, the US joined the fight and called it a war. In 2007 Bush endorsed it too.

As with all communitarian wars on objects and diseases, the actual targets are the people who use the objects or have the disease. Under communitarian moral guidance, our leaders are taught the people afflicted with diseases are bad people who caused their disease. Those afflicted with the identified diseases are to be required to follow the government's cure. And not surprising in the least is government reports/recommended recovery programs never say or reveal how many of these diseases were all historically cured/prevented by ingesting Hemp.

“The real tragedy is that overweight and obesity, and their related chronic diseases, are largely preventable,” WHO Director of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion Robert Beaglehole said. “Approximately 80 per cent of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, and 40 per cent of cancer could be avoided through healthy diet, regular physical activity and avoidance of tobacco use.”

Alaska is not free. It follows UN mandates for change, like every other state in the union. Obesity became an issue in Alaska in 2005, the same exact way it did all over the country. In 2006 we included a bit about the Anchorage Mayor's Task Force on Obesity in Chapter Six of our book, 2020: Our Common Destiny.

By now, all Americans may sense it or have a vague idea of the vast changes coming down the DC pike. Soon we will all feel the wake-up pinch and clearly see that any behaviors identified as unhealthy come under the authority of the global community/communitarian government. Obesity, smoking, self medication and non-athletic lifestyles all hinder global peace and happiness. Compliant people are contented people; non-compliant people don't exist.

No kidding. If we are to become as healthy and smart as the Chinese, we too must be willing to change our attitudes, values, norms and laws. In order to build a more perfect world, our governments must all be granted the higher power to force healthy lifestyle changes on the people who refuse to change. Never forget that global Community Assets (ABCD) cannot be counted or utilized as community assets if they are unfit for community service.

"Changes in norms" is a sociologist phrase which I have found more often lately means changes to the domestic laws governing states in the European Union and in all UN member nations. Etzioni's homeland of Israel is but one example of how these domestic changes in norms happen.

In this paragraph (taken from Etzioni's article re-posted below),

"By and large, a communitarian would look favorably on relying on norms and informal social controls, rather than on coercion and pressures, to foster behavior change. Changes in norms lead to changes in preferences, which lead to voluntary compliance and content individuals. By contrast, coercive and economic inducements at best leave a residue of alienation and at worst promote the search for ways to persist in the preferred behavior and still avoid the penalties or gain the rewards. The great success of preventing smoking in public and encouraging people to pick up after their dogs are notable cases-in-point of changing behavioral norms."

Etzioni and his team try to explain how changes in norms lead to changes in preferences. They claim to think norms and informal social controls lead to voluntary compliance and content individuals. But one of the two examples they provide for their soft communitarian approach is the great success of laws forbidding smoking in public. How can new laws with new enforcement power over individuals and business owners be described as not being coercion? (And how can laws that shut down half the pubs in England be termed a great success?)

We have almost completely evolved into a global communitarian system. Government agents, medical experts and community police teamed with concerned citizens forbidding certain behaviors, telling people what they can eat, grow, and sell, is standard now. These are all perfectly normal actions in countries where citizens live by communitarian standards and norms. Yes, in some countries there are still numerous legal barriers prohibiting these kinds of government intrusions, but as all communitarians know, sometimes the law gets in the way.

When did your neighbor's diet become any of you/your government's business? When did you gain the power to tell your neighbor what he can eat and drink? Was it when you gained the power to tell him how short to mow his grass and how many cars he could park in his yard? Was it when yelling at our children, singing or screaming during sex became a jail-able offense against the "community?" Or was it when we were told experts know better than real people how real people should live? What's next on our moral communitarian list of things to "shore-up?" Chewing with your mouth open or burping?

Is the obesity epidemic as compelling as what happened on 9/11? Do we need a new version of the Patriot Act that includes wiretapping of refrigerators, mandatory weight checks in the grocery line and food emission surveillance because of the potential for serious danger from farts, sugar and processed foods? We could call it the Toilet Act. (In rural Alaska it would become the OutHouse Act.) I'm serious. How soon before we have a War on Nose-picking?

Obesity Prevention: A Responsive Communitarian Approach (Part 1)

July 1st, 2010
by Amitai Etzioni
http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2010/07/01/obesity-prevention-a-responsive-communitarian-approach-part-1/

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a two-part post by Amitai Etzioni examining the nation’s anti-obesity policies through the lens of a responsive communitarian philosophy. Today, Etzioni lays out a responsive communitarian framework and uses it to diagnose the problems with our current methods of fighting obesity. Tomorrow, Etzioni describes how these current policies should be refocused. Julia Milton contributed research assistance to this post.

For more on obesity, see the March issue of Health Affairs, a thematic volume on child obesity.

The problem and suggested treatments. Obesity is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a condition in which a person has a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher (having a BMI between 25 and 30 is classified as overweight). Thirty-four percent of American adults qualified as obese in 2006, according to the CDC, more than double the 1980 rate of 15 percent. Two-thirds of Americans are obese or overweight.

To treat this “obesity epidemic,” health experts and elected official have focused on the promotion of “lifestyle” changes, in particular encouraging people to take in fewer calories (mainly by dieting) and burn off more (by increased exercising). Some policies have focused on education and sharing information, including media campaigns, warnings from the public health authorities and medical professionals, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity, and state and local nutritional labeling requirements for restaurants and stores. The 2010 health care bill will soon require all restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to display nutritional information on their menus.

Some policies go further. Various public agencies and private corporations have introduced measures that seek to provide financial incentives to those who reduce their weight, and to levy penalties on those who do not. Companies such as Safeway that run their own insurance programs grant up to 20 percent reductions in premiums as “bonuses” to employees who meet certain health standards, which include having what is considered a healthy BMI. The Indiana-based company Clarian Health charges employees $5 per paycheck for health standards they fail to meet ($5 for having a BMI over 30, $5 for high cholesterol, etc.).

Alabama penalizes obese state workers through increased health insurance premiums, and North Carolina does it through moving obese employees to health care plans that cover less of their costs. (For an overview of employers’ and employees’ attitudes towards obesity-prevention programs, see Jon Gabel and coauthors’ “Obesity and the Workplace: Current Programs and Attitudes Among Employers and Employees,” in Health Affairs.)

Still other policies feed into and magnify social norms that are critical of people who are obese and favorable toward those who are not.

Criteria for assessment: a responsive communitarian approach. A responsive communitarian approach to assessing obesity reduction policies falls between two extreme positions. At one extreme is a radical libertarian position that allows only the sharing of information. From this perspective, people who are obese damage themselves. If they prefer to ignore the relevant health information, even if this leads to a shorter and less healthy life, that is their problem, not the government’s.

If one points to the public costs of obesity, especially to the health care costs not absorbed by the individuals involved, a libertarian approach suggests that that we should eliminate public health insurance and allow insurance companies to charge different rates, so that the costs of one person’s obesity will not be imposed on others.

At the opposite extreme is authoritarian communitarianism of the kind found in East Asian societies like Singapore and Malaysia. It fully supports a whole array of incentives, disincentives, social pressures, and even coercive measures. According to this kind of communitarianism, obese people impose heavy costs on the community, and hence it is legitimate to induce them to reduce these costs.

The intermediary position of responsive communitarianism takes as its starting point that we face two major normative claims—that of autonomy and that of the social good—and that neither a priori trumps the other. We hence need to find criteria that will help determine when public policy should tilt in one direction or the other.

The example of privacy protection. To briefly illustrate this approach, I draw on a public policy domain other than public health—that of privacy protection. Libertarians tend to hold that privacy is sacrosanct. If there are conditions in which it can be set aside, the burden of proof is on those who seek to so act, say, for the sake of national security. Authoritarian communitarians hold that the common good requires surveillance and insists the burden of proof is on those who hold that there are areas in which privacy should prevail.

A responsive communitarian suggests that, given that both privacy and public safety have a strong normative standing, we must find ways to determine which should take precedent under what conditions. Because changing public policies, individual habits, and norms as a rule have considerable human, economic, and political costs, changes should be introduced only if there are compelling reasons. and the status quo is sufficiently damaging. The 2001 attack on the American homeland met this criterion. Whether or not the rise in obesity also does is explored below.

A second criterion is to determine the relative costs to one core element of a good society imposed by enhancing the other. Thus, a minor intrusion into privacy for the sake of great gains in security can be much more readily justified than major intrusions into privacy for the sake of minor security gains. We shall see that this criterion greatly helps in assessing drives to curb obesity.

Combining these two criteria suggests the merit of an autonomy/social good index. The best score on such an index would be accorded to policies that promote a great deal of social good while generating little to no intrusion, and the lowest score to policies with the opposite profile.

A third criterion is derived from a key sociological observation that many interventions have antagonistic side effects. The extent to which these side effects can be ameliorated impacts the standing of the policies at issue. For instance, in assessing the merit of fostering HIV testing, which has personal and public merit, the question is to what extent the confidentially of the results (that is, privacy) is protected to prevent loss of jobs and insurance and other antagonistic side effects. A similar challenge, we shall see, is faced by obesity reduction policies.

Is rising obesity a significant problem? (Criterion I). In the case of obesity, a relatively strong case has been made that it leads to serious health risks. Obesity is associated with increased risk of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, high cholesterol, liver and gallbladder disease, endocrine disorders, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis, as well as kidney disease and diabetes. It has been demonstrated to decrease life expectancy by approximately five to seven years.

Obesity also generates considerable public costs. In 2006, U.S. medical spending on obese people exceeded spending on their not obese counterparts by $1,429, or 42 percent, and obesity-related medical spending reached as much as $147 billion a year in 2008. In 2006, treatment for obesity-related conditions accounted for 8.5 percent of Medicare spending and 11.8 of Medicaid spending. By 2030, obesity-related health care costs could range from $860 billion to $956 billion annually.

In short, the overwhelming consensus is that obesity is a serious and rising problem. By this criterion, a major public policy drive to curb obesity is fully justified.

The intrusion/social good balance (Criterion II). The fact that there is a major problem by itself provides only a partial justification for intervention. The next question that responsive communitarians must face is the extent of intrusion compared to the benefits gained. It turns out that as far as obesity is concerned, major interventions that focus on changing lifestyles generate rather limited benefits. Robust data leave little doubt that most people are unable to lose significant amounts of weight and maintain the loss.

Moreover, a very large number of discussions about the value of lower body mass conflate data about benefits of “naturally” low (pre-dieting) BMI — about which there is much data — with the benefits of lowering one’s BMI. It is much less clear that those relative few who significantly lower their body mass and keep it low gain the same benefits that ‘naturally’ lower body mass confers. There are data which show that even relatively small weight losses are highly beneficial for those at risk for or afflicted with type 2 diabetes, but the correlation between other illnesses and BMI is often less clear and more complicated because various intermediary variables are involved.

While the gains to personal and social good are limited, the intrusion is considerable. However, this intrusion is not due to strong government interventions of the kind found in other areas (for instance, polices that outright ban smoking in public spaces). Intrusion here results from social pressures on obese people and discrimination against them, which inadvertently are fueled by obesity reduction public health campaigns, and from the great efforts required by the individuals involved — and the professionals who seek to counsel them — to change their lifestyles. Not only do most fail after considerable effort and expenditure, but maintaining a healthy body mass for those whose “set” mass is higher is a lifelong struggle.

The high level of effort required stands out when it is compared to other changes that also promote health, such as reducing consumption of salt and red meat, and increasing sunscreen use and medication compliance. In addition, there are economic costs. Americans spend $40 billion per year on weight loss programs and products. And health care professionals spend some of their scarce time on weight counseling.

In short, by this criterion the obesity reduction policies under consideration score rather unfavorably. We shall see that this observation does not lead one to suggest that these policies should be abandoned, but only that they should be greatly refocused.

Side effects: do no harm (Criterion III). Obesity reduction policies that focus on reducing caloric intake are particularly problematic because as a side effect, they often generate behaviors that have ill effects on a significant number of the people involved. There is relatively little data on the subject, arguably because the suggestion that dieting causes harm flies in the face of the preoccupation with urging people to lose weight. Data that are available do show that many people, especially women and girls, engage in various unhealthy behaviors in order to lose weight, including following unhealthy fad diets and abusing laxatives, or taking dangerous medications such as “phen-fen.” People who yo-yo diet, a behavior in which they lose weight and regain it several times over, are subject to increased risks for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gallbladder disease, and other health problems.

Eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder may not be directly caused by cultural pressures to lower one’s BMI, but they seem to occur much more frequently in societies and periods in which lower body mass is strongly promoted. In addition, psychological factors should be considered. These include lower self esteem, guilt, and a higher risk for clinical depression which are unwittingly propelled by the obesity reduction campaigns.

In addition, obesity reduction campaigns feed into the stigmatization of and discrimination against people with a high body mass. By and large, a communitarian would look favorably on relying on norms and informal social controls, rather than on coercion and pressures, to foster behavior change. Changes in norms lead to changes in preferences, which lead to voluntary compliance and content individuals. By contrast, coercive and economic inducements at best leave a residue of alienation and at worst promote the search for ways to persist in the preferred behavior and still avoid the penalties or gain the rewards. The great success of preventing smoking in public and encouraging people to pick up after their dogs are notable cases-in-point of changing behavioral norms.

In the case of obesity, however, the norm is already quite powerful and the social pressures are already rather strong. Forty-three percent of overweight and obese people report that they experienced weight bias from their employers or supervisors. More than two-thirds of obese and overweight people (69 percent) report that they had experienced bias by doctors. Many obese people report that physicians often blame their symptoms on their weight, and are reluctant to treat them because of their weight. Thirty-one percent of nurses stated that they would prefer not to care for obese patients, and twenty-four percent agreed that obese patients “repulsed” them. Forty-three percent of teachers agreed with the statement that “most people feel uncomfortable when they associate with obese people.” Teachers have lower expectations for their overweight students.

In addition obesity reduction policies tend to reinforce and exacerbate the stigmatization of people with a high BMI. Obese people are viewed as “lazy, less competent, and lacking in self-discipline” by their co-workers. Overweight people earn up to six percent less than their non-overweight colleagues (which, incidentally, means that increases in their premiums will have an even greater financial impact) and get fewer promotions. There is “consistent evidence of weight discrimination at virtually every state of the employment cycle, including career counseling, selection, placement, compensation, promotion, discipline, and discharge.” If such discrimination against the obese is legitimized in the form of additional financial penalties written into insurance policies, it will only become more persistent.

Furthermore, many obesity reduction policies have a disproportionate effect on the poor and minorities. A letter to the Senate signed by 46 organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association, argued that insurance penalties would negatively impact lower-income families who need the coverage most. Such policies ignore the fact that many poor people do not have access to the resources that would enable them to make healthy lifestyle changes. Low-income neighborhoods have fewer supermarkets that carry healthy food, and the healthy food those stores do carry is stocked in smaller quantities and is of poorer quality than at stores in higher-income neighborhoods. Also, healthy food is significantly more expensive than junk food. A 2,000-calorie-per-day diet consisting entirely of junk food costs $3.52 a day, while the same number of calories in healthier food would cost $36.32 per day, according to one study.

There is no ready way to nullify these side effects. They add to the doubts raised by the ways obesity reduction policies are focused.

Is there a "balance" between the extreme positions promoted by the far right and the far left? If the far right and the far left are both tools for the dialectic, as I believe they are, how can any of the conflicts between them be valid? If the far left and the far right are not tools, as most people believe, then why do they allow themselves to be used as dialectical tools?