Paul Krugmans advice to Obama

Paul Krugmans advice to Obama

From Rolling Stone. By Paul Krugman via Truthout

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Back to What Obama Must Do

Wednesday 14 January 2009

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by: Paul Krugman, Rolling Stone

Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, offers advice for the new administration. (Photo: Jeff Zelevansky / Getty)

A Letter to the new president. What Obama must do.
Dear Mr. President:

Like FDR three-quarters of a century ago, you’re taking charge at a moment when all the old certainties have vanished, all the conventional wisdom been proved wrong. We’re not living in a world you or anyone else expected to see. Many presidents have to deal with crises, but very few have been forced to deal from Day One with a crisis on the scale America now faces.

-{Click on links for rest of article}

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The Whole Truth

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WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR FINDING

THE WHOLE TRUTH HERE TODAY?

{Thoughts I had that would have applied well to yesterdays Restorative Justice event as it developed}

When witnesses are sworn in, they are asked to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But if I swear to tell the whole truth, and tell my truth, giving my facts, they are still from my perspective. My facts are inherently subjective and personal. When the first witness in a courtroom is called on to tell the “whole truth”, we do not then say that is that and we are done, for we would be wrong.

We assume there is a Whole Truth; a complete representation of the facts in full context, but none of us ever truly knows it as our own. Investigators ask for as many witnesses and as much information as they can, to get a more complete picture of what happened. We do know we are here because we are hurt and we seek a means of healing.

Each of our own angles on this Whole Truth, is never more than a piece; a piece requiring other pieces to fill in the puzzle that is reality. With enough angles put together in this issue, we will arrive at some measure of comprehension. This does not mean our subjective viewpoints will not still seem true, and perhaps someone else’s, still seem wrong to us.

We cannot always easily erase our feelings and history of assumption on an instant. Some work at forgiving ourselves for not being fully open to fuller truth may be required. I might have to work at keeping my heart and mind open to someone, and their feelings, who seem not to see things as I do. I might still feel someone is not being true, but I might have to look deeper into my own soul to ever rest that case.

We are here to hear for the interest of Whole Truth, and not necessarily in having any one of us “win” at our viewpoint. One of us has been blamed by a court hearing, and is here because the rest of us believe we want a solution to the issues of the matter more than punishment. We will hear some viewpoints which may be much closer to the true story. Some might even feel they are the true story, and everyone else somehow does not understand. We are hear to build the true bridges into reality for the sake of true understanding.

I can chose to only keep my viewpoint, but that is a sure recipe for self deception. Censoring other perspectives is appealing at times. It can be hard to acknowledge having been wrong in any way. It can be hard to accept that what I thought was true, turns out to be mistaken. Most of all, it is hard to accept that the hurt I feel, does not only belong to me. Others are in pain. We all have wounds. We can pick at each others scabs, point out our lacks of perfection, look at ugliness under bandages, but why not tend to one another’s wounds? Are we here to perpetuate disease or to seek healing? To punish through pain, or to solve by love holding us into understanding?

For in some respects; we all have wounds behind us, hidden on our own back sides of life, which we may not see or be able to reach to tend. We need ask one another at times, to discover what is wrong, how bad it is, and can they or someone help us where we cannot see? We go to doctors for this very reason, but who do we go to here for this hurt? We all are here.

We can go to who is here, for we here, wanted to be here. We are here, then, for Truth and for Love. We are here to serve these Grand Things because we can extend them to one another. May we listen to Their words.

… Benafia
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Here comes the Judge?

I got a call giving me less than 24 hours to appear in Court;

If I want to!

Now I’ve never been in court. Never had a traffic ticket. (Well, 40 years ago, I did get a parking citation the time I took my first long drive to my sisters university, and had to find somewhere to park.)

I am to appear there in the courtroom chamber to judge someone.

Here is the relevant caveat; I take part in an innovative Restorative Justice program that seeks to “judge” the whole setting of a violation, and not solely the act. In this paradigm, my decision will require my own judgement as to even my impacts upon the whole of the issue.

This collaborative justice approach not only promises to include family and other victims beyond the “perpetrator”, but determine the impacts of the event and the judicial process upon all involved, including the greater community. Recidivism regarding violations is dramatically reduced in this approach, while others are taken into consideration as to the effects of judgement and violation upon themselves. This is a holistic approach addressing the whole picture of harm.

This inclusive response means; less crime in our neighborhoods; more family healing, community influence on justice; continuing accountability of violators. Now the next best news; this greatly reduces the judicial system tax burden while improving the emotional climate of our neighborhoods. A way to “win-win” over something wrong.

I’ll be in court bright and early in the morning to hear the case and come to a decision.

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Court is over, and the sentence has been rendered.

I cannot speak much about specifics and nothing regarding personal matters of the day.

The day started out very shaky, with much family anger. There seemed to be no hope for resolution, as issues and denials kept building.

We ended with complete consensus, along with the best possible outcome for this situation. It was an amazing transformation before our eyes, to see a family come together over so much of a problematic history.

The Restorative Justice response will run parallel, technically, with the regular punitive justice response. We follow the same time-lines as other verdicts, and violation will quite likely send the responsible party back into the traditional mode.
This family has many members volunteering to continue the restorative process off-line with the restorative creative process. That emerged as a particularly good outcome.

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It might take me a day or so to recuperate from all the emotional intensity of today, so no telling what I may or may not blog about.

Hurray for being there for one another, instead of just doling out punishments.

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January 2009 –from the Edge of the Nation

Cattle came by today near sundown

They left with the sun

Earlier it was cloudy and quite dark, so the lights were on late afternoon, even outside as old sol broke through.

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I had to bring my current wood project in to stain, since it did not get above 55 today. Too cold for water stain outdoors.

What project?

You know; the one to replace the desk that broke. You know if you are a mind reader.

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May I be the first to suggest that if 2009 has already grown a little old…

A Whole New Year Happy 2010!

Were moving on…

since time is relative, all moments are related.

Now is the only new. Past and future, overview.

And who said all my post must be over 1,000 words?

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What love will do

This video conveys a quality that sometimes, it seems, the poor know more.

While fear leads many separated souls to seek comfort in commodities as an insurance policy of apparent love by accumulation, others may know it is in how we stand by one another, not from fear, but from love.

It has been said that one has it all if you have your health. Well. That may depend on what we conceive health to be exactly, for if I have love and give love, I am found full were I am.

If you are alone, you are mistaken. Look to the love you have for life, not what you do not have, but what you do; this chance to change, this opportunity to care, this love stored in yourself that can shed all the lacks in life, then tap the artesian center of my own life, Love. Love demonstrates what I have by giving it. Now that is Christmas.

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Tubac Arizona before Christmas

A few photo’s from today around Tubac AZ.

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100+ year old movie of Alice in Wonderland

For some hard to decipher reason, one of my post were linked into a site with this film.

Most everyone in this film is likely gone, along with most everyone alive on earth at that time. Through the looking glass indeed.

I’ll throw in a song on the same subject from 40 something years ago for contrast.

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Live from 1969

The Jefferson Airplane seems to fake a fantasy.

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Joyriding Grasshopper. No. Really!

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Wonder where your grasshoppers go when it gets cold?  Why to Tubac Arizona for a 80+degree mid November’s afternoon party!

Be back next year.  Don’t worry.

Grasshopper.

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Yep.  There’s another grasshopper on this one too.  But where? It is on the spinner in the forefront.

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