Then years ago, when I escaped from the US to Central America, I said I was transitioning from preventing bad to doing good. To me, what that meant was not a change in my job as it was already doing good. It was a change in my other activities—the things I did in my spare time to make the world a better place.

I had years of what one would call activism time.

For those of you still living in the USA, I want to point out that you seem to be asleep. That is, you seem to have given away the idea of democracy to corporations and, well, you don't even seem to notice anymore.

Let's start with an article about GMO Food Labeling. The idea appears popular (as it should) but the government (in this case, the Washington State Legislature doesn't seem excited about it. Now, this is not a bill to ban GMO products (which many think is a good idea).

A friend just sent me info about a new program with Bill Moyers. That's the good news and the information can be found at http://www.aptonline.org/catalog.nsf/vLinkTitle/MOYERS+COMPANY complete with a 30-second video blurb about it.

I always appreciated the work of Bill Moyers. Why? Not because I always agreed with his position but because he always made me think. As proof of concept the following quote appears in the 30-second blurb. "The opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice."

While I don't know who said it, it did make me think.

I moved out of the US 9 years, 11 months and 4 days ago. It was right after than 9/11 thing. You know, the one where any attempt at a serious investigation into what happened gets derailed by the government. One major thing that has happened is that I have diversified my news sources. It doesn't take too long for you to realize that big corporate media in the US (and I will include PBS and NPR in this) are there to follow the party line. That is, to show you that your position is represented even though it may not be the most popular.

Well, give me a break.

Let's start with a piece from an article at http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/is-this-a-jobs-super-committee/. It says:

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Earlier this month, some economic luminaries in the United States Congress introduced a new bill, H.R. 2835. The bill intends to “establish a joint select committee of Congress to report findings and propose legislation to restore the Nation’s workforce to full employment…”

Great idea, fellas.

The Real News Network has been conducting a series of interviews with Larry Wilkerson who was Colin Powell's Chief of Staff. Yes, it is politics but it is a lot more. For example, if you are from the start of the baby boomers or older, it will help you remember that The American Way back in the Eisenhower days had to be with the American Way for people, not multi-national corporations.

The series has multiple parts (current four with more on the way).

I have always felt that politics, particularly US politics, had little to do with reality. For example, at the national level you get a group of a few hundred mostly male, mostly white, mostly lawyers deciding what is best for the few hundred million people who pay their salaries.

Sorry about the title but I couldn't really come up with a summary. I personally hate the Left vs. Right definition of the political spectrum. It may be OK for those with an IQ similar to that of a carrot but thinking that political positions can be placed along a line is, well, dumb. For as long as I can remember, if forced to come up with a position for someone with a low IQ, I try to get them to at least see that a ring is a better representation.

When I started this site I told myself I was going to avoid "political discussions". I have almost done that. But, that doesn't mean we don't need a place for such discussions. Unfortunately, every time I go looking for such an arena I find things that are either US-centric or just full of "my party is better than your party" BS. In other words, things that don't discuss issues, just blame all the problems on "the other party".

It's been over 30 years and I am still mad at President Jimmy Carter. I finally decided I better tell him while he is still on the planet. I'm sure he reads this blog so here goes.

While it isn't totally Jimmy's fault that the U.S. never really went to the metric system (details available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States ) the real problem was that he was an honest man, not a politician. He said, probably in 1976, that the U.S. would be on the metric system by 1978. I believed him.