549: Chatting with Liam




C-Realm Podcast show

Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> KMO talks with an aspiring radio host and consciousness aficionado live in the WOOL, 91.5 FM studio. <br> <br> <br> <br> The policy priorities:<br> <br> <br> <br> If Liam had to have a political platform right now, his first draft would be like this:<br> <br> <br> <br> 1. Drastically reduce war/ "defense" spending and divert most of it to...<br> <br> <br> <br> 2. Set up "transition corps" of young people (and displaced soldiers) looking to contribute to a resilient civilization and providing access to basic services/resources in case markets fail during a capitalist collapse/transition: <br> <br> <br> <br>    Building Corps- building eco villages and sustainable urban, energy and transportation infrastructure to ensure communities have access to housing +food<br> <br> <br> <br>    Food Corps- growing (mostly) perennial based food systems and marine permaculture<br> <br> <br> <br>    Health Corps- providing a baseline level of preventative and "low hanging fruit" healthcare available to the public- including alternative and emerging therapies. Also producing various generic drugs/medicines where markets are keeping prices artificially high<br> <br> <br> <br>     Science/Teaching Corps- Performing basic research and providing support for local school systems<br> <br> <br> <br>    Art/Spirit Corps- Why the fuck not- building fun, beauty, self expression and community connectedness into our public priorities.<br> <br> <br> <br> 3. Energy: Investigate and disclose any classified energy/propulsion technologies and develop and deploy ASAP if they are indeed available. Otherwise, or in tandem, deploy recyclable and safe nuclear plants per boy genius Taylor Wilson's vision supplemented with solar, wind and geothermal - tax nonrenweable electric use beyond a certain threshold (luxury use)<br> <br> <br> <br> 4. Increase taxes by orders of magnitude or outright ban dangerous/unsustainable products like pesticides, and herbicides while providing limited exceptions for reasonable transitional uses<br> <br> <br> <br> 5. Democracy Revision: Publicly fund elections, set congressional term limits and MODERNIZE and protect political institutions from power concentration to reflect democratic will (no electoral college, senate seats are population linked, ranked choice voting, ballot initiatives, public input via social internet technologies, restructured supreme court etc)<br> <br> <br> <br> 6. Cancel MANY debts, (at least the interest portion) -at least for federal debts. Interest is a bank's profit from pulling money from thin air. They don't even risk their own money. Depriving them this profit is not an ethical dilemma for me, yet freeing people to do not be forced to earn income to pay taxes in order to pay down federal debt is a clear benefit to me.<br> <br> <br> <br> 7. Tax wealth, not just income. The power gap we have now is not closable by taxing the wealthy's income alone, they hide that too well and, regardless, income represents a fraction of their real power, we must actually tax the wealth they've accumulated.<br> <br> <br> <br> 8. Incentivize/support workers cooperatives, eco villages and community organization. Assume that most solutions will emerge from these organizations and set up conditions for them to thrive and cross pollenate their innovations and insights<br> <br> <br> <br> 9. Education: Find a new way to fund education which is not property taxes as to level the playing field of education so it doesn't disproportionately benefit the children living in wealthy districts. Set up education to focus on individual's interests instead of set curricula, (maybe even make 4th grade and up more like a college, where kids pick courses, teachers and material)- maybe ALSO make meditation as fundamental a skill as Reading, Riting and Rithmetic.