They weren't our parents. They never will be.

We have turned over the most precious things, and been betrayed. We have turned over our futures, our health, our trust.

We have seen business journalism, Wall Street, the health system, banks, retirement plans, market regulation, and to a degree, representative democracy fail the interests of the common citizen of the US and impact the citizens of the globe. (nod to @evangineer on Twitter)

All of these systems, however, presume that the average citizen could hand over knowledge, responsibilities, and decision-making to people we do not know who are supposed to act in our best interest all the time. So what? Most of our lives is run to some degree by people we don't know.

We haven't just delegated the fiduciary responsibility for the community to "qualified" group of technicians and experts. We have ceded any reasonable ability to watch out for our own interests to people who don't frankly care if we know what they are doing, why they are doing it, or the odds of their success. In other words, we have taken the position of children expecting some strangers to act like our parents...to forgo the standard of competition and self interest that is put forward in society at large, and exercise an altruism that only exists, perhaps, among the closest of relations in our lives.

Why? Why did we do this in the first place? Why should this system work?

We need to do a lot of things right now. Most important, is to grow up. We all need to rethink the idea that we can hand over our net worths, our prospects for the future, our security and our children's welfare to nameless, faceless people. On the evidence, they don't respect us. On the evidence, they don't care what we think.

Are we too busy to take care of our own interests? Too frightened? Too insecure? Pretty immature excuses, if you ask me. You need permission to take back what is yours? Think about it.

How do we structure a new open, fair society of short-tempered, sentimental, trusting, mildly-educated, modestly-disciplined adults? How do we create a society without heroes, saviors, know-it-alls? No one wants to have their brain operated on by someone who is a simply a good neighbor, but the medical model of expertise failed completely in the financial realm. It fails in the governance realm. The financial experts dismantled their own privelege with spectacular success, and taught us all such an expensive lesson that we cannot afford to ignore it.

What, exactly, are we still waiting for?

Rage is the lever, trust is the fulcrum.

Archimedes said that if he had a lever long enough, a fulcrum and a place to stand, he could move the world.

The rage that is sweeping the country because of the AIG scandals has made a single, very long lever out of the fragmented American will.

Do you want to move the world?

You start with a simple pledge. "I respect you as much as I respect myself, I am as good as my word and I want you to understand what I say." Call it the Truth-in-Citizenship pledge.

If you and I can make this pledge to each other, it doesn't matter what party we join or what litmus test issues we support or condemn. Before all else, we have a place to stand relative to each other. It can change. We can argue and agree, but we know where we stand, and what that means.

That is the beginning. Everything else will fall into line when people are as good as their word, want you to understand what they mean, and give you the same respect they give themselves.

What is action, and why is it taken for granted?

A recent article on the success of the Obama campaign pinpointed its ability to translate internet info into direct on-the-ground action. It was based on two basic technologies, a massive interactive strategic database, similar to a Customer Relations Management system, and constant messaging to well-organized action groups. The action groups were recruited through self-selection on the web, and moved into physical proximity, trained, and charged with making things happen.

That is what I am talking about.

In the wake of blatant, cynical exploitation of the national economy, we get finger pointing and blaming. This is a time for better plans, better ideas, to pitch their tent poles in the rubble of an overbuilt circus.

Response to a fabulous critique of corporatism tends to atomize into a vaguely civil aerosol wafting away from the real provocation of the article.

I obviously need to get to get to know my neighbors, so I can see into their rationales for keeping their decks swept while their retirements swallow their own tails, and their children become servants indentured for life to an info/military complex that puts Eisenhower's shibboleth to shame.

I will work on it. In the meantime, how the hell is anything going to change?

The corollary is that whoever takes action first, seizes the day in a manner that is much harder to undo once its done, than to do in the first place.

Laozi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Quoted from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/:

Laozi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Laozi

First published Sat Dec 15, 2001; substantive revision Sat May 5, 2007

Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism commonly name the three main pillars of traditional Chinese thought, although it should be obvious that like any “ism,” they are abstractions — what they name are not monolithic but multifaceted traditions with fuzzy boundaries and complex histories and internal divisions. “Daoism,” in particular, needs to be handled with care, for it designates both a philosophical tradition and an organized religion, which in modern Chinese are identified separately as Daojia and Daojiao, respectively.

Philosophical Daoism traces its origins to Laozi (or Lao-tzu, in the “Wade-Giles” system of transliteration), who flourished during the sixth century B.C.E., according to Chinese tradition. According to some modern scholars, however, Laozi is entirely legendary; there was never an historical Laozi. In religious Daoism, Laozi is revered as a supreme deity. The name “Laozi” is best taken to mean “Old (lao) Master (zi),” and Laozi the ancient philosopher is said to have written a short book, which has come to be called simply the Laozi. When the Laozi was recognized as a “classic”(jing) — that is, accorded “canonical” status, so to speak, on account of its profound insight and significance — it acquired a more exalted and hermeneutically instructive title, Daodejing (Tao-te ching), commonly translated as the “Classic of the Way and Virtue.” Its influence on Chinese culture is pervasive, and it reaches beyond China. Next to the Bible, the Daodejing is the most translated work in world literature. It is concerned with the Dao or “Way” and how it finds expression in “virtue” (de), especially through what the text calls “naturalness” (ziran) and “nonaction” (wuwei). These concepts, however, are open to interpretation. While some see them as proof that the Laozi is a deeply “mystical” work, others emphasize their contribution to ethics and/or political philosophy. Interpreting the Laozi demands careful hermeneutic reconstruction, which requires both analytic rigor and an informed historical imagination.

Via Tweetarosa

Stations along the Via Twitterosa

1. Look at all these people

2. These people are listening to me!

3. There aren't enough people listenting to me.

4. Why are all those people following someone named Robert Scoble?

5. I don't want to be followed by an account with no posts and no location.

6. There are more people listening to me!

7. I refuse to retweet myself, or follow Jimmie Fallon.

5. How can you tell if someone is crazy on Twitter?

6. Okay, that link to a Russian dating service that ripped off Facebook pix is not good.

7. I need more followers!

8. I don't want that guy from here following me. People from my area suck at Twitter.

9. The number of followers doesn't matter at all. I am learning a lot and meeting interesting people.

10. How does someone named Big Shoe get 10,000 followers! Damn.

11. Why doesn't that Important Person ever respond to my @tweets?

12. I must not be as clever and interesting as I thought. I still only have xx followers.

14. All the Important People on Twitter are really pricks. I am unfollowing them all.

15. Geez, my Twitalyze score just dropped. I must be doing something wrong here.

16. All twitterers need to get a life.

17. I need more followers. I will just use TweetDeck and reTweet anything interesting.

18. Dammit, my Twitalyzer score is dropping again. How can that guy in Barcelona keep it up?

19. Am I supposed to know the name "jeff Jarvis?" Do all twitterers know him, but me?

20. I hate this thing.

21. I am cancelling my account.

22. Yikes, that guy with the business column thanked me for ReTweeting him!

23. Look at all the people here.

24. These people are listening to me!