Posted on 02/16/2005 6:15:55 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
BTTT!!!
In Educating for the New World Order by Bev Eakman, the reader finds reference upon reference for the need to preserve the illusion that there is "Lay, or community, participation in the decision-making process, while in fact lay citizens are being squeezed out."
More over here.
I'm definitely interested in this subject. Thanks for the ping.
Did someone call me?
The vision in San Diego is the same as the ruination of New York, Chicago, Detroit, L.A. and every other metropolis under the union's thumb. And the unions are all about power, not progress.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Still, I hope folks reading this thread heed the call. The game is afoot, and visioning and facilitated meetings are one way to accomplish the goal of the collectivization of our society and the elimination of private property and property rights.
People who have not previously observed such underhanded manipulative techniques are shocked that they could be duped in such a manner. Once they see it in practice, they realize that the honest person in the process doesn't stand a chance against the dishonest one.
The only solution is to teach the intended victims to recognize the scam, and to shut the process down before the cash gets into the crooks' hands.
The facilitated consensus process is even more manipulative and devious, and steals many gazillions of dollars, and untold liberties, from its victims. It is nearly impossible to inform the millions of citizens who are defrauded by NGOs, academians, and such each year.
Did you see post # 13?
Its shameful the way our own government is crushing us into high density high rise developments. The big lie is that when the goverment builds your house, your town for you, that somehow that makes it better. The truth is that our own government is pushing a soviet style culture and lifestyle on us through sustainable development and smart growth.
Private property rights are more threatened these days than ever in the history of the United States. Anyone who has studied history and knows why Americans have been so blessed knows it is because of our right to private property. When its gone, so goes freedom.
You guys need to seriously consider decaf.
Suburban sprawl sucks. It was fine in 1950, when there were barely a hundred million of us and all those nice new roads were being built, but I fail to see how bulldozing even more of the landscape to build yet another concrete wasteland studded with flimsy tract housing (built at grade on guaranteed-to-crack concrete pads by illegal immigrants) is somehow more "American" than living next door to neighbors within walking distance of both the church and the liquor store. News Flash: the "America" of suburbs and superhighways was a historical anomaly, a special situation that existed for a very brief time during the Cold War. As a result, our cities were abandoned to the gangs, and are now ringed by fringes of decaying tract-home ghettos where the white folks lived back in the '60s and '70s. And the farther out the white folks move, the bigger these fringe ghettos become...
Suburbia was invented as a way for the upper middle class in turn-of-the-century urban America to escape those funny-speaking, garlic-eating types that had moved in. This was an innovation; it wasn't how most Americans ever lived, or ever would have wanted to live. The traditional American way of life was for competing ethnicities to live in neighborhoods within a single city until internmarriage and class-climbing, "Abie's Irish Rose" style, erased the boundaries between them. THAT is the American Way. As a traditionalist and an American, I support the traditional American way of life -- which means living in cities, getting along with the weirdos next door, and traveling by foot and by train instead of by car. What it doesn't mean is abandoning ship for the glassy-eyed "security" of Foxxe Bynde at Willowe Creeke (a Gated Community) fifty miles outside of town.
I repeat: suburbanization is contrary to the American tradition. There never was a Suburban Mouse in American folklore -- there was just City Mouse and Country Mouse. Up until the freeway era, City Mice -- people who wanted the conveniences of living in a city -- by God lived in a city, a real city, not some glorified freeway exit with a fancy name. Those who desired a rural lifestyle -- the Country Mice -- gave up the conveniences of city life and moved to the real country, out beyond the pizza shops and all-night grocery stores -- that shadowy land where the food comes from. The idea of driving fifty miles in traffic each way to get from home to work and back would have struck them as nuts.
I'm all for freedom, but let's be real: anyone who thinks that freedom equals traffic jams, tract housing, and treating what little open space we have left as if it were an unlimited resource needs a CAT scan, stat. A person who cannot live without owning a car is a slave -- to the machine.
Hey punk. I live in an old, inner ring community of small (too small) houses. What is being discussed here is being applied to long standing communities. They are not simply trying to prevent sprawl. They are trying to tear down entire, well functioning, communities and cram individual land owners into beehives. Move to Europe if you think we are wrong.
Guess what I woke up to this morning? A HUGE article in my local paper entitled "Sip coffee, stir conversation: Group meets weekly to pose public questions" by Jarrett Warshaw (jwarshaw@poststar.com)
"In between sips of tea and silent reflections, Socrates Cafe discussion facilitator Colleen Florio posed a question.
"What is the purpose of community?" she asked the 10 people gathered at the Ridge Street Coffee Co. for their weekly meeting.
Member Krista Reville, owner of the Glens Falls Gnosis Center on Ridge Street, took the topic into a slightly different direction.
"The central question for me is, "What makes a desirable community?" she said, while nursing a cappuccino.
After finishing his espresso and polishing off a raspberry tart, retired psychologist Steve Johnson weighed in with a sense of urgency, said the character of a city tends to suffer from the independent-minded citizens who aren't always respectful of the law.
"Maybe the people of Glens Falls are self-directed," he said. "They do what they want, and they go around the law if they want to."
A guidance counselor by day and Socratic supposrter by night, Renee Peattie focused on the conversation even more on specific details. Acknowledging South Street's cleanliness issues, she said shop owners could "adopt a block" where they'd be in charge of helping maintain their respective areas."
The goal of the group, unlike a Common Council meeting, is not necessarily to resolve an argument. Instead it is to get people thinking differently about what they assume to be the truth.
The concept for the cafe originated with the bokk, "Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy" by Christopher Phillips.
A lot of the topics the group covers - such as inquiries into whether true altruism exists or whether democracy is inherently good - don't always come from Phillips' writing. Often, the discussion begins with a recap of the previous week, spurring ideas that lead toward an overarching dilemma.
And both organizers and participants recognize the benefits that the examined life acn have for the community.
"Glens Falls is a part of your identity and you don't want to be like anyone else," Florio said.
The Socrates Cafe meets ever Tuesday night from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Call the Ridge Street Coffee Co. at (518) 792-3711 or Colleen Florio at (518) 321-2695 for more information.
I guess it's time for a new Letter to the Editor.
apologies for the typos...was in a rush
Bump for later digestion.
"Hey, punk"? What the hell does that mean? What are you, the Dirty Harry of urban design? Spare me the macho posturing.
Like I said, try switching to decaf -- or, if that doesn't work, I suggest Haldol. Your spring's wound just a little too tight, friend.
Parson my asking this, but are you high? Ever been to the boyhood home of President Theodore Roosevelt? It's a brownstone in New York City not far from Union Square. He did all right in the personal wealth department. Besides, there's no reason a person who wants to own land shouldn't be able to. I'm not against rural living for those who want that sort of thing. What I'm against are is building more half-assed suburbs for people who want country atmosphere with city conveniences. I'm for people having to pick one or the other: country or city. Suburbs are neither, and as such, are nowhere -- places without identity. Is it any wonder they breed serial killers like rabbits?
What I'm against is the Cycle of Sprawl. It works like this:
1. Funny-looking brown people arrive in neighborhood. As funny brown folk population increases, renters outnumber owners. Property tax receipts in neighborhood drop, forcing city to allow roads, infrastructure to decay. White folks begin to move to suburb A, a former wildgrass prairie ten miles from downtown.
2. White folks needs houses. Prairie is bulldozed, destroying natural beauty. Zero-lot-line slab-foundation tract houses are built by the zillions. Illegal immigrants do the construction work, move into old neighborhood, creating further white flight.
3. White folks in suburb A grow tired of driving in traffic back and forth to city for retail goods and food. In response, more nearby prairie in suburb A is bulldozed to build strip malls, big box retailers, and fast-food joints. Country roads in suburb A are widened to five lines each way to accomodate growing population. Suburb A residents lobby state legislature for new highway to make commuting easier.
4. Companies employing Suburb A residents begin moving their headquarters from old neighborhoods to Suburb A. Old neighborhoods become wastelands as local ecomomies wither. Crime, drug gangs move in.
5. Suburb A is now a buatling city in its own right. Burgeoning population requires new roads, new schools. Property tax rates go up. Traffic gridlock becgins to be a problem. White folks begin selling their expensive homes in Suburb A to escape growing property tax bill.
6. Newly-vacated homes in Suburb A begin to fall apart due to their cheap tract-house construction. Unsaleable properties are converted to rental properties or bulldozed to build apartments. Funny-looking brown people arrive in Suburb A to escape crime, drug gangs in old neighborhood.
7. As funny brown folk population increases, renters outnumber owners. Property tax receipts in Suburb A drop, forcing city to allow roads, infrastructure to decay. As suburb A becomes a slum, white folks move to suburb B, a former wildgrass prairie twenty miles from downtown.
RETURN TO STEP ONE. REPEAT UNTIL ALL PRAIRIE HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO SLUM.
There's got to be a better way.
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