Check about 7 minutes into this video by Michael Moore...

[kentuck]

Every American should have to watch it.

http://define.com/

[MilesColtrane]

1. Little more info for those of us with slow connections please.

Is it a righteous rant?

a specific Republican talking point smack down?

[kentuck]

2. It's a video of Bush during the financial meltdown...

after Elizabeth Warren and Marcy Kaptur have given their opinions and before Bush and Hank Paulson pull their coup d'etat.

[MilesColtrane]

3. Thanks, I'll check it out.

I always enjoy video of Bush soiling himself.

[JDPriestly]

4. Yes. In my opinion it was fraud.

And some of the homeowners who got into those loans were the victims of fraud in my opinion.

[kenm]

5. Michael Moore Video

Hey, I'm Ken, the guy who posted the Michael Moore video.

I looked at my weblogs and saw that quite a few people were linking from here.

If you have time, don't just watch the video looking for the Bush meltdown. Read the first 6 or 7 paragraphs of the essay.

I want to turn this website into a real focal point to launch a serious, genuine, authentic, peaceful revolution, in a safe and legal way.

Basically I want the progressives to use it as a focal point for starting a new economic system. We just have to agree on one simple thing: it's in everybody's best interest if we take back our freedom and start over. Forget about all the details and elaborate ideas in the essay. Just see if we can agree on that one thing. I'll remove the essay and put up whatever would be more efficient and effective politically to get the job done.

The idea is to make it so simple that anybody with a brain would have to agree that they want to be in on it.

I have no interest in leading, I'm just the warm body who happens to have the domain registered in my name.

But I want it to become community property of the citizens who are *demanding* freedom.

Please promote the hell out of it and see how far we can take it without me going to jail. I think you might be surprised.

I've set it up on Amazon servers and it's configured to scale to handle millions of visitors.

Let's do something real and meaningful with it on a large scale.

[kentuck]

6. Welcome !

Some great stuff there!

I could see some great Democratic ads in the content. A great educational and historical reflection.

[kenm]

9. Democratic Underground Ads

Thanks. I'm walking a fine line.

I want to avoid ads for any particular party because there are a lot of hard-core right wingers who are ultra-conservative but would still support the cause of taking out the Fed and starting over with a gold-backed currency (which would be in addition to the cell-phone based temporary electronic currency for the unemployed basic income guarantee that I'm proposing).

I don't mean to be too judgemental, but my father is one of these people and I understand a little bit about the psychology. Very knee-jerk, fear and hate-driven, Fox News believing, and would instantly oppose any website that is officially associated with the Democratic Party or that had Democratic ads.

The goal is to appeal to everyone, even the reactionaries the radicals. In terms of leveling the playing field and freeing ourselves from the international bankers that have us all in personal and sovereign debt, the the appeal should be universal.

It needs to be a *very* big tent. Even extremist fundamentalist Muslims and Chinese Communists would go for a basic income guarantee. We have to think *really*, *really* BIG.

[kentuck]

11. Here is a post I made about a week ago....

that you might find compatible with your goals?

[kentuck]

16. I forgot to give you the link.

Sorry.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8948967

[kenm]

19. Good link

OK, I read the post. Yes, it's major, BIG-TIME for a serious change. We have to wake up.

Remember, my web page is not about proposing a plan, it's about creating a consensus that *we all need to work together to create a new system*.

We don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Nobody is saying we have to get rid of SS, Medicare, etc. Personally, I think we can let go completely of the current system and create a better one.

But we just need to have that consensus on that one issue.

[kentuck]

21. I agree that if we can find consensus on one issue...

it will upset the status quo immensely. In my opinion, and Democrats may be slow in coming around to this conclusion, moreso than Repubs and Teabaggers, it would be that we need to change our government in Washington. Although there are a few good fighters up there, they are only token resistance for the corporations that have taken over our government. And that is the beginning of change, that we might be able to find consensus. However, it would require no diversion by talking of other issues that divide us.

[L0oniX]

7. Welcome to DU friend.

[JNelson6563]

8. Awesome! Welcome!

:hi:

[Poboy]

10. Welcome, and thank you for your efforts. Best wishes -nt

[kenm]

12. Other interesting stuff for free thinkers

Also, if you click on the Playlist button in the upper right it brings up a Playlist of other activist videos.

BBC documentary on the pros and cons of cannabis.
HBO documentary on the lives of crack cocaine addicts.
HBO documentary on the lives of recovering heroin addicts.

The Cove - A documentary about the dolphin slaughter in Japan (not political, but I love dolphins)

and one of my favorites

The History of Marijuana - A *PRO MARIJUANA* film showing the history of the absurd anti-pot propaganda that resulted in the laws and prohibitions that we have today. Kind of long, a lot of history and archive footage, much in black and white.

I don't think there are too many Pro-pot propaganda films on the net and California has a pot legalization measure on the ballot in November, so this should get a lot of traffic from the pro-legalization crowd.

Serving all this video costs a little bit of money (not much, though).

The costs are posted at http://define.com/costs.php

As you can see, it's pretty cheap, so I have no problem paying for it myself at this point.

But if it starts getting to be thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of visitors, it I'll have to start asking for some contributions.

Two ways to give contributions, look up a word in the dictionary and click on an ad if you have any interest (not to be overdone, one click pays for hours of video), or you can go to http://hdcolors.com, and purchase a downloadable kaleidoscope video. One video pays for zillions of minutes of video.

But let me emphasize, I'm totally non-profit and am perfectly happy being poor, I just want to keep the site up and get as much traffic as possible.

[BeachBaby]

13. Welcome to DU!

Fantastic job on your site!

I was going to send you a private message here, but since your pm option isn't available to you just yet, I sent you an email to your site.

Thanks for all you do. :)

[kenm]

25. Got your e-mail sent you back a caption file to edit

Thanks much. I got your e-mail and responded.

The captions are in the e-mail, or you can download them from the video player.

[kenm]

14. Compatible with my goals

Yes, good job. I like your writing and your ideas.

Except I'm going one step forward and saying, screw it, let the people of the internet *take over* and start fresh. Screw the government.

We don't jobs, either, we just need a better way of distributing our resources so people can have a high standard of living.

So I'm going beyond trying to get a progressive set of representatives in Washington, and going straight to the people to represent ourselves.

Let's face it, when the internet got to be major and ubiquitous, we all knew that it was going to dramatically change the way we govern ourselves and conduct commerce. I'm just providing a simple URL where we can get the ball rolling and go all the way and move forward.

I think you'll find that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President of the United States, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the World Bank, everybody wants to do this, there's just not been any fool to step forward and say "here you go, let's roll!"

So here you go, let's roll.

[kentuck]

15. The problem arises from the division...

We get bogged down in the "issues" and people become divided. If the people could become united on just one issue, it would destroy the system as it is set up today. But how do you get liberals to agree with conservatives or "tea-baggers"? That is the challenge.

My thought is that the only idea you might get agreement is that government needs changed. Wholesale change. Because the present government, with Democrats and Republicans, is set up to do the bidding of the corporations and Big Business. They keep tightening the chokehold on the American people. Until we can change the entire Congress and Senate, nothing will get accomplished for the people.

We put in a 60-vote majority for the Democrats and the Republicans are still running the show. Why? Because we have a lot of corporate Democrats that agree with the Republicans. That is not going to change for the better. It is only going to get worse.

Therefore, the first step toward any progress is to change the government in Washington. That is the only idea I see on the horizon.

[kenm]

17. Referendum

I agree 100% that we have to unite left and right on a single issue. That's the only way it can work. Otherwise, it's marginalization, fear-mongering, and division.

So we have to find that one issue.

I think the issue, fire the bankers and forgive all debts. I mean, right now, at this point in our history, with the millions of people we have on the internet, don't you think that issue would get the job done.

We're all getting screwed by the bankers.

The only thing is, once the citizens form their own bank and get over the heads of the economic system, the government becomes irrelevant, because the government is all about distributing money for the social good. If the citizens have their own national or international bank, the the citizens can distribute the money themselves, without the need for all the Washington bureacracy.

We don't need social security and medicare and the department of transportation and the department of education and congress and a president and governers and department of licensing and department of energy.

We just need the citizens, in an open-system, completely transparent, everyone online wide open, to say ok. Here's the dough that we have and share. Let's make sure that everyone has a roof over their heads, food to eat, electricity, gas and heating, waste disposal, clean running water, sewage, roads without potholes, bridges that work, mass transporation that cuts back on traffic jams, etc.

All the rest is just "the old system" that doesn't work any more.

[kentuck]

18. Sounds good to me but...

there are many citizens that are programmed to despise anything that smells like "socialism". I'm not sure that it could get by that obstacle.

[kenm]

20. Socialism as an Evil

Socialism without taxes might be a different story.

It's never been possible in the past because in all the tens of thousands of years of human history we've never had the technology to create money that expires.

With money that expires, we can create a positive-sum game and get over scarcity.

The only reason socialism is an evil is because of the high taxes.

In the system I'm proposing, there would still be rich people who have all the luxuries and toys, they just would be landlords or bankers, because those two businesses would be obsolete.

And, there would be no more poverty.

So it would be the best of both worlds. A two-category of currency economy.

[kentuck]

22. Socialism as "evil" is ingrained in the minds of most Americans...

Unlike other parts of the world. Even if they knew their lives would be better and their children's lives would be better, they would not accept an idea of socialism, in my opinion.

[kenm]

23. Socialism

What if Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin came out publicy and said, "Hmmm. There might be something here worth considering. Hey people, don't kill this guy, he might be onto something good."

20-years ago if you told people that you were going to create a system that gave all the poor people a tracking device the public would have just, "Screw You! That's BIG BROTHER TOTALITARIANISM, the Mark of the Beast, the total loss of privacy, to total surrendering of personal liberty, etc!".

But now Facebook book just added the feature and everyone is saying, "Cool! That's great." The key is to make it voluntary and optional, and to give the citizens compensation in return.

That takes care of crime, right there.

Plus, let the people smoke pot in the privacy of their own homes, tell them they no longer need to work, give them all 100Megabit fiber optics to the home with HDTVs and infinite online entertainment.

Jeez. What the hell do you have to do to sell a people on an idea.

[kentuck]

24. I think there is a misperception that people want something for nothing...

A lot of people think that about liberals, but it just isn't true. We saw the opposition to healthcare. They thought that was "socialistic". More accurately, it was a corporate handout, in order to cover the uninsured.

If you could get Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin to agree with it, that would be a miracle in itself. But that is a very big "If".

[kenm]

26. In the spirit of openness and transparency

In the interest of openness and transparency

The most recent define.com visitors:

http://define.com/last100

The most recent watchers of the video who spent over 60 seconds on the home page:

http://define.com/homepage

The access of the website by government and military computers

http://define.com/dotmil

As you can see, it's all very small scale right now, but the infrastructure is in place to go viral if we should get lucky.

Welcome to the 21st century!

[kentuck]

28. By "viral", I hope you don't have any negative intentions....

with that information?

[kenm]

30. Yes.

Yes. Seriously. For real. No kidding. Big time hard-ball.

The idea is to get people talking. One way to get people talking is to give them something interesting to talk about.

I'm prepared to be the brunt of heavy criticism. I take my job seriously. However, I expect the network will keep me safe.

If I'm wrong, well, it's been real. It was fun while it lasted.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

27. Why isn't that performance by Bush a campaign ad...

People need a reminder where this all originated.

Michael Moore...God I love that man!

[kentuck]

29. Wouldn't that make a wonderful campaign ad...?

Just a reminder for those folks with intentional amnesia.

[KurtNYC]

31. it seems that the system is now so corrupt that it is destined to implode

it may take months, it may take a decade but the proverbial seed corn has been eaten. The leeches have doomed their host and are now simply sucking the last life blood out. What has happened is as absurd as the hyper inflation seen at time in the 20th Century, people paid twice a day, wheelbarrows of paper money to buy almost nothing.

The kids are running the candy store so there goes capitalism as we knew it.

[kenm]

32. Noam Chomsky

Just sent this brief summary to Noam Chomsky. He actually replied that it might work but that he's clueless with technology. Not a very long reply, but still I feel excited to have gotten a response. I'm not used to interacting with well-known thinkers that are so *way* *way* *way* over my head and out of my league.


Thank you for responding, I'm excited to hear back from you. Here's an
idea in a nutshell:

What if you used a single web page to try to draw all the hard
right-wing reactionaries, all the far left-wing liberals, and all the
middle of the road moderates together in a single place to form a single
consensus on a single idea. No complex party platforms with dozens of
divisive issues. Just one issue.

Jubilee. Fire all the bankers, forgive all debts - personal and
sovereign, let everyone keep the homes that they live in free and clear,
even if those homes previously belonged to a bank or a landlord. Let
all the banks fail. Create a new international bank of the people,
democratically controlled, one person, one voting share,
non-transferable. Development loans at zero interest.

Give all the poor people an iPhone with a GPS locator that shares their
location with enough people to keep them out of trouble, and compensate
them in return for each second their cell phone is on the grid with a
micropayment of .1 cents. Totally voluntary, they can turn their phones
off at any time, or leave them on 24/7. This eliminates most crime.

The electronic currency paid to their cell-phone based mobile bank
account expires if not used within 45-days. Can't be saved or hoarded.
Nobody gets rich, but everyone is free to participate in commerce and
have a quality of life worthy of this point in our technological
history. This eliminates inflation.

This currency co-exists with a gold-backed currency. People can still
work if they want, optionally, to accumulate wealth. Rich people can
still have businesses and make a profit and live high on the hog, except
there would no longer be poverty.

Complete internet-based populist democratic government, everyone
invited, no exceptions. No more Federal Reserve or Fiat Money. Perhaps
a flat sales tax, maybe not.

The right-wingers would like it because it eliminates income taxes and
crime, the left wingers would like it because it eliminates poverty.

Of course we'd all have to work together like civilized grown ups to
hash out the details and put in safeguards to prevent fraud, but that's
the basic idea.

[kentuck]

34. Very intriguing concept...

Especially the part about electronic currency and their cell phone bank accounts.

Isn't "Jubilee" a term from the Bible??

But the challenge, in my opinion, is what single issue will bring all these disparate groups together?? Other issues would have to be avoided or they would tend to divide the people from their single goal.

My .02 cents.

[kenm]

36. Jubilee

I'm an agnostic atheist myself, more Pagan that Christian, but I've been posting ideas along these general lines to Huffington Post. Last night someone said this idea is "Jubilee".

So I looked up the term and read that back in the ancient Bible times, every 50 years the absolute rulers would free the slaves, cancel all debts, and reset all the prices and start over. Didn't realize the idea was so "Biblical" but that's the general theme.

Hell, Google has all the UPC codes for all our merchandise in it's Shopping database.

We could simply fix the prices at their current levels as of today, and call it game over.

If merchants want to charge less in order to be competitive, they are perfectly welcome to provide discounts, but that would create a downward pressure on prices instead of inflationary.

Then again most of the business people who sell us all our junk food and sugar could go home and retire and not have to worry about competing any more.

We could take out the factory farming industry and do everything organic. Free-roaming chickens. Grass fed cows who live their whole lives in green pastures.

We could take over the oil industry and use the revenues to create a green energy sector.

Buy up all the solar power factories and lithium mines at mass produce on a global scale as a nonprofit.

You get the idea. Once we have a consensus we're the boss. We can turn the whole system upside down.

Maybe we could even convince Kim Jung Il to retire. Give him a mansion on the French Riviera with a truckload of gold coins or something.

There comes a point where we will all be on the same page as to what's best for the people. The world will look very different than it does today.

[progressoid]

33. Makes me ill to watch.

And our side helped perpetrate these crimes.

[kentuck]

35. They are backsliders...

Somewhere along the line, they lost their faith. They became part of establishment bank elitists. I could call them worse but I am attempting restraint.