Warren Buffet: How to fix Congress

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. 

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around. 

Congressional Reform Act of 2011* 
1. No Tenure / No Pension. 

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office. 
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. 

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. 

Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time? 

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

Marlene: Is that what we need to do?

Hi Paul

Thanks for your feedback and your support - and, yes, I hope that we and others can find a way to move forward…

I love RSA Animate - simply sublime - if I could add illustrations here on LinkedIn I would. One of the reasons I use verse is to make for easy reading

Based on my comments thus far and bearing in mind your responses - a summary of my thoughts at this stage - in verse:

I need to eat and I need to drink
I need to sleep and I want to think
I want a home and I need a nest
I want a bed and I need to rest
I want to feast and I need to eat
I want fine wine and my thirst is sweet
I want what I acquire and I need what I require
My wish lists grow with every new desire
My needs and my wants have all been mapped
The me first treadmill turns and I am trapped
But – me and they and you - we are we
We need the same and I want to see
How my hopes and dreams align with us all in mind
Our needs and our wants - can they be combined?
We want to be free and we need laws and orders
We want to run free so do we need walls and borders?
We want to be free and we want to be fair
We need a fair share and we need to share
We need a lot and we want much more
We want to be rich rather than be poor
We want to look good and we need beauty sleep
We want to feel great and we need good upkeep
We fear at night and we fear at day
We want and need to keep our fears at bay
We want for love and we need affection
We want for safety and we need protection
We want happiness and we need contentment
We grow with kindness and wilt with resentment
We need our world and we need its health
We need our world and we need its wealth
We share our world and we want good health
We share our world and we want some wealth
We share our needs and our humanity
We share our dreams of equanimity
We share our world – in excess or in sobriety
We share information – genetic and society
We are connected – one and all - each and every one
So can our moods be raised and dashed in unison?
“The message is the medium” Marshall McLuhan presciently said
“News, more than art, is artifact” he foretold - glancing up ahead
So can ‘good’ news be harvested and spread to ease the sense of doom?
And can this ‘feel good’ factor be deployed to counteract the gloom?
An earning stream of activity celebrating creativity and achievement
A new approach to nurture skill fostering fulsome growth and attainment
Filling hearts and minds with rhythmic beats and kindly contemplation
A sense of wellbeing and a chance to earn respect and consideration
A purposeful project and opportunity for design and creation
A new way to energize talent fulfilling expectation
Energies channeled for the good of all in full participation
A valued stream of just reward – in currency and in reputation
Profits gained and livings earned can be wholesomely obtained
Knowledge shared and thinking learned can be holistically attained
Purposeful interaction and much more that’s good and new
Co-design and co-create in co-operation – isn’t that what we need to do?

Best
Marlene

Marlene came out of nowhere

 Hi Clif 

My thoughts: 

We live on a globe not in a bubble - US et al - so maybe we need to design and create a new, transparent, equitable and global financial system: 

By valuing & rewarding human skill & human endeavor in an economically, ecologically and ethically productive way - by design - overview - stage 1: in rhyme:- 

Home and Office and Work places and practices too
Rethink and redesign – HOW and what we should do
Habitat, Architecture and Transport brought up to date
Redesign our rethinking HAT and reconfigure our fate 
Define what can be defined and refine what can be refined 
Mine what can be mined and mind what springs to mind 
Deconstruct And Reconstruct Everything - to look and to find 
DARE to do the rational thing and be so derring-do and kind 
A pyramid of loose sand is soft but hard if strongly bound
What is the glue that holds the few from sliding to the ground? The bottom grains hold the weight above and scream for some relief 
The heaviness is hard to bear but softens with the hopefulness belief 
The middle grains look up and pray that they can struggle to the top
They make a kind of safety net to stop them should they drop 
The few promise the ‘trickle down’ effect whilst cementing their position 
The middle grasp for thread to patch the net and hold to their tradition 
The bottom spreads and grows wider as some slip through from above
Vices crush and lights dim – it’s hard to see so they push and they shove 
The feral grains shuffle - wild and dangerous - they must be held below 
They must be chained and caged beneath – they must not leave limbo 
The anxious middle grains are squeezed and fettered by their fear
They feel pity for the feral ones and seek solace tear by tier 
So can we rethink our current value system and turn it on its head? 
Can we investigate the merits of a “bottom up” system instead? 
The circle of life revolves in tune with the circle of self and selves
The shoemaker on his uppers redeemed by the help of the elves 
Parabolic learning and carbolic cleansing – Aesop wise and soapy pure 
Dylan wrote “I am just average, common too”- simply and lyrically true 
“I am just like him, the same as you” as are we – me and them and you 
We seek safety and peace of mind - health and quality of life
We seek to survive and we hope to thrive – to be free of strife 
We do not understand the meaning of life and we seek answers and resolution 
We have the means to redesign co-existence and abandon the no-existence solution 
Nihilistic existentialism is disintegrating in its decaying degeneration
Better to redraw the map and redesign for growth and regeneration 
We can ‘choose’ to use our ‘free’ will and use our self interest freely to invest 
To protect our survival as a species selectively – not only the richest – also the rest 
A just war is an oxymoron – a war is never just – a war is just power and blood lust
Education is one device – but it takes too long to stop the rot and halt the rust 
We need effective action now to rescue us and to cleanse our planet too 
The top grains are held together - adherent and inherent - stuck fast by their glue 
Journalists et al state that the moral compass is broken and we’re left with no resource
So let us draft a Moral Auto Pilot and Moral Action Plan to MAP and mark the course 
Axiological wielding may be what to do and a bit of steely welding - thrown in too
Any sturdy construction begins with a firm base – durable - through and through
A pyramid of loose sand needs a redesign – urgently – for us – them, me and you 
Deconstruct And Reconstruct Everything - to learn and to grind
DARE to do the axiological thing and be the designers for Mankind 

Best 
Marlene

Circular reasoning

 (You gotta love circular reasoning.)

If it's purple, Then it's purple.

What if it's green?

Then it's not purple.

What if it's red?

Well, then it doesn't matter. 

Marlene: Bernays days have come and gone

As for the consumer age - Edward Bernays day has come and gone. 

My thoughts in rhyme: 

Stuff and nonsense - it’s plain to see 
Happiness is not a commodity 
Gold and silver and riches galore 
Buy what we want and we want much more 
A passing fancy and a fleeting treat 
Plenty to drink and too much to eat 
We are stuffed to the gills 
Weighed down with remedy pills 
So lighten up to brighten up 
Start at the bottom and work the way up 
Appraise the stuff and de clutter the mind 
Prioritize how we can look and find 
The fulfillment factor to be defined 
Health and Satisfaction combined 
Housing and Income outlined 
Jobs and Community mainlined 
Education and Environment streamlined 
Government and Safety redlined 
A Work-Life Balance to be refined 
The fulfillment factor to be enshrined 
Cryptic criteria and unexpected outcomes 
Production and progress and contra incomes 
Peace is not cheap but may be better value 
The value of war may be twisted in the purview 
The equalization factor from egalitarian action 
May rebalance the equilibrium back to the happy faction 
Production can be quantified in terms of monetary value 
Fulfillment is on a different scale - a qualitative purlieu 
Happiness is nurtured by nurturing our needs 
We till its soil and tend it tenderly from its seeds 
We shine a light upon its need - our needs - and it succeeds 
Positive action - to do and to thrive and to share the proceeds 
The fear way can be depressingly strode 
The free way can be a harrowing road 
The fair way might just be the happiness mode 

Best 
Marlene

From the LI White House forum, Prayer Group

Heavenly Father. Please hear our prayers.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under Thy table.
But Thou art the same Lord whose policy is always to have mercy. Have Mercy on us, Oh Lord, for we are sorely troubled and deeply afraid.

We do not know the world as You see it; nor America; nor even ourselves. We do not know our hearts, our souls, even our minds, as You see them.

We cannot pretend our understanding of the world around us is adequate to the tasks before us. Without Your guidance and help, the world we deal with is beyond even the greatest of us.

 We know that all the peoples of the world are Your Children. We beseech You, Heavenly Father, to help us find courage in the words of Your Son, Jesus Christ, to always remember that.

We seek, and strive, and stumble. more than anything else, Oh Lord, we seek to follow the teachings and examples of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and are always wanting.

There are a few things that we see. Although we understand Your vision is much broader, we can only ask for those things we can understand.

Heavenly Father, guide us by Your Grace and Mercy, that we may find common ground with each other- within our country, and with all of Your Children.

There are too many who seek to find only fear and hatred, division and discontent. They seek power more than love. Do not turn Your eyes from them, Heavenly Father. They are not that different from any one of us.

Come to them, Oh Lord, and take the scales away; take the motes and the logs from their eyes, -- and ours.
If any of us can be the instrument of peace, let us find the modesty and humility to serve you.

Let us all find mercy in each other. Let us find the courage to be gentle with our neighbors, whether avowed friend or avowed enemy, or whatever. For as we are gentle with them, they may be gentle with us; and we may both find redemption in the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.

 And especially find our besieged President, Barack Obama, in these difficult and confusing times. Grant him wisdom and courage, Heavenly Father, that he may lead our great nation into the future. Heavenly Father,
grant him a voice that he may convey the joy of Your wisdom to all Americans.

These things we ask, Heavenly Father, in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord. These few things are what we see, Heavenly Father. We know that Your Vision is much greater. We must trust in You, and Jesus
Christ, Your Son.

 As always, Heavenly Father, we place ourselves in Your Hands. As always, we know that Your policy is always to have mercy. Have mercy on us, Heavenly Father, for we are oppressed and angered with each other. We greet each other not in peace and courage, but in rancor and fear.
With each word, we know we are wrong. But we are afraid and lonely. Take us where You will, Heavenly Father, and we will find the Faith to follow. We will find the courage.

We place ourselves in Your Hands. In this we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Amen

A New Testament?

(from LinkedIn, White House forum discussion)
There is more than adequate evidence to support the existence of King David and Solomon, and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Both were conquered repeatedly and recorded.
The lost years of Jesus are a subject for an interesting debate, especially when you consider some of the writings from Jesus brother about his childhood and adolescence. The young carpenter may have gone to India and learned from the Buddhists.

I think your point about Moses may have some credence. Jesus was not shy in demonstrating his disgust for certain practices of society and its leaders. But that insight only emphasizes the reason Jesus and the New Testament are a change from the Old Testament.
Moses (and the brutal, self-centered Kings) were fulfilling an earlier, brutal covenant to provide the Israelites with land and a homeland.

Genocide, mass murder, and slavery were all part of the social order in those days. If you think about it, we have not removed these elements from modern society. They still exist. Modern society at least identifies and condemns such practices. -- That fact is at least in part because of the influence of Jesus and Christianity.

Jesus stepped forward to say here is a different, less brutal, empathetic way of life. And he was crucified for it.
Simple logic applied at that point - the very Roman purpose - would make anyone wonder why Christianity ever grew. But the reason was as simple as the Arab Spring.

Neuroscience finally supports the power and importance of empathy in society. Slowly we are learning how civilization and culture abuse empathy this powerful emotive force. The greatest of lies is that culture requires power and force.
Like a new science, the structures of society, culture, and civilization come open raw under the new light. The power of empathy far exceeds every other force. When all the decoration, grandeur and weapons are gone, there will still be people banding together to learn and live.

This is the deeper truth to Christianity, IMO.
Christ truly defines a new covenant. One that is obviously misunderstood by many; and abused by many others as a reason for un-Christian acts. It is a new covenant with ourselves, others, civilization and perhaps nature itself.

If we were to follow Christ's teachings, we may finally be free of the warnings of Innanni (Ishtar) from ancient Suma, 5500 years ago.
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(T)he goddess Innanna brought the arts of civilization from the god of wisdom, Enku Eridu, like a Pandora's box
Here were the delights of society exquisite craftsmanship, beautiful clothes, the arts of sex and music,
But civilization has a darker side. said Enki, which has to be accepted along with the good. There is the art of being mighty; the art of being kind; the art of straightforwardness; the art of deceit; the art of kingship, justice, and the enduring crown; the resounding note of a musical instrument; the rejoicing of the harp; the kindling of strife; the plundering of cities; the setting off of lamentations.

Fear, pity, terror - all this is civilization, said the god of wisdom. All this I give you. And you must take it all with no argument. And once taken, you cannot give it back.
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