NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

March 26, 2010 by daylightforum

Oh, boy! Russia and the US just agreed to reduce their nuclear warheads from roughly 2,600 and 2,900 respectively down to 1,500 and roughly 800 bombers. Gee now each has only 100 times the explosive power needed to destroy all life on earth. I’m sure this will shame Iran into trashing their nuclear program. I don’t know about you but I’ll sleep well tonight.

We need to complete and launch the DayLightForum and straighten out our feckless Congress and White House. What do you think?

National Healthcare and National Defense

How is it that Congress can spend so much time and money studying, debating and fighting about the cost of healthcare – our collective health is a national defense item – yet we rushed into a $2 trillion war that has taken the lives of 10,000 American soldiers (half in combat and an equal amount who have committed suicide upon their return) with no such effort?

LOBBYING THAT'S GOOD FOR US!

LOBBYING THAT'S GOOD FOR US!

 The recent Supreme Court First Amendment decision to permit unlimited expenditures on lobbying our elected leaders shocked most Americans. It shouldn’t have. As distasteful as it may be it is a Constitutionally correct decision. 
Lobbying per se is not evil.  Lobbying on an uneven playing field i.e. one where voters have little say in the decisions that result from lobbying, is unfair. But then as President John F. Kennedy once said, “Life is unfair.''  So what can we do to make it fair?  
What if there were a means for Americans to radically-but-not-anarchically restructure our local and national government into a system that puts Big Money, the military-industrial complex, special interest groups, their lobbyists, liberal and conservative politicians, and the American people all on the same side of literally every issue? It would all have to start with a single question: “What’s good for America?” 
Bill Clinton put it well when he said, “For too long we’ve been told about ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that ‘they’ are the problem, not ‘us.’ But there can be no ‘them’ in America. There’s only us.”

LOBBYING IN BROAD DAYLIGHT 
It is important to remember that, as corrupt as it has become of late, lobbying is a powerful force that is firmly embedded in our national fabric. The DayLight Movement (DayLightForum.org) offers a new system in which lobbyists will still lobby and spend billions of their clients’ dollars doing so, and special interest groups will still press their agendas and spend billions more doing so. The only difference will be that these individuals will have to direct all of their persuasive tactics to We-the-People, rather than to politicians who, in order to remain in power, are forced to seek favor from self-interested financial masters instead of from the people who they are sworn to represent.
The beauty of this form of governance is that it brings a healthy dose of reality to related subjects like “honor in Congress” and “lobbying.”  For example, under the DayLight system, lobbyists can, within reason, do virtually anything they want and Congressmen and women can accept virtually any favor because those transactions, and our entire government, will all be conducted in the bright light of day. Lobbying that is forced into the open is far less likely to be dangerous to our individual and national wellbeing. You cannot legislate human greed and frailty away but you can drag it into daylight. 
When my children were growing up, I borrowed a phrase, “Roof top shout” from a book, entitled “Helping Your Child Learn Right from Wrong, Values Clarification,” by Dr. Sidney B. Simon and Sally Wendkos Olds, which offers a simple seven-step process for reacting to any situation or temptation. 
The idea behind “Roof top shout” is, “Before you do something, would you be willing to climb up onto your roof and shout your intention to the world? If not then don’t do it.”  
We can help our elected leaders put that simple “truth tool” into practice by putting them on the rooftop of the DayLight Forum. 
The DayLight Movement is about Americans who are terrified about our financial future, our children’s future, and our national safety. No single leader or political administration can save America from threats to these basic aspects of a happy life. Only We-the-People can save our nation from the forces of greed, evil, and plain bumbling that operate within our current systems of government and commerce. 
To be fair, the fact that our political leaders have not and cannot save us is not entirely their fault. Our present system of governance and leadership is simply not up to the challenges of modern-day America. If it were, millions of Americans would not be going to bed hungry every night; we would not be mired in literally trillions of dollars worth of debt; we would not be engaged in wars that do not need to be fought; and we would not be playing benefactor to countries whose citizens hate or, at best, disdain us for our government’s perceived imperialistic and bullying ways.
 Solving unemployment, saving our environment, combating terrorism, improving our education system – all are important, but these are just symptoms of a greater challenge that must be faced, and solved, by We-the-People. What is most important is that we bring our system of government into the 21st century. 
Our current democratic system was created before the telephone, radio, television, and the Internet were invented. Because today’s technology enables something far better, it is both the right time and our duty to become agents of change. 
Radio talk-show host Randi Rhodes has said that, “there is no conscience in American politics any more.” 
Well, I believe that we do indeed have a conscience, but it has been suppressed by fear and lies perpetrated by our elected leaders and the Big Money and Special Interests behind them. For the first time in history, the technology to get to the truth is available to the average American. All we need is a reliable means and place to access it. 
The DayLight Forum is that place; a place where we can aggregate our greater collective consciousness into a veritable “Master Mind” via a truly democratic, virtually real-time, voting process as described on its Home page and in the short simulation reached by clicking on the little gold map on the Home page’s upper right hand corner. When everyone who truly cares has a voice we will be able to decide how best to tackle the massive challenges that loom larger each day.  At that point Lobbying will be our friend.

A Nonpartisan Look Into 

the Future of American Government

Wish I could make this shorter but the state of our nation is so dire and the challenges so great that their solution cannot be put into a few words. By itself what follows will not suffice. In fact it’s not even a near term fix – but it is a tantalizing glimpse into the not-too-distant future.  One that we can dramatically accelerate.

 Columnist, political pundit and Pulitzer Prize winner Art Buchwald once wrote, “I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m against whoever is in power.”

 Has our Congress been more feckless and detested by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike?  What to do?  Revolutions are bloody.  Democratic elections marred by fraud and a paucity of honest information and choices have gotten us nowhere. Perhaps the answer has been right under our noses.

 INTERNET VOTING

Before we delve into this intriguing, highly controversial, subject I confess that I have no idea whether some of the initiatives presented for discussion here will prove to be practical. Nor do I have a complete, end-to-end, understanding of how they can best be executed. What I do know is that, among the readers of this blog and the people who will come to the DayLight Forum (due for a formal launch later this year), we will have all the experience and intellectual horsepower needed to bring literally any good idea to life.

Choosing “the best-of-the-best” elected leaders will be greatly facilitated by the ease with which we can cast our votes. The purest form of government is a system that does not distort or subvert our choices.

We-the-People are living in a technology-savvy America, and it is time that we seriously consider Internet voting as a viable option along with conventional polling-place and mail-in voting. In addition to providing a conflict-of-interest-free, clear, straight line between the voter and the issue to be decided, direct democracy voting via the Internet will also lower the barrier to participation for many Americans. But before that can happen, serious questions about security and privacy must be answered. It will do no good to have a system that gives all of us a real-time say in governmental matters if our vote can be hijacked.

Many great minds and organizations are working on the challenge of making Internet voting safe and secure. Accenture – a global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company – is one of a number of organizations that have explored technological innovation and numerous Internet-based government initiatives that are already in successful operation throughout the world.

Surely, if we can put a person on the moon, we should be able to figure out how to make Internet voting secure. While this blog is not an adequate venue for a detailed description of possible solutions to the challenge of safeguarding our vote over the Internet, four basic suggestions can be made now and then expanded as we continue our dialogue at the DayLightForum.org:

1) Provide a password to each voter;

2) Perform random sampling checks to confirm that a particular person voted and how the voted. Direct mailing list companies have been doing this for 50 years;

3) Employ Internet feedback technology that can tell whether a vote is coming from an individual, a machine, or from a central source (this capability already exists and is in use daily by literally thousands of business Websites);

4) Make the penalty for vote fraud life in prison without parole.

Internet voting may very well turn out to be less of a problem than the current mess over antiquated mechanical voting machines and touch screens, both of which can be rigged as easily as an Internet vote could be compromised. Can whatever damage hackers could do to an Internet-based voting system be any worse than what happened in Florida in the year 2000, and in Ohio in 2004? If we can make debit and credit card transactions secure, we can certainly secure one of our most precious rights as Americans.

The objectives of The DayLight Movement can be accomplished without Internet voting; but, when questions regarding security are resolved, Internet voting would vastly increase our ability to take part in a markedly richer national dialogue. In the meantime we will have the weight of a united voice at the DayLight Forum where politicians will be unable to ignore us. Despite the challenges that it poses, the democratic power of an Internet-based voting system is simply too promising for us to give up on it.

E-voting will be the front end of an e-government system that will speed up delivery of information and services, as well as ensure that our voices resonate, not just at election time but all the time.  As David R. Hunter, former Global Managing Partner of the Accenture Government Practice, stated in his article, “The Role of Government in The Age of Knowledge” (Accenture Insights, May 2000):

“Open, transparent, responsive government has never been in greater demand nor more achievable… Access to information is no longer restricted or expensive With the click of a mouse, citizens and businesses can provide feedback on a service, participate in an advisory committee, or request a performance summary.”

Paraphrasing further from Mr. Hunter’s insights: instead of having our current 200-year old patchwork of policies and systems housed in vertical and often isolated agencies, with delivery of services that do not meet our needs or expectations, we will have an integrated and open system that permits a clear path from concept to delivery.

This kind of thing is happening all over the world. From Ireland to Singapore to Ohio, governments have a vision of transforming their country or state into intelligent systems where technology is prevalent at home and at work, linking government, businesses, schools, and households in an environment of openness where decisions and policies are made in the light of day.

By being accountable and allowing citizen stakeholders to participate in decision-making, measurement and feedback, governments and citizens alike have the opportunity to quickly and accurately gauge the information and advice that they receive and the value of what they create.

Can you think of a better way to engender confidence in our government than to permit its people to hold the voting reins of an open-book (not “open checkbook”) system? We will have a government that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – a government that is responsive to the point of being organic and that displays the following characteristics:

• Dynamic open-book connections that provide integrated and comprehensive touch points between government and its constituent’s daily lives;

• Policy speed-to-market – radically accelerating policy formulation and implementation in order to improve results;

• Well-engaged, knowledgeable, constituents as integral stakeholders in the success of government processes and outcomes.

• Accountability and measurability will be more attainable and  more accurate than at any time in the history of the world.

AN OPPORTUNITY

TO SERVE OUR COUNTRY AND MAKE HISTORY

An exciting prospect for DayLight Members is the opportunity to use the DayLight Forum as our nation’s first truly functional Internet voting lab. If we are going to use the Forum to debate and straw vote on matters that are important to us, why not use the Internet and the first three voting safeguards, listed above, as a “beta test” for an eventual national Internet voting system?

Because we are widely dispersed geographically, and will be voting in large enough numbers to be statistically relevant, we can invite Internet voting tech and engineering proponents to work with us to accelerate perfection of a truly workable national voting system.

It all starts with you and me. 

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

If he were leading at this turbulent time, "What would Reagan do?"


Tell us what you think. 

HEALTHCARE part IV Wiley Fox, Barack

Monitoring the healthcare "rumble in the Congressional  jungle" I kept asking myself, "How could President Obama and his Administration be so inept and fumble the policy ball repeatedly over the past 12 months?"  Then it dawned on me about what was really happening. The president knew that, no matter what he proposed, there would be critics -- some sincere and others blatantly partisan. He knew his political "nose" would be bloodied when he entered the Congressional "gauntlet." All he had to do was hang in there.

However the upcoming healthcare vote turns out, there will be a new program of some kind.  People may not like the current proposal but, in light of recent massive insurance premium increases and roughly 1 out of 6 out of us out of work, Congress knows it has to pass something.

Bottom line: In the past year Barack Obama has moved healthcare policy forward farther than all the Congresses and administrations have been able to do since President Harry Truman first proposed a national healthcare program 65 years ago. History will smile on Obama's creativity and his courage to stand up and take serious blows for America's health. More than just cost control or people's health is at stake. A strong national healthcare policy is a matter of national defense.

“DRIVER’S LICENSES” FOR DOCTORS AND LAWYERS

Healthcare
part III
Drivers Licenses for Doctors & Lawyers

While bad doctors and dishonest lawyers are not the primary reason for sky rocketing medical costs, they still cost us money. The practical solution to frivolous malpractice litigation and consequential high insurance costs, and the way to save lives, is to institute a points system for medical licenses, like that which we have for driver’s licenses. Particularly egregious offenses, like being drunk or otherwise impaired while treating a patient, would automatically trigger revocation of the offender’s license to practice. 

If we apply this kind of “tough love” to pilots, why not doctors? If a frivolous lawsuit is brought, hold the patient and their lawyer liable. Apply the same driver’s license metric to the lawyer and fine the lawyer’s malpractice insurance. We-the-People have learned that we cannot leave it up to our elected leaders (many of whom are lawyers), corrupted as they are by special interest groups like the pharmaceutical industry, to make hard decisions that need to be made now.  This simple points system will take the onus off innocent, honest people who are harmed each year and put it squarely on the shoulders of the patients, medical providers, and lawyers who try to game the system.

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free." P.J. O’Rourke

GUN CONTROL

Hollywood; video games; the breakdown of the institution of marriage and concomitant weakening (if not total destruction) of the traditional family structure and parental authority have led to an angry, fearful, society filled with people who feel powerless against their government and each other. The solution for many is to emulate their TV, movie and video game “heroes” who use violence to solve personal problems.  For far too many of our fellow citizens guns have become a proverbial “10-foot pole” to keep the bad stuff at bay and to express their feelings of powerlessness, low self-image and self-esteem.

Combine this with a longstanding government policy that believes force is the way to get and keep other countries in line – a means to pound our version of freedom and democracy down the throats of cultures 3,000 years older than ours – and then we wonder where our kids get the idea that guns are the way to address life.

Six simple points:

1.  While mandatory sentencing in general is a bad idea, mandatory sentencing for use of a deadly weapon is a good idea.

2.  Commit a crime with a gun, and you get the death penalty or life in prison without the chance of parole.

3.  Participate but not as a shooter in a premeditated crime, or be a driver in a fatal drive-by shooting, where someone other than you uses a gun, and get up to life in prison with the possibility of parole. If the shooting victim lives: 15 years to life-without-parole depending on the degree of permanent injury. If you are just a passenger, get out of the vehicle and walk home or face 1- 5 years as an accessory. This should make a lot of potential criminals “honorary crime fighters” and prompt them to choose their friends wisely.

4.  Get caught with an unlicensed gun: first time 6 months, no early out. We will assume you have learned your lesson so, get caught again and go to prison for 1 year, no early out. Get caught again, or if you have prior felonies, go directly to jail for a minimum of 5 years.  No early out.

5.  Get caught in a vehicle with someone with an unlicensed gun: 30 days in jail (if we can enforce a seatbelt law, we can enforce this). This will recruit more self-policing “citizen deputies” to help dissuade gun crime; especially drive-by shootings.

6.  If someone uses your gun in a crime and you cannot prove that it was stolen from a secure place, go to jail for a minimum of 1 year.  No, we don’t care if ruins your or your family’s life. You obviously didn’t care about what it did to the victim and their family.

Healthcare part II The Myth of Malpractice

Healthcare  part II The Myth of Malpractice

Two mentions of healthcare in the same week!  It seems fitting with all the partisan nonsense and fear mongering emanating from Congress. I'm reminded of Will Rogers said 80 years ago, "We have the best Congress money can buy." Our government and our destiny, including our physical and collective health, is owned by the insurance and pharmaceutical lobby.  Big conglomerates and people all over America, regardless of their education or income level, in large or small businesses and even government jobs, are finding that they cannot afford healthcare. We can no longer attribute this to some personal failing on their part.  It is distinctly a matter of decades of Congresses being asleep at the switch with regard to the immediate and forecasted needs of their constituents. And yet, “the man or woman on the street” saw it coming but, apathetically, did not take action to cause the people who they elected to look out for them. We must take that voting power back. We cannot continue to let people die in massive numbers because our elected leaders cannot come to a logical and fair consensus about a workable national healthcare policy. We are already paying for those of us who cannot pay. The hospitals that treat them pass the cost on to those whocan pay in the form of higher charges and/or, if they are a for-profit institution, to the government by writing off losses against their income tax bill. So, if we are going to end up paying for it anyway, we might as well face the challenge head-on and get the best possible care; but first we must address the reasons that healthcare is so expensive. A good place to start is to put to rest the myth that doctors and lawyers are the cause of skyrocketing healthcare expenses.  Bad doctors and frivolous lawsuits account for less than 2% of the total- cost problem facing us today. PriceWaterhouse Coopers estimates that the cost of litigation and malpractice adds about 1% to the cost of healthcare premiums; this makes up 7% ($5 Billion) of the overall increase in premium costs. The plain truth is that rising healthcare costs are due to four factors: • Large hospital chains with huge appetites for revenue feel tremendous   pressure to inflate prices and, in too many instances, to defraud both government and private payment sources.  Numerous press reports, including a March 5, 2006 segment on CBS’ 60-Minutes “Hospitals: Is the Price   Right?” have described a widespread practice of hospitals charging uninsured patients – the ones who can afford it the least – three to five times, and as much as ten times, what they charge insured patients. • Pharmaceutical companies, by and large, do not cure diseases; they treat  symptoms, thereby ensuring a reliable, virtually never-ending, source of   cash flow, which is needed to recoup the tremendous cost of gaining FDA   approval and spending billions of dollars on needless, often dangerously   misleading, advertisements on television and in print media.  • Government rules prevent employer groups from banding together for the purpose of obtaining volume discounts on healthcare insurance and medicine.  • Too many patients, including virtually all of the illegal alien class, who cannot or do not pay.   With regard to malpractice, no one has the right to legislate your right to redress for being deprived of life, liberty, and happiness. So-called “tort reform” is just another example of Big Money and special interest lobbies ganging up on the individual citizen: in this case, denying his or her constitutional right to legal redress. Doctors and nurses do not need to practice defensive medicine, just conscientious medicine. While malpractice may not cost us much in the total scheme of things, the damage to those who suffer from bad care can be heartbreaking. Tomorrow I will offer a partial solution to the malpractice challenge.  In the meantime tell me what you would like to see from a national healthcare system.

Healthcare

Healthcare

In 2006 I wrote in "ResoNation," that healthcare could very well contribute to the demise of General Motors. It didn't take a genius to make such a prediction. The signals are all around us in the form of skyrocketing costs; lack of a coherent national policy (not necessarily a national health plan); regulation that runs from lax to confused; massive cost increases with no explanation other than to blame the entity "upstream" e.g., dishonest doctors who abuse state and federal programs; malpractice; litigious patients; and greedy Insurers. In other words, it's always someone else's fault. What it really is is a total lack of leadership at the state and national level.  Healthcare is about more than one's individual well-being. As the largest expenditure (other than our homes) that any of us will ever make, healthcare is a matter of national defense that must be addressed by a government that can operate efficiently and with maximum efficacy.  Just as an army needs to be healthy in order to defend its country so, too, does its citizenry -- the people who work to actually make our country work -- need to be in the best condition possible.  We need to stop wasting so much of our national income on highly inefficient healthcare so that we can at least maintain parity with fast-growing industrial and economic competition from the European Union and the "Asian Tigers."  One-by-one, out of control healthcare costs are pulling down venerable institutions that have employed us and fed the lifeblood of our economy. Getting back to GM: It's troubles are not just a matter of building inferior cars (something they may have cured hopefully not too late) but also from healthcare program costs that made them uncompetitive with foreign manufacturers unburdened with unrealistic legacy programs.

Money for War, for Wall Street, for insurers but not for our people

How is it that we can spend HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on specious wars while the poorest and weakest of us are being denied basic healthcare and food?  To one degree or another, anything that happens to the least of us happens to all of us. America will thrive only if we realize that we are all part of a single organism, and thus, act and vote in a manner that does not kill any one part.  We can start over at the DayLightForum.org. Click on the little golden map on the upper right side of the Forum’s Home page.  Then check out GregO’s Blog. 

The DayLightForum's "GregO's Blog"

The opinions on “GregO’s Blog” are not necessarily those of the DayLightForum.org. They are meant to stimulate vigorous debate and constructive insights with a goal of reaching consensus on what can make us a better, safer, more productive nation.

Powder Keg

Yesterday I wrote, on GregO's Blog at www.DayLightForum.org that we are sitting on a social “powder keg” that could explode at any time. Fear, anger, feelings of hopelessness and inability to effect change can exist only so long until something has to give – perhaps explosively. It’s easy to feel that, “It could never happen here.”  But then most revolutions seem to be a surprise to government but not to the people. 

Empowering people with a true voice as the DayLight Forum is about to offer can relieve much of that tectonic stress by providing a visually powerful means for us to be heard at the Federal level and all the way down to Zip Code.  This cannot happen without a strong grassroots response by organizations like the burgeoning Tea Party.  The nonpartisan DayLight Forum can serve as a central platform for such entities on both sides of every issue. 

Tell your Tea Party Friends. Tell everyone. Show them the little DayLight video that describes what we are about to become and provide to ALL Americans regardless of race, creed or politics. You can access it by clicking on the golden map on the upper right-hand side of our DayLight Home page, or via this url: http://www.daylightforum.org/concept/index.html