The Land of the Free is Seeing the Land of the Greedy Dominate Our Lives

NEWS FLASH: Brief break in the PacifiCAD sustainability blog.

WHY: The Economy

(note: well, not really "the economy." It's about those few people who have benefited from corporate welfare and bailout greed who have helped, over the past 30 years, put community and sustainability into a tailspin. Now, well, young people wanting a higher education are jeapordized)

WHAT: I've been putting myself on the chopping block, so to speak, as a 53-year-old four-degree holding educator-writer-community organizer-media expert. That's a big, heavy lift sending out job applications, cover letters, all the necessary materials those organizations ask for in a very bleak job market, where people from all over are applying for low-paying organizer jobs in Seattle. From overseas, too. Seattle, a stratified and paved over city with some shining stars but plenty of empty lives too.

CAVEAT: It's worse for youth, for those 75 million 1 to 17 year olds in this country who are seeing their futures gutted by greed, stupidity, wars, and a society that is called by one Chilean economist, and underdevelopming nation -- the first one. Us, the good old US of A.

Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef: US Is Becoming an 'Underdeveloping Nation'
Manfred Max-Neef won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics. Look him up on Democracy Now -- www.democracynow.org

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I've got the skills that would plow through any company's stasis or inertia, plus the creativity, energy and multidisciplinary approach to seeing problems and knowing what systems thinking is from a broader, holistic challenge of solving problems systemically.

I am applying to the West Side of Washington, where Amazon's "campus" employs software developers and other knowledge workers at $130,000 a year in some cases, with puny bachelors degrees. It's an interesting time having multi-lingual skills, all the education and experience as a college instructor, curriculum developer, media expert, climate change and sustainability commentator, radio producer, journalist, and planning graduate of a master's program, and seeing faces twitch and hearing doors slam. Because of all these job qualifications and experiences I have, because that narrative and life frame are not very valued in this country. I've written novels, published magazine articles, hitchhiked from Nogales to Panama with cameras and notepads in hand, been to Vietnam as a writer and logistics expert for a multi-national biodiversity project. I'm a certified diver master, been on reefs off Belize, Cozumel, Baja, Thailand, the Red Sea, the Pacific Northwest, and the list goes on. I have organized huge events on the Vietnam War, Climate Change and sustainability. I'm a photographer and muckraker.

I am looking to make a splash as a communication director or strategic planner (or you name the multi-tasking job you can think of) in the non-profit arena, in Seattle. I'm looking at those rare full-time positions at our state's under siege community colleges.

I'm not going to go on and on in attempt to produce a cover letter for some job out there that doesn't exist. The point of this is -- I have been working my tail off teaching as an adjunct instructor, journalist and blogger. I've been remiss here not tapping into this blog as much as I have in the past. I believe blogs and Wiki leaks and others like Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman are absolutely vital to questioning this country's out of synch entitlement, graft and political prostitution. I've seen greed all over Mexico, Central America and in parts of Asian, and here in this country, from Texas to Montana to Seattle. Greed kills hope for youth, kills a country's backbone, kills life on the planet.

I had a conversation with a guy in Seattle as he stepped over two street kids on his way the curb where his 130,000 dollar Maserati was parked. I tried engaging him in a conversation, but he was easily frightened, easily shamed. Maybe it was $185,000 car, come to think of it. I made sure to bring to his attention how insulting it is to even own one of those worthless cars, let alone drive it in a city with major unemployment issues and disparity beyond belief. This is the face of greed, maybe even the kind your grandmother would like her granddaughter to invite over for dinner.

Amazon dot com(munista) doing what to Wiki-leaks?

"Amazon.com Inc. forced WikiLeaks to stop using the U.S. company's computers to distribute embarrassing State Department communications and other documents, WikiLeaks said Wednesday.

The ouster came after congressional staff had questioned Amazon about its relationship with WikiLeaks, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.

WikiLeaks confirmed it hours after The Associated Press reported that Amazon's servers had stopped hosting WikiLeaks' site. The site was unavailable for several hours before it moved back to its previous Swedish host, Bahnhof."

Facebook allowing a backdoor entrance by US internal spies to get information without any due process, any warrant, any pre-notification to the FB user?

http://www.alternet.org/media/147760/how_facebook_betrayed_users_and_undermined_online_privacy/
The stories in techie land, including the gutting of Internet Neutrality, well, what more do techies need to know about how the rest of us feel about their industry?

"Comcast Demonstrates Why We Need Net Neutrality

Two big technology stories broke yesterday, demonstrating that

a) Comcast is evil,

but also b) it needs to be reined in by strict net neutrality regulations"

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/371768/comcast_demonstrates_why_we_need_net_neutrality/

So, I'll be highlighting COP16, Cancun climate talks.

http://www.globalwarmingisreal.com/2010/11/12/cop16-taking-the-long-view-in-cancun/

For now, though, Bernie Sanders says it right here. If those in techie land or those with quasi-successful businesses do not get it yet, there is a way on, and it's against education, against youth, against the middle and lower classes, against science and against sustainability.

WATCH: Senator's Impassioned Speech: "There Is a War Being Waged Against the Working Families of America"

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders gave a lively, impassioned speech before Congress earlier this week on how the U.S. is becoming a banana republic and waging a war against its working families.


At a time when the middle class is disappearing and when the top 1% now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent, this Congress is going to have to be very careful about how it goes forward on deficit reduction. In my view, we must not balance the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly or the poor. Instead, we’ve got to do away with the enormous tax breaks and loop-holes that have been given to millionaires and billionaires and take a hard look at the excessive amount of money we spend on the military as well as some other government agencies.