Whatever happened to . . .
Whatever happened to the concept of the Commons. There are things that belong to no man. There are things that belong to us all. The majority of our fore-fathers' were acutely aware of the need to join together for the support and defense of us all and were troubled by concentration of wealth and power into the hans of the few or the one.
While airspace can be held by the power granted in a deed, air belongs to us all.
While each of us can use and enjoy the water that runs next to or upon our land, we also must share what we can to slake the thrist of those around us.
In America, our vote is the life's blood of nation's being. We, the people, come together to decide what is the will of the people.
So important was the concept of Commons to our founding fathers that they chose to enshrine an industry in the Constitution to defend our nation. They did NOT choose arms manufacturing or financial institutions. They chose the press, the unfettered press.
Theodore Roosevelt recognized that there is dirt that must belong to us all.
FDR gave the heartland electricity and our nation jobs . . . to build the individual but to edify us all.
Where are the discussions of the Commons today . . . When we NEED them so much. The echoing silence is deafening. We all must go forth into the gap and lend our voices to breaking this silence.
Join with me.
Probably one of those quaint ideas that went out with bush.
(Now even the game of bridge is not considered "common space.")
November 14, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Duplicate post removed.
November 14, 2007 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The concept has been assaulted numerous times be before the idiotic intellectual stepchild of Reagan came into power.
Reagan worked hard to destroy the concept by stripping the soul from Civics and History in California and later across the good ol' USA. Work that is being carried on today by folk like David Horowitz.
Hoover worked hard to privatize, into corporate control, the very structure of business and we can recognize that at the Great Depression is the result of his handywork.
The Robber Baron days o' the late late 1800's were rife with that sort of crap.
John Adams and the Federalists were our first major dust up with this garbage once we became a nation. Well . . . issues during the Confederation period also had the flavor of the individual over the common also . . .
I can't just blame Bush. The recessivist nature of Congress since the 1980's of both sides of the aisle has had strong impact on this subject. Hell, even Carter played a hand in deregulation. We have to look back to JFK and Eisenhower for Presidents who grokked the ideal.
How does one start a national dialogue on a subject that the language in which to discuss it has been wiped from the national lexicon?
What do we who remember the past do to be heard?
November 14, 2007 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another reason why I love Oregon so much:
It's a start, for sure, but a vision of openness that some of us hope to expand.
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Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity
Where everybody knows your name...
unless you use a pseudonym
November 14, 2007 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink