8 Resources for Good Living and Giving in 2012

New Year's Resolutions for conscious consumption, giving, generosity, focusing on what matters? If so, check out this quick list on a new site I'm developing - Building a Better World: The Pedagogy and Practice of Global Service-Learning. It's a site to go along with a book I'm completing with Richard Kiely, Christopher Boettcher, and Jessica Friedrichs - all good old friends.


We'd love your feedback on the site and whether you find the links useful before we go 'totally live' with it. This new site will let me blog on all things global service-learning over there - and go off about good clean livin', politics, travel, and pick-up trucks full of social justice, here.

Please take a look at the 8 Resources for Good Living and Giving in 2012 and - via comments there, personal email, or comments here, let me know how you like the site.

The US Government I Want, in One Picture

Dear Representatives: 

I still believe in a better America. I recognize our success have come through cooperation and collaboration. I feel our possibility and potential are too often drowned out in contemporary debate. So here's the America I stand for, in just a few lines, as part of my Open Letter that includes pragmatic policy examples demonstrating how this America is possible and restating why it's important (#1, #2). 

All of these desires are economically viable and numerous examples exist to back up that assertion. I'll continue to add those examples. Until then, back to work that pays the bills.

*********************************************************************************************************************

If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. 


Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

*********************************************************************************************************************

Here's the text on the flag above with links to more explanation and resources: 

I want a government that values people more than profit.

I want a government that shows vision and leadership for a better future.

I want a government that protects the environment. 

I want a government strong enough to regulate business and ensure that capitalism is society's servant rather than its master. 

I want a government that will ensure all citizens have access to good education, health care, and strong work opportunities. 

I want representatives who understand nuance, democratic debate, and the valuable role government has played in US History.

Open Letter to My Representatives, Part 2: More and More Disposable Goods from Faraway Places is not American Excellence

It's long past time that our government leaders stopped telling us that working longer and longer hours for more and more disposable goods made in far away places is going to make us happy, improve our society, or build a better country. This is recognized on the right (Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher), on the left (Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff Book and excellent short film) and by social commentators variously claimed by the left and right (Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community). 

What does government have to do with this? Two things: moral leadership and smart policies. Rightly or wrongly, our leaders have profound power to influence our sense of appropriate national behavior, whether that's by telling us to shop more after 9/11 or grow vegetables in our backyards during WWII. Someone in our government ought to have the courage to stand up and say what those left and right commentators linked above are saying: we should be more deliberate about how we live our lives and ensure our values better reflect family, friends, and community - rather than worshiping the pursuit of profit and stuff as the ultimate endgame and organizing ideal.

We know that happiness has stronger correlation with social interaction and economic security than it does with higher incomes and longer commutes (For a wonderful portrayal of this, see Buettner's Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest). Thanks to civic efforts in Albert Lea, Minnesota, we also know that these kinds of insights can be put into action through citizen and community choices to have more sidewalk space and connect education with contemporary health concerns. That's just the tip of the iceberg in respect to how government policy can affect our everyday experience of how much social interaction we're likely to have, whether we're sure the foods we're consuming are healthy, and what we believe the appropriate balance of saving, investment, work, and family is.

It's not that government should tell us exactly what to do. It is that government makes choices about what kind of incentives we all face and what sort of behaviors the policy environment encourages. This is illustrated all too well with the massive increase in American debt beginning with banking and finance industry deregulation in the 1980s. When banks and credit card companies are permitted to charge higher and higher interest, they become more and more unscrupulous in their efforts to encourage people to spend more than they have. When the government continuously says 'buy, buy, buy,' eases interests rates, and de-regulates multiple forms of lending, it should be no surprise that consumers buy buy buy - and sometimes, wrongly, unfortunately, and with some fault of their own too, they buy buy buy well beyond their means.

Government creates environments where behaviors are more or less likely. Leaders should encourage people to become their best selves. Our government has done a rotten job of encouraging people to live within their means, consider questions of value and meaning for themselves and their communities, and continue to chart a path toward a better future.

I believe in a better America.

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. 


Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

Open Letter to My Representatives, Part 1: Basic Needs, Children, Human Dignity

Dear Representative:

We can’t have a democracy when citizens are so frustrated that they give up on politics. We can have a democracy when we agree to work together, when we set down civil rules of engagement, follow them fairly, and agree to work in good faith toward a common vision. I’m writing this letter to you in that good faith – because I feel that my values and the values I share with many friends and family members are often drowned out in the yelling, editorializing, and grandstanding that pass for debate today. I still believe in the possibility and potential of the United States of America, and until further notice these are the values I find most important in our democratic experiment. Yesterday, I provided an overview of the three values below, along with several additional commitments. 

I want to be clear: I’m not just complaining here – and I’m definitely not dreaming up hopelessly utopian possibilities. I’ll share what I believe, and also back up my ideas with strong data. Many of my values are expressed in today’s politics as contradictory or mutually exclusive. For example, I believe in business; I believe in capitalism; I believe in universal health care; I believe in protecting the environment. These are absolutely not contradictory positions, and I’ll explain why.  

I believe in the power of ensuring everyone has access to food, shelter, and basic health care.

These inputs - food, shelter, basic health care - affirm fundamental human dignity and provide a person with the foundation necessary to work and to work well. There are strong economic reasons for supporting each person's access to these basics. Better health care leads to better productivity on the job. The National Poverty Center estimates children raised in dire poverty cost the nation more than $500 billion in foregone earnings, poor health, and other challenges.

These children, who are born full of potential yet who in the study I link to above are connected to severe economic costs for our nation, most frequently live with parents who work hard and try to do well by them. But our current low minimum wages, high costs of health care, and high costs of childcare do not leave parents in a situation that allows them to look after their children well, which brings me to my next point.    

I believe that all parents should have time to raise their children, spend time with their loved ones, and see their children flourish as they grow into adults.

I'm not looking for miracles, what I am looking for is smart policy interventions and moral leadership. In terms of policy I'm talking about social programs that support adults' ability to find work that pays well enough to allow them to still have some time with their children. Related policy interventions, for example, include:

• affordable educational programs that allow adults to re-train as the economy shifts, so they can secure well-remunerated work; 
• once again, health care, so that adults actually can switch sectors or take entrepreneurial risks as the economy shifts; 
• increases in the minimum wage, which has consistently lost real value since the late 1970s. 

I know there are numerous critics of the minimum wage, who suggest that increases in the minimum are bad for the economy. If that were definitively true, however, we would see the worst state economies in the United States in Washington and Oregon, which have the first and second highest minimums in the US. We do not, of course, see that. Furthermore, our collective reluctance to invest seriously in worker re-training programs coupled with avoidance of good remuneration for American workers willing to develop new skills has led to a situation in which over 25 percent of US imports come from nations with higher wages and living standards than our own (See Schwartz, The Future of Democratic Equality, p117, working there primarily with data from Eamonn Fingleton, "Unsustainable," in The American Prospect).

If the plain facts of Washington and Oregon's economies don't clarify the value of the minimum wage; if getting more than 25 percent of our imports from nations with higher wages and living standards doesn't demonstrate the importance of good training programs and health care to promote mobility across sectors; and if the data on the economic value of health care and getting children out of poverty is not persuasive for you, then I default to what really drives my beliefs mentioned above: I believe in fundamental human dignity and equal moral worth.  

That is, I agree with the sentiment expressed variously by Churchill, Truman, Pope John Paul II, and many others but seemingly originating in Matthew 25:41-46. A society will be judged by how it treats its members who are facing the greatest challenges. Are we helping those who are hungry, thirsty, in need of shelter, imprisoned, or sick? Supporting every individual's right to flourish through education and meeting basic needs happens to make boatloads of economic sense, but fortunately for us - and more importantly - it is also the right thing to do.

For today, this is all I have time to share. Like many Americans, I juggle a few work and family commitments, but we all have civic commitments too - and I'm trying to meet mine. I'll continue this letter this week. For now, when you vote, when you face lobbyists, when you write laws, please remember that not all of us are in the room. And many, many, many Americans do strongly support  efforts to meet basic needs, move wages high enough to allow parents to support and spend time with children, and make other policy choices that reflect a thorough commitment to common human dignity.

Thank you for your time. In the days that come I'll expand on the value of moral leadership; why our principles of democratic government are better than China's; the value of business, capitalism, government, and nuance; environmental protections, and the valuable experiment in appreciating diversity that is the United States. Again, thanks for taking the time to hear my perspective. If you have any response, I'd love to read and/or share it.

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

Open Letter to My Representatives: Overview, Building a Better America

Dear Representatives: 

I still believe in the possibility and potential of the United States of America. These are the values I find most important in our democratic experiment.

I believe in ensuring everyone has access to work, education, food, shelter, and basic health care.

I believe that all parents should have time to raise their children, spend time with their loved ones, and see their children flourish as they grow into adults.

I believe in fundamental human dignity and equal moral worth. 

I believe in our principles of government – because in principle each individual is to have a voice.

I believe our leaders ought to provide vision and moral leadership. 

I believe in business and capitalism - and I believe they should be leveraged to serve society's broader interests.

I believe in protecting the environment. 

I believe in the importance, legitimacy, and profound value in a professionalized armed forces – and I believe we should use them far less frequently.

I believe in acceptance, diversity, learning from others, and humility.

I believe in government.

I believe in progressive taxation. The more I play, the more I pay.

I believe we sink or swim together.

I believe in nuance.

I believe you can do better. I believe we can all do better.

This list results from me sitting down Sunday morning to accomplish something I've wanted to do for years: write a standing letter to my government representatives, so that they know the values that matter to me (and so many of my friends and neighbors) - values that are often lost in the yelling and diatribes that pass for debate in the United States. Six hours later, I found myself still writing.

One of the challenges with our current political standstill seems to be that we want everything delivered in tidy, concise, neat packages. Yet our country, our communities, and the globalized world we live in are complex, complicated, and continuously evolving places. We have values that are sometimes contradictory, even if they are ultimately compatible. It takes time to explain and to understand, but we don't typically allow for that.

I have stated the values I want to share, but I'm also going to embrace this complexity - and deliver the letter in phases. I'll expand on each of these values commitments in the days that follow (#1, #2, #3), and use hard data and clear examples to demonstrate how these commitments are not Utopian thinking, but clearly pragmatic and possible. Thanks for reading and please let me know if there are things you'd like to add! We'll discuss it. This IS going to my representatives!

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so!

You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience.