A free public service offered by Paul Kemp - Central Nova - Nova Scotia There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are: 1. Freedom of the person. Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear. 2. Freedom of the mind. Unless a free people are educated -- taught to think intelligently and plan wisely -- freedom usually does more harm than good. 3. The reign of law. Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law. 4. Freedom of speech. Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions. 5. Security of property. No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property. 6. The right of petition. Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship. 7. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the actual management of the government. 8. Universal suffrage. Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated. 9. Control of public servants. No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants. 10. Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.

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Humans Seem Hell Bent on Committing Mass Suicide -- But There's Still Hope

By Fred Branfman, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2009.

Despite the endless human capacity for denial and self-destruction, the Earth can still be saved. But we must act now.

Nobel laureate Doris Lessing’s 1971 novel, Briefing for a Descent Into Hell, imagines other planets sending volunteers to try and save Earth because its death would threaten them all. The volunteers are first informed of the scope of their mission and nature of the planet’s inhabitants during a "briefing" session.

The basic problem, the briefer explains, is that human beings have not learned that everything is interconnected and "have not yet evolved into an understanding of their individual selves as merely part of a whole, first of all humanity, let alone achieving a conscious knowledge of humanity as a part of Nature.".......more

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Left Needs Soul Searching

Lerner: Blame 'secular fundamentalists'

To make people care, craft a 'politics of meaning'.

By Murray Dobbin
Published: July 9, 2009

TheTyee.ca

"We hunger for communities of meaning that can transcend the individualism and selfishness that we see around us and that will provide an ethical and spiritual framework that gives our lives some higher purpose." -- Michael Lerner, The Politics of Meaning

If progressives, whether in unions, activist groups or political parties, don't soon begin doing politics differently -- radically differently -- they will fail to show that "a better world is possible."

And the price of failure will be catastrophic.........more

Peter Joseph Interviewed By Alex Jones Part 1