Ideas for America I : New Hope Rises
Ideas for America 1 is designed to help us
find solutions to modern challenges. The work has
Proposed Goals and twelve chapters on topics
such as education, energy, federal spending,
responses to the economic crisis and
fitness and older people. The work emphasizes core information
and ideas to better understand and respond to situations
that affect us. .
The
Third Edition will emerge before January 1, 2012. It
represents a complete divorce from politics and embraces
the things I know to be truly good. Times are sad, scary
and confusing all at once and this book was written to
help us see New Hope Rise. This goes for everyone; the
Second Edition included a piece on animal rights, but
the Third Edition is more ambitious.
The
Role of the Book in the Economic Crisis It's not an
exaggeration to say that the book can be very useful in
the economic crisis. When referring to the "economic
crisis" I'm actually talking about two crises; the
mortgage crisis that began in 2007 and the extreme debt,
deficit and spending of the federal government. The book
contains about sixty useful ideas, twenty of which are
in "Chapter 12; Responding to the Crisis." For an
abridged version of some of those points, have a look at the
Crisis Responses page of this site.
The
Original Sources for the book were lessons
learned as a teacher, combined with information and
ideas gathered from the report The State of the American Dream
in Massachusetts by
MassInc. Their
research helped form the chapters
"Education" and "Building
Community." Upon that frame were added many other sources, including the work of
The Tax
Foundation and the
National Resources Defense Council. 2007 updates
also included ideas borrowed from the 2006 Massachusetts
gubernatorial elections and a few new ideas of my own.
The
Second Edition is the currently available work. 2011 updates to the work emphasized
green energy and responses to the economic crisis. New sources included the work
of Aviva
Chomsky, Peter Skerry, Thomas P. Woods and S. David
Freeman. The research of the
site US
Government Spending is combined with the increased
size of the work and the evolution of the ideas within. The
ideas are more developed, the
connection between the different chapters
is clearer, and extensive endnotes let you learn more
about the research behind it all.
Profits Policy It is policy to cap annual book
income at that of the average American. If sales go
beyond that point, money will go to good,
including promoting timebanks. One example of this model is
The
Hour Exchange, another is the
Cape Ann
Timebank. It is the Cape Ann version that I'm
modeling the
Salem Timebank after. Every community should have
one in times like these.
|
