Trend Spotting

I often get comments on my blogroll and how interesting, varied and diversified it is. The common denominator of all of the blogs I read is that they are all excellent trend spotters — those who are aware of change in the world, in the places they live, and in themselves and who are valuing and creating value from those changes in a positive way. They are the way I stay in touch with what is going on in the world in any number of different areas.

The list changes with my current interests, but the best blogs from those interest are the ones that tend to remain there month after month, so the list inevitably gets longer. From time to time I pare off a few who have stopped posting or cut back.I suppose I could go to a feed reader, but that never feels the same to me – there is something in the visible look of someone’s site that appeals to me and tells me something about them.

If you by chance happen to get removed from my blogroll and would like to be re-added, or if you’re a reader not on my blogroll, please just ask. And it is not about exchanging links for me or to boost my ego if I have lots of readers or just a few – I really don’t care all that much. Those who need to read what I have to say will find their way here.

I have no illusions of changing the world, or of changing anyone’s opinions. My preference is to simply enjoy the flow of change, which is life itself. Change is the heart of Tao and the reason I am drawn to it and it to me.

Namaste.

Hi Donna —

In the spirit of hope and the potential for change, and FYI, I am including below my recent communication to the Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson campaigns.

I don’t know if this will turn into a *trend* but one can hope. :o)

Namaste

— Nelson / citizenine

AUDACIOUS OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA,
Hillary Clinton, John Edwards,
and Bill Richardson.

There has been
a lot of legitimate
talk about change
and experience.
And change,
however any one
of you might frame
it, is clearly
a capacious
shopping cart
to fill with issues
with which to
challenge the
Republicans
in November.
As well, the
catastrophic legacy
of our last seven
(going on eight)
over-long years
of experience is the
entirely appropriate
and strategically sensible
millstone with which
to yoke the Republicans
in the coming months.

Whatever the outcome
of the primaries,
the caucuses, and
the convention,
any one of you
ought to be able
to prevail cleanly
in the election
(assuming it’s a
clean election).

But Barack, Hillary,
John, and Bill,
(if you will),
you have so much
more generative,
healing, and, yes,
nation building
potential in your
hands than you
have yet allowed
yourselves to imagine,
even to dream.

Take your four
individual visions
of what the next
eight years
would be like
if you win in
November,
sum them,
and then
compound
them by the
desperately
hopeful visions
of ALL of the
Democrats,
Independents,
and Republicans
who otherwise
fear for the future,
and you hold
in your hands
a dynamic formula
for an unprecedented
sea change in
the history of
the United States.

The power
and historic
promise of this
hopeful formula,
is far greater,
however, than
anything any one
of you could hold in
your own two hands.
The fact is, the only
way this potent vision
can be held is with all
eight of your hands.

It is imperative
that the four of you
must join together
in a quadumvirate ticket:
Obama and Clinton
for Co-President and
Edwards and Richardson
for Co-Vice President.
This must happen
immediately, in the
time between the
New Hampshire Primary
and Super Tuesday.

Think of the
galvanic hope
this will spark
in the hearts
of Americans—to
all of a sudden
realize that one’s
dreams for the future
don’t have to be
parted four or more
ways but can be fused
together—now—into
infinitely more than
the sum of their parts.

Think of the
potential for healing
this will promise for
our deep, historic
wounds of gender,
race, and class.

Think of the hope
this will awaken
for the billions
of citizens of
Planet Earth
who will be
profoundly affected
by this election
but have no vote.
(If you want to go
a very long way
toward disarming
terrorism, give the
rest of the world
a real reason
to believe change,
real change,
is happening in
the United States.)

This plan joins together
all of the experience
all four of you bring
to this election,
sacrificing nothing.
This plan promises
the American people
the certain benefit
of all four of your
visions for change,
sacrificing nothing.

To be sure, this plan
depends upon your
willingness and
ability to place
the American people’s
needs above your own
personal political ambition.
You will not be the
(maybe)
President of the United States.
Instead you will
(certainly)
be one of the
four heroic Americans
who sacrificed
personal ambition to
offer the people of this
country and this planet
hope for the future
as it has never been
dreamed of before.
Your unparalleled place
in history is guaranteed
to be far greater than it
would be even if you
were to individually
prevail in November.

In your heroic sacrifice
of your individual political
ambition you will, and
the United States will,
offer not only new hope
for America’s role in
world affairs, but also
a dynamic, vital, and
compelling model for
democracy and the
democratic process
when it is more needed
than it ever has been before.

The only way
the United States can
survive—literally—and
the only way
the United States
has something of value
to offer to its global neighbors,
is if the middle class
can be reanimated
and begin to thrive.
This is the only model
for inspiration that
the United States
can possibly offer to
the rest of the world.

This quadumvirate model,
like the four chambers
of the human heart,
promises to offer
a new heartbeat
of hope to the
family of mankind.

This promise is
in your eight hands.

PS – In a sadly somber
footnote, it should be
borne in mind that
this quadumvirate model
offers the potential
of a much safer
and more secure
campaign and
administration
than is otherwise
possible. Change,
real change,
can be expected
to engender
real opposition.
All that is uncertain
is how this opposition
will take shape.

Again, this promise is
in your eight hands.

= = = = =
http://snipurl.com/audaciousopenletter
= = = = =
Submitted on 1-8-08 to the Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson campaigns. Also sent to the following newspapers: USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Post, New York Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury. Also sent to the following blogs: AlterNet, Changing Places, The Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Eschaton, Firedoglake, The Huffington Post, MyDD, My Left Wing, and plezWorld.

One Response

Nelson Bonner says:

January 8, 2008 at 9:15 pm

Hi Donna —

In the spirit of hope and the potential for change, and FYI, I am including below my recent communication to the Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson campaigns.

I don’t know if this will turn into a *trend* but one can hope. :o)

Namaste

— Nelson / citizenine

AUDACIOUS OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA,
Hillary Clinton, John Edwards,
and Bill Richardson.

There has been
a lot of legitimate
talk about change
and experience.
And change,
however any one
of you might frame
it, is clearly
a capacious
shopping cart
to fill with issues
with which to
challenge the
Republicans
in November.
As well, the
catastrophic legacy
of our last seven
(going on eight)
over-long years
of experience is the
entirely appropriate
and strategically sensible
millstone with which
to yoke the Republicans
in the coming months.

Whatever the outcome
of the primaries,
the caucuses, and
the convention,
any one of you
ought to be able
to prevail cleanly
in the election
(assuming it’s a
clean election).

But Barack, Hillary,
John, and Bill,
(if you will),
you have so much
more generative,
healing, and, yes,
nation building
potential in your
hands than you
have yet allowed
yourselves to imagine,
even to dream.

Take your four
individual visions
of what the next
eight years
would be like
if you win in
November,
sum them,
and then
compound
them by the
desperately
hopeful visions
of ALL of the
Democrats,
Independents,
and Republicans
who otherwise
fear for the future,
and you hold
in your hands
a dynamic formula
for an unprecedented
sea change in
the history of
the United States.

The power
and historic
promise of this
hopeful formula,
is far greater,
however, than
anything any one
of you could hold in
your own two hands.
The fact is, the only
way this potent vision
can be held is with all
eight of your hands.

It is imperative
that the four of you
must join together
in a quadumvirate ticket:
Obama and Clinton
for Co-President and
Edwards and Richardson
for Co-Vice President.
This must happen
immediately, in the
time between the
New Hampshire Primary
and Super Tuesday.

Think of the
galvanic hope
this will spark
in the hearts
of Americans—to
all of a sudden
realize that one’s
dreams for the future
don’t have to be
parted four or more
ways but can be fused
together—now—into
infinitely more than
the sum of their parts.

Think of the
potential for healing
this will promise for
our deep, historic
wounds of gender,
race, and class.

Think of the hope
this will awaken
for the billions
of citizens of
Planet Earth
who will be
profoundly affected
by this election
but have no vote.
(If you want to go
a very long way
toward disarming
terrorism, give the
rest of the world
a real reason
to believe change,
real change,
is happening in
the United States.)

This plan joins together
all of the experience
all four of you bring
to this election,
sacrificing nothing.
This plan promises
the American people
the certain benefit
of all four of your
visions for change,
sacrificing nothing.

To be sure, this plan
depends upon your
willingness and
ability to place
the American people’s
needs above your own
personal political ambition.
You will not be the
(maybe)
President of the United States.
Instead you will
(certainly)
be one of the
four heroic Americans
who sacrificed
personal ambition to
offer the people of this
country and this planet
hope for the future
as it has never been
dreamed of before.
Your unparalleled place
in history is guaranteed
to be far greater than it
would be even if you
were to individually
prevail in November.

In your heroic sacrifice
of your individual political
ambition you will, and
the United States will,
offer not only new hope
for America’s role in
world affairs, but also
a dynamic, vital, and
compelling model for
democracy and the
democratic process
when it is more needed
than it ever has been before.

The only way
the United States can
survive—literally—and
the only way
the United States
has something of value
to offer to its global neighbors,
is if the middle class
can be reanimated
and begin to thrive.
This is the only model
for inspiration that
the United States
can possibly offer to
the rest of the world.

This quadumvirate model,
like the four chambers
of the human heart,
promises to offer
a new heartbeat
of hope to the
family of mankind.

This promise is
in your eight hands.

PS – In a sadly somber
footnote, it should be
borne in mind that
this quadumvirate model
offers the potential
of a much safer
and more secure
campaign and
administration
than is otherwise
possible. Change,
real change,
can be expected
to engender
real opposition.
All that is uncertain
is how this opposition
will take shape.

Again, this promise is
in your eight hands.

= = = = =
http://snipurl.com/audaciousopenletter
= = = = =
Submitted on 1-8-08 to the Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson campaigns. Also sent to the following newspapers: USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Post, New York Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury. Also sent to the following blogs: AlterNet, Changing Places, The Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, Eschaton, Firedoglake, The Huffington Post, MyDD, My Left Wing, and plezWorld.

One Response

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