In times like these, being a citizen of the United States is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative Podcast.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli, and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli, and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli, and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
Episode discussion topics How can capitalism be merged into the doughnut economic model? How can we have a system that facilitates the creation of new businesses without the burden on the biosphere of unending economic growth and profits? How do we get to something more sustainable? Our proposal: Start-up - private validation and growth cycle Corporate entity Private shares and seed capital through peer-to-peer investing platforms Growth - public cycle growth cycle Corporate entity Conversion to publicly traded shares Sustainability - community reinvestment cycle for the common good Non-profit entity Employee ownership Strictly limited ownership access through publicly traded shares Calls to Action: Consider opportunities for your ideas to start a business. Maybe there is a product you would love to improve or a service you can provide that is in demand. How much would it cost to begin selling a product or marketing a service? Where and how would you find customers and sell the product or service? Then check out the amounts you might be able to raise through existing peer or group lending platforms. Also, save some seed money from other jobs, pay a little out of pocket as you go, or consider borrowing part of the funds you need. But do your best not to borrow or take risks with your or other people's nest eggs. Support local leaders in business and civics that are willing and capable of trying something new to spur the coming of the next great economy. One such potentially revolutionary idea is to support new avenues of providing access to training and funding for aspiring entrepreneurs and new businesses. Share with us what you think about these ideas on our sponsor's Facebook page Citizen Do Good. Honorable mentions: Doughnut Model (previous episodes) S2 E25 | New Economics a la Doughnut S3 E45 | Doughnut Time: Our Sustainable Responsibility Hippocratic Oath (National Institutes of Health) Biomimicry (Biomimicry Institute) SBA Loan Guarantee Program Info (pdf from U.S. Government site) Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli, and I am here to share the news that we won't have any new episodes for you this summer. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. We'll be back by 28 February 2023. Please join us again next time by staying subscribed to receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Join our newsletter to stay updated on all our antics, including this podcast. Plus, you'll receive our Guide to Good Thinking for free! Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Welcome to 2023! Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
Episode discussion topics The first amendment holds many liberties that are of the utmost importance to self-rule. One, in particular, was captured in the first 16 words of the amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" It was designed this way because many founders had no interest in the tyranny of theocratic regimes. They were farmers, lawyers, businessmen, and plantation owners. Many founders did not even subscribe to a religious tradition or church. Nor did they want to be forced to live under the rules of one. The government is meant to have a live and let live under our laws and policy. Like all citizens are subject to our laws, so are people in groups. Organizations can get tax-advantaged status as non-profit or venture capital churches. The government should not respect an establishment of religion by providing a tax-free ride. Let's talk about what prohibiting the free exercise of religion looks like: Police raids on churches and parish leaders. Bogus charges will put followers behind bars or perhaps die in police custody. Religious groups getting denied applications to organize a non-profit or acquire wealth or property for the church. Harassment, threats, and violence as authorities look on and no recourse comes from the courts. The first amendment does not give rights to businesses to discriminate against customers because of religious beliefs. Selling a product to a customer has nothing to do with exercising religion. There can be no religious test to run for elected office either since our laws do not respect any establishment of religion. Calls to Action: One of the best ways to break down divides is to ask questions and find common ground with those in our communities that are different from us. Whatever you believe, seek out someone who believes differently and see if you can appreciate what you have in common as humans. Seek out and vote for representatives that fight to preserve our first amendment rights. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics On monuments: Why they are important and under what conditions they serve us the best. Challenges with venerating ancestors. Effective ways to venerate ancestors. Opportunity to keep alive the valuable ideas of our ancestors and inspire a shared symbology that aligns with the principles of a more perfect union. We accidentally do not have a transcript for this episode. We did provide a copy of the public comment that MVP provided to the Monuments & Memorials Committee of San Francisco. Calls to Action: This is truly a grassroots activity and one where citizens can force a lot of change. Throughout our local communities, there are monuments to the humans that came before us. Inspiring as they may be, their shortcomings are controversial and distracting nonetheless. Identify these examples of ancestor veneration in your community. Approach your local representatives on the county or town council to understand the motivation for the art and how it may be symbolized in another non-human-specific way. Speak with your neighbors in the local community and understand their perspectives on this topic and whether they might be interested in supporting a change for our children's sake at the least. Speak with local artists to understand why kind of symbology might make sense to express the valuable ideals of the figure to be replaced. We want to honor the valuable lessons learned from the past so as not to fall victim to repeating our mistakes. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Just as the allied nations of World Wars past continue to battle in the struggle against tyranny, we as individuals need to be allies of the common good. Equal liberty and justice under the law can only be established if the plurality of Americans that have an equal footing to gain band together in solidarity. Especially those who are least wealthy among us, which represent 98% regardless of ethnic or religious identity. What does this look like? For the LGBTQ+, it looks like a straight military veteran who jumps into action to take down an armed mass shooter in one of their nightclubs. For the curious young mind, it looks like a brave teacher or librarian who risks their livelihood to provide a banned book or discuss cogent subject matters. For the black person being refused service, it looks like the other employees behind the counter who shut down their confused coworkers and poor business acumen. For anyone who is being ridiculed because of their color, shape, size or other aspects of who they are, it looks like the anti-bully who puts an attacker in their place. For immigrants, it is the person who reminds us that this country was built by and is fed from the labor of slaves and immigrants. For the religious or nones, it looks like mutual respect for a live-and-let-live way of life: The essence of liberty. Calls to Action: We need to stand up for our human dignity during our battle for liberty and justice by standing up for each other everywhere, in every way that we can. We need to recognize the real string of bullies that have been ascending various thrones from business to politics and stop promoting their messages. We need to meet each moment prepared to speak truth to power in the halls where we walk and call out divisive commentary and thinking as we encounter it from others. We need to show care to one another, especially when it is unexpected. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front-of-the-scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli and I am here to share the news that we don't have a new episode for you this week. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front of the scenes, nor anything in-between. Instead, just this message: Please join us again next week by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
Episode discussion topics It has been a while since we discussed the idea of freedom in the United States and this time around we're marrying it up with the pursuit of happiness. We're also going to lean into some Stoic teachings to help guide our discussion. Freedom is the ability to use one's own agency to affect change in their life. Whether that be to change one's class, profession, companions, or one's own mind. This embodies the freedom to pursue happiness. Government acts as the civilian interface between individuals and groups. It mediates the boundaries where our lives intersect. The law is there to bring those conflicts to a conclusion and deconflict our freedom to pursue happiness. Together, they should keep others from treading too heavily on our pursuit of happiness and keep us from trespassing on others. Now, how best to choose a life for one's self? How shall we make ourselves accountable for pursuing happiness? There is nothing in school or church that truly prepares one to live a fulfilling purpose-driven life. That one is on us to figure out through self-reflection to achieve greater self-awareness. Calls to Action: We all have a limited time here on Earth, try not to spend too much of it angry, fearful, or wanting. Look for any reason to be grateful. Focus your energy on what is in your control, not outside of it. Learn more about fulfilling your purpose, something you feel compelled to create, which is all part of the pursuit of happiness. Explore it, grow it, and share it with others for community's sake. It is up to each of us to find our path in life and seek fulfillment through growth and community building. If we are not building community as we move through our careers and lives, our purpose seems aimless. We will fall short in using our freedom to pursue happiness. Learn more about the history of the United States and philosophy, in general, to get grounded in something closer to fact than fiction. Philosophy, we have a special reverence for Stoicism, teaches us how to think well and develop an ever-growing awareness of things. Learn something new often. The truth is documented, that was done before our time or the time of the internet. Books, magazines, documentaries, podcasts, and online course lectures are good too. Join Citizen Do Good's newsletter and get your FREE Guide to Good Thinking today. It has practical steps to think well, be well, and make better decisions dear citizens. Build beautiful new mental skills today. Check us out and help to form a more perfect union one mind at a time! Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics How the power of faction can bring the demise of a republic. Ideology is never a good substitute for reasoned choice and is even worse when wielded by authoritarian bullies. Just as Presidents Lincoln and Grant had feared, the greatest threat to our republic may be from within. Will we be able to maintain the people's hold on self-rule? Will we be able to have, as President Adams said, “A government of laws, and not of men.” What have other republics looked like at the time of their demise? Consider the former Weimar Republic of Germany and how it enabled a party to come to power that converted it into a dictatorship. The heads of the conservative parties in power trusted that Adolf Hitler would not run amok and that he could be controlled. They were wrong. Julius Caesar was feared to be a tyrannical dictator with eyes on establishing a monarchy. He was assassinated by the fearful and a monarchy was established by his nephew. The fear brought about exactly what they feared. As it turned out, evidence was found that Julius had no intention of replacing the Roman Republic. Russia technically still is a republic, as is Iran as we mentioned before. Iran had a religious revolution, but how did Putin install himself for unlimited terms? Taking control of a party, rigging elections using fear and anger, and then changing the laws to keep him in power. This happened under our watch in our lifetimes. Not so far from home, these were also the sort of systems that used to exist in the good old days of the antebellum southern gentry. A time when patriarchy and slavery reined supreme. Confederate ideology was exported, seeded, and watered throughout the nation after the failure of Reconstruction. This culture is now in all states to more or a lesser degree. Somehow history has repeated itself along these lines on several occasions. In each case, the groups that identified with relatively conservative ideologies became most concerned with conserving their power. Ruled by greed, envy, and hate. Generational wealth creates a class of society that washes away its humanity over successive generations. They raise children in an environment relatively devoid of love and instead in its place is a concern for the nest egg. They become divorced from any sense of the human condition through a lack of empathy for the majority of people which is reinforced by being able to avoid even the most common hardships and adversity that are faced by the rest of us. Our whole system of governance was designed with checks and balances intended to thwart this dark capacity for evil that lurks within the malintent of those giving in to selfish desires, those who would usurp power from the people and retain it for themselves. As the majority of people do not have the advantages of being wealthy and of light complexion, we should be making reasoned choices from that perspective. The parties blind us to what is in common: Our republic and its capacity to support our common good through liberty and justice for us all. Calls to Action: Use your reasoned choice to set aside any dogma or ideologies for a moment and consider the facts of the matter and the people you choose to be your representatives. Avoid the narrowed-minded trap of single issues and consider the whole of your values and your existence as a human being. Do not allow the parties to control your choices, be your own person and make your own decision. Do your research and think for yourself. How can life be better for you that is also better for all of us? Let love and grace guide you in this examination. Do not vote against your best interests. Consider this: A wealthy person does not need to work for money. Their money works for them. Their time is their own to choose freely what to do. Multigenerational wealth tends to coddle fools the same as a monarchy would. They become cash cows for the buzzards in their midst. Why vote for a wealthy person who cannot fathom the difficulties, anxieties, and other stresses of the working class? Vote for freedom's sake, for republic's sake, and for the sake of our common good. We the people still have a chance to save our republic. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Paraphrasing Gandhi and Jefferson, if we measured society based on how we are treating our most vulnerable, it would get a failing grade. Forced pregnancy and childbirth have a long disgusting history in our country and in the world. The UN recognizes this as a human rights violation and tracks this global problem. The slavery economy in the United States featured, at its core, a potentially renewable resource for labor at cost or an asset. Plantation owners would routinely force pregnancy on their slaves and wives for the sake of the business. The industrial barons in the non-slavery states were not much better in the sense that they provided for child labor and a low-wage environment. Many people, men, women, and children alike suffered greatly under this system with unlimited working hours, unsafe conditions, and utterly no respect for human life. As a reminder, the system we all live and work under today is an amalgamation of both the slave trade and industrial servitude systems. Well, we all live under it except for the wealthy, who are the freest among us all by their design. We must also mention that sexual violence is part and parcel of much of this, including the opposite, forced sterilizations. No bodily autonomy. Some of the preceding points and others are clearly articulated in an amicus brief from Howard University School of Law for the recent Dobs case (SCOTUS pdf). For instance, because slaves were property, "After Congress prohibited the importation of slaves in 1808, slave masters—who could no longer rely on the international slave trade to replenish their labor force—gained an acute 'economic incentive to govern Black women's reproductive lives.' Female slaves were 'valuable to their masters not only for their labor but also for their ability to produce more slaves.” Forced Labor, Revisited: The Thirteenth Amendment and Abortion a 2010 Faculty Working Paper (Northwestern pdf) from Northwestern University School of Law that provides another legal perspective for consideration. Citizen Do Good might pull their sponsorship if we failed to mention that according to the literal text of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that citizens are born or naturalized and will not be deprived of life, liberty, or property. The unborn are clearly not citizens and not entitled to rights. In spite of all the perspective of history that was re-established for the record in painful detail and the fact that the constitution does not grant rights or privileges to the unborn, Dobs became the case our religious court used to put reproductive rights back on the legislative block for all 50 states. So much for liberty. Calls to Action: Learn more about United States History, especially the uglier parts. The parts that act as warnings through history if only we learn them. Anything "again" is a bad slogan. Start with a group or set of events relevant to today that you know nothing about! Keep an eye and ear out for headlines for clues in your search as most stories today lack historical context. Vote in November and support candidates that support civil rights for us all. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics The second amendment: One highly charged sentence of 27 words. "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The original point of the amendment was about supporting a well-regulated militia, and for the people to bear arms for militia's sake. In the mindset of the times when it was written, our right to keep and bear arms was protected under the law so that the people were prepared for conscription. In Boston circa 1788, the militia was already called The National Guard. It had been established in 1636 for the protection of the colony and is now a fixture in all 50 states. You may find that they are generally well-regulated. The right for citizens to buy and hold weapons for private purposes, like self-defense, was read in by the courts and advanced through precedence after a series of decisions beginning in 2008 and onwards. Cornell Law School provides a nice synopsis of this evolution. The availability of military-grade weapons for private use would not have been in the state's interest. After all, the idea of mob rule was a constant concern and it was not common for farmers to own their own cannons. These arms were intended to be held for the militia, which was made up of the people to bear arms for militia's sake. At this moment in our history, circa 2022, the profit motive has been allowed to run rampant and the lobbies that stood to profit have done so. According to CBS News, gun makers tallied $1 billion in revenue over the last 10 years from AR-15s alone. Sending about the same amount on average to the healthcare industry out of citizens' pockets for each mass shooting event. A morbid relationship. Ours is the only country in the world with more civilian-owned firearms than there are people alive to hold them. 120 guns for every 100 citizens according to Bloomberg. Yemen followed with 52.8 per 100 residents. Canada had 34.7 and France and Germany both had 19.6, according to the Small Arms report. In countries like Japan and Indonesia, that number plunged to less than one. Calls to Action: Lobby our representatives to do what is right and proven to help solve the problem of gun violence in our country, as inspired by successes abroad: Banning semi-automatic and automatic weapons along with high capacity capabilities. Mandating gun registration. Requiring a reason to buy a gun. Established rules for storing guns. Increasing the minimum age for ownership to 21. Requiring periodic mental health evaluations where changes in status should affect access to guns. And since children potentially have access to these weapons at home, we should invest in their mental healthcare and monitoring for our common good. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info All those statistics MVP rattled off are too much for the notes. We captured them here for you: CPP S3 E58 Bear Arms for Militias Sake cited_stats. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics The coup was very real and our republic, and the liberty it promises, remain at risk. We were warned about the risks of having a president given history's prevalence of kings and dictators. Congress has done nothing to prevent the rise of executive authority even when it came at the cost of eroding its own power. The parties are challenged in their own ways and both are enabling greater corruption, legal or otherwise, and other stresses on our institutions as a whole. Let us harken back to Washington, our first president's Farwell address in 1796, where he opined on his hopes for the people and their new experiment in self-rule: "… Your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue;" And he warned us of tyranny and how political parties will set the stage for it: "... Unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." We might argue that the engines at risk are our elections. Calls to Action: Lobby your representatives to support congressional action to reinstate their own authority granted under the Constitution and ensure proper oversight of the executive and judicial branches. Get involved in your local party to help add your voice. Both parties have extreme elements at the helm that are skewing our candidate options towards the poles of the scale instead of the pragmatic center. Citizen action to elect candidates to office that: Do not take big corporate donations. Advocate for free and fair elections. Will pass laws to save our nation from authoritarianism, corruption, and climate change. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics The Supreme Court of the United States of America is no longer bound by precedence when it so decides. No reasoning needs to apply, nor any applicable law, a justice may simply rely on their own personal beliefs. The rest of us be damned. And so, as the court turns precedence be damned. Something more comparable to a lifetime role like that of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah) in Iran than the stabilizing component it was envisioned to be. The case for illegitimacy is strong. Two seats on the court were essentially stolen by historical precedence in the Senate. A party gerrymandered the seats into their pocket effectively stealing them from the opposition. They violated the rules of the game to win at the risk of the league's legitimacy or the stability of our republic in this case. One appointment was stolen from President Barrack Obama. Namely Merrick Garland, who was nominated but the nominating body, the U.S. Senate, decided not to hold any confirmation hearings. Punting the seat to the next guy. They said they punted because it was too late in the president's term, a fictional rule made up for the moment. The fact is, that it was an abandonment of duty for party-serving reasons. The second steal was a reversal of the prior scenario. Where the same rule violaters confirmed a President Donald Trump nominee when it should have been too late in the executive's term to do so, as in the previous case. They didn't even honor their own rule. They only honor the rules that serve them before all else. "Precedence be damned" may have begun in the Senate in this way. Religion is starting to run amok. The most extreme and insane religious groups in the United States have an enormously outsized hand on the wheel of our republic these days. Moreso than in the past because our system was born of the enlightenment, based on reason and rule of law. Here is the case MVP mentioned about public funds for religious schools, a case from Maine: Carson v. Makin. One of the last descents from retired Justice Stephen Breyer makes for a good synopsis, "The First Amendment begins by forbidding the government from “mak[ing] [any] law respecting an establishment of religion.” It next forbids them to make any law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Court today pays almost no attention to the words in the first Clause while giving almost exclusive attention to the words in the second." The aptly-called shadow docket of the Supreme Court (article by the Brennen Center for Justice). It is both figuratively and literally in a sense shadowy, as covered in the linked article. It is not the hilarious and unreal happenings of something like the "What We Do in the Shadows" streaming series. Rather, quite the opposite. Removing or reserving rights to privacy, a core component of liberty, to a wealthy minority. More religiosity coming our way with the latest affront to precedence that has no basis in reason. The reversal of Rowe v. Wade was insane and based on one of the most selective readings of the Constitution possible. "Originalist" must mean the most original new interpretation a justice can make based on the narrowest text. This is much the same as one might pick and choose from a bible. The Constitution says that we the people have rights regardless of whether or not they are enumerated in the document, see Amendment 9. Calls to Action: Implement term limits of something like 18 years, as has been suggested to enable presidents the opportunity to appoint on average at least one in each of their terms. Yes, we would need to pass a Constitutional Amendment. Article 3 of the Constitution states that these judges, “hold their office during good behavior,” which means they have a lifetime appointment. Expand the court to include more voices for the record. Citizens on large experience a huge plurality of life conditions, given the hundreds of millions of us there are. Having more perspectives from honorable people will help make legal precedence reflect the will of the people. In this episode, we proposed, "Setting the bar for impeachment based on a clear code of conduct." However, congress already has the power to impeach and convict even Supreme Court Justices, although that has yet to happen. If citizens elect enough representatives willing to impeach and convict, then the court can be remade. Amend the constitution to make the laws clear so as to not allow the abridgment of any citizen's liberty. Unambiguous laws make it harder for the courts to intervene. Vote early and often! The power to make change rests in our votes and casting them for change makers to represent us in congress and all elected offices. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Note: MVP misspoke mid-episode about which amendment religion belongs to, that is the first one and not the second. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
In times like these, being a citizen is a big job. Thank you for joining us to celebrate the virtues of self-rule and debate the state of our republic. Welcome to the Citizens Prerogative podcast. This is your nerdy host Michael Piscitelli and I am here to share the news that we won't have any new episodes for you this summer. None of the behind-the-scenes, no in-front of the scenes, nor anything in-between. We expect to return by fall. Please join us again next time by staying subscribed so you can receive the latest episode hot off the podcast maker. Until then, feel free to yell at us from the contact us page at citizendogood.com or on Facebook. Join our newsletter to stay updated on all our antics including this podcast. Thank you for listening and staying subscribed.
Episode discussion topics This represents part 5 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50. Leading by example by going all-in on converting to a new economy for climate's sake. We can no longer rely on endlessly increasing profits, waste, and carbonization for shareholders' sake. We need to build clean local economies, live in the doughnut of sustainability, and think full circle about resource use. This new economy will offer the freedom of choice as to when and where you participate in the corporate concrete jungle, start your own business, or do something more creative. Learn more about how this could be possible by revisiting S3 E52 | P2: Right to A Minimum Standard of Living. The end game is that we all get to live a collaborative and fulfilling life within the means of our communities and our biosphere. No more borrowing against future generations for the greed of those alive today. The transition begins by focusing on four major areas of reform... Area 1: Legislation and law enforcement: Enforcing anti-trust laws. Small business is better business. Promoting tax policies that enable small, local, sustainable, resilient, community-oriented, businesses and institutions for the common good. Promoting the replacement of fossil fuels and old-school industrialization with sustainable and renewable systems for life-support's sake. Provide programs to make every home self-sustainable and grid-independent for resiliency's sake. Area 2: Promote government policies with a focus on relationships with the community. This includes things like: Policies that provide for caregiving at the beginning and end of life in an integrated community way. Policies that establish systems to help facilitate people's role transitions throughout life. Managing a multipronged career path. Role transitions include things like serving as an apprentice, creator, follower, leader, teacher, and mentor. Some may be taken on simultaneously. Area 3: Government needs to make resources available to spur advancements in new ways to conduct business and also encourage more sustainable ownership structures like worker-owned cooperatives, credit unions, and other types of non-profits. Area 4: Add stakeholder seats to company boards that represent the interests of: Employees of the company or their union. Regulatory oversight agencies by industry, for example: financial, environmental, agriculture, aerospace, and health. Department of the Treasury would be seated any time there is government ownership or equity stake in a company. Calls to Action: Consider how you or your children might be benefitted from such an economy and have the freedom of how and when to participate in the capitalist parts of our system. Consider how you might transition between the roles we described. Also, think about how might you want your children to experience roles in their lives. The Atlantic has published a thought-provoking article on the value of sabbaticals, an idea that we highlight during this episode. Check it out: What Is Life Like When We Subtract Work From It? Learn more about doughnut economics and the steps you can take towards living sustainably for our posterity's sake. Check it out: S2 E25 | New Economics a la Doughnut. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics This represents part 4 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50. What it means to be in service of our nation and recognizing that this also means we are acting in service to one another and our posterity in turn. No small feat. Re-establish our sense of community on a grander scale with things like a civil service core and public works administration. A service core for public works programs would aim to maintain an active pipeline of people and small business contracts to accomplish the following: Actively combat climate change Contribute to infrastructure projects Cover shortages in healthcare Provide training for entry into new trades Create public works Respond to disasters These programs would provide opportunities for training and experience. Added value from a reinvigorated sense of national pride in doing good works and instill a sense of connectedness and perhaps a shared identity. Foster the development of new fully supportive programs for people reintegrating back into society. Meet people where they are as they reintegrate from: Military service Incarceration Supportive housing Treatment programs Trauma recovery All of these scenarios require their own solutions for helping people to get established in a new life. Much like the doughnut economy, we need to think full circle in support of our citizens' human needs. Calls to Action: Consider how you or your children and our society might be benefited from such civil service programs. Find out ways to get involved in your community. Join or create your own community service project today. With food prices and contaminants on the rise - you may consider starting with a community garden or participating in one near you. These can help cut the cost of fresh produce and know exactly where some of your food comes from. Smile at a neighbor and say hello. Then try to practice it more regularly. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics This represents part 3 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50. Transforming the institutions of our learning system for a more perfect union. We live in the age of infinitely expanding knowledge and automation. The past is not our future. This means that we need a whole new perspective on learning for posterity's sake and the future of our republic if they can keep it. Forget memorization, short-cuts, and standardized tests. This Edutopia article hits on the major points of what the research says about testing. Recently, the UC system moved forward with suspending the use of SAT and ACT for entrance requirements. Time for a change and we have a proposal in mind: Teach young people how to learn skills, discern facts, think properly, and use their agency to find purpose and contribute to their communities. Foster development of skills to continue growing, navigating life, and fending for themselves in whatever environment they may live. Instill in pupils the practical habits necessary to collaborate and solve problems. They should learn how to discover and rediscover who they are, know their purpose, and maintain an alignment with nature. By nature, I mean working in cooperation with one another and the environment. They should be provided with a knowledge base of practical information. This includes a complete perspective of the world's history as we know it. One that represents perspectives of a fair cross-section of all groups and fully explains why things are the way they are. Also, practical ways to understand and navigate our modern economic environment as a consumer and a business. Ultimately one of the primary goals is to help people develop their leadership skills and gain an understanding of civics and how our institutions work. By the end of schooling, our people should be ready to participate in the next steps of their purpose-driven lives. Regardless of choosing apprenticeship, vocation, art, science, or academia, everyone should be prepared for the next phase of life after high school. We might advocate for a free associate degree through an accredited community college in the short term and long term more needs to be done. We propose equalizing the playing field and the funding to provide a more equal education for all. This major change could work like pooling all county tax dollars for education into one state fund to be distributed equally based on enrollment. Give each child a funded fair shot. Calls to Action: Consider how you or your children might have benefitted from such a learning program as described in this episode. Then answer these questions: Why not make changes for the better? What changes would you support in a radically different system and why? Find out ways that you may influence or join your local school board in order to begin the hard work of introducing these ideas to the community at large. If we want to change, we have to act. Explore local opportunities for apprenticeships available in your area. Either for you to retool yourself or for your loved ones to be aware of. These can be sponsored through local trade groups, unions, community colleges, and vocational institutes. Don't rely on the system to care for you or your child's learning. Life-long learning is critical to have any chance of fulfilling a life's purpose. Keep growing and learning. Do it alone or with others. Do it now. So much is accessible at your fingertips through any internet-enabled device. We only outlined the bones here, so stay tuned as we dive further into this during a future episode. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics This represents part 2 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50. The right to a minimum standard of living can provide for the general welfare as our Constitution clearly states. Regardless, without a solid foundation and fair rules, our people will not flourish. Everyone should have equal rights to the following: Justice under the law. Perhaps courts should become blinded to their biases, not just figuratively, but literally. Cut out extraneous sensory data from decisions that carry the weight of life or death. Judges making bail decisions are not as good at their job as AI. Talking With Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell reports this and explains how biases and other behaviors that are known to psychologists come to play in making us bad at judging others. Compassionate healthcare for all regardless of affordability. People should not go bankrupt for healthcare and we need to start with access to healthful foods and end with the liberty to die with dignity. Credit bureaus even recognize the moral quandary around debt from healthcare and have decided to stop carrying this information in our credit files. Equal pay for equal work and a livable minimum wage. Nothing is more priceless than one's limited time on Earth. It's pretty clear. What else do we need to say? An environment left conducive to life. Borrowed from comments on biomimicry, the study of nature to leverage its designs for our problems. Nature's designs tend to yield products that leave the world ready for more life to grow. Our products should do the same wherever possible. We discuss more on this in S2 E25 New Economics a la Doughnut. Our right to liberty requires us to demilitarize the homeland, both our citizens and law enforcement in kind. Also, we need to keep the likes of automated warfare limited, like the nuclear and biological kinds are. Beware the tale of Skynet - it will be privately owned. Additionally, we need to reserve prisons for only the most violent offenders among us and offer a fair shot at a second chance for full liberty. This needs to be available to all who serve their time and change their ways in support of the common good. Calls to Action: A minimum standard of living with liberty and dignity can be achieved for us all using a universal basic income. This will have the added effect of releasing many new inventors, thinkers, and creators to emerge from under the oppression of low wages and high expenses. Being beholden to jobs is not the pursuit of happiness. Rather we should be learning, growing, and contributing to the common good. That is what counts. We call it "The National Floor." It's a floor for people and their main streets, wall street, and our government. It provides a basic income, where no income exists, for all of those living under the jurisdiction of our laws, taxation, and economy. The add-on effect of these direct payments will generate a trickle upward feeding a basic self-sustaining level of economic revenues for all businesses and governments, as well as savings for those employed well enough to be exiting the program. People are the ones most motivated to solve the problems in their lives if only one has enough to eat and a roof over one's head to think. Government programs cannot be a sustainable solution as they are one-size-fits-all and take agency away from people to figure it out themselves. This will require us to fundamentally re-examine ourselves and perhaps our longest-held beliefs. Only our lack of openness to imaginative solutions can hold us back. We should have the liberty to choose how and when we participate in the economy because our life's purpose and the pursuit of happiness must take priority. We discuss this more in S3 E41 The Best of Times. Did you know that poor financial health can cause poor physical and mental health? Science has shown this and also that in time we become accustomed to this state. It is high time we free ourselves from oppressive and sickening poverty. Instead, let us invest in a brighter and more purposeful future for us all. Economy and citizens hand in hand skipping into the sunset of prosperity. Read more on how Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function, albeit a subscription is required for the full report. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics This represents part 1 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50. No taxation without equal representation. Make elections and taxation consistent and fair for all. We need to un-jury-rigging the elections system by taking on the following principles. Make competitive districts where ideas rule the debates, not personal attacks. Ensure equal, safe, and secure access to voting for all. Perhaps using automatic registrations and universal mail-in ballot options. Make the popular vote reign for the presidency and let us move on from the ill-designed and long failed electoral college system. One person one vote should be the rule and the practice. Provide for a fair, effective, and low-cost campaign finance system. Oh, taxation! No one wants to pay taxes. Paying our fair share supports the common good and it is the right thing to do. After all, those things described in the Constitution cost money and we all can benefit from the right investments. Keep our progressive bracket design where each bucket of income gets taxed differently based on dollar amounts, not sources. Keep tax-deferred accounts like IRA, 401k, HSA, and the like available with maximums. Tax all income and unrealized gains annually. Including deferred compensation packages and opening unrealized losses for deductions in kind. Retirees pay no tax on something like their first five or low six figures for couples. Everyone paying their fair share includes currently untaxed entities like sports teams, non-profits, and religions. Sports teams can afford it and have a duty to give back to the communities from which they profit. Non-profits can handle a little tax. Let's give them their own brackets like retirees. The government shouldn't be in the business of ordaining groups of people as established religions (Amendment I to the Constitution) and certainly not bestowing upon them the divine benefit of paying no taxes. There should be no official state religions. The business minimum tax rate should be competitive to international peers with a higher burden on industries with environmentally insensitive components. After all, the government (we the people) is usually paying to clean up their messes. Calls to Action: In the past we have called attention to House Resolution 1 - The For the People Act which was passed by the house earlier in 2021, at the beginning of this 117th instance of Congress, and will not pass the Senate. Now keep your eyes and ears peeled for some flurry of smaller changes to specific mechanisms of our elections systems. For example, review the bills related to H.R.5746 - Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act which may get passed if differences between House and Senate versions can be resolved this year. The link jumps to a list that shows much of the "nickel and dime" approach being used to address deficiencies in our electioneering. Find out if your state is assigning its slate of Electoral College Electors based on the popular vote based on an achievable idea long overdue: National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (thanks Wikipedia). If it isn't, let your state legislators know you want it to be so. If you think liberty to vote is being "nickeled and dimed," the list of bills focused on taxation, literal USD, is dizzying. This is an area where our principles on the macro-level play an important role in simplifying the system. This simplification must be motivated by a simple principle. One that is hardwired into our cooperative nature. An ancestral sensibility that our primate cousins share. The one, among them all, which is paramount: Fairness (thank you to scientists and PBS). Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Racist language may soon be gone from Alabama's constitution. A tale of a constitution twisted to the extreme, it is believed to be the longest or most amended in the world. It was created in 1901 with the express interest of securing white supremacy in the state. It was written by a powerful and wealthy white male minority. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics A whole episode, or actually a whole min-series of episodes, regarding calls to action around a new strategic plan to save our republic and try to save life on Earth. The Five-Point Plan will be described in later episodes and it will call on each of us to refocus our attention on the purpose of our nation. This episode introduces the series with an introspective exercise to see ourselves in the potential of the union and how the union can unlock the potential in us all. To recommit ourselves to this most audacious of experiments in self-rule as freedom's promise lives here more than anywhere else on Earth. Let us remind ourselves that the purpose of the United States is made clear at the start of the Constitution. Let us review sentence number one together: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Calls to Action: The next 5 episodes will present a platform of actions we need to take quickly to save ourselves from oblivion. We need radical change to bring forth a reformed republic that propels our ideals of liberty and justice for all forward towards fruition and helps people use their gifts to advance the nation and save the Earth. There is no going back to another time and if there is any chance for a tomorrow, then now is when we have to act in order to make it so. Stay tuned by making sure you're subscribed to the Citizens Prerogative podcast through your favorite podcasting app! Read and re-read the Constitution of the United States. The U.S. National Archives is a shining example of real American heroes and they have everything available online for free. Challenge and inform your opinion on such matters as those raised here in the five-point plan. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics What's going on so far? Games mostly. Connectedness and some sense of community. Why not university too? Who's out there right now? What about NFTs? Play to Earn (P2E) options yield in-game coins that can be redeemed for NFTs or other products from in-game stores. Property and skins can be purchased for coins or cash that are backed by NFTs. Some companies are selling their virtual property for the possibility of an NFT in the future. Make sure you know what you're getting for your USD. Some truly revolutionary aspects of it: No safer way to explore the world of humans out there. No cheaper way to meet people from across the world. It also may be less taxing on the environment than traditional forms of travel. Assuming the cost of energy to run the game or associated blockchains isn't exorbitant. Calls to Action: Perhaps watch or read Ready Player One. The easiest way to explore the wide world of the metaverse: PCs. Headsets. Sony is staying in a walled garden, not joining the metaverse. Oculus Quest 2 is the latest Facebook offering. Consider this: Think about how you would want to use the metaverse or see it used. What experiences do you imagine? Pressure and haptic sensor feedback systems are coming online to make it all feel more real. Watch this short clip from PBS Newshour on sensors and rewiring nerves to stir your creative juices. Stay subscribed to Citizens Prerogative and tuned in for future episodes. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics What a mess: Profit-motivated niches and confirmation bias zones abound. Anything that you read or watch that only confirms what you already believe is traveling a well-worn road of confirmation bias. Treat it like junk food. Find something else to read, watch, or listen to that challenges your perception. Just like tobacco products, processed mock foods, and social media. Big media products (from the likes of CNN, Fox, MSN, etc.) or bogus media products (from the likes of NewsMax, OAN, etc.) are engineered to be addictive and unfulfilling so you keep coming back for more. Fear and anger are laced into their products to stoke our emotions and hijack our thinking with these emotional responses. Those offer a subconscious backdoor of hijacking your survival instincts via the amygdala in your brain (a.k.a. our lizard brain - of fight, flight, or flee fame). Watcher beware the energy vampires, this channel will suck your life and may kill you. Fear and anger shorten our lives and erode our rational minds. There is no warning or nutritional labeling for media, so it is near impossible to verify the validity of news (what is junk or food) without exiting your bias zone to see what other points of view are being presented on the same subject. That also sounds like work for a lot of people, but it's not more than changing the channel. But leaving the comfort of your bias zone can be scary, bring your courage and remember they're only words. The worst of which lead us to hate one another and see each other as less than human or possessed. Creating distance and controlling how much you let in into your life will help create more calm in your environment - big media is designed to be addictive, by triggering strong emotions. It is not motivated to be informative or nutritious, it is junk food full of sugar and cortisol, the stress hormone. Here is an article from psychology today for reference, "Anger's Allure: Are You Addicted to Anger? Reasons why anger can be a hard habit to break." This is one of the few times I might think of the good old days, say when you knew you were reading a tabloid by its cover. Now there's a blend of it mixed into everything under every cover. One needs to be skilled up and vigilant to avoid it. Calls to Action: What is one to do? Use your agency and freedom of will to control what information you consider. Get on a media diet by getting a handle on your media faucet. You need to be in control of your consumption and enforce limits for yourself as a habit. It is up to each of us to protect ourselves. Look away. Turn it off. Tune it out. Take a break. For instance, use a timer or DVR to allow yourself to watch specific programs, with a purpose, within a fixed time frame like one hour. Too many of us just leave the TV or YouTube on steady stream flooding our environment and disrupting or distracting our concentration. Choose to be open to information that you may not agree with. It doesn't mean you have to change your position. Strategically it makes sense to understand all counterarguments so that you may better see the whole landscape. Also, be open to changing your mind when it aligns with your innate, natural, or common, sense of morality. Choose your time and your content with care. It's your choice how to spend your limited time on Earth. No pressure. Pick sources that give you multiple perspectives covering any given topic so they can act as plot points in triangulating the relative truths among all the stories. Each reporter presents their version of the truth based on the information they were able to obtain or blanks that are choosing to fill in. Aim to have a balanced and fact-filled diet. Think of the food pyramid or building a diversified portfolio of information sources. Don't only eat potatoes or trust only one type of source for information. That is not good for you or your brain. Beware the fast-food of journalism, "entertainment media." If it makes you scared and angry, then it's not entertainment. If it does not make you more informed, then it is not journalism. Stop wasting your life on it. Support independent journalism. Reputable sources are worth a subscription. Also, beyond picking a single news site or magazine, you can check out some of the new curation-based services like INKL and others. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Make sure we take action to secure our right to vote by electing candidates that support voting reform for equal ballot access and representation in congress. The misinformation campaigns have the people confused by design. Everything is held hostage by money from the rich feeding into a two-party monopoly that has eroded any sense of confidence in our institutions. Regarding the history of "direct" elections where citizens, not legislatures, cast ballots for federal offices, the popular vote wasn't always popular. Still isn't in many parts. Citizens can now vote for Senators and that only began in 1913 and voting for Presidential Electors was being handled by some state legislators, instead of citizens, up through the 1860s with exceptions that continued to occur up through 1876 with a recent close call back in 2000. Wikipedia covers the Electoral College here for more information. Quoting the article from above, "The Constitution gives each state legislature the power to decide how its state's electors are chosen and it can be easier and cheaper for a state legislature to simply appoint a slate of electors than to create a legislative framework for holding elections to determine the electors." There are all too many state legislators willing, ready, and able to take our votes back from our control, more like things used to be, and submit their own ballots on our behalf when it comes to elected federal positions. We can lose our liberty and our vote. It's been far worse in the past which makes for uncomfortable precedence. The day for service in the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was just last month in January and February, when this episode is being released, is Black History Month. In that spirit, we give thanks to a human whose vision and yearning for equality echoes through to now. Our hope for a more equal, a more just, a more perfect union, is set upon the vision he articulated, and it sets the stage for a better tomorrow for us all. In his words, "The time is always right to do what is right." He also reminded us, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." With those thoughts in mind, it is easy to see how we're now staged for some unsettling changes. We will need to lean on his wisdom as we weather the storms against civil rights ahead. Couple those figurative squalls with the unprecedented changes that our food sources and habitats are about to experience in the physical world. Viruses are just the beginning of the coming plague of infectious fallacies and climate catastrophes. What we shall be mindful of… The rise of daddy-knows-best totalitarianism through one-party rule; much like the kingmaker playbooks of China and Russia. The extreme among the right-wing in America is looking to return our republic to some of its worse roots, highlighted by elitist minority rule, “Only I can fix it” mentality. This is in opposition to a plurality among us who are vying for a better way: equal representation, taxation, and a fair shot at fulfilling one's purpose. We need to care about fairness in the system, it impacts our daily lives and fosters trust in our institutions. We have seen this work well on many occasions and other systems around the world provide us with even more examples to borrow. A system still powered by the gyrations between the greedy who get rich and the poor who work to make them so, cannot last. The pursuit of happiness by the rich is conducted on roads paved by the poor, who are not left in a position to pursue happiness by their participation in the system. It doesn't need to be this way. No homelessness, ignorance, sickness, or hunger need apply in the process of lifting one's self by their bootstraps. For our house can have a floor and our a nation can have roads that we can all travel on! We need to see ourselves in each other as fellow citizens under our laws because we're the only ones we got in this world. All the others are autocrats and their bureaucratic handlers. Calls to Action: It's not clear we can count on the current congress to be able to prevent the backward slide into a republic from the good old days, where only a few can vote and own property. Please do not allow your state representatives to steal your vote. Check out this great article from History.com on how Electoral College Electors are chosen, hint: it's decided by state legislatures. Learning to navigate the new processes for registering to vote and casting your ballot. Check out a timelessly reliable resource, RockTheVote.org for more information on how to register and vote specifically in your state. More than ever it's time to turn out in high numbers if we want a clear majority in congress to move reform forward for a more perfect union and a better future for us all. We will be releasing a platform to help formalize the issues of paramount importance right now. It is in production and will premier as a multi-part series soon. Stay tuned. Albeit congress is in negotiations for minor tweaks to shore up the system like the John Lewis voting right act, etc. Hopefully, they will pass something effective. But for now, it's up to each of us to mind our vote and make sure it is counted. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info The National Archives has a page dedicated to information about the Electors of the Electoral College (sounds like a Bravo faux-reality TV series) including the role and qualifications for people looking to fulfill the duties of an elector, and more. Love our archives, check it out! We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Why do we have it? Flags became all the rage in the 1880s. They embodied a symbolism that was cemented during the civil war around flags and loyalty oaths to a new, slavery-free nation. Through to today, it still serves its original purpose of indoctrinating young citizens and immigrants to honor the republic. According to this Boston Review article: "George T. Balch, a West Point graduate and veteran of the Civil War, organized a number of flag-related patriotic ceremonies for schoolchildren, and published the first pledge in his 1890 paper titled, 'Methods of Teaching Patriotism in the Public Schools'." It is now also used by some to honor all those who have fallen in defense of our republic. The history (Wikipedia) shows few changes, but momentous they are nonetheless. Besides the original, plus a minor grammatical change (it was being used in schools after all), there were only two other major iterations: 1923/1924 A reference to the "United States of America" was added as context for what flag, inspired by nationalistic tendencies in response to immigration and other domestic tranquility issues. 1954 It was adopted into the U.S. code, laws, by congress and had the language "under God" added to, "fight against the evil of communism and, by extension, atheism." This is according to the Boston Review article previously mentioned and it is backed up by our other research. The implementation of "under God" and " in God we trust" was all conducted during the anti-communism fever of the 1950-60s. All the controversies that need not be so. Not for any good reason, other than maintaining the status quo, the courts have not deemed the pledge or its expressed deference to a god as unconstitutional because as a practical matter, it is just too ingrained. Congressional legislative sessions have been making reference to a god since 1787. Of course, none of the arguments make sense, they are just lazy. What is right is usually the hard thing to do. Look at how much effort it took to remove the worse parts of slavery. People have all the rights to refrain from participating in the pledge. Children in school do too, but they have to overcome a higher bar than adults. In some schools, kids face harassment by teachers and administrators for refusing to recite the pledge. The U.S. legal code articulating the pledge and the proper salute to the flag, is prefaced with "should" and not "shall, will, or must." Calls to Action: Whether hand to heart or taking a knee, either peacefully supporting or peacefully protesting the pledge is the right thing to do. Express it any way you want within your first amendment rights. That is the American way. Shall we honor RWJ and restore the original pledge of allegiance from 1892? "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Or is it high time to adopt something like MVP's recommendation on a revised pledge to amend and extend the history books? “I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation among the stars, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.” Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics The future is barreling towards us, and for now, our way of living is highly unsustainable, so we are on the hunt for new solutions to put on the table. Inspiration for this episode comes to us from Sweden, where only 1% of their trash ends up in a landfill. What are some lessons that we can learn from their example? Enter microeconomic actor: ReTuna (thanks to Business Insider for covering) The world's first secondhand mall. Located next to a recycling center, the Swedish mall repurposes everything from toys to furniture and electronics. As we ask ourselves what world our children deserve to inherit, we must also ask more profound questions about our consumer-driven economy. We believe the new age will have communities coming together to demand better waste management for health's sake. Small business ownership presents an answer to how Americans may sustain their livelihoods and our nation. Major corporations have had ample time at the helm of capitalism, and frankly, there are no thanks due for their innovative use of more and more landfills. Our age of self-rule means we can innovate and replace these dinosaurs of industry. As many have come to learn through experience, the act of scaling into a large company, one can predict the elimination of personalization and humanization for efficiency. In this area, small is more local and diverse. It also offers consumers more choices and presents us with more opportunities to attain entrepreneurship. The towns and cities are much older than globalization. We believe it is entirely reasonable that the model of neighborhoods and local main streets will be the place for the future economy to thrive. With community-focused solutions such as ReTuna, we might even see a few malls come back along the way. Calls to Action: At the local level, we can explore recreating this model, which presents one example on the ground of circular or doughnut economics transition in action. A model where trash is turned into another person's gold, being resold in a responsible and sustainable way. Start with asking your city or county representative questions about what their sustainability plans are or how they're planning to reduce carbon and methane emissions. Then seek out proposals for what you think is missing and could be of benefit to your community. Submit that proposal to the representative who responded to your question. Seek out local groups who are also keen on implementing new ways to solve these problems in our communities. The Citizens Campaign has great resources to help people get involved in their communities in a reconstructive way. Check it out if you really want to make a difference where you live. Each of us can do more to consider the end-to-end life of our purchases and put to bed the long-standing practice of allowing marketing to divorce us from the true costs of unbridled consumption. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We made reference to doughnut and circular economic concepts that we go into more detail here: S2 E25 | New Economics a la Doughnut. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics According to the constitution, we have the right to a separation between any church and the laws of our republic. This is also intended to insulate our system of self-rule from a set of outside influences. Our republic is intended to be a secular one. People should be free to practice religion, or not, without any state sponsorship of any one religion; including Protestantism, the religion of King Henry VIII, nor any other one. The United States has been a historic salad of faith systems, both rich in its diversity and choices for citizens to exercise their freedom. From the U.S. Bill of Rights, Constitutional Amendment I: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Take a moment to re-frame ourselves with some history, rather than this being a Christian or Judeo-Christian nation, it was Protestant to its origins. That was the Church the England that was brought over with the founders, not all of them of course. Today 6 of 9 Justices identify as having Catholic roots and the other 3 are Jewish. It doesn't sound very diverse and in fact, this is a major shift away from the historically Protestant backgrounds that justices used to have. We only highlight these facts because MVP and RWJ found them interesting. This court's decisions will show how true their loyalty is to our constitution. There are a number of civil liberties that are at risk given the make-up of our current courts as they are likely to perform an about-face march into the past. In reversing course, they will trample over many freedoms we enjoy today like to marry who we want or have children on our own terms. We may not be able to enjoy tomorrow, simply due to judicial reinterpretation of the constitution. Quite flippant if you ask us and will call into question, as it had happened in the past, the legitimacy of this third co-equal branch of our government. This final reminder that we should be left secure in our person-hood by the state according to the U.S. Bill of Rights, Constitutional Amendment IV: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Calls to Action: Explicitly amend the constitution to remove ambiguity from women's freedoms with the Equal Rights Amendment - ERA and also everyone else's with the Equality Act. These could mitigate the court's power to alter our lives at their whim or the minority rule circles in which they exist. Support congressional candidates that are open to establishing term limits on the Supreme Court, life-term appointments are too much now that we live so much longer: For context average life expectancy is now closer to the 80s and back when the court was established, life expectancy was merely 38 years. On top of that, we now have two of the youngest and arguably unwise appointments to the court that may serve for life, possibly 30 years or more based on average life expectancy. Become more aware of your state's supreme court justices and the positions they take on specific issues and whether they align with your values. Ask your U.S. Senator or House Member about unshadowing the shadow docket. We need more transparency for all federal courts, perhaps a C-SPAN for the courts? Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Stoicism? Really? Why you may wonder? It holds valuable timeless wisdom from our ancient ancestors. Being a human is pretty much a universal struggle for all humans throughout time. Who would have thought? It provides practical steps and methods for being a better, less anxious, and happier human. It aims to provide tools for you to become the best version of yourself based on your own measure. Practicing the methods will make you a better citizen of our republic. How does self-rule translate into the economy? How do we leave behind the concrete plantation that was built by the owners of the system? So what is it? A fad diet? A religion? Where did it come from? Do I need to attend a church or go to meetings? According to the College of Stoic Philosophers is a complete philosophy informed by an integrated system of Logic, Physics, and Ethics. The ethics part helps it feel like religion - guidance on making decisions and physics as the nexus of all things, and logic helps you in the process of considering things. It's a philosophy all about being human and more specifically about you being you and having agency in a world outside of your control. During its heydays, it was a religion with ideas originating back in Greece circa Socrates. Actually, it was a lot more than what religion is today because it included other areas like cosmology, physics, psychology, and of course philosophy. We must note that much of what the Greeks taught had come from other peoples and times before them. We just don't have a lot of records today. It lived on through many thousands of years from Greece to the Romans who picked it up after. No church nor extraordinary socializing is required for you to study and practice this philosophy. It's practical as you are and where you are right now with whoever is normally in your life. No change, unless you seek it out. The meditation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and other mental health practices of our modern time draw from ancient stoic wisdom and you will notice more of it as you study it. But this practice is arguably beyond those in the capacity for it to affect your life in a positive way. For perspective, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is good for treating symptoms of mental health conditions (fear, anger, foreboding, self-loathing, etc.), but practicing Stoicism will help remove the disease from your life thus reducing or eliminating symptoms altogether. Why is it called Stoicism? It got named from the Greek word stoa, which was a covered open area where Zeno (last name), the attributed founding father of "Stoicism", began his public lectures. Zeno was calling it something else, but the people called it based on the building, and alas we have Stoics practicing Stoicism. So what's this thing all about? Stoicism is a set of ancient practices born out of our ancestors' struggle with the human condition. Most of all the teachings and writings have been lost to destruction, from Alexandria to the fall of Rome. What we have are journals and accounts from a small number of philosophers who documented accounts of stoic thinking. They range from Greece to Rome in time and space and life experiences ranging from a former slave to an emperor and many in-between, all stoics. They all struggled in ways that Stoicism helped them overcome. Our struggles are remarkably similar to theirs. This system works for our lives too. There are many flavors of this thing because each of us makes it our own. This is why the writings from the ancients are used as a stable foundation of reference, like a Tora, Bible, Koran, or other, for learning and growing the philosophy. How might it help me better myself and my community? It offers practical guidelines for you to implement in your life in your way. You do you. With practice it can become useful for anyone's situations in life, it's that's flexible. It consists of concepts around how to apply a set of virtues and disciplines in making decisions about things that are under your control. We learn about how they operate through understanding the wisdom we've received from the ancients, through their stories, experiences, and even their thoughts in letters and in journals. A practicing stoic is always challenging themselves to be a better person to themselves and to others. The philosophy teaches that the natural and happy state for humans to be in is a cooperative one. Here are some quotes from Emperor Marcus Aurelius' Meditations: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Some quotes from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian, who lived during the time of Christ: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful." "As is a tale (story), so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters." "Hang on to your youthful enthusiasms -- you'll be able to use them better when you're older." "If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable." Some quotes from Epictetus, who was born as a slave to a master that allowed schooling so that when he earned his freedom, he become a philosopher: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." "If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone." "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." "Any person capable of angering you becomes your master..." "The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." "He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at." Calls to Action: Get wiser - there are a few resources you can explore on your own. This is not a complete list, just some onramps that seemed more accessible to us as we also begin our journey down this rabbit hole. Stoic Coffee Break podcast and website. Daily Stoic website, email, podcast, articles, and books on this and related topics. An easy read and good overview on Kindle is "The Beginner's Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity" by Matthew Van Natta. It's free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Check out these foundational documents from the ancients (translated) at Daily Stoic for 3 Must-Read Books To Get You Started. They might all be free from one e-book service or another, so look around by name. Give practicing it a try! Even if at first you don't succeed, keep trying and you will succeed with time. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info If you want to connect with others in the stoic community near you, so far the only national network we've found is The Stoic Fellowship whose mission is, "Building, Fostering, and Connecting Communities of Stoics Around the World." Otherwise, check on MeetUp.com maybe. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a peer-reviewed academic resource on key topics in all areas of philosophy. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Today we nerd out and share the latest information we've been following in the growing world of blockchains and the so-called web 3.0 built upon them. We review what makes up Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Essentially imagine all of the forms of finance that consumers and businesses use on a regular basis today, only with higher returns and no regulation... yet. Literally a digital wild west gold rush that's only available online. What it could mean that centralized finance (NYSE in this case) is offering crypto futures starting with Bitcoin. We can imagine Ethereum (MVP promises to pronounce this correctly in the future) will be next in somewhat short order. Perhaps a more solid price floor could be established based on traditional exchange investor dollars. However, that would require some kind of faith because what we know of crypto prices is volatility. What on Earth is the metaverse? Massive multiplayer online universes - think World of Warcraft, Destiny, SecondLife - with decentralized ownership and governance and possibly a lot more. Pretty much the opposite of anything that may come from the likes of Meta, a company formerly known as Facebook. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are verifiably unique, one-of-a-kind, addresses on a blockchain. These addresses cannot be duplicated within a blockchain. The address can contain a key for many things, like digital art, contracts like property deeds, music, and other file types including programs. The blockchain can be setup to handle all the transactions for change in ownership of these unique addresses and the collection and dissemination of royalties to the creators on every re-sale. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are an embodiment of the beloved decentralized nature of this new blockchain internet of things. These organizations are typically made up of a group of members that is determined based on ownership of crypto coins or tokens. DAOs can be formed for many reasons, some yet to be known, but so far they are mostly responsible for governing change to blockchains over time including financing and implementing upgrades. This includes voting as a community on enhancements, changes to protocols or rules, adding new features, etc. Here's a Coindesk article about legislation passed in Wyoming, effective July 2021, that recognizes and provides for registering a DAO as an LLC. Calls to Action: The best way for many of us to learn is by doing the thing. So if you're thinking about playing with crypto, only spend money you do not need when scratching this itch. Treat it like an unregulated casino. As such, your somewhat least risky move may be to investigate reputable exchanges that service customers in your country. As such, your somewhat least risky move may be to investigate reputable exchanges that service customers in your country. Most exchanges has a specific service for the United States due to increased regulatory requirements. Popular platforms include Coinbase, Kraken, Binance.us, Gemini, others. However, you won't necessarily control your blockchain keys when going through an exchange. If you want to buy and hold and keep it secure, check out other hot and cold wallets for storing your own crypto keys. Here's a short article from Blockchains101.com. Do your research. Some cryptos are born as scams and some become scams over time. Only you can prevent losing your money, so keep your research and your positions fresh. Time will tell, but there is a real possibility that some of these cryptocurrencies will prove to be good hedges against inflation, wars, and other geopolitical happenings that impact national currencies. Web 3.0 may prove to be massively more valuable than our current version too. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Coming off the heals of two republics we want to paint the picture of what an egalitarian future may look like. How does self-rule translate into the economy? How do we leave behind the concrete plantation that was built by the owners of the system? Competition is good and centralization is problematic without proper checks and balances in place. We use adversarial (one side versus another) setups to do things like finding the truth through a court case or like supply and demand in economics or the checks and balances among our co-equal branches of government. Automation is coming for all repeatable tasks and will eliminate related jobs. This includes many roles from middle management to delivery drivers. The ability to be free is granted to all through the ability to participate in the economy in the way that they choose. Imagine if healthcare and schooling were rights, not expenses or debt, since a healthy republic needs citizens who understand how to work it. Imagine having the right to equal pay for equal work for egalitarian sake. Imagine the astounding possibilities if all our brains were free to create at will rather than only a selected few. Calls to Action: Arm yourself against the fear that is driven by false notions of socialism or communism or any ism because those are just ideas, not systems that we can implement. China and Russia are more capitalist or even fascist in their current implementations of governance and economy. The one Marxist thing they retain is central planning committees that are deeply seated in politics. The U.S. uses a set of distributed economic planning committees consisting of public and private institutions, the Federal Government, and the boards of companies across industries. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We tend to take for granted the fact that we have weekends, a "fourty-hour" work week, and abolished child labor so they can attend schools instead. These are a set of conditions that have been hard fought for and won by historical labor and progressive movements in the United States. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI and not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics A tale of two republics that are fused together under law as a means of containing a ceaseless war of cultures. One republic was built upon the ideals of aristocracy and one was built on the ideals of equality. What they had in common was a common enemy in that neither of the republics wanted to bear the cost of living back under the rule of a king. The new south has boundaries drawn by cultural lines and is not reliably in specific states but rather among all of the states. This has actually been true throughout most of United States history as racism and misogyny never fit inside of map lines. The lines were simply easier to draw back when laws told the story, specifically where slavery was legal. Follow the ideas where old rules reign today and there you will find the confederacy echoing from yesterday. A potent combination of white supremacy and misogyny that is justified in many cases through religion. Modern science has proven all humans are the same species. History has proven that race was invented and gender was used for sowing division and creating classes where none truly existed in reality. This provided huge amounts of free labor to feed the aristocratic economies of the south and maintain their order through oppression. One more chapter in the age of civilizations: The long history of the haves balancing their power, riches, and glory on the backs of the have-nots. Why reconstruction was left unfinished is something we touch on in this episode, but if you are looking for something with more information, please check out Reconstruction: America After the Civil War by PBS. Calls to Action: Realize that every human is their own entity with inalienable rights according to our founding documents - no race or gender is inherently superior nor should wield power over another - this is egalitarianism, this is the freedom promised under the laws of our republic. Maps are being redrawn and representation matters. It is up to all of us to make sure our voice is heard. "Unity maps" shall show the way to more equal representation across more competitive districts! These maps have been proposed as highlighted in this San Jose Spotlight OpeEd piece; a map inspired by The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and are providing an example to model. After all, we love that old motto, "no taxation without representation!" Review CPP Episode 6 The Politics of Party when we discussed the dangers of conducting politics via parties and how parties are one of the things the U.S. founders feared most; something bad for the health of any republic. Voting is being restricted in new ways, find out how to get out the vote in your community. Check with your local county elections officer, sometimes part of the clerk or recorder offices. Get interested in new tactics to combat inequality in voter access and campaign funding. Your community needs solutions and democracy vouchers may be a new way to begin leveling the playing field if we cannot get HR1 - For the People Act to pass the U.S. Senate. Seattle has made some progress on this front recently by implementing democracy vouchers to manage campaign finance and allow more citizens to run for office. Here's a related opinion piece from CommonDreams.org for more information. Get involved and use your agency to help make noise and march on the ideas that are important to our personal health, the climate within which we live, and our collective health as a species. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info If you want to understand more about the various cultures that colonized and propagated the United States, then check out the book American Nations by Colin Woodard (2011). The link is Wikipedia, but the book is available for purchase via the usual methods if you want to read it. We have transcripts located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI. It's not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for listener consideration and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Kudos to businesses who were on the front lines supporting a move to remote work to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives. Now we have to deal with what the future will look like. Now is the time to re-examine our outmoded relationship with the company office. Many studies are showing nothing but win-win benefits from moving to a four-day workweek with gains in both productivity and personal satisfaction. 4-Day Workweeks Can Boost Happiness and Productivity - The Atlantic This huge new social experiment could finally make the 4-day-workweek a reality - inverse.com Hybrid remote and purposeful on-site face time is also another way companies can remain flexible with their workforce and maximize any benefits of having people in an office space setting. There should be a clear set of goals in mind for bringing the team together and everyone should be open to changing it up for the sake of improvement. We need to be cautious of the pitfalls of continuing an overemphasis on in-person interactions that are motivated for selfish reasons. There should be clear benefits available to all who participate in the office, a level playing field so-to-speak. Otherwise, we'll only be doubling back down on methods that helped inequality blossom. Workers that remain exclusively in any category, remote or in-office, still risk exclusion through limitations or overexposure from the perspective of visibility or availability to leadership. This can have the effect of further isolating employees that are otherwise the best candidates for a coveted position because they haven't gotten enough face time with the bosses. And/or unduly influencing bosses to over-index on a highly available person that may not be the best candidate overall. Or more subtly, someone's bonus may more likely be affected by having a lack of in-person contact with key people in the office. Calls to Action: Question any demands to return to the old normal and seek more information to understand the motivations and perspectives behind the decision-making. Make it part of your one-on-ones, salary negotiations, and employee surveys to talk about intentions behind time in the office and share your respectful, informed, and candid feedback on the matter. Aim to improve the policies or how they are implemented by framing propositions thoughtfully and in a way where the benefits are clear. Make yourself more aware of the history of labor and our hard-fought gains like the weekend, which is how we make gains, through hard fights that require patience, endurance, and a clear goal in mind: A 4-day work week anyone? Employees are expected to act in the interest of the business that employs them and, by extension, in accordance with its policies when they do not conflict with the law. Yes, the laws of our republic always take precedence. Approach topics from as strong (watertight) and well-grounded (can withstand forces) position as possible. Be prepared to listen, receive, and measure the response to your delivery. Avoid reacting at the moment. Practice with a friend or coach if you're nervous. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Remember: Acting on behalf of the business within its policy is an excellent place to have in mind when asking questions. Ask questions about how policies benefit the business and its stakeholders or what other outcomes of value are expected. Does the case make sense? If not, then ask more valuable questions. For instance, how will the results be measured to know if things are working as planned or if adjustments are needed? We have transcripts now! Located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI. It's not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this podcast are for entertainment purposes and are not necessarily those of the show or its sponsors. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We put the spotlight back onto the media and the niche-filled mess that has proliferated among the feeds of our internet of things. As citizens in a freedom-loving republic, we need to be vigilant of our information diet. Bias and creating an angle on any given piece of information in order to formulate a TV-ready story-bite is big business now. It always has been really, but now we also have to contend with a massive democratization of sources available to us through all the various platforms on our computers and phones. Not all sources are created equal although you may want to believe it, that does not make it right or true. What is corruption in media? Planting and growing bias with the aim of creating profitable niches at the cost of truly relevant and valuable content. Also, media companies tend to be in the business of aiding and abetting political figures for the purposes of securing future gains or consideration. As old a practice as the art of propaganda. Be on guard. Only you can have a balanced diet of information and understanding how to assess bias or angles like we need to understand food labels. Honestly, finding bias might even be more intuitive than reading nutrition labels. You need to treat your media like a 7-layer nacho dip, a little perspective from each of all the layers to triangulate on the truth where the facts lay. Don't only have one source of information. Detect and know the bias or angle of the sources you use and select multiple sources in order to compare, somewhere between the lines is the relative truth of the matter. Every story has two sides or more! Remember: All news is best served with a side of fact and facts are a dish best served cold. Stone cold truths are the most truthful of truths. Calls to Action: All of life is a soup. Keep your shields up, sample a lot with your sensors, and trust but verify anything you think is information. MVP loves his friends, even more, when they check his neuron misfirings. No one is right all of the time. We have to remain open to new information and to changes in understanding or perspective. Freedom of the press is a constitutional right and high-quality journalism is important, facts matter, and so does verifiable reality. Diversify your media intake and look for independent journalism to support. DIVERSITY CHALLENGE: Do not only consume sources that confirm your existing beliefs! You need to have a balanced information diet, so add in views from another side or perspective for every source you agree with. Check your sources and find specific information using commands that are specific to your search engine. We have provided some helpful links below for resources on multiple engines: Google Support Article, "Refine web searches" Comparison of Advanced Search Operators for Yahoo, Bing and Google from "The Association of Internet Research Specialists," name sounds spooky. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info We have transcripts now! Located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI. It's not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or like us on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We put the spotlight on a recent 5-4 decision on an emergency stay request from the Supreme Court, coming down on the side of allowing a new anti-abortion law in Texas to take effect, at the will of the state, and completely deferred getting involved until such time as an actual case is presented to the court, of which there are several already on route. Adding insult to injury, this was merely a procedural decision, and as such, it is equal parts callous and irreverent of all the U.S. citizens in Texas who were about to lose their civil rights. Hopefully, the Department of Justice will do what it can to protect those who choose to continue to exercise their right to an abortion, as it is a protected right of all U.S. citizens under federal law. Strange as it is, states rights is the method of experimenting with 50 flavors of the republic, making inroads on civil liberties in the face of mask mandates and legalization of recreational drugs and also the resurgence of patriarchy, the last gasp of a by-gone-era. Roe v. Wade (1973) grew it's roots in Texas, so there is no irony that they are the state to usher in a new cutting-edge aimed at the severance of women's rights from the law. This episode is probably more of an explainer on a soapbox than our typical episode, with little in the wake of solutions other than wait and see how to act. It feels like we're suspended in time watching to understand how bad the car crash is going to get in live-action slow motion. Gutt-wrenching seems an appropriate description. Calls to Action: If you have off-cycle elections coming, pay attention, and make sure you vote. In many states, you can be purged from the voter roll for missing only one election. Don't get rolled, keep voting to stay registered! Contact your congressional representatives and voice your support for the following critical legislation to all citizens of the United States. If you want your vote to count and our tax dollars going to the things that matter, then you want to support this legislation: For The People Act John Lewis Voting Rights Act Equality Act Peacefully protesting is the release valve for citizens to band together in a show of force and solidarity around a common cause. Seek out local marches and rallies to show support for women's civil rights as full citizens. If you are in Texas, perhaps make plans to seek assistance outside of state lines. If you have family living in Texas who is seeking the freedoms offered by women in your state of residence, then you have a duty to help if you can. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Interesting article on how the most supreme court in the land has reversed its own decisions over the years. More specifically, the Supreme Court has overturned more than 200 of its own decisions. Here's what it could mean for Roe v. Wade, an article by AJ Willingham at CNN. MVP got lazy allowing this analysis through. It's not wrong, just maybe a little light and airy. We have transcripts now! Located at the end of each podcast episode's page on our site. Check it out, but know this: It's all AI. It's not us. So thank you in advance for forgiving any and all errors. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We put the spotlight on what it means to be a patriot in our republic and call attention to a thought experiment. What does patriotism look like in lieu of armed conflict and insurrection? How should a patriot respond to an attempted coup or illegal seizure of power from a government? Storming the capital is not a legitimate answer. If the election was executed freely and fairly by the book, then we follow the votes, period. No violence should be justified. Anyone who refuses to abide by the winner according to the most votes is then, by definition, attempting a coup against the duly elected government. Evidence that substantiates claims of wrongdoing in establishing the vote count shall need to be dealt with and we have long-standing mechanisms in place to identify and remedy issues in voting procedures or personnel. To date, there has been negligible evidence of actual vote tampering or other anomalies and none that were so widespread as to impact the outcome of an election. Yet we remain vigilant, county by county. We should double down on the rules and keep trying at making a more perfect union, each election cycle at a time with that end goal in mind: more perfect. Peacefully protesting is the release valve for citizens to band together in a show of force and solidarity around a common cause. If, and now we can say when, an administration cracks down on peaceful protests, then the lawsuits will rise through the courts to protect the civil liberties guaranteed to citizens under the law. The executive branch can be rebuked through the courts, one would hope. Political revolution instead of armed revolution by force is the only way forward if you side with our republic and not against it. Footnote aside: Unless said civil liberty has to do with someone carrying a uterus. Our current Supreme Court is fully open to hearing arguments against abortion rights and willing to watch the resulting repercussions of enacting such laws as if one's mind was so small as to not already know the outcome without needing to collect data in order to inform your decision. It's all quite billy-boy-bonkers really. MVP mentioned something ambiguous about the Warren court, in reference to the U.S. Supreme Court responsible for overturning Jim Crow (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896) with the 1954 decision that ruled racial segregation in schools, and by association all segregation, was unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education). Momentous things can happen at the whim of our courts within the span of 60 years. To and frow the pendulum meanders, oscillating around an inevitable arch bending toward justice. An indelible image gifted to us by the dear late Reverand Martin Lutther King Jr. Calls to Action: If you have off-cycle elections coming, pay attention, and make sure you vote. In many states, you can be purged from the voter roll for missing only one election. Don't get rolled, keep voting to stay registered! Contact your congressional representatives and voice your support for the following critical legislation to all citizens of the United States. If you want your vote to count and our tax dollars going to the things that matter, then you want to support this legislation: For The People Act John Lewis Voting Rights Act Equality Act Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info MVP wanted to rant on a soapbox about the CA Recall Process being punitive on the voters forcing a snap election with candidates rather than providing a simple yes or no, and letting the dominoes fall into place. We already elected a second in command in case the governorship is vacated prior to the end of their term and this case should be no different. On another note, strategically the lieutenant governor should have been an option for us on the back of the ballot. Next time... and there will be a next time if history is any lesson. The recall device began in the United States in a municipality—Los Angeles—in 1903. Michigan and Oregon, in 1908, were the first states to adopt recall procedures for state officials. Minnesota (1996) and New Jersey (1993) were the most recent. Since 1913, there have been 179 recall attempts of state elected officials in California. Eleven recall efforts collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot and of those, the elected official was recalled in six instances. We'll see what happens with Newsom in CA on Sep. 15. 2021 or within only days later. We have transcripts now! Come to the episode page on our site to check it out. It's all AI from Zoom, not us, so forgive us for any mistakes. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We put the spotlight on what it means to be a patriot in our republic. What patriotism looks like in our republic juxtaposition to insurrection. Don't get them confused! The ongoing sliding scale of democratic self-rule and why we allow it to oscillate between freedom and authority. Self-rule is a messy business and when times are tough, we tend to sacrifice our civil liberties and create autocracies among the states. That is a fear response that we must resist. A recent ruling from one of the initial cases coming to bear against the insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. In Judge Amy Berman Jackson's words while sentencing an insurrectionist, "Patriotism is loyalty to country, loyalty to the Constitution, not loyalty to a head of state. That is the tyranny we rejected on July 4." Read in: King of England be damned, this is the United States! The dangers of political parties are showing their colors. Please check out S1 S6 | The Politics of Party. Elections, like court cases, are best designed to bring any contest to a conclusion. It is not always fair, but it should be essentially by the book. When loyalty to a party or one person or the idea of one person is an affront to operating our system of representative government. The founders were leery of kings and irrational laws and sycophants alike. Following the rules is very patriotic and if we do not like the rules, it is in our power to change them. It is in fact our responsibility as citizens to sponsor a system that calls foul balls and enforces the strike-outs. This is the same spirit in which we play sports and expect one another to not be a poor loser. This is how we should view and respect our system of laws. Calls to Action: Let us know your definition of "Patriot" in reference to this episode. How do you feel about ours? Before you run off and start defending our system as a patriot, first read your state's constitution! If that's too much to start, go re-read the Constitution of the United States. You should know what you are trying to defend without taking anyone else's word for it. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info MVP wanted to put the message out there that the best way forward for all of us to live freely as Americans is to treat everyone equally under the law and each other with dignity and respect. We must accept the fact that all who are not native are descendants of immigrants and/or slaves. Anthropology teaches us that gene flow comes and gene flow goes, so too does immigration. We need to be steadfast in our principles, as a nation of immigrants, to maintain the United States as a shining light upon a hill with a beacon of promise like no other land on Earth. Sharing is caring and caring brings happiness. Off the soapbox... We have transcripts now! Come to the episode page on our site to check it out. It's all AI from Zoom, not us, so forgive us for any mistakes. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to the solutions of our choice. The natural world is full of problems and more importantly, solutions to these problems. Natural remedies have been time-tested through the processes of evolution and natural selection and deserve our attention. In this part 2, we explore the current state of Genetically Modified Organisms (like wheat and cows, etc.) and the difference between natural and unnatural methods of selecting desirable crops. We briefly discuss the connective nature of the mushroom, a.k.a. the mycelial network, among the roots of great forest organisms and among the neurons of one's mind. This National Forest Foundation article helps shed light upon what we are learning about these amazing and vast symbiotic organisms, "Underground Networking: The Amazing Connections Beneath Your Feet." Regarding the brain, this scholarly article finished its summary with a powerful finding: "... These results strongly imply that the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs are caused by decreased activity and connectivity in the brain's key connector hubs, enabling a state of unconstrained cognition." Areas of the brain are talking to each other without their usual, well-worn pathways! The effect is literally freeing the mind. Calls to Action: During your day-to-day, seek to add in new connections in your community around food. Pierce the veil of marketing and plastic wrap in your life and meet your butcher to know your meats. Choose all-natural or organic over factory farm-raised products. You may need to ask questions to understand the difference based on what's available in your area. Cost-saving tip: We know it may be more expensive per pound to invest in healthful foods, but consider reducing the amount of meat you buy. The more nutrient-dense a food is, the more healthful it is, and as such you need less of it to be healthy. Use ripe fruit to finish any meal if you're still hungry. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Learning more about the U.S. Farm Bill so that when it comes up for reauthorization, you are familiar with how your tax dollars are allocated. We need to reprioritize small farms and healthful production over the mass industrialization of our agriculture. Let us put our tax dollars to good use and move us towards sustainability and resilience in farm practices for a more healthful nation and a more perfect union. D.C. Think Tank, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, produced a handy video and infographics: What is the Farm Bill? Wikipedia a perennial source of information has a U.S. Farm Bill informational page. Another recent scholarly article on "How psychedelic drug psilocybin works on the brain." Notably it mentions that using fMRI technology has revealed that areas of the brain thought to deal with the ego and sense of self are less active, which also coincides with the other study that found similar connector/traffic cop regions are less active. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to the solutions of our choice. The natural world is full of problems and more importantly, solutions to these problems. Natural remedies have been time-tested through the processes of evolution and natural selection and deserve our attention. Go for a swim! "Regular swimming has been shown to improve memory, cognitive function, immune response, and mood. Swimming may also help repair damage from stress and forge new neural connections in the brain." Psilocybin is a champ when it comes to relieving the symptoms of both depression and anxiety. In fact, things are starting to move fast in the world of studies on the drug. Researchers' appetites were made wet back in 2016 when a ground-breaking study at the time showed that a single dose administered under the care of psychiatric medical doctors provided relief from depression in cancer patients for years. As recently as November 2020, John Hopkins University School of Medicine produced a study that shows even more remarkable promise for this brain wonder drug, quoted below: “The magnitude of the effect we saw was about four times larger than what clinical trials have shown for traditional antidepressants on the market,” says Alan Davis, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Because most other depression treatments take weeks or months to work and may have undesirable effects, this could be a game changer if these findings hold up in future ‘gold-standard' placebo-controlled clinical trials.” Psychedelic Treatment with Psilocybin Relieves Major Depression, Study Shows. More than that even... This article from Nature mentions treatments for PTSD in addition to the others we already covered. What's also notable in this article is a nifty little table that shows the number of studies being undertaken in recent years on this subject. 2020 was a boom year with 17 studies including 13 focused on Psilocybin, 3 featuring MDMA (a.k.a Molly or Extasy), and 1 on good old LSD. Now those last two we're not so sure how natural they are, for the record. The chart goes back to 2010, so check it out if you like infographics. One timely piece on this subject comes to us from the New York Times and provides some of the business going on behind the scenes, "Psilocybin and MDMA are poised to be the hottest new therapeutics since Prozac. Universities want in, and so does Wall Street. Some worry a push to loosen access could bring unintended consequences." Just as the subheading suggests, it will be interesting to see what comes in the wake of all these newly destabilizing forces that might upend the mental health industry and have far-reaching implications for ending prohibition by the U.S. Federal Government. Here's a quote that shows how quickly things are moving now... "More than a dozen start-ups have jumped into the fray, and the handful of companies that have gone public are collectively valued at more than $2 billion... Compass Pathways, a Nasdaq-listed health care company that has raised $240 million, is conducting 22 clinical trials across 10 countries of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression." Addiction is an issue all on its own, complex and varried. No specific type of consumption is more or less addictive to people who have "non-addictive" personalities. Those people should be free to have choices. Yes, relatively among the things that people get addicted to, some are more addictive than others and it is also true that "old habits die hard." However we must also consider that when people can be addicted to food, alcohol, narcotics, opioids, sex, etc. what is most addictive, is the escapism that these experiences offer in place of a truly fulfilling life. A truly fulfilling life is one when you go to bed and fall asleep fast because you're excited to wake up in the morning. Not because it's Christmas, but because you're alive and you have something left to do to which you're looking forward to finishing. Call to Action: At Citizen Do Good, we believe that increasing access to choices helps to fuel our freedom of choice! Let us not only trust in the very young, very astute scientific method but also the age-old wisdom that comes from generations of exploring nature for ourselves - experientially. After all, we knew as a matter of fact, before science, that mother's milk is way more nourishing than any substitute we can concoct. Make an informed opinion by learning more now. Use some of the resources we've shared and consider exploring how you might gain more awareness experientially if such an opportunity arises. One of the most critical components of all these studies is that people feel comfortable relying on doctors, it feels safer and that's a key. You should ensure you have a trusted, safe, and secure environment any time you explore new things - unless you're climbing Everest. Even then, you'd be relieved a bit by having a guide, solid equipment, and some training or practice ahead of time. Hopefully, this analogy makes sense. What about the law? Similar to how marijuana is being made legal state by state in American fashion, an end to the prohibition on other schedule 1 substances will likely be won state by state at the ballot box or through legislatures. That's what we do in our Republic absent of major pressure in D.C. by unseen forces. Someone at Bloomberg agrees with this assessment. In contrast, a somewhat more hopeful tone is coming from Rolling Stone who attempts to answer the question of whether the current Democratic majority will pick up the mantle. Case in point, as of July 2021, California's legislature is working up a bill to do just that: California advances decriminalizing psychedelic substances. So at least the states are getting on the move and like Marijuana back in the 1990s, it looks like the west coast is on the cutting edge. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info The war on drugs ended up being a war on Americans. It was good for business and white supremacy. NPR has a timely series named, "The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later," dedicated to providing more perspective in this space. What about Marijuana? We haven't highlighted it because now 37 states have some form of legalized access to this gateway drug. Gateway to legalization and decriminalization for all the inmates on the Federal Schedule 1 drug row. As far as medicine, it definitely can help overcome a lack of appetite and help insomniacs get some sleep. I don't think we need to consult medical advice to know that's true. Prohibition (the alcoholic one) - we will need to do an episode on just this and the IRS. Coming soon. Gene Editing - also another episode we promise to bring you in the future. In short, it seems like CRISPR-CAS9 isn't the only game in town. More to come. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to safe, abundant, and sustainable homes is absolutely critical to the survival of our modern society. We need to build homes that are resilient in the face of fire, wind, and water. In some areas, they need to have the flexibility to move with the earth. An oldie but a goodie: Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) are a way to build with reinforced concrete quickly, efficiently, and safely. The resulting building is resistant to fire and insulated well enough for someone to survive inside during a wildfire, albeit it's not recommended. After a fire, simply reapply the insulating foam to the outside and paint. The reinforced part helps keep the building from buckling under stress from events like earthquakes. Logix is a company in this space that demonstrates the stark difference of building with ICF. Even if you already have a home, there are a lot of things you can do to upgrade the sustainability and resiliency of your current estate. For instance, replacing windows with double pain versions or detaching your garage where you also keep chemicals that are flammable. If you're in a fire-prone area, then replace your roof using metals that won't catch from burning cinders or screening any entrances to prevent cinders from entering through small openings and eves. Builder online has a short article highlighting these and many other fortifications to consider. Modular construction techniques are a demonstration in building efficiently at scale and with the ability to offer custom builds. Think of them like legos. FactoryOS is one such company backed by big tech and big construction companies. CNBC offers this short take on some of these players. 3D printed homes? Coming soon to a culdesac near you! Check out this Business Insider article featuring one new company taking aim at using a new approach to building sustainably: Mighty Buildings. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info MVP was on a rant about how singular motives, like making a profit in short order, can have a negative effect by warping the moral sensibilities of individuals under the influence of such goals. Many of you may not recall a company that went by Enron - but the internet remembers: When Tough Performance Goals Lead to Cheating. Here's a more science-y article on this subject more generally: Employee incentives can lead to unethical behavior in the workplace from ScienceDaily. A more recent example from the world of finance comes from circa 2016 when Wells Fargo settled a Los Angeles lawsuit in regards to sales behavior that was fueled in part by sales goals, here's a Harvard Law piece on this from a corporate governance perspective. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to safe, abundant, and sustainable fuels for creating electricity is absolutely critical to the survival of our modern society. Humanity isn't necessarily going extinct - albeit we'd lose many and the remainder may live off the land. Coming out of that digression, we can see the value in alternative fuels including getting back to basics with hydrogen power. We simply didn't cover wind power or hydroelectric in this episode because they don't seem to have a clear path towards long-term resiliency or as viable replacements for fossil fuels. Wind-generated power is too inconsistent and now also hydroelectric generation (water moving downhill turning giant turbines): All the dams built by FDR are starting to shut down due to drought conditions across the western U.S. An ideal fuel has a steady and stable supply that can scale to meet demand and sustain shocks to the system from climate and espionage events. Enter stage center: Hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cells! Cars that fill up at a pump, can go 1,000 miles on a tank, and only spit water out their tailpipe! Oh yeah! We'll carry on under the call to action up ahead. We have another honorable mention... Don't call it a come-back, Airships've been here for years! According to ForeignPolicy.com, "For decades, the Goodyear fleet of blimps have been the only working airships most people had a chance of seeing in real life. But a handful of companies are looking to bring back the spectacular dirigibles. [...] The cruise company OceanSky is forging ahead with plans to send a passenger airship to the Arctic, using a ship originally designed under the U.S. military's surveillance program, with a planned voyage in 2023." These ships use helium, not hydrogen, so just honorable mentions in the sustainable travel options category. Call to Action: Learn more about Fuel Cell technology. We have made many advances in safety technologies in relation to hydrogen's volitile properties in a high oxygen (approx. 20%) environment in our atmosphere. Every technology has its risks. Buy a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle if you can afford it. MVP's statements about only being able to lease a Hyperion Motors XP-1 or Toyota Mirai were FLASE! You can buy these vehicles now (Hyperion Motors) and they're worth your attention. What vehicles did we miss? Let us know! Go solar if you can and perhaps add wind too (link to a nerdy new device at EcoHome). Combining these technologies at a small scale coupled with a central battery system and you start to create a mitochondrial power plant for your household cell. Might as well get paid for selling extra power to the grid when you don't need it. Keep an eye out to support congressional bills that put our dollars on the chips of future technologies - not the old killer ones: According to Bloomberg, "Biden's infrastructure plan calls for billions of dollars in spending on demonstration projects that include hydrogen." Sorry, this is behind a paywall. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info "...EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real. A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency finds that people of color are much more likely to live near polluters and breathe polluted air—even as the agency seeks to roll back regulations on pollution." By Vann R. Newkirk II (The Atlantic; Feb. 2018). Fun Fact: Our evidence indicates that there is more hydrogen in the universe than any other element—it's been estimated that approximately 90 percent of all atoms are hydrogen. Boom! Plus we already produce approximately 70 million metric tons of hydrogen globally every year for various industrial uses. Hydrogen as a source for energy generation comes in color codes: Grey - fossil fuels are used in their production Blue - less polluting process Green - no pollution, water is the byproduct (which we could collect) A McKinsey study estimated that by 2030, the U.S. hydrogen economy could generate $140 billion and support 700,000 jobs. A worthy investment for our future if you ask me! - If Europe and China don't beat us to it. Germany is beginning to heavily subsidize key areas to stimulate developments in Green Hydrogen specifically and ween off its reliance on Russian gas. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to nutrient-rich "premium" foods is critical to life, the old adage is very true: You are what you eat and it affects how you think. Food is more than fuel, it provides the building blocks to replace your cells as they die. If you have any skepticism that the quality of the calories you ingest has a direct impact on your internal biological processes including mental health, then check out this article which is similar to that RWJ referenced during the episode: "Crime and nourishment – the link between food and offending behaviour" (UK). Beyond the obvious concerns about malnutrition, it's another example of how our system does little to rehabilitate humans that become fodder for profit in the prison industrial complex. Food is our first line of defense for healthcare. Ultimately, the best way for each of us to care for our health multiple times per day is to care for the food that we eat. You want a premium body and mind that stands the test of time? Then eat premium foods and drink water. Don't believe it, check the National Institutes for Health: Increased Intake of Foods with High Nutrient Density Can Help to Break the Intergenerational Cycle of Malnutrition and Obesity. How's that for health care! Rewilding (see episode 28) and community gardens can provide us with abundant opportunities to introduce affordable, sustainable, local, and nutrient-rich foods. Not to mention how working in a garden stimulates our sense of belonging, community, and connectedness to nature and each other. Eating happy meats make for happy people. MVP is calling "happy meat" the result of happy animals living a natural normal stress life, filled with love and a nutrient-rich grass diet. All grass (think greens) means all the omega fatty acids your body and brain need, factory-produced fish oil need not apply! Call to Action: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The new food golden rule - thank you, Michael Pollan (author of the book In Defense of Food). Take this rule and find some new habits that work for you! Golden rule unpacked: Food is anything with less than 10 ingredients with nothing inside that your great or great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. If an ingredient sounds like a science concoction, don't eat it! Not too much! Come on now, if you're not running a marathon then you probably don't need that much fuel. Pro tip: you can't eat too many fruits or vegetables! Physically it's just not likely. Now don't go off and overdose on carrots, too much of any one thing is not good. Mostly plants, yes! The biodiversity and nutrient richness of plants is many, many, many times greater than meats. We biologically don't need to eat a lot of meat, so it's high time to cut way back. Milk (as adults) and cheese are nice-to-haves for those who can digest them. Meat example: MVP strives to include happy meat (free-range naturally-fed and finished) component in up to 5 meals per week. Assume he eats like two or three meals per day. The portion is small, like a palmful of meat - not a steak. Mindfulness is an exercise that can be performed in any environment at any time you can provide focused attention. Be open to the testaments of your senses. Occupy your mind with what you hear, see, smell, feel, and taste using all of your available sensors. It's a great reset for the mind, your nervous system, and primes your biome for digestion. Focus on the Adds. One more tip MVP found useful when embarking on any transition in life: focus on adding things you want into your life and other less valuable things in your life will naturally attrite. As another phrase goes, it's all about the bear you feed. So just focus on adding in one new healthful thing at a time. As you add, naturally other things will fall out simply due to space, time, and attention constraints. Give it a try by grabbing a vegetable from a local farmer's market that you have never had before, or where it's been a while since you had it, and experiment using it in a favorite dish. The farmer at the market can give you great tips on storing and preparing items too! Find a local butcher and get to know what happy meats they may have. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Food deserts (thanks again Wikipedia) are a problem throughout the United States. Albeit we didn't focus on it in this episode, it will be a topic in the future for this podcast or another project from Citizen Do Good. Crime and Nourishment. Cause for a rethink? This article from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) really puts the focus on the effects of food from studying the largest captive group of humans on earth, United States prison populations. :-( We also didn't get into the pressures against healthful foods, including big agri-business (high margins and low-quality foods for profit) and pharma (drugs for profit to compensate for the effects from years of eating low-quality foods). Yes, they both have us in a race to the bottom. Your food can free you from medications in many cases. One of the most prevalent food-based diseases, besides heart disease, is diabetes. A repeat of the link above: Increased Intake of Foods with High Nutrient Density Can Help to Break the Intergenerational Cycle of Malnutrition and Obesity. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and having access to clean and affordable water is critical to life. Although the drought is only striking the entire Southwest of the United States, everyone will feel it at the grocery store. We need bold new infrastructure using the latest in engineering to implement a better managed and more sustainable system than the one we inherited. One recommendation from Big Think proposes an interstate water pipeline system asking the question, "We have pipelines for oil and natural gas. Why not water?" How will a pipeline help? It will enable us to collect water from across the central basin of the U.S. and pipe it over or through the Rockies (think Tesla style boring system) and we might as well put some dang high-speed rails down as we go along too. The method of collection will need to be fleshed out, but it could as simple as directing the flow of storm drains into natural subterranean basins that act as a first-line filtration system. This water, as the case with most water, would need to be additionally filtered or treated for drinking. Thanks to ProPublica for this nerdy interactive page on climate maps. Check out how the quality of life within our nation will be changing with the climate from temperature to wetness: New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States. We mentioned several water management systems that aren't as effective as they once were. Albeit going thirsty is mostly a local issue in the west, the whole nation's food security is at risk because according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, "In 2019 California's farms and ranches received more than $50 billion in cash receipts for their output. [...] California's agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country's vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California." Similarly arid and drought-stricken is Arizona, which according to the AZDA is, "estimated to be a $23.3 billion industry." That's a lot of jobs and food for the nation on the line. Call to Action: Support new infrastructure programs as we need to build a new nation that can rise to the challenges of a changing world. Please use less water and begin planning for your own household's resiliency. Beyond investments in rewilding your landscape, it may make sense for you to invest in a rainwater runoff capture system or greywater reuse systems. There are larger-scale operations that need to start cutting back to have an outsized effect on conservation before it makes sense for people to have to make more draconian cuts in service. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Wikipedia has decent content on the Colorado River Compact for your historical pleasure. And in order the mind the gap, here is some equally satisfying historical food for thought around the Klamath Project, courtesy of Wikipedia. For a quick snapshot of the current, dire, state of the project check out, "5 things to know about the Klamath water crisis" from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and rewilding is a major component in our arsenal to combat climate change and enable ecosystems that make conditions conducive to life and create a more resilient food web for ourselves. What is it? According to the Internet's favorite source Wikipedia, "Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration with an emphasis on humans stepping back and leaving an area to nature, as opposed to more active forms of natural resource management." Here's an informative video about rewilding with wolves in Yellowstone National Park. There are several reasons to be supportive of rewilding across the United States.. For climate's sake: Strong ecosystems make a formidable defense against climate instability. Considering that climate is a function of the biosphere and the biosphere is sustained by rich natural ecosystems, we only stand to gain in terms of maintaining a livable Earth when we let nature do its thing. For food's sake: A biodiverse food web will be more resilient than the mono-agriculture system we have now, which is akin to putting all your eggs into one basket as the phrase goes. We should have diversity in the supply chain so that we're not susceptible to being only one pest or one fungus or one viral infection away from a mass starvation event. We already know that Bananas and coffee are at risk of being lost to extinction due to shifting climate and invasive marauders that love the one kind of plant we chose to grow. For the community's sake: Whether be it through shared common spaces like community gardens or farmer's markets or other mechanisms, a greater sense of belonging and fulfillment can be attained when people nurture connections to nature and one another. Call to Action: Take on a rewilding project in your own yard. Return the vegetation to native species and have some fun with raised flower beds by planting things you want to eat or planting pollinator-friendly flowers! Also, check out your local resources from seed banks (like this seed bank in Tucson) to gardening groups to rewilding and conservation corps efforts that could benefit from your time as a volunteer. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info As you embark on your rewilding search, feel free to start here at the True Nature Foundation site for more information on what it is all about and more ways to get involved. You can find more information specifically on the gardening side of the equation (think your yard and your rooftop!) by hitting up the Wild Seed Project. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Our right to vote is under siege by proposals across 43 out of 50 states in the Union (Washington Post, March 11, 2021). This is one of the rare cases DC is fortunate not to have a statehouse. We provide a May round-up on what's passed, below under the more info section. First, we review a "brief" timeline on the Hokey Pokey dance for who could vote when and where within the United States. Thank you to Wikipedia for the info. (Full list here, accessed Jun 4, 2021). 1789 The Constitution of the United States grants the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).[1] However, some states allowed also Black males to vote, and New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women, regardless of color. Since married women were not allowed to own property, they could not meet the property qualifications.[2] 1791 Vermont is admitted as a new state, giving the vote to men regardless of color or property ownership.[5] 1807 Voting rights are taken away from free black males and from all women in New Jersey.[2] 1870 The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents states from denying the right to vote on grounds of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era began soon after. Former Confederate states passed Jim Crow laws and amendments to effectively disfranchise African-American and poor white voters through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and other restrictions, applied in a discriminatory manner. During this period, the Supreme Court generally upheld state efforts to discriminate against racial minorities; only later in the 20th century were these laws ruled unconstitutional. Black males in the Northern states could vote, but the majority of African Americans lived in the South.[17][18] Women in Utah get the right to vote.[21] 1882 Chinese-Americans lose the right to vote and become citizens through the Chinese Exclusion Act.[11] 1883 Women in Washington Territory earn the right to vote.[24] 1887 Citizenship is granted to Native Americans who are willing to disassociate themselves from their tribe by the Dawes Act, making those males technically eligible to vote. Women in Washington lose the right to vote.[24] Women in Utah lose the right to vote under the Edmunds–Tucker Act.[25] Kansas women earn the right to vote in municipal elections.[20] Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, and South Dakota grant partial suffrage to women.[13] 1913 Direct election of Senators, established by the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, gave voters rather than state legislatures the right to elect senators.[31] White and African American women in the Territory of Alaska earn the right to vote.[32] Women in Illinois earn the right to vote in presidential elections.[25] 1914 Nevada and Montana women earn the right to vote.[20] 1917 Women in Arkansas earn the right to vote in primary elections.[20] Women in Rhode Island earn the right to vote in presidential elections.[25] Women in New York, Oklahoma, and South Dakota earn equal suffrage through their state constitutions.[25] 1918 Women in Texas earn the right to vote in primary elections.[33] 1920 Women are guaranteed the right to vote by the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In practice, the same restrictions that hindered the ability of non-white men to vote now also applied to non-white women. 1924 All Native Americans are granted citizenship and the right to vote through the Indian Citizenship Act, regardless of tribal affiliation. By this point, approximately two thirds of Native Americans were already citizens.[35][36] Notwithstanding, some western states continued to bar Native Americans from voting until 1948.[37] 1943 Chinese immigrants are given the right to citizenship and the right to vote by the Magnuson Act.[39] 1948 Arizona and New Mexico are among the last states to extend full voting rights to Native Americans, which had been opposed by some western states in contravention of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.[37][40] 1961 Residents of Washington, D.C. are granted the right to vote in U.S. Presidential Elections by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution.[11] 1962-1964 A historic turning point arrived after the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of landmark decisions which helped establish the nationwide "one man, one vote" electoral system in the United States. In March 1962, the Warren Court ruled in Baker v. Carr (1962) that redistricting qualifies as a justiciable question, thus enabling federal courts to hear redistricting cases.[45] In February 1964, the Warren Court ruled in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) that districts in the United States House of Representatives must be approximately equal in population.[46] In June 1964, the Warren Court ruled in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) that each chamber of a bicameral state legislature must have electoral districts roughly equal in population.[47][48][49] 1964 Poll Tax payment prohibited from being used as a condition for voting in federal elections by the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[30] 1965 Protection of voter registration and voting for racial minorities, later applied to language minorities, is established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[11] This has also been applied to correcting discriminatory election systems and districting. In Harman v. Forssenius the Supreme Court ruled that poll taxes or "equivalent or milder substitutes" cannot be imposed on voters.[30] 1966 Tax payment and wealth requirements for voting in state elections are prohibited by the Supreme Court in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections.[23] 1970 Alaska ends the use of literacy tests.[44] Native Americans who live on reservations in Colorado are first allowed to vote in the state.[50] 1971 Adults aged 18 through 21 are granted the right to vote by the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This was enacted in response to Vietnam War protests, which argued that soldiers who were old enough to fight for their country should be granted the right to vote.[31][51][52] 1973 Washington, D.C. local elections, such as Mayor and Councilmen, restored after a 100-year gap in Georgetown, and a 190-year gap in the wider city, ending Congress's policy of local election disfranchisement started in 1801 in this former portion of Maryland—see: D.C. Home rule. 1986 United States Military and Uniformed Services, Merchant Marine, other citizens overseas, living on bases in the United States, abroad, or aboard ship are granted the right to vote by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.[59] 2013 Supreme Court ruled in the 5–4 Shelby County v. Holder decision that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Section 4(b) stated that if states or local governments want to change their voting laws, they must appeal to the Attorney General.[62] Call to Action: Email or call your Congressional Senator to voice your support for HR1 - For the People Act of 2021 which passed the House and sits on the doorstep of the Senate. Now is a critical time. Also, it's worth mentioning that a more focused bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act seems to have enough support to pass the Senate, as of this moment anyway. Find out what it takes to vote in your county and get it taken care of, then vote in candidates who support everyone's access and right to vote. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info According to Voting Laws Roundup: May 2021 by the Brennan Center for Justice, states have already enacted more than 20 laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote — and many legislatures are still in session. Between January 1 and May 14, 2021, at least 14 states enacted 22 new laws that restrict access to the vote. At least 61 bills with restrictive provisions are moving through 18 state legislatures. Just to illustrate the variety of voting conditions available to citizens across the thousands of counties among the 50 states, here's a chart. :-) Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics We're on the hunt for solutions and one or more of the various flavors of universal basic or supplemental income programs looms large. The more that MVP and RWJ look into these ideas, the more water they seem to hold and more potentially beneficial their side effects. They are even coining a new term and tagline for it: Citizen Seed Funding empowering generations to come. This idea aligns with the tenants of Doughnut Economics and is reminiscent of that comment regarding life having the propensity to leave conditions conducive to life. In this regard, seed funding would have the potential to be as restorative and empowering for generations of people in society, just as seeds beget life. We all deserve freedom. Part of being free is having your own agency to choose. That extends to the capitalist market systems we have in place. People should be empowered to a position of choice when it comes to whether or not to participate, under what conditions, and for how long. Today we're born into it and have to scramble for better odds (through relationships) and/or leverage (demanded skills), but it's not how it has to be. People can be born free to choose how and when to participate in the commercial economy. They can use it to serve a need and not become beholden to it. And we will participate in sufficient quantities, because it's quite lucrative, even with a universal basic or supplemental income feature installed. How's it work? It can work a multitude of ways, however for illustrative purposes, here's what it looks like: The government keeps depositing stimulus checks into people's accounts who make less than $40,000 USD. That's it. How do you pay for it? Again, a multitude of ways, but they should be limited to revenue streams that are not fickle or place an undue burden on economic activity. The easiest places are from wealth, estate transfer, and market activity (buy/sell) taxes. We'll be diving in more in the future. Then what? Just wait and see. As people start to become used to the stability of a seed income, they will begin taking new risks. We'll see new kinds of businesses, art projects, social projects, and communities bloom. People will go to school and re-tool in order to create and sustain new economic opportunities. We'll see a new economic floor established by sustained consumer spending. Many of our unbanked will open new accounts to receive and spend their funds and many former unbanked may open their own banks. Most importantly, homelessness and hunger will be reduced to a lower level than ever in history. All made possible through the deployment of seed funding. Do we have to have universal health care for it to work? NO. We do have to have viable healthcare marketplaces where people can ensure they use some seed funds for coverage. They may be eligible for additional assistance through state Medicaid programs without affecting the amount of seed funding received. Likewise, seed funding would have no bearing on qualification for other programs like Pell grants, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Disability, alimony, etc. Call to Action: Keep an eye out for all of the valuable activity that is currently unpaid. These are of the many things humans do without a financial motive. As a species, some behaviors are intrinsically motivated. Our very nature compels us to do things, not to be idle. Raising children is no small feat and we shortcut it drastically today due to "work-life" balance or single-parent households. Caring for our wise elders is another responsibility that requires a modicum of fortitude and today is mostly outsourced to the lowest bidder. Our time in those roles is valuable outside of and in support of the economy. Now imagine sustaining those human investments minus the financial stress of boom and bust. An improvement, no? Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Minor notes: This is episode 26 despite MVP calling it 27 during the episode. Also, the term he was looking for was "Performance Art" in reference to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The History of the Monopoly is a nice synopsis of the genesis of the game including a feature on The Landlord's Game (same page), upon which it is based. One notable is the fact that the original (by Elizabeth Magie cira 1902, patented in 1904) featured two different set of rules: Monopoly and Anti-Monopoly and it was intended as a teaching tool to juxtaposition progressive policies against the lazie-fair status quo. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics Get your externalities outa here! Enter: Doughnut Economics brought to us by Kate Raworth. The World Economic Forum featured this short piece that serves as a nice introduction, "Meet the doughnut: the new economic model that could help end inequality." Her book is also available via the usual methods. This episode makes the case for why we find this new model of thinking about economics a very compelling upstart worthy of our attention. Honestly, RWJ and MVP find this view really appeals to their strategy gaming heads-up-display instincts. The Doughnut model provides a status overview of our biosphere and living conditions. Developing this type of broader worldview sense will be critical for anyone hoping to terraform a hostile world. At least ours is still a little bit friendly to our lives. We citizens want our economies and societies to live in the Goldilocks habitable zone, which we call the doughnut, between where the ecosystem can be sustained and above which point we experience starvation, dehydration, or disease. The red parts are an informational status overlay of where we're ranking. Welcomed are the ideas around how to embrace complexity and for us to begin designing dynamic feedback loops and control measures to manage foreseeable and unforeseeable shocks (climate swings, volcanoes, meteorites, etc.). By installing dynamic components in our economy, it will become more resilient and perhaps even offer stability during unstable times. MVP mentioned Bioneers in the episode and if you're unfamiliar, in their own words, "Bioneers is an innovative nonprofit organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet." In a similar lane, an ideation sensation that might tickle your thinker in one word: biomimicry. According to the Oxford dictionary, it is "the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes." check out the Biomimicry Institute for more information. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info One aside made it to air about our dear mammalian cousins: Whales. The May issue of National Geographic features an article about how these amazing creatures keep surprising us in how many ways we are like them. Disney+ also has a series dedicated to this released on Earth Day 2021. Did you know that we made cows? I didn't know that. Just like our dogs, a domesticated branch of a wild bunch. Cows are descended from an extinct form of Ox or Yak from Mesopotamia. Holy cow. I just heard this little snippet from the latest episode of Science Fridays, one of MVP's favorite podcasts. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
Episode discussion topics MVP and RWJ take a turn at discussing what they've learned to date about cryptocurrencies and the technology underpinning them: blockchain. This episode makes the case for why we are likely to keep hearing more and more about these new financial instruments and why we should start learning more to be future-ready. In a previous episode, we mentioned several exchanges. MVP has developed an initial fondness for Binance.US due to its features, low cost, and breath of currencies on offer. You can also access "staking" which allows your parked funds to earn a return, traditionally referred to as an APY, meaning annual percentage yield. Coinbase is a great option for those starting out who want to earn while they learn. To be fair, they have a Pro option that's trader-friendly. I can't get over the low fees on Binance however. A serious watch item related to the long-term viability of large, decentralized blockchains is sustainability. There is an environmental cost at the core of these various coins, it takes energy in the form of dedicated computers in order to mine/maintain transactions happening on the blockchain. People do this in return for coin all over the world. You can do it right now and start earning Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other flavors from the gaggle of upstarts. Seems like the newer ones tend to give you more buck for the bang especially when you have to net out your electricity bill. Seriously, it can be a chunk of change. Two recent articles examining the costs of production from an energy or carbon perspective. A keen point made by TechCrunch is that more efficient blockchains will likely be planned for the future and we would add that efficiencies in how energy is produced and transmitted will be changing in the future as well. So harping on the energy point might be moot, especially if mining is relatively less intensive than say, the existing banking system. "How Much Energy Does Bitcoin Actually Consume?" Harvard Business Review, 5/5/21. "The debate about cryptocurrency and energy consumption," TechCrunch, 3/21/21. Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli and Raymond Wong Jr. More info Repeat mention: If you're looking for a timely documentary to help get you up to speed on the general state of cryptocurrencies and blockchain capabilities, MVP recommends Cryptopia. We didn't get into it, but it's worth noting that by owning certain coins one gains access to certain benefits like a vote in what updates or changes might be implemented for a coin's codebase. We also did not cover Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in this episode, that topic will make an appearance later on. Please feel free to share your thoughts through our Contact Us page or on Facebook. Learn more and reach out Head to Citizens Prerogative for additional information and log in or sign up to leave a comment. Don't forget to join our free newsletter and get 10% off at our shop! Go the extra mile by supporting us through Patreon. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions. Special thanks Our ongoing supporters, thank you! Our sponsor CitizenDoGood.com. Graphic design by SergeShop.com. Intro music sampled from “Okay Class” by Ozzy Jock under creative commons license through freemusicarchive.org. Other music provided royalty-free through Fesliyan Studios Inc.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
