This was motivated by a discussion about what is wrong with the Democratic party – it is not proposing any alternative to the current malaise except a bit more civility and , and stuck on just creating jobs, despite all the obvious problems with such as approach. There is currently no developed alternative to the rightly pissed off populism that itself has no proposal for institutional changes to capable of dealing with its issues.

To get outside current thinking – which is stuck or fragmented,  is a bit like getting a rocket out of being trapped in an earth orbit – a little more energy is needed to break out of conventional current politics and economy. In particular we would have to take on

Key targets for new thinking

• capitalism
• democracy
• growth
• climate
• technology
• meaning and purpose, quality of life

David Hockney gives permission to rethink.

“In the end –after you got a roof food warmth–h all you can buy his beauty what else can you spend money on? + David Hockney A History of pictures.

in more detail..

• green everything with focus on productivity and aesthetics.
• use of resources to fix the worst conditions before fixing the better (currently money goes to fix the housing and communities of the richest. (That should be low priority.)
• think through what is capital
• who owns it
• alternative to a small elite selected on wealth to make decisions for society.
• property as status (what is proper) evolves to  property for ..? All property sale gives ten percent to public trust to recreate commons (parks, wilderness, green belts.
• Better justice: no entrapment, no plea bargaining
• rethink schools to development of self, not skills oriented. Create community centers around schools including child care and retirement communities with space for startups, incubators.
• Make environments for all people that work for all people, especially families children and parents. Currently we have high density poverty co-located with traffic, garbage and pollution(noise, chemicals, ugliness).
• Foreign policy based on working relationships with all countries, taking them as they are and looking for common problems to work on.
• Rethink guns.
• Cut green house gases,accept higher unemployment, deal with it through other forms of distribution (ten percent of all stock held in public trust paying equal dividends on he ten percent to all)
• Find ways to shift culture from conspicuous consumption to conspicuous, or not, aesthetics, beauty, enjoyment, self-development.
• Life is prescious. Everyone is interesting. Lets live as though we believe it.