Common Sense 2017: Time for Democrats to Offer Alternatives

Common Sense 2017: Time for Democrats to Offer Alternatives

Common Sense 2017: Time for Democrats to Offer Alternatives
Wayne D. King

I'm so tired of the Democrats in Congress acting like the Republicans who did nothing but obstruct Barack Obama. I want them to stand up and offer alternatives.

Tell the country how to fix Obamacare and try to peel off enough Republicans to pass it.

Offer a plan for infrastructure that modernizes the national grid to prepare us for the Internet of Things and the post carbon era with laterally scaled micro-grids linking homes and businesses and small power producers. The vast majority of good jobs that will be created over the next 20 years will be in building out the Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure. Let's get to it. China is already working to wrest the mantle of world leadership from us. Let's not give it away without a fight!

One up the Republicans and offer a tax reform plan that eliminates business taxes entirely (and all the special exemptions, incentives, and give aways - in 2015 fossil fuel companies received more than 82 billion dollars in tax incentives) Collect the taxes from the individuals who benefit from the profits and let the shareholders determine whether the companies should be spending money for wasteful purposes. This would also eliminate all of the onerous filings required of nonprofits and encourage the development of more of them.

Choose 10 of the most impoverished, jobless regions of the country and test ten different outside-the-box ideas for turning them around. Put some real money behind the effort. Toss out the ideas that fail and try ten more. Take the ones that work and share them with others who are experiencing similar problems.  Start by testing the Guaranteed Basic Income idea providing a minimal monthly allowance to every adult (in the test area) and then allow them to build their employment and lifestyle choices  around that to achieve a standard of living that is real, sustainable and fulfilling.

Create a National Service requirement. Every person who reaches the age of 18 should be required to choose between military or civil service and to serve 2 years before the age of 30. No exceptions for rich kids or people with disabilities or any other excuse. . . ok if you must have a conscientious objector status for those who object to being forced to do right - but make it hard as hell to obtain. Think about what it would do for the country to have rich kids and poor kids working side by side to make this world a better place. Think of how many kids who have grown up in abject poverty would be empowered by the franchise granted to them by two years of service to the nation. A young man or woman who has spent two years building the nation is going to think twice before he or she throws a trash can through a storefront window.  From many we must be one again. This is the revolution of our time.

Just saying . . .
wdk 2017

The Whisper of Wind

Between the Republic and Chaos

Between the Republic and Chaos
Pence is Called to Defend the Republic

by Wayne D. King

Mike Pence should resign from the Trump ticket if Trump continues to risk our democracy by declaring the election is rigged despite all evidence to the contrary.

Everyone knows that I am no fan of Donald Trump but this latest gambit threatens the very fabric of our Republic. Its a lonely job but there is no one else who can do it. Mike Pence stands between the Republic and chaos.

If anyone had the right to declare that the election was rigged if was Al Gore in the 2000 election. He had received almost a million more votes than his opponent and the election had come down to a fight over the Eleectoral college votes in Florida. Plenty of American's would have done whatever Gore asked them to do. But Al Gore put the welfare of our republic over his own personal pain and outrage. History will deem him a hero of the Republic for that. 

Gore knew that we were facing an existential crisis if he continued to dispute the election - even though his supporters were not threatening violence. So he put his dream on the shelf in the best interest of the country. 

I watched all this happen from a hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria. So many people around me asked if there would be a revolution or tanks at the gates of the White House. After all, their own experience had been that even fair elections often ended in violence and the jailing of opposition leaders. Despite the pain of losing the election I was so damn proud of my country. I'll never forget being in a hotel lounge with about 100 Nigerians who actually asked me to explain to them what had happened. I gave an impromptu lecture on democracy to a facinated group of Nigerians, explaining that the peaceful transition of power was - in fact - the true test of a democracy's strength. Its easy to have an election, its hard to stand down if you feel that you should have won, evidence or not.

Election 2016 - Less than Candid

Donald Trump is not only ginning up anger - with no evidence - his supporters have been encouraged to violence. Talk of Second amendment solutions and killing of journalists could easily cause our nations fabric to tear and be damaged for generations. 

Mike Pence has been a good soldier for Trump. I'm sure that he has had to step up and do things that his conscience was shaken over but he cannot allow this to go on. He must, for his own legacy and for the best interests of the country, stand up to Trump and give him an ultimatum. Cease and desist or he will step down and leave Trump alone screaming into the storm.

The parallels between this moment and the final days of the Nixon administration are enormous. But even Richard Nixon did the right thing before permanent damage was done to the Republic. 

I for one pledge not to gloat or to blame the Americans who have supported Trump in this election when it is over. I will reach out to do my part to heal the wounds. But for now, we must continue to speak out strongly. We must call attention to the risk that Trump is taking with our Republic. Its not too late for those citizens to take a stand. 

It is within their power to say, "I was with him through thick and thin until he began to put the Republic at risk. Tens of thousands of young Americans have given their lives to defend what we have built. When his actions began to undermine their sacrifice I just had to say enough."

A Rainbow of Daisies 

A Ripple of Hope

Perhaps it is unfair to make a comparison between a giant like Bobby Kennedy and the small minds that seem to dominate the Republican party in the US today but it is unquestionably worth examining why so little seems to have been learned by both political parties in the US from our history.

So much was lost on that June day in 1968 when Sirhan Sirhan denied us the chance to have a President who was unafraid to use the word love in a speech and who spoke of healing the divisions in our country.

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A Ripple of Hope:

Poster and Card created from an image of the same name inspired by the famed courageous speech of Robert F. Kennedy in 1966 in South Africa where he spoke out against the Apartheid system.

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

http://bit.ly/1ZKf7yQ

Bobby Kennedy on Ferguson

In the wake of Ferguson it is important that what is needed is not hate but love and understanding and an examination of the road from here. This speech by Robert F. Kennedy, delivered shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, could have been written today and Bobby's words ring down through the years with a message for all of us.

Robert F. Kennedy
Cleveland City Club
April 5, 1968

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Holiday Cards made from award winning Moonlight on the Stone House image. Peace, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth themes. Click here.

Asquamchumaukee - Place of Mountain Waters

Asquamchumaukee 

Place of Mountain Waters

A photographic ramble through the Baker River Valley of New Hampshire

King Releases Photographic Book of Baker River Valley

Asquamchumaukee - Place of Mountain Waters

Rumney, NH . . .New Hampshire photographer and artist, and former Senator Wayne D. King has released an art book of images captured along the Baker River Valley entitled: Asquamchumaukee - Place of Mountain Waters. The title, taken from the Pemigewasset Indian name for the Baker River and the valley through which it flows, harkens back to the artist’s own Native American heritage.

King created the book at the urging of friends who had seen a collection of his images from the region and indicated that they would have an interest in a book that included the images. “ I wanted to make the book one that would both share the images of the area and serve a larger purpose as well.  We came up with the idea of creating a large format book, printed on high quality paper in a signed limited edition that could be sold to raise funds for local "Got Lunch!" programs in the Baker River Valley.”

"Got Lunch!" provides nutritious lunches for children who qualify for the free school lunch program; providing them with nutritious meals during the summer when the program does not cover them. 

Only 250 copies of the hard-cover limited edition, fine art book is printed and numbered and signed by the artist. 

The book is also available in an open edition (unsigned) in four different sizes and styles: a large format open edition, a standard size (8”x10”) in both hard-cover and soft-cover, and an eBook. “The hope was that we could create a way for anyone to participate in helping the “Got Lunch!” program by creating a wide range of options for purchasing the book.” said King.

In addition to the books, King has also made cards, posters and prints of many of the individual images from the book available to benefit “Got Lunch!”. There are also a number of mugs, tote bags and clocks made using the images from “Asquamchumaukee”.

“The book or product created from an image in the book would make a great Christmas or Holiday gift” said King. “For those who purchase the book as a gift for someone else, we will also provide a free gift card of the cover image telling them that the proceeds from the book will be providing nutritious meals for deserving children.”

King’s images are a celebration of life, blending the real and the surreal to achieve a sense of place or time that reaches beyond the moment into what he calls a “dreamlike quintessentialism” designed to spark an emotional response. Using digital enhancement, handcrafting, painting, and sometimes even straight photography, King hopes to take the viewer to a place that is beyond simple truth to where truth meets passion, hope and dreams.

As with most of King’s images, only one original signed print is available but open edition fine art prints, posters and greeting cards are also offered as an affordable alternative for people who love art for the pure joy of it and don’t require a signed original.

Book Description

In the heart of New Hampshire, the geographic center of the state, is a beautiful meandering river that is the focal point of a very special community of people and a landscape that grows into the heart like a spreading wildfire. The Baker River, called Asquamchumaukee by the original natives of the region, is an archetype of a river,  beginning with the fast flowing waters of the Moosilaukee region and ending in broad lugubrious oxbows where it meets the Pemigewasset River.  Anyone who has canoed the Baker or climbed Rattlesnake Mountain or hiked Mount Cube; anyone who has bicycled or driven along the Buffalo Road, can't help but fall in love with this area. 

If the landscape isn't enough the people will seal the deal: pragmatic, serious-minded in their politics, and deeply devoted to their families; people who work hard, play hard and who immerse themselves joyfully in the life of their community and the other communities of the valley. 

In that spirit, a portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will benefit the local "Got Lunch!" programs in the Valley. 

“Got Lunch!” provides nutritious lunches for children who qualify for the Federal free lunch program but who are not provided with meals during the summer vacation. “Got Lunch!” assures that the children of the Baker River Valley will return to school, ready and able to learn and unhampered by the challenges of poor nutrition. 

This book and the images from it are available in a number of different formats including a large landscape hardcover, signed and numbered, limited edition art book; an open edition in hardcover, softcover and eBook formats as well as other related products including calendars, clocks, mugs, cards, posters and prints.

http://bit.ly/BakerRiverValley

Signed, Numbered Limited Edition - Large Format

Hardcover 13” x 11” 

42 Pages printed on Proline Pearl Photo Paper

Hardcover with Dust Jacket: $165.00

Hardcover with Image Wrap Cover: $175.00

Shipping & Handling: $10.00

http://bit.ly/OrderAsquam

Open Edition (unsigned) - Large Format

Available through Amazon.com

Large Landscape Hardcover 13” x 11” 

42 Pages printed on standard paper

Hardcover with Dust Jacket: $98.76

http://bit.ly/AsquamNo3

Hardcover with Image Wrap Cover: $110.29

http://bit.ly/AsquamNo4

Open Edition (unsigned) - Standard Format

Available through Amazon.com

Standard Landscape Hardcover 8” x 10” 

42 Pages printed on standard paper

Hardcover with Dust Jacket: $59.35

ISBN-10: 1320165141

http://bit.ly/AsquamNo5

Softcover: $39.58

Plus shipping & handling

http://bit.ly/AsquamNo6

eBook from Blurb

42 Pages

$4.99

http://bit.ly/AsquamNo7

Catalog of Special Related Products

Proceeds also benefit “Got Lunch!”

Open Edition Fine Art Prints
Many of the images from Asquamchumaukee - Place of Mountain Waters are available as open edition fine art prints in various sizes, framed or unframed, even printed on canvas and metal. A catalog of available images, including some that were not includedin the final book can be viewed at this web address:

http://bit.ly/FAA_Print_Cat_Asquam

Asquamchumaukee Calendar 2015

13 Images from the book in a beautiful Calendar

Suitable for Framing 

http://bit.ly/RB_ASQUAM_Calendar

Asquamchumaukee Limited Edition Poster

Cards, Posters, Clocks, mugs and other related products. Click here:

http://bit.ly/BakerRiverValley

Other Links
Facebook Page

Portrait of Molly Clock

The Pony's Trail - with ee cummings quote

Special Poster offer!
The Pony's Trail - with ee cummings quote




This poster is created from one of my favorite images and includes a quote from ee cummings: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." ~ e.e. cummings

Available in two different sizes and signed limited edition or open edition. Choose below.

Choose Size

Pony's Trail Poster 16x20 $21.00 USD Pony's Trail Poster  23.4" x 29" $35.00 USD Pony's Trail Poster Signed Limited Ed  23.4" x 29" $250.00 USD