Katherine Forrest

Blog comment in response to Sex and Fertility in the Post-Petroleum Age by Jan Lundberg,  
27 July 2010

Look at Historical Evidence 
   
Developed societies like ours, with sanitation, medical care, artificial contraception, and optional bottle feeding of infants, are a recent exception in the history of humanity. The prevailing patterns over the history of our species have involved females becoming fertile at a somewhat later age (16-18 years old), due to less adequate food supply; prolonged breast feeding of infants, which suppresses fertility and ensures a longer inter-pregnancy interval; higher infant and maternal mortality; less investment of effort and calories in infants that have a poor chance of survival or less social utility (e.g., the Greeks abandoning deformed infants at birth); a certain amount of infanticide, usually by men, who kill a woman's children by a former male partner; etc, etc.

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Advocacy, Organizing & Persuasion
• Educate public officials, candidates, and decision-makers regarding issues
• Influence major institutions to respond favorably to the movement’s ideas and proposals
• Exert an appropriate influence on the legal and judicial systems
• Organize and operate grassroots campaigns (other than legislative, such as those that pressure corporations and office holders)
• Train grassroots advocates and grassroots campaign managers
• Train individual persuaders and idea promoters
• Carry out online education, motivation, and fundraising for issue campaigns (e.g., by non-profits)

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Greg Gordon (McClatchy Washington Bureau) today had a story that actually made it into the front section of my local paper:

Texas-based Premier Elections Solutions last week alerted at least 1,750 jurisdictions across the country that special precautions are needed to address the problem in tabulation software affecting all 19 of its models dating back a decade.

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The “Talking Politics with People Unlike Ourselves” workshop provides new tools for reaching the uncommitted, the wavering, and people unlike oneself.  Workshop participants become more effective in talking with others and are better able to move them to action. They learn how to apply lessons from social psychology and personal experience in discussing politics with family members, neighbors, work colleagues, and/or strangers.
 

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The American conservative movement has succeeded in moving public attitudes steadily rightward over the last 30 years, with far-reaching consequences for the country’s political governance.  This success has been achieved through a well-funded and well-coordinated organizational infrastructure that follows a long-term, disciplined communications strategy.  In order for moderates and progressives to maximize the power of their own ideas and values, and to compete effectively with conservatives over the coming decades, they must develop, without delay, their own infrastructural capacity and p

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Read this story on Huffinton Post here.

Thanks to the recent obvious failures of conservative policies when played out on the national scale, progressives now have an opportunity to win over many to their cause and redefine the political spectrum for generations to come. However, their potential will not be realized unless they move quickly. David Brooks' new piece, "The Republican Collapse," signals some of the tactics the conservative movement will use in defending itself and undermining the progressive advantage.

Brooks harkens back to the 18th Century philosopher, Edmund Burke in redefining and defending conservatism:

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On October 3, KQED, an NPR radio station in the San Francisco Bay area, aired a panel discussion (www.kqed.org/epArchive/R610030900) on its popular Forum series, hosted by Michael Krasny.  The topic was Civics in University Education, with the discussion focused on the results of a recently released survey of civics knowledge (American history, education, government, etc.) of 14,000 students at 50 colleges and universities.  Mike Ratliff, senior vice president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) (http://www.isi.org/), was the main panelist, as he heads that organization’s American Civic Literacy Program, which sponsored the research.  The other panelists were two professors of political science, Bruce Cain of UC-Berkeley and Terry Moe of Stanford.

The research results attracted widespread media attention, including that of MSNBC, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, and Newsweek.

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This paper, based on a presentation at the Third Annual Democracy Fest in 2004, discusses some of the things that grassroots activists can do between campaigns to strengthen their groups and enhance the position of progressives in their communities.

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If you’re like many people, you care more about elections now than
ever before in your life. You want to make a difference -- and here’s
how you can do it.

This article explains some simple techniques you can use to:

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This tabular presentation is an overview of a number of problems with the U.S. election system, with some of the proposed solutions.  It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to give others a starting point.

See table.