Dad's letter to Peggy Noonan

As I worked to finish entering my grades just now - they were due on Friday - physically, spiritually, and mentally drained, in my inbox I found a reminder of my dad's larger vision of the world, which seems lacking from political "leaders" in general. Despite the all-nighters, the after school sessions, daily lunches with students, the leaving of nearly everything in my personal life on the back burner during the school year, as a teacher, thanks to this little reminder I found in my inbox, I think I will be able to soldier on and draw whatever water remains left in this bag of minerals, and complete my dreaded, highly fictionalized "value added chart," a tool I was supposed to be using the entire year, but cast aside as non-essential because every moment was about survival, and I simply did not have the time to do it when I was supposed to be doing it.

My dad often reminds me that certain problems cannot be solved at the ground level, that it is not totally my fault that 50% of my students did not pass their state test. 83% had not passed their 5th grade state math test. Talking with dad yesterday helped me accept the reality that what I did does in fact represent value added. Still neither Ali's 200 point gain from 282 to 482 in math, nor my overall median gain of 44.6 points, nor even Ali's growth in reading level from pre-primer to 5th grade, nor his pass advance on his alternative assessment binder, nor the overall 88% pass rate for my other prep, US History, has managed to sooth my searing frustration with the overall outcomes, and the sad reality that I was not able to get more of my students to care about themselves, invest in their own future, and "lift their own weight." I remain highly disappointed by the results.

When a rising 6th grader does not know his 2's, 5's, and 10's facts, still has no concept of what a fraction means, is uncertain when to push the division button when a problem directly calls for division, consistently sequences number lines in descending order from the origin, and drool literally seems to drip from his mouth as he inanely smirks crying out, "Cease!" because it draws negative attention, and totally shuts down any learning on a daily basis, it's difficult to assign blame for all the teachers before who passed this impoverished, feeble minded child forward. Moreover, I do not feel terribly responsible for continuing the trend, when anybody could see the poor child all along should have been in a "basic skills class." Whenever I "grade" Peter's work, my connective brain pulls out a description of grading in Five Rings, written in his old age by Miyamoto Mushashi, Japan's greatest samuri. Musashi explained that fencing grade material should be use for fencing, and cabinet grade hardwoods such as cherry or maple should be worked by only the finest craftsmen. Peter, honestly, is fit to be working with firewood, not with ratios and equations that remain well beyond what Vygotsky calls "the zone of proximal development," or in other words the sweet spot for learning. At the left side of the bell curve, it's hard to conclude that the curriculum for these "broken" children is not developmentally appropriate, that trying to teach with rigor, even in a self-contained class, only leads to frustration, wasted resources, and pulls the learning down of those with learning disabilities who can feasibly be saved.

Whenever we discuss matters of education, which is whenever we speak, which is every weekend because my folks are always worried about me and I refuse to have these conversations over the phone, dad reminds me, "it's the system." Dad sees the world through a set of social lenses and invisible structures he developed while studying at the University of Chicago Law School immediately after leaving the Air Force in the 1950's. In 1984, frustrated with conclusions I had drawn about American racism after spending my entire holiday break at the Library of Congress poring over newspapers from the early 1900's, riveted by what I had discovered about the general acceptance of Eugenics, while completing a late paper about the build up to 1941 for Dorothy Brown's U.S. in the 20th Century, it dawned on me how great it would be to do as Boswell did for Samuel Johnson and write a story with a happier ending, so I began started thinking about writing what would be what eventually became yet another late paper later that Spring, and questions that have haunted me for my entire life.

30 years later, I am still consistently late with my paperwork, not a great attribute for a teacher. Fortunately, others have always noticed that I have other qualities, which is why I have empathy for my students with Learning Disabilities. 30 years later, I remain in the habit of always searching for solutions, and now, even at the 11th hour with my outcome still in doubt, lacking sleep, running out of time, what I found in my inbox has caused me to pause from my deeply habituated necessity thinking, and the consider some possibility thinking.

Yesterday. dad mentioned he would be writing Peggy Noonan. I was blown away with his argument, which I am taking the liberty of posting here:

***
Peggy,

Your article in today's Wall Street Journal correctly pointed out the growing disconnect between the American people and today's leadership of both major parties, as well as all our third parties.

Attached are two papers describing two initiatives. The first one is what I sent to President Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq. The second is the Platform of the recently formed Unite America Party, that offers a peaceful "Second American Revolution" based on a Just Third Way version of our founding principles. When brought to the attention and adopted by grassroots America for America, these principles will, in the words of Victor Hugo be "more powerful than all the armies of the world."  (Part IV of the Platform deals with global and national security affairs in ways consistent with the first attachment that could still apply to today's mess in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan and the Holy Land. I apologize in advance for sending you so much to scan and then think about, but I'm aware of your background and cannot think of any thinker and writer in America who could better appreciate these ideas.

Ronald Reagan was one of the twentieth century’s preeminent grand strategists.  He laid out his grand strategy in his first major foreign-policy pronouncement on February 22nd, 1983, celebrating George Washington’s birthday.  He emphasized “our responsibility to work for constructive change, not simply to preserve the status quo.” “History,” he declared, “is not a darkening path twisting inevitably toward tyranny. … It is the growing determination of men and women of all races and conditions to gain control of their own destinies.”

President Reagan, who started his career as a labor leader combating the threat of Communist infiltration into the movie industry, called on all American policy-makers, both Republican and Democrat, to recognize, as he put it, “the central focus of politics – the minds, hearts, sympathies, fears, hopes, and aspirations not of governments, but of people – the global electorate.” He concluded, “The American dream lives – not only in the hearts and minds of our own countrymen, but in the hearts and minds of millions of the world’s peoples in both free and oppressed societies who look to us for leadership.  As long as that dream lives, as long as we continue to defend it, America has a future – and all mankind has reason to hope.”

President Reagan was the last president to recognize justice, especially economic justice, as the key to America’s mission in the world, just as George Washington was the first.  He recognized the economic justice of broadening ownership of all forms of productive capital, just as Abraham Lincoln recognized through the Homestead Act the importance of broadening ownership of land, which in 1862 was the major source of wealth.  Above all, Ronald Reagan recognized economic justice as a universal human right, essential to political freedom. 

In 1985, Senators Richard Lugar, Chris Dodd, Russell Long, Paul Laxalt and Steve Symms and Representatives Phil Crane and Michael Barnes co-sponsored the formation of a bipartisan Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice to advance “capital homesteading for every citizen” as a regional strategy for countering Marxist advances in Central America and the Caribbean.  Ambassador William Middendorf chaired the task force and I was appointed deputy chair. On August 3, 1987, President Reagan welcomed the task force’s final report, High Road to Economic Justice, by declaring that, “Economic and political freedom are inseparably linked. … What better weapon against Communism than millions of working men and women owning the enterprises in which they work and reaping the rewards of technological advancement.” (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06vP84SqnS4)

The threat today is not Communism imposed from the top, but something even worse.  This is the chaos deliberately engendered by religious fanatics who believe that no force on earth can stop them, least of all the American military.  They are right in assessing the limits of the military, but they are 100% wrong in assuming that they are the only source of power on earth and heaven.  They are wrong because chaos can trigger paradigmatic revolution, the revolution envisaged by Ronald Reagan and encapsulated in the slogan, “Close the Wealth Gap: Own, or Be Owned.”

Norman G. Kurland, J.D. President
Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ)
P.O. Box 40711, Washington, DC 20016
(O) 703-243-5155, (F) 703-243-5935 (E) thirdway@cesj.org
(Web) http://www.cesj.org 

Black Widow

George Bernard Shaw's oft quoted observation that all the cool people are in Hell is analogous to how middle school students become drawn into cliques where rude behavior is celebrated, and daily put-downs directed towards "nerds" who actually want to learn and teachers who want to teach evokes nervous laughter from fellow students instead of condemnation. For students with learning disabilities, negative peer pressure, combined with years of frustration, often breeds self-hatred and false beliefs that "God hates me," or "I am stupid," or "I am just not good at Math," all convenient excuses for academic failure.

When 11 and 12 year old students with disabilities conclude, "I don't care," and their body language screams "I don't want to learn and you can't make me," where does responsibility for academic failure lie? What if, in fact, apathy has become the norm, and a true passion for learning is now actually the exception? Given, what seems to me, a developmentally inappropriate amount of one-size-fits-all pacing pressure inherent in the process, how is it possible to persuade every child that a positive academic future is important to them?

My natural tendency, given the mandate that I must produce results, was to utilize the median as the "best measure of center" in order to make instructional decisions of how best to marshal my resources of energy and time. I thus cast out my outliers and strove to build a critical mass of caring students by shifting resources away from those who showed they were incapable of caring and investing my time and energy to students proportionally based on receptivity. Considering the 38 point median point gain from my class's 5th grade state testing to their 6th grade results, a cohort which had a 17% pass rate in the 5th grade, given that 100% of my students who tested this year showed some growth, and over half of them passed, I think, once again, my numbers speak for themselves. Still I am in no mood for celebration because I am highly disappointed that certain students failed.

I realize that there may be unintended consequences of the quarantine strategy, which I adopted because, at the midpoint of the school year, given the chaos being introduced into my room on a daily basis by a few little monsters, I felt that the many were unable to access the curriculum. I did what I felt I had to do. Certain students arrive as "damaged goods," lacking skills or any self-respect or respect for others. Unless something changes drastically, these damaged children only become increasingly hardened in their identities as monsters. When my efforts to intervene only seemed to backfire, I retreated. Yesterday, I dubbed one little girl, whose father cried earlier in the year during an intervention meeting arranged by the Counselor, "the Black Widow." Elise could never look me in the eye after making a disparaging, disrespectful comment. One time, she claimed that I had "slammed the door on my hand." Another time she complained, "you spit on me." Kendell, who carried himself around the school like a Mafia Don now resides at a military academy. Pablo, once again cried crocodile tears on Thursday, "Please, please Mr. McKurland, I'm sorry," as I removed him from class after another student complained that Pablo had hit him as he entered the classroom. Peter, the other day, was unable to independently complete a worksheet with 2's, 5's, and 10's multiplication facts, and recently labeled his coordinate planes from 5 to 1 on the x+ axis, from -5 to -1 on the x- axis, from 5 to 1 on the y+ axis, an -5 to -1 on the y- axis, despite being provided a number line. I learned to not waste too much time with him, because both he and I knew that the curriculum was inappropriate for him.

I was given the opportunity by Administration to give over half of my students an extra week of remediation, which was offered because a number of students had done poorly on their Reading Tests -- we tested our remediation group yesterday -- I rearranged my room to put those who had tested in one spot, and clustered those who had not tested in threes. One student, who at the beginning of the year I described to his father at Starbucks as "the Poster Child for Learned Helplessness," started coming to my room every afternoon after scchool. With my help, Alan changed his grade from an F to an A. Another student, Justin, who hated math at the beginning of the year, whose parents I got to know after coming to his house a few times earlier in the year, finished the year collecting ratio data from a cup of Lucky Charms as well as a cup of Jolly Ranchers, which he used to create circle graphs and bar graphs, having changed his grade from a low C to an A over the past two weeks. He wanted more opportunities to practice! On Wednesday and Thursday evening, I worked with Ali at George Mason Library -- his attitude had slipped the past few weeks, and I was worried that I could no longer count on him to pass. Ali responded. Ms. London and I will take him to McDonald's if he passes! I can't wait to get the results!

Ulysses,who tested with the rest of the other 6th graders a week earlier, finally got the concept that he does not fit in with the cool kids, Kendel, Pedro, and Peter. Definitely, I made a difference.

The King of Second Chances

Curious Link Between Handwriting and Cognitive Development

On Friday, my wife Karen and I ate a celebratory dinner. We had already planned to attend my sister-in-law's birthday dinner Nam Viet Restaurant in Arlington, but after Dr. P came to my room to assure me that I would have a job in July, and also assured me that I would also be able to teach during the summer program, the dark cloud that had accompanied the awful Human Relations letter declaring my pending termination at the end of June seemed to physically lift. After receiving that last most threatening letter, I went "dark," ignoring what seemed a career death spiral, while single-mindedly preparing my students as best as I could, a group of students, most of whom remain firmly on the bubble. Another bit of good news came from Ms. England, who offered the option of backing up state testing for students who might benefit from an extra week of preparation.

Last year, after taking over a class midway through the year, I had an epiphany: I discovered, largely by accident, that if I offered "the gift of hope" to students accustomed to academic failure, most would accept my offers of a second chance, particularly after I personally spoke on the phone to almost every parent on my roster. Last year, after I told students, that just like Big John Thompson, former Coach of the Georgetown Hoyas during my college days, I didn't care where students started, but only cared where students finished, most seemed to get the message that they could help themselves by getting help.

This year, with my own self-contained classes, as well as a number of teamed classes, I had another epiphany: I cannot force a student to care, even after I repeatedly reached out to parents to build a relationship. As I explained to my class today, after once again showing Pablo the door because he and Kendall were disrupting a test preparation session, with Pablo demonically begging to be let back in, I explained that I could offer my time after school, I could show students how to solve math problems in a variety of ways, I could reward students with sips from "the cup of success," I could offer all sorts of accommodations, but unless they decided that doing math problems was important to them, nothing I could do would make a difference.

A few with parents with whom I have managed to build relationships, but far fewer than I would have liked, have been amenable to my feedback. Once again, I am seeing students overcoming debilitating patterns of learned helplessness, thanks to "the gift of hope." Only students with hope are ready and willing to accept direct instruction. Those without hope, such as Pablo, whose mother disappeared from his life when he was a small child, only to return years later, are not willing to make the investment of time and effort.

With Ms. England's offer an extra week, I submitted a list of nearly half of my students as being "on the bubble." About half of those whom I did not put on the list I am confident will pass. The other half not on the list I did not feel were on the bubble.

The 6th grade curriculum can be overwhelming to students who are not automatic with their math facts, who enter the 6th grade without an ability to visualize how fractions, decimals all relate, who have never mastered place value concepts, and who have been bombarded with procedures, procedures, procedures.
Those with auditory processing disorders, disorders of visual motor integration, or emotional problems, not to mention poverty and everything associated with that, including reading levels 2-4 years below grade level, often become accustomed to academic failure, and rather than working harder, actually give up. With me always being accessible to students during lunches and after school every day except Friday, I cannot fully understand why more did not take advantage of my offers

With a few making it impossible for the many to learn, I had to make tough decisions this year and do what I could to salvage the year for those who cared about their academic success by quarantining the "viruses." By documenting disruptive behaviors and encouraging other teachers to do the same, we were able as a team to collect enough data to show that certain students were being defiant across the board, which justified removal, suspensions, etc.

A few who always came for after school, and always came for lunch, behaved for much of the year like "feral kids," which made it difficult for others to come in and learn, even when the tutors from the local magnet high school for science and technology would come. Why did I put up with them? One student, Sheen Estevez, as well as his "frenemy" Ulysses, would bounce off the walls, escalate their voices, and one time I caught Sheen chasing Ulysses around the room with a pair of scissors. Ulysses often complained that his dad treats him like a dog, and makes him sleep on the floor. He worried all year that he was going to be homeless in May, the uncertainty eating away at his ability to maintain self control. Sheen worried that his mom was going to beat him, and once started the day by showing his bruises. But they kept coming, and now things seem to be changing for the better.

The field trip to DC seemed to help Justin connect with me, as I came to understand his personality better when he ate a "fossilized scorpion" lollipop. Another thing that helped was when I ran into him while he was fishing at Lake Accotinck and I was walking Mabel. Justin hated math at the beginning of the year, but I could see how smart he was in Mr. Sherman's social studies class, when he had a high level of interest. Justin has accepted the deal.

I had coffee at Starbucks with the father of one student, whom I described as "the poster child for learned helplessness." Andy had a full time aide throughout elementary school because of his ADHD. After the meeting at Starbucks, Andy's family staged an intervention. Andy has been in my room nearly every day for the past two weeks. Andy learned that I really meant that I would replace 4 F's for 4 A's, with teacher assistance.

Why handwriting? The other day I was explaining to students that, when reading a problem, students need to be like a caveman hunting rabbits: they need to see the rabbit, not the grass. As a 6th grade teacher, having witnessed a "crop of students" with high levels of learned helplessness, clearly not enough emphasis has been placed on developing the brain circuitry needed to construct their own representations, and as a result too often students are unable to "see the forest for the trees" and identify what the question is asking them to do. Students who throughout their entire educational experience have been forced to "learn" an overwhelming array of facts and disconnected procedures, through generally closed-construction test questions, tend to be terrible problem solvers. With History being removed from state testing, I can foresee an opportunity to re-calibrate and integrate disconnected Social and Physical Sciences with Core Math and Language Arts Curricula, through a more open-ended project / discovery model, opening up over the summer. Perhaps next year students will be able to do more open-ended projects, and apply math, writing, and reading procedures in an exciting way. Although such a model would certainly be messier and far more difficult to control, students would have more opportunities to be creative. Students need more opportunities to not trace shapes, but to be messy, to deal with uncertainty, and work on things that interest them.

Guest Blogger: Norman Kurland, Draft 40

In visiting my parents over the past few weekends, since they worry so much about me, and since I refuse to pick up the phone to discuss my situation, I have had the opportunity to hear about an exciting development in the process of drafting a new political party platform. What began as strong objections to the name of the party, The American Revolutionary Party, led to my dad opening up the process, which led to a name change, and more significantly, to a more collaborative the drafting process, with more people getting more personally invested in the process, and a stronger document.

So without further adieus, I'll let my father and his fellow collaborators speak for themselves. ***
We're ready to roll with our long-awaited political initiative described 
in Draft 40 of the platform of the Unite America Party.

We are inspired by the challenge of Pope Francis to to address the roots 
causes of global poverty and end the "slavery of money." We thank 
America's founders, lawyer-economist-ESOP inventor Louis O. Kelso, ESOP 
champion Senator Russell Long, the Aristotelian scholar Mortimer Adler, 
Father William Ferree and all the members and counselors of the Center 
for Economic and Social Justice and students of Kelsonian binary 
economics for the bold ideas and common sense logic behind our work.

As Margaret Meade said: "Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, 
committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing 
that ever has."

We have a great team, many of whom have contributed to the language and 
ideas in the platform. The founders of this peaceful and just "Second 
American Revolution" have been meeting weekly for several months to 
launch a party committed to addressing the root causes for the cancer in 
the American economic system. As you know, politics today and for many 
decades merely offer superficial answers to address the symptoms of the 
cancer. We think the economic and social justice principles and Capital 
Homesteading monetary, tax and inheritance reforms in the platform and 
the links to underscored terms will heal the cancer in ways that benefit 
all Americans, from the bottom up.

Please take the time to read Draft 40 and scan the links. If you like 
it, spread the good news to all those you know who are seeking a 
"solution" to the economic problems faced by a growing majority of 
Americans, especially graduating college students who cannot find a job 
and the growing number of workers who are unemployed, underemployed or 
who have left the work force.

We welcome your comments. And let us know (if you were not yet active 
during our formative period) that you want to be involved.

***

PLATFORM OF THE UNITE AMERICA PARTY

DRAFT #40, MAY 23, 2014

PREAMBLE

The Unite America Party is reaching out to all who are seeking, and are ready to work together for, a positive and peaceful “Second American Revolution” inspired by the founding principles of our nation. This revolution of ideas, we believe, can unite all Americans and, by example, all of humanity, and move us toward a more hopeful and just future. Our mission and agenda are fully consistent with the spirit of the original American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; namely, to create economic liberty, prosperity and justice for all.

Why start a new party? Because all of the existing political parties are addressing the symptoms, not the structural causes, of a cancer within today's economic system that is increasing the feelings of polarization and pessimism in many Americans and other people around the world. Through our Platform and the universal principles of economic and social justice it expresses, we seek to unite all Americans and existing political parties around the cure for that cancer.

We realize that some of the terms we use may be interpreted negatively by people coming from differing political philosophies. For this reason, we have carefully defined our terms — developed over the centuries and based on the writings of the great moral, religious and political philosophers — in presenting the logic and applications underlying our platform and program.

Ultimately, we believe that our Platform is more important than any party, including our own party. If any well-organized party or candidate wants to adopt our comprehensive Platform, they will have our support.

I. THE PARTY’S PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS AND FUTURE VISION

The Unite America Party derives its vision from the history behind the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, which declares:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our vision also has its roots in the language of the Preamble of the Constitution. This affirms the correct and limited role and mission of our national government, expressing that:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.

           

The vision of the Unite America Party is further supported by America’s Bill of Rights, without which the Constitution would not have been approved by founders such as George Mason. These first ten amendments to the Constitution set limits on the power of the Federal government vis-à-vis the people, reinforcing the civilization-changing ideal that the true source of power and rights rests with the people, not government.

The Unite America Party bases much of its agenda and fundamental principles on the largely ignored Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, which reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This Amendment subordinates the coercive powers of government to the God-given sovereignty, freedom, dignity and “unalienable rights” of each human person. Such fundamental human rights include the right to own property, which forbids turning people into property. These rights are inherent in human nature and are based on each person’s capacity to reason and independently develop moral virtues, which America’s founders devoted their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to defend.

By reviving popular understanding and support for America’s founding principles, our Party will bring about a new unity among now divided Americans. We reject the premise that people are incapable of developing systems that would allow today’s politically polarized Americans to work together and thrive. What distinguishes this new party is our approach to uniting Americans through a non-partisan coalition on the politically suppressed issue of who should own and control the future wealth of our nation.

The commitment of Americans to “property” was best expressed in the Virginia Declaration of Rights authored by George Mason and approved on May 15, 1776 by the Virginia Convention “as the basis and foundation of government.” Section 1 of the Virginia Declaration’s Preamble reads:

That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Therefore, the question is, why did Thomas Jefferson leave out “property” when revolutionary thinkers like John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Adams and many others considered the preservation of private property rights as the highest purpose of government? Many believe that Jefferson, a slave owner, left out “property” as an essential founding principle in authoring the Declaration of Independence because he was not prepared politically to address America’s “original sin” — the institution of slavery.

Slavery violated the “unalienable” right of human beings to own themselves and other things that can help them become more independently productive to meet their consumption needs. Slavery dehumanized people by treating them as “things” whose bodies and economic productiveness would belong to and be totally controlled by the slave owners, not the enslaved victims.

America’s Civil War, followed by Abraham Lincoln’s successful promotion of the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, ended the legality of the institution of slavery. Yet the current economic system of America and the world continues to perpetuate a more subtle form of slavery.

The Unite America Party seeks to emancipate and empower all of today’s “wage slaves,” “welfare slaves,” “charity slaves,” and “debt slaves.” We will lift all unjust institutional and legal barriers to equal opportunity for every citizen to become an economically empowered owner of productive capital (in other words, wealth-creating, income-earning assets), without taking away property rights over existing assets from today’s owners. We believe that a unified culture based on economic democracy, freedom and justice for all will inspire every child, woman and man to work collaboratively for the common good, which aims toward the prosperity and fullest development of every person.

The fundamental right of every person to become an owner is asserted in Article 17 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on December 10, 1948 by the United Nations. Article 17 reads:

(1)   Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2)   No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

It should be sadly noted, however, that no nation in the world systematically promotes and protects this fundamental human right. The Declaration, in promoting the right to own, would have been strengthened by adding the language in the Virginia Declaration of Rights emphasizing access to “the means of acquiring and possessing” property.

The central feature in the platform of the Unite America Party is its proposed Capital Homestead Act. This proposal calls for a comprehensive restructuring of America’s economic policies to grow a sustainable economy in ways that create a nation of citizen owners. As all citizens gain equal access to the most effective financial means to become owners — through insured capital credit repayable with “future savings” — the growing dependency of most citizens today for their economic well-being on big government, big business, and big labor would be reversed.

The Capital Homestead Act is based on the Party’s “Just Third Way” philosophy. This philosophy embodies a morality, respect for life and human dignity, and sense of the common good that is more just than socialism (which institutionalizes envy) or capitalism (which institutionalizes greed). Because it is based on changing the system for financing future growth to equalize future ownership opportunities, Capital Homesteading will empower poor and middle-income Americans, without redistributing existing wealth from today’s ownership elite.

Through the democratization of the economic system and money power (now controlled by today’s super-rich in partnership with the political elite of both major parties) to all citizens under the Capital Homestead Act, our political democracy will be strengthened. With a more just foundation, the Unite America Party will attract authentic and responsible leaders to run for offices at all levels. From political independents and frustrated activists of other parties, the Party will seek out leaders who are willing to dedicate their lives to serving, teaching, and empowering others.

The Unite America Party will create, from the bottom up, the political order envisioned by America’s revolutionary founders of “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.” In similar fashion Abraham Lincoln, viewing America as “the last best hope of earth,” offered ownership of America’s western lands to property-less citizens through the Homestead Act of 1862.

By combining land grants supported by land grant universities under this Act, our young nation was elevated to the top of the most productive agricultural nations in the world. In turn, our agricultural success freed former farm workers to shift their creative initiatives to industry, commerce, education and research, development of new communities and infrastructure and today’s advanced technology post-industrial frontier.

While the nation’s land frontier is finite, our capital frontier has no known limits. We therefore can open up economic opportunity for all citizens to become owners, without having to take away anyone’s private property rights or current accumulations.

We recognize and acknowledge that the principles set forth in the U.S. Constitution require a sound economic base upon which we can build a free and just social order. Without a fair and democratic economic system, society can never attain social justice. A government of, by and for the people can only be supported and sustained by a stable and just money system and a tax system that is fair and simple to understand.

As part of a movement respectful of civilization's most humanizing traditions, the Party can help overcome the so-called “clash of civilizations” by bringing out the best of all cultures in their common understanding of justice as a necessary moral framework for peace, freedom, and democracy. America, by creating a culture based on universal values and sound ideas, will serve as a model and beacon of hope for every nation seeking a more free, just, and life-enhancing future for all of its citizens.

II. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Unite America Party, following in the spirit of America's revolutionary founders, all of whom recognized that concentrated power is inherently corrupting, will promote economic democracy through equal ownership opportunities as a key to effective political democracy and freedom through the following measures:

q  Create Economic and Social Justice Guided by Just Third Way

Principles and the Logic of Binary Economics

Consistent with traditional principles of social and economic justice, the agenda of the Unite America Party will build a just, market-based model of economic democracy, resting on four policy pillars of the Just Third Way:

1.      Democratize Capital Credit and Ownership of Wealth-Creating, Income-Generating Productive Assets, in order to promote full and sustainable production, a life-enhancing environment, affordable shelter, democratic and transparent corporate governance, and rising property incomes for all. The moral omission of every economy on the globe is the total indifference of political leaders, academics, and the media to exclusionary barriers faced by ordinary citizens and the poor in gaining equal access to capital ownership and capital credit.

2.      Limit the Economic Power of the State, in order to end special privileges and monopolies, especially discriminatory access by already wealthy people to the money-creation and credit powers of the Federal Reserve System.

3.      Restore Private Property Rights, especially in corporate equity shares, by reversing laws and court decisions that deny capital owners: (a) full voting powers in corporate governance; (b) full transparency over management decisions; and (c) access to full profit distributions. Discriminatory double- and triple-taxation of corporate profits would be ended by full dividend payouts, with capital incomes taxed at the same rates as labor incomes. Furthermore, new capital would be financed by the issuance of new shares, to be purchased by workers and other new owners using capital credit. Capital credit would be insured to cover the risk of default and made repayable with the full stream of future profits earned on those shares.

4.      Restore True Free Markets and Just Trade as the most democratic means to determine just prices, just wages, and just profits. This would eliminate monopolistic, bureaucratic, or other coercive or unjust attempts to substitute centralized control over economic choices for the more democratic, more objective, more free, and more efficient laws of supply and demand.

q  End Wage and Welfare Slavery through Ownership Incomes for Every Citizen

We will reform American economic policy to shift from its present reliance on inflationary wages, job-destroying employer benefits, and incomes dependent on redistributing incomes earned by taxpayers. Instead, we will promote income independence for every citizen by accelerating investment in new wealth-creating, income-generating productive assets in ways that widely broaden individual capital accumulations, new jobs and property-based earnings, while improving ecological conditions for healthier lives and a healthier planet earth.

q  Expand Capital Ownership through Capital Homesteading

We will enable every child, woman and man from birth to set up a personal Capital Homestead Account at a local bank and receive at least $7,000 of Federal Reserve-created, interest-free, and insured capital credit every year throughout their lives to invest their annual Capital Homestead credit allocation in newly issued corporate growth stock of an expanding private sector, with such credit repayable entirely with future pretax profits derived from the added productiveness of the newly formed capital assets.

We will reduce Social Security, Medicare and welfare benefits to the extent property incomes from accumulated assets in a citizen’s tax-sheltered Capital Homestead Account replace that citizen’s dependency on incomes redistributed from other taxpaying workers and capital owners. This would radically reduce future deficits for Medicare and Social Security, a mounting burden on future generations the present value of which is now projected at $129 trillion, or a hidden debt of over $400,000 on every child, woman and man in today’s America. (http://www.usdebtclock.org/)

q  Lift Barriers to Universal Access to Money Power and Broad-Based Ownership of Newly-Created Capital Assets

We will reactivate Section 13(2) of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to supply asset-backed currency through the discount windows of each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in order to: (a) enable local commercial banks to finance sustainable, non-inflationary regional growth of industry, commerce, and agriculture through tax-sheltered Capital Homestead Accounts, (b) de-monopolize the power of money, productive credit and ownership and decentralize ownership power to every citizen as a new right of citizenship, and (c) restore an elastic, asset-backed reserve currency to replace the present government debt-backed currency system. We will amend the Federal Reserve Act to democratize share ownership of each of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks so that ownership rights and governing powers in each region’s central bank would be exclusively and equally shared by each one of its regional citizens.

q  Create a Radically More Simple and Just Tax System

We will control government spending through a national tax system designed to: (a) encourage accelerated rates of investment, sustainable green growth in urban and rural communities, productive jobs, and widespread personalized ownership opportunities; (b) eliminate the double- and triple-tax on corporate profits and job-destroying Social Security, Medicare, and other payroll taxes; (c) continue to fund all personal entitlements out of general revenues until reduced and eventually exceeded by capital incomes earned through Capital Homestead Account assets; (d) eliminate all individual income taxes below a “living income” exemption of $30,000 per adult and $20,000 per dependent, (or $100,000 for a family of four); and (e) balance the Federal budget and gradually repay old debt through a single rate tax on all personal incomes above the taxpayer’s “living income” exemptions.

We will enable all citizens to report their incomes from all sources on a postal card, while allowing corporations, as with subchapter S corporations, partnerships, and cooperatives, to avoid business income taxes by treating full dividend payouts and other profit-based distributions as business deductions, taxable only when received at the personal level. We will provide citizens whose incomes (whether from private charity or other sources) are below the poverty level, with a monthly voucher check to meet their basic subsistence needs until earned income from their Capital Homesteading dividends and labor incomes rises above the poverty level.

q  Avoid Concentrations in Wealth Transfers from One Generation to the Next

We will advocate reforms to the laws dealing with inheritance and gift tax policies that encourage the top 5 percent of wealth-holders to distribute broadly their capital accumulations from one generation directly to the next, or through tax-sheltered Capital Homestead Accounts of individual members of their families, workers, teachers, the poor and disabled, and other citizens with little or no income-producing assets. Recipients would be subject to a one-time individual income tax on the gift or bequest, applied to the portion of the gift or bequest that brings their personal capital accumulations (excluding their primary residence) above $1 million.

III. DOMESTIC AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES

We, the members of the Unite America Party, American Revolutionaries of the 21st Century, stand for the protection and preservation of the following social ideals:

q  Harmony in Relationships Between Moral, Religious, and Political Institutions

The Unite America Party supports the power of people of faith to worship freely and to express their beliefs in the public square without coercive attempts on the part of government to diminish free expression. We will preserve the historic role of the various religions, deeply rooted in the founding of America as a revolutionary nation, to teach universal moral virtues. America’s unity, we also reaffirm, is based on the freedom of every person to pursue his or her own religious and spiritual life within a religiously pluralistic society.

America was founded not only to protect freedom of religion but expressly prohibited government from “establishing” any religion or religious faction to dominate other religions or the freedom of belief of other citizens. When addressing the role of religion in society, we will seek to promote an atmosphere of mutual respect among people with differing views. No religious authority should be placed in a position where, as in some other nations, a group representing one set of religious beliefs is granted the coercive powers of government to infringe on the religious or spiritual freedoms of any individual, whether or not he or she belongs to any organized religion.

q  The Family as the Basic Social Institution of Society

We will elevate the needs and concerns of the family (the basic social unit of any moral society) and the protection of children to the highest national priority in order to secure the advance of civilization. In the spirit of family unity, we will seek to eliminate the separation of family members through deportation of those who are not citizens, leaving other family members behind. Instead, we favor maximizing the opportunities of non-citizens to become citizens.

q  An Economic Agenda that Promotes Life, Dignity, Security, Property, and Freedom through Justice and Equality of Opportunity for Every Human Being

Our Just Third Way economic agenda would eliminate financial reasons for terminating a pregnancy, ending anyone's life due to costly health care for their illness, or limiting and impairing the life of any person. With economic security society can offer greater care, dignity and safety for mothers and their unborn.

By working together to heal the wounds of the past and provide full equality of social and economic opportunity, citizens will fulfill the ultimate promise of America's founders. Uniting under the fundamental principles of social and economic justice, Americans can work together to end poverty and eliminate social and economic injustices. This would radically reduce the economic roots of crime and terrorism, strengthen personal security, eliminate class barriers, and give birth to civilization's first model of a socially and economically just, free and prosperous society.

Our Party will promote equal respect and empowerment between every woman and man in all decision-making processes, from the level of the family to all levels of human interactions (including those of business, government, education, health, and other cultural associations) within communities, states, regions, nations and international bodies.

Culturally divisive issues (such as gun control, same-sex marriage and abortion) can be debated and settled in the marketplace of moral ideas, where economically free and independent citizens can use their powers of reason and persuasion to settle their differences, rather than through the coercive and at times oppressive powers of government.

q  Educational Choice and Responsibility of Parents

To achieve quality education for all, the Unite America Party will promote taxpayer-supported educational vouchers for all families (until parents earn enough Capital Homesteading incomes to exercise their own choices) based on the measured educational needs of each child. In that way the primary responsibility and adequate resources for exercising choice of schooling will reside with parents, not with any monopoly of educational services. With greater parental choice, government would still set minimum educational standards, while teachers, school administrators and teachers’ unions would have added incentives to collaborate with parents for closing the educational opportunity gap within the American educational system.

q  Lifetime Learning Opportunities for all Citizens

Since political democracy assumes and requires educated, informed, and independent-thinking citizens, we will create a cultural environment that enhances quality-learning opportunities for all citizens at all stages of their lives. This would include financial education necessary for participating effectively as an empowered citizen-owner.

q  Universal Health Insurance and Reduced Costs for Funding New Medical Advances

The Unite America Party will re-establish privacy and choice through one’s own personal health plan rather than through an employer. We will encourage the private sector to offer universal catastrophic health care insurance, reinforced with health care vouchers for health care insurance for those who cannot afford it.

Under the new health care policy, Capital Homesteading credit would be provided to health plan subscribers and health plan providers — the only two groups with a direct and immediate stake in quality health care. With access to low-cost capital credit and direct ownership opportunities, these two stakeholder groups could acquire control and become co-owners of comprehensive and competitive health care delivery systems. A restoration of power to stakeholders would help restore the sacred relationship between health care subscribers and providers that has been lost in many of today’s Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs).

Furthermore, we will condition all taxpayer-supported medical research on royalty-free licensing of all patentable inventions in order to stimulate competition among suppliers and reduce the costs of producing pharmaceuticals and other life-enhancing health technologies.

q  Discouraging Judicial Activism that Threatens a Just Constitutional Order

We will encourage the judiciary to return to the original intent of the founders in interpreting and ruling on the U.S. Constitution and discourage judges from making laws that should be left to elected legislators or to the people by referenda.

We will seek rulings from the Supreme Court that restore the original meaning to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and reinstate the rights and powers of the people under the principles of natural law that govern right and wrong (which the founders understood and drew upon), and under the principles of English common law that existed prior to our nation’s founding. Among the fundamental rights of the people that were supposed to be respected and preserved under the Constitution was universal access to “the means of acquiring and possessing property,” a right which was expressly acknowledged under the Virginia and Massachusetts Declarations of Rights.

IV. GLOBAL AFFAIRS, NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

q  Offer More Creative and Just Approaches to Global Conflict Resolution

The Unite America Party will promote a new model of a democratic nation-state that promotes and protects freedom of religion and belief for all individuals, and bans control over the coercive power of the government by any organized religious body. These freedoms are guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which opposes laws “respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” as well as the first two articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

Based on Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stressing the right to property as a fundamental human right, the new nation-state should not own land or other natural resources. Instead, every child, woman and man should share an equal, lifetime, non-transferable ownership right and share equally in the profits and governing powers for preserving, extracting and renting economic uses of all of Nature’s resources. Concerning America’s national parks, ownership rights would be transferred to a national Citizens Land Bank governed by citizen-owners.

With respect to human-created economic technologies, rentable space, wealth-producing systems and ideas, and infrastructure, each citizen should be guaranteed equality to secure future ownership opportunities and the monetary and legal means to acquire and earn personal property rights over new and transferred income-producing assets. Economic democracy would thus become the ultimate check on potential abuses of concentrated economic power by any level of government, as well as by those controlling private monopolies of wealth and economic power.

By promoting economic democracy and grassroots empowerment through equal ownership opportunities, the Unite America Party’s approach to global poverty eradication and conflict resolution will radically reduce global crime rates. It will also neutralize the influence of preachers of hate and violence who recruit economically powerless persons to enlist as suicide terrorists to use whatever weapons they can acquire to kill innocent citizens. The new nation-state would thus build a more unifying culture and a more just economic foundation for peace, prosperity and freedom in the West Bank/Gaza/Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, poverty-stricken countries, and other unstable countries or regions that breed global terrorists.

q  Promote a New Global Standard for Currency Exchange Rates in a Global Common Market to Avoid Outsourcing of Productive Jobs to Countries with Lower Labor Costs

We will convene a 21^st century version of the Bretton Woods Conference. The first one was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944, convened by the United States with 43 other allied nations during World War II to plan the design of the post-war global monetary and financial order. Besides leading to the formation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the conference decided to establish the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency for global trade.

Today many countries question that global decision, given the instability in the value of the U.S. dollar. (Over the last 70 years, the dollar’s value has declined by 4,000 percent when measured by the increased price of an ounce of gold, from $35 to $1,400 today.)

The Unite America Party supports a new global conference to promote a more free and just global monetary and financial order consistent with principles of the Just Third Way. Such a conference would call for adoption of a fixed global standard for measuring the value of an elastic and asset-backed global reserve currency.

Going beyond the problematic gold standard, such a fixed global standard could be based on the average global cost of producing a kilowatt-hour, while adjusting currency exchange rates for trade among countries so that they take into account the lowest market labor rates in each country. This would create a more level playing field in tradable goods and services and stem the exploitative outsourcing of jobs to low-wage-paying countries and reduce pressures for protectionist trade policies that hurt all consumers.

q  Expand Global Markets for Commercial Uses of Advanced U.S. Technologies

We will promote truly open global markets to enable America to sell advanced technologies and high-tech services that enhance civilized life for all, particularly for sustainable food and fiber production; clean fuel and renewable technologies; advanced information, health and agricultural systems; and consulting on Capital Homesteading financing strategies for turning workers and other citizens into shareholders within commercial, financial, industrial and agricultural enterprises.

Within all for-profit enterprises, non-profit organizations and government agencies, America should be introducing participatory and justice-based management and governance systems to increase performance and efficiency.

q  Help Accelerate Third World Development and Debt Relief

We will export the principles of the Just Third Way and the financial technologies of Capital Homesteading to all nations. This would democratize and accelerate economic growth in developing economies; reduce the economic and political pressures for individuals and family members to immigrate to other countries and leave behind their families, friends and cultures; neutralize and marginalize the preachers and teachers of global terrorism; systematize greater transparency to reduce public corruption; and build sustainable Just Third Way economies from the bottom-up.

We will cancel old debt of developing countries that resulted from borrowing funds that went to non-productive projects or that enriched corrupt political leaders and their cronies at the expense of their own people.

q  Promote Long-Term Stewardship of the Global Environment

We will create a ten-year equivalent of the Marshall Plan or the "Race to the Moon" to conduct research, develop, and finance advanced sustainable energy technologies (many of which have already been developed by NASA and other Federal agencies but are not yet commercially available) that reduce the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants created from continued use of finite fossil fuels. We will seek collaboration among nations and global organizations to better define the issue and present real world solutions that will not reward special interests nor cripple national economies.

We will seek to rapidly reduce America’s dependency on oil and fossil fuels by shifting to renewable sources of energy, so that existing reserves will not be depleted before a “safety cushion” is preserved in the ground to handle future emergencies within an increasingly more fragile and technologically dependent world.

We will seek to design and build technologically and environmentally sound public transportation systems in cities and metropolitan areas currently without them, which are convenient and safe for those seeking alternatives to the use of motor vehicles and traditional urban transit systems. This will reduce pollution and motor vehicle accidents, decrease the use of fossil fuels, reduce traffic gridlock, and allow non-drivers access to the advantages of city life.

q  Transform the United Nations and other International Organizations to Promote Economic Democracy as an Essential Foundation for Spreading Political Democracy Globally

We will use America's superpower status to bring together a coalition of free and democratic countries unified to support the Just Third Way. We will advocate among friendly nations the transformation or replacement of the United Nations as a global institution for advancing global peace, prosperity and freedom through global economic, social, and political justice. Such a global institution would promote peacemaking efforts that draw upon grassroots initiatives that make all people participatory shareholders in peace.

q  Improve National Security by Winning the War of Ideas

We will strengthen and transform the national security policy of America and its coalition partners by launching, unilaterally if necessary, a Just Third Way offensive in the war of ideas. To eliminate the breeding grounds for recruiting extremists and religious and other terrorists, this new national security policy would be immediately followed by more effective bottom-up assistance from United States and international development agencies for delivering ideas and strategies that encourage higher levels of economic and social justice for all citizens within poor and underdeveloped countries.

We will limit American military intervention as a last resort in winning the War on Global Terrorism. Instead, America should use its superpower military and economic status to lead other nations in advancing the efforts of global governance bodies and Just Third Way initiatives that promote the dignity and quality of life for all people. We should also supply, unilaterally if necessary, all forms of assistance to Just Third Way advocacy groups struggling to overcome genocidal dictatorships in all countries that harbor terrorists and other threats to global peace.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Norm Kurland, Co-Founder, Unite America Party

Email: normk@uniteamericaparty.org

Mail: P.O. Box 40711, Washington, D.C. 20016

Phone: (703) 243-5155 | Fax: (703) 243-5935