Mission
In confronting during 2008-2009 the gravest financial crisis to beset the United States and the world in eighty years our federal government under two presidents, one Republican and the other Democratic, and two Democratic Congresses, engineered a rescue of the American financial system by socializing Wall Street's massive losses while allowing the privatizing of its profits. A Great Depression-like catastrophe was averted, but by means that safeguarded Wall Street interests at the expense of the majority of American taxpayers, most of whom, too, had been devastated by the radiation release from the Wall Street meltdown, but enjoyed no government bailout. The $2.3 billion that American financial, insurance, and real estate industries have reportedly directly poured into funding the political parties and candidates, including $661.6 million among current members of Congress, since 1989 and the $3.8 billion they have put into lobbying, including $803 million since 2008, have done their work.

Today, in mid-January 2010 Washington remains engaged in an excruciating exercise at health care reform. Repeated public opinion polls have shown that the majority of Americans favor a single-payer, government-administered health insurance system instead of the fragmented private health insurance system we have. Yet, of all the reform ideas being booted about, this is one idea that was arbitrarily ruled out both by the White House and in the Congress at the very outset. Meanwhile the health care industries have flooded Washington with lobbyists, reportedly six or more to each member of Congress, not to mention with munificent campaign contributions, comparable in scale to that of the financial industries, that have greased the results of the 2008 election. Though some measures in the House and Senate bills may eventually reduce the rate of increase of overall American health care expenditures, the overwhelming public impression of this Washington exercise is that first and foremost industry interests are being protected at the expense of public interest.

It is not that the idea of a government-administrated health insurance system for all Americans will necessarily survive any careful deliberation even by the American public. It is, rather, that what has consistently and ostensibly remained the majority public preference in a matter of universal importance was not given any due consideration in Washington without even the barest explanation, that is so outrageous. And if the reason really is that the idea had not a snowball's chance in hell of passing the Congress, then that is exactly the problem with our supposedly representative democracy, is it not? Our Congressional representatives do not really represent the people in this matter of vital importance to all Americans.

If ever we want to disabuse ourselves of the illusion that ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people, then these two largest recent government undertakings should do the job. And if this is democracy, then democracy has very little to recommend it, much less is it something we should want to impose on other countries by the force of arms. Not that we should ever want to impose anything on any other country. In any case, it shows the threadbare quality of the ideal we have been trying to promote around the world.

But democracy is also what we can make of it, and I suggest elsewhere at this website “The next stage in the development of American democracy” that, indeed, our democracy has reached a stage where massive citizen participation in the actual making of public policies—policies that are pursued in our name and supposedly for our benefit—is ever more feasible, hence can attain a new measure of effectiveness. If we manage to do this, then we will have brought about a real participatory democracy.

American citizens have mostly become educated, at least on average better educated than ever before. Existence calls for fulfillment. As we become better able to shape our own individual existences, we also want to be able to help shape the contours of the community existence of which each is a part and which, in turn, also affects our individual lives. Education increasingly qualifies all of us to do in fact what the Constitution entitles us to do as a right. To the extent that we, then, succeed in doing this, individual American existence will become more fully satisfying; we will, then, also have created a democracy we can truly recommend to everyone else.

www.citizensolidarityfirststep.org is a first attempt at realizing this dream. So, come and join in this new adventure to raise our democracy to a new height of achievement.

In this connection, I note in the paper on the next stage in the development of American democracy that the proliferation of voter-initiated ballot actions is one indication of how eager and ready American voters are to take part in the actual formation of public policies. But ballot actions are blunt instruments that can be as destructive as they can be creative. Thus, successive voter-initiated tax-limiting propositions have effectively disabled California's state government to function as government by spiking the state's budgetary process. The California governmental system is, therefore, going the way of failed Third-World states. If voters want to participate more fully in the creation of public policies affecting our lives, we cannot rely on simple-minded actions. We must think through and examine from every angle the policies we advocate as responsible policy-makers do. This is what we will try to do at this website.

As to which matters we should take up, every indication is that the present ongoing attempt at reforming American health care system will be at best only a first step toward needed reform. After all, even the most optimistic estimate of its possible cost-saving effects—the David Cutler and Commonwealth Fund estimate—has “the annual growth rate in national health expenditures” possibly slowing “from 6.4 percent to 6.0 percent” toward the end of the next decade as a result of this reform. No one expects the American economy to grow anywhere close to 6 percent, so that health care cost will continue to eat up more and more American resources. The result is that we can expect this reform to go the way of the Massachusetts reform of 2006 that emphasized universal coverage without properly addressing cost control. Two years after the implementation of the Massachusetts reform, very predictably the state has found itself unable to pay for the reform, so that the program is already being cut back. Massachusetts may get bailed out by the Washington “reform,” but who will, then, bail out Washington?

A new reform, therefore, will soon become necessary, and when that day comes we cannot allow the health care industries to triumph again. The only political power that can defeat the power of money is the power of actual citizen votes. But first, we must agree on the general shape of the reform we want, which is what we will try to produce at Citizen Solidarity First Step. And while I mentioned a single-payer system that polls indicate the majority of Americans to prefer, it is not a wide majority, and I am myself of two minds about the matter. So the options are quite open.

When we have a consensus on what we want, depending on our numbers, we may be in a position to exercise our voting power in concert. But Citizen Solidarity First Step is incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. So far as this website is concerned, we can only serve as a talking shop, and that remains our purpose.

Second, Barack Obama was elected in part to open a new chapter in American foreign policy. He has done some preliminary work to this end, and his very election to our presidency has produced a favorable reaction all around the world. But as his recent decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan indicates, the tail of military policy continues to wag our foreign policy dog. A new chapter in our foreign policy calls for new ideas and new emphases, but the ideational cupboard of our foreign policy establishment in Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago, and the West Coast is bare.

My own reading of the matter is that this foreign policy failure derives from the relentless professionalization or specialization of American higher education that has dominated American intellectual development especially during the past half century, with the result that educated imagination has become ever narrower because specialized. Specifically, our foreign policy “experts” have never been called on to understand in depth and detail the founding principles of our Republic and how these principles apply to the conduct of foreign policy.

Consider, for example, elections that the United States urges on underdeveloped nations as the essence of democracy. We have elections in the United States. Yet, it is precisely our elections that have produced the travesty of democracy in Washington that I alluded to earlier. So, what do our officials know about democracy? More generally, everyday Washington is telling other countries what to do. Yet, the essence of freedom, of which we are supposed to be champion, is self-determination. Thus, we undo the larger purpose of the United States by meddling in other peoples' affairs even with the best of intentions.

Therefore, I am initiating two discussion threads here, one trying specifically to open up foreign policy deliberations to the broadest possible consideration of fundamental principles and the other to consider the even more basic matter of the purpose of education, higher education in particular, which, however, will carry inescapable implications for K-12.

It is evident that inquiring into the purpose of education, hence of existence, is no proper subject for government action, though in principle the latter presupposes proper understanding. As we proceed to consider our economic problems or environmental problems, we will find at the root of them analogous challenges. Thus, in the course of rescuing our financial system many in Washington and around the country suddenly awoke to the scale of “Wall Street greed.” Yet, this extraordinary greed is not confined to Wall Street; it has infected executive management across the industries, indeed, the entire professional class in the United States. That is to say, there has been a profound failure of education not only in our business schools, but in our colleges and universities generally. And this failure is not something that government can overcome by laws or regulations.

Or consider the pollution of our natural environment. The government can regulate the discharge of every pollutant known to man, and yet, there will ever be new pollutants as technology advances. Here we need a systematic sensitivity among scientists, engineers, and industrialists to the possible effects of what they do or create on the natural environment. Such education can only come from a balanced valuation of what human beings pursue in life: a valuation that does not presently prevail in our university education.

Therefore, the citizen statesmanship we are called on to exercise has a broader scope than the statesmanship required of government. But those in government need to know where the dividing line is which governments cross at a risk to their legitimacy, hence to understand what the proper functions of government are. There is a paper on this.

Method
Wide-open, anything-goes discussions do not usually yield coherent and tangible conclusions, much less actionable ideas, whereas we seek at this website effective ideas that can be molded into policy proposals translatable into actions. Therefore, each discussion thread here will begin with one or more papers to help focus our discussions. Since I have begun this effort from scratch and unfortunately largely in intellectual isolation, the starting papers are mine, except in the case of health care reform, where I refer you to two published alternatives that I have found appealing. I hope that as we proceed, others will submit alternative proposals and still others will provide papers with which we can significantly modify the existing discussion threads or open up additional threads, for example on reforming and saving Social Security and Medicare, if we want to save them; on tackling the climate, environmental, and biosphere issues; jobs and manpower development as well as how to combat the growing disparity of income and wealth in the United States; balancing the American economy, etc.

Each discussion thread will be moderated, and again initially I will do this, until others have come to join me. With most issues the general approach is ideally an iteration of problem identification, data collection, analysis, systematization and entertainment of solutions, more analysis and data collection, more systematization, etc. until we reach a coherent set of solutions for all the problems we have identified along the way. Naturally, there may be problems that defy joint solutions. We will, then, have to argue for tradeoffs. The first general agreement we seek is on the goals of action. If we can agree on them, then, depending on the issue, we may want to proceed to consider plans of actions. But we will need to confine ourselves to general guidelines, because excessive specificity will inevitably embroil us in endless disputes about nonessentials.

At various points we may find it necessary to take a vote. The software for the voting process, however, has not been properly tested, and in any case Internet voting is at best problematic. So, on this matter we will have to see how things work out as we go.

Not all issues will lend themselves to this kind of approach. Thus, the paper on American principles and American foreign policy is more or less a systematic application of a few basic principles to how we might deal with our main foreign policy concerns. In this case, I imagine that those who disagree with me will want to challenge from the outset my understanding of these principles, for example the nature of freedom. Indeed, the paper will stand or fall depending on how well this understanding withstands criticism. Therefore, the discussion will very likely, perhaps should revolve around the first few sections of the paper. If my thesis fails to pass muster, then we will have to start anew, or someone may choose to submit alternative theses. You may want to do so anyway.

There are, however, some derivative issues concerning how I understand the China “challenge,” as opposed to “threat,” or the revolt of the Islamic world against Western imposition, that invite independent discussions. Therefore, I have posted these sections of the paper separately to provide for separate discussion threads. Here we are dealing with reading the minds and feelings of people, both ourselves and others, which are complicated, subtle, and not always transparent matters of fact, so that we must be prepared to concede that decisive agreement may not be possible. Also, the entire history of Western philosophy and theology is in some ways an illustration of how difficult self-understanding especially is. So much more difficult is understanding other minds. We must allow evidence to triumph over preconceptions, including mine.

In the same way, “The next stage in the development of American democracy,” which furnished the spring of action for the present effort, and “The proper functions of government” are evidently open to criticism. You are welcome to argue that this entire undertaking is misconceived. If you can make a convincing case, I will consider shutting up shop. Therefore, fire away.

Invitation
The whole purpose of this website is to energize vigorous public discussions of critical public issues. Please contribute your thoughts to stimulate other people's thoughts. Write as much and as often as you like, but in a spirit of civility and good will toward others. Citizen Solidarity First Step reserves the right to remove what we deem to be most egregiously rude or vile language. Personal attacks are unhelpful, and please do not question or impugn the motives of others. Otherwise, there is no “political correctness” or “incorrectness” at this website.

Let us take ownership of the public policies that will profoundly affect our lives and the lives of our children and children’s children. Let us create our own future instead of letting and waiting for others to create it for us. Remember Lincoln's glorious dream of a government of the people, by the people, for the people: of us, by us, for ourselves and our children. That is what democracy can be at its height, which will also mean attaining a deeper solidarity as one people and one nation.

Registration
To have an accurate measure of the organization's success in this venture as well as to prevent, to the extent that we can, multiple voting by the same person when votes are taken, Citizen Solidarity First Step has decided to ask our participants to register and provide some personal information. This information will not be sold or made available to any third party under any circumstances. Please use the pull-down menu under “About us” to go to the registration page. You can also just Register here. Whether you choose to participate in the discussion, please register anyway, so that we can notify you before any votes are taken, if they are to be taken.

Contributions
Citizen Solidarity First Step is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions to it are tax deductible. For this, it must remain a strictly talking shop and cannot, as an organization, engage in overt political activities besides serving as a forum for exchanging views on intensely political issues. The first step in trying to bring about an ideal world is to understand what the ideals are or can or ought to be.

Yen-Ling Chang
1/2010