The Office of the President-Elect has started fulfilling their promise of change with a bang. The website Change.gov is a powerful step in the right direction. And it was our second step in making the White House Office of Creative Affairs (WHOCA) a reality. This is the message we sent to the Transition Team via http://change.gov/yourvision the section of the site dedicated to input from the public at large:
EVERYTHING WORTH DOING STARTS WITH A GOOD IDEA.
But where do the good ideas get their start? How are they inspired? What does it take to know a good idea from a not-so-good idea. And most important of all, what does it take to grow a good idea into a BIG idea? These are questions that a government focused on change for the better must have the answers for. And following on the heels of that answer, the answer as to what it takes to bring a big idea into a real force for change.
Somewhere in the basement of the White House is a small room. A storage space perhaps. Or a long forgotten office or supply room. The purpose of this site is to turn that site into the White House Office of Creative Affairs. A desk. A chair. A phone. And most important of all, a computer linked to the most creative minds of our time.
From Architects to Zoologists, the thought leaders and innovators who are willing to serve at the will of the President need a means to become a part of the campaign for Change in America. This is their on-ramp to involvement by contributing their time and their genius to generate the millions of solutions needed to effect the Administration’s sacred promise to the American people.
BUT HOW DOES SUCH AN IDEA BECOME A REALITY?
Like all ideas, it is only as real as the energy dedicated to make it so. You, as the person reading this message can either say,”Hey, this guy may be on to something,” and pass it up the line. Or you might hit delete and go to the next one in your stack of thousands. That decision, I leave to you.
But if I believe that this idea has merit, then I am not going to leave its fate up to an overworked government representative to decide. I am going to try every avenue at my disposal to bring it to the attention of the powers that can make it real. Since the Obama Administration has made a policy of transparency by making the statement:
“President-elect Obama has pledged to change the way Washington works, and that begins with shifting influence away from special interests and restoring it to the everyday Americans who are passionate about fixing the problems facing our country.
Opening up the Transition means listening to your ideas and stories and providing a window into how the process works. “
I will therefore test the depth of my passion by starting such an office on my own, just to see if it is worthy of the attention of the Administration. If you have an interest in learning more you can visit this ad hoc White House Office of Creative Affairs by going to http://WhiteHouseOfficeOfCreativeAffairs.wordpress.com
Thank you for all of your hard work. It is appreciated.
No doubt, as one of a million responses, this message will get lost in the shuffle. But at least we utilized the prescribed path to get an idea to those who have the power to make it happen. But by no means are we intending to stop there. Stay tuned for our next effort to get Creativity a seat at the table.
Our immediate concern is the untenable war we have begun in Afghanistan: “Say it ain’t so Barack.”
For over a thousand years countries have been ensnared in that abyss. We watched as Afghanistan, more than any other reason, brought down the USSR. Perhaps that is Obama’s plan, divide up the U.S. into its individual states, in the same manner as the U.S.S.R. Perhaps he’s scoping out California and wants to displace the Governator.
Would a war break out between Arizona and California over water. When it does, good luck Arizona: suck cactus. OR what will happen when California gets the big one: earthquake. Many predict its affect on the United States will be the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and all wars put together, on a par with WWIII.
Are we prepared for that? In the dessert, buried deep are the supplies they need to survive – or are holes reserved for missiles and the military and political elite to survive the nuclear Holocaust they have been creating for the world since they learned what Hitler could do and had planned for the world. So what do we do, pick up where Hitler left off, and created a Mexican stand-off that only the military and the politicians will survive. That is the world in which we live. Obama has already heard his evacuation plan,for him and his family for their Hitler type bunker to live out their lives in stylish comfort.
Afghanistan is what it is – we need an iron-curtain around it to keep their terrorism and drugs from spoiling the rest of the world, not fix it. Or lob in a big one and deliver them all to paradise. Think of all of the addicts they have created in Europe, in the United States, throughout the world. Deliver them. Not us.
Why do we have the military we have if not for the ultimate solution? That includes all of those nuclear weapons we have, and the threat of total Annihilation we live under – where a pissed off Putan or crazed Muslim can light the fuse that ends the world. How do we unravel that?
Against that backdrop, gripe number two, bailing out the automotive rip-off artists. What is their problem? An unsold inventory of gas-guzzlers. So, we are going to give them more money to make crap?
Re-structure the bail-out to them as an incentive to the American Consumer by giving consumers the break, not them: Offer U.S. Auto Rebates – $20,000. for gas-guzzlers over $25,000. and Auto Rebates of $10,000. for gas-guzzlers under $20.000.
In this way the now less-then-Big-Three, can unload their inventory and with the profits figure out news ways to screw it up. 500 MPH cars that get 28 MPG. What Dorks. OR family trucksters that seat fifty. When I go to Asia or Europe I see small little cars, not SUV’s that the American car industry pushes on people.
The Big-Three are not about serving the needs of the consumers but more about serving themselves with a profit motive this is more on a par with Tobacco then the automotive industry of the world. Like Tobacco, they have addicted Americans to their crap-ass products and are just now realizing the results of that strategy – the Japanese have a better idea.
Toyota has changed its products to compete with the Big-Three, and they met midway, now hopefully, Toyota will go back to sanity will follow with a total change in how we see transportation.
Americans have bought into ‘you are what you drive,’ long enough. We need a new mentality, ‘what you drive gets you where you are going safely and economically. Today I call that a Camry Hybrid. I want mine with a sunroof.
About Homeland Security: the military should be attached to it, not the Pentagon. Let’s lose the World Cop mentality for protect us, our borders, and through alliances – with the alliance, not us leading the charge, protect those alliance members with other alliance members fairly in proportion. This we carry the whole load nonsense has to stop.
I am for isolationism first, then let them reorganize their theocracies, including Israel, and let the Europeans go back to being antagonists with one another instead of Euro seekers.
Isolationism when it comes to fixing our broken mess first. Sure, throw out a bone here and there, but the focus has to be on fixing the mess we have in our own yard first, then the frontyard, backyard, then wander the world and help out where we can.
I don’t know where you guys live, but here in the Artic – aka Minnesota, each night they pick up people on the sidewalks and dump them in a warm building to keep them from freezing, instead of helping them get off the streets. Still four or five have become Human Popsicles. They have had to hide and lock dumpsters, and people living in abandoned houses and buildings is becoming a bigger problem all the time, because the fires they light to stay warm, burn down the building – or abandon houses striped of copper, cars losing converters, stealing all metal that can’t be stolen without a blow-torch.
The entire country has grim stories like these, and we are unloading a billion or more a month in Iraq? This is a loan to them right? We get it back in discounted oil? How does that work anyway. Iraq and Israel get how much a month from us, while we have Americans starving?
Something is askew in the world and in need of a swift kick in the ass. Hopefully, Obama is just the fellow to do it.
One last question: we like the Canadians don’t we? They are the number importer of oil into the U.S. Few know that fact. Of all of the oil imported into the U.S. how do we help them? They have that oil-sand or shale, why aren’t we assisting them in refining it? Why haven’t we built more pipelines for them – instead of paying for pipelines in Iraq, why aren’t we building them from Canada? When will we learn how to empty tankers of oil and trade them even-up by filling it back up with water. Or is this a secret, we keep to ourselves so oil cartels don’t raise prices again? Once they could do what they wanted, but worldwide competition, Russia of all places, made it a competitive market, that is until our greedy investment bankers found the commodities markets and screwing everything up there, like they have in banks. When do we get to take them out and shot them anyway? How many Enrons, how many failed banks until we hang these turds upside down and shake the money from their pockets, and hang them from trees?
Water is next. And food. With exploding populations how will the world be fed?
Instead of solving America’s financial problems with an ever-growing supply of immigrants to pay for the social security and government war-machine, why don’t we solve our own financial problems so we can turn that valve off and start producing the ever-increasing supply of water and food that the world needs. A sandwich for a gallon of gas. A gallon of water for a gallon of gas.
Long lost is the American ideal of who or what we are, for isolated ‘Little Italy’s’ from all over the world in every American nook and cranny. I was in New York a while back asking for directions – it took me twenty people until I found someone who spoke English.
The days of diamonds and gold are fast being replaced by realities and necessities of sensible living in an ever-increasingly crowded world fighting for scarce resources. We now call that America. The gated communities of American elite had best build stronger gates and add more guards, you are no longer safe from crime and its affects.
Being green will replace Caddy’s unless they re-position them, they will always be a symbol of contentiousness and ostentatious displays of tacky wealth – that is a great fall from once being known for automotive excellence. Who in the hell is responsible for that?
The world views America as a harbor for stealing the world’s resources, for protecting its elite royalty of millionaires as touted in its exported television nonsense and having a great Army to protect its Corporations. And Bush was once its CEO. Now the world is asking: who is Obama? Will he transform himself from people’s president to CEO?
The Afghanistan issue is the first way we will see. Will he kowtow to the Military Industrial Complex and escalate war in the middle east of withdraw as he told Americans to be elected president?
As Obama defines himself in the next few months we’ll see who this man is: a black mouthpiece for the powers that have controlled chaos so well to keep riots to a minimum – or people’s president that many claim he is?
The drama unfolds before our eyes on a daily basis on the world stage. What is most noticeable as we speak today, is how quiet the world is – now even Gaza.
When will the left foot drop?
Enough ranting for one session. Somehow this is therapeutic, I feel better about our country already.
By: Daryl Orris on January 29, 2009
at 3:52 pm