Reply to Commons Rising Coordinator 12/13/2012

No website yet. We have the business site at www.shinneyboocreek.com and
will have a sales brochure and website for the ARC as the designs are
developed, and some initial conceptualizing gets done. The ARC will be
in the Sierra Nevada near Tahoe just 2 and 1/2 hours from the Bay Area.
The idea is to construct a radically efficient (as only a commons can
achieve) , small footprint, live/shop/work/play, automobile free,
critical grid independent, fair, just, loving community that also has
lots of room for the one leggeds, four leggeds, wingeds, and crawling
things, and where the essential capital need to run the community is
governed as a commons based on the Ostrom Parameters. This community
will be poised for prosperity as the Resource Revolution (our modern
equivalent of the Industrial Revolution) unfolds and it will be built to
survive "in style" Peak Oil, Catastrophic Climate Change, the
Yellowstone Caldera, disruption of thermohaline circulation, or just
resource vulnerability and tyranny.

My blog hiatus reflects a difficult divorce and the placing of my
children's needs above my business (or passion for economic evolution).
During this time, I almost lost, the 160 acre peace of paradise that is
this property, to foreclosure -- and yet {SHABBAMMMM!, Batman} I have
come back strong, with my kids on solid ground (and behind me all the
way). And this was all accomplished to a large degree because of my
commitment to Common Capitalism and the team of partners that has
coalesced around me to run the business, develop events, and pursue an
evolutionary development plan for the future.

I can see many ways I will be enriched by this group based on first
impressions. For one, I need more knowledge about the technical aspects
of commons management and I hope that this group can help me in that.

Next, I seek to build a coalition of Commonteers to form into an
aggregated voting block to demand the passage of the Act of Common Bond
to form a pool of capital so that every citizen of the United States who
is at least 26 years old can borrow money to invest $100,000 in a common
constitutional partnership with at least 300 other partners that is
democratically structured (preferably based on the Ostrom Parameters).
The $19 Trillion dollar government guarantee required by this program is
significantly less than the country is currently investing in propping
up the corrupt banking system via the Federal Reserve "Discount" Window.
The Act of Common Bond requires no federal operating funds unless the
bond insurance system [similar to the FDIC] would become insolvent.
Proper thought and regulation would need to be done to insure prudent
controls.

The Act of Common Bond will also create a high tax-free yield,
government guaranteed, investment vehicle for the besieged hard-working
retired middle class -- protecting them from the financial improprieties
and low yields rampant within the current investment systems.

Finally, I hope to produce an Interdependence Day Dance/Party with a
Purpose/Seize the Commons event at Shinneyboo Creek that I could use
help with to design the program.

I will be in Philadelphia on December 21st for the Declaration of
Interdependence on the Independence Mall and at the Wainwright House in
New York on the 22nd to present our Declarations to a representative of
the United Nations but cannot stop talking about the work of my life and
many other good people.

With Hope, Love, and Determination,
Michael "Pilgrim" Rogers
http://letterstopatriots.blogspot.com/

Application to Join Commons Rising

Your organisational affiliations? (primary and secondary) *
SumPeople.org and The Commonteers. SumPeople is an aggregation platform
and The Commonteers is a social club where commonteers can meet and plan
coordinated attacks against the tendrils the Privateers have around our
common government, community, and economy. The Commonteers are also
committed to a campaign to reclaim the language of the commons and
redefine words correctly so that "noble" means greedy, violent,
uncaring, and self absorbed, whereas, "common" means hard working,
honest, reliable, and kind.

What is alive for you when you think of the commons? *
I fucking love that question. I am a commonteer. I fight for the right
of people to claim their rights to govern resources as a commons. I
have dedicated myself to stopping the privateers, at any turn, thus
seeking to converting them, through strength and love, to see the joys
of giving to, and investing in, the commons, and failing to do that to
marginalize their influence on the systems of the earth.

I am also, with a brilliant team, bringing into reality a global
economic commons that I believe can achieve the Alchemy of Non-Zero and
capture the "Greater-Than" quotation and build the largest economic
enterprise in the world as a decentralized but coordinated tribe of
friends hunting sustenance together to care for our families.

What are the skills/talents you bring to this group? *
Everything I have. My heart, my head, my Yale University Masters in
Administration, my 160 acres of land where I am building an ARC
(Awesomely Resourceful Community) designed to survive in style, my 30
years of engineering a new economic model to compete with Privateering
Capitalism -- with its foundations firmly rooted in the compost of the
mind of Elinor Ostrom, Game Theory, Coordination Theory, Reciprocal
Altruism, Judgment Aggregation, Complexity Theory, Systems Thinking, and
in the indigenous wisdom of the commons that reaches deep into our DNA.

--
Pilgim

Re: Tahoe

Thanks for the reply. 

The Promise and the Problem

Yes, Tahoe is a special place and there have been a lot of changes since I grew up in Squaw Valley.  Unfortunately, a lot of the environmental gains seem to have come at the price of our economy.  Where we once had a vibrant small business environment, now we have large tracts of open space and 10,000 sq ft homes at the end of large driveways with 5 to 10 mile drives to services, and mega resorts owned by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley where we have our choice of seasonal $12 an hour jobs without benefits.

Add to that the fact that, as a community, we are incredibly resource insecure.  We need only look at the town of Tracy in the Central Valley and the economic devastation that came from $3 a gallon gasoline to see what is in store for us if we do not change our transportation and resource patterns.

A New Environmentalism

There is a growing voice for a new environmental vision that is informed and inspired by Bjarke's Hedonistic Sustainability -- which is why I reached out to Iben.  We are beginning to imagine what would be possible if we were to build a "String of Pearls" around Tahoe -- concentrated live-shop-work-play environments, linked by mass transit (we are really good at trams), structured as progressive big businesses owned by us with a deep commitment to community, broad prosperity, and deep sustainability.  We think the time has come to use small, resource secure, "footprints" and give land back to the four leggeds, the one leggeds, the winged ones, and the crawling things -- as well as providing abundant land for the purification of water, air, and the spirit of life. 

We are also convinced that this will drive economic prosperity at the same time.

JobBonds Funding Mechanism

Tahoe's existing transportation and resource infrastructure was built with Railroad and Highway Bonds.  The costs were too high for any one individual, group of individuals, or companies to finance these projects themselves.  We believe that the transportation and resource infrastructure for the next 200 years will be built with JobBonds, a municipal funding mechanism to generate the billions of dollars that will be needed to build the future.   I was at the California Democratic Convention as a delegate for Eastern Nevada County and received strong interest from top members of the State Party and major unions to utilize this vision to put our struggling building industry back to work.  Local builders will not, in the foreseeable future, be able to get cheap loans to build highly profitable luxury cabins, live in them for two years, then sell them tax free, then "rinse and repeat".  Only large municipal scale projects will get funding going forward.  This is the basis of my campaign for Supervisor of Nevada Counties' 5th District.

What's Next, Tahoe?

The next step as we see it is to begin the conversation about "What's Next, Tahoe?"  To prime this conversation, we are reaching out to visionary design professionals to help open up the dialectic and stimulate some "waking dreams".  The non-profit Sustainable Tahoe wants to host a "What's Next, Tahoe?" conference and possibly a series of workshops.  We thought that the involvement of students at a top design graduate schools combined with visionary professionals would offer a unique collaborative environment.

Let me know if you have any interest in discussing these possibilities further.

With Hope, Determination, and Love,
Michael Rogers



On 2/16/2012 7:03 PM, Claire Maxfield wrote:

Iben,

Thanks for thinking of us!  I’m definitely interested to learn more. As you say, it’s beautiful up there, and there is a long history of environmental stewardship in the area.

 

Michael, if you’d like to talk further, feel free to contact me or my associate, Catherine Nueva Espana (also copied here). Either one of us can tell you more about what we do, and see if it’s a good fit for your plans.

 

Best,

Claite

 

__

Claire Maxfield

Atelier Ten

 

From: Iben Falconer
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 1:19 PM
To: Claire Maxfield
Cc: Michael Rogers
Subject: Tahoe

 

Hi Claire,

 

I just got off the phone with Michael Rogers (cc’ed) who lives in Truckee, CA and is running for office in Truckee, CA. He has big exciting visions for the future of the Tahoe area and reached out to us to talk about them. I’ll let him fill you in on the details of the project, but overall he is looking to develop a more sustainable future for the region. He is interested in potentially organizing a workshop for the community to envision this future. While it’s quite a distance for us, I thought that perhaps you all would be interested—it’s gorgeous up there!  

 

venligst / best regards  

Iben Falconer

Business Development Manager

www.big.dk

 

BIG NYC
601 W. 26th St. Suite 1255
New York, NY 10001
USA

 

BIG CPH

Nørrebrogade 66d, 2nd floor

2200 Copenhagen N

Denmark

Message to Smiley and West Radio Program

I am running for Supervisor of Nevada County (in California just up the
hill from Cornell's home town of Sacramento) based on an innovative
program of Corporate Democracy and Economic Confederation (hold on, read
the whole thing). I will be working on securing a $500 million JobBond
to put us back to work in a company where we elect our CEO and Board of
Directors. It is about progressive big business. It is about putting
the Chief back in Chief Executive Officer.

Sony Inc., founder Akio Morida said that "nations are a dying industry,
corporations are the structures of the future" and indeed we now live in
the Age of the Corporate State, quickly leaving behind the Age of the
Nation State. But the good news is that we love corporations, it is
kings we can do without. We will be managing capital (buildings, money,
equipment) as a commons with benefits going to those who provision the
commons, not those born of the golden womb.

This is all based on the brilliant social engineering of the Greatest
American Who Ever Lived, the Great Peacemaker of the People of the
Longhouse who gave the world the gift of confederation in 1142 AD, over
300 years before Columbus was born. In 1744 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Canasatego, suggested that the unorganized English Colonies might want
to form some sort of Union like the League of Peace and Power, a
confederation which had at that point brought peace, power, and
prosperity to the Haudenosaunee for 600 years. Ben Franklin was there
on his first diplomatic mission, and the first thing he ever printed was
an account of that treaty conference and the suggestion of Canasatego.
He then made confederation the core of his Albany Plan in 1754. The
first time the term "United States of America" was in the Articles of
Confederation and the writings of the Federalists were based on their
arguments against confederation.

Almost 90 years later the Confederation of Southern States used the term
as a "fuck you" to the strong federal authority of the centralized
government, however the South was never a confederation for two main
reasons: one, the definition of a confederation is an alliance of
autonomous individuals and a society with slaves cannot therefore be a
confederation; and, second, they quickly became a military dictatorship
and never gave the states their dreamed of autonomy. So therefore, to
allow a bunch of slave owning white men to own the term confederation
today is the worst form of cultural imperialism.

Corporate Democracy, or Economic Confederation, is not an ESOP which is
usually a tax dodge to give employees equity but hold on to power, it is
not a cooperative which comes from the European socialist/communist
model that seek leaderless organizations run by consensus.
Confederation is a dynamic organizational model where the leaders are
servants to the people, there are checks and balances and separation of
powers (concepts invented by the Great Peacemaker) with the whole thing
run by Chiefs and Councils of Elders who get their power as a result of
years of service to the people, not because of who their daddy was.

The way European Americans finally broke the Original Americans was to
destroy the power of the Chiefs and to make them the same as every other
individual member of the tribe -- Sitting Bull had the same say as any
other Lakota regardless of ability. This decimation of the people was
accomplished finally by the Dawes Act of 1887 that no longer allowed
native people to manage land (capital) as a commons. Senator Dawes
pursued this strategy because the Railroad and Telegraph companies were
having a hard time cheating the Chiefs, so instead they divided native
land into 160 acre parcels that they could swindle individuals out of
one at a time.

I believe it is the return of the Chiefs (both male and female) and the
return of the Commons (but applied to modern business forms) that is the
key to us being able to defend ourselves against the predation of the
Wacicu (those that keep the fat for themselves).

Do you have any interest in speaking with me on your program?

--
Michael Rogers

Tahoe ARSEs

Mr. Ingles,

Your work has absolutely lit my imagination on fire. I have dreamed
about building a string of ARSEs (Aggressively Resource Secure
Environments), pun intended, from the Central Valley of California, up
the Sierra Nevada Mountains and around Tahoe -- the most beautiful lake
in the world. Your work has taken me 50 steps further than I imagined
possible.

I am running for Supervisor of the 5th District of Nevada County on the
platform of putting our struggling builder community back to work
creating a series of resource secure urban communities set in the middle
of wildness and linked by the trams we are so good at building. To put
people on a small footprint and give land back to nature which we can
see from our walkable homes, offices, schools. I want to be looking out
my window at a bear fishing for trout, or wolves hunting an Antelope.

The current environmental model at Tahoe is large greenbelts that add
value to 15,000 sq ft homes in far flung subdivisions which is giving us
an esthetically pleasing "billionaires and busboys" economy, but we have
severe resource vulnerabilities. At the core of my plan is to
completely change the nature of capital in Tahoe. I am looking to form
a democratic corporation that would build and own these communities,
fund it with government guaranteed bonds, and organize it so the
economic leadership is deeply accountable to the people who work
together to prosper. This is based on the core concept of "Capital as
a Commons" and is inspired by the work of Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom,
and the concept of "Corporate Democracy" as practiced by the John Lewis
Partnership in England and the Mondragon Corporation in the Basque
region of Spain.

To fund this, I will seek a $2.5 billion County guaranteed JobBond to
begin constructing this new future. The Truckee and Tahoe of today was
built with the great Railroad Bonds of the late 1800's and I believe
that our future will be built with JobBonds that bring our capital home,
create jobs, and forge an economically democratic future -- for as Sony
Founder Akio Morida said "nations are a dying industry, corporations are
the structures of the future."

The challenge I have is stoking the imagination of folks so that they
can visualize the future. I am wondering if you might be willing to
take this idea on as a design challenge? I am a graduate of the Yale
School of Drama and worked for three years right next to the
Architecture School and thought that there may be students there who
would want to play with the idea of urban structures in the snowy
mountains of the Sierra Nevada, or perhaps the Stanford Center for
Sustainable Development or the Berkeley Department of Urban Design.

I know you must be a very busy man, and the chance of this even reaching
you is remote. So, I don't really expect to hear from you. But no
worry, I plan to reference your work, and when I am elected, and I get
the bond passed, we will be in touch and then we could actually hire you.

Thanks for the healing imagination you share so freely.

--
Mike Rogers
530-587-5160
mike@MikeRogers4Supervisor.com
www.MikeRogers4Supervisor.com

Please hire me on June 5th to represent your interests
on the Nevada County Board of Supervisors.

Vibrant Small Business, Progressive Big Business!

Letter to George Rebane 1/27/2012

Many progressives are calling me a crackpot, but I think the "experts"
have messed things up so much that maybe we need some crackpots. So,
here is a crackpot idea --

1) The TPP organizes a constitutional convention for the drafting of a
constitution for the Nevada County Constitutional Partnership
Corporation (NCCPC). Anyone in the county who gets 30 proxies from
registered voters in the county can be a delegate. The convention is
organized online using bulletin boards and other near-zero cost
coordination tools -- Nevada County voters are welcome review and
comment, but maybe on certain forums only delegates can post.

2) The constitution is submitted for ratification by 2/3rds of the
represented residents at the convention.

3) If ratified, a $2.5 Billion JobBond is placed before all the citizens
of the county. The capital generated from the bond would be managed by 5
representative capital councils for each district in the county with
$500 million each to fund the creation of the NCCPC. These councils will
have the decisions on where to invest their share.

For instance, if 4 of the 5 councils decide that a bank is one business
to build, then they can send representatives to a countywide bank
council. Rather than creating four banks, they might decide to create
one bank where each district has branches. The local branches could have
certain inalienable rights but agree to give up some autonomy to gain
security or non-zero sum benefits. In the case of underwriting
guidelines, the 4 branches could chose to agree upon system wide
underwriting criteria to insure that no one branch can risk the whole
bank. Additionally, they most likely would decide each to contribute
funds for one computer system that all the branches use.

The JobBond serves the conservative goals of local control, small
government, and a vibrant economy. The JobBond is not a budget item on
county books. The County merely guarantees it, and a percentage of the
profits could be dedicated to reducing the property taxes of permanent
residents in perpetuity as compensation. Local investors would be given
the first opportunity to invest at a coupon premium, then outside
investors would be allowed to invest at a less desirable coupon. JobBond
funds would only be advanced when there is a specific project and where
there are investors willing to invest in that portion of the bond
authority.

As the NCCPC gains political and economic power, we start demanding the
block granting of our taxes back to us for education, healthcare,
unemployment, etc. Also, the $2.5 billion bond will remove the payment
of taxes on the income on that amount. It will also return exported
capital back home and "starve" the beasts of State and Federal
government, the big banks, and Wall Street in one fell swoop.

As for the selection of candidates for public service, the NCCPC could
implement an internal judgment aggregation process and, once final picks
are made, everyone in the organization could be committed to getting
them elected. We could also pass instant recall legislation so that any
representative who was voting in a way that was not as directed, then
they could be easily removed.

Once I started thinking about corporations as a force for supporting the
establishment of Justice, the insurance of domestic Tranquility, the
provision for the common defense, the promotion of the general Welfare,
and as a tool to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity, it changed everything. If I am a crackpot, then I am at least
in the company of giant crackpots from American history (although not in
their league).

That said, these are just my ideas. I really do mean to represent the
5th district and if given the privilege of serving I will actually work
on whatever they tell me to.

Michael Rogers.

Re: Hey, Chris

Thanks.  I have some passionate followers and friends that are already handing me $100 bills.  My theme is "Save the Natives!" and it is getting rousing support.  I have an emerging economic system that I have been following for close to thirty years and is based on the work of Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, Sloan School of Business Professor Thomas Malone, and, believe it or not, the Great Peacemaker of the Iroquois.  It involves what I call "Common Capital" where public resources are marshaled to create broad public benefit (not just the public resources converted to private gain that Jerry Brown thinks the Redevelopment Agencies are all about). 

The main idea I am promoting is a $500 million JobBond for Truckee (and $500 million for all the other districts in the county too, and hopefully, once elected, a $17 Billion regional bond for the counties around Tahoe working with Norma Santiago and Glenda Humiston at USDA Rural Development).  This figure is based on Truckee's share of the $13 Trillion dollars in free money the banks were given in 2008, on top of TARP, through the Discount Window at the Fed.  These bonds would be sold initially to the legion of local retired teachers and firemen (helping save them from the grips of the Ponzi Capitalists) and then the unsubscribed portions would be made available to state and national investors.  I also have been looking at the EB5 Immigrant Investor program as another source of funds.  The funds will be used to create a corporation with a constitution that embodies key American democratic ideals like Checks and Balances, Separation of Powers, Elected Accountable leadership, and transparency. 

Although the ultimate decision about how the funds will be best spent will be made by each local community utilizing Ostrom's 8 design parameters for how to govern a commons, one idea that is gaining favor is the construction of a string of resource secure communities linked by mass transit (Prius Communities if you will, to compete against our recently emerging Hummer Communities).  This has the advantage of dovetailing into the Reno 2022 Olympic bid (and could be kick-started by that initiative -- however we shouldn't be waiting for that success).  It will also potentially employ all of our out-of-work carpenters, plumbers, and electricians (and a bunch from the Reno Carpenters Union too) for generations -- a modern TEA Party friendly version of the WPA.  It also has the advantage of diversifying our economy away from being snow farmers, as these communities will focus on recruiting the creative intellectual workers of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, who would much rather live and work in a resource secure community looking out their window at a Black Bear fishing for Lahontan Cutthroat Trout in a restored stream with Mount Tallac in the background and in a company where they vote for the CEO (and oh yeah, walking distance to a lift that takes them to the slopes when they need a break) than in a dingy strip center in Hayward with a 2 hour commute on the 680 freeway.

I believe that if the National and State Democratic Party aggressively supported this vision of Common Capital, it would be the key to winning over the conservative voters in the rural counties in the Sierras leading to a 2/3rds majority in the California Assembly and State Senate and could be the broad conservative/progressive economic vision that galvanizes people to return our President to the White House and bringing the progressive caucus back in line. 

I have been talking to local conservative blogger George Rebane and he has called this type of company a "Constitutional Partnership Corporation" when I pointed him to the John Lewis Partnership (a English company with $14 Billion in annual sales and 80,000 partners) and he was very intrigued by ideas, as is the Nevada County Occupy movement -- I guess economics makes for strange bedfellows too.

Key to our success will be the coordination with the large federal land holdings in Tahoe.  Glenda just forwarded my the following --

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2012 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a call for nominations to serve on a newly-formed advisory committee that will guide better management of our national forests and grasslands. The National Advisory Committee for Implementation of the National Forest System Land Management Planning Rule will advise and give recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service."

Can you help get me appointed to that Committee?

Michael Rogers Box 38 Shinneyboo, CA  95724 530-587-5160 michael@shinneyboocreek.com www.shinneyboocreek.com  "Great things are wanting to be done."   -- John Adams, 2nd President of the United States 

On 1/6/2012 5:26 AM, Chris Trent wrote:

Hi Michael,  First, the caveat: It's been a while for me, so always trust your manager's judgement over mine.  My best advice is that you get in good with the Dem clubs, particularly the Tahoe-Truckee Club, if it's still around. North Shore Dems can't vote for you, of course, but it's a small community and word travels fast. If the clubs like you, you're pretty well set. (Folks who live in Tahoe-Donner, which is impossible to walk, often make up a sizeable portion of the clubs' membership, so it's a good way to reach that neighborhood without blowing a week driving from door to door.) Their help sometimes is less than helpful, but their enthusiasm is sincere. And you need enthusiasm to build participation in an otherwise apolitical town.  Keep in mind that although it's a Presidential year, California won't matter. The Obama campaign will suck supporters to Nevada (which could well decide the election this time). I haven't heard who, if anyone, is running against McClintock, but whoever it is probably has a slim chance, especially in the new district. So my guess would be that you shouldn't expect to ride any coattails; not in Truckee, not in 2012.  Bone up on the obscure neighborhood issues you might not be familiar with, pick a theme that you can always come back to even when you're faced with a bizarre question, and make sure the local activist Dems like you and trust you. You should be golden.  Good luck!  Chris Trent | 202-731-8421  On Dec 31, 2011, at 2:44 PM, Michael Rogers <michael@shinneyboocreek.com> wrote:  

I hear you were involved in Charlie Brown's campaign in Truckee. I am running for the 5th District of Nevada County Supervisor (Truckee) and would be very interested in talking to you about Truckee Democratic politics. Bob Dobrich has agreed to be my campaign manager and I am excited about this run for office.  Thanks for your time.  --  Michael Rogers Box 38 Shinneyboo, CA  95724 530-587-5160 michael@shinneyboocreek.com www.shinneyboocreek.com  "Great things are wanting to be done." -- John Adams, 2nd President of the United States