California Ghost Towns

[george4title]

George4title, Inflation.us California Ghost Towns G4T on Fox News - YouTube

[bones]

good question!!!

why are the banks not putting em back on the market?

[itsallinus]

Right at the end one of the residents says "were the real victims" regarding the effect it has on his propety value..er what about all the people who were evicted? I think they were more the victims than anyone!!

[mikethepunk]

Right at the end one of the residents says "were the real victims" regarding the effect it has on his propety value..er what about all the people who were evicted? I think they were more the victims than anyone!!

I agree. There is no reason to evict people other than GREED, GREED, GREED.

America is a third World country disguised as the first world.

[mightiswrong]

Venus project. Clear the countryside out.

People should move the other way. Take the land back people.

[real6]

Venus project. Clear the countryside out.

People should move the other way. Take the land back people.

http://www.thevenusproject.com/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf1gZxmIDKw

A new social design:

A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.

Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society.

A resource-based economy would utilize existing resources from the land and sea, physical equipment, industrial plants, etc. to enhance the lives of the total population. In an economy based on resources rather than money, we could easily produce all of the necessities of life and provide a high standard of living for all.

Consider the following examples: At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.

In a resource-based economy all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative.

We must emphasize that this approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world's population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization empowers each and every person on the planet to be the best they can be, not to live in abject subjugation to a corporate governing body.

Our proposals would not only add to the well being of people, but they would also provide the necessary information that would enable them to participate in any area of their competence. The measure of success would be based on the fulfilment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power.

At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth's inhabitants. Only when population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land do many problems such as greed, crime and violence emerge. By overcoming scarcity, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today's society would no longer be necessary.

A resource-based economy would make it possible to use technology to overcome scarce resources by applying renewable sources of energy, computerizing and automating manufacturing and inventory, designing safe energy-efficient cities and advanced transportation systems, providing universal health care and more relevant education, and most of all by generating a new incentive system based on human and environmental concern.

Many people believe that there is too much technology in the world today, and that technology is the major cause of our environmental pollution. This is not the case. It is the abuse and misuse of technology that should be our major concern. In a more humane civilization, instead of machines displacing people they would shorten the workday, increase the availability of goods and services, and lengthen vacation time. If we utilize new technology to raise the standard of living for all people, then the infusion of machine technology would no longer be a threat.

A resource-based world economy would also involve all-out efforts to develop new, clean, and renewable sources of energy: geothermal; controlled fusion; solar; photovoltaic; wind, wave, and tidal power; and even fuel from the oceans. We would eventually be able to have energy in unlimited quantity that could propel civilization for thousands of years. A resource-based economy must also be committed to the redesign of our cities, transportation systems, and industrial plants, allowing them to be energy efficient, clean, and conveniently serve the needs of all people.

What else would a resource-based economy mean? Technology intelligently and efficiently applied, conserves energy, reduces waste, and provides more leisure time. With automated inventory on a global scale, we can maintain a balance between production and distribution. Only nutritious and healthy food would be available and planned obsolescence would be unnecessary and non-existent in a resource-based economy.

As we outgrow the need for professions based on the monetary system, for instance lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, marketing and advertising personnel, salespersons, and stockbrokers, a considerable amount of waste will be eliminated. Considerable amounts of energy would also be saved by eliminating the duplication of competitive products such as tools, eating utensils, pots, pans and vacuum cleaners. Choice is good. But instead of hundreds of different manufacturing plants and all the paperwork and personnel required to turn out similar products, only a few of the highest quality would be needed to serve the entire population. Our only shortage is the lack of creative thought and intelligence in ourselves and our elected leaders to solve these problems. The most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity.

With the elimination of debt, the fear of losing one's job will no longer be a threat This assurance, combined with education on how to relate to one another in a much more meaningful way, could considerably reduce both mental and physical stress and leave us free to explore and develop our abilities.

If the thought of eliminating money still troubles you, consider this: If a group of people with gold, diamonds and money were stranded on an island that had no resources such as food, clean air and water, their wealth would be irrelevant to their survival. It is only when resources are scarce that money can be used to control their distribution. One could not, for example, sell the air we breathe or water abundantly flowing down from a mountain stream. Although air and water are valuable, in abundance they cannot be sold.

Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such.


LECTURE

Jacque Fresco's lecture at
Penn State Greater Allegheny
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As of now, Peter will doing the Bi-weekly Show every other Wednesday.

Next show: May 6th, 2009 4:00 PM EST with Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows.
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ZDAY LATEST NEWS & ARTICLES.

Here is an updated list of news & articles:

COLUMN A dream worth having, By Rhonda Swan, Palm Beach Post April 30

Part One of the ZDAY event has just
gone LIVE on google video.

Part Two of the ZDAY event, more to come.

Journey to Venus Brian Watkins and Chris Lemik cycle across the US to raise awareness of
The Venus Project.

Visit the futureblog of the Swedish, award winning, filmmaker Maja Borg who is exploring the failures of our current economic system and the possibilities for an entirely new approach. She will be featuring the work of The Venus Project.

New York Times article of the ZDAY event.

On line magazine article about The Venus Project in Chic Magazine

TV segment by Patrick Fraser on FOX Channel 7 News Miami/Fort Lauderdale.

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[real6]

http://www.pointbite.com/2008/10/08/zeitgeist-addendum-and-the-venus-project-hoax/

The Venus Project assumes there can be an abundance of everything. That is simply not true. Technology can make many things abundant and the film discusses energy in great detail, but that is hardly everything. Human demand is limitless, it’s simply not possible for 6 billion people to each live in a 5000 square foot mansion with attached private beach on the Florida coast. We live in a finite world and I am simply not convinced that even the base assumption proselytized by this film is realistic. In fact, it appears to be terribly flawed and reminiscent of discredited communist rhetoric.

The creator of this film doesn’t seem to understand the difference between money and currency. Money is not the paper bills we use as a medium to exchange goods and services, money is a store of purchasing power that is represented by currency. Eliminating currency will not eliminate crime and corruption because the purpose of greed in a free market capitalist system was never to get more money but to get the stuff money can buy. As long as there is stuff there will always be ways to acquire it, and thus, money. In the absence of currency perhaps power and influence become the new money, isn’t that much worse? If the intent is to achieve a more equitable distribution of stuff, and you believe that is desirable, it’s ironically much easier for that to be accomplished with currency. In reality when resources become abundant, money does not lose value, it gains value as it allows you to consume much more. Everybody who has money would LOVE to see an abundance of resources for all humanity. The problem is not the money, it’s the debt. If people could afford everything they wanted they would stop borrowing to consume and put the banks out of business.

The reason capitalism discourages the selling of products until abundance is not because of a hatred of humanity, it’s because the capital required to fund those businesses could be better used to increase the supply of something else that is more in need of investment. How do we know that? By looking at prices! Take away the price system and you will have no way to know what the people want. You would need yet another corruptible “democratic” election process or a dictator to make decisions on your behalf. Here again the problem is not capitalism or profit, it’s debt. When money is cheap people no longer compete for scarce savings to maximize the efficiency of the money supply, they just build whatever the hell they want without regard for sustainability through profit because debt by inflation is always available from the banks. That creates inequality and poverty. In the new proposed system, if resources were cheap or freely available to everyone just as currency is today, competing projects would also have no incentive to maximize the efficient use of those resources. Everyone with influence (money) would support whichever pet projects provide maximum benefit to themselves. What’s the difference? When currency runs out, more is printed. When money runs out, prices adjust. When resources run out, what then?

The biggest corrupting pyramid scheme of them all is not even the creation of currency through debt, it’s how the newly created currency is distributed. With the Venus Project, as the first 100 units of some new technology become available, how will it be distributed? Who gets it first? The delivery of technology necessitates the creation of some sort of order or class system just as it does with currency. There will still be a hierarchy of people making the decisions and a hierarchy of people benefiting from them. Today the people who use the newly created debt currency first benefit the most, in the new proposed system the people who get the newly created technology first benefit the most. They could even trade their privileges like a commodity for other stuff, like that prime Florida real estate that’s still scarce. Please don’t pretend real estate as currency is some novel idea.

Who will design and build the machines and how will they be compensated? Pretending people will continue to work without compensation by blaming capitalist propaganda is a cop-out. Will you just give them even more of the stuff that is already in abundance, or perhaps some exclusive stuff that only the contributors enjoy? Would they not just trade those things like any other currency? Who will make sure the machines are not used for the benefit of one person or another, if there is no state or law? Who will prevent organized crime from cornering the market of still scarce primary materials?

The problem with our current system, as with any other, is not one of money. The people “behind the curtain” as they are often called do not need more money — they already have control over the printing press — what motivates them is power. A resource based system does not eliminate that desire, if anything it enhances the power elite by making it difficult for ordinary people to protect themselves with savings. In our current system, power is achieved by the manipulation of currency people believe is money. It is possible to take away the currency and the power yet maintain an honest money free market capitalist system. The people in control have already had everything in abundance for generations and this utopia has never been their experience, what makes you think this project will be any different with the masses? The cry of “this time it will be different” is as shallow as ever, it’s not different, it’s never different. It has never been different and it never will be. People would find other things to fight about: sex, gossip, art, fashion, music, etc. There is no way I will ever buy into this experiment on a global scale without at least a trace of plausibility. The only way for this system to be functional is to abandon its principles from the outset since without some new religion to indoctrinate the people with its new philosophy the idea is pure fantasy.

[bard]

http://www.pointbite.com/2008/10/08/zeitgeist-addendum-and-the-venus-project-hoax/

What a bunch of bullshit that is - more irrational apologetics from
the defenders of the status quo. We need a better system, not a perfect one.

[boots]

good question!!!

why are the banks not putting em back on the market?

I have heard that some of them are for $1.00 Because they dont want to pay for the services and the houses have been trashed.

.

[mightiswrong]

A stronger image than Zeitgeist:

"Space of Love" 2008 on Vimeo

[lizzy]

Right at the end one of the residents says "were the real victims" regarding the effect it has on his propety value..er what about all the people who were evicted? I think they were more the victims than anyone!!
hi itsallinus...
yes and no....yes, the foreclosed are either homeless or paying rent again, the dream into the nightmare...no, in as much as thoses still paying on a mortgage of 400k + now could'nt sell that home for 200k, but still have to pay the mortgage and all the bills........CA home prices were the highest.
They will be paying for something that will never re-gain it's previous inflated value.

I agree. There is no reason to evict people other than GREED, GREED, GREED.

America is a third World country disguised as the first world.

hi mike...yup.:mad:

What a bunch of bullshit that is - more irrational apologetics from
the defenders of the status quo. We need a better system, not a perfect one.
hi bard
To me the Venus Project is a psy ops.....and if and when it happens , it won't be in our lifetime or for the likes of us....for a de-populated world where the Guardian class lives to support ther Elites.

I have heard that some of them are for $1.00 Because they dont want to pay for the services and the houses have been trashed.

.

That's right boots in Michigan they are selling for that - to 5k just to get them off the bank books.....I recon a couple of those homes in the vid might sell for only 25 -50k now.

They have'nt re-sold b/c the banks are buying corporate bonds with the bail out money and they will go tits up too.....but the money is still staying with big business NOT ever going to help out average joe.

edit.in some developements like this, I see the utilities pulling the plugs and pipes (forcing peeps back to the cities)....eventually nature / the nwo reclaim the land ... wildlife wins, we lose.....but I like animals;)

[mightiswrong]

You might find this helpful. It's a story about the future of the past:

"
City Domains

Raymond was already in his late fifties when his only son, little Ray was born. Little Ray’s older sister, Maggie, was 16 years older than he and was married, raising her own family during most of his growing up years.

Raymond’s wife, Melody, read the Ringing Cedars Book Series during the end of her son, Ray’s senior year in high school, and insisted that both Raymond and Ray read the books as well. Raymond, at 73, was retired and happy to have nine books to read. At first he thought they were a storybook series.

Young Ray put off reading the books until he’d graduated from high school, but over the early part of the summer read all nine books of the series..

Melody, Raymond and Ray discussed the books frequently. They planted a garden and even began harvesting some of the wild edible “weeds” that grew around their yard. All three of them noticed changes happening for each of them.

Melody’s arthritis bothered her less and less. Raymond began to have a lot more energy and a better memory. He could take walks without his usual angina pain. Young Ray noticed that he didn’t like how he felt after eating the “junk food” he used to love so much.

They talked occasionally about how it would be to live in a country kin domain.

“The only problem,” Raymond said, “is that I don’t have a lot of retirement income and besides, I’m old.” I don’t think I want to start over on a fresh piece of land, building a kin domain. Maybe that’s for you to do, son. I love the gardens I’ve planted here and I’d hate to leave my fruit trees.”

“But, Dad, I don’t want to move to the country and leave you in the city! Maybe you could move to a kin domain with me when I’m ready.”

“Maybe. But I don’t see how I can do that without leaving behind what I love here. I think I’ve accidentally started kind of a space of love right here in my yard. I’ve been puttering around here since I retired eleven years ago and I’ve put a lot of love into the plants and trees here. Sometimes I really do think they ‘know’ me.”

In early-summer Melody gave a copy of book one to her daughter, but Maggie wasn’t very interested and was very slow to start reading it. Even after finishing the first book, she wasn’t really “into it.” She agreed to read the second book only to please her mother. She just didn’t get “hooked” by the books like the rest of the family had done. Her husband, Jake, however, began reading book one after she’d finished and immediately bought the whole series. He loved the information and the concepts.

When it was time for Ray to leave for college in the fall, Melody and Raymond helped him move into the dorm. They brought along three pots of his favorite green edible plants, wheatgrass, dandelions, and a leafy plant called arugula. They said that he should have at least some natural food grown just for him in order to help him through the processed cafeteria food he’d be eating during his college stay.

After returning home, Melody called Maggie to see if she’d finished reading the books yet. Maggie spoke to her Mother on her cell phone as she was driving her young sons to a golf course.

“No, Mom, I haven’t finished them all yet but I’ve started on the last book finally. I wish I had more time to read them, but nine books are more than I normally read in two years or more. I just don’t have much time for reading. However, I really have enjoyed reading these books, once I got into them. I think that was somewhere in book three. Jake, on the other hand, just gobbled them up.”

Melody smiled as she remembered how her son-in-law had insisted on starting a garden in mid July after he read the first book even though it was very late in the season for starting a garden. She wondered how he’d found the time during the busiest part of the year in his manufacturing business.

Jake owned a company that manufactured kid’s educational toys. The biggest selling season was Christmas, of course, and so the biggest manufacturing season was spring and summer. In the fall they were busy shipping toys all over the country. At the end of every December and the beginning of January his employees took three weeks off for their annual vacation and Jake gave them a fat bonus if they’d reached their annual goals.

Normally Jake had little time for anything but work except during those three vacation weeks. Even when he went to his sons’ sporting events he took a laptop with him so he could “stay productive” when his sons weren’t playing.

It had surprised the whole family when he took out enough time to plant a vegetable garden in July. Maggie said that was the main reason she started reading the books more than just a few pages a day. She wanted to know what had changed Jake so much.

“Maggie, dear, before I hang up the phone, I want to be sure and ask you, Jake and the boys over for Sunday dinner. Will you be free?”

“Sure, Mom. Usual time?”

“Yes. Two o’clock, will be fine. Tell Jake to bring something wonderful from his garden. See you then.” Melody hung up the phone, still smiling. She was very pleased to have both her children involved in growing their own food, grown especially for them.

On Sunday, Jake and Maggie showed up with the boys and a delicious marinated vegetable plate Jake had made from the currently ripe produce in his garden. As he handed it to Melody he said, “You know, Mom, I’m still amazed at how good the stuff from my garden tastes. I wonder if all garden produce is this good, or is it just the produce that is growing especially for me?”

“I don’t know, Jake, but I know ours is very good also. Of course, it is also grown especially for us.” Melody placed the salad bowl on the coffee table beside her tray of cut up vegetables and leaves. Everyone sat around the living room visiting and occasionally nibbling on the fresh produce. That was “dinner” to Melody and Raymond, since planting their garden, and was rapidly being incorporated into Jake and Maggie’s lives as well.

After the younger boys had shared their interesting stories and ideas, they ran off to explore the world of Grandma and Grandpa’s place. Raymond shifted the conversation a bit. “What do you think about kin domains? Have you talked about that at all?”

Maggie looked at Jake as if to say, “Which one of us is going to answer this question?” There seemed to be some tension between them around the subject of kin domains.

Jake said, “We’ve talked about it but…we don’t have any good ideas about it yet. At lease not any ideas that work for both of us. You see, Maggie would like to go look at some kin domain settlements to see how they’re working. She wants to get started looking for a kin domain for us somewhere near here so we can still be close to you guys and hopefully Ray when he settles down after college.

“The problem is that I have this toy business to run and a lot of employees depend on the income they earn from working at my manufacturing plant. I love the idea of going off to live a pristine life in nature, but I DON’T like the idea of doing anything that would hurt my employees.

“There are a lot of other issues at work here besides that. For example, here I am with this business that manufactures the very kinds of toys that Anastasia says are harmful to kids’ self image and their spiritual connections. Now, what am I going to do with that? If I shut down the business and move to a kin domain, I’ll hurt a lot of people. If I don’t shut it down, I continue hurting a lot of people.

“I haven’t come to any kind of understanding that will help me out of this, yet.”

Maggie continued the conversation. “I just think that your responsibility to your kids and your family should come first over your responsibility to your employees. No one started working for you with the agreement that you’d protect them from ever having to find a new job! Let them take care of themselves, and we take care of ourselves.”

Jake responded, “It’s not as simple as that for me. I know I could look at it that way, but I don’t want to. First of all, Maggie, if I close the business and later we find we can’t make life on a kin domain work the way we thought it would, then where would we be? With no income, and starting over again. It’s my job to make sure that can’t happen to us.

“And I know that I’m not responsible for my employees’ futures but if I had a choice I’d prefer to find a solution that would help them make the transition easier. I’m not ready to move in any direction until I have an answer to both of those problems that feels right to me.”

Raymond jumped in. “But if you did have an answer to those problems, what would you want to do as far as a kin domain?”

Jake thought a moment and then answered, “Well, even that isn’t so easy to answer because it depends on a lot of things. I’d love to raise the boys on a kin domain and to live on one myself, but I have great respect for their relationships with you two, and with my parents.

“That’s one of the reasons we live here, near Denver. I could move my business to another city where the taxes, shipping and land would be a lot cheaper. I’d make more money, but it’s more important to us to stay close to you guys and my family.”

Maggie spoke up, “Dad, what do you and Mom think about kin domains?”

Raymond repeated what he’d told his son, Ray. “…So, I don’t feel pulled to leave this piece of land where I live right now. It’s a good size lot, over a third of an acre, but it’s quite a bit shy of two and a half acres. I kinda wish I’d bought that extra lot behind us before old man MacPherson did. He’s got another two thirds of an acre behind our two lots. The developer couldn’t build on it because it didn’t have any access. It would be a perfect place for a little forest in the city.”

Melody contributed her thoughts, “He never uses that space, Raymond. He just mows it two or three times each summer. He does like to pick a bucket or two of apples off the two apple trees back there though. I wonder if he’d consider selling it?”

Raymond answered, “I doubt it. I suppose I could ask him, though. Even if he did want to sell for a price that we could afford, I don’t see much point in it. We aren’t going to live long enough to see a forest grow on that lot, and Ray certainly isn’t going to want a one acre domain in the city. When we die, it’ll just get sold to someone who’ll come along and mow down our small little space of love.”

Melody frowned. “I suppose you’re right. Still, I sometimes wish I could walk back into that empty lot and see what’s growing there. It’s been wild and chemical free for the thirty five years we’ve lived here.”

The conversation waned as the four slipped into feeling “trapped” in their various situations with no good solutions. Maggie suggested they go outside with the boys and enjoy the late sun for a while before she and Jake had to leave for home. They found the boys sitting in the nearest apple tree that Melody had mentioned was growing in the empty lot behind them. The apples were ripe and delicious, and the branches hung low. They lured the boys over the fence and into the heart of the tree.

Later, as they were walking to the front yard toward the car, Jake put his arm around Maggie and looked at her as he said, “I don’t know the answers yet, but with you my beautiful and amazing Goddess I could co-create an eternal and magnificent space of love that we’d both love to stay in.”

Maggie nodded and answered, “I believe you could, Jake. So I’m ready to help you in that grand co-creation. I’d like a kin domain soon but it wouldn’t be any good without you. We’ll just wait until you have your grand co-creation figured out.”

Several days later, Maggie called her mother to see if it would be all right for her and Jake to stop by. Melody was always pleased to have an unexpected visit from her children and was putting out food when they showed up.

After everyone was greeted and comfortable, Jake spoke. “Mom, Dad, we’ve been talking about the kin domain problems and we have come up with an interesting solution we’d like to talk about. So far, all the kin domain settlements are in the country, and for good reason. But, someday, someone is going to have to deal with the cities. Either, we just let them decay and rot, or we do something about them now.

“I’m thinking that we might just be the right people to start city kin domains. I’m not sure how it will work for other people, but I have an idea about how it might work for us, and it might even be better for us than a kin domain in the country.

Here’s what’s brewing; I spoke with Mr. Macpherson, next door to you, and asked him if he’d consider selling his house to us or, at least the extra lot. He said his wife hadn’t been well for nearly a year and his daughter has been trying to get them to move to Salt Lake City where she lives.

“He’s going to give me a price in a couple days. Maggie and I would move in to that house next door and sell the one we live in now. We’re not interested in big fancy houses any more and can probably adapt that one next door to something we think would be a good starter kin domain house for us.

“We’d begin converting it to a “green” building, and then while that’s going on – this is the part I like best, I’ll be transitioning the business. I already met with my managers after Maggie and I ‘hatched’ the plan, and gave each of them the books. I asked them to read the books in the next month, even if they have to use some work time to do it.

“After they’ve done that, we’ll have two groups, the ones that are hooked into the dream as we have been, and the ones who are not. The ones who are not will be welcome to stay and work with us but will understand that we’re finding the best ways to either change or close the business.

“The plan I’m going to present to the managers, after they’ve read the books, is to give the books to all the other employees and ask them to report back to their managers after they’ve finished reading them. Again, they’ll fall into the same two groups. Everyone that wants to stay will become part of our transition and everyone who wants to leave will be assisted in finding a good position.

“The transition plan has to accomplish two things. First, I’d like every employee who wants a kin domain, to have one, either in the city or the country, and I want that to happen before we close down the shop. I’d want the transition plan to include some sort of support for helping that happen.

Secondly, if the company changes over to some other sort of business instead of closing down, it has to be supportive of humankind, and all of Nature, or at the very least, help us transition to that.”

Maggie was too excited to wait any longer. She spoke up. “Isn’t it a great idea, Dad? This way we get to start creating our kin domain right here at the edge of the city. We’ll let all of the owners of the adjacent properties know that we want to buy a couple more properties when they’re ready to sell. Jake figured that when we sell our big house we could easily buy two of these lots and maybe even three whenever they come up for sale. Three would give us the full two and a half acres.”

She spoke so fast, trying to get everything out that she stumbled over her words. “And you guys would get a domain right here, next door, no, I mean you’d already be here and we’d all share the domain. We’d take down the fences between us, and even the houses that we don’t need. Then we’ll begin creating our space of love – right here where you’ve already started yours. And, Jake, tell them about the kin domain buying program you want to set up for the employees who want kin domains.”

“That sounds interesting,” interjected Melody.

“Well, I already mentioned it briefly. I want the company to stay in business in some form at least until every employee who wants a kin domain, has it. I want to wait until I have met with my managers after they’ve read the books before I make any solid plans, but I’m thinking about setting up an investment fund just for the employees’ kin domains. We might even be able to make a new product or division that will feed the kin domain fund. The goal will be to eventually shut down the business or disperse it onto kin domains in kind of a cottage industry structure with products that actually help kids connect to themselves and nature.”

Raymond responded with, “Jake, that IS a very interesting idea. Everything you’ve said tonight is very interesting. It’s so far-reaching that it’s a bit hard to take it all in.”

Maggie sat forward on the couch in her excitement. “And there’s more, Dad. We want to start a city domain organization that helps people buy out surrounding houses and lots to create kin domains all over the city. We think that just a few spaces of love in city kin domains will begin to change the whole city. For example, we might be able to start dimming the light pollution at night, at least in some parts of the city.

“We think there are a lot of people like us who would like to create a kin domain life but for one reason or another would rather have it be right here in and around Denver. We just have to find the ways to help people get enough land from surrounding city lots to do it. Some people like us, will have enough money to get started, at least, but others will need help.”

Melody, who had been quietly listening, suddenly became excited. “I’ll bet you’re right about there being a lot of people who would like to create a kin domain in the city – just like us. We’d still have to deal with the city pollution and noise for a while, but the more city domains there are the faster those problems will be corrected. This sounds like just the project I’ve been looking for to fill up my time since Ray went off to college.”

The four adults continued to talk and plan until they noticed the two boys sleeping on the carpet beside the couch. They each talked about some part of the plan they were going to get started on and then they said their goodbyes.

By the end of the month, Jake reported that three out of the five managers had opted to adopt the dream. The other two chose to stay and work as long as they had a job.

Jake and the three managers called themselves the transition team and together they began refining his plan for transition. They distributed the books to all 68 of the employees and within six weeks forty six of them had joined the dream. Most of the remaining 22 decided to stay until the company actually began to close down (if it closed down).

On their own personal time, the transition team began working on creating a system for producing one of the puzzle styles that had been set on the back burner because it didn’t perform well enough in the test market. They planned to put the puzzles on the market in a few states and whatever profits they could generate without using company production time would go into the kin domain fund for the employees.

Employees used their personal time after hours and on weekends to get enough of the puzzles manufactured to have them in a few stores for the Christmas season.

Maggie put her time into completing the arrangements with the MacPhersons to buy their home and lots. She was busy packing and ordering trees for the infant city domain.

Raymond made drawings that he and Maggie reviewed until they were sure where they wanted to begin planting their city forests. As soon as the trees began arriving, Raymond was busy planting them.

Melody assigned herself the task of telling people what they were doing. She contacted her friend who was a local journalist and convinced her that it would be a good series for the neighborhood newspaper. She wrote weekly articles about the progress of Denver’s first City Kin Domain and included stories about the progress of Jake’s company in their plan to help the employees get their own kin domains.

As people read the stories, some of them contacted Melody with questions, offers and ideas. One man told them about his company that had devised a legal and honorable way to pay off a house mortgage in three to five years with the homeowner only needing to pay one third of the mortgage money. That man joined their team and began helping other people set up their plan for easily buying three and four lots for their city domains.

The “transition” puzzles sold unexpectedly well over the holiday season. A few well placed articles written by Melody’s friend and the publicity department at Jake’s company brought in a lot of sales they wouldn’t have gotten with a routine product introduction. After Easter, the kin domain fund had brought in enough money to purchase about fifteen kin domains. The employees themselves decided who would be the first ones to get their kin domains.

The ones who got the first fifteen domains began planting their forests and gardens but decided to continue living in the city a little longer. They planned to stay working at the manufacturing plant until all the employees who wanted kin domains had them even if it took two years or more.

Soon after Easter, at the first city kin domain in Denver, at fifteen new country domains in settlements around Colorado, and in Denver homes, gardens were lovingly started with seeds planted in the special way that would cause them to grow especially for one person’s health and wellbeing.

By late June each of those new little gardens were nurturing their owners with a very special diet of super nutrition, love, and a growing connection with nature and each other. As a result the owners noticed important changes.

Right away they noticed that they had better and longer lasting energy each day. Their sleep patterns normalized. They lost excess weight. Appetites changed. Family relationships made a series of subtle shifts that soon made a very big improvement in the quality of life with their families and at work.

It felt so satisfying and energizing to be among the garden plants and the tiny new forest trees that TV and computer activities shrank into smaller and smaller segments of their lives.

Over the summer Jake’s transition team and employees were able to get a full production run of the transition puzzles completed so that they could sell them through all their distributors and brokers throughout the country. The employees completed the entire production run on their own personal time.

By September Melody and Maggie had organized a group of 18 families who had started their own city domain plan. They were located all over the metro area but met frequently to help each other make the transitions from the city life style to a kin domain life style. Melody got so many calls about the city domains that she asked Maggie to start a website.

One of the first things they put on the site was a tour map of Denver’s City Kin Domains. It wasn’t long before they noticed people walking by or driving slowly by to see their new kin domain in the city.

It was in September that Maggie and Jake bought the house on the other side of Raymond and Melody. Rather than hire contractors to tear it down, they offered any and all parts of the house to Jake’s employees who were building small homes or cottages on their kin domains. Most of that house was carted to new homes on country kin domains. Other city kin domain owners followed their lead. When they had a house that needed removed they offered the materials first to people building kin domain homes in the country.

People from Madison Wisconsin came to learn how to start city kin domains in Madison. Calls from all over the country began coming in as word spread about Denver’s city kin domains. Maggie, Melody and Raymond started a monthly workshop teaching others the things they had learned about building city kin domains.

The second spring the owners of Denver’s rapidly growing group of city kin domains decided it was time to ask the city for some changes. They began asking for removal of street lights, and to close off some of the streets where it had been fully converted to all or nearly all kin domains. At first the city officials resisted, until one of them read the Ringing Cedars books. After that, changes began to come from the city office. Even bus routes changed in order to work better with the growing clusters of city kin domains.

By the second Easter, Jake’s transition team realized they had nearly enough money for the rest of the original employees to purchase kin domains. But many of the group who, at first, said they weren’t interested in participating with the plan, had changed their minds. Jake wouldn’t shut down the plant until every one of them had a kin domain that wanted one.

The transition team met to decide whether to plan for a shut down or for transition to some kind of cottage industries involving the employees who wanted to participate. After several weeks of research and discussion Jake decided to close the manufacturing part of the company and use the building to house a special school for city kin domain children. The distribution center would stay open and begin selling excess produce and other products from the country kin domains.

He asked the employees to stay one last season in order to provide kin domains for the remaining employees who had changed their minds, and to pay for the school conversion project. Enough agreed to stay so that it was possible to make the plan work. By the end of the third Christmas season, they had made enough money to purchase the remaining employees’ kin domains along with the office building and parking lot next door to Jake’s company.

Jake had the newly purchased office building and parking lot torn down before he invited a very special teacher and kids from the city kin domain to design the forest and gardens that they would plant there around their new school.

In September, just three years after Jake and Maggie first presented their idea to Raymond and Melody, the four of them were sitting near the apple trees enjoying the magnificent subtle energies that filled their space of love. The boys had just been talking about their wonderful week at the new city kin domain school before they ran off to climb their favorite tree.

Raymond looked over the growing kin domain. He felt warmed as he looked at the little forest he’d planted, the older trees he’d planted many years before, the beautiful gardens and his precious family. He turned to Jake and said, “Jake, remember three years ago when you first told us about your city kin domain plan?”

Jake answered, “Has it been three years already? Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, you did a good thing here for an old man who didn’t want to move,” Raymond said.

Melody spoke up. “It was more than a good thing for an old man. Hundreds or maybe thousands of lives have been changed for the better because you stuck with what your heart wanted. Denver now has over 250 kin domains in the city, a very exciting kin domain school, three other businesses are following the same model you set up for getting your employees to kin domains, and the entire feel of this city has changed. It’s like all those new spaces of love around the city keep spreading out and are changing the whole city into feeling like a space of love.

“But the best part is what it’s done for us. It’s been such a joy to watch the boys living a healthy and happy lifestyle. I love having you kids next door, and I love sharing our 38 year old kin domain with my dear children.

Maggie replied, “I agree, Mom. The best part is what it’s done for all of us. But it’s also pretty exciting to watch all those other cities where people are starting city kin domains. So much change happened so fast in the last three years. Denver was always a decent place to live but now it’s a great place to live and getting better with every new city kin domain.”

Raymond stood up and reached for Melody’s hand inviting her to join him. “Yep. A lot of wonderful change has happened in just three short years. I’m going to take a walk through our little forest before I head off to bed.” He and Melody disappeared into the new woods behind the apple trees.

Jake put his hand gently on Maggie’s knee. He turned to her and said, “You know, all this happened because, with you my beautiful and amazing Goddess, I knew I could create an eternal and magnificent space of love anywhere!”

Maggie smiled and answered, “And it’s also because I knew that was true, and I was ready to help you in that very grand co-creation. I like the way we’ve created together, "
http://www.kindomains.com/_Stories1/00000003.htm

[lizzy]

hi mightiswrong ;)

the books are beautiful, the kin domain idea the very best... this can be a reality for millions , but billions I'm not so sure....but hey why not..... it"s what I would like for myself , whether with all the laws coming to effectively to make much of this impossible on a large scale , I see it as a paradise for a minority.

[batou]

None of this will happen until the empire is brought to its knees and the kings lay headless. Sorry, but they will just shit all over your pretty ideals.
I'd love nothing more than to live in a hobbit house and swap corn for eggs. What's stopping me, right?
Money, people, lack of unity, laws. I'm dependent on the system. I have bills, debts, taxes, a job. The harder you try the more you get tangled in the web. :(
Everyone needs to give a big fuck you to the system. 10, 20, 1000, even 10,000 people aren't going to make a bit of difference. The rest are people who are either hopelessly stuck or comfortable and lazy.
Who can help me fund these wars, bail out these banks, give money to multinational corporations and the thieving politicians they're in bed with?

I wish I could drop off the face of the fucking earth. There's no pleasure in living as a slave. There's people worse off than me, and there's countries where this shit would seem like a paradise compared to getting bombed or shot at all day. I hope the best for them too, but I still feel like a rat in a cage. Could be worse, eh? Bull shit.. there's no reason for any of this. Am I bitter because I don't have a high flying job and all the latest gadgets? Maybe, but money and toys don't interest me. Even if I did have millions, I'd still be able to see whats going on. I just want to be happy, live happily, have the system work for us.
I don't know how those guys in medieval times got through the week. Bar the doors, burn the manors and take it back. I guess throughout all of time, people fuck over those without power. We have power tho! People should be sick of it. Drown them with people. Why won't we get moving??? Doesn't everyone want to be happy?? I don't understand.:confused::(
Maybe we need control. Maybe its just a few of us who want to be free. Like raising an animal in captivity and then setting it in the woods and expecting it to be able to survive. 99% of them will not be able to and end up starving, but some will have dreamed of that day and natural instincts take over and lets them thrive.
Maybe I would be one of the 99% that die, I wouldn't care. At least I'd die free huh?
All bark and no bite. I'm just going to go back to my slave job aren't I? At least I can bitch on here though. Work, eat and if you're lucky you die in your sleep. Really, just fuck it all. I hate it, it frustrates me. :mad::mad::mad:
On the plus side, you can always escape with your fav drug and chill in the woods and pretend none of this exists for a few hours. Fishing and camping and walking and watching the sky. That makes me happy. I know we have to work to maintain society and provide for each other but come on, stop stealing.