Mike Morin
9th March 2009, 18:40
Personal and Professional Introduction
Here's a little background about me:
55 years old.
I am a Friend.
Education:
BS - Environmental Studies
Graduate Study in Planning and Economics
Master of Business Administration
have worked construction, real estate appraisal, health care cost & utilization report systems developer, Director of Managed Care Contracting for a large urban medical center, farm work, farm fertilizer delivery, lumber yard/hardware and delivery, Small Business Development Center, taught Computer Methods, playground instructor, restaurant work, etc.
have been on fellowship for the last fourteen years studying and developing interests listed below full time (that I have been considering and working on all my life while working for a living).
have lived in Massachusetts (Boston area and Connecticut River Valley), New Hampshire, Vermont, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut.
have lived in Eugene-Springfield OR/ Willamette Valley/Pacific NW since 2000. I rent in the Jefferson/Westside Neighborhood in Eugene near downtown and Whittaker.
I am a geographer. I have walked every "neighborhood" in Eugene and maybe half of Springfield. Don't have a car but I travel to the hinterlands with friends whenever I have an opportunity. Love people. Love nature. Love clean rivers. Love old growth. Love to hike. Vegan, but would eat venison and other wild game and other animal products IF they were free range and treated humanely. I would probably eat more seafood than I do if harvests were sustainable.
Interests of My Calling: World Peace, Local, Regional and Worldwide Ecological Economic Redevelopment based on the basic principles that all people are kin, all have the potential to be good and happy with a quality life, equity (ownership and approximate equality for everybuddy), sustainability (that resources will be available for future generations), history, universal health care and health care reform, demand side management and transportation planning, literature, music, modern poetry as expressed through music with a strong preference for the songs of the 60's and early 70's, comparative religions...
Published Book on Cooperative Housing at the UMass Management Research Center in 1980.
Wrote and Self-Published, sold and distributed book entitled Who is George Fox and Why Should I Care? (published 1996). This book was about the interests of my calling that I have listed above. (George Fox was the founder of the Society of Friends, more widely known as the term that was originally a derogatory one, "Quakers", more recently "Quackers". The book is not about George Fox but is consistent with his teachings as well as being consistent with other great teachings and discusses those teachings as they relate to the modern world and the future.
Hobbies: Play guitar and sing and update the best lyrics of a great period for music and lyrics (60's and early 70's) as well as some roots music. Union Organizing songs. Sports.
A Brief Overview of My Intentions and Plans
I am trying to organize locally, regionally, and worldwide.
I have contacted Eugene-Springfield Solidarity (Oregon, USA) with respect to their initiative and to express to thee all that peace, equity and sustainability, and relocalization need to be the among the major pillars of an ecological economic redevelopment plan. I am also independently working to do local community organizing.
At risk of going into a long-winded explanation, I will elaborate some.
I am sufficiently knowledgeable and experienced to be quite cynical about the prospects for people. However, I maintain hope based on being in a position where I am allowed to pursue a right livelihood at assessing the world, local, and regional situation and imagining alternatives to what is extant.
We need to put great efforts into organizing on the local/regional level, yet we cannot separate our efforts from those of other regions of the world. That is, we cannot isolate ourselves. That has been the mistake of all eutopian experiments (according to Lewis Mumford, eutopian means "good place", outopian means "no place"), Thus, if we progress along the lines of local/regional organizing, we must also reach out and find, and/or foster and facilitate the formation of similar organizing efforts in all locales of the planet. Only working together as one world can we hope to overcome the peril facing the people.
We must reform the financial system. The alternative to the status quo is to form an Equity Union. Perhaps we may want to call it (in English) The Peoples' Equity Union. It would be a worldwide united equity system with cooperating inter-community entities. It would preclude the use of loans, which are fundamentally usurious. It would place the most destitute, the most in need, and all children (which I define as about 25 years old or less) as the highest priority. However, the Plan would include the needs of everybuddy. As the old Socialist slogan goes, "for all according to their needs, by all according to their abilities".
A major focus of the Ecological Economic Redevelopment Plan is the walkable neighborhood. This Plann(er) recognizes that the age of the automobile is racing to a disastrous ending and that if we want to maintain the true benefits of automotive power and sustain our precious fossil fuels (as well as other natural resources), that we must reduce the use of automobiles by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. There will be great resistance from the economic interests of the status quo. We need to work in cooperation with them as well.
Locally, we need to begin to organize in neighborhoods (however they are to be defined). The City of Eugene has taken an initiative to identify neighborhoods and encourage the formation of neighborhood associations. In Eugene, this would be a good place to start, and such could serve as a model for other communities.
Walkable neighborhoods are defined as neighborhoods where people can get the things they need within walking distance and have the goal and create the resources to facilitate the maximum amount of people working in their neighborhoods and/or at home. Bring the goods, services, and the means of communication to the people instead of all those willy-nilly inefficient, and tragically squandering automobile trips. Perhaps a part of the Plan would be an evolution to a pre-order cooperative system for food and other necessities. Such a system would go a long way to promote accurate and quality production, efficient distribution and a large reduction in waste.
Building and renovating buildings for community centers is a large part of the plan. Also building more YMCAs or reasonable facsimiles, renovating housing, and creating equity opportunities for all is part of the plan. Also adaptive reuse of greyfields and soon to be greyfields will be in order.
My philosophy is that no one gets hurt (i.e. everybuddy wins). The wealthy and their followers will have to adjust their lifestyles and accept the concept of “quality of life” in lieu of “standard of living”. The way things are going, such people will eventually see the relief offered relative to the option to perish in squalor that will accompany the downfall of the Capitalist system.
Mike Morin
Peoples Equity Union
Here's a little background about me:
55 years old.
I am a Friend.
Education:
BS - Environmental Studies
Graduate Study in Planning and Economics
Master of Business Administration
have worked construction, real estate appraisal, health care cost & utilization report systems developer, Director of Managed Care Contracting for a large urban medical center, farm work, farm fertilizer delivery, lumber yard/hardware and delivery, Small Business Development Center, taught Computer Methods, playground instructor, restaurant work, etc.
have been on fellowship for the last fourteen years studying and developing interests listed below full time (that I have been considering and working on all my life while working for a living).
have lived in Massachusetts (Boston area and Connecticut River Valley), New Hampshire, Vermont, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Connecticut.
have lived in Eugene-Springfield OR/ Willamette Valley/Pacific NW since 2000. I rent in the Jefferson/Westside Neighborhood in Eugene near downtown and Whittaker.
I am a geographer. I have walked every "neighborhood" in Eugene and maybe half of Springfield. Don't have a car but I travel to the hinterlands with friends whenever I have an opportunity. Love people. Love nature. Love clean rivers. Love old growth. Love to hike. Vegan, but would eat venison and other wild game and other animal products IF they were free range and treated humanely. I would probably eat more seafood than I do if harvests were sustainable.
Interests of My Calling: World Peace, Local, Regional and Worldwide Ecological Economic Redevelopment based on the basic principles that all people are kin, all have the potential to be good and happy with a quality life, equity (ownership and approximate equality for everybuddy), sustainability (that resources will be available for future generations), history, universal health care and health care reform, demand side management and transportation planning, literature, music, modern poetry as expressed through music with a strong preference for the songs of the 60's and early 70's, comparative religions...
Published Book on Cooperative Housing at the UMass Management Research Center in 1980.
Wrote and Self-Published, sold and distributed book entitled Who is George Fox and Why Should I Care? (published 1996). This book was about the interests of my calling that I have listed above. (George Fox was the founder of the Society of Friends, more widely known as the term that was originally a derogatory one, "Quakers", more recently "Quackers". The book is not about George Fox but is consistent with his teachings as well as being consistent with other great teachings and discusses those teachings as they relate to the modern world and the future.
Hobbies: Play guitar and sing and update the best lyrics of a great period for music and lyrics (60's and early 70's) as well as some roots music. Union Organizing songs. Sports.
A Brief Overview of My Intentions and Plans
I am trying to organize locally, regionally, and worldwide.
I have contacted Eugene-Springfield Solidarity (Oregon, USA) with respect to their initiative and to express to thee all that peace, equity and sustainability, and relocalization need to be the among the major pillars of an ecological economic redevelopment plan. I am also independently working to do local community organizing.
At risk of going into a long-winded explanation, I will elaborate some.
I am sufficiently knowledgeable and experienced to be quite cynical about the prospects for people. However, I maintain hope based on being in a position where I am allowed to pursue a right livelihood at assessing the world, local, and regional situation and imagining alternatives to what is extant.
We need to put great efforts into organizing on the local/regional level, yet we cannot separate our efforts from those of other regions of the world. That is, we cannot isolate ourselves. That has been the mistake of all eutopian experiments (according to Lewis Mumford, eutopian means "good place", outopian means "no place"), Thus, if we progress along the lines of local/regional organizing, we must also reach out and find, and/or foster and facilitate the formation of similar organizing efforts in all locales of the planet. Only working together as one world can we hope to overcome the peril facing the people.
We must reform the financial system. The alternative to the status quo is to form an Equity Union. Perhaps we may want to call it (in English) The Peoples' Equity Union. It would be a worldwide united equity system with cooperating inter-community entities. It would preclude the use of loans, which are fundamentally usurious. It would place the most destitute, the most in need, and all children (which I define as about 25 years old or less) as the highest priority. However, the Plan would include the needs of everybuddy. As the old Socialist slogan goes, "for all according to their needs, by all according to their abilities".
A major focus of the Ecological Economic Redevelopment Plan is the walkable neighborhood. This Plann(er) recognizes that the age of the automobile is racing to a disastrous ending and that if we want to maintain the true benefits of automotive power and sustain our precious fossil fuels (as well as other natural resources), that we must reduce the use of automobiles by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. There will be great resistance from the economic interests of the status quo. We need to work in cooperation with them as well.
Locally, we need to begin to organize in neighborhoods (however they are to be defined). The City of Eugene has taken an initiative to identify neighborhoods and encourage the formation of neighborhood associations. In Eugene, this would be a good place to start, and such could serve as a model for other communities.
Walkable neighborhoods are defined as neighborhoods where people can get the things they need within walking distance and have the goal and create the resources to facilitate the maximum amount of people working in their neighborhoods and/or at home. Bring the goods, services, and the means of communication to the people instead of all those willy-nilly inefficient, and tragically squandering automobile trips. Perhaps a part of the Plan would be an evolution to a pre-order cooperative system for food and other necessities. Such a system would go a long way to promote accurate and quality production, efficient distribution and a large reduction in waste.
Building and renovating buildings for community centers is a large part of the plan. Also building more YMCAs or reasonable facsimiles, renovating housing, and creating equity opportunities for all is part of the plan. Also adaptive reuse of greyfields and soon to be greyfields will be in order.
My philosophy is that no one gets hurt (i.e. everybuddy wins). The wealthy and their followers will have to adjust their lifestyles and accept the concept of “quality of life” in lieu of “standard of living”. The way things are going, such people will eventually see the relief offered relative to the option to perish in squalor that will accompany the downfall of the Capitalist system.
Mike Morin
Peoples Equity Union