Common Sense 2017: Time for Democrats to Offer Alternatives

Common Sense 2017: Time for Democrats to Offer Alternatives
Wayne D. King

I'm so tired of the Democrats in Congress acting like the Republicans who did nothing but obstruct Barack Obama. I want them to stand up and offer alternatives.

Tell the country how to fix Obamacare and try to peel off enough Republicans to pass it.

Offer a plan for infrastructure that modernizes the national grid to prepare us for the Internet of Things and the post carbon era with laterally scaled micro-grids linking homes and businesses and small power producers. The vast majority of good jobs that will be created over the next 20 years will be in building out the Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure. Let's get to it. China is already working to wrest the mantle of world leadership from us. Let's not give it away without a fight!

One up the Republicans and offer a tax reform plan that eliminates business taxes entirely (and all the special exemptions, incentives, and give aways - in 2015 fossil fuel companies received more than 82 billion dollars in tax incentives) Collect the taxes from the individuals who benefit from the profits and let the shareholders determine whether the companies should be spending money for wasteful purposes. This would also eliminate all of the onerous filings required of nonprofits and encourage the development of more of them.

Choose 10 of the most impoverished, jobless regions of the country and test ten different outside-the-box ideas for turning them around. Put some real money behind the effort. Toss out the ideas that fail and try ten more. Take the ones that work and share them with others who are experiencing similar problems.  Start by testing the Guaranteed Basic Income idea providing a minimal monthly allowance to every adult (in the test area) and then allow them to build their employment and lifestyle choices  around that to achieve a standard of living that is real, sustainable and fulfilling.

Create a National Service requirement. Every person who reaches the age of 18 should be required to choose between military or civil service and to serve 2 years before the age of 30. No exceptions for rich kids or people with disabilities or any other excuse. . . ok if you must have a conscientious objector status for those who object to being forced to do right - but make it hard as hell to obtain. Think about what it would do for the country to have rich kids and poor kids working side by side to make this world a better place. Think of how many kids who have grown up in abject poverty would be empowered by the franchise granted to them by two years of service to the nation. A young man or woman who has spent two years building the nation is going to think twice before he or she throws a trash can through a storefront window.  From many we must be one again. This is the revolution of our time.

Just saying . . .
wdk 2017

The Whisper of Wind

"Uncle" Harry Uhlman's Sugaring Off Parties

Uncle Harry ladles the syrup

"Uncle" Harry Uhlman's Sugaring Off Parties

by Wayne D. King


I remember as if it were yesterday, though at least 45 years have passed. Warm spring Sundays, filled with the hope that spring always brings. Sun shining on my face as I left church and greeted Uncle Harry at the door.


Uncle Harry was a deacon in our church and he wasn't my uncle - he was everyone's uncle. His kindly face, worn with the seasons of a Yankee native's life, would beam as he leaned down to remind me of the sugaring off party at his sugarhouse that afternoon and called me "dear" in that rich North Country accent that resonates still in my brain.


Of course he didn't need to remind me, or anyone else in our informal confederation of communities, drawn together by the necessity of sharing schools, churches, fire departments, police. The moment that sap buckets appeared on the maples along the road we knew that the moment was approaching. Children and adults alike would find their conversations turning to the sap and Uncle Harry's sugaring off party.


Uncle Harry sugared the old fashioned way, though many of the sugaring operation of the day were even then beginning to modernize. His only concession to the modern age came well toward the end of his days when the horse drawn sled gave way to a small blue tractor. Even then, though, he would alight from his tractor, put the rugged yoke around his neck and trudge through the snow from tree to tree gathering sap from the buckets by hand and emptying them into the container on the tractor. When the huge container on the tractor was full it would be transferred to the sugarhouse where his wood fired boiler and evaporator would turn the sweet sap into maple syrup.


It was the 1960’s and despite the conservative ways of my North Country neighbors Uncle Harry began to wear his hair long. Not shaggy like so many of my older friends, but longer than the norm for disapproving adults. Uncle Harry's hair was more like a snow-covered rainbow, mostly white with streaks of brown, gold and red as it flowed in waves down his head. It almost seemed that the golden brown of his syrup had so thoroughly penetrated his being that even his hair reflected its glory. Though he never said a word about it to me, I think letting his hair grow was Uncle Harry's way of sending a message to the young people in the community that their choice of self expression did not make them outcasts - despite the whispering and snide remarks of other adults. We loved him for it.


Then the long anticipated day would arrive. After church Uncle Harry would head back to his orchard to prepare for the festivities. A huge pile of clean snow, gathered thoughtfully on some long passed stormy day, lay covered with a large canvas tarp to be unveiled only when the children were gathered around squealing delightedly.


When families began to arrive Harry Uhlman would be hidden away in his sugarhouse boiling the syrup past pancake thickness to that special level where just the act of pouring it on a snowcovered plate would seem like a spiritual experience. . . nature's sweetest celebration of the spring. While he finished the syrup the children would play in the maple groves, waiting for the moment that they would form a human wave of exuberance as they rushed to get in line. The adults would mingle, share tales of winter tribulations and plans for the warm days ahead, and pretend that they weren't just as excited as the children. . . and then Uncle Harry would emerge, wooden bucket in hand, a silly old hat on his head, smiling like an angel . . . I think he was. I know he is now. To this day I can't see a sugarhouse or a tapped maple that doesn't bring him back into my life.


God Bless you Uncle Harry; and every other neighbor who spreads love like maple syrup on our lives.

Sugaring Off with Uncle Harry Originals
10x16
Edition of 100 signed originals
Printed on fine art rag paper with archival inks
$125
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Where are the good jobs in the next decade?

Where are the good jobs in the next decade?
by Wayne King

In the next decade the fastest growing sector of job growth worldwide will be those jobs associated with moving toward a renewable energy future and creating smart grids and a Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure to carry locally produced and distributed energy.

China recently announced that they would pour 82 Billion dollars into creation of a smart grid.

This is the very sector of our economy that Donald Trump has suppressed.

Its not that these jobs will move elsewhere. One of the largest benefits to locally produced, renewable energy is that it produces local jobs to build it and the long-term jobs stay local as well. They will just not be grown here where we are desperately seeking ways to create jobs that can replace the well paying jobs of the past.

The truth is that the jobs of the past are largely gone and no amount of huffing and puffing by politicians are going to bring them back. The battle for the future will be for the jobs of the future. Those countries that are building a Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure will have a massive competitive advantage.

If we targeted just 1/4 of the funds we use for infrastructure toward building this infrastructure of the future. We would produce millions more jobs than we are producing trying to revive the jobs of the past.

Here's just one example: I would be willing to bet that not one single NET new job will be produced in the coal industry in the next year. The companies will take advantage of the new Trump EPA to pass costs off to the public domain by polluting more - one change made recently allows coal companies to use public waterways for the disposal of wastes (hell it came out of the ground didn't it!) . But the coal companies will add more automation to take coal out of the ground, requiring fewer coal miners to do the job. The only bright spot is that the market for their coal is drying up faster than the RioGrande. Within a decade most of these companies will be gone. In the meantime owners will try to suck every bit of value that they can from their dying industry. Then they will throw up their hands and declare bankruptcy allowing them to walk away from their remaining debts.

Windows at an Exhibition

Purchase this Image

Green, Sustainable Energy is Here to Stay - Coal is Dead

Green, Sustainable Energy is Here to Stay - Coal is Dead
Wayne King

President Trump thinks that he is going to undo all of the good work that President Obama has done to put us on the road to clean and sustainable energy. Today he's going after the Clean Power Act but President Obama was smart. He used the crisis of 2008 to give a huge boost to wind and solar and other green energy sources and now they have market viability. Anyone who invests in carbon producing energy sources from here on is liable to lose their shirt and they know it. Coal is dead, we need to create new clean energy opportunities in the coal states and educate the people who live there to enable them to work in the industries of the future not the past.

But we need a smart grid to deliver and target energy resources. This will cost a lot of money but that money is already there.

According to the International Monetary Fund in 2015 they quantified the amount of money that is going into subsidies for fossil fuels and it was 5.4 TRILLION dollars. 6.5% of global GDP. What we have is not a technology problem, it is a political problem. Corrupt politicians and energy companies scratching to hold onto power in a system that is rapidly transitioning away from them have built a system where second industrial revolution energy is at an advantage over Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) Tech. We need to redirect those funds to build a new paradigm for distributing energy

The Whisper of Wind Poster
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Understanding Tax Credits in Healthcare

Understanding Tax Credits in Healthcare
Tax credits are credits against taxes due. If your income is not sufficiently high to generate a tax liability they are of no value to the individual. Most of the people who are covered under the affordable care act do not earn enough money to have a tax liability. If the ACA is repealed and Republicans instead create tax credits, everyone who does not earn about 3-4 times the poverty level will lose their healthcare.

If President Trump really wanted to bring the country together as he claims he would stop beating the dead horse of Obamacare and instead call on Democrats and Republicans to join together to fix the affordable care act. Some of the ideas he proposed last night could easily be incorporated into the ACA and would make it stronger and more affordable but the core of the ACA must remain in place to provide opportunity for most Americans.


One well-delivered speech does not constitute a reset for the Trump Presidency.

Emerging Umbrellas

Sacred Trust Update

Sacred Trust Update

You may already know that I've been writing a novel about a group of unlikely compatriots that come together to try and stop a high voltage power transmission line in NH.

While I have tried to avoid the pitfalls of linking the power project in this novel directly with any similar project (duh! as my son says) the obvious connections will certainly be made and I believe that will be useful to those of us who have been opposing the real NH transmission project.

The book is set here in New Hampshire but has much broader implications for similar projects throughout the country, particularly in light of President Trump’s executive order on pipelines and transmission lines.

I am currently about 3/4 finished with the novel - having spent two years to date on it in my spare time - I am hoping to supercharge a final push in the next 3 months to finish it and get it edited and published through a crowdfunding campaign to support the final push.

I'm fully aware that this will not be without controversy. However, I sense that the controversy might be just what is needed to refocus the public eye on the efforts to stop or at least completely bury the proposed project. There has been a palpable drop in public interest of late.

Furthermore, in the panic to get at least some of the line buried we have missed out on a lot of teachable moments that just did not seem to be high priority items in the beginning. Bigger picture issues like the over reliance on large sources of power production instead of smaller sources of power and micro-grids that make our system less subject to large outages from human or natural causes; The desecration of native lands and the massive carbon output associated with flooding of large tracts of land. The choice between direct transmission and a more nimble smart-grid allowing for the creation of power sources within communities that serve their economy and their environment better.

While the novel is first and foremost a fun read about an important trend in the nation as a whole, it is also an opportunity to explore some of these teachable moments a bit. Perhaps even to create a book that serves as the basis for discussion of these issues in classes, book groups, and reading and discussion groups etc. For example, one device that I will be employing will be to have essays addressing some of the important issues written by actual experts who will be portrayed as “Gazetteers” much like the patriots who wrote the Federalist Papers. The purpose of their essays will be to ostensibly provide support to the compatriots fighting the power line but the more important reason for their essays will be to lay out the arguments against this and other similar projects and to examine some of the challenges of providing energy and power to our world in the future.

I am hoping that you will have an interest in helping me to spread the word about the book and the campaign.

If you are, here are some of this things you can do to help:

Pass the word about this campaign on to your friends, especially if they have expressed concern over Northern Pass. I have included a sample note below.

Sign up to receive updates on the campaign and snippets from the book: www.gofundme.com/TreesNotTowers

If you have publishing contacts who may have an interest in looking at the book please let me know and feel free to contact them.

If you know an expert in any of the related areas (climate change, sustainable and renewable energy, Native American rights and treaties, Smartgrids, Energy planning, etc) Please let me know and I will speak with them about contributing to the book.

Best wishes,

Wayne King



Sample Referral Note

Wayne King has been writing a fictional novel, “Sacred Trust”, about a group of compatriots using civil disobedience to stop an electric transmission line similar to the Northern Pass project proposed in New Hampshire. His novel is intended to be a great read with a message, using real experts to lay out the arguments against similar projects.

He is running a crowdfunding campaign to put the book over the top - to cover the costs of paying the experts for their essays, editing and publishing the book.

He is hoping that both the crowdfunding campaign and the book will stir up more interest and help to put fire back into the opposition which has seemed to lag lately.

If you would like to learn more or to help, visit his GoFundMe Campaign page at: www.gofundme.com/TreesNotTowers

The Trump Presidency: this Generation’s Vietnam Moment

The Trump Presidency: this Generation’s Vietnam Moment
Trump May Unify Americans After All - Against Him
by Wayne D. King

Looking back, it was all just too easy . . .

We elected the first black president and the forces of darkness knew that they had to do something. They met, even as he was addressing the nation and calling for unity, and decided that they would oppose everything he did.

Yet despite that in the four years of Barack Obama change came like a waterfall. In the course of two brief years twenty million Americans living without health insurance would join the ranks of the insured, another 10 million would benefit from its provisions with respect to pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, the opportunity to bring another 20 million under the umbrella of coverage was lost to the compromise that relinquished the “Public Option”; but national health was in our sights. In the course of only a few years - beyond rescuing the world from a catastrophic recession - much more would be achieved: marriage equality, medical marijuana, the Dream Act, the Paris accord on Global climate change, Iran Nuclear agreement, and expanded rights for LGBTQ citizens.

In an historic blink of an eye we were again moving toward that beloved community Dr. King described.

But these things occurred in a nation still deeply divided and with the help of the opposition the nation remained divided throughout the presidency of Barack Obama. The changes so many of us embraced came despite those divisions.

Did we think this was just going to happen without an almost cataclysmic clash that began with the push back and then the emergence of a unifying fight? This is how Vietnam and Nixon at first divided and then united us. It began with mostly young people in the streets, opposing the war. They were met with opposition: hardhats beating up those kids in the streets. Waving flags and carrying Nixon signs. In the final gasp of another deeply divided time and after another paranoid national leader emerged, delivered to us at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan.

The divisions evolved into a national strike on college campuses across the country and then the killing of our kids at Kent State and Jackson State Universities. The deaths at Kent and Jackson State opened the floodgate for the “silent majority” . The middle class, shaken to their core at the lengths to which the Nixon administration would go to maintain its grasp on power, came flooding into the streets to join the kids, the hippies and the yippies demanding peace.

It did not end immediately but it brought down a President and ended a war.

The period after Vietnam and up to George W. Bush, though not without its turbulence, represents the longest period of national unity, peace, and economic prosperity in our nation’s history.

Historians will debate for one hundred years what happened to our nation that so sharpened our divisions at the beginning of the new millennium. The symptoms will be relatively easy to agree on, a new gilded age for the wealthy and a shrinking of the middle class; legislative changes that opened the doors for unethical behavior, the lionization of greed and avarice. The causes of this will be more difficult to agree upon and still harder to reverse.

My own view is that we have entered a fourth wave of human endeavor, a new industrial revolution that calls not for reversing existing trends but finding a new way to surf them, as we did during the second industrial revolution - in the period sandwiched between two great leaders named Roosevelt.

However, reaching a point where we can build a national consensus for moving forward will require that we first begin to bridge the divide that separates one American from another and that is where I began this brief analysis. With the opportunity wrapped in a crisis.

Looking back, even to the beginning of the Presidential Primary process, one can make the case that no candidate seemed capable of bridging that divide - given its root causes, though some may have been on the right track for the wrong reasons as I have previously speculated. The election of Donald Trump has, in many ways, simply hastened the day of reckoning.

Never before has an American President sought to deepen the divisions in our country; never before has a President been so out of touch with the truth; and never has a President been so boldly unconcerned and brashly unapologetic about it.

Already Americans are taking to the streets. They are not willing to relinquish American leadership on the critical issues of our time. They still believe that Democratic values hold out the best hope for change that is just, and sustainable. Young people, who have grown up in the era of Barack Obama are unwilling to allow the limits of racism, sexism and homophobia to be defined by Theocratic leaders. Americans alarmed by the pace of climate change are unwilling to allow China, an undemocratic regime that suppresses free science and free speech, to step into the void created by the Trump administration’s climate change deniers.

Every American who has watched with pride as our national leadership has been demonstrated time and again during the last fifty years will ultimately not allow us to cede leadership on the world stage. Their protest signs may vary, but they all translate the same: “This is Not My America”.

The crowds are big, and growing. . . and, as they often say “The Whole World is Watching”.

But there is a notable void in the crowds. Donald Trump has the worst approval ratings of any president since those numbers were first recorded. Yet among Republicans his approval is among the highest ever recorded. 87% of Republicans still state that they approve of the President’s actions; despite the heroic efforts of Republicans like Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins who have stood against the tide speaking out forcefully for Western values and Democratic principles.

How do we bridge this divide, particularly when the issues at stake are not just critically important but - in many cases - moral imperatives with little room for compromise that does not spell acquiescence?

The answer is we don’t try. We fight for what we believe but do so with grace and with open hearts. We wait for them, knowing that joining us represents a deeply disappointing revelation for many. They are not our enemies and we do not have a monopoly on truth.

We must stand and deliver. Above all we must be patient and humble. If there is one thing we have learned in the first thirty days of the Trump Presidency it is that when we think the President cannot possibly overreach any more than he already has - he will always find a way.

Already he has shown this with his travel ban and immigration actions which have surely peeled off many previous supporters. Just wait until they try to take healthcare away from 30 million Americans or begin to give polluters free reign or cause a trade war that raises the cost of everything from food to underwear.

Wait until middle class and working class whites realize they have been punked by a billionaire con artist who is far more interested in cutting taxes for his friends than raising the living standards of those who have seen no real income growth in almost two decades. 

Evidence that the Russian connection may lead to the demise of this administration is accumulating. Demonizing the media and banning the most powerful among them from media briefings at the White House is little more than a thinly veiled effort to discredit them in the wake of an ever-widening inquiry and at least three formal investigations by government agencies and the intelligence community.  

It will not be long before disillusioned Trump voters will be joining our ranks.

Then it will be up to us to open our ranks and to welcome all these Americans home. Not only by making space for them but by making an effort to understand their hopes and dreams. By seeking new ways to renew the promise of a growing standard of living for all Americans; by making an effort to find common ground on even the thorniest of issues.

There is little chance that the skies will open and the sun will shine down on us as we sing kum-ba-yah but there’s a pretty good chance that 2020 will see a new President and, hopefully, a lot of Americans carrying signs that effectively say: This is My America.

On the Edge of Chaos