Help Change the World

Here's today's good idea/bodhisattva alert (haven't had one of those for a long time!). Check out the "Ideas for Change" page at Change.org. Here's how it works according to their website:

"The Ideas for Change in America competition was created in response to Barack Obama's call for increased citizen involvement in government. The final round of voting began on January 5 and is comprised of the top 3 rated ideas from each of the 30 issues in the first round of the competition, which collectively received more than 250,000 votes. The top 10 rated ideas from the final round will be presented to the Obama administration on January 16th at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC..."

Voting ends on January 15, so visit the site soon! Some of the ideas that I like:

• Bridging the Empathy Gap -- An initiative to make empathy a cornerstone of government policy and practices, through coaching, trainings, public dialogue, and more.
• End Corporate Personhood -- "An 1886 Supreme Court clerk's headnotes misreading applied the 14th Amendment to corporations, extending to them all the rights, but none of the responsibilities, of human persons. The result has been the steady erosion of our democracy since then, and the consequent rise of the corporate state, which is primarily responsible for the military-corporate-media-academic complex, the expansion of the often brutal U.S. global empire (including the IMF, WTO, and World Bank) with its protecting militarism, and the destruction of our only planet's environment...Ending it is the start of the way back to humane civilization."
• Forgive Student Loans -- A bail-out for the rest of us. "The American middle and lower classes are crippled under the weight of educational debt; in these unusual times, as we bail out lenders and executives, we encourage the Obama administration to forgive student loans, providing a bail-out to the people and simultaneously increasing their spending power."
• Victory Gardens 2.0 -- Asking the Obamas to start a victory garden right at the White House; the veggies grown would go to the First Kitchen and to local food pantries. A powerful symbolic move which could inspire many others to start their own gardens, helping to grow our energy independence, food security, and sustainability.