User Profile: Joseph Segal

Joseph Segal

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ~Elie Wiesel “It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.” and this is why they’ll never fly! 🙂 “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”~Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank 1929-1945 Please share anything I write that helps people smile, think, share, care or imagine a better world. Posting: My page has been protected by a Positive Energy Shield. So if you find that any negative, cynical or angry comments you’ve shared on it have disappeared it is very likely they just didn’t “stick” to the page due to the protective shield that is currently in place. I respect your right to see things differently. That said, if you don’t have anything positive to say, please try harder to find something. If you don’t like an idea I’ve proposed to try to make a difference in the world then please feel free to suggest one of your own or a way to improve on my idea and I’ll do my best to be supportive. If I propose a project and you don’t want to be a part of it rather than telling me about why you think it won’t work, please practice a little patience with me and wait until I propose one that you would like participate in and post your constructive, creative, positive comments on that one! I come up with a lot of ideas so I’m sure I’ll eventually come up with one you can put your wonderful positive energies into! I appreciate people who share post about the problems we face as a society and Country. What I respect and appreciate most are people who seek out and share ideas for solutions to our problems! Please let me know about the issues you care deeply about so we can find a way to make progress together on them. I promise I will do my best to support you! Please do not post any hateful or mean spirited comments on my posts. We will get nowhere by tearing each other down and bashing people. In fact I do believe we get what we focus on most! Focus on solutions and the people and groups creating them and we will give our energy to that, focus on the problems and problem people of the world and we give our energy to them. Please do not post hateful comments and posts about the State of Israel if you have any interest in working with me or staying a friend. I am Jewish, I have family there, I don’t agree with everything the Government there does but I do love the Israeli people and Country. I hope to see a day when their is are two States side by side living in peace and prosperity where everyone is free from hate, hunger and fear. If this is a problem for you I wish you well but feel free to unfriend me or not add me. I will defriend you if you post stupid lies about Israel and support the terrorist Organization of Hammas. Again if you have a problem with that don’t request my friendship. Before I talk about myself I want to write a bit about what I believe; VOTING We need to vote Progressive and organize voter registration and get out the vote year round. We must not waste our time arguing with most Republicans and confused befuddled Tea Party folks. They are not interested in facts or logic. Instead let’s spend our time rousing the educated Democratic and Independent masses to action and activism! We need to get the message out that not voting is the same as voting to work for less money, voting to pay higher health insurance, voting to pay higher College Tuition, voting to create more jobs overseas than here at home, voting to let our Country continue to become fat, dumb and enslaved! Not voting is like a vote to keep your own family and the Nation locked in a death grip with poverty. We must use the internet and our network of friends and family to make every day count as a day we move further into the future rather into the past! JOBS America is a country of Innovators and Inventors, of Artists and Entrepreneurs. We expanded and grew our Middle Class as a Nation that built things. Now we need to do the same but by Building Ideas instead. We need to invest in Math and Science Education, Broadband Internet Coast to Coast and our Energy and Transportation Infrastructure! We have under utilized the Internet as a medium for Job Creation and Education. Education should be diverse, relevant to peoples lives and affordable to Everyone! BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING We spend more on our Military than all the rest of the developed world put together. We buy and build fighter jets to fight a Soviet Union that no longer exists while we our Troops work abroad to do Nation Building that we need to do here at home. We should either cut the Military Budget by 30% or bring home our Troops from Germany and Japan and put them to work rebuilding our own Schools, Dams and Bridges! We should cut Corporate Welfare to Big Agriculture Corporate Farms and help family farms instead. Cut Corporate tax breaks for Big Oil and use that money to fund new Green Energy Technology and Jobs! PROTECTING THE TRUTH It has been said that the truth will set you free. But there is not enough done to protect the truth. I think you can make this into a bipartisan project. This deals with one of the most emotional issues of Republicans and Democrats. Both believe the other side is lying. But there is no nonpartisan, independent referee for this contest. When it comes to politics, how it legal to lie? It is illegal to lie about a product or service. Why is it legal to lie about the record of a politician or a ballot measure? These are decisions that reach the level of life and death when it comes to funding programs, going to war, etc. When yes means no on a ballot proposition or you can lie about the documentable record of a candidate then my right to make an informed decision, the ability to give my informed consent to be governed is taken away and thus my vote has been stolen. In effect democracy has been stolen. What is the benefit of the right to vote, freedom of information, and public education if you can’t protect facts and truth? There are certain departments of government that have been given autonomy to insulate them from politics like the GAO, Department of Justice and the Federal Reserve. Given the Supreme Court unleashing virtually unlimited speech it is time to find a way to protect the quality of information the way the quality of other goods are regulated like water, air, food, etc. Even if a legal product is unhealthy it is against the law to lie about its contents and manufactured origin. Why should political info be different? Everyone is welcome to their opinion but especially in this time of the information revolution that we live in verifiable facts are a public good that needs to be protected as much as food, air and water. EDUCATION yes. The reason our Public Schools are underfunded is because the Rich have moved their own kids to Private Schools and moved our Jobs to China. The Schools were created to train kids to become good factory workers who follow instructions and can read machine manuals. But Corporations have found they can trim the fat…Us! They move our jobs to China and India where they pay very low wages with no benefits and reap massive profits. So they do not need the Public Schools and that is why they are under funded and allowed to crumble. With most of the Public Schools warehousing minority poor and middle class children teaching out dated lesson plans and skills they point the finger of blame at over worked under paid Teachers and their Unions. ME Well it’s a long story that started somewhere in Panama in the early sixties and wound it’s way through parts of California. How does one edit one’s life story to write what is important for Facebook purposes? I’ve been through a lot to get to this point of my life and none of it was planned and most of it harder than I expected. But I made it here right now to this point in time by the good graces of God or the spark of life that animates all of us and because of the love of my family. What matters more than my past is what I do now and what future I create. I hope that with the help of my friends and family I can create a future biography that includes making a contribution to this great Country, something that lessens the suffering and injustice and helps people find hope, prosperity and meaning in their lives.