Publisher's Synopsis
The Action Manual is an interactive story outline of how people balancing private and public interests (i.e., Public Citizens) start a new social movement for evening out the disparities between the elite class and the rest of Americans while making America into a Smart 21-st Century nation. It articulates a unique Vision of what an advanced American Society will look like and a practical Plan on how to achieve it. The Action Manual approach is an "open source" social change movement with roles for everyone in a unique National Character Program. Participate in your own way in a new social movement. Help create a 21st-Century Great Society! Become a Hero! Parallel Worlds. We have two groups of people living in parallel worlds in America. The "Life Is Sweet" group is made up of a small set of a financial elite and other self-interested citizens. For them, life is is about "As Good As It Gets." The second group is the "Grind It out" group of multi-millions of ordinary Americans, like most of us. They are the so-called "little people" whose social world lives are characterized mostly by insecurity, frustration, anger, and broken spirits. Over the past 30 years or so, things have been getting steadily worse for the little people. Many of them believe that the stark differences between the two groups in economic, political, and social status is unfair. The feel the system is rigged against them. Doing something about this unfair and rigged situation is what this Action Manual is about. It explains: -why we have this parallel world situation in America -that we have 18th-Century governance and social relations systems which are not appropriate for our times -that vast progress has been made in nearly all areas of American life except for how we govern ourselves and relate to one another -why the many prior social change efforts have failed -and, why the right time is now for an updated and improved social world, what that society can look like, and how we can get it. Why is now different? -the little people have way more information about the nature of our social world than ever before and have learned about social change from decades of experience -there are vast new technological tools like the Internet, Web 2.0 databases, social media, mobile devices and more for people who are willing to work for change which make information distribution, communications, and organization and mobilization much more potent than ever before -we know about prior successful historical examples of change, for example, the civil rights and gender rights movements, which provide models of sorts for how merely new ways of seeing and thinking can make for major social changes -there is a significantly large consensus among the little people of needs for security, balance between private and public interests, human meanings, and respect for the "small life" (Balance, Meaning, and Respect), and for smarter governance and social relations. What is needed now. A new theoretically-sound Vision and a fresh practical Plan of change, together with existing resources and political will, can work to catalyze citizen action for major social change: - new ways of seeing and thinking about economics, politics, and social life more relevant to 21st-Century realities may guide fair-minded and progressive people to affect great changes in a just allocation of economic value, political influence, and social status -a new social ethos containing concepts of a collective interest, rationality, and fairness; new public values; and greater reliance on professional expertise, science, and reason. -a plan involving a unified set of activist people and groups covering a wide range of political attitudes and positions under a single brand having focus, accessibility, and ease of participation may be sufficient in "pushing back" (although not replacing) the individualist/capitalist ethos which dominates our lives now
