Revolution 2.0

Introduction From the Spanish Inquisition, and before, to today, True Believers have been attacking people, cancelling people is the new term. Cancelled physically by killing, or psychologically and financially by insults, false accusations and specious accusations of, well, simply not being pure enough, of not having always shown 100% consistency with current hard and fast true beliefs. No matter how often current orthodoxy may change, those who are True Believers in the orthodoxy preached by their chosen group are all in to the point where nothing else is at all acceptable. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing The entire “You are with me or you are against me.” thought process is invading virtually every part of our lives. And dividing our country and our friends and families.  Here’s how to fix all of that. Start with a search for common goals. Do not start with a statement of how right you are.  Let’s take a look at some of our history and see if there are any lessons for to

Introduction Welcome to the second Revolution 2.0™ interview; part of a continuing series. The first interview was on a giveback subject, with Mathew Passy and https://revolution2-0.org/first-interview-causepods-org-real-life-brothers-keeper-example-ep-183/ (causepods). Today is another giveback subject, the annual https://events.arthritis.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=944 (525-mile, 8-day bicycle ride) raising money for the Arthritis Foundation: Riding for a cure. Sit back as Shannon Marang Cox, the Development Director for the ride, and “Champion of Yes” tells us why this is so needed, why it is such a deep commitment, and so much fun for the 250 riders and staff. Including yours truly–me. That is the subject of today’s episode. Continuing Did you know that 300,000 kids in the US have debilitating arthritis? Along with 54 million adults, making Arthritis the leading cause of disability in the US. Shannon Marang Cox, the Development Director for the California Coast Classic,

Introduction “How do you feel when you wake up in the morning and you look outside the window and it’s raining again? How do you feel?” That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Okay, Will, is this a change of pace? Or what is this topic about? No, joy is part of what makes life worthwhile, part of what makes good times more fun. It makes the bad times far more tolerable, and prompts the type of clear thinking needed to get past the hard times. Joy is far more than merely, well, joyful, it is required for a good life. Required to fulfill the Revolution 2.0 principles and philosophy. And like sunscreen, it is best applied liberally and reapplied often. Several years ago when I was preparing, training, for my first 525-mile, 8-day bicycle ride down the Coast of California as part of a group raising money for the Arthritis Foundation. I was riding in a group that included an experienced multiple-day bicycle event rider. We were talking while pedaling, and I expressed my nervousness about

Introduction In 1841, Britain, by then a constitutional monarchy with democratic voting, seized Hong Hong from China’s Quing dynasty as part of Britain’s colonial expansion. In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to one-party rule China, as part of China’s expansion.  China, quite predictably, is working hard to break its 1997  promises of non-interference with freedom-loving, capitalist Hong Kong. Tens of thousands of Hong Kong protesters, the real Antifa, are struggling to resist absorption by Communist China. There are important lessons for us in America in the broken promises from China and in the pro-freedom struggle. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Despite what China promised in 1997, and has reiterated ever since, China is hell bent on swallowing freedom-loving Hong Kong, and making it a part of its one-party rule regime. If you think about it, China has never experienced anything like freedom. From the Emperors to Mao to today’s Communist Party, China and the Chinese ha

Introduction Bloated bureaucracies are growing in size and impact, and vitally important to all of us. But as important as this subject is, it is never called out by name.  That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing So, Will, how do bloated bureaucracies affect me? Why should I care? First, they are obviously expensive. If you are paying more people than necessary to create a desired result, that’s waste, that’s bloat, and that’s expensive. Let’s say that we, you and I, owned, say, a plumbing supply business, and needed to make a profit to meet our personal financial responsibilities and to maintain a growing company that served its employees, customers and the community. We would need to concentrate on having the majority of our personnel focused in the areas key to our business. For example, salespeople would be key for obvious reasons, as would those who deal with our vendors. They keep prices down, maintain timely deliveries and establish strong bonds so that if supplies become shor

Introduction Welcome to the first Revolution 2.0™ interview; the first of many. Today we are interviewing Mathew Passy in his serving others role with https://www.causepods.org/ (Causepods.org). The two driving principles at Revolution 2.0™ are 1. Being Personally Responsible and 2. Being Your Brother’s Keeper. Mathew Passy, husband and father of young twins, meets part of his personal responsibilities as a top tier podcaster and a successful professional resource for other podcasters. When you listen to Revolution2.0 episodes, you benefit from his editing, other professional skills and constant training of yours truly. Mr. Passy meets and exceeds the Brother’s Keeper principle with his non-profit Causepods.org. Causepods is a passion project of Mathew’s. (His for profit enterprise is https://www.thepodcastconsultant.com/ (The Podcast Consultant).) Causepods’ aim is to interview folks who are using podcasts to raise awareness for a good cause. Whether that’s a non-profit, charity, medical cause, soci

Introduction First, stop the bleeding, then get the patient back to living on their own. This advice applies equally in medical and financial situations. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing When someone has experienced a medical emergency and is taken to a hospital, the first thing medical professionals do is assess and stabilize–halt the damage. The next steps include determining the need for any long-term treatments needed to get that person back on track for an independent, healthy and happy life. That’s how medical needs are met. Why isn’t that how we handle financial needs as well? The hospital does not assume that the correct thing to do is to keep the patient in the facility, dependent upon the staff and equipment in place there. Hospitals are expensive and are designed for effective short-term care–not long-term–care. If necessary, the patient is referred out to less expensive, longer-term care facilities. The ultimate goal is to have the patient be able

Introduction We should be allowing our principles to determine our agendas. All too often, in today’s backward way of thinking, we allow our agendas to determine our principles. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Principles can appropriately be described as core, fundamental beliefs. Google helps us with the following definition of a principle, “A fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.” Note the part where principles, “…serve as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour…”. Assuming that we know what our principles are, they should lead to how we conduct our lives, and determine our agendas, political and otherwise. Too often, we grab onto an agenda or a system of belief, and conjure up principles that tie to those agendas. Our principles are the base for our entire lives. Clearly, they come first. Everything goes upside down and backwards when we agree with certain types of pol

Introduction It all starts with gratitude. Gratitude is the bedrock, the touchstone–cornerstone–for any effective philosophy, religious dogma, or simply a way to get through life or the day successfully. Ingratitude makes for a grim and unproductive outlook on life, love and politics. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Without gratitude, there is an inescapable emptiness; not a yearning, but a feeling of being ungrounded. This makes for a fertile ground for resentful thoughts of unfairness or “Why me? Or worse, comparing ourselves to others. If you immediately question what–if anything–you have to be grateful for, let’s take a peek at that.  Did you get up this morning? When you did, did you have ready access to running water, maybe even hot and cold running water? When you go to the store, grocery or whatever, do you have multiple choices in almost every category? Oh, and did you have transportation to and from the store? And did you wake up in the most prospe

Introduction Is it an accident that states like California and New York are predominantly progressive, and states like Texas and Oklahoma are not? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Take a look at this electoral map; with four exceptions, all of the states in the contiguous 48 that voted in 2016 for either Clinton or Trump are in connected blocks. Of those four, Colorado and New Mexico share a border, and the other two, Minnesota and Illinois, are very nearly connected. Why?  Question: Did everyone of a like mind move to the same places, or is something else going on?  Answer: Something else. In the absence of differing opinions from a variety of sources, people will rely on the opinions of family and friends, co-workers and their favorite news sources and social media. Outside of family, all the sources will be selected more for comfort and absence of frustration than political reasoning and diversity. Not surprisingly, they will pretty much share the same opinions. Similar

Introduction The raging fires and continuing power blackouts in California, the richest state in the world’s richest nation, are clearly tragic. Are they largely avoidable? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing California’s continuing wildfires and power blackouts have caught national and international attention. In just one example, more than 2 million https://www.foxnews.com/category/us/us-regions/west/california (Californians) were recently left without power after the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)–which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year–preemptively shut down transmission lines in the fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds. Some small businesses lost tens of thousands of dollars, threatening the livelihood of the owners and their employees. People who are dependent on electricity-powered home-based, life-sustaining devices are in danger. Modern phones, e.g., the ones offered with bundled services, need

Introductio All too frequently, there seems to be an inverse relationship between how strident a person is in expressing their opinions, and how much they know. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing I became a Broncos fan by an accident of history. My step-father, Charles (Chuck) Warner, bought season tickets in 1960; I have been in those seats on and off since then. I have added to that accidental affiliation by listening to the homeboy analysts and announcers, seeking out fellow Broncos fans, and believing everything evil, mean, wicked and nasty about their opponents, especially their main rivals. When a bad call goes against us, I yell, “We was robbed!” When a bad call goes our way, my reaction is, “That’s football.” I yell like a fan(atic) when the Broncos run onto the field, and boo when their rivals emerge. When a Broncos player does something good in the community, I see him as a hometown hero. I have no idea what other teams are doing in the community–nor do I care. 

Introduction “When you hear the truth, listen.” -Will Luden That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing For example, some yogurt containers have “Fruit at bottom.” printed on the outside. Isn’t that true for all of life? Isn’t the fruit that we want always at the bottom, where we have to work to get at it and enjoy it? Scott Peck, writing in The Road Less Travelled, said essentially the same thing when he observed that life is hard. Life is hard, as it should be. That’s how we learn to lean into life, embracing the challenges, learning to be strong and persistent. And that’s how we learn enough about life and being strong in life to be able to help others. Ah, but we hear the siren call of, “If life is hard, that is proof that you are a victim. And victims deserve to be taken care of by the taxpayers.” So, who is right, Mr. Peck and others who teach that life is hard as it should be, or the people who insist that if life is hard, something is wrong, and they promise to make it better fo

Hello again, this is your host Will Luden with Revolution 2.0™, the proud inheritors of the breakthrough thinking and dedication of Revolution 1.0 in 1776. Welcome.  Marx Had it Almost Right: Warren and Sanders Don’t (EP. 175)  Introduction “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” -Karl Marx, German political philosopher and founder of communism. Oh, how attractive that quote is. For decades it bothered me that Marx’s famous communist prescription about how things ought to be simply did not work. Anywhere. Was it a fault in the human condition? Were we simply too selfish to be asked to work, and to give to others what they need? No, we very often vote to tax ourselves, which clearly means that we are willing to give up some of what we earn. And many of us give generously to charities, local schools, and people we know–either personally or online–who have hit unforeseeable hard times.  The problem lies not with us, but with Marx.  That is the subject of to

Hello again, this is your host Will Luden with Revolution 2.0™, the proud inheritors of the breakthrough thinking and dedication of Revolution 1.0 in 1776. Welcome.  Defocus to Gain Focus (EP. 174)  Introduction “An unexamined life is not worth living.” -Plato That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Surprised by this topic? Let me share why I picked it. You have heard the saying, “You don’t get strong in the gym, you get strong when you sleep at night.” You still have to do the hard work in the gym, but your recovery allows the muscles torn down by exercise to relax, repair and grow stronger. Let’s add one more layer to this analogy; the muscles repair best when recovery is aided by good nutrition.  In the same way, almost step by step, our minds, our ability to think, our ability to think more completely, precisely and insightfully, grows and becomes much more effective when it is allowed to rest, to defocus, after intense work. “The mind is a muscle.” -Yvonne Ranier, American cho

Introduction Are we reliving history? Are we recreating and reliving a part of Roman history that led to its downfall? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing Does anyone remember the above phrase, Bread and Circuses, from high school history class? Or from a movie, perhaps “Gladiator”? When people refer to this today, they are criticizing ancient Rome for the way its Emperors, in the later stages of the Empire, used both free bread (and other food) and free entertainment to placate the large number of people who were otherwise poorly served by their government. They literally bought off “the masses” with free bread and entertainment at the Coliseum; entertainment that was called the circus. The  criticism points out that the Roman government paid for short-term satisfaction while intentionally ignoring the long-term needs and best interests of its citizens. Why would a government do that? Simple; it is cheap, easy, results in applause and adulation, and works long enough for those c

Introduction Who really cares about the homeless? Not the government. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing The numbers of homeless are mounting, and not just in publicized magnet cities like Seattle, San Francisco and LA. I live in Colorado Springs, and it is an increasingly important topic here, and up I-25 in Denver–where it is even worse. Let’s follow the Revolution 2.0™ deliberate solution-seeking process to address this issue: What is the problem? What is the desired goal, the common goal? Who do we get there? Why, despite growing amounts of cash being spent to address homelessness, do the numbers of homeless continue to grow, and grow rapidly? In LA alone, there are 35,000 homeless, a whopping 16% increase over last year. Seventy-five % of them live outdoors. We have all read or heard about the horrific and tragic stories of San Francisco, replete with dangerously aggressive beggars, open, hard-core drug use and large amounts of human waste on the streets. The

Hello again, this is your host Will Luden with Revolution 2.0™. Welcome. Please do take the opportunity to learn more and subscribe at http://revolution2-0.org/ (revolution2-0.org) Everyday Wisdom: Watering Flowers and Getting Results (EP. 171)  Introduction Wisdom is all around us, waiting patiently for us to see it. For example, the sign at the rental car lot reads, “Do not back up; severe tire damage.”  Good life advice. I picked up the outside flower watering job from my wife this year, and I have been constantly amazed–shocked, actually–at how thirsty they are. And how they thrive when given daily, generous, waterings. Are we underestimating how much water, how much TLC, love, belief and attention, we all need? That’s today’s example of Everyday Wisdom. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing It is almost mid-October, and I continue to be rewarded with a profusion of beautiful colors and shapes of the flowers that I water. And when I skipped my watering chore, thin

Introduction There is a growing push for diversity, diversity defined by characteristics such as race, gender, and sexual preferences. The belief is that this type of diversity brings benefits in and of itself, with the more diversity the greater the benefits. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing All of us want all groups and all individuals, to have reasonable access to the educational and other tools that when grasped and utilized, will lead to a successful life. By successful, I don’t necessarily mean comfortable. I mean I want everyone to have access to the tools, the knowledge, that when added to consistent hard work will lead to financial, personal and emotional success. That will lead to the ability to teach, encourage and give a head start to future generations. (And if you don’t want that, you are in the wrong place.) There is a mix of things that we need to have in place and working to get to our goal. School choice, i.e., ready access to an equally funded selection of t

Introduction Clinton was impeached, and now the Democrats are trying hard to justify articles of impeachment against Trump. I live and vote in Colorado, Colorado Springs to be specific, and we had two recent recall attempts.  Why? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. Continuing One of my favorite saying when it comes to democracy is, “This is a democracy, and you are going to keep voting until you get it right.” I have no idea who said this, so maybe I’ll take credit for it. Impeachment and recalls should never be used as election re-dos. If you don’t like the incumbent, don’t vote for him the next time. If you hate her policies, don’t vote for her if she runs again. If you feel strongly enough, stand up and go campaign for their opponents. Impeachment of a sitting US President calls for evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” This ambiguous phrase has stirred controversy ever since it was first inserted in the Constitution in 1787. But it is clear enough that it eliminates using impea