Universal Birthright

The Seed of Civilization

by Clifton Middleton / January 3rd, 2010

Universal Birthright is the entitlement due by the sole virtue of birth. The Universal Birthright of every child born on the earth is to have a fair share of the land and resources of the planet. This is an Earth Claim made by the authority of agreement and the simple foundation of equality. We all have an equal right and claim to the earth and the fullness thereof. We are the same and equal.

This birthright is shared and individual. All resources under the earth, water, oil, metals, minerals and treasures are the collective trust and stewardship of all mankind and are to be divided justly for the good of all. Anything grown or created above ground is for the administration of those who did it, without limit. Birthright has shared rights and responsibilities alongside the individual sovereignty of land stewardship.

This view of universal birthright has been the dream of all oppressed people of every persuasion, race and belief. Universal Birthright is fundamental to the idea that all men and women were created equal and a simple moral expression of what equality means. A fair and equal share of the collectively held resources enables the survival of adequate self government. The collected resources of history are the wealth of nations.

Wealth or Prosperity? Choose One

Wealth is the accumulation of resources. All resources come from the earth, everything we have comes from the extracted or harvested bounty of the planet thru the endless labor of people everywhere. That labor and those resources are collected by our commercial system, moved around, sold and the gain becomes wealth, gathered and stored up blood, sweat and time.

Most accumulated wealth is currently held by a very few, principalities, powers, corporations, governments, cartels, institutions and other organizations It is being wasted by a system dedicated to making the earth a den of competing, thief merchants and the people consumer drunk slaves.

The Apocalypse or opening of the idea of universal birthright is the social uncovering of the end of one way and the beginning concept of another. So we can realistically think about starting civilization afresh with a new beginning based on a simple agreement, easily comprehended by children around the world and capable of turning the course of history.

The Power of Agreement, the Power of One

Universal Birthright is an agreement that the people of the Earth can make and by making, found a new beginning, a renewed moral and social foundation, built on equality and common survival. This is authority based on conscious, free agreement and not on the power of the sword. When we agree, we become free and freely unite and together become stronger and more capable of sustaining life and creating a truly prosperous future. Whatsoever we agree to in our hearts will manifest in the outer world.

The agreement and support of the People is the beginning and end of all social authority. All political and social elements must respond to the needs of the whole and defend the sustained rights of the people. This makes possible timely and large scale economic and social change using the prime authority of agreement, across all levels of life.

Universal Birthright means we all have a share of these this resource we call the Earth. How could such an idea work? Where is all of the accumulated wealth of the past? What can we do today? How fast can we make this happen?

The Social and Economic
Theory of Wealth Tax

A Wealth Tax is a tax on the accumulated wealth of an individual, company or organization. This includes real estate, stocks, bonds and others instruments of accumulation. This differs from income or capital gains taxes and applies typically to wealth accumulated over a time period. The purpose of the wealth tax is to eliminate poverty by the scheduled restoring of economic, social and agricultural sustainability.

This is a proposal for a one time tax rate of 10% on all accumulate wealth over $10,000,000. Calculations indicate that this would result in a one time fund of approximately $168,000,000,000,000 or 168 trillion. The economic implications depend upon what exactly would be done with that much capital and what the cascading effects on the national and world economy would yield. In other words, how the resources would be used is open and makes possible a. complete restructuring of human civilization.

Wealth is like compost, it does no good in a pile and brings forth a bounty when spread around.

The New Homestead Act
Path to a Sustainable Future

The purpose of the New Homestead Act is three fold; one, to establish a sustainable, organic based food production and distribution system based on renewable methods. Two, facilitate the acquisition, distribution and sustainable development of long term, family farm ownership. And, three, the development and large scale deployment of alternative energy systems including the transition to a hydrogen based energy source.

How all of these goals may be advanced is illustrated best by example, Let us start with one, a One Thousand Acre tract of land. Today, this land is being farmed using Agribusiness practices of corporate, industrial, petroleum based farming that treats the land as a giant container for ultra large scale hydroponic production using the common water table as the last waste container for toxic runoff. The labor for these giant farms is the modern day equivalent of slavery, low pay, so called illegal immigrants or anyone willing to work in the most hazardous environment around for little pay. So this modern Agribusiness model is expensive, ecologically devastating, dependent upon foreign oil, socially sterile and morally reprehensible. Corporate Agribusiness ownership and control of farm land essential for the survival of all people is unsustainable and undesirable at all practical levels.

Garden Village: An Alternative Example

We start with the same 1000 acres and divide it up into 200, 5 acre garden groves. These small farms will be farmed by the folks who live on the land and share resources. A central community complex will provide equipment used in processing and packaging of village grown produce. These Garden Villages are designed to be energy and food producers, sustainable without degrading the environment.

Potential Benefits of Wealth Tax

The primary benefit of the wealth tax is in economic stimulation. The multiplier effect of spending that much money would be to grow the national economy by up to 500%.

  • Payment and release of all debt, public and private, now at 16 trillion dollars
  • New Homestead Act
  • Establish sustainable food production system
  • Large scale platform for alternative and sustainable fuel system deployment.

And others, this is the time for all good ideas to blossom.

Clifton Middleton is a 62 year old reformer, born the son of a sharecropper, trained to farm by the cycles and traditions. The article is part of a book he wrote Hard Seed, a collection of essays on sustainable systems and economies. He currently teaches sustainable gardening to students of all ages and operates a 5-acre garden grove outside of Homestead, FL. Read other articles by Clifton.

This article was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 9:00am and is filed under Agriculture, Economy/Economics, Philosophy.

11 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Don Hawkins said on January 3rd, 2010 at 12:20pm #

    I read Mike Whitney’s post and then James Petras today in twenty ten oh boy then this one by Clifton Middleton who maybe the one there’s probably more than one. I then read this again by James Petras;

    To become a ‘normal state’ we have to start all over: Close all investment banks and military bases abroad and return to America. We have to begin the long march toward rebuilding industry to serve our domestic needs, to living within our own natural environment and forsake empire building in favor of constructing a democratic socialist republic.
    When will we pick up the Financial Times or any other daily and read about our own high-speed rail line carrying American passengers from New York to Boston in less than one hour? When will our own factories supply our hardware stores? When will we build wind, solar and ocean-based energy generators? When will we abandon our military bases and let the world’s warlords, drug traffickers and terrorists face the justice of their own people?

    Will we ever read about these in the Financial Times?

    In China, it all started with a revolution… James Petras

    After this read by Clifton Middleton I sat for a minute just sat and then NOT thinking about the Federal Reserve or the U.S. Treasury, Goldman Saks, the media, so called policy makers, so called elites and being along in the house today well sort of 4 cat’s and three dog’s my wife is working with my son I started to sing “In The Arms Of The Angles.” The bell rang to my bait shop and as I went outside I was still singing “In The Arms Of The Angles,” two people not wearing a $5,000 dollar suit but going fishing said, “you alright today Don,” “oh yes just fine,” “In The Arms Of The Angles.”

    The Apocalypse or opening of the idea of universal birthright is the social uncovering of the end of one way and the beginning concept of another. So we can realistically think about starting civilization afresh with a new beginning based on a simple agreement, easily comprehended by children around the world and capable of turning the course of history.

    The primary benefit of the wealth tax is in economic stimulation. The multiplier effect of spending that much money would be to grow the national economy by up to 500%.

    Payment and release of all debt, public and private, now at 16 trillion dollars
    New Homestead Act
    Establish sustainable food production system
    Large scale platform for alternative and sustainable fuel system deployment.
    And others, this is the time for all good ideas to blossom. Clifton Middleton

    Very soon we get to see and hear our so called policy makers and some unseen the person behind the curtain decide the fate of the human race and so far are we in the arms of the angels, probably not not even close. What to do well this is the time for all good ideas to blossom. Two million to start Capital and only a start then off to New York calm at peace one voice and how to get it started good question maybe knowledge, the truth, imagination, focus, hard work and the hard one working together and when to get started yesterday would have been good as we are already late.

  2. Don Hawkins said on January 3rd, 2010 at 12:50pm #

    One more time.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=cold-winter-doesn't-mean-global-warm-2009-02-12

    It’s already to late for the Arctic that’s the part we see with our own eye’s one of them and easy this will not be. I think it was Rush Limbaugh that just said what is wrong with a warmer World? Here’s a nice cup of coffee Rush and go sit in the corner someone will come and talk with you.

  3. Charlie said on January 3rd, 2010 at 2:17pm #

    Almost 40 years ago (longer than I like to think about), I lived in a commune, which is slightly similar to the garden village envisioned here. We were all college students and filled with the passion, intensity, and energy of youth.

    We had an old farmhouse and about 6 acres on which we raised crops, and we divided up the labor based on skills, personal preference, communal needs, and schedules. I, for instance, was one of a few people who was good at canning vegetables and cooking, so I “put up” (as we say here in the South) hundreds of pints and quarts of canned vegetables that easily lasted us through the winters.

    As I read the article, I also thought about the extraordinary and beautifully meaningful values that children would learn in a garden village. I was a single parent with a son while I lived in the commune, and I was surrounded by eager and trustworthy babysitters when they were needed. And each of them taught my son something useful and special. I swear, by the time he was 8, he could have survived on his own in almost any circumstances. Most importantly, he learned that cooperation works and communities that work together don’t merely survive; they flourish.

    We were not survivalists by any means. If anything, we were preservationists cherishing each other and the land–and making it something worth giving to the next generation.

    Of course there were problems. People can be selfish, moody, lazy, argumentative, or just plain mean. But another advantage of cooperative living is having a group of people facing the uncooperative member rather than having a one-on-one problem with someone.

    I now live in Tennessee, home of “The Farm,” one of the last, if not the last, 60’s-style communes in the US. It’s still active and vibrant. I suspect that they would have some good ideas on how to make a garden village thrive: see http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/

  4. lichen said on January 3rd, 2010 at 5:47pm #

    Well, I’m in; those are good proposals, and I support them.

  5. Don Hawkins said on January 3rd, 2010 at 7:01pm #

    James Hansen: I think it’s a good situation. Now we can step back and look at what is really needed.

    The proposals discussed in Copenhagen were like the indulgences of the Middle Ages. The sinners are the developed countries, which are responsible for most of the excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They want to continue business as usual, by buying off the developing countries.

    http://www.countercurrents.org/ostrander231209.htm

  6. Don Hawkins said on January 4th, 2010 at 11:41am #

    FOOLISH HUMAN’S

    BEIJING: Freak snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials.

    But, unlike the unseasonal snow falls that hit Beijing at the start of winter, the dump this week appears to have no link to the Government’s relentless efforts to change the micro climate.

    There are about 2000 weather modification offices in China, according to the media, which are responsible for bombing the skies with silver iodide to induce precipitation.

    More than 2 million Beijing and Tianjin students were given the day off school yesterday because traffic was in chaos. On Sunday the capital received its biggest snow dump since 1951, immediately followed by the harshest Siberian winds in decades.

    Tomorrow morning the mercury is forecast to plunge to minus 16, a 40-year low, after a day-time maximum of minus 8.

    The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Guo Hu, linked the blizzard-like conditions this week to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.

    ”In the context of global warming, extreme atmospheric flows are causing extreme climate incidents to appear more frequently, such as the summer’s rain storms and last year’s icestorm disaster in southern China,” Mr Guo told Beijing News.

    Beijing winters are normally cold but arid, with most years recording only a light dusting of snow. On Sunday most of Beijing recorded between 10 and 20 centimetres of snow.

    The city’s north received 33 centimetres.

    No officials have claimed credit for inducing or increasing the snow dump, in contrast to November 1 when Beijing recorded its earliest winter snowfall in 22 years. The Beijing Weather Modification Office later admitting it had fired 186 rockets into the air to break the drought…. smh Australia

  7. Don Hawkins said on January 4th, 2010 at 12:21pm #

    James Hansen: I think it’s a good situation. Now we can step back and look at what is really needed.

    The proposals discussed in Copenhagen were like the indulgences of the Middle Ages. The sinners are the developed countries, which are responsible for most of the excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They want to continue business as usual, by buying off the developing countries.

    If developing countries can get a hundred billion dollars a year, that’s enormously attractive. But both parties are thumbing their noses at young people and future generations.

    The hundred billion dollars a year—the money that Secretary of State Clinton claimed the United States would raise to give to developing countries—is vapor money. There’s no mechanism for such financing to actually occur, and no expectation that it will.

    The leaders can’t just make up these greenwash statements and claim that they’re dealing with the problem. They’re doing the same thing they did with Kyoto. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions had been increasing one and a half percent per year. After Kyoto, the rate accelerated to three percent per year.

    Some countries did set goals to reduce their emissions under Kyoto, but when you look at the details, you see that those goals weren’t realized. For example, Japan had a very strong target under Kyoto, but its emissions actually increased substantially, and it bought off the difference using offsets—investing in China and in rainforests. A few countries in Europe reduced their emissions. But that didn’t reduce global emissions, because the industry and the emissions just moved overseas. Products were then sent back to European countries on airplanes, which do not have any tax on their fuel.

    Madeline: What kinds of solutions should political leaders be discussing?

    Jim: You have to recognize that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they’re going to be used. To change that situation, you have to place a gradually rising price on carbon emissions.

    We have to have a very simple system—put a fee on fossil fuels at their origin at the mine or the port of entry. No exceptions.

    If the carbon price rises to $115 per ton of carbon dioxide, considering the amount of oil, gas, and coal used last year in the United States, that would generate $670 billion dollars. That’s between $7,500 and $9,000 dollars per family.

    That money needs to be given 100 percent to the public so that they have the resources to adjust their lifestyles—such as to buy more efficient vehicles or insulate their homes. As the carbon price rises, it’s going to become less and less sensible, for instance, to import food from halfway around the world. The economics would favor a nearby farm, as opposed to agriculture at a great distance.

    You cannot have these boondoggles in which we invest billions and billions of dollars in so-called clean coal and give money to polluters. Yes Magazine

    Here in the greatest nation on Earth very soon we get to see and hear our policy makers and the unseen the person behind the curtain.

    Let us sing;

    “In The Arms Of The Angles,” The economics would favor a nearby farm, as opposed to agriculture at a great distance.

  8. Don Hawkins said on January 5th, 2010 at 3:54am #

    Sent this to media this morning.

    Morning,

    A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

    The first half of the year in the States should give us a look into that kind of optical delusion of consciousness. “In The Arms Of The Angles” and let us remember for the last 7k years much as been said and done. Today we have smart phones wow not that hard to make now the Satellites are somewhat hard to build. I guess we get to hear Mitch, James, Ann, Dick, Steve and many more and would you say the many the next year have obtained liberation from the self. Probably not then of course there are some who have done this sort of in the known system and do we hear from them yes and are attacked by the ones who have not. It sure looks like by say 2012 boring this will not be. Better to start now on the task of freeing ourselves from that prison of the mind.

    Don/citizen of the Universe

  9. Don Hawkins said on January 5th, 2010 at 4:05pm #

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6976240.ece

    Let’s see how the summer goes in the Northern Hemisphere.

  10. Don Hawkins said on January 7th, 2010 at 5:50pm #

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers

    Let’s see how the summer goes in the Northern Hemisphere

  11. Gary Goodman said on January 10th, 2010 at 6:47pm #

    Charlie — the link doesn’t work — error page not found. What is the name of the article so I can search for it?

    Thanks