Reinventions: Bolder Approaches to the Big Issues

Reinventions

Bolder approaches to job creation, health care, education, religion, our election system, our economic system, psychotherapy, the gender wars, climate change, the gene pool, the meaning of life, and 30 other pillars of society.

a book proposal

by Marty Nemko

Many Americans believe the U.S. is in permanent decline. A just-released New York Times/CBS News poll finds that 39 percent of respondents believe “the current economic downturn is part of a long-term permanent decline.” That on the top of a June, 2011 CNN poll that found that 48 percent of Americans believe another Great Depression is very or somewhat likely.

And Americans aren't confident that the proposed solutions will help much. A just-released Time poll finds that 62 percent of Americans think the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction. Perhaps that's not surprising in light of the failure of the most recent round of remedies: Despite massive corporate bailouts, government stimulus spending, and two rounds of quantitative easing (QE1 and QE2) the un- and underemployment rate is higher than before. And education, the supposed magic pill, has turned out to be less than magical. For decades now, the U.S. has ranked #1 or 2 in per-capita education spending yet continues to lag in the most recent international comparison, tied for 23rd with Poland, while Shanghai, China, which entered the comparisons this year for the first time and spends far less than the U.S. per capita on education, ranked #1.

Such solutions are inadequate in part, ironically, because of our democratic process. Policies are adopted only after a diverse array of experts, the public, legislators, and political leaders have all embraced it. While that ensures broad buy-in, it tends to create tepid recommendations--that on which nearly everyone can agree, often a lowest common denominator.

There is need for bolder solutions. Unfettered by having to obtain consensus, in the proposed Work, I propose a bolder solution for each of 40 keys to the thriving society. Perhaps like many authors, my goal is no less than to trigger a national conversation that examines--forgive the cliche--out-of-the-box approaches to stemming what appears to be America's permanent decline, especially versus China and India.

I envision a slim volume: Each of the 40 reinventions will be presented in just enough detail to explain the concept, its benefits, and to counter likely objections.

Content

These blog posts provide a sense of my writing style and the content I'll present in the book:

A Blueprint for Permanently Creating U.S. Jobs: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/04/blueprint-for-permanently-solving-us.html

Elections Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/reinvented-election-system.html.

The College Report Card: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/11/college-report-card-key-to-higher-ed.html

Religion Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2008/08/spiritual-atheism.html

Do What You Love and Starve? http://www.martynemko.com/articles/do-what-you-love-and-starve_id1380

Education Reinvented: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/blueprint-for-reinventing-education_id1595

Higher Education Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/06/reinventions-undergraduate-education.html

Simplism: A new alternative to capitalism and socialism: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/06/simplism-new-alternative-to-capitalism.html

Are We So Sure Democracy is the Best Policy? http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/are-we-so-sure-democracy-is-best-way.html

Health care: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/11/nemkocare-how-id-do-health-care-reform.html

New Israel: A solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-israel-solution-to-palestinian.html

The Un-MBA: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/04/while-i-am-critical-of-many-aspects-of.html

Family is Overrated: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2008/09/family-is-overrated.html

Taxation Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-id-reinvent-taxation.html

My Plan for Closing the Achievement Gap: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-plan-to-close-achievement-gap.html

The One-Week Job Search: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/one-week-job-search_id1374

A Better Way to Gain Willpower: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2009/02/top-10-ways-to-gain-willpower.html

General Education Reinvented: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/generaledorg-reinvented-online-general-education-program_id1597

Career Counseling Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/07/career-counseling-reinvented.html

Climate Change: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=nemko+%22Climate+change%22

In Defense of Men: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/06/beginning-of-men.html

The Meaning of Life Reinvented: http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2011/05/toward-life-well-led-meter.html

My Top Ten Ways to Improve the World:

http://martynemko.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-top-ten-ways-to-improve-world.html

Other Reinventions to be included in the book:

Parenting

Housing

A proposal for safer, less expensive nuclear energy.

The case for and plan for transforming our product-based to a service-based economy.

A better alternative to mass transit: the shared-ownership auto-piloted hydrogen/solar-powered sky car.

Next-generation desalinization as the solution to our water problems.

Social networking reinvented--toward building real connection.

Genetically enhancing human potential...ethically.

Ending the gender wars ...to both sexes' advantage

Psychotherapy reinvented

5 to 10 more, to be determined.

Author credentials

Marty Nemko holds a Ph.D. specializing in the evaluation of innovative programs from the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently taught in Berkeley's graduate school. He has been a consultant to Consumer Reports, 15 college presidents, and dozens of top for- and nonprofit executives. His previous five books have sold 250,000 copies.

Author platform

He's in his 24th year as host of a weekly hour-long show on KALW-FM (NPR-San Francisco.) He has been a repeat guest on such major shows as Talk of the Nation and The Today Show. He's written for and been quoted in publications ranging from Time to the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times. His blog and site attract a half million visitors a year. Toastmasters International names one non-member its Northern California Speaker of the Year. Marty Nemko was a recent winner.

Marketing plan

With Nemko's ability as a speaker (see above) a media tour and live speaking tour, for example, on college campuses would seem to be cost-effective. The tour might be made additionally effective by the discussions of the Reinventions be debates with local public intellectuals, for example, the president of the colleges at which I'd be speaking.

Nemko will make a YouTube video of each Reinvention, and roll them out (in video and text versions) one per week on appropriate places on the Internet, noting that it is an excerpt from the book, Reinventions. For example, the proposal for reinventing undergraduate education will be posted as a letter to the editor on leading websites for higher educators and for students. Of course, each Reinvention video and its transcript will be submitted to major media outlets: with particular follow-up with producers of shows on which Nemko has previously appeared: Talk of the Nation, The Today Show, 20-20, CNN, etc. Each video will also be sent to major print, TV, and online outlets. Plus, each Reinvention will be posted on Nemko's Facebook, Twitter, Quora, blog, and website, which attracts a half million visitors a year, as well presented one per week on his National Public Radio-San Francisco show.

Timed to occur during the weeks preceding the 2012 presidential election, Nemko will disseminate as above, a special video; My Nine Worries and Their Solutions: The Stump Speech I'd Give if I Were Running for President: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/my-nine-worries-stump-speech-id-give-if-i-were-running-for-president_id1603

He will conduct press conferences on a few of the most newsworthy reinventions:

A bolder plan to create jobs

A bolder plan for reinventing health care

A bolder plan for reinventing education.

A series of contests would be held in which the public is challenged to come up with a better reinvention of, for example, education. Prizes could simply be books from the publisher's catalog. Worst case, the contests would be publicized only on Nemko's radio show, blog, etc, but an attempt would be made to get a major media outlet (e.g., Economist.com, USNews.com, where Nemko is Contributing Editor, etc, to co-sponsor the contests and host them on their site.

What the Mainstream Media Doesn't Tell You About Israel

I think it's fair to say my blog posts have never been emotional but having just watched this six-minute video about Israel, I feel the need to write this emotional post.

No doubt, Israel has overreacted at times. Mightn't you if your neighbor's government, Hamas's charter called for your annihilation and was firing bombs near your home? How'd you feel if you were an Israeli and you knew that the Palestinian people selected Hamas as its government and has its military armed by Iran, a soon-to-be-nuclear power led by a Holocaust denier who is in solidarity with Hamas' pledge to destroy Israel?

And now Egypt will likely be run by a government far less accepting of Israel than Hosni Mubarek is. The Muslim Brotherhood, with ties to Al Qaeda, is among the leading contenders. And the U.S. president is the least Israel-friendly in history. To top it all, the mainstream media is growing ever more leftist, which means it advocates for economic have-nots, without regard to their merit. As is demonstrated in the video, Israel is not yet an economic have-not and thus will always get worse media coverage than the poor Palestinians.

As you decide how much to support Israel vs. the Palestinians vs. the countries surrounding Israel, and as you decide whether the mainstream media uses a double-standard to judge Israel compared with the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern countries, I invite you to at least consider the facts in this video. At minimum, you'll find the music uplifting.

Although rationally, I can't take pride in others' accomplishments, emotionally, I find myself proud that a people whose genetic roots I share has done so much good for the world, including for Muslim people whose leaders want to exterminate the Israeli people, just as the Nazis wanted to.

P.S. This second video highlights many more of Israel's amazing contributions. I believe that watching that eight-minute video will make even the most anti-Israeli person more pro-Israel. I am in awe at what Israelis have done for the world.

New Israel: A solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

For thousands of years, Jews and Arabs have been unable to live peacefully side by side. How naive for the United Nations to have placed Israel so it is surrounded by the massively larger Arab world. (Israel is the tiny yellow sliver in the map's center.)

The Israelis, from Day One, aspired to be a modern, largely secular democracy, while much of the surrounding Arab/Muslim world lives much like it did the Dark Ages, for example, with extreme fundamentalism required on penalty of death, with women in burkas, where children are taught they will get to have sex with 41 virgins if they strap dynamite to themselves and blow up a Jewish cafe and all the people in it.

Can we be optimistic that these two peoples will live side-by-side in enduring peace? In a world in which the surrounding countries, far larger, receive worldwide acceptance of being completely Muslim states but Israel is told it cannot, with its tiny sliver of desert, have a Jewish state, an island of safety from the millennia of attempts at the destruction of the Jewish people: from Ancient Rome through the Inquisition, the pogroms, the Holocaust, and, from the moment the United Nations gave Israel that sliver of desert, continued bombardment from Arab and other Muslim entities?

And the trend is accelerating. The Palestinian people made their intentions toward Israel loud and clear when it elected Hamas to be its government, a terrorist group whose very charter calls for the destruction of Israel. And the president of nuclear Iran calls for Israel's obliteration.

I believe the best solution to the Palestinian/Israeli crisis is for another country with ample unused land such as the U.S., Canada, or Australia to offer an Israel-sized sliver of low-value land as the New Israel.

A reasonable choice would be a piece of the low-cost forest land 50 to 100 miles north of New York City, the city with the largest concentration of Jews, and a country in which antisemitism is relatively low. Countries set aside much larger swaths merely to protect trees or wildlife, so it is reasonable to assume that at least one country would offer a sliver to protect humans. That is especially likely because the donor country would become an instant worldwide hero for solving the age-old Arab-Israeli conflict, thereby reducing the global threat of Islamic terrorism. Plus, New Israel would become that country’s deeply indebted ally. That is significant because Israel, for example, is an acknowledged world leader in how to defend against terrorism, something, alas, of ever increasing importance.

Of course, it’s possible that no country would give that sliver to the Israelis. After all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused even to accept a ship of Holocaust victims during World War II. But I believe the chances of a country donating that sliver are far greater than the chances of the Palestinians and Israelis peacefully living side-by-side.

All Israeli citizens would be given the option to move to New Israel. Low-income people could apply for help with moving expenses. The World Bank, G-8, or other consortium would fund that. Of course, some Israelis would elect to remain in Israel, but over time, many would emigrate to New Israel or other countries. That would peaceably transition the current Israel/Palestine into a Palestinian-run state with too few Jews to engender significant conflict.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, I, better than many, understand that many Israelis would find it difficult to trade their historical homeland for a new one, but to save lives and ensure ongoing peace, I believe it is a compromise worth making.

I attended a Passover Seder last night. During the discussion, consensus was that further dialogue is the best path to peace. We've had dialogue for 60 years, indeed 3,000 years--the result has been an increase in enmity. And time is the Israelis' enemy. The Palestinian birthrate is much greater than the Israelis' and while Israeli schoolchildren are being educated in the importance of peace, Palestinian children are educated in the wisdom of becoming suicide bombers.

I'd much sooner bet on New Israel as a path to peace than trying to resolve a 3,000-year-long enmity.

Top Three Reasons to Oppose Israel... and Why They're Misguided

My friend Jeffrie Givens is tempted to support the Palestinians over the Israelis. I asked her why. Here are the reasons she gave and my responses.

Reason 1 for opposing Israel: Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself but its response to Hamas has been disproportionate."

Why that's misguided. You probably have come to believe the Israeli response to Hamas was disproportionate because you saw pictures of destroyed buildings and injured civilians in Gaza. Did you know that as an olive branch to the Palestinians, every single Jew left Gaza in 2005 and as a thank-you present, the Palestinians elected Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction and has backed up that goal by firing 10,000 ever stronger, ever longer-range rockets at Israeli civilians? Children can't sleep at night and frequently hear Red Alerts, which mean they have 15 seconds to run into a bomb shelter.

So Israel had to try to dismantle the Hamas terrorists' bombing installations, which Hamas embedded in homes, schools, markets, and mosques--using civilians as human shields SO they could obtain the very footage that convinces you of the the Israelis' "disproportionality." Hamas even has a name for its ploy: The CNN Strategy.

Unlike Hamas, which deliberately bombs civilians, Israel made real efforts to warn civilians to evacuate military targets: It sent tens of thousands of text messages, phone calls, and leaflets to those civilians that Hamas wanted to use as human shields. Despite those efforts, some of those innocent civilians were hit. And most Israelis grieve for them--Ask Israeli soldiers how they feel about innocent Palestinians who were injured or killed. Now ask Hamas soldiers how they feel about innocent Israelis who were killed. You'll likely see a stark contrast.

And now, Iran is putting finishing touches on a nuclear bomb and it wants to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth."

So, what would YOU have done if you were prime minister of Israel? Would you have sat idly by?

You may also have come to believe that Israel's response to Hamas has been disproportionate because more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed. What's remarkable is how few Palestinians were killed. Hamas put their military in civilian areas in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth (1.3 million people in an area half the size of Maui.) The fact the only 1200 people (fewer than 1/3 civilians) were killed is a tribute to the efforts described above to evacuate Palestinian civilians from the military target areas.

Reason 2 for opposing Israel: Israel's blockade of Gaza deprives innocent civilians of needed supplies.

Why that's misguided. First, the checkpoints are open 24 hours a day to allow needed supplies to enter Gaza and for people to leave and enter. Yes, the Palestinians would like more goods to be brought into Gaza but Israel is reducing the flow to pressure its elected government, Hamas, to release Gilad Shalit, who it abducted. And why are there checkpoints at all? Because Hamas continues to try to smuggle missile components into Gaza: the staging area for Hamas's rocket launchings into Israel. Israel has made clear that as soon as Hamas agrees to stop the bombing and recognize Israel's right to exist, the checkpoints will immediately be dismantled.

If you were the prime minister of Israel, would you remove the checkpoints before Hamas agreed to stop firing missiles at your civilians? Remember, Hamas--by charter and its leaders' statements-- is committed to destroying your country.

Reason 3 for opposing Israel: Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Why that's misguided. Israel was accused of firing rockets at a United Nations school in Gaza...until a UN investigation found that wasn't true--Israel had fired against Hamas terrorists who had cynically placed themselves near the school.

Now Israel is again accused of a war crime, this time for using the dangerous white phosphorus to illuminate a civilian area in which Hamas terrorists were embedded. As mentioned earlier, like all Israel military actions, the white phosphorus was used in a civilian area only because Hamas embedded its military there so it could use civilians as human shields--that is a war crime. If you were the Prime Minister of Israel, how would you feel if you were accused of a war crime?

Reasons TO support Israel

Iran's getting the nuclear bomb is a threat not just to Israel but to all of us. Why should we worry more about Iran having The Bomb than about other countries with nuclear capabilities? Iran is different from all the other nuclear powers in that it is the only country whose leader called for wiping another country off the face of the earth. That could trigger a war of unimaginable consequences for us all.

Of course, Israel is not perfect--just as individual U.S. soldiers have made terrible mistakes, no doubt so have some Israeli soldiers. But perfect is the enemy of the good. I believe that all peace-loving people must support Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country in which women are treated as equals, in which Arabs sit alongside Jews in Israel's parliament, the country with the highest per-capita literacy rate and highest rate of biomedical patents in the world.

I worry that President Obama's willingness to negotiate more directly with Hamas will send a message to Hamas and to other radical terrorist groups such as Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda that terrorism pays. But in balance, I believe the Obama administration is wise in its willingness to negotiate with a wider range of Middle East players. Also, I am pleased by Obama's plan to offer a more nuanced blend of carrots, sticks, and negotiation to deter Iran's nuclear threat. I am additionally optimistic about peace in the Middle East because of the caliber of people being brought to bear: George Mitchell, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrook, Barack Obama himself and the increasingly moderate Benjamin Netanyahu. Betting on the triumph of hope over experience, I am cautiously optimistic that we will, sooner rather than later, see that most elusive of goals: a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Hamas, not Israel, is the War Criminal

My op-ed on this topic is the lead editorial on U.S. News & World Report's website.