Jersey Karlos’s PLATFORM de TIERRA
Standing with the Earth and its living ecosystems has made forming political positions very clear to me. Having in mind the interests of life on Earth, I intend for this platform page itself to be a living document that is subject to evolution as new ideas make themselves known to me, and better images emerge.
The following are the roots I hope to grow during this campaign, and as such these roots will inevitably overlap, balance one another, and share resources as healthy root-systems will in a common soil:
Roots for the Future short form
→ “Robin Hood of Power“ – Karlos will reduce power hierarchies and give decision making power to the local and grassroot levels. He seeks autonomy for local entities.
“Think Earthly, Act Locally.”
→ Youth Empowerment – Societal norms profoundly diminish the voices of our youth to the great loss of us all. Through extending franchise to all teenagers (ages 13+) Karlos hopes to start reversing that trend and shed light on the natural wisdom of youth.
“We must align with the rest of life and look up to [not down on] our own children.”
→ Food not Lawns – Locally grown food and food independence for New Jersey will prove to be very important as top soil continues to disappear around the world and food demand is 
likely to surge. Strong encouragement goes to all who live in New Jersey to buy from our farms when possible, and begin down the path of gardening in all available spaces (back AND front yards, unused medians).
“You teach a man how to fish, he eats forever; you give a man fish,
you choose when he starves”
→ No Suits – Karlos will not be wearing business suits during his campaign and tenure as governor, believing them to be symbolic contributors to the unjust division of power.
“Wear their suits and you make yourself a mannequin.”
→ Intentional Communities – Community vibrancy is dwindling as for-profit corporations take over roles of day care, elderly care, and consumerism has us spending more time with our devices and less time with each other.
“Community is dying and there’s no one around to talk about it to.”
→ Vigilance not Governance – Autonomous groups and even single individuals can voluntarily create organizations to meet a need without the time-consuming and often defeating middle step of persuading and lobbying the representative government to create the it for them.
“Anything that needs to be backed by force other than itself is intrinsically weak… laws are just such an example.”
→ Transparency (No Backrooms) – There will be complete transparency and public access to everything being done in governance.
“Backroom politics will always be a tendency when there are backrooms.”
→ Depopulate the Garden State – Soil erosion, supply-chain dependencies, and climatological unbalancing are three of more vulnerabilities to an over-urbanized state such as NJ. We can all be proactive and start considering if moving away from New Jersey—as many have over the past several years—is a good long term choice. I would never use my power as governor to force people out, this is like my other policies voluntary.
“Running for NJ and running from NJ; a movement for NJ can include a movement away from NJ.”
→ Raw Milk – Unpasteurized and unhomogenized milk is the milk that infant mammals have thrived on for most of the tens of millions of years that mammals have been successfully reproducing and flourishing on this planet. Humans in New Jersey should have access to such milk in this unprocessed form.
“Look not in New Jersey for milk fresh from a Jersey cow, you must head to New York or Pennsylvania.”
→ Education – Each NJ town (including the students themselves) will be freed from 
regulations (standards) and can devise their own curriculum based on the concerns and needs of their inhabitants and teachers using democratic decision making paradigms (such as sociocracy).
→ Permaculture – True sustainability and regeneration are needed in the face of the planet’s huge losses of biomass and biodiversity. Karlos will do his best to rally organizations to move quickly in the permaculture direction. In the future humans will either find themselves learning about and embracing permaculture, or learning about extinction.
“Permaculture the world over before the world’s over.”
→ (Addition, Only Additional Government) → Boricua and Palestinian Commissions – To increase awareness and connections to these two nations of people that are directly affected by American policies and are forced below the radar.
Roots for the Future elaborated form
Localism – “Robin Hood of Power” Karlos will take and block power from the power wealthy—the federal government, the NJ state government, and large multi-state, multi-national corporations—and redistribute that power to the power starved—county/municipal governments, community councils, workers’ councils, and individuals. Human scale organizations such as community councils are best fit and best held accountable by the people that are directly affected by their actions (and in-actions). The farther away from a locality that governmental decisions are allowed to be shaped, the more problems and problematic personalities will emerge to interfere and siphon away energy from the locality. This greatly unbalanced political body of which we are a part needs release at these central state “acupoints” so that energy can flow freely again. Expect to see a lot more referendums, plebiscites, and other actions that strengthen community power.
Youth Empowerment – “Children are the cure, to any and all ailments that might plague life. What ailments have children not endured? Children right before us (¿and after us?) are breathing, running, surpassing. They are life’s commitment to continue—made tangible. Though it may seem it at times, they are not in our way; rather, our way is wrong! They are the way, the only way. They are not a prison, they are the corrections.”
“So what is my religion? The next generation! Focusing on seven days of primordial creation is a weak prospect; I want seven generations, on in to the immortal! Children are my afterlife—please join me and give them your life, so that they might be your afterlife as well!” – taken from Ode To The Young.
Locally Grown – The more degrees of separation a person is from their food, the further away from the top of the food chain the person is dangled precariously. Such is the state for the majority of us in New Jersey, where the food we ultimately consume has passed through many other hands and many other lands, itself consuming tremendous amounts of energy to get to our mouths. The more “middle men” there are between New Jerseyans and our food, the more vulnerable we will remain when there are food shortages, supply chain mismanagement, and/or disasters that affect the energy and transportation grid. It is also true that the real value and cost of these resources used to transport the food, as well as the infrastructure, is distorted by shortsighted corporate and government pricing schemes that lack any ethics that includes a view of the future; such is the generally uncritical and atemporal view of capitalism that keeps us blind to our societal suicide.
No Suits – Symbolically in our culture, suits represent for the wearer a separation or “elevation” of power to a new professional class of politicians or corporate actors that Karlos finds unwholesome and ripe for corruption. There should not be a separation of people in to different power classes, and to honor this ideal Karlos will never be wearing a suit when on the job. Suits are inappropriate as well as a contrivance and continuance of western imperialism and have no place in a democracy worth its name. The former president of Uruguay is worth knowing about in this regard—José Mujica.
Intentional Communities – Karlos believes that as humans, either we consciously create community or we slip towards deep alienation. Community and family have been drying up steadily as humans spend more time alone with mediating devices (phones, computers, even books) for educational, entertainment, and employment purposes. Intentional communities are models that offer a bridge to help humans return to the tight bonds that we thrived on in previous ages; the forms of intentional communities come in are as varied as kibbutzim and tribes to ecovillages, cohousing complexes, and communes. As of now, a variety of laws restrict or hinder the establishment of intentional communities which is a serious deterrent; Karlos will be a civil disobeyer and when possible lift these laws or block their enforcement.
Vigilance Not Governance – What is it that transpired in recent, ancient, or pre-history that had humans growing accustomed to governing and being governed by others? There are countless 
theories on this matter (personally I would avoid the Hobbesian ones) that try to discover when and how government arose, and also what the human animal actually is and what its capacities are for self-management or management under other-selves. Karlos generally agrees with the notions that humans have been coerced by force to give up their ways of self and tribal governance, increasingly so as any traditions of self-governance have atrophied due to lack of use. Whereas governance in the past might have been a hybrid of government and self-management with government governing certain realms and the people controlling themselves in others, now in sharp contrast it seems that where government doesn’t govern, the people are governed by corporations. This all being said, Karlos believes that primarily the way for humans to get control back over their own destinies is not to appeal to the government to go away, but to start organizing with others at a local level to provide for one another all the services that government (and corporations) have co-opted to provide, and provide these for themselves immediately. This is where the ideology of “voluntary socialism” or libertarian socialism—to which Karlos subscribes—sees people voluntarily coming together to solve larger issues without a hierarchy or even semi-permanent authority of some people over others. The vigilance that has atrophied in most of us due to government providing so many executive functions will reemerge in such a libertarian socialist society where everyone plays an important and respected role in the successful continuance of that society; the norm of thoughtless inaction is replaced by thoughtful action.
Transparency – If government was truly for the people and truly representative of the people, there would be absolutely no need for transparency except possibly in matters regarding inter-state warfare where surprise was important (but even this has dubious justifications which I will not delve in to here). During my tenure as governor, I would subject all my doings, writings, and conversations to public viewing, whether during a scheduled meeting or conference, or at a private late night party, including sexual encounters (I have grown quite radical in my defiance of our deadly/restrictive cultural norms, you might say). If we all ease up on how we share our public space, there will be less and less room in which for criminals who require secrecy to enact their truly harmful deeds. Let us be proud and openly human, conquer our inhibitions, and give up a great deal of our private space; at least let’s have government have no private space in which to hide, and that is something I intend to start and push for on a wider level in our governments. There is also a supplementary reason why transparency in government could prove so important in our time. The governed have become so accustomed to a great deal of their needs being met by government, that the full transparency of that government would prove to be instructive and educational—a case study, if you will—in how to and how not to govern in the future when government no longer survives us.
Depopulate New Jersey – Though it is sure to create a lot of dissonance, Karlos believes it is important to not sugarcoat a troubling reality for all who support the continuance and thriving of all life in New Jersey. Since the industrial revolution, as human population has rapidly increased in our state, overall biomass has been decreasing, meaning that in technical terms humans here have made themselves a disease to these ecosystems. Between the acreage covered with concrete and asphalt, the inefficient input-dependent conventional agriculture utilized here and elsewhere to support us, and the comparative dead space of our mechanically and chemically beaten down lawns, New Jerseyans are a plague to biological life that used to and could still be inhabiting this coastal land of the North American continent. We are not only pitted against the rest of nature as our numbers have risen and continue to rise, but we are also pitted against one another. Limited parking, limited storage space, limited road access causing traffic—these and other phenomenon are telling us that the New York metropolis is not for every body. Of course, humans are currently displaying poor stewardship in many other lands, but we should strive to be and display good stewardship all the more so. A prime but overlooked part of that stewardship is realizing when we have reached over-saturation as a single species, and here this is evidenced by the fact that the land of New Jersey can’t support the population of New Jersey. If we remain in these numbers, consuming at these numbers, we destine other lands to be producing wealth for our use rather than our own. We can accept this reality and can await crises that would force the state to depopulate, or we can see the eventualities of our situation and proactively explore leaving. Most of our ancestors at some point chose to leave other lands and come here to find a better life; we honor these ancestors best not by staying tied to a particular piece of land they chose, but continuing the legacy of bravely pioneering to new lands and leaving a land we were born in for the sake of something larger than ourselves. We fortunately are surrounded by states we can move to that are more monetarily affordable and culturally similar enough that the challenges would be less than those encountered by our ancestors. There is no need as of yet to leave all at once, but purposeful vacationing and weekend trips to prospective new locations can be taken by those of us that have a small amount of discretionary time and money. Just sayin, it’s better to leave as migrants now rather than refugees later. I will continue to bring this issue up during the campaign.
Raw Milk – The unavailability of Raw Milk in New Jersey epitomizes the misguided nature of our regulations and the corruption that is so frequent with the unsavory bonds between industry and the government. Raw Milk is repressed, probably for a variety of reasons, yet it is a tangible solution to so many of the issues faced in this state, as similarly in many other states. Raw milk from animals on a natural diet (grass-fed and finished pasture lands for cows) is known to be beneficial to autistic children, many with auto-immune diseases, helpful in the fight against some cancers, and digestible by many who otherwise have lactose and other pasteurized-milk sensitivities. Karlos is undertaking a 3 week Raw Milk Campaign Fast.
Education – Under the completely decent ideal of providing every child with equal opportunities in education has come the creativity-destroying standardized education system we have today in this state and across the United States. I think better than any general overview I can offer, Ken Robinson says where we are at and where we should go the best:
Permaculture – I find each time I am either talking to someone about permaculture as a general idea, or deciding to write something about it, I have something different to say about it. When let loose, I see permaculture as a concept going everywhere possible, in to every subfield and offering something, whether a critique or a refinement. It is currently regarded most widely as a concept within land management and food production, where it offers many ideas on how to do both of these (conserve water and soil, reduce irrigation; restore forests, create food forests; invite back eco-systems, support livestock that heals the land). Permaculture’s methods are known to restore land tarnished by industrial agriculture or resource extraction in an entirely inexpensive and truly natural way. Permaculture has done these things and because there is a lot of land in New Jersey in need of restoration, permaculturists could and should be enabled and respected enough to survey and give recommendations on how communities can best restore and recover the land. For me personally, and because I often jump in to abstractions due to philosophy’s engravings on my neural pathways, I like to think of permaculture as difference; this is also how I think of life on its evolutionary path, as increasing in difference. Therefore I think of how permaculture methods are really another term for how an evolving life has effectively inhabited this planet for millions of years, without wasted space and energy. This is a good thing to align with, especially considering how we are in a time of great loss of life on Earth.
Leftovers Unfinished And Without A Space
Small scale farming – Agricultural tax policy will start
Of course, the hiding is often the private needs of the power hungry to secretly accrue more power and aggrandize themselves and hide the nefarious activities of their business friends.
These autonomously created agencies will need to be cleared or contested at their town level, and are not up to any state authorities to interfere with.
Raw Milk – Raw milk is a particular issue that is symbolic of a far larger issue of unbalanced and malconceived regulations.
Depopulating the State – New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the union and as such is highly dependent on exports from outside to maintain the consumption demands of the population. It is true that reducing consumption would help, but so too would be the proactive step of leaving before crisis inevitably comes. The suburban and urban populations are particularly vulnerable to any future supply chain shortages, and to wait for inevitable problems would be foolish. Karlos himself has actively looked in to living elsewhere and encourages others to start contemplating whether or not leaving NJ could be a very good long term decision. All of human history is full of stories of migration, there is no reason to be tied down to a state that is likely to become more and more taxed (in several ways) as time moves forward.
Ageism Unearthed – Karlos will shine a light on the normalized injustices against the youth in our society. Cultural norms that are codified in unjust laws blindly rob the youth of any say in what happens to their planet even though they have the most time left to live on this world. The natural wisdom of life that is the birth of new young, the embodiment of hope for a future other than one of extinction, is suppressed and muffled by the olders among us who have us turning a blind eye to our only real future.
Ending Ageism – By many different cultural phenomena and over many many centuries, humans have allowed wealth and decision making power to be increasingly concentrated in the older aged
needs to be recognized and listened to. The youth are the embodiment of the future, yet generally they are under-nurtured and malnourished in both body and
Yet wisdom has fled most humans generally, evidenced by our blind march towards mass extinction.
such a situation is justified in normalized cultural thinking that is quite destructive to our species’ future viability.
People also have the power to rally together and decide to stop accepting the wealth
and workers councils can be held accountable by the citizens
Primarily this is not the sharing of money, as money’s very existence is in contradiction to sharing, but a sharing of community material resources in a
library system
Libertarian Socialism, zapatista affinity party
With one arm a shield against the imposing power of the federal government, and the other a distributing to municipalities. The mayors and county leaders have proven to be politicians not leaders as should be suspected. Quick to bandwagon on political struggles that are not their own
Subverses 