UPDATED NOTE (6/13/10) FOR BERKELEY REP ET AL.: DO NOT BOTHER READING THIS. RATHER, CLICK ON http://oxtogrind.org/archive/556 to review the list of high profile figures worldwide who have given their imprimaturs for TOSCA.

PLEASE DON’T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING ON THIS ARCHIVED SITE. EVERYTHING HERE IS QUITE DATED EXCEPT FOR THE ARTICLES THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS DIRECTLY AS OF MARCH, 2010. Special note for those who attended the meeting at St. Andrew’s Church on Thursday, May 13: Contact me at 831-688-8038 at any hour, ASAP. I can then update you respecting any pieces/links you may come across, including this one. For TOSCA’s list of endorsers the reader might do better to glance at http://oxtogrind.org/556 than to review what’s here.

TOSCA
Taking Over the State of California for the benefit of the world… legally and non-violently, following an unprecedented paradigm in the electoral arena. Without politicians. Recent interview by Mickey Z.

FOR THOSE SHORT ON TIME: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE LIST WHICH BEGINS WITH THE NAMES OF PAUL STREET AND HOWARD ZINN. Local “advisers” will be added on a regular basis. Feel free to recommend professionals in all fields.

I will keep adding to the list below. I’ve only just begun. It includes some of the better known individuals who have agreed to be on board (at least in an advisory capacity) as per http://oxtogrind.org/archive/483. We’re particularly interested in securing the services of women, people of color, labor activists and seniors. I invite you to contact me at tosca.2010@yahoo.com to recommend people, provide philosophical/positional planks for our platform, and to suggest who might be ideal to serve as the working figurehead Governor and working figurehead Lieutenant Governor for the State of California, people who we could vote for as write-in candidates in 2010+. In fact, once we secure the gubernatorial office, we intend to have ten unaffiliated, non-politician citizens serving together on an equal basis with the Governor and Lt. Governor — for the first time in history — in lieu of a single self-serving careerist. The sooner you put in your two cents* the more likely you’re apt to feel a part of a democratic process.

*By the way, I’m proud to remind one and all that this will be the first “campaign” conducted on a zero budget. This, I trust, will be inspiring to every Don Quixote who’s out there (who, in turn, can turn on close contacts who don’t have a Quixote bone in their bodies). Details on how we’re going to pull this off upon request, of course.

Blessings in solidarity,
Richard http://oxtogrind.org/archive/565 (some of my background/family introduction)

Mike Davis delineates much of what’s happening as of 2/28/10 in California. Paul Street sent us one of our most recent imprimaturs (January 15, 2010), and we see his http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23629 as very worthwhile reading for anyone considering moving in solidarity with us. Noam Chomsky (who has graciously been encouraging in dialogue, but has not — yet — provided his public imprimatur) delineates many issues in http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200910–.htm which TOSCA has at the top of is agenda. For healthy politics beyond Barack Obama see Henry Giroux’s http://www.zcommunications.org/democracy-and-the-threat-of-authoritari anism-politics-beyond-barack-obama-by-henry-giroux

Additional imprimaturs:

Howard Zinn http://howardzinn.org/default/
Michael Parenti http://www.michaelparenti.org/
Bill Blum http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/William_Blum.html
Vijay Prashad (our Adviser for Latin American Affairs) is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad01082010.html
Judith Blau http://www.counterpunch.org/blau01012010.html
Derrick Jensen www.derrickjensen.org
Peter Tatchell (U.K.) www.petertatchell.net
Wallace J Nichols http://www.wallacejnichols.org/wallacejnichols/Home.html
Afshin Rattansi (Iran +) http://www.afshinrattansi.com/
Isabella Kenfield http://www.counterpunch.org/kenfield08142009.html
Marie Trigona (Argentina) http://mujereslibres.blogspot.com/ http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22832
Nirmal Ghosh (Thailand) http://www.counterpunch.org/ghosh02172010.html
Michael Donnelly http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly08132009.html
Henry A. Giroux (Canada/U.S.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Giroux. Also read Henry’s recent article “Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle”, featured by Bill Moyers at http://www.truthout.org/090609Z.
Gustavo Esteva (Mexico) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Esteva
Peter McLaren http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_McLaren
Franklin Lamb (PhD, Beirut, Lebanon) http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb12182009.html
Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, http://codepinkalert.org/
Brenda Norrell, advocate for Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights, http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Delaney Bruce, Founder of Friends of Peltier [We are in the process of asking for Leonard Peltier's imprimatur. Readers are encouraged to view http://FreePeltierNow.org and act, in the meantime, on his behalf. To act on his behalf whether or not he comes on board with TOSCA.

Paul Krassner www.paulkrassner.com
Glen Ford http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22033
Badruddin Gowani (South Asia/U.S.) http://globeistan.com/
Artist Roy Lawaetz (Caribbean/Scandinavia) http://www.centrelink.org/lawaetz.pdf
Daniel Kovalis http://www.counterpunch.org/kovalik01272010.html
Eric Walbert of Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
John Ross (Mexico) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ross_(activist)
Sheila Velazquez http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/losing-our-food-freedom/
Peter Phillips http://www.sonoma.edu/sociology/biopeter.htm [Know Project Censored?]
Ramzy Baroud http://www.ramzybaroud.net/
Devinder Sharma (India) http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/ and Amy Goodman’s interview http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/14/as_us_and_other_wealthy_nations
Cindy Sheehan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan
Bruce E. Levine http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html
Ronnie Cummins and http://www.organicconsumers.org/
Greg Moses http://www.counterpunch.org/moses07172009.html
Bruce Anderson of The Alexander Valley Advertiser http://www.theava.com/
Jennifer Loewenstein (Middle East/U.S.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Loewenstein
Ellen Brown http://www.counterpunch.org/brown07142009.html
Dave Lindorff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Lindorff
Keith Harmon Snow www.allthingspass.com/
Michael Stocker www.ocr.org

Mickey Z http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Z and http://mickeyz.net/
Vassar’s Joseph Nevins http://www.counterpunch.org/nevins02052010.html
Ron Jacobs http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs07142009.html
Stephen Lendman http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/the-obstacles-to-real-health-care-re form-private-insurers-and-big-phrma/
Kim Petersen (Canada), http://dissidentvoice.org/ and http://www.dominionpaper.ca/
Anthony DiMaggio http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio07292009.html
David Yearsley http://www.counterpunch.org/yearsley07172009.html
Jerry Fresia (Italy) http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21907
Murray Dobbin (Canada) http://mostlywater.org/imagine_prosperity_without_growth
Stephen Martin http://www.counterpunch.org/martin07172009.html
Peter Rachleff http://www.macalester.edu/history/faculty/rachleff.html
Danny Weil http://www.counterpunch.org/weil08242009.html
Missy Beattie http://www.counterpunch.org/beattie09022009.html
Dr. Moti Nissani (Patagonia) http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/CV99.HTM
Jed Bickman http://www.jedicist.org/blog/ and http://www.jedicist.org/
Harvey Arden http://www.haveyouthought.com/
Doug Deitch http://www.pogonip.org/ and http://www.begentlewiththeearth.com/
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, where he earned his PhD in Modern History. He lectured in history at the University of Queensland and spends his time between San Francisco and Melbourne.
John Stanton http://www.counterpunch.org/stanton11032009.html. A Virginia based writer specializing in national security and political matters.
Gary Brumback, commenting on TOSCA’s interest in having unaffiliated citizens serving the public, writes in his new book

“If you look for political parties in the U.S. Constitution you won’t find any. Recall that the Framers disdained the very notion, warning that political parties simply invite factionalism and could create all sorts of mischief and civil strife. How prescient they were! The U.S. was governed for over 20 years before the first political parties emerged. What this suggests is that all political parties are constitutionally out of bounds and ought to be eliminated.”

Thought: You know how Western Medicine — in diagnosing, considering treatment — segments the body. Very unhealthy, that approach. See http://sosylvie.typepad.com/so_sylvie/2008/05/zippy-breakfast.html (something my wife Sylvie wrote), for insight into this. Let’s deal with the body of California an an organic whole. I mean, let’s not be satisfied with securing more funds for education or having a higher standard for organic food honored in lieu of addressing the fundamental cancer at hand, which includes everything from the death of salmon to the fact of one supermarket for 30,000 people in West Oakland or totally toxic — yes, carcinogenic — air in L.A and San Jose+. Let’s deal with our (mutual) dilemma as a whole. We can no longer afford to compartmentalize quite like we have in the past.