UPDATE (1/17/10): Don’t read this article. Click on Condensed Version of the TOSCA Program instead. There’s no time to waste and what’s below will be — for most people — unnecessarily confusing.

SPECIAL INTRO FOR THE BERKELEY CROWD+: WHAT’S BELOW WAS WRITTEN AWHILE AGO. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THE WHOLE SHEBANG CAN BE TWEAKED TO FIT YOUR PURPOSES UPON REQUEST. THE IDEA WOULD BE TO HAVE TOSCA SERVE AS THE BASIS FOR ALL EDUCATIONAL CENTERS MOVING IN SOLIDARITY in March ON AT LEAST ONE MATTER STATEWIDE, INSTEAD OF HAVING EVERYTHING BE FRAGMENTED, INDEPENDENT. IN AN INTERVIEW RECENTLY ON ZET WITH CHOMSKY NOAM UNDERSCORES THE NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING THAT ALL THE DIFFERENT ACTIVIST “GROUPS” DO TOGETHER (in Mexico City). It applies to us right now. I just sent out what immediately follows to a number of people I met at the Coordinating Committee meeting in Berkeley and others. Short on time? Jump right down to the numbered delineation of TOSCA (Ten Points in boldface way down below). For those with time, starting with http://oxtogrind.org/archive/475 (and clicking on the four previous postings), you can read specific pieces directed to March 4th activists.

“Dearest Richard, Hannah, William, Lois, Amanda, Omar, Javier, Slingshot editors et al.

Let me know what you think of http://oxtogrind.org/archive/364 (TOSCA), please. Unless the various educational centers throughout California move together in solidarity from at least one angle… all is lost. The powers that be will not respond the way we want them to no matter how many buildings are occupied, no matter how many marches draw huge numbers. Career politicians and The Regents cannot be expected to respond to reason or pleas for justice or… pressure applied by people who can be removed, beaten, jailed, killed without consequences. They have no conscience about what’s right, and because the stakes are so high for them (respecting money and power) we cannot rely totally on old paradigms for creating change.

TOSCA represents a new model for creating the changes we want… which should include many realms other than fee hikes, cuts and layoffs. http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/23269 is one such area which must be addressed immediately… something which The Regents — if they are OUR Regents or subjected to OUR non-careerist gubernatorial team– can/will address unilaterally. Some other matters on which our TOSCA team could make a historic difference can be found at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/311. As per Chomsky’s “Mafia Principle,” the godfather cannot be seen giving in to disobedience, and your projected methods of applying pressure will not force the powers that be to cave.

In solidarity,
Ricardo (The Ox)
P.S. My young geo-politically precocious son (See his video link way below), and Green Day and Rage Against the Machine, Steve Earle, Gift of Gab and John Fogerty, among others, should be contacted as per my advice to the Coordinating Committee… adhering to a particular plan for appeal*… for them to appear/support the upcoming March 4th event. And they should all be part of an ongoing follow-up plan of pressure, recruitment and momentum. They would constitute pretty much all the publicity you would need to attract huge numbers. Flyers, which cost $ (unnecessarily) and an inordinate amount of time (and represent waste) should be avoided; they represent an old paradigm for getting the word out. As Mitch Hedberg once said, “When someone hands me a flyer, it’s as if they’re saying, ‘Here, you throw this away for me.’” If my son were to choose to speak to your crowds on March 4th — not that I would necessarily let him — he would have more of a positive impact than most speakers who you’re probably going to schedule.”

*I need help with this. Please contact me ASAP. We must move expeditiously if we are to secure the support of the celebrity entertainers.

Telegraphic TOSCA
by Richard Martin Oxman (The Ox)
Dedicated to the spirit in http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/3/One_Love [Consider playing the video first.] And… to RATM’s beautiful/understandable anger.

Special note: If what’s below begins to get boring please jump to either http://oxtogrind.org/archive/367 or http://oxtogrind.org/archive/353 immediately. Or maybe… http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/taking-over-post-arnold-california/. http://oxtogrind.org/archive/438 should make it clear why articles, lectures, meetings, petitions, protest songs and the like won’t cut the mustard anymore. If you think that “taking over” is not called for… you’re probably not paying (deep) attention to what’s going on. That said, feel free to think in terms of Transforming Our State of California in lieu of Taking Over the State of California. TOSCA by any other name….

“If we ever had a popular reform governor intent on bringing about significant change, there would be divestment, capital strike, a grinding down of the economy. Simply because in our society real power lies in the private economy not in the political system, and those powers — if push came to shove — would not allow deep transformations… even if it made them money. They would never want to empower people by giving them serious relief. Such fare threatens the prerogatives of power, their true bottom line. Only slight ‘tentative progression’ is permitted through reform. TOSCA circumvents that fact of life, just as it gets around the fact of electoral fraud, media manipulation, citizen hypnosis, cynicism and resignation.” — The author’s neighbor, a possible working figurehead candidate for TOSCA

“All kinds of people will find all kinds of reasons why TOSCA won’t work. They stand to learn the most.” — The author’s nine-year-old son, a lover of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (See www.marcelsgeo.blogspot.com and the video below*.) HOW addresses the question of what’s practical in the so-called real world, how to… implement.

I like to play with words, but there is no time right now. The sky is falling.

The delineation of TOSCA (our plan for taking over the State of California) at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/353 is already condensed, but — apparently — there is a need to reach citizens using the fewest possible words. Please glance at what’s below, and get in touch with me immediately.

Ten points:

1. We are faced with many issues which demand urgent action. Locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. For starters — just for hors d’oeuvres — see what the California Guv can do unilaterally/immediately (http://oxtogrind.org/archive/311).

2. U.S. citizens cannot count on federal authorities to do what’s needed expeditiously.

3. We want to act as responsible citizens legally, non-violently. Without depending on the representatives of either of the two major parties or the marginalized other parties. Win or lose (with or w/o TOSCA), we intend to build unprecedented grassroots solidarity… to build upon. For unprecedented purposes.

4. The Executive branch of the State of California provides the single greatest opportunity we have to make a difference locally, nationally and internationally… in time*. This, and all else here, can be elaborated on, upon request, but it should be underscored again that our Governor will be able to do many earthshaking things unilaterally.

*Our society does have (unacknowledged) deadlines on several fronts.

5. Even if we fail to secure the office of the Governor of California in 2010, the means by which we will try should secure an unprecedented spotlight for what we want to communicate to the public, helping citizens to self-educate like never before. Our singular, approach to recruitment will be the basis for circumventing the inevitable electoral fraud that our unaffiliated write-in candidates will encounter. We are as repulsed by politics as much as anyone. http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22319 But we feel we can tweak the electoral realm to serve our purposes.

6. What we will communicate to the public is open to your feedback. We also welcome recommendations respecting WHO should serve as Governor of California together. We will have two working figurehead candidates (for Governor and Lieutenant Governor) and ten others serving de facto in tandem. Ideally, all will be non-politicians.

7. We will require NO MONEY. And we will not wage anything resembling a traditional campaign. That means, in part, that those involved with us do not necessarily have to devote any time to speak of, certainly do not have to be distracted from pet projects, primary personal focus. It also means that our efforts will not be contingent upon mainstream media support. No petitions, no phone calls, no flyers, no meetings, no marches, no arrests, etc. Again, HOW we intend to pull this off can be shared in great detail on a need to know basis… in person. General responses can be provided via email, all else being equal. The single greatest challenge for everyone will be to NOT speculate about what others will or won’t do, NOT to be locked in by precedent. Philip Larkin’s First Sight http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar4.htm is exquisitely germane here.

8. A short list of people who have given us their imprimaturs can be found at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/336. If you don’t know who Howard Zinn, Henry Giroux or Devinder Sharma are… you may not be impressed at first. [Pause.] Regardless, we will be guided by grassroots participation.

9. Citizens do NOT have to reside in California to contribute on some level. In fact, people worldwide can participate in some way… putting aside peripheral differences, uniting for the first time for a single cause http://oxtogrind.org/archive/315 …moving in solidarity to benefit one and all (http://oxtogrind.org/archive/331).

10. Contact Richard at tosca.2010@yahoo.com for more details, etc. See http://oxtogrind.org/archive/378 for some personal background.

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM-Hdn7h7tU#GU5U2spHI_4 will give you a 7′ truncated clip of Marcello when he was only six-years-old on the campus of Stanford University. We were there in prep for the arrival of Nigeria’s (Nobel Laureate in Literature) Wole Soyinka. If you watch it, do view it through to the end… so that you see the scene with the Africans. Shortly after the footage was taken, we were asked to leave the campus. We had been standing on the grounds of Stanford’s Bechtel International Center speaking against Bechtel’s privatization of Bolivian water, causing a stir. The unedited version got our boy an invitation to appear on the Tonight Show… which we turned down, in part, because Jay Leno had John McCain and Bill Mahr on — on successive nights — cheer leading the bombing of Lebanon… shortly before Marcel’s scheduled slot. When we protested, and asked to be guaranteed that Marcel’s point of view/our rap not be edited… they told us, “Oh, don’t take it so personally.” Our family takes everything like that very personally… and TOSCA is all about encouraging others to do the same.

Exactly HOW can such a plan be implemented? There are many ways. One scenario is delineated at http://oxtogrind.org/archive/458.