Make Jerusalem an International City

The Palestine-Israel question is the single most divisive and pressing question of our time. It is the core driving force behind many international issues, including the stability of neighboring states, oil dependency, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. And then there are those many who have taken advantage of the conflict to further their own ambitions: Dictators in the Middle East, our own executive branch, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Jewish lobby here in the U.S., to name a few, and for various reasons and aims. The conflict is the greatest human-produced tragedy in the history of mankind. All the world is seen through the blood-tinted glasses of thousands of years of fighting. The world, not just Americans, must come together to find a solution that is best for the people of Palestine as well as Israel, not for the powers whose interests are at stake.Now, short of the forced removal of either Jews or Palestinians from the land, there must be a compromise found. If Israeli or Palestinian leaders are not willing or able to do so, then it is our responsibility to force our governments to take control of the situation. There is no perfect situation, but I believe that a great start would be to make Jersualem an international city with an international governing body which enforces the rights and interests of all her citizens. Furthermore, the U.N. headquarters should be moved there as well.This is not a solution that political leaders from around the world would readily accept. This is especially true of the U.S., which has a powerful Zionist lobby and loathes the United Nations. Palestinian and Israeli leaders would be no more amicable to such a compromise, since both would see Jerusalem as their own capital. If change is going to take place here, it must come from a grass roots effort, which can maintain strength in the face of adversity and criticism.Thoughts?

Next Wave, the mission

People continue to debate whether the taxing cycle, and practices of the current government are effective, and whether if they would serve the long-run purpose of balancing the economy, and then help us avoid repeated recessions in close successions. Why do we not simply start by reducing the taxes taking from lower income citizens, whilst increasing the taxes demanded from the richer portion of the citizenry?In fact, instead of considering pumping monies into organizations that have private policies to protect them from subsequent regulation, why do we not simply invest in basic domestic projects such as donating collected taxes from richer halves our country, to those areas where the economy is almost crashing (such as Detroit), so that these communities could invest in federally monitored processes geared at the reusing of old infrastructures, re-application or diversification of non-functional infrastructures, or even the implementation of programs geared at re-cultivating moderate to strong work ethics amongst the disenfranchised citizenry (homeless, veterans with handicaps, bottom laborers, uneducated immigrants already in the US, etc). Is it possible to lobby for such programs through simple advocacy, or through socio-political networking? Whichever is your answer, please explain your reason for thinking it possible or not, why, or else, how.