[GLOVE] A Crucial Time In History

Day 1,200, 20:57 • Published in USA USA • by Glove

This is a crucial time in our history. The alliances are shifting and our future is uncertain. Some members in PANAM are skeptical of the alliance, and Indonesia attacked us yesterday. Today we defeated them in California, but we aren’t in the clear yet. The threat of a prolonged war is likely. We need to support our allies. The allies who have been there for us no matter what. True allies will never leave you, regardless of what alliance you are in, regardless of a slight error you may have made, true allies will transcend any treaty and boundary. We got a glimpse of who our allies were in the battles for Hawaii and California, and I will not forget them. I know none of you have forgotten either. There is currently a proposal around the world to halt all fighting in a sign of protest against recent game mechanics rules, thus everything should be quiet for a couple days if the new elected presidents honour this pact.

More American than you can Believe
I was the director of the Immigration Department for a couple of months, I think it is fairly obvious I would never ever allow this country to be PTOed. I know many of you have seen my name slandered by the opposition. This is a cheap trick in an attempt to deceive you-do not be fooled. At this point they will say anything to smear my name and elect their candidate. They claim that I am the INCI’s puppet candidate, this is simply not the case. You will realize that your fears were without merit. The INCI pledged not to run an INCI candidate for the presidency, they have respected this pledge. Would you rather the INCI run their own candidate, or endorse someone else? This is basically the only options that could have been taken, they chose the latter in an attempt to show good faith. They also did not like the way the other candidates handle their affairs, that is really what it comes down to. I talk to them with respect, despite the fact that I disagree some of their views, but they are humans too. I won't deny that there are some problems, and there is things that need to cleared and established. I will not surrender to demands. The INCI fight for us, and I think it is best to have them fight for us than against us. Do not mix real life with this game, it is a deadly combination, and it will paralyze your ability to enjoy your time here. The INCI have trolls, just like we have trolls, but at the end of the day we have to realize, this is a game. Now, this is a game I take seriously, but its also a place to have fun.



Interns
When I said I wanted to include people, I was serious. In my cabinet is plenty of fresh faces, many of them aspiring to get onto the executive, even if it means having to do hard and ungratifying work. I am offering them that little push needed to someday advance to a higher position. Presidents and presidential candidates always discuss adding interns, but never manage to get it done due to them losing or miscommunication and disorganization. On the forums I see this section largely ignored. Why? Why do we ignore those who want to give a helping hand? I’ve always asked myself, why can’t we just from the get-go have a group of solid, good players that can portray as executive interns? I discussed it with my upper cabinet and campaign crew, and decided that we would hand pick a few players that we feel have potential but have not had the chance to show themselves on the executive scene. The group you will see in the cabinet listings are handpicked interns.


I was going to use the other logo, but there is no Russia on it. This is a disgrace, Russia was there when the Indonesians attacked us and have been actively particpating with PANAM. Whoever is the maker of the other logo please add Russia to it.

PANAM
Argentina,
Escúchame, te vamos ayudar, aunque ya ha pasado muchisimo tiempo sin nuestro ayuda. Te amo mucho. Sé que no hemos sido muy buen amigos en el pasado, pero dejame mostrate que PANAM sí puede funcionar. Nuestro gobierno del pasado nunca ha puesto mucho atención a Argentina, esto es una lástima, pero ojalá que podemos mejorar nuestro relaciones diplomáticas. Quiero que seamos un fraternidad, una famila, hermanos...hermanos que conquistan a todos sus enemigos. No deja que Indonesia o cualquier pais arruine esto.

Brozil,
Eu vi que vocês lutaram por nós ontem na batalha do Hawaii. Sei que vocês investiram bastante tempo e esforço fazendo a PANAM funcionar, e nós retornaremos o favor. Eu me recuso a ficar sentado e fazer nada pelos nossos aliados, vocês nos mostraram que estão dispostos a investir tempo e dinheiro por nós, e o mínimo que podemos fazer é ter o mesmo compromisso. Mas isso não seria justo, retornar o favor simplesmente não é o bastante, eu quero estar com vocês, o dia todo, todo dia, não importa o que aconteça. São as pequenas coisas que mais importam e quando elas se somam, passam a ter um peso bem maior que qualquer outra coisa medíocre. Nós jamais esqueceremos nossos aliados e eu estou ansioso para uma amizade longa e duradoura.

Domestics
My Chief of Staff Justin McCravok has been a huge player in the domestic field. He ran for president focusing on almost all domestics, and had some great ideas that I’d love to implement and work together with him on so that we can improve retention. But its not just him I listen to for ideas, I read every message you, the people, send me, whether it be spam or a simple question, I will get back to you and consider your proposal. I have nothing but time, activity will not be an issue.



Syngergy Polls and Media
When I first started this game, I remember the importance in public opinion. We can do this in several ways, for instance, Synergy Polls. Justin tells me that Mizu wanted to do work with him on Synergy Polls, but that never managed to get running. Of course Mizu was gone due to rl reasons, but I will pick up this idea. This month I hope to finally execute on Justin’s idea and to revive the V1 Synergy Polls. It will be harder to do with the new messaging system, but our group of interns will all work towards reviving the synergy polls. It will be a test for them and it will have a great payout if they do good work, including the reviving of a big retention booster and a chance to prove themselves to the rest of the cabinet. There will also be Media Competitions to help spark the media and keep it interesting, which will be personally funded by myself. Our media lacks a large entourage of quality writers, sure we have some, but its not enough. I'm hoping this will stimulate the media a bit.



Transparency
Another issue to tackle government transparency. I for one understand how difficult it can be for a lot of you to understand what is occuring at home and in the world. There is a great deal of back-room dealing, and while sometimes this is necessary due to sensitive information, I will keep you all informed on whats been going on. As I stated in my last article I will have presidential daily briefings. They won’t be long tl;dr articles but just a simple outline of what happened during the day and what actions we took, if applicable. I’ll do this on the Forums, so its available for you all to see. There are a lot of great ideas that I want to try out that others have suggested. For one, #public.whitehouse (for example, channel may change) should be used more often. I myself will lurk there, as will other top cabinet officials, to answer any questions that citizens may have.
It’s undeniable that IRC is fundamental to actively playing this game. I plan on holding WHPR press conferences, which some of our past governments have implemented, it’s a good chance for the President and his cabinet to answer questions from concernced citizens and aspiring journalists. Let’s get the youth active in chatting with their government and one another. David Landon had run this program in the summer, and I really liked it.



Economy
There is greed, and there is poverty. There are radical arguments on both sides, but I thinks its clear something needs to be done to solve this problem. The belief used to be, stuff > gold. Well, I am going to blow your minds, gold > stuff. Gold is used for everything now, gold essentially makes more stuff. Some argue for low taxes, but how do we fund our military then? Some argue for higher taxes and for a commune based system, but what happens to all those who can’t spend the extra few minutes to get their government hand-out?

The solution is a happy medium. I’m not an economist, but I know several of you are skilled in this field. A lot of the economic imbalances have been due to game changes, but I still think we can improve our current standing. I’m just going to put this out there: I think lowering the Income tax and slightly raising the VAT will help with some of our economic woes. We have the highest income taxes in the world and our economy is clearly not the best. Of course as I stated, I’m not an economist and any tax change will have to go through Congress regardless. I’d like to see the arguments on this issue.

Also, I'd like to get all the resources, like we did under Josh Frost's term, it'll help out a bit with the economy to say the least.

Growing as a Nation
I aim to make a babyboom. If the INCI could do it, if the 4channers, could do it, why can’t we do it? I want to re-energize REACH. I want youtube videos, propaganda art, and sign-up links everywhere on the web. For those in my propaganda department and interns, I will make this the focus of their job. I will pay for quality and unique work and I urge all of you with decent photoshop and video making skills to take on this challenge. I stressed that we need to organize and unite as a nation earlier, but we will need more Americans for the next generation. We cannot only think of the present, we need to think about the future.

Government Paid Jobs?
Joe DaSmoe asked all candidates to respond to his article. I was going to comment but I think its better to address it here. I agree with his statement, “pay Government workers to efficiently and transparently do their job.” The simple truth is mass messaging, mentoring, and distributing supplies is not exactly the funnest thing to do. A lot of times these people spend their whole erepublik career without getting noticed and without being appreciated. The least we could do is toss them a few bucks to stay motivated. However, this payment idea should only apply for the people working in the fields beforehand mentioned,

What I’m not too sure about is his idea to shut down Meals on Wheels and give it’s budget line to Arm America. If the two are merged, I don't know if that would make it any more effective. But I think it could be a good idea, my understanding is Meals on Wheels is not utilizing all of its funds and merging it with Arm America could make new citizens more organized when it comes to fighting. I don’t know if using guns is more effective than using food however. I recall a study showing food > weapons ironically. There is really not much I disagree with Joe on this one. Requiring weekly reports, full transparency, and public relations article to be a constant all sound like logical and achievable goals.

Parties
Parties have been become less powerful game-mechanic wise as time elapses. We need to gather the Party Presidents and all discuss improvements that we can make, including possibly mentoring, recruitment cooperation, or other things that could improve retention. Competition is good, but division is not. Lately it has been less and less of an individual effort for parties. No one bothers to snipe anymore, no one puts in the 110% effort we used to apply in every aspect of the game. We need to change that. We should start to work together on issues that can improve America, since our only real goal should be helping America. I will make it a high interest to focus on cooperation between parties, especially in these uncertain times. If the top 5 parties oppose this, I will respect their decision, and will be contacting them individually to improve their infrastructure instead of making them work together. When I chose my cabinet I was intent on getting people from all the parties, because that's the only true way to run a government: diversity. I wanted to ask the party president’s for a list of people they’d like to recommend for a possible position, but I realized the list I would receive would be based more on politics than work habit, that's why I held a public form on my article. I chose people I know are ambitious and want to strive for a better America, not because I felt they would necessarily gather me votes.


America, thank you for your time today. The next president, regardless of who it is, will have a series of obstacles to overcome. He will have to make hard decisions that many of the past administrations did not want to address. I won’t let these problems persist, we simply cannot afford to do. No one man can run a country alone, which is why we have such a star-studded young cabinet prepared that I’m sure will do great. I was going to publish the cabinet but I always felt it was a bit rude to publish your cabinet before an election and I’ve always been a bit superstitious when it comes to these things. xD I assure you though, we have the experience, dedication, and motherly love this nation needs. But as well as I know they will do, nobodies opinion matters more then the regular American citizen’s. People should not fear their government, the government should feel its people. Let your voices be heard. If elected, I’m going to need all of your help to make this country great. Messages, IRC Chats, Forums, I’ll talk about your concerns and listen to your suggestions.

Never Forget.
Never.
Glove is Love.