Our House Independent Caucus

Join the conversations! 

1. Each Place in the Garden represents a Subject, Theme or Topic
   1. Each place has one or more Volunteer Hosts that moderate the conversations. (Blogs)
   2. If you are a guest and would like to start a new conversation, you can submit your blog entry to the Volunteer host to create on your behalf.  
   3. A volunteer Host has the right to completely close access down to their own conversation(s).
      1. Examples may be, managing multiple tables that can be combined into 1
      2. Conversations that become disruptive or disorderly
      3. Volunteer no longer has the ability to support the host duties timely & responsibly.
         1. A volunteer host may recruit another member to take point or share co-point duties
         2. If no volunteer is available, a notice should be posted of the closing.
         3. Only conversations in violation of Our Rules will be deleted, all others will remain open for viewing but not commenting.
         4. Volunteers are not required to respond to any comments, however, the volunteer Host must honor the Volunteer Code of Conduct.
2. Respect the Our Garden Party and Host rules established in addition to Our House Our Rules and Our House Code of Conduct
   1. Our Rules
   2. Our House Code of Conduct
   3. Our Volunteer Code of Conduct
   4. Our Host Code of Conduct
3. We are a political caucus with a focus on our representational democracy and our constitutional rights.  We are here to talk about the actions of our government, or lack thereof, and the impact it has on our lives.  While we respect your free speech, we ask that you use the many special interest or other sites available and refrain from posts:
   1. Involving celebrity or entertainment personalities personal lives and eccentricities except in cases where the context is of a legal or political context and in no way a personal or private matter (i.e. drunken episodes, marital or family issues)
   2. Involving pleas for prayers, wish granting and ways of having a nice day. (i.e. share this with..)
   3. Involving recommendations for personal wealth investment or management, personal fitness or wellness. (i.e. You could be...,start this and you are "guaranteed" to...., stop doing this right away..)
4. People are more interested in your perspective and thoughts than what you heard someone else say.  
   1. When your post involves sharing another individual's speech, you assume that speech for yourself.  You align yourself with that speech as if it were your own.  
   2. By using another individual to express your thoughts, you may inadvertently be assumed to believe and support everything the other individual has said and done.
   3. It is recommended that posts contain your thoughts (as if you were at a party to preface your source citing) and a link to the item that helped to shape your opinion..(like you would show them on your smartphone), to which they won't watch the entire video or read the entire article or post, and are more than a little annoyed that now you just gave them homework that they have no intention of doing.
5. Tour the Garden (Coming soon: page through description pages)
   1. The Gated Archway -
      1. Activity Stream of Party
   2. Our Patio - Our News & Information Round Tables
      1. Economic Round-Table
      2. Civil Liberties Round-Table
      3. International Affairs Round Table
   3. The Wishing Well - Discussing the American Dream
      1. What is left of the American Dream?
   4. The Aviary - Up in the Air (volunteer site help, general discussion, observations & topics)
      1. What's on your mind?
   5. The Lanai - Our Garden Political Art Display
      1. Are you a political cartoonist or political artist?  
         1. Submit your work for Our Garden Political Art Display
      2. Photography (Democracy in Action, Our America Series)
      3. Graphic Artistic Expression (Graphic Art, Drawings or Paintings)
      4. Material Artistic Expression (Metal, Stone or other materials used for sculptures and other works of art)
   6. Our Gazebo - Our News Media Round-Tables
      1. TYT at the Table: Our TYT Updates
      2. Democracy Now on the Air: Our Democracy Now
      3. Brave New Films: Our Brave New Film Reviews
      4. Media Does Matter: Our Media Does Matter
   7. The Mirror Pool - How we as Americans see ourselves and each other, in our eyes and our founding fathers that provided us the framework to guaranteed or freedom and rights and guarantee of self-governance which makes us different, exceptional, from the world as our words and deeds are based on our democratic majority.
      1. Just because we're exceptional, doesn't mean that's a good thing
      2. U.S - World Leader or World Consumer
      3. Patriotism vs Realism 
   8. The Spa - Understanding Retirement
      1. What Retirement Plans?
      2. Mixed Blessings of Aging?
      3. You and Work - Until Death do you part
   9. The Fire Pit - Understanding Fundamentalism
      1. Freedom vs Fundamentalism
      2. Fundamentalism vs the U.S. Constitution
      3. Fundamentalism vs Apathy
      4. Fundamentalism vs Conservatism
      5. Fundamentalism vs Democracy
   10. The Deck - Our Political Open Mics: Are you the life of the party?  Have you poetry or music to share with us?  Entertain us here at One of Our Political Open Mics.
       1. Political Poets
       2. Political Song
       3. Political Video Shorts (5 min or less before credits)
       4. Political Comedy Stand-Up (5 Min or Less)
       5. Political Satire (Single form, humorous or ironic observations, essays, speeches or short stories)
   11. The Vegetable Garden - Discussing the works of our labor and our place in the market.
       1. Our Work-Life Balance
       2. Paycheck to Paycheck - Does labor pay?
       3. Is "Small Business" number of employees or profit?
       4. Democracy in the workplace
   12. The Koi Pond - Understanding our Environment & Ecology
       1. Our National Parks and National conservation.
       2. Economy vs the Environment
       3. Capitalism vs Ecology
       4. America without EPA, FDA and OSHA
   13. The Green House - Understanding Climate Change
       1. The Danger Zones - Coastal living in 2100
       2. Bi-Polar Weather Disorder
   14. The Fountain - Social & Political Literature, Art & Entertainment Discussions
       1. Life & Works of Ayn Rand
       2. Life & Works of George Orwell
       3. Life & Works of Upton Sinclair
       4. Life & Works of Mark Twain
       5. Life & Works of John Steinbeck
       6. Classic Political Movies & Documentaries
       7. Modern Political TV Dramas
       8. Modern Movies & "Docu-Dramas"
       9. Modern Biography & Documentaries
       10. Breaking Down the The Mocu-mentaries
   15. The Compost Pile - Picking apart Junk Mail & e-Spam from campaigns
       1. Twisted - Have they twisted the data to get the desired results?
       2. Boogeyman - Is someone out to get you or do something to you or your rights unless you give money or vote for them.
       3. Odd - Have you received something from a campaign and said - "What the heck are they talking about?"
       4. Whiner - Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.  So you should give me money if you are true, just and wise.
   16. The Dog House - Corruption Reports
       1. CREW Investigations and Reports
6. Our After Parties
   1. Our Volunteer Hosts & Guests are invited and encouraged to take the conversation to other platforms.
   2. Come back here and let us know how to find the After parties