A CONTRACT FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM

A CONTRACT FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM

"I have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream."

–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 March on Washington

We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice... for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity and give their kids a better life. Every one of us—rich, poor or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender—has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill—but only by working together.

Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won't cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops and teachers—America's everyday heroes—are being thrown out onto the street. We believe:

• AMERICA IS NOT BROKE. America is rich—still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes—and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.
• AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS. Many of our best workers are sitting idle, while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis.

To produce this Contract for the American Dream, 131,203 Americans came together online and in their communities. We wrote and rated 25,904 ideas. Together, we identified the 10 most critical steps to get our economy back on track and restore the American Dream:

1. INVEST IN AMERICA'S INFRASTRUCTURE. Rebuild our crumbling bridges, dams, levees, ports, water and sewer lines, railways, roads and public transit. We must invest in high-speed Internet and a modern, energy-saving electric grid. These investments will create good jobs and rebuild America. To help finance these projects, we need national and state infrastructure banks.
2. CREATE 21ST-CENTURY ENERGY JOBS. We should invest in American businesses that can power our country with innovative technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal systems, hybrid and electric cars, and next-generation batteries. And we should put Americans to work making our homes and buildings energy efficient. We can create good, green jobs in America, address the climate crisis, and build the clean energy economy.
3. INVEST IN PUBLIC EDUCATION. We should provide universal access to early childhood education, make school funding equitable, invest in high-quality teachers, and build safe, well-equipped school buildings for our students. A high-quality education system, from universal preschool to vocational training and affordable higher education, is critical for our future and can create badly needed jobs now.
4. OFFER MEDICARE FOR ALL. We should expand Medicare so it's available to all Americans, and reform it to provide even more cost-effective, quality care. The Affordable Care Act is a good start and we must implement it—but it's not enough. We can save trillions of dollars by joining every other industrialized country—paying much less for health care while getting the same or better results.
5. MAKE WORK PAY. Americans have a right to fair minimum and living wages, to organize and collectively bargain, to enjoy equal opportunity and to earn equal pay for equal work. Corporate assaults on these rights bring down wages and benefits for all of us. They must be outlawed.
6. SECURE SOCIAL SECURITY. Keep Social Security sound, and strengthen the retirement, disability, and survivors' protections Americans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by removing the cap on the Social Security tax, so that upper-income people pay into Social Security on all they make, just like the rest of us.
7. RETURN TO FAIRER TAX RATES. End, once and for all, the Bush-era tax giveaways for the rich, which the rest of us—or our kids—must pay eventually. Also, we must outlaw corporate tax havens and tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. Lastly, with millionaires and billionaires taking a growing share of our country's wealth, we should add new tax brackets for those making more than $1 million each year.
8. END THE WARS AND INVEST AT HOME. Our troops have done everything that's been asked of them, and it's time to bring them home to good jobs here. We're sending $3 billion each week overseas that we should be investing to rebuild America.
9. TAX WALL STREET SPECULATION. A tiny fee of 1/20th of 1% on each Wall Street trade would raise tens of billions of dollars annually with little impact on actual investment. This would reduce speculation, "flash trading," and outrageous bankers' bonuses—and we'd have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job creation.
10. STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY. We need clean, fair elections—where no one's right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn't buy you your own member of Congress. We must ban anonymous political influence, slam shut the lobbyists' revolving door in D.C. and publicly finance elections. Immigrants who want to join in our democracy deserve a clear path to citizenship. We must stop giving corporations the rights of people when it comes to our elections. And we must ensure our judiciary's respect for the Constitution. Together, we will reclaim our democracy to get our country back on track.

click here to sign your name to it.

Thanks for reading

"Smokemaster" John

The SHIFT, Conscious Evolution, and You...

When we talk about the Shift in our world, it's easy for it to feel abstract and not particularly connected to our daily lives. However, it's an intimate and personal process that begins with you and people like us around the world linking into a potent transformational community.

We build momentum first as thousands and then millions of people begin to act as their own activation point for the larger Shift. And we create a ripple effect that resonates around the world as we each embody a new level of consciousness.

We become our own broadcast station, sending out signals to our family, friends and communities that a new, peaceful, loving and creative humanity IS possible. We serve as divine emissaries -- building bridges, healing wounds, evolving organizations and harmonizing troubled situations. And we all activate the Shift in millions of ways -- small, large, quiet, outward and everything in between.

Many of you feel called to be one of these activation points, and the Agents of Conscious Evolution (ACE) Training has been created just for you, with the next cycle beginning August 9th.

It's a 12-week journey of powerful openings, insights and awakenings all designed for you to become an activation point for the Shift - first in your own being, then through creating synergistic relationships and community, and, finally, in serving the world's most pressing needs.

Among our 825 recent ACE graduates, there's a powerful and palpable sense that they have shifted the ground of their being, unleashing more joy, love, creativity and community than ever before. They have become nodes of light around the world - anchor points for a new pattern to come into being.

Are you also called to be an activation point for the Shift?

If so, you'll want to join this extraordinary global community of pioneers who have received the new evolutionary "codes" offered by Barbara Marx Hubbard, learned the skills of becoming a change agent, and joined our vibrant evolutionary community that is committed to being of soulful service in the years ahead.

If you've been wondering how to respond to a system and life process that are progressively more unsustainable, this course can be the answer for finding a new way and starting you on it. Come join us!!

Thanks for reading, and

Have a Great Day!!

Smokemaster

I AM – The Movie You MUST See

Usually, I try to write about one or more thoughts that I think of as crystals of human wisdom, that in many cases are not new, but simply my distillation of spirits that have been around for a long time, with a particular emphasis on self-motivation, empowerment, self-actualization, and the general notion that we all have strengths and weaknesses and the weaknesses can be overcome… in some cases by simply focusing on the strengths. In other words, what we need to do to grow into our full and true individual power to change our world profoundly for the good of our community, ourselves, and the planet.

In this blog I’m going to depart from that format and tell you something more immediate (and potentially powerful) for those of you who are feeling the fresh air blowing in your lives from the changes that are afoot in our world. Those of you who feel like you want to make a difference, you can make a difference... but HOW?? … here’s an opportunity for you to light a REAL fire on a broader basis. First, you need to go see the movie “I AM” by Tom Shadyac. Then you need to spread the word!!

Tom is a reasonably well known movie director (Bruce Almighty, The Nutty Professor, etc.) who had an accident that lead to an epiphany, and subsequently to a journey of discovery. The result is a profound and substantive conversation, the start of which is the movie and the continuation of which is YOU…here, and in any other place you can think of – by motivating other to go see the movie, as well as by having the conversation in your own right.

What makes this particularly meaningful right NOW is that the film has been on limited distribution but recently (Last Wednesday) they taped the Oprah Winfrey show! Oprah saw I AM, was deeply moved, and dedicated her last open show to this film. Oprah and Tom talked in depth on air about the film, which she urged her audience to see, telling everyone plainly that this is the conversation we need to be having. The show will air on April 20th, if you’d like to check it out. Now here’s where the news gets exciting – Thanks to all of the positive responses, and with the above-mentioned national attention, the distribution team is officially opening the movie in 50+ more cities!

So, for what this website is all about, for the SHIFT that we all stand for in our own lives in the most positive manifestation possible, a singularly powerful action that you can take is to see this movie and the get others to se it as well. The movie website is http://iamthedoc.com/ and the NEW listing of showings and times (which by the way, Tom usually attends the opening of) is at http://iamthedoc.com/showtimes-date/ If you do NOTHING else this week you will have made a tangible and positive movement toward the SHIFT by seeing this movie. This conversation needs to be UNSTOPPABLE!!

Blessings to you all as we work to empower a better and more uniformly prosperous world.

John Strohl (aka Smokemaster)

It's YOUR Life - Use it Wisely!!

Have you noticed? - you always seem to have something intruding in your life that was unexpected and requires extra energy and effort. This is the way life is. There will never be "enough" time, money, energy, enough... life.... or will there? This is the attitude of INSUFFICIENCY or SCARCITY. I propose to you that your time is LIKE your money, in that you can budget it and manage it or you can just spend it on whatever comes along, run short a lot, and think "There will never be enough!" So... what is the first "wealth building" lesson of ANY money management course? Pay Yourself First!! In other words, take the first ten percent (preferably 10%, less if you absolutely must) of whatever you earn and put it aside. Before you know it you will see it start accumulating into something that you respect...and that increases your respect for yourself at the same time.

That's the way it works with time, too. If you COMMIT a certain amount of your time, meaning you establish in your WRITTEN schedule of your day when and what that time will be spent on (budgeting) and you make sure that "YOUR" time is set aside first (which means both written down AND your resolute, even absolute, mental commitment to THAT time) - pretty soon the fruits of your activities during YOUR time will begin to accumulate into something that you respect... and that increases your sense of self-respect at the same time.

Make no mistake, this will require that you have a specific plan laid out for what you will do with YOUR time, and you must stick to it. Maybe your best time is early in the morning, or maybe, like me, it's late at night. It doesn't seem like much at first, but even after one week you are 7 days further toward your goals than you were before, and you can see it. More importantly, you can feel it.

Remember the "great divide" exists not between those who take perfect action and those who take imperfect action. It exists between those who take action of any kind, and those who take no action at all. It is exactly like the old response about "How do you eat an elephant?" - One bite at a time! The Journey of 1000 Miles? - starts with the first step.

When you write down and manage the resources of your life - time, money, material supplies, etc. - you take the first major steps to eliminate the concept of SCARCITY as the driving factor in your life. You start to be aware of the sufficiency, even abundance, within which you live, and get away from talking about the "lack" of things. It has been an observed fact for quite a while that if you talk to people about budgeting and setting aside "savings", they will repeatedly talk about how they don't have enough of whatever to be able to "afford" to do that. However when it is done, and the resource is simply not available to be expended, all the other functions adjust and everything settles in on the new "norm" of 10% less. With rare exception you CAN get along on ten percent less of whatever needs to be "saved". The argument that "I'll set more aside when I have more." is also fundamentally bogus. Most people, when provided with more resources DO NOT preserve or save more for emergency or dedicated use nor do they start budgeting if they weren't before - the expenditures increase to match the available resources!!

So... the ONLY thing that makes any sense is to sit down and 1) write down what you need to do to achieve your goal 2) break those tasks down into time increments that that are "do-able" 3) write down your weekly schedule with a daily allocation of YOUR time. Pick a time that works for you and then.. MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU!! Just do it!! Start working your way through your list of things to be done... and before you know it you'll be there.

This I Believe: Part Two

So... There is hope! The only requirement is that we, each and every one of us reach out and enable it. It resides in us. It will not happen with Complacency or Inaction. It will only happen if we, to a man, woman, and child, step up to our most fundamental responsibility - the responsibility for our own success and prosperity. It's easy to think that somebody else should provide for some of this given the amounts that we pay in taxes but truthfully, that's just to provide sustaining infrastructure. It's not up to someone else. It's up to us.

As long as we tolerate the likes of Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, at the top of our power structure advising the president on what our economy should look like and how we should create jobs, and the vast army of lobbyists and insiders that are far more effectively represented in US policy and tax law than the population of the country is, we are doomed. I quote here from a MoveOn.Org campaign letter (with reference links) I received today -

"According to The New York Times, last year General Electric (GE) made over $14.2 billion in profit, but paid NO federal tax.¹ None. In fact, thanks to the millions GE spent lobbying Congress, we American taxpayers actually owed GE $3.2 billion in tax credits.²

Now GE is slashing health benefits and retirement benefits for new employees among non-union workers and is expected to push unions to accept similar cutbacks³, while its CEO, Jeff Immelt, gets a 100% pay raise.⁴

What's worse? Immelt now sits as chair of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Jobs Council), representing corporate America to the President on matters like job creation and corporate taxation."

and

"One of the chief ways GE avoids paying taxes is by shifting a large portion of its profits overseas, and jobs follow.⁵ Now GE's CEO is the person charged with helping the President create jobs here in America. That's just perverse.

And if the American people got back just the $3.2 billion GE took in tax credits, it would pay for the programs that House Republicans want to gut, like community health centers providing care to over three million low-income people⁶ and food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.⁷ We'd even have enough left to save the jobs of over 21,000 teachers across the country.⁸

The American deficit is being weighed down by hundreds of billions spent on bailing out major corporations. The tea party's plan is to make working families pay through devastating cuts, instead of making corporations with billions in profits pay their fair share.

But if we can hold Immelt accountable for GE's corporate irresponsibility, the nation will turn its attention to the injustice of corporate tax evasion in the face of the Republicans' budget-slashing attack on working families.

Make it all happen by signing the petition calling for Immelt to go. Just click below—and share this email with your friends, family, and social networks today.

http://pol.moveon.org/immelt_must_go/?id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=2

Thanks for all that you do.

–Lenore, Tim, Marika, Kat, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes All Together," The New York Times, March 24, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207259&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=3

2. Ibid.

3. "After Paying Zero Income Taxes, GE Plans To Ask Its Union Workers To Make Wage and Benefits Concessions", ThinkProgress, March 28, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207260&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=5

4. "UPDATE: GE Doubles CEO Immelt's Compensation, Shrinks Board", Smart Money, March 14, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207261&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=6

5. "G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes All Together," The New York Times, March 24, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207259&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=7

6. "NACHC Statement in Response to the Budget from the House Appropriations Committee," National Association of Community Health Centers website, February 9, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206514&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=8

7. "Bye Bye, Big Bird. Hello, E. Coli.," The New Republic, February 12, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206104&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=9

8. Based on an annual teacher's salary of $42,500, as noted in the Payscale website (updated March 19, 2011), accessed March 30, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=207263&id=26713-18776274-8YPpxxx&t=10 "

Now MoveOn.Org is right to raise this issue and make these points, BUT it's not enough. There is, within that appeal, the notion of dependence upon that ubiquitous "somebody else" that we have to appeal to to get it right. None the less, at it's heart, MoveOn.Org does serve to move US to action individually and that is a step in the right direction.

So... what else is at issue? I was communicating with a female friend last night and the ending of her message went "...Glad to hear there is some 'paying now' work going on. Wish I could say the same." Wish I could say the same... I detect a note of resignation, even despair in that - this in a message in which she's telling me that she has had a good job interview. I had to respond with a basic review of "Pep Talk 101"

"OK - it's time for the big reveal. Du du Dah!!!

Late last year I spent some significant time to review what was going on in my life, particularly in regard to what I "know" and what I "do". I came to the conclusion that I'm not farming half as good as I know how aka I was not doing what I know. Some of this is attributable to outside influences in my life that I let have more influence than they should have, but mostly it was me loosing track of the real vision in the comfort of a regular paycheck.

What I know is that you get what you focus on, and that focus has to be singular, unimpeachable, and continuous. No FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. I know that life can have any number of problems but that true faith is transcendent of problems and it is manifested in "feeling good now" as perfectly described in the Abraham Hicks audio link provided here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAoLDrERfko (forget any predispositions you may have about Abraham-Hicks - it's not relevant to this conversation. The point in this audio clip is valid and well made.)

So... when I left American Systems I made a hard core commitment to myself that I would NOT allow FUD and that I would, as some in my circle of opportunities choose to describe it, "operate from sufficiency" instead of from scarcity. That I would at all times and in all things manifest what I KNEW to be TRUE - that the powers of the universe REALLY are aligning with me every second that I am positive, and focused about my goals and feeling good about myself... On the dry marker board outside my cubbyhole office in our apartment I have written three things, labeled The Big Three:

1) You can't win if you don't play! Get on the field!!
2) Take care of yourself - they aren't making any more!
3) Clear the decks!! Get rid of or eliminate any and everything that in anyway distracts, breaks up, or fractures your focus on the goals. With EVERYTHING you do ask yourself "How is this contributing to me reaching my goal?" If it isn't - get rid of it!! "

It has been working rather well so far :-) ... for me! It COULD be working for everyone but "we, the people" persist in operating from, thinking in, and being overwhelmed by visions of scarcity and impossibility thinking. The majority population routinely forgets is that if the glass is half empty - IT'S ALSO HALF FULL!!

More about what we are facing if we do NOT get this in the next post -

Thanks for reading :-) Have a truly great day!!

This I Believe: Part One

The Republicans have put forward another wholly misguided and unacceptable concept of a budget and based on a misguided notion of "what the people want" - having failed to listen to a good 50% of the people out there - are drawing up battle lines instead of working for the best interests of the nation. As a result MoveOn.Org posted this notice to Facebook:

Save NPR and PBS

pol.moveon.org

The Republicans just released their budget proposal, and it zeroes out funding for both NPR and PBS--the worst proposal in more than a decade. Tell Republicans that cutting off funding was unacceptable last time they were in charge, and it's unacceptable now. Sign the petition to save NPR and PBS.

To which I added the thought "A consistant and reliable source of free information is the other half of the equation formed by the availability of public schooling, the overall reason for which is an informed electorate. If we loose this then Republicans, fascists, and other extremist groups will have easy pickings because reality will be whatever they say it is. Fight governance by the FUD Principle (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). Please speak up in support of NPR and PBS." (the last part of which was cutoff for reasons not explained by modern technology - no matter).

As sure as the sun rises in the morning, I knew it was coming and sure 'nuff, next day I get a response from Dan, my one and only Republican friend - "

U really don't believe that do you, lumping republicans into that group, wow.

All my democrat friends think PBS should be supported by the private sector. This name calling from the left has to stop. The two party system works. Do you really feel we can spend our way out of debt? The two have a way of moderating each other.

By the way you probably figured out I'm a republican but I don't hate democrats. I don't like all republicans or democrats and that's why I put a lot of time into my vote and cross over vote sometimes.

As my daughter would say chill dude!"

To which I would have to respond as follow:

1) For the most part my life includes friends. Not Republican friends, or Democratic friends, just friends. Given that you prefer to identify yourself with a group as part of your identity I will honor that. You are my one and only openly Republican friend. :-)

2) There is no more "name calling from the left" than there is "name calling from the right". Based on my best effort to view "what is" in our world, I have developed a set of values and beliefs that I believe set a functional and effective basis for living and moving into the future. What I believe to be essential values have been decried as everything from libertarian to socialist... mostly by Republicans. If you pick them apart, various elements may be identifiable within those platforms, as a whole they make up a combination of things that I consider enlightened centrism, neither left or right. I try NOT to indulge in either the gutless intellectualism of the left or the boldly self-centered stupidity of the right.

3) I cannot answer for your "allegedly "democrat" friends. I CAN say that among my beliefs are the simple concept that I DO expect of government to provide certain basic necessities and guarantee certain rights such that I can work with my fellow citizens to identify and solve the problems of our time without having to be constantly challenged by the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In other words, I expect the government to provide some security, and some public infrastructure (aka a communication system, an information system, an education system, and a transportation system), and basic rights like the right to assemble, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to freedom of religion (completely and forever uneffected by ANY group's preconceived, and boldly erroneous, notions of what the nation's founding fathers believed), and freedom of speech. The public broadcasting system serves a significant and multi-faceted role in the communications system, the education system, AND the information infrastructure. I believe that it is ABSOLUTELY as necessary as the military in ensuring our freedom and liberty, for exactly the reason stated in my original Facebook note.

4) The two party system does NOT work. It does vastly more to disenfranchise the public that to enfranchise it. It has been a weak spot in the process since it's inception, which when combined with the electoral college process, is the fundamental reason why our government for the vast majority of time over last 50 years has not been of the people, by the people, or for the people. Since the beginning, a two party system has been unduly divisive, creating and sustaining the very thing that the colonists recognized as their fatal weakness before the British crown, the notion of divide and conquer. The colonists recognized that if they let the king deal with them independently they were lost - yet they turned around and instituted a process that allowed the very same "divide and conquer" mentality to prevail in their governance, with the almost immediate effect of the subversion of our government to special interests, reaching its peak as we see it today. IMHO this was when we lost true democracy and when we locked in the concept of "the republic dominant". By the way, the only truly "democratic" election I've observed in my lifetime is the one that occurred some years ago in California, when Arnold Schwarzenegger (a Republican) was elected governor.

I don't hate Republicans. I regret that, as a group they have moved away from constructive dialog and toward divisive rhetoric. "Read my lips!" Give me a break! Current Republican actions are on a par with picking a fight over where the deck chairs should be on the Titanic - as it's going down! In essence, the Republicans have chosen genuflective pandering to the "tea party" over genuine functional leadership and will undoubtedly squander what little they have gained. We need to work TOGETHER and the Republicans have decided to "claim" a mandate that they simply don't have and fight about everything instead. The Democrats have been horrible at delivering a functional message and the Republicans have been functional at delivering a horrible message. Great! As you may or may not have figured out I walk my talk. I'm neither a Democrat NOR a Republican. I'm an independent... and no, I'm not going to "chill, dude!" I'm going to keep right on calling it like I see it.

I believe that our greatest test as a people and a culture may in fact be whether or not we can almost completely reverse this state of affairs and adopt a public and social standard of respect, even reverence, for individual independence simultaneous with a fundamental respect for each other AND a capacity for fast, effective collective action in the greater good. We need to be engineering a social structure and process that is simultaneously sustaining and nurturing to independent ability, while fostering and sustaining a capacity for immediate collective action as and where it is needed. Much as the people of Flight 92 came together from completely disparate backgrounds to take rapid action in the greater good, we as a civilization and a country need to be able to act quickly and effectively in the greater good, without the constant pissing on each others shoes about how the deck chairs should be arranged on a foundering Titanic. Had the men of the Titanic worked together quickly, deck chairs and other such materials could have been lashed together to form additional flotation, with the likelihood of significant additional lives saved.

Today, we pay vast lip service to the value of the individual and (his or her) independence and violently argue about "state's rights" vs the federal system, yet NONE of our processes form an effective path from our schools to our social structures, to our business processes, and ultimately our governance. Our system manifestly fails to "recruit" the young of the next generation to sustain and support the processes and systems that have been put in place before them. As a result, we are burdened with high drop out rates, gang problems, higher rates of prison incarceration than college graduation, extraordinary difficulty starting and sustaining businesses, constant social expressions of insecurity and disenfranchisement, and most particularly, inadequate, divisive, and dysfunctional governance. Each stage of the process reaps the "benefits" of the previous stage's inadequacy. Our economic system is unworkable. Our supply system is unsustainable. Our security system is failing daily. Our educational system has failed two generations of Americans manifestly, as evidence by the fact that 50% of the country was manipulated by special interests into the thought it was a good idea to have a good 'ol boy from Texas, who couldn't run a baseball team successfully, run the country. We have engineered a society in which the simple function of taking responsibility for our own well being is almost an impossibility. For most people there is little or no prospect of EVER owning a real piece of land and working it, in whatever fashion, to their own self sustenance and improvement. There is HUGE prospect of them sinking a lifetimes wages into successive, unproductive pieces of real estate that they will never actually own but will spend their lives "paying for". Further the system is built to REQUIRE levels of dependence that are, at their core, anti-individual, ant-community, unhealthy, and unsustainable. They are reflections of what is so wrong with our process today - the ultimate failure of the capitalist process is when it fails to acknowledge any other value than a monetary value.

Is There Hope?? Why, yes, yes there is... See This I Believe: Part Two

4YEARS.GO. - A Call To Action

I am part of a consortium working to change the global mindset about critical issues facing us and the impact our response to those issues will have on human life for the next thousand years. That consortium is called 4YEARS. GO. From our current newsletter -

FOUR YEARS. GO. is an evolutionary conversation that asks us to change our way of relating to one another and our planet, to take responsibility for our actions and in so doing shift our civilization to a regenerative path that reverses the impact our modern industrial society is having upon the natural world and societies around the world. It asks us to use this window of opportunity of four years, ending in 2014, to redirect ourselves and begin turning toward a sustainable, just and fulfilling way of living on the planet. It is a transformative conversation, since it changes the context we live in and makes new distinctions for what is possible. It is a conversation that gives us hope because it asks us to come together and act collectively to create the world that we see as possible.

“We can change things! So let’s do it!

And, let’s do it in four years!!”

FOUR YEARS. GO. is a call to action, to do those things we know will make a difference, to use all of our collective resources to usher in this new world. It is a call to each of us to ask, “What can I do?” and then begin to take action. It is a call to businesses to work together in common interest, using the power of their organizations to channel ideas, people and capital to make a difference. It is a call to NGO’s to collaborate and expand their impact in bringing about social change. It is a call to educational institutions to develop and train us in ways that are pertinent to this massive global change. It is a call to all faith-based communities to be responsible for the care of all life. It is a call to political leaders to mobilize the resources and pass the laws that will create the climate that supports a sustainable global culture. It is a call to the financial institutions to fund and invest in this massive cultural and economic shift.

Aside from the fact that we are "alerted" to the issues in question on an almost daily basis, albeit a disconnected and fractured alert, we get caught up in our daily lives and say "I can't do THAT!! That would take {Select - time, money, focus, activity, etc.} that I don't have!!"

The fact is that that kind of thinking is your OLD mental wiring talking. The "Why I can't" or "How it won't work" thinking. The impossibility thinking. What we need to make our world a better place is POSSIBILITY thinking - the thinking that says (Sorry, I know it's hugely cliche at this point) "Yes, We Can!!" President Obama didn't invent that phrase he just gave it new meaning. Now we have the chance to give it even more meaning because ultimately, our collective effectiveness and prosperity relies entirely and exclusively upon each and everyone of us believing, first about ourselves, and then about everything we touch, Yes, We Can!! Our collected attitudes and actions ARE the Light Side of the Force. Ultimately you know this - and it scares you! Don't let it - your creative subconscious will TRY to keep you in your comfort zone. Get outside of it. Almost nothing truly momentous in human history has been accomplished inside a comfort zone. As a wise man once said - "one cannot reach new lands without being willing to loose sight of the shore for a period of time."

Join Us!! All are welcome and all have ways to make a difference. To borrow another worn but useful phrase - Stop Me Now And Ask Me How!! I can be contacted at the email link here or you can go to http://www.fouryearsgo.org/ and take part in the conversation.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!!