Loading ...History progresses in a predictable direction and points toward a certain end: a world of increasing human cooperation where greed and hatred have outlived their usefulness. Progress often requires a rethink and often tough change is needed to move ahead.
How Can We Change Ourselves?
Every political candidate running or who has run says “we must make change” but who can deliver REAL change?!
Let’s start a list of what to change here (add your own list):
1st: Any dem candidate is better than any non-dem candidate at this point in that they have populist and progressive tendencies if not real capabilities until they achieve executive power.
2nd: Once the mantle of exec power is transfered they will build the necessary team to implement real - pull the rug out - follow thru; out from under the corporate special interest groups that grease the palms and wheels of Washington legislators.
3rd: New seats in congress and the senate will also need to be in place in order to push through the new laws that will bring about the turn around implementations to repair the damage done by the Bush administration. Most of us don’t think this thru and it’s missing most of the time in arguments for change.
4th: All agencies and budgets must be reevaluated - some dismantled and others recreated. Military spending must be totally brought under control and transparent!
5th: Disclosure of all black budget special access programs must be exposed and brought to the light of day. Trillions of unaccounted for tax payer dollars go missing yearly and must be accounted for in the future.
6th: Bring all troops home and secure/protect our borders.
7th: Make reparations with all nations and apologize for any and all wars and violence towards them, promising neutrality and U.N. peacekeeping troops to arbitrate national and international disputes.
Regarding this last point:
In the last two decades of his life, Einstein was an indefatigable paladin for world peace. Militant nationalism he deemed the bane of civilization. As the sanguinary history of belligerents attests, wars rarely procure lasting peace. They customarily exacerbate enmities and perpetuate cycles of retributive violence. Typically, the motives for war are labyrinthine and morally opaque. Belligerents are prone to demonize the enemy and to invoke self-defense.
Recipient in 1948 of the One World Award, Einstein crusaded for a potent international organization to adjudicate all conflicts between nations. Comprising representatives from every constituent nation, the organization would be empowered by a constitution approved by all. The unequivocal support of the nuclear powers was essential to the viability of this world government.
So was the big stick. With nothing but paper bullets, the organization could be subverted by recalcitrant nations. All member nations were voluntarily to divest themselves of their armed forces and to contribute soldiers and weaponry to the organization. It alone would have the disposition of offensive weapons.
Nations would mutually inspect methods and installations for the production of weapons. They would freely exchange technical and scientific information with military ramifications.
Nationalism, Einstein maintained, breeds in citizens a propensity for aggression and a perilous assumption of moral superiority.
He reasoned thus: “So long as the individual state, despite its official condemnation of war, has to consider the possibility of engaging in war, it must influence and educate its citizens—and its youth in particular—in such a way that they can easily be converted into efficient soldiers in the event of war. Therefore it is compelled not only to cultivate a technical-military training and mentality but also to implant a spirit of national vanity in its people to secure their inner readiness for the outbreak of war.â€
That kind of education, Einstein felt, undermines all efforts to establish moral authority for a supranational security organization.
Einstein encountered massive resistance in his adopted country. Many Americans in the ‘40s and ‘50s, as now, distrusted a world government, especially one invested with military might. They feared unscrupulous powermongers would bend it to their own malevolent wills and, in the process, undermine American interests at home and abroad. Stripped of its puissant firepower, the nation couldn’t protect itself from these forces for ill. We would lose our liberty, independence, prosperity, unfettered pursuit of happiness. We would no longer be a moral beacon to benighted lands.
Why, indeed, should America relinquish its geopolitical and economic hegemony by disarming itself?
Einstein had a simple—some will say simplistic—answer.
America seeks peace, does it not? “A person or a nation,†Einstein wrote, “can be considered peace loving only if it is ready to cede its military force to the international authorities and to renounce every attempt to achieve its interests abroad by the use of force. Peace can never be secured by threats, but only by an honest attempt to create mutual trust.â€
Popularity: 19% [?]
So why do we have such a hard time changing and as a result affecting change around us? For many of us change is uncomfortable because we have all been programmed to a certain degree. We receive programming from our parents, friends, television, and our experiences. Most of us have had to overcome what we consider traumatic experiences, notice I said what “we†consider, no one can determine for another the emotional damage of any experience. We develop coping mechanisms that insulate us from further damage and we become comfortable with the results. The more comfortable we become the more resistant to change we become. For some the idea of change becomes so frightening or undesirable that they would choose death over change.
If we know that change is constant and the only thing that you can count on is change, then why do we resist it so much? Why don’t we embrace it and look forward to its arrival in the hope of lessening its impact. I have never understood why stubbornness and blind loyalty are considered traits to be emulated. Before his re(s)election Mr. Bush was given positive ratings for being stubborn and not willing to change course in the midst of mounting evidence against him. So there is something in many Americans that believes that change is bad, hence the mantra, “stay the courseâ€. Even when change is discussed or contemplated, it is only presented as piecemeal or change-lite.
We know that the wealthy are siphoning off billions of private and taxpayer dollars, we know that the war in Iraq was unnecessary and based on false premises, we know that our government and its officials are awash in special interest money and influence, we know that the war on drugs is not working, we know that our government is torturing people in our name, we know that people who were sworn to protect it are ignoring or demolishing the Constitution, we know that our country is slowly becoming a police state and we are losing our democracy, yet despite all of these things we continue to spurn change. Anyone who advocates real change is immediately marginalized, depicted as insane, or killed and another brick is added to the wall.
It is hard to believe that we were the generation of change and revolution, we had such high hopes for ourselves and the world. Now many of us hide in our gated communities or suburban enclaves content with the treadmill existence we decried our parents for. Many of us have become stuck in our ruts, living lives of quiet desperation. So we complain and we moan and groan, but we are too afraid or too cynical to change. And as we amuse ourselves with the latest gadgets, reality show, or other distraction our country continues to spiral further away from us.
If we knew back then what we know now, I wonder if we would have done things differently. I don’t know, but this is definitely not the kind of America I have grown up in or what I envisioned it would become as of today.
“Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.” - Henri Frederic Amiel
Affecting Change Today - Silence is Acceptance:
Restore civility in public and political discourse
Reject the National ID Card
End the Income Tax- Pass the Liberty Amendment
http://tinyurl.com/28rlva
Taxes, Spending, and Debt are the Real Issues
Abortion Rights - No federal legislation banning abortion.
Death Penalty - States’ right to issue the death penalty.
No Child Left Behind - Dismantle the No Child Left Behind Act.
Embryonic Stem Cells - Legalizing research that uses stem cells derived from embryos and other sources such as skin cells.
ANWR Drilling - No to drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
Kyoto - Yes to the US adhering to the Kyoto Protocol.
Assault Weapons Ban - Reinstating the Assault Weapons Ban.
Guns - Background Checks - More thorough background checks for gun ownership.
Patriot Act - No to the Patriot Act.
Guantanamo - shut it down.
Torture - No tolerance for torturing prisoners such as enemy combatants or suspected terrorists.
Wiretapping - Intercepting internet/telephone communications without a warrant shall once again be outlawed.
Citizenship Path for Illegals - Creating a path by which illegal aliens already in the US can become citizens.
Border Fence - No to constructing a border fence between the US and Mexico.
Net Neutrality - Regulations to ensure that public networks treat all content, sites, and platforms equally.
Iran Sanctions - Maintaining trade sanctions with Iran until negotiations with new regime is achieved by 2009.
Iran - Military Action - No to utilizing military action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities.
Iraq War - end the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
Minimum Wage Increase - Increasing the minimum wage.
Same-Sex Marriage - Allowing same-sex marriage.
Same-Sex Civil Union - Allowing civil unions between people of the same sex.
Universal Healthcare - The creation of a federal, universal healthcare system.