What else are you selling?
Hoa binh

The future is survivors fighting for scraps. All the rest is moonshine.

David Korten and thousands of other foggy "dreamers" have been preaching the same sermon since the Sixties, and nobody ever really believed it, and it never did anybody any good.

What we need is hard bargainers to work out the best deal we can make with a very difficult future, and recycled hippy truisms just reinforce the stereotype of environmental awareness as one part pseudoscience and nine parts LSD.

Thirty years ago public awareness of foreseeable ecological catastrophes might have been useful, but now public opinion is irrelevant in the same way that the opinion of passengers on a bus is irrelevant after the bus has already gone off a cliff.

What will the passengers say and do while the bus is falling? What sort of faces will they make at each other?

It doesn't really matter.

Sorry Mr Korten, but the notion of earth community is simply not consistent with "full spectrum dominance" in the "new American century". In fact, the new American century isn't really much different from the previous ones. Please try to get with the program.

"The power of authentic stories told and retold by millions and ultimately billions of people can trump the power of Empire. It begins with a conversation."--David Korten

How simple, eleganr, and powerful are ideas whose time has come. As we expose our senses, (sight, hearing, smell, taste, tactile stimulation, and emotional interaction) to each other instead of to souless media of indoctrination, the empire deflates like some giant blimp full of holes poked by the expanding consciousness of reconnected community.

For me the basic premise of our fight revolves around one thing. The blatant disregard for our planet. Who will rule the planet? An imperial power by, for and of white men of property or the earth community? This is a struggle between members of the privileged elite that rule from a separate world of luxury and legacy against the inalienable rights of the earth community. The only real asset for a sustainable future is a healthy planet. All of humanity depends on clean water, air to breathe and land upon which we can grow food.

The discontent with the present paradigm is that the earth community is currently being threatened by excessive use and abuse. Short term profits are not reliable indicators of a healthy long term prognosis. We must end our dependence on blind faith which has given us an excuse to ignore our own responsibility to create a fair and just organism that secures a more equitable world for all not for a privileged few. This is a time of evolution into the new millennium which has for all intent and purpose been stalled in limbo for the past eight years.

We cannot look to a messiah or savior in one person but each of us must reach out and touch others in ways to create a global community to strengthen the backbone of a universal commitment to health, education, sustainability and a more equitable human condition.

What are your ideas?
How can we effectively create the impetus for action?
What actions are the best use of resources?
What actions will bring in the most converts?
What actions will provide a lasting and positive impression to create more actors?
Where do we hold the actions?
When is the best time to hold such action?
Who will we target as the recipients?

How do we argue our case and frame the discussion for
-a more proportional distribution of wealth/income?
-for the basic dignities of life in poorer communities?
-prevent antagonists from manipulating the message?

Ultimately, there was only one reason why we went into Iraq. Oil. Only when the American public connects their lifestyle to the reason for death and destruction will this war become a priority. Until then it is possible for everyone to ignore their part in it.

Personally I think it begins by stopping romanticizing service in uniform to train kids for war. It's time for national service to be linked to providing help and assistance to the inner cities, the elderly, mentoring, the mentally ill and dysfunctional. It's time to teach life skills not death by destruction.

This is the 21st century. Evolution should have us at a level where war should be extinct.

It is time to stop denying the train wreck. The blatant disregard for the planet has reached an apex. It's time to stop supporting the Empire and start supporting Earth Community

It is very clear we have come to a crossroads. We have a choice to make.

We can choose Empire.

OR

We can choose Earth Community.

Two thousand years ago a Roman senator suggested that all slaves wear white armbands to better identify them. "No", said a wiser senator. "If they see how many of them there are , they may revolt."

We can choose to continue to be slaves to the Empire or we can choose to build on a new Earth Community.

If you choose Earth Community then let's start by choosing a symbol that EVERYONE could easily obtain. Nothing fancy just something that anyone has in their drawer and can identify with the simplicity of Earth community.

Let's start the revolution. The Bandana Revolution. Let us see how many of us there are.

A bandana is a simple easy symbol that can represent solidarity for Earth community and be used as a visible signal that you reject Empire.

Take a bandana and

Tie it on your car, your briefcase or your bag.
Wear it on your head, your neck or your arm.
Hang it in your house window, tie it to your mailbox.

What is most important to me, after years of bashing my own head waiting for people to show me that they in theory they believe that Empire is destructive and that Earth Community is essential to our survival, is to see with my own eyes the strength I believe is there in the numbers.

As a human species, we need to engage, globally, in dialogue that will help bring our collective interests and objectives into focus. There is bound to be disagreement as to how to get there and who to lead it, but make no mistake the ultimate prize is seeing the numbers who support the revolution to oust Empire and build an Earth Community. The bandana revolution would simply be the way to identify the many as opposed to the few.

Unity is what we who choose to communicate our support for the idea of Earth Community must visually show to any leader or leaders. That is what the symbol does.

We need to SEE bandanas,

and so do THEY.

If you don't choose to do so, and very soon, our very own Mother Nature will choose for you, and she is a harsh mistress. She will not stand by and continue to be abused and exploited. This isn't like man's dominion over others. She will exact her just amount of due. And it is coming due.

Join the bandana revolution! Show your support for Earth community by wearing, tying or showing a bandana daily. Let's see how many of us are the real earth citizens.

The first three commenters show that they are part of the problem. Your Negative Waves are just what Empire want you to generate, so your words put you in service of that which I know from your previous writings you strongly oppose. It is you who need to get with it, not David Korten.

Hey Civil Behavior--

Love your idea of the bandana and will do it myself.

@karlof1: Relax, friend. I'm "with it". But occasional sarcasm sometimes provides a positive "relief valve" as long as people understand it for what it is -- which you obviously do.

"…consistent with recent scientific findings that our human brains are wired for compassion, caring, altruism, and cooperation. It turns out that most people everywhere, irrespective of their skin color, religion, nationality, or language are happiest when they are being helpful, loving, peaceful, generous, and cooperative. Isn't that stunning? Think of the possibilities."

It's obvious that it would be so if you understand that we are natural herbivores who are designed to eat plant foods exclusively and not at all designed for violence, including the violence of denying others access to resources just to make ourselves feel superior.

"The trance isn't new. It has held us captive to the most reptilian aspects of our nature for the past 5,000 years"

'Reptilian?' Dude, humans are herbivores. We do not have primitive or latent aggressive qualities. That is simply wrong. Our aggressive and elitist societies are generated purely from cultural conditioning that violates every iota of our inherent ecological design.

"The success of those who achieve imperial dominion over their neighbors gives rise to monumental hubris and material self-indulgence until the reigning empire is so weakened by its own excesses that the more disciplined warriors of another tribe or nation easily vanquish it."

There are no 'warriors' of another tribe just as there were not to bring down Hitler. Those who orchestrated Hitler's rise also implemented Hitler's destruction. We are in the deconstruction phase of 'American' society but the elite hands that contributed to the building of this military state are the same interests that are implementing its present collapse into anarchy and massive destitution.

"The fall of the American empire country seems destined to come not from any military invasion across our borders but rather from our growing foreign debt and the purchase of our assets by the foreign sovereign wealth funds that hold thw debt. It will be a rude awakening indeed when we one day wake up to realize that we, the democratic Christian capitalist rulers of the world have been reduced by our own hand to an economic colony of the Chinese Communist Party and a group of Islamic dictatorships in the Middle East."

The disinfo in the above is astounding.

1) As one military liaison in Argentina said to me, "You know of course that money is nothing but an instrument of control. There is no substance to it, it is manipulated. The dollar can be just as easily reduced to ten percent of its current value." The conversation came about in regard to the Argentina peso.

Another former US military officer admitted responsibility for orchestrating the peso's collapse. What is interesting here is that following the collapse, a number of wealthy individuals moved in to seize assets at very little expense to themselves meaning, what was paid offered almost no relief to those who lost their businesses, homes, farms, etc.

2) There are NO Islamic dictators. They are, were and always have been under elite Western control.

3) China too is an invention of imperialism. You may not know the story of its transition but I do. And it began with Western corporate military interests and their advisors who re-scripted the China into its present form as a society of have-nots slaving for the empire and a few lavishly paid for their 'management'. That you are being placed in debt is not surprising, nor that you actually do not know who controls this debt economy and why many of you are its target.

4) We aren't "the democratic Christian capitalist rulers of the world." First we are NOT democratic and have never been. Political institutions have always been controlled by the world's elite, going all the way back to the founding of this country. 'We' are not even Christian since those who rule know that Christianity is an invention of mass control and certainly do not entertain it as anything but an allegory based in part on celestial mechanics. And, we are certainly NOT capitalist! We have a tightly controlled economic society. Privilege is only extended to those who support the principles and operational goals and interests of the empire. What we have is pure economic totalitarianism.

"A young fellow named Jesus got famous for preaching it to large crowds of adoring fans some 2,000 years ago."

Jesus is a myth.

His appearance in our history is coincident with the interests of the Roman empire… they needed a new myth to help unite the masses… and ultimately use this new unification for more excesses of Empire. Naturally, he (Jesus) too had to appeal to the un requited desires of the majority.

"The global scale collapse of social and environmental systems provides the shared imperative to have that conversation, a conversation now already well underway."

No, it does not. More chaos does not assist people to act constructively or even to achieve the presence and calm to reflect. These collapses are being orchestrated by a military industrial complex that is unleashing a plan for massive global genocide, in which civil unrest will be (and is being) promoted. The enactment of these plans will not serve communities, but policies promoting more of the same; highly controlled police states that are easy for an elite to manage.

"For the first time since our earliest human like ancestors walked the earth millions of years ago, we humans have the means and the imperative to engage this conversation on a global scale."

I am not sure what the possibilities of humans were who were not completely estranged from the rest of nature. Personally, I am convinced that wisdom was in much greater, not less supply including the understanding of how to share insight.

It is humanities conscious divorce from natural participation that is at the root of empire. And the empire does control the internet, Coop America, YES!, etc. So, let's get real here. We can bring about change, but reality is our greatest friend in accomplishing this, not more spin by our social engineers.

"We weren't born with the Empire story in our heads. It's not in our genes."

This is true. We are herbivores, not carnivores nor omnivores.

"It got there from the economic, political, and religious institutions that perpetuate it and reward those who serve its values by showering them with financial success and promoting them to positions of unaccountable power."

Yes.

"Democracy took hold when we replaced the story of the divine right of kings with the story that the powers of government derive from the will of the people."

Democracy in all current expressions is a ruse perpetrated by Kings to deceive the people into believing that their elite controlled realities were somehow their own doing. Democracy means equal expression. That is simply impossible in societies where economic class distinctions are pronounced and media is controlled by secret services professional spin doctors and disinformers and history is written by military think tanks.

In order to have democratic expression, there must be truth in reporting and equality of economic participation regardless of political or racial considerations. We are not even close to being a democracy.

"The propagandists of Empire who propagate Empire stories work at an inherent disadvantage, because their success depends on suppressing our natural desires for community, justice, and liberty. That is why Empire has to pay them handsomely for their service. The results they seek do not come naturally."

Yes. And this is also the reason that for millennia, habitats have been burned down. So that extending privilege could be made to seem the exclusive function of empire… nature thus displaying no ability to care for its own.

"The power of authentic stories is the source of civil society's ultimate power advantage."

Yes. And this story begins with a fundamental truth of human ecological design, we are herbivores. We have NO natural capacity for war or killing in any form.

"Unlike the fabricated stories of Empire, the authentic stories of Earth Community resonate with what we know deep in our being to be true. Once we are clear that there is an alternative to the violent domination of Empire and it is the world of our dreams,…"

The dream world is what the empire has created with disinfo 'science', history, etc. We can awaken when we see ourselves as we are; a part of a living biosphere, nothing more and nothing less. In this alone is the path to peace and individual and communal well-being.

"Without our acquiescence, the dominator structures of Empire collapse, as the Marcos Regime in the Philippines collapsed, as the Soviet Union and the apartheid regime in South Africa collapsed without a shot fired. Progressive Talk show host Thom Hartmann calls this process walking away from the king."

Yes.

"In these turbulent and frightening times, it is important to remind ourselves that we are privileged to live at the most exciting moment of creative opportunity in the whole of the human experience. The future is in our hands. Now is the hour. We have the power to turn this world around. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Thank you."

The only power, we have is to accept and recognize Nature, including our own nature. It is time for humility. In this we will find the connections to life that sustain, emotionally, practically, intellectually, experientially, etc.

Even after every half truth has been told, the right answer will still be there waiting to set you COMPLETELY free.

http://allinharmony.org

Almost anything the hippies do is okay by me.

Here's another observed consequence of runaway climate change. However the human race responds to this crisis, it must be done quickly. Time is NOT on our side!

"Scientists traveling with the troops found major new fractures during an assessment of the state of giant ice shelves in Canada's far north.

"The team found a network of cracks that stretched for more than 10 miles (16km) on Ward Hunt, the area's largest shelf.

"The fate of the vast ice blocks is seen as a key indicator of climate change."

BBC News, May 23, 2008

Civil Behavior - I too like your idea. But where does one find a bandana these days? Haven't they kind of gone the way of

I've often thought of the flag lapel pin, turned into proof of patriotism; and wondered about a like symbol for getting people together - such as a lapel pin - something simple, like the earth, with matching window stickers for homes and cars.

Sadly I think Jacob Freeze is right if you think the oligarchs from DICK Cheney all the way down to our resident troll Jake Newton are going to wake up and have an epiphany one day and say I've been wrong and now I'll live like Ghandi you are dangerously kidding yourself. The top ten percent of power and wealth holders in the U.S. are stubborn unrepentant sociopaths who will will fight down to the last man (they are mostly men with a sprinkling of Hillaries thrown in for spice) to maintain their position in the dominance hierarchy,count on it. If we don't toughen up and dispose of air fairy swill like this article then we are likely doomed to be herded unarmed into concentration camps like the Jews were in WWII. I WILL keep shopping at the co-op, voting for Greens, etc, but I will ALSO at the same time be prepared to fight if that's what it takes.

Chomsky put it best once when he said to understand the elite is to understand they want EVERYTHING and to leave you with NOTHING. Such people will never suddenly change and become better people just because we wish that were so. Ask our resident troll Jake Newton if he's going to become an empathetic person who is going to voluntarily reduce his carbon footprint if you don't believe me. Now extrapolate, the Jake Newtons are the ones with their hand on the levers of power not people like us, I think it's much more likely we will see something like the "Iron Heel" spoken of by Jack London than the magical awakening spoken of in this article:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1164

Some times the truth is rough ask an old Jew if you don't believe me.

We must now test the limits of the individual and collective creative potential of our species as we strive to become the change we seek.

Well, not if we are to believe what some on Common Dreams believe.

There is a balance in nature, and we're part of it. We have a choice as far as what part we play.

Fortunately, the general population of progressives are not the hardened cynics one finds here on CD. Most are naive enough to believe they can make a difference, and in naively trying, will. Those who do nothing, who risk nothing, who are paralyzed by "the truth," are already dead. Pity.

"Dare to be naive." Buckminster Fuller

I for one am not expecting the imperialists to change their attitudes toward expansion and domination.

But what I am asking for is for the many of us to stand up and be recognized for what we believe needs to happen in order for earth to survive. It is essential that we VISIBLY begin to show our commitment. This isn't about what THEY do, it is about what WE HAVE done.

We have allowed ourselves to be lulled into believing the government. We must stop that.

We have allowed ourselves to believe that we can separate ourselves from the system while using its resources and think our own contribution to its demise is somehow negligible. We must stop that.

We have allowed ourselves to romanticize this whole military service that being trained to kill other humans a somehow a"service"? To whom?For whom? We must stop that.

Our time is short to mitigate the damages that have been brought to bear. This is a planet. You don't just patch it up to fix it. The greatest mother of all times is sending signals to us the earth community. We aren't listening. And it concerns all of the things that our republic has done to the web of life on this what we call home. We don't have the luxury of whining at a keyboard anymore. Either we take the risks necessary to change the world for the future or we will get everything we deserve.

It's certainly your choice. By making a choice to do nothing is still making a choice. As it turns out that particular kind of choice will result in more of a benefit to the status quo of empire. Are you sure that's what you want?

I downloaded "the story of stuff" as recommended above. It is a very powerful description of what is happening now. I recommend it. My own personal problems is how do I change my work, my status as a consumer on the work, leisure, consume treadmill? How do we break the chain? I could withdraw from a well paid job as a supposedly 'productive' worker , but how do I continue to support my families future, in the debt trap society? There lies a leap into the unknown. The best method would be to form communities of similar minded people to achieve the tasks of sustainable support. And then how do we stop the benefactors of the exploitative civilization from stealing and ruining the world from those with more sustainable lifestyles but less political and military power? It depends on us, the lucky but unhappy benefactors, from realizing our global mistakes, and doing without benefits from the destructive results of exploitation.

iammyself May 25th, 2008 6:47 pm -- "Fortunately, the general population of progressives are not the hardened cynics one finds here on CD."

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- George Bernard Shaw

Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. -- David T. Wolf

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up. -- Lily Tomlin

Here's a hint many millions more people in the U.S. watch corporate apologist swill like the cartoon "King of the Hill" than come to this web site. As long as we use sappy terms like "Earth community" we'll quite rightly be the butt of the national joke on such shows, like it or not that's reality, denial won't help. OTH if we forthrightly say that the corporations are bending us over and fucking us without any lube are we going to take it or not? THAT is language Americans can understand. Do I wish it were different than that? Of course, but it isn't different than that and the globalist elite that hold 90% of the wealth and all the military power knows that and they are far closer to being like actual Nazis than we ever let ourselves know. George Bush for example was brought up in a family that funded the actual Nazis, get it these people don't give a rats ass about the "Earth community" as long as they can slither away and retire in"grand style" in Paraguay. Do you think the actual Nazis of the 40s would have SUDDENLY woken up if they were told they were a danger to the "Earth community"? No you say, well neither will out global elite, to be naive IMO is to allow yourself to be a victim of the Jake Newtons, DICK Cheneys and Hank Hills of the world. Why would we want to do that? Fight, don't simper damn it!

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Although I am not religious looking at strictly secular things like increasing war, exponentially increasing consumerism, sub prime crash, etc, it seems to me this is far closer to the mark than some New Age where we ride purple Unicorns to our yurt in the "Earth community." Although I'd like a yurt on the Pacific coast as much as the next CD reader progressive, guess what I can't afford it because the globalists are spending the limited resources that could be used to build yurts for us all on killing brown people and stealing their stuff. THAT is reality in America in the 21st century.

I think the comments posted here are as equally relevant as the piece itself.

hedology's question of how to break do we break the cycle of the debt-trap society, is the most singularly compelling one that must be answered if we are ever to make a break with the Elites, and move towards anything resembling an "Earth Community."

In order to answer that question, one must ask how we ever got in the cycle in the first place. Simple: the emasculation of man from the earth and natural resources. Take man away from his food source, take him away from his source of water, and you have a man who is trapped. Completely dependent on the powers that be for his very survival. You have a captive individual who is welling to forfeit a great deal of his time and energy, in order to be granted the basic tenants of life: food, water and shelter.

You see, once they took man from the land, he was owned--a slave. Though some at higher prices than others.

Us here in the modern "West" have gotten ourselves even deeper into the debt trap as a result of being granted an inordinate amount of material comfort, wealth and sheer luxuries in the order of magnitude only dreamed of by the wealthiest of all in centuries past. All this wealth has come at a tremendous ecological and human price, and for it all, have we truly gained anything of substance?

That is not to say, that all that has been wrought of wealth and economic "progress" is entirely bad. When we stopped having to spend so much time growing food, it opened up a wealth of possibilities for people to create art, music, and literature--in essence, human culture. The rapid expanse of technology has brought us the internet, a creative and communicative medium unparalleled in its ability to connect people and ideas. Even destructive, dirty technology built on fossil fuels--such as airplanes--have allowed individuals(albeit a privileged few, relative to the world population) to have experiences and connect with people in places only before visited by the most intrepid of adventurers.

But most of those things are unnecessary when it comes right down to it. The basics--food, water, shelter--how to get those without enslaving oneself to the machine is the big question. I read articles in the New York Times of the modern day homesteader: wealthy, mid-thirties couples from NYC buying land in upstate NY and farming. Well, that is great if you are fortunate enough to have made your fortune young enough to do something about it, once you realize that the rat race isn't all that fulfilling.

For those of us who are not quite so well placed economically, what are our options? Well, there is always the option of the collective: four or five good friends/families buying a piece of land and working it jointly is a more economically palatable--and probably easier--proposition than going it alone. A guess this is something akin to a commune. It is a feasible option, but requires a lot of commitment, and a complete and total paradigm shift. One positive is, that should the global meltdown of the grid and all semblances of modern society ever occur, you will be much better suited to deal with it.

Or, there is the option of trying to find some sort of middle ground. It requires taking a serious look at the money you make and what you do with it. What things do you buy that you TRULY NEED? Probably not too many. What are you willing to give up? How much is your time worth to you? What do you need that you can produce yourself, or barter for with someone you know?

The best way I can think of to begin attempting to break yourself from the debt cycle--or at least to lesson your need for it--is to plant a garden. This is not so difficult, considering that so many people still live in the suburbs and have some degree of outdoor space. (Perhaps the extreme growth of the suburbs of the last 50 years was really an unconscious response--not to escape the filth and depravity of the cities--but to reconnect with our natural state of being as stewards of the land and farmers. Too bad we got sold microwaves and TV dinners instead!) I mean, who needs a useless lawn anyway, when you could be growing at least some of your own food. I have recently taken up this hobby, and it feels really good. It takes a bit of time and manual labor, but it feels productive and ancient.

It is a small, but symbolic step to take. Detaching ourselves from the debt cycle entirely is exceedingly difficult--we depend on it for our every need. But taking an active role in re-claiming one's own existence--and simply realizing that most of what we buy is utterly needless--are the first tender steps.

Thank you David Korten for an excellent article.

Thank you civil behavior for an excellent post.

To me, many of the negative posts to David Korten's article seem to overlook the transformational power of spirituality. To be successful, radical social change always requires a common spiritual message. This is the truth of every major social revolution in American history. The writing of David Korten is not naive, it reflects an underlying spiritual message that is the destiny of human evolution for its' own survival.

Up to now, military power, political power and technological power has been the sole answer to social unrest. The domination of the rich and powerful over the weak and powerless by way of economic oppression and the terrorism of war are now proving to be obsolete. To resolve future conflicts, Humankind must now turn to the power of spirituality, truth, justice, compassion, and the powerful spiritual dynamics of legitimate democratic rule.

As commonly held, the world is not experiencing a "clash of civilizations" between Christianity and Islam. The world is experiencing a clash between the oppressive materialistic forces of Western predatory capitalism and the unrelenting forces of spirituality. The world is now experiencing a new tidal wave, the "Spirituality of Liberation" by the vast majority of the people in the world who are poor and oppressed.

To view it otherwise is futile.

Here's another thought, as a Gen Xer I was quite moved by the "grunge" group Nirvana in the early 90s. On their album Never Mind Kurt said "our little group has always been, and always will until the end."

http://lyrics.rockmagic.net/lyrics/nirvana/nevermind_1991.html#01

I think that's pretty true there have always been bohemians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism

throughout European history, a small group artists, thinkers, humanists, small farmers, rebels, etc. I myself am proud to be part of that centuries old tradition but I am not under the delusion that there are enough of us to turn the empire in time. Yes I will try to maintain "hope," but I won't count on it..

Stephn Riley I don't think you could be more wrong. IMO the only thing that will save us from the claws of empire is hard headed clear rationalist enlightenment thinking. Left anti intellectualism is no more appealing to me than right wing anti intellectualism. Here's a hint, the data we will use to argue the exact impact developers have on a landscape will be collected by ecologists, who are gasp scientists. Wind mills and photovoltaics will be developed and improved by gasp eek scientists. So will better insulation for our houses, tools to garden with that will last longer, etc.

I have been to a national Rainbow gathering gathering and frankly it was dismal and depressing living in the dirt, watching people get water born diseases, and diss the art and culture from the world seen in civilized museums and on web sites, to me that atavistic vision is no more appealing than the one offered by "conservatives" of endless subservience to the church in a pre enlightenment state. Read the Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood to see how that plays out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale

In sum you'll pry my Darwin, Richard Dawkins, and my solar fuel cell powered note book computer that allows me to see art and hear music from around the world from my cold dead fingers.
Feminism, civil rights, gay rights, ecology, and liberation from slavery are ALL results of enlightenment rationalist thinking. If you think "spiritual" villagers are somehow progressive read Bernard Malamud's The Fixer about the terrible antisemitism that persisted in village life oriented Russia into the 20th century. There is your "spiritual" thought in action right there:

http://www.amazon.com/Fixer-Penguin-Twentieth-Century-Classics/dp/0140185151

Yes to overthrowing corporate control and massively reducing our carbon foot print, no to returning to a superstitious "spiritual" "golden age" that was marked by blatant racism, homophobia, and people dying of easily cured diseases in their 40s.

"Spirituality" has brought us exactly ZERO real progress towards being enlightened caring citizens with knowledge of all the worlds cultures who live simply using local resources, that will only be brought about by will power and a rational examination of our current unsustainable way of life.

Where do you think the computer came from that you typed your post with Stephen?

It is refreshing to read posts here on CD. It is a robust dialogue. I applaud the blog owners for their willingness to air the temperment of each writers explanations.

Earth community is a term. A bandana is a symbol. Revolution is the intent.
Yes, revolution. A spiritual one. A cultural one. A revolution in thought and then in action is what is needed. There is nothing wimpy about revolutionary thought and certainly not the action resulting from such thought. This isn't about holding hands and singing kumbaya and expecting results. Far from it.
Here's how you start. First of all you don't just simplify, you begin to sacrifice. That in itself frees you to be able to educate others as to how to break the cycle.

Almost two years ago I needed to find a job.I was 54 at the time. I had just finished renovating a historic home and we were sitting on it waiting to sell. I saw the gas crunch coming. So I got on my bike and I pedaled within a distance that I felt comfortable being able to bicycle to daily and I knocked on doors. Many of them. I took no resume, just a smile and an enthusiastic attitude. I walked in through any door of a place where I felt I could do the kind of work they obviously did and said "Hi, my name is ********* *********, and I am looking for a job. I was wondering if you were needing anyone at the moment." I would then proceed to engage them about my skills and training and what they might or might not have available.

I had determined that I was going to try and get a vehicle off the road and be close to home. In less than two weeks and probably 50 plus doors I had a new job a block and half from where I lived. We have recently moved the office a bit further but I am more accustomed to riding the bike now and use it for everything except longer trips when I need to haul groceries or I have to go further than 2-4 miles.

We don't eat out. Never did much because never could really afford it. We don't do movies. Too expensive and my spouse can't sit through them. I buy all my clothes at thrift stores. Have for ages. Love rummaging looking for classic clothes at a penny on the dollar. We have a vegetable garden when the summer heat cools down and mango, banana and soon avocado trees. We plant pineapple tops wen we buy them for pineapples.

This is how one starts. It isn't yurt living, I am an old hippie but I've outgrown some of what I could do in my twenties. I run air conditioning in the summer set at 79 with a paddle fan when the temps inside hit 80. I run two to three lights at night in the house and the ones most used have CFL's in them.

This is small stuff. But what empowers me is the knowledge that for whatever it is worth it is worth doing. I have made a choice to have as little to do with empire and as much as I can to do with earth community. I talk constantly to others. Constantly. I am now looking into reserving the ;local free library meeting room to show An Inconvenient Truth on weekends to try and .stimulate some discussion and hope to show other movies too that will stimulate even more discussion.

If I can get people to that point then here are some subjects I hope to broach. Here are some of them

Deconstruct the military. Throughout my life I have seen nothing but anguish result from killing in the name of freedom or national security. It is a lie. A very costly one. The best defense we can have is a foreign policy that keeps our nose out of other nations business and lead by example not by the backside of a bomb. Use that 600+billion dollars for a national service corp and R&D into clean sustainable resourcing.

Outlaw lobbyists. That one is simple and the result would be powerful. Take them out of Washington. Do not allow staffers to have outside interests (which are all special interests) write the laws.

Rationing. Because of where we are today it is now time for rationing of our precious resources. Prices will not mitigate the disaster unfolding. The rich can still afford it. They are the most egregious users. They must be dealt with. Now.

Pay as you go. There should not be a system of spending on credit. It has become a ponzi scheme of gargantuan proportions. Bleeding us dry. This is a funnel to the top. It happens from the federal govt down to the common persons Visa card. Slaves to usury. A centuries old con.

Legalize pot. It is ridiculous that we are spending time, energy and money on fighting the least injurious vice. Bring it into the sunshine like CA has done with medical pot. I'm not advocating legalization of all drugs but pot needs to be grown and distributed outside of the shadows of the underground market.
Last but not least. Turn off your TV except for educational programs these kids don't need any more "reality" from TV.

In essence make the change you wish to see.

civil behavior sed:

"We don't eat out. Never did much because never could really afford it. We don't do movies. Too expensive and my spouse can't sit through them. I buy all my clothes at thrift stores. Have for ages. Love rummaging looking for classic clothes at a penny on the dollar. We have a vegetable garden when the summer heat cools down and mango, banana and soon avocado trees. We plant pineapple tops wen we buy them for pineapples..."

blah, blah, blah...

I would guess 90% of us who post here have already done all that. I know I have... Thus we are 1% of the population saying these SAME things over and over and over to the "choir" and yet we still remain 1% of the population. Now what? How do we grow? Why is our message so unappealing? Come on you know it's true, 10,000 times more people will watch the Stupidbowl than read this message. We have a real FAILURE to communicate and reach people outside the circle already receptive to verbiage like "Earth community." Let's stop being stale and repetitive and start winning because we OUGHT to, we have better ideas than right wingers but they'll never get anywhere in circle jerks like this. Harsh? You bet I think breaking out of our la, la,la trance is the first step towards getting EVERYONE involved and actually bringing down the globalists. Hint shopping at a thrift store and then getting an orgnic latte at a gentrified health foodstore may be fun and even necessary, but it is NOT sufficient to bring down the empire, improve ourselves yes, but also we must figure out how to reach people in working class bars to CONFRONT the right wing sociopaths that run things or we are sunk IMO. Why is everyone so afraid of real confrontation with evil ranging from DICK Cheney to Jake Newton?

P.S. this giant floating windmill is going to do FAR more to solve problems than wheezing about "Earth communities" or "spirituality;"

http://www.statoilhydro.com/en/NewsAndMedia/News/2008/Pages/hywind_fullscale.aspx

Re- hootowl's argument that "the only thing that will save us from the claws of empire is hard headed clear rationalist enlightenment thinking."

I see it differently. First of all, I would say that the kind of "rationalist" thought process you commend has become part and parcel of the problem. And just as you assert that "anti intellectualism is no more appealing to me than right wing anti intellectualism," I would say that (initially accepting the dichotomy you pose) a great deal of "new age thinking" AND, many of the rationalist positions share simplisitic assumptions.

We certainly have been born in interesting times...
:-)

French scientist, and systems theorist Edgar Morin (1997) writes:

"All that which, in the past, made up the radiant face of Western civilization is now becoming its darker side. For instance, individualism, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, is now accompanied more and more by such phenomena as fragmentation, solitude, egocentricity and the disintegration of solidarity….

"We have realized that development, originally viewed only from an economic aspect, does not preclude human and moral under-development."

Author of the book, Homeland Earth, Morin argues that the persistence of a global nuclear threat, worldwide environmental degradation, overpopulation (which he refers to as the global demographic disorder), and the widening gap between and the rich and the poor around the world need to be regarded in light of the inter-retroactions between these and other problems, crises, and threats.

When taken together this state of affairs can be accurately labeled "a polycrisis." He strongly suggests that given the levels of complexity we face:

"there is a need for a way of thinking that brings together again that which has been put asunder and compartmentalized, that respects diversity whilst recognizing individuality, and that tries to discern interdependences. In other words, we need a multidimensional way of thinking…"

Too often, rationalism, as it is commonly understood, is more akin to rationalization...and in any case has helped dig the hole in which we find ourselves.

In terms of an approach to problem solving and creativity that is systemic in nature, Morin again observes:

"I hold it to be impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole just as it is impossible to know the whole without knowing the parts.. That is the crux of the matter, the direction of learning in which education ought to be heading…

"In other words…[we need] an organizing approach that takes account of the two-way relationship between the whole and its constituent parts, an approach that, instead of studying an object in isolation, examines it in and through its self-organizing relationship with its cultural, social, economic, political and natural environment."

Morin goes on to argue that only a complex kind of thinking can deal adequately with the "inseparability of problems…in which each depends on the other."

Other writers such as Montuori and Purser have further addressed the problem of 'disjunctive thought,' and the elaborated some of the dangers of a one-sided view. They go on to say that our tendency to relate to things in 'either/or' terms,

"… as ontologically opposed and mutually exclusive categories, has created the fundamental problem whereby one of the terms is viewed as superior and desirable and the other is viewed as inferior. The result of this extreme polarization is that the 'lower' term manifests itself in peculiar ways as the 'shadow' of the higher term."

If any sort of creative approach is going to be of help, I firmly believe it will be a form of thought as far beyond "rationalism," as rationalism was beyond the church-based magical thinking of Medieval period.

"Our world is not governed by democratically elected governments."

Although the entire world may not be governed by democratically elected governments, the US is (sort of).

The problem is that the media focuses on candidates it wants us to vote for and ignores candidates it doesn't want us to vote for, so we don't have enough information to make the right choice. And, even when some of us do manage to find candidates that are good for us, the media manages to convince us that those candidates are "unelectable," so we're afraid to vote for them, even though we love their ideas.

We, the poor and middle, class could, since we vastly outnumber the wealthy, change the face of American politics almost overnight if we truly voted in our best interests. But we never do.

The media is a puppeteer, and we are the puppets.

Mr. Korten is an opportunist and a thief. He has adopted the language of American Indians without giving credit to the source. He fails to address the American Genocide or even to make reference to it. His words fail to comprehend that the greatest genocide in the last five hundred years in the world was the American Genocide. Once again Euro/Americans attempt to steal American Indian culture and lifeways. That theft is awkward and shallow and will again result in negative consequences. What is it about the Euro/American mind that prevents it from respecting Native Peoples who stand ready to lead along a good path, a path of depth and good consequence? It's the American Achilles heel and it's called EGO. Ego kills!

poweroflove who said anything about individualism? The old IWW guys who won us the 8 hour work day and other things we now take for granted were secular rationalist anarcho-syndicalists. We could learn a lot from that history about when the left directly confronted the powers that be and won. I'd of course add ecological thinking we have learned since then to the mix and I'd say Murray Bookchin is a good bridge figure between the 30s lefties who knew how to win and our modern Greens and other passive "spiritual" types who don't:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin

"Peter Kropotkin described Anarchism as the extreme left wing of socialism - a view with which I completely agree. One of my deepest concerns today is that the libertarian socialist core will be eroded by fashionable, post- modernist, spiritualist, mystic individualism."

*****

"Capitalism is a social cancer. It has always been a social cancer. It is the disease of society. It is the malignancy of society."

http://eng.anarchopedia.org/Murray_Bookchin

"Ontological" asswholistic blah, blah mental chewing gum is the last thing we need and I say that as a philosophy major (reformed) since leavened by real life.

Doom n gloom I see your point about ripping off Native Americans, now what are we going to DO about it?

Doom and gloom here is some followup from Lakota elders pissed about their traditions being stolen by New Age hucksters and plastic "shaman."

http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/articles/ladecwar.htm

see also:

http://www.geocities.com/ourredearth/exploiters.html
http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/articles/warlakot.htm

Ticonderoga I think we all already know that what do we DO about it?

It's good to check our cynicism now and then. Mr. Korten's new age-like vocabularly in his essay has caused a few expressions of cynicism here. I guess people feel that what he is saying is something they've heard before - a fad of the late sixties that came and went.

However, having read his earlier book, "When Corporations Rule the World," I think Mr. Korten is just taking the next step after contemplating the programmatic destruction caused by capitalism and corporatism. He's looking to break the patterns that dominate our lives.

He's right about changing the story. Ancient Rome had its foundation myth; America had its made-up story. No one here (except the richest one percent) believes in the so-called American Dream anymore. So, the question is what remains that we can believe in common. The state is tyrannical. The corporation is soul-less and destructive. Religion is just as Marx described: the opiate of the masses.

I don't know how to express a new positive vision. Korten is trying. Folks need to keep an open mind and question if there might be something that could lead to positive change. Do what you can, I guess. There's no instant gratification to systemic change.

If I had to put my finger on what is unsatisfying about Korten's vision, I'd say that people have been living apart too long and don't believe change is possible anymore. That's the cynicism that needs to be checked. History, slow as it is, shows that people united can make enduring change for the better.

We already have an Earth Community, it's called a Cemetery. Rest In Peace. Mother Earth will take care of you.

Thoughts into action I think change is possible but we'll have to fight for it like the old IWW guys did who had sit down strikes in the factories and risked being roughed up by goons doing so. What I don't think is helpful for person or planet is a lot of New Agey wishful thinking that this change will take place if we just passively sit back and wait for "enlightenment" and then maybe feebly wave a few signs around every 6 months or so. Shopping at the co-op and having a garden is great, and going to a peace march may FEEL empowering but the sad fact is we are losing folks and the empire continues to grind people up in it's maw. Rather than repeating the same mistakes and engaging in wishful thinking that "this time it will work, people will wake up," how about brainstorming about different things to try, including those that worked in history like the general strike? Example Seattle general strike of 1919:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_General_Strike_of_1919
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/gold.shtml

It's different times maybe lets put out a call to Wal Mart workers to stop loading Chinese imports made under terribly polluted sweat shop conditions that displace American workers. Maybe there needs to be a telemarketer silence day. Maybe we need to glue the doors to a sawmill shut in Northern California, I DON'T know the details but I think we need to start brainstorming and I do know one mass action would be worth 10,000 asswholistic stale cud articles like this one.

Korten says we need a new story. Got that one right, except for the singular. For those who haven't read them I'd suggest the Ishmael books (Ishmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn). Been around a good while, tho I only just got on to them. Some of you may be put off by an analysis of humans just before the Perfect Storm formulated by a gorilla. But could any of us get enough distance on us to see us anthropologically? Of course, the militant veggies out there, having forgotten the incisors and canines that fill half our mouths, are likely to be delighted that a true natural vegetarian would help us see ourselves clear.

One of Ishmael's key notions is that there is no one right way for humans to live or to be. Both Imperialists and Turning Ones have a tough time getting this, presumably because the Turning Ones have been enculturated—for all their vaunted leaving it behind—by the Imperialists. Not that you can't get some distance from the enculturation you had not choice about, but it's a hell of a lot harder than flipping a light switch.

Korten suggests that we have all been imbued with the Imperial story that humans are by nature "fearful, violent, greedy, and individualistic." Yeah, we certainly do hear that one all the time. He proposes instead a story he saw emerge at an Earth Summit: "consistent with recent scientific findings…our human brains are wired for compassion, caring, altruism, and cooperation." Nope, don't hear that one much. So substitute one for the other and we're half way to saving ourselves from our selves. Not. Because neither story does a decent job of getting all of how we are or how we are different from one another individually or culturally. We are caring, etc towards those who count as our us, and hostile etc towards those who are not-us. But who is us and who not-us, what to do with the violators, opens a wide range of possible human ways of being. The problem with each of the stories is that something crucial is left out. Once we add to each what is left out, we get not a nice neat nutshell to put human nature in but a wide range of stories of how humans are. Those of us who see the Perfect Storm coming do ourselves and others a great disservice by merely substituting one True Story for another. What we need is to learn to think in more complicated ways.

One theme running through this thread is that the "airy-fairy" talk of compassion and community means an abandonment of the science and rationality which is thought to be our salvation. Seems a dumb move since hardly anyone knows how to do magic anymore. Moreover, philosophers like Kant, Dewey, and Wittgenstein have shown (some of) us that science and rationality are essentially means: they show us how to go about learning and doing things, but they are no help whatsoever in guiding us about what we should do. [Full disclosure: there are lots more philosophers who have deified Rationality as their one true story.] Abandon science and rationality? Foolish. But wotcha gonna do wid it?

Then we get the swooning over spirituality, and the "hard headed" rejection of mush. But what spirituality is being talked about by whom? The spirituality that opiates people to their all too hard lives or that which leads Germans to hide Jews from the Gestapo? The spirituality that lead whites and blacks Christians and Jews and atheists to the American South in the '60s or that which condemns those slightly different as adherents of the great whore? The spirituality of a Hindu who inspired the destruction of others' holy places or that of a Hindu who inspired both Hindus and Moslems to throw out the then reigning superpower. The Judaic spirituality that carried some people through one of the worst deliberate exterminations of all times or that which treats non-Jews as vermin standing in the way of a holy dream? Or some spirituality between these extremes? Then there is the so-called spirituality of the Caucasians who shave their heads, wear orange robes, and beg for a master, the faux Buddhism of a bedroom shrine and no self-discipline, the "Christianity" that enshrines self-righteous avarice. What are you praising? What are you condemning? Perhaps if you would get specific, you would spend less time belittling one another and more time helping your Mother.

Ecologies and communities are both complicated and very, very specific. Perhaps we would do better if we took them to heart as models of our thinking. We can think in complicated ways; we do it all the time whether we're fixing machines or teaching students or negotiating a relationship or growing a garden. But we were weaned on the one true story, the one right way to live, and still find it most comforting. Like a pacifier.

"Doom n gloom I see your point about ripping off Native Americans, now what are we going to DO about it?"

Hootowl, my beliefs are integrated into my life and I strive to make my actions worthy of my beliefs. The doing sometimes takes the form of words and other times requires meatspace activism. I do not however do as the Lakota have done and declare war. I do respect the Lakota's right to act as they choose. Sometimes the Lakota activism sucks all the air out of the room and the actions of other Tribes, that do differ from the conservative Lakota, go unnoticed. That is fine with me because this is not a competition and I want readers to know that Indians do differ in their beliefs. It is when one Tribe oversteps it's bounds and smacks down another Tribe's beliefs that fundamentalism and extremism rear their ugly heads. In their War, some Lakota have been guilty of this as well. In balance we progress, outside of balance we do not. So the doing is as varied as the Tribes.

What rightly disturbs many people about institutional religion is its' apparent hypocrisy. The church is an institution, and like all institutions, it works for its own perpetuation. Institutional religion has separated itself from spirituality by embracing control, domination, absolutes and dogma.

This though does not close the door to the faithful who come to know the true mind of Christ and wish to worship in community, recognizing the Holy Spirit in all of humankind.

THOUGHTS into ACTION & JP OVERSEAS: very thoughtful, useful and profound posts.

The cool thing about studying the logos--how the " circle" of our heavens and its archetypal imprints are reflected in our world, is that it's not an either-or proposition. This model transcends polarity and plenty of polarity has colonized our thought processes, as so often one thing is placed in opposition to another (even the paradigm of just 2 political parties demonstrates this). The circle of ancient inviolate archetypal imprints, the celestial equivalent of DNA suggests a world with 12 different (each equal) driving motivations. ALL are not only intrinsic to the whole, part of the Creation blueprint, but necessary to its proper functioning and a balanced world. What we have seen is a co-optation of just 2 of the 12 principles, the quest for money/status (Greed) and the quest for power over/aggression (war/ego).

Few societies have really come to honor ALL positions that exist round the great circle. King Arthur, if only a legend, gave it a play. When we take the holy circle and convert it into hierarchy, structure our thought processes along linear sequences, we lose a great deal in the way of balance, harmony and a basis for peaceful co-existence among tribes that exist not only in terms of skin color and ethnic background, but tribes that ensue from higher planes, as well.

Korten is a wonder of understanding.

Korten (in Great Turning"), Nader, Gore, Handt & Negri ("The Multitde") are all together on the natural majoritarian multitude of the real 'working class' --- where 'working class' simply means the vast, 90% majority who make more from their real 'work' than from idle financial, un-earned speculation.

Hopefully the 2008 election will focus, thanks to Nader, on this real signal, seminal, and common cause of all our multiple problems of war, tyranny, economic looting, health care, the environment, etc. etc. --- which is the 'corporatist Empire', and as David says, its long running "story", "narrative" --- which is the lie of Empire.

Hopefully, the 2008 election rallying cry will not be Bill Clinton's lie of the 1992 campaign, "It's the economy, stupid", but will be the full true of "It's the Empire, stupid".

Korten fully understands the 'economic of empire', and the politics of empire, and the lies of empire.

Out of all this wonderful and vigorous discussion and debate - which is as democratic as anything ever was - there is ONE PRIMARY DEED WHICH MUST BE DONE - that is, prosaic as it sounds, grow some of your own food, learn how to do it and engage your neighbors in same.

City people think they can go out into the country and "get food" from "farmers." I am a former city person, now organic farmer for 20 years, who can tell you that way lies disappointment and starvation.

City rooftops, South-facing windows, small parks, Central Park, all parks and lawns should be growing FOOD WITHOUT CHEMICALS.

The petro-chemical, pharmaceutical, and genetically-engineered food industries (all the same people) have nearly ruined our habitat and we need to undo their harm.

Fight against use of pesticides, all of which do harm to humans, wildlife, fisheries, and contribute to poisoning of our air and water - which is why so many children are sickly when born these days.

Asthma was almost unheard of decades ago, and childhood cancer before the child is 20 years old is guaranteed to have begun in the womb - Mom has (as do all of us) toxic chemicals in her blood and fat, from which fetus feeds.

Argumentation-debate is fun, and it's a necessity to get all points of view so we can come up with the best conclusions about what to do. But the ONE CONCRETE THING we can all do NOW is grow some of our own food.

Rising of the oceans will wipe out the grography where most of us live. Put that in front of your consciousness and think how to deal with it.

I live about 8 feet above sea level - I am not staying here much longer, beautiful as it is. That's the reality.

Boston, New York, San Diego, et al, will be ruined by even 3 feet of ocean rise. Think what that will do to social constructs................and prepare.

Many of us used to make fun of "survivalists," but now I are one...........

-------Organic Farmer on North Coast of Maine

Wow. After trying to articulate what I meant in response to Hoot owl late last night when my mind was foggy and I related what I was doing practically not intellectually and being shot down I waited this morning before composing another post. Sure glad I did.
First Thoughts in action and then jpoverseas have just blown me out of the water. The follow up by Sioux rose brings back old memories and the distinctions by Doom and gloom from native American perspectives brings all into focus. I am humbled.

I want to believe after 56 years that I have allowed myself to be learned and open to all. I had just finished reading Kortens book given to me by a sister who I highly regard. I may have also plagiarized words he stole but only if to explain how best to position my thoughts.

In my 20's I was where Sioux Rose is now only she is much more enlightened. I studied the heavens and its uncanny message for us. It is haunting. I stopped only because the sheer explicitness of what was revealed disallowed the surprise of discovery for me but had I continued I might be as much the messenger as Siouxrose. It is a part of our universality that many may want to deny. It is very real to our being. No hocus pocus. Another part to our soul.

In my 20's I also studied yoga for health and meditation. It has become a part of who I am. In particular the breathing. I am not a guru. It has only helped me realize the limits of my strengths and the strengths of my weaknesses. It has also helped an older body age with little to no western medicinal intervention. A western perspective for which I have respect but tempered with a large dose of eastern self reflection.

In my 30's I busied myself experimenting with the notion of what the American Dream represented in my frame of reference. What exactly was the pursuit of happiness? Was money a necessity? Could I live what I dreamed without it? How did children fit into the picture? Did I need any of it? How would I get by without?

In my 40's I had become inured to having less of mostly everything. I realized that it wasn't through lack of hard work and smarts that we didn't have so much of what was considered necessary by many but that choosing by self employment not corporate submission we got by and saved what we could. We were content knowing we saw part of the writing on the wall even though we were not as fully engaged as we might have been in the past at least we had not contributed as much as many others to the corporate control of the masses.

In my 50's I have come full circle. At 56 I am back to fighting all the same battles that in the late 60's I really thought we had laid to rest. Our government had gotten much sneakier while I was busy in my 30's. I believed. I trusted. The turn of the millennium I knew things were not as they seemed. Had I stayed along the path of Sioux Rose I might have seen more earlier.
During my 30's and 40's while I was still learning but not at the increased rate I am now, the government was busy dumbing down the majority. Religion has played a HUGE part in that submission of the masses. Militarism has played another HUGE role. Fascism has established its roots. Time will tell how willing the masses are to turn over there conscience for a morally dubious nationalism. Seems to me they've done a fine job of convincing.

Since 2002 I have been saying it gets worse by the day, and it does. Like clockwork. My final attempt at rescue is to spend what energy I have outside of trying to live daily and pay bills toward having people understand the gravity of the climate problems and what we all must do to mitigate the damage that is presently occurring. 80% by 2050 is not going to work. I have a sense we are looking at rapid, radical changes that are already proceeding at a rate that without MAJOR intervention we are looking at a few years, at most ten, before we have reached a point of no return.

I'm a naturalist. This isn't about me knowing all the temperatures and the variations and the albedo effect and the Milankovitch cycles and all the other scientific arguments (which by the way I read about and agree with) it's about a sixth sense I have. Call it garbage. Call it nonsense. Makes no matter to me. This is the most important "change" we need to address and right now. It's coming. It's already underway. We are reaching a threshold that will make the war in Iraq seem like kids playing with matches.

We can intellectualize all day long about whether the words earth community are right and proper or too new age but I can assure you that for me they mean much more than a humbling discussion of philosophical or social adjudication (although I have got to say my next two books will be ishamael).

In the interim my no confidence vote in the publics ability to understand anything beyond what 1% of us knows, lines right up with Hootowl's . Difference is I regard this as a last ditch effort at defining this struggle between members of the privileged elite that rule from a separate world of luxury and legacy against the inalienable rights of the earth community.

No matter what you want to call it time is short and without the support from masses of others I will do what I can to destroy parts of the empire I see damaging what I see as most pertinent to the future of this planet. It's all I can do at this juncture although if someone else figures out how to get the revolution underway, count me in.

Actually, hootowl, if everybody knows that, then maybe everybody is wrong. I'm thinking, after reading PowerofLove's remarkable posts, that I was wrong.

If the poor and middle class vote in their best interests (which, granted, most of them don't) and the wealthy vote in their best interests, what they're doing is perpetuating a war, a voting war of self-interest, and a war is a war, whether it's a literal one or a metaphorical one.

What we really need to do is change our way of thinking, while there's enough time. Our weapons are too powerful for our "us vs them" kind of thinking, which always leads to war. Because of the power of our weapons, war is now obsolete. What we need to do is for each of us, poor and wealthy alike, to vote in the best interests of ALL of us. If we can do that we will, almost as a sort of side effect, always be voting for our own best interests. If we can create a better world for us all, and by that I mean everyone in the world, and not just our own country, we will create a better world for ourselves.

Everything about our society fosters competition, and for us competition is about war. It permeates our language: "the war on drugs", "a war of words", "the war between men and women," a "holy war," "war against terror," . . .

We even "war" against each other on this site, with the Kucinichniks or Nader's Raiders versus the Obamabots or the Billary supporters and etc. We spend too much time fighting and digging at each other, time that could be better spent elsewhere, than we do getting together and cooperating with each other.

So, do I know how to get people to think differently, to become less competetive and to work for everyone's best interests, instead of for just their own?

I'm not sure. A new way of looking at religion could maybe do it. Religion has enormous power and if everyone had the same religion and that religion fostered peace, instead of war, it might work. Not all sects of Christianity believe in fighting a holy war in Iraq, for example. Some believe in cooperation and peace. Taoism is a peaceful religion, but there aren't very many practicing taoists on earth.

Possibly we could look to Germany as an example. After having their collective unconscious shocked by World War II, the German people decided "no more," and began to take serious steps to make sure they never did this again. Now they've banned pesticides that kill honeybees and lead the world in biogas production and voted against the Iraq War, and etc. Maybe that's what it's going to take: a shock to our systems that's so profound that we come to our senses and realize how far in the wrong direction our current way of thinking is taking us and begin to start thinking differently. Perhaps our society is in the process of undergoing something like this right now and, if we survive our mistakes, we just might be able to find our way to this new way of thinking.

To bottom line this, somehow we've got to find a way to run our society that's not based on an us vs. them mindset. JFK was right when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," only he didn't take it far enough. Perhaps he should have said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for the world."

And, PowerofLove, thank you for your posts.

While I sympathize with all of the pained intellectual analysis I have come to believe that intellect is not the answer to all these problems. Humans are influenced by celestial and metaphysical forces that are not subject to nor particularly interested in complex braniac ideas. People as diverse as Nisargadatta, Gurdjief and Eckhart Tolle come much closer to the mark in getting to the truth. Also, people are not at the same level nor will they ever be. We have all become addicted to the toxic idea that there is a perfect world to be had if folks would just listen to our mental ravings. Not so. More investigation is needed, not more persuasion.

ticonderoga,

I very much appreciate your acknowledgment.

To demur just a bit, it is Edgar Morin's work that I find remarkable. His 1999 book Homeland Earth : A Manifesto for the New Millennium (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity and the Human Sciences) is eye (and mind)- opening, indeed.

Also astonishingly prescient, Morin's monograph: "Seven Complex Lessons for the Future" (also published in 1999 through UNESCO).

It is available online in its entirety at:

unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001177/117740eo.pdf

jpoverseas:
Korten suggests that we have all been imbued with the Imperial story that humans are by nature "fearful, violent, greedy, and individualistic." Yeah, we certainly do hear that one all the time.

He proposes instead a story he saw emerge at an Earth Summit: "consistent with recent scientific findings…our human brains are wired for compassion, caring, altruism, and cooperation." Nope, don't hear that one much.

So substitute one for the other and we're half way to saving ourselves from our selves. Not. Because neither story does a decent job of getting all of how we are or how we are different from one another individually or culturally.

We should recognize both the positive and negative sides of human nature but this doesn't mean they should be balanced. It's easy to observe in children that the positive side dominates the negative side for the vast majority of people. It is only when the negative side comes to dominate the society through elite control of its institutions does the positive side become sufficiently suppressed to allow the negative side to dominate. The positive side is allowed to flourish in children because they are sheltered. Only when they are exposed to societal negativity do they begin to suppress the positive and cultivate the negative, in order to survive.

Given that the vast majority readily embrace the positive and only reluctantly embrace the negative it seems that we should only allow the positive side in our institutional policies. Another argument for instituting only the positive is that unlike human nature, the nature of institutions are under our control, and if we can institute a "do no harm" policy then we should, in proportion to the power of the institution.

Morin addresses the issue of "an education for the future," and as such emphasizes our need to first and foremost, look more deeply at the nature of our thought-processes.

He distinguishes between two basic forms of thought: those which divide and those which unite… Morin goes on to frame this as one of the key epistemological problems of our time, and observes that:

"it is impossible to conceptualize the complex unity of the human by way of disjunctive thought…human complexity becomes invisible and man vanishes…the new knowledge for lack of being connected, is neither assimilated nor integrated. There is progress in knowledge of the parts and paradoxical ignorance of the whole.An education for the future must make a concerted effort to regroup this scattered knowledge in to shed light on human multidimensionality and complexity."

Morin is very direct in describing the prevailing condition of human thought – across our planet – as one of "cognitive infirmity." Our species, according to Morin, is in a state of desperate need.

"To recognize and understand the problems of the world we need a reform in thinking…that is paradigmatic, not programmatic. Our compartmentalized, piecemeal disjointed learning is deeply, drastically inadequate…"

Obviously, we are talking here about fundamental change, and the critical importance of learning to think in new ways.

"Rational thought," as it is commonly understood, has hit a dead end and itself become both cause of, rather than solution to the problems we face. "Hyperspecialization," which is the basic state of affairs in our educational and research disciplines, prevents us from dealing with and correcting a wide variety of problems that, Morin asserts, "cannot be raised and thoughtfully considered out of context."

Morin stresses the point that "specialization," has a way of "extracting" a given concern out of its context with the environment, and inserting it into an abstract conceptual sector. In his typical "pulling no punches" style, Morin adds, that under such conditions human minds shaped by such disciplines lose "their natural aptitude to contextualize knowledge."

Morin, known for his systems orientation, illuminates another aspect of this dilemma: our need to specifically teach (and utilize )methods of grasping mutual causality, reciprocity, and the powerful influence of recursive feedback loops.

Hootowl,

IMHO to consider Korten's thinking just another example of one-dimensional "new age" thought - whatever you imagine that to be - is folly.

Korten is a sophisticatd systems thinker, and this discipline is at the cutting-edge (and probably our only chance) of addressing the serious issues we face.

So, I would invite you to open up your own perspective.

Another well-known systems thinker, Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline) believes that it is this quest for "certainty" which is at the root of some of the most fundamental and confounding problems human beings face:

"Nothing undermines openness more surely than certainty. Once we feel as if we have 'the answer' all motivation to question our thinking disappears. But the discipline of systems thinking shows that there simply is 'no right answer' when dealing with complexity …

"It is most accurate to think of openness as a characteristic of relationships, not individuals…openness emerges when two or more individuals become willing to suspend their certainty in each other's presence. They become willing to share their thinking & susceptible to having their thinking influenced by one another."

In essence Morin is stating that if we wish to create a sustainable world (and in fact, if we hope to survive as a species), we will need to get over what has become the modern world's romantic and blind infatuation with rationality.

In actuality our exclusive dependence on and glorification of rationality has transformed it into "rationalization." It has become neither a means of seeing things as they are, nor an impartial vision of ethical potentiality – how things "could be."

Ironically, by relying exclusively on this extraordinarily useful and prolific cognitive function, we have become vulnerable to massive distortions in our perception of the world...and a hobbling of our ability to function cooperatively and creatively in it.

The action we must take is crystal clear: we must end this 300 year long "love-affair." True rationality is "self-critical," Morin maintains; it can be recognized by its capacity to recognize its own shortcomings.

Unfortunately, we have become enamored of the apparent power our intellect has bestowed upon us. Imagine the thrill of our earliest human ancestors on acquiring opposable thumbs!

While the enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries (bless their hearts) gave us a vision of the critical value of both the scientific approach and the "individual" as such (each of us entitled to the pursuit of happiness), these ideals have simply become one-sided, such that today, egocentrism (and its companion, rationalization) have become obstacles to durable knowledge.