Two other proposals:

Gag Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and all other militarist right wing kooks who think that invading innocent countries who haven't done a thing to us is somehow an act of supreme patriotism and who brainwash multitudes of mind numbed drones into believing the same.

Begin to teach REAL HISTORY in the schools and not the dumbed down propagandist crap that we hand our kids now. Let them know the details of how we turned into a military industrial complex, how the Robber Barons of the last century bought and influenced the government, and how we have covertly invaded third world countries, raped them of their resources, and killed their elected leaders so our drones could be put in their place for the benefit of multinational corporations.

Deepak Chopra is recognizing the spiritual and practical aspects of changing a war economy to a peace economy. Good for him. "Swords into plowshares" is a beautiful idea in so many ways.

I would like to close every base and military hardware plant immediately and convert to peaceful uses, but we do not have the support to do so. Our "leaders" will not initiate such a thing, and ordinary people will not vote themselves into unemployment and poverty. The changeover will never happen if the price is to throw defense workers out on the street with no paycheck. Those who don't believe me should spend some time in isolated working class communities that depend on an army base or the munitions industry. The people there have been walled into a bad situation.

Many people whose incomes do not depend directly on militarism still believe that a huge military is a basic necessity for safety. Try debating this with neighbors and you will see how deep this idea runs.

I welcome every celebrity who pushes practical and spiritual approaches to peace. It is some free publicity to counter the enormous brain washing we get about the loveliness of militarism.

Joe

The shank of all problems with war is that it is profitable and concentrates power. As such it is the preferred way to maintain the status quo.
There will never be any legislation to come out of congress to change any of this.
The people have ceded their power to corporations and enough are still willing to send their children to fight. But...
Government and business must be separated.
The corporation must be stripped of personhood and time-limited.
Media must be freed from corporate control. And...
Only the people can do it.

The US government, who is responsible for supporting and arming, including with 400 nuclear warheads, the genocidal state of Israel (really Occupied Palestine), is the number one problem here.

The number two problem is YOU, who do nothing about it.

That same US government allows sites like this plastic progressive sandbox to operate relatively unfettered.

Why?

Because they view it as a useful SAFTY VALVE: they know if you piddle away your time posting and hand-wringing here that you won't march on Washington and throw their asses out.

As always, the ball is in YOUR court--and I don't see you doing squat.

Dear Dr. Chopra:
You say "As a society we want peace". I think money would seem to overide even our desire for peace. We are basically a greedy society. We have been educated that way and even our religious beliefs tell us that wealth is a sign of God's way of rewarding us for our faith in him. And so I think that this dependence on war will be difficult to end. We must look somewhere else. We must look at what is more satisfying to human nature than money. I think the answer is inner happiness which will not be obtained through riches, but through a new way of looking at God and at ourselves. A new educational system will be a good start. That's what we as a society should focus on if we want to end war and create a peace economy.
Gerry M.

So here, on CD, even an "atheist" tries to defend this bunkum artist's bid for a piece of that sanctity pie? This New Age piffle produced by con artists and rich snake oil salesmen is the death of the "left." There is not a single shred of evidence for the guy's Ayurvedic medical fraud - check out S. Singh and E. Ernst's devastation of that rip-off, and other placebo wastes of trillions, in "Trick or Treatment," a brave book that will stop you in your tracks if you have any hankerings after the acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, or herbalist dodges of common sense - oh, damn, did I just list the pet cults of the fake CD "spiritual" left? You are believing and promoting nonsense, folks.

The Bush Era Has Been an Eight-Year-Long Madoff-Style Ripoff
By Frank Rich, The New York Times

Posted on January 12, 2009, Printed on January 12, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/119041/

Three days after the world learned that $50 billion may have disappeared in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, The Times led its front page of Dec. 14 with the revelation of another $50 billion rip-off. This time the vanished loot belonged to American taxpayers. That was our collective contribution to the $117 billion spent (as of mid-2008) on Iraq reconstruction — a sinkhole of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and outright theft that epitomized Bush management at home and abroad.

This is the same office where the Bush apparatchik John Yoo produced his infamous memos justifying torture. Johnsen is a fierce critic of such constitutional abuses. In articles for Slate last year, she wondered “where is the outrage, the public outcry” over a government that has acted lawlessly and that “does not respect the legal and moral bounds of human decency.” She asked, “How do we save our country’s honor, and our own?”

The last is not a rhetorical question. While our new president indeed must move on and address the urgent crises that cannot wait, Bush administration malfeasance can’t be merely forgotten or finessed. A new Justice Department must enforce the law; Congress must press outstanding subpoenas to smoke out potential criminal activity; every legal effort must be made to stop what seems like a wholesale effort by the outgoing White House to withhold, hide and possibly destroy huge chunks of its electronic and paper trail. As Johnsen wrote last March, we must also “resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists.”

As if to anticipate the current debate, she added that “we must avoid any temptation simply to move on,” because the national honor cannot be restored “without full disclosure.” She was talking about America regaining its international reputation in the aftermath of our government’s descent into the dark side of torture and “extraordinary rendition.” But I would add that we need full disclosure of the more prosaic governmental corruption of the Bush years, too, for pragmatic domestic reasons. To make the policy decisions ahead of us in the economic meltdown, we must know what went wrong along the way in the executive and legislative branches alike.

As the financial historian Ron Chernow wrote in the Times last week, we could desperately use a Ferdinand Pecora, the investigator who illuminated the history of the 1929 meltdown in Senate hearings on the eve of the New Deal. The terrain to be mined would include not just the usual Wall Street suspects and their Congressional and regulatory enablers but also the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a strangely neglected ground zero in the foreclosure meltdown. The department’s secretary, Alphonso Jackson, resigned in March amid still-unresolved investigations over whether he enriched himself and friends with government contracts.

The tentative and amorphous $800 billion stimulus proposed by Obama last week sounds like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket when set against the damage it must help counteract: more than $10 trillion in new debt and new obligations piled up by the Bush administration in eight years, as calculated by the economists Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current Harper’s Magazine.

If Bernie Madoff, at least, can still revive what remains of our deadened capacity for outrage, so can those who pulled off Washington’s Ponzi schemes. The more we learn about where all the bodies and billions were buried on our path to ruin, the easier it may be for our new president to make the case for a bold, whatever-it-takes New Deal.

Those are all fantastic points. Myself having been employed in multiple technical fields... I cannot stress how much I extremely agree with step #7.

Should we fail to accomplish step #7 worldwide, a moratorium on all future weapons technologies, (even the non lethal ones, trust me!) I'm afraid that we will erase everything that we have achieved as walking talking bipeds over the past 100,000 years.

Remember, during the Cold War alone, their where at least 12 clearly documented 'near accidental launches' of nuclear weapons. We are very dumb lucky to be here now.

I have two further suggestions to add to Mr Chopras' list.

10. Revamp the voting structure of the UN.

11. Prosecute the US Military Junta who seized power by toppling our democratic government in 1963.

Please refer to the book by James W. Douglass, "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters",

and additionally refer to Shane O'Sullivans work in the film "RFK Must Die"
http://www.rfkmustdie.com/

and his epilogue showing the audio evidence showing 10-14 shots were fired (Sirhans gun held 8)
http://rfkmustdie.blip.tv/file/1362352/

Shane O'Sullivan interviewed on Irish television (sometimes you have to step outside the box to see back in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjGupfm9t5E

And there was another interview and stories on the BBC (and elsewhere) which they HAVE NOW SCRUBBED, leaving empty links and empty refutations. Do not expect the MSM to pick this one up folks... the Junta is powerless without controlling public perception, they OWN the media of course.

Do NOT refer to Robert Blair Kaiser's book by the same name (RFK Must Die)... it is a false flag. Additionally, Robert Blair Kaiser is a long time writer for Time Magazine, that alone should raise some red flags for the MSM skeptics crowd.

and for fixing the economy please refer to Huey Long's speeches "Share the Wealth", "Barbecue Speech", and "Every Man a King", please print and save, make your archives while it's still freely available!
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hueyplongshare.htm
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hueyplongking.htm

And don't believe the 'demogogue' labels and scare tactics which the US Military Industrial Junta uses to scapegoat and tarnish Huey Long's considerable progressive achievements. You can read his bio on wikipedia to undertand the full context surrounding the man and his policies as Louisiana Governor 1928 to 1932 and US senator from 1932 to 1935.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

May we find common cause, and every man walk in peace.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1963 & 1968- Dallas and Los Angeles Coup d'État by the US Military Industrial Junta completed according to modern examination of old evidence

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein. (Ed note: WHITE PHOSPHOROUS, DENSE METAL SUPER WEAPONS, NUCLEAR STICK UP, MISSILE DEFENSE, AND PROPAGANDA!!!!!)

In the ''Imperial US P residency'', the Presidente' is THE 'mover & shaker'; just look at what the great presidents like Lincoln, FDR, TR and JFK accomplished - - as opposed to the bad ones like, the present one [a.k.a ''chimpy''], Hoover et al

The first sentence of this article states: "Eisenhower was elected after promising to end the Korean War." Yet here we are more than 50 years after the end of that war and the US is still in Korea. Why are we still there? How much money has been spent on post-war Korea for the last 50 years? Who cares if South Korea becomes communist? China is communist and we love them to death! All of our jobs and purchasing power is sent to China buying the crap they make for us. Communism is so cold war, so passe, so yesterday. Does anyone think communism is a threat?

No president since Eisenhower has gotten the US out of Korea. Now we have the first post-Bush president that is going to perpetuate the post-Iraq occupation and keep us in Iraq forever. Bush created the war but the real crime is all the following presidents, including Obama, are going to commit a worse crime by perpetuating this illegal occupation.

grazing tribes are the future...whether accomplished proactively, or following collapse...the questions are: will lazy, selfish or violent humans continue to insist upon living symbiotically with industrial products and electrical devices, employing technology to prevent such a proactive transformation, and will the Earth be so damged and toxified by the time we attempt such a change that insufficient lifeforms for human survival remain?

the replanting of the planet is primary...

Astonishing given Depeek engages in substandart pay for his many employees working at his resorts around the world. He might want to take a closer look at himself before lecturing anyone else. Holding a public niche in the spirituality for sale movement has made him a wealthy man.

As I understand it, the US economy was pulled out of the Great Depression by the profits from WWII. So, how long has it been? Seems we could have transferred to a peacetime economy by now. Must be something standing in the way. In the movie "JFK" Brown and Root (now B&R/Hallibutron/Cheney) was involved in buying silence about the assassination of JFK, if I got that right. General Electric, General Dynamics, and other multinationals, now rulers of the world, profited. Now look how much for example Hallibutron and Brown and Root have profited off this last war of aggression and look at the mess our economy is in from all the multinational banksters and corporations looting our treasury. It a time to change it or lose it, if it is not already too late. If WWII and all these other wars were fighting for peace as their goal and not asset accummulation then it is time to put your actions where your retoric is and shift over to a peace economy.

Dr. Chopra's sentiments are inspiring.

But for profound change to occur it will have to be a from the bottom revolution!

Soon . . .

Another step:

Never elect conservatives. They hate government and thus make lousy governors.

Conservative's usual reasons for governing is to get rich anyway they can if it means lying, cheating, fearmongering, race-baiting, commie-baiting, spying, prohibiting, impoverishing, imprisoning, stealing, ridiculing, demonizing, polluting and mass murder.

Empire is unsustainable. It has made us rich and now it will destroy us.

"All hopes are pinned on you."

I appreciate the sentiment and thinking behind Mr. Chopra's "to-do" list, although I am not sure ending war from the top down is the best, or most efficacious, way to bring about lasting peace. It is a start, but my inner cynic understands acts of war to be the logical outcome of the evolution of human social orders that have brought us neo-capitalism and the stubborn reliance on a belief that kingly, mythologized, figures can bring about the peace we desperately require if we are to survive on this planet as a conscious order of matter that at least appears to have some control over its future or lack of future.

That is why the above quote scares me. It belies and contradicts every urge that democratic society is based on. If we do, in fact, pin all of our hopes on one man, on some pre-mythologized fate as the One Who Bears the lion's share of responsibility for creating a peaceful future in this country and beyond, then we also buy into a similar kind of Unitary Executive that Bush has illegally put in place and that there has been far to little talk in the new administration about dismantling.

This, in fact, might be the greatest act that Obama could accomplish: return or re-establish the balance of powers and reject the Executive as an Imperial overlord that has two adjuncts and servants in the Legislative and Judicial. Give the power back to the people to a degree unparalleled in US history. Make and/or remake this into the visionary democratic republic that was the collective dream of the species and has influenced the natural evolutionary push toward the actualization of equality for peoples all over the globe.

There is an aspect of religiosity in investing so much power in one man who's job, as it is defined and intended by The Founders, however imperfectly rendered, is to be a facilitator of the people's will and the greater good. The power to bring about a truly peaceful future is born and grows among the people. They are its midwife and nursemaid. The president's job is to facilitate the people’s innate and growing wisdom in these matters, as humans live together in a more and more connected global community. If the people give their power away to elected leaders, they demote themselves to the position of vassals, slaves, serfs and indentured war fodder.

I believe the huge unprecedented outpouring into the streets all over the globe prior to the Iraq war demonstrates this growing wisdom of the masses. No one human can be assumed to be bearer of a power to transform that urge into a reality. He or she must be responsible as a servant of the people to transfer the tools of the facilitation of that demand for peace to the people. Otherwise we are all serfs in those leaders' and our own eyes; they are just Kings and Queens dressed in the faux democratic Emperor’s New Clothes while they continue the primitive and ultimately destructive Imperial wars for capital.

Thank you, Deepak, for at least putting your pen, heart and mind to creating these nine steps. I wholeheartedly agree with them. To those who added more steps, kudos. To those who placed the responsibility square on the shoulders of the US citizenry, another round of applause. Obama, Federal, State and Local governments all need us to impliment any change....and they need our imput and dare I say it...work to make the change.
For those who say it's idealistic rhetoric that will never happen....well, changing habits/addictions can be hard for some of us, but hopefully we will "get it" and become a more peace oreinted species before we become extinct because of our inability to change.

The author's first step is nothing more than procrastination. The rest of the steps while great are going nowhere until we stop procrasinating by putting very distant deadlines. The time to get this all done is NOW, not in 2020 ! 2020 will be dealt with later.

10. Lower the world's population through education and birth control so they don't have to go to war over diminishing resources.

11. Spread education, communications and self government with Global Online Democracy, direct and decentalized.

12. End oligarchy, Mammon's dictatorship, by capping wealth/power direct democratically.

Listing steps for the throne warmer to take to fix the problems created by the elite establishment that selected him is the biggest waste of time and should be a crime. As well-intentioned as Deepak Chopra may be, we have to face the power relations and realize that the USA is only addicted to war and oil because those have the magical characteristics enabling the elite to enslave the people. This author is suggesting that the people continue to pretend that elite rule is going to work. It doesn't work. It can't work. The O'Bama chimp will preside over four/eight years of business as usual. The people have to make the rules in order to be free. Isn't this common sense? The rest of the world considers it common sense. This is why everyone stopped following the USA down the road to war/oil addiction. Doesn't the USA stand alone with its military expenditure? Doesn't the USA stand alone with its energy gluttony? Doesn't the USA stand alone with its privatize-everything fanaticism? Doesn't the USA stand alone with its imperial hubris? Doesn't the USA stand alone with its sellout of industrial/economic autonomy to global trade? Doesn't the USA stand alone in its public debt? In this world, the USA stands alone with its business as usual, and it is O'Bama's now to maintain. Everyone is to continue embracing the illusions dispensed by the elites, and enjoy the spoils of the war/oil economy. But it's time to cancel that subscription. It's time to get the elite monkeys off our backs, people.

Good suggestions.

Obama will do nothing.

If he even CONSIDERED going against his owners, Big Guns and Big Oil, he would be killed--and the crime pinned on some KKK member.

Another Reichstag Fire
or Colosio Assassination.

He was very good after 911 when he appeared on Larry King with a rabbi, cleric, priest and reverend and it developed into a who's religion is better? debate. He said something about how tribalism is what led to 9 11 in the first place.

For the record, my religion is better than yours. Convert.

Bobby Love
Deepak has one of the great minds/hearts of the 21st century. I encourage anyone who seeks the Truth to check out his vuluminous body of work. One of his projects right now is to have people sign a pledge of non-violence. May peace prevail on earth.

"Do these nine steps seem unrealistic or fanciful?" No, indeed, these 9 steps should all be within reach of accomplishment to any administration truly devoted to the advancement of a peace economy. But, as Ardee notes, the expectation that they will be advanced, based on anything in Obama's record, intentions or cabinet appointments, may indeed be unrealistic or fanciful. Maybe I am wrong on this. I'd be happy to see any commenter post information from any scrap of evidence from anywhere that will give peace activists any "realistic" expectation of such a result after the inauguration of "Hope" on January 20.

Sioux Rose

I applaud leaders who offer a spiritually inclusive vision of a peaceful future for our world. The military is and has been over-rated. To justify its cannibalizing of our nation's collective income(s), it must invent enemies, and that's why the media is so infiltrated with pro-war voices. This is a sickness, the whole feeding frenzy that searches for enemies and is satisfied with puny states that haven't an iota of this nation's military assets with which to defend themselves resembles the lifestyle of sharks. The warm-blooded mammal that gives its own milk to its young learns something about empathy and feelings; but it would seem this evolutionary leap has been lost on the vast majority of persons who have risen to "leadership" positions in the land of the anything but brave. Brave is to champion justice for all, not select privileges for a few that call for the mass murder of too many innocents.

Thank you Deepak for bringing your wisdom to bear on this issue, the key depraved judgment maiming our era.