Time is right to renew the American Experiment
By David C. Korten
David Korten, author of “When Corporations
Rule the World” and”The
Post-Corporate World, Life After
Capitalism,”
The American Experiment was ... a truly audacious idea.
When the founders boldly declared that all men
are created equal and
that governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the
governed, the evidence of 5,000 years of rule
by hereditary emperors,
kings, and feudal lords suggested such an idea
might even be contrary to
human nature.
Yet the American Experiment remains an unfinished
project. The time has
come to renew that experiment within the context
of the realities of
this special moment in the human experience.
We of the human species stand poised on the threshold
of a choice
between self-destruction and creative possibility:
Our technologies give us the capacity, by miscalculation
or intent, for
total self annihilation.
Our demands on the life support system of our
living planet exceed the
planet's limits of tolerance; increasingly over
stressed sub-systems are
going into decline and collapse.
On the positive side, we have ventured into space
and looked back to
see ourselves as one people sharing a single
destiny on a living space
ship.
Global institutions have been created so representatives
of all the
world's nations and peoples may resolve their
issues and solve common
problems through dialogue rather than arms.
Our communications technologies give us the ability
to link every human
on the planet into a seamless web of communication
and to choose our
future through a dialogue of the whole.
Millions of people the world over are coming together
to create a global
social institution unlike any other in the human
experience: a dynamic,
self-directing social organism that transcends
boundaries of race,
class, religion, and nationality to function
as a shared conscience.
It is time to renew the American Experiment in
light of the distinctive
needs and opportunities of this unique moment.
Unleashing this potential
depends in turn on the full flowering of democratic
institutions in
America and beyond. That is what the still unfinished
American
Experiment is about.
As a nation we are living a false and fragile
prosperity based on
borrowed money and depletion of the planet's
natural wealth. We neglect
or even actively deny the security threats that
most endanger our
physical well-being — global climate change,
collapsing environmental
systems, toxic and nuclear contamination, the
export of jobs and
hollowing out of our manufacturing base, a skyrocketing
trade deficit, a
falling dollar, and extremes of inequality and
exclusion that lead to
the social breakdown and violence of which terrorism
is but one
manifestation.
Our nation is beset with moral decay as well,
especially at the highest
levels of corporate and political leadership.
Leadership must come from
We the People.
Yet We the People are hindered in our great and
necessary work by an
artificial political divide intentionally cultivated
by power -seeking
political extremists at both ends of the political
spectrum.
The real political divide in America is not between
liberals
and
conservatives,
who in fact share a great many core values. The real
political contest in America is between those
of us committed to a
politics based on principle and the common good;
and those who pursue a
politics of individual greed
and power.
GB1:Let's
keep the voters polarized, son. While they can't agree
on anything,
we keep them locked in perpetual battle! They
never
turn around and see us and the 13 families we work for.
GB2:
Right you are, Dad. Never know what hittem.
BOTH:
heheheheheh. We got it wired!
_____________________________________________________________________
Call those of us on the side of the American Experiment
progressives —
progressive conservatives and progressive liberals
— for although we may
have our differences, we share a commitment to
advancing the
Experiment's progressive goals.
The elitist economic
agenda centers on increasing economic
growth and
stock prices through market deregulation, a rollback
of social and
environmental protections, the opening of economic
borders to the free
flow of goods and money, privatization of public
services and assets,
tax reductions for the wealthy, weakening of
anti-trust enforcement, an
assault on the rights of union members, and the
dismantling of social
safety nets.
The key to achieving prosperity and ending poverty
(they say) is to free
the private sector from the regulatory hand of
government. The rich may
get richer, but so do the poor so it works for
everyone.
That, in a nutshell, is the elitist prosperity story.
The actual consequence of the deregulation of
markets and trade is not
to free markets, but to free predatory transnational
corporations to
acquire and abuse monopoly power to manage trade
and markets to their
exclusive financial advantage.
The self-serving claim that inequality — even
extreme inequality — is
beneficial to society ignores the obvious reality
that "free" markets —
a code word for unregulated markets — respond
only to money.
The security doctrine of the power seekers centers
on using police and
military powers of the state to protect the rights
of private property
and the established order of elite privilege
from those who challenge
its legitimacy.
The elite security story equates dissent with
terrorism and implicitly
brands both as evil to justify the suppression
of all forms of dissent
to protect the elite status quo.
Furthermore, the elitist security story calls
for waging wars against
whole nations in the name of fighting terrorism.
In the realm of morality and meaning, the power
seekers find support for
their doctrine of elite rule in two quite different
stories. One is a
sacred story based on a misreading of biblical
scripture; the other is a
secular story based on a misreading of evolutionary
science.
According to the sacred story of the power seekers:
Nothing happens in Creation except by the will
of God who created the
world in six days, gave his creation to man in
return for strict
obedience to his will, and in his infinite righteous
judgment favors the
obedient with wealth and power.
This story completely dishonors the life and teaching
of the prophet
Jesus.
Secular power seekers find meaning and moral legitimacy
for elite rule
in the story of social Darwinism. According to
this story:
Progress comes through a competitive struggle
in which the fit triumph,
the unfit perish, and the species grows stronger.
This ignores
substantial biological evidence that life is
a fundamentally cooperative
enterprise.
It is not enough merely to point out the flawed
and ethically challenged
assumptions of an established story. A story
that embodies a flawed
theory can be challenged successfully only by
a more compelling story.
Herein lies an important challenge for progressive
movements.
Although justice, peace, and a healthy environment
are scarcely special
interests, our fragmented and piecemeal articulation
of our many causes
makes it all too easy for the neo-royalists to
portray us as a divided
collection of special interests lacking a coherent
and pragmatic
alternative to their more comprehensive agenda.
We thus concede the initiative, the national story,
and political power
to the modern bearers of the royalist torch.
The power seekers offer a prosperity story that
promises ever-growing
material prosperity and spells out a clear plan
in which, by their
telling, everyone wins. Within the frame of their
story, the progressive
agenda is easily reframed to sound like a call
to tax those who are
productive to provide welfare for those too lazy
to get a job, take jobs
from white males to give them to women and people
of color, and reduce
our standard of living to save exotic species
most people have never
seen and wouldn't recognize if they did.
The power seekers offer a security story that
promises to impose peace
and order on a demonstrably unruly world. By
contrast, the progressive
international security story centers on unilateral
disarmament and the
rejection of war as an instrument of policy.
Our domestic security story calls for greater
attention to protecting
the rights of the accused, constraining the police,
making life better
for those serving time, reducing sentences, and
closing prisons. It
seems we have little to offer by way of comfort
to those who fear for
themselves, their families, and their children.
It should be no surprise
that the elitist security story carries the day.
If we are to renew the American Experiment, perhaps
it is appropriate to
acknowledge and renew its spiritual foundations.
The time has come to renew the American Experiment.
This is our
opportunity to join in a cooperative effort to
realize the ideals of
liberty, justice and opportunity for all people
everywhere.
The choice is ours. Now is the hour. We have the
power. The work starts
here. We are the ones we've been waiting for.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Our 'POSTER-BLOGGER' is ANITA SANDS HERNANDEZ, Los Angeles Writer, Researcher, Humorist, Ombudsman, Futurist as she's a mother of 4, grandmother of 6, also a career Astrologer. Catch up with her websites TRUTHS GOV WILL HIDE & NEVER TELL YOU, also The FUTURE, WHAT'S COMIN' AT YA! FRUGAL LIFE STYLE TIPS, HOW TO SURVIVE the COMING GREAT DEPRESSION, and Secrets of Nature, HOLISTIC, AFFORDABLE HEALING. Also ARTISANRY FOR EXPORT, EARN EUROS....* Anita is at astrology@earthlink.net ). Get a 15$ natal horoscope "my money/future life" reading now + copy horoscope as a Gif file graphic! No smarter reading out there anywhere near that price.
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