If not you, who? If not now, when?

Who will change our world for the better?  How long will we wait?  Who is best equipped to take us into the future? 

Our leaders, scientists, teachers, intelligentsia, military, philosophers?  The most educated? The most enlightened?

What is the role of the average man and woman?  Billions of them. 

Let's do a little "time travel" and measure the progress of "waiting" for the first set of individuals to change our world.

In 2005 . . .
--5.15 billion people (80%) earned less than $10 a day. 
--Nearly 1 billion people were illiterate.
--One in two children in our world lived in poverty.
--The poorest 40% of the world’s population accounted for 5% of our global income, while the richest 20% accounted for 75%.
--According to UNICEF, 25,000 children died in poverty each day.
--The wealthiest 20% consumed 76.7% of the world's resources, while the 20% consumed only 1.5%.

The greatest question of our time is not how to stop the gap between rich and poor, but why that gap continues to exist.

We can:
--Map the human gene
--Stand on the Moon
--Send cameras to Mars
--Annihilate the world's people with one misplaced flick of a switch
--Cure the once incurable
--Implant artificial limbs and even replace the human heart
--Control the means of communication and entertainment in a handheld device

But we cannot end poverty.  It is on our lips and on our minds, but it is not on our agenda.

How long should we wait?  A day, a month, a year?  Ten years?  Another century?

A new program that gives loans to individuals in poor regions requires each applicant to save $50.  Once saved, this money is matched by progam funds.  It took one woman five years to save $50.  This woman also dreamed of becoming a doctor.  She has settled instead to help care for Aids patients.

What part of that last paragraph stands out in your mind?  In mine, it's the fact that she had to wait five years to save her money and that her dream of becoming a doctor was not possible.

The thing that stands out in my mind is that this set of circumstances is deplorable!  Intolerable! 

Our leaders will not save us.  But we continue to wait and hope. 

I saw a bumper sticker today with a picture of Obama on it.  Under it was the word “Hope”.

Hope is a wish for . . .

Hope is a plea for better times . . .

Hope swells up from the pit of despair . . .

But hope is not action.  Hope is not movement forward.    Hope is the cry of the anguished. 

Have we not cried enough?  Have we not hoped enough?  Have we not waited long enough?

“One minute,” my mother once said, “is a long time for someone in agony.”

Now is the only action that matters.

Now is the only action that delivers on its promises.

Imagine a new economic paradigm

The first circles we humans pondered must have been the sun and moon. For eons we pondered them, even gave them special names and powers. The circle has been with us from the beginning. It can overpower us with its girth or disappear into the invisible building blocks of the universe. The circle is self-contained, meaning that everything that it is, is held within its boundaries. You cannot be both in the circle and outside the circle at the same time.

Today I would like to speak about what I call the "circle of civilization". The circle that defines our world. I would also like to talk abut a "circle of civilization" that might better serve our world simply by moving two of its parts to different locations.

Circle One: This circle is governed by its core, Money.  Dollars and cents. Daily labor for daily bread. Everything around the core depends upon Money for its existence: people, environment, private business, government, healthcare, education, and food/housing. By over-stressing one of the members of the circle, Money becomes scarce. Money holders and lenders, the underpinning of the core, suffer. Therefore, every effort is made to assure that all the parts of the wheel work together to serve Money.

Circle Two: This circle is governed by its core, People. The welfare of all the People all the time. Everything in the circle works to support the core. By over-stressing one of the members of the wheel, the People suffer. Therefore, every effort is made to assure that all the members of the wheel work together to care for the core.

Imagine. Imagine. Imagine. We are fast approaching a time when no matter how healthy our economy, there will not be enough jobs for everyone. We have already reached the point where homes, healthcare (all facets), home and car repairs, education, travel, and a whole host of other costs are unaffordable for the majority of people on this planet. Only by taking on debt, much of it long term, can we survive. We live in a Money world. Money has no ethic. It cannot care. It is a thing. It takes up space, but it does not feel, bleed, suffer, or die.

Imagine a new world. Imagine Circle number Two.

Imagine a "people" centered world

I am days behind in my posting. Life sometimes gets in the way.  I've had company--my oldest son and his family.  We picnicked, we hiked, we swam, we went to the play ground, we had ice cream.  All the things you do when a three and five year-old are involved.  In short, we had a grand time. 

Now it's Monday and I'm playing catch up while my son heads off on the next phase of his vacation.

Today, I must return to a "people" world.  It is on my mind all the time.  On my mind because somehow, somewhere, at some point in our history we set people aside for things, possessions, wealth, advancement, one-upmanship.  Somewhere along the way we hitched a ride on the wrong train with the best of intentions, thinking that if we went where everyone else was going we'd surely be in a better place.

The train was driven by someone else, designed by someone else.  It was a complex train.  Great "engineers" built it.  It took centuries.  Sometimes its workings came together almost by accident.  Like a puzzle that's missing only one piece and suddenly you find it.  A lot of thought went into this train and a lot of modifications occurred along the way.  Today this train, in one fashion on another, monopolizes all the "transport" in our world.  And this train has brought us to today.  August 9, 2010.  The Twenty-First Century. 

All of us with enough life experience have ideas about this century.  Where we're going and what the outcome might be.  But one thing is certain, the train we've all been riding on has not brought us to the destination we envisioned when we entrusted ourselves to its designers.  To be sure, there have been many sights along the way, many adventures, many good and important experiences.  But in the end, we did not arrive at abundance for all.  We did not arrive at security for all, health care for all, affordable education for all, housing for all.  Our final train stop dropped us on the platform of "pay or perish". 

I could add to that last statement, but in truth it is the only one that matters.  The time has come to reroute our train.  We must design a new model, one that considers the person first and takes in all aspects of that person from birth to death.  I.e., natural resources and the health of the environment that sustain human life.  Income security.  Health security.  Educational security.  Shelter (home) security.  Never must or should any of these be neglected for any reason.  Not for any reason.  No one goes without. This is not about entitlement programs or social welfare.  This is about a new system.  This is about turning capitalism (the making of product and profit) to people-ism, if you will.  It's about using the design, but changing its destination.

How you say?  Not how, I answer, but when!!

Has all the killing stopped the killing?

The big news story for the past two days has been the contract out on an American citizen taking refuge in Yemen.  He's tied to terrorist activities in the U.S.

In the past, we knew that America killed people.  The CIA has a covert reputation for taking undesirables out one way or the other.  In the past, we "knew", but no one admitted it publicly. 

However, whether we hide it or reveal it is not the direction of today's blog.

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and a long list of other tyrants killed undesirables.  "No mercy" would have been a fine slogan for their regimes.

Most of these misguided people are dead now and history has been merciless in its criticism and denouncement of them.

When, I ask, did it become acceptable to kill one's enemies on purpose while they're riding in their cars, eating in their homes, or traveling from one place to another.

Honored officials and dignitaries are assassinated, undesirables are killed.  One we consider a crime, the other a necessity.

Today's question for pondering:  When a person is killed and they are not threatening your life with a weapon, where do you draw the line?  What happened to due process?  Saddam Hussein had due process and then they hung him.  How do you determine to whom you give a fair trial to and who you just outright shoot?

Has all the killing stopped all the killing?  Is there another way? 

Yes, of course there is. Why don't we pursue it?  Perhaps because in a supposedly faith- filled nation we still seem to cling to an "eye for an eye" as true justice for those we deem irredeemable.

I'm a Nomad - by C. S. Lee

I’m a Nomad

I’m a nomad

In a nomad’s land,

A shifting pebble

On the shifting sand.

I’m a wanderer

In a pilgrim’s robe,

Disguised as a beggar

In a painted cloak.

I’m a sinner,

A schemer,

A purveyor of dreams,

Winter’s first chill,

Evening’s first breeze.

I’m an aimless soul

On an arid plane,

Bereft of sail

Or benevolent rain.

I’m a foreigner

In the land of my birth,

Bearing everyman’s ruse

And everyman’s worth.

I’m a prickly splinter

And a driving spike,

Lucid, day moons

And long, black nights.

I’m the all,

Nature’s sum,

Born of many,

Known by one.

I’m a nomad

In a nomad’s land,

A shifting pebble

On the shifting sand.

C. S. Lee

Copyright 2003

Homeless - a poem by C. S. Lee

Asleep am I

In a field of dreams,

Untouched and unseen,

Here and nowhere,

Everyday,

All day,

Without end.

I am

castaway

To your alleys,

Parks,

Shelters,

And soup kitchens.

I am forever among,

But never a part of you.

My name is “Homeless”,

In numbers unmeasured

And unsung.

C. S. Lee

Copyright 2007

The cost of Fear

Today I would like to talk about Fear.  The kind that paralyzes the brain and sometimes the body.  The kind of fear that all of us know and none of us say we want.

This will be a short Blog.  Sometimes, as my daughter often reminds me, more is less.

Fear creates the space for wars, ethnic clensing, bigotry, name-calling, acts of violence, poverty, and a resistance to change.

The opposite of Fear is Trust. Trust cannot emberace war, hate, inequality, and resistance to change.

This is what I would like for you to ponder today.  Why is there so much fear?  Why is there so little trust?

Have a good day regardless of how much or how little of it remains.