General Discussion

financial centers.

Now, we are being forced by these larger global events to turn inward to our own communities - the people we live with and around, and with whom we interact on a daily basis.

There are a lot of good things happening, and it is in these smaller communities that we can really create goodness and sustainability. Oh, we cannot ignore the national and international shit-shows. I'm not saying that.

What I am saying is that we can gather thought leaders in our own communities and begin quietly setting strategies that promote living in harmony with the earth and all its life, each other and the creative power, however we may imagine that.

We must remember it is not people who start wars. It is the little 'patriot' boys in suits and the Wall Street shareholder primacy infrastructure that start wars. Unfortunately it is not the financiers, robber barons and war profiteers who are maimed and killed in wars. It is the people - the children, the mothers, the grandparents.

Oh, I know - 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,' the best defense is a huge military and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo. And in truth, if we ignore the common defense there will always be some joker somewhere who gins up hate and fear, equips a bunch of people with weapons and lets loose the proverbial dogs of war.

But the people don't want that. I don't want that. The people starving in Gaza don't want that. The parents of those little girls killed in the double tap bombing of that school don't want that. The only people who want that are those in the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about so long ago.

Ah, but the greed of these emotional toddlers is insatiable and the current doctrine of shareholder primacy encourages and rewards sociopathic behaviors - like starting wars for instance.

War is the ultimate stupidity. Peace is better, and living in harmony better still.

It is past time we start being human centered instead of profit centered.