2020 Vision 1 “The Point Is to Accomplish Something
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2020 Vision 1 “The point is to accomplish something. After all, only the entire world is at stake.” Derrick Jensen For Panjalat “Noon” Pungpin May we leave an Earth for you, my granddaughter, that you are able to enjoy as much as we have. 2020 Vision 2 Table of Contents Challenge: Economics ........................................................... 5 Money Creation ................................................................................................... 7 A Plan for New Money ....................................................................................... 11 Consumption/Materialism .................................................................................. 25 Health Care ....................................................................................................... 29 True Cost Pricing ............................................................................................... 32 Globalization ...................................................................................................... 33 Challenge: Politics ................................................................ 38 End War ............................................................................................................. 38 Political Reform ................................................................................................. 53 Education ........................................................................................................... 56 Challenge: Environment ....................................................... 59 A New Paradigm ............................................................................................... 59 The Imperative .................................................................................................. 61 No more oil economy ........................................................................................ 65 Recycling ........................................................................................................... 73 New Approaches ............................................................................................... 76 The American Diet ............................................................................................. 79 Our Hesitancy to Act ......................................................................................... 80 Challenge: Spirituality .......................................................... 85 Correlate Science with Religion ........................................................................ 89 Truth in action, not just lip service ..................................................................... 91 We Are One ....................................................................................................... 92 Afterword .............................................................................. 96 2020 Vision 3 Introduction In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon within the decade, and return him safely to Earth. I was 6 when he vocalized his vision, and 14 when the dream came true. In barely 8 years, what initially seemed impossible had not only happened, but had transfixed the world with wonder and awe. President Kennedy’s vision arose for many reasons. It was a grand undertaking of exploration, probing uncharted territory. It was a response to advances in space travel made by Russia that threatened the U.S. with military inferiority. Creating the technology it would require would undoubtedly fuel a burst of innovation that would move American culture ahead faster than if it was left to develop on its own. But most importantly, President Kennedy understood that by setting a goal that required Americans to reach beyond their comfort zone, to go outside the box of traditional patterns, to stretch for an ‘impossible’ goal, he would lead them into a new paradigm, a new Golden Age. Today, in 2009, we face a perfect storm of problems, unprecedented in human history. The American economy is in shambles, attempting to recover from many problems caused by the poor economic decisions of multiple generations. This in turn, has rippled into a worldwide ‘recalibration’. People across the globe are dying from starvation, extreme poverty, a lack of clean water, preventable and curable disease, slavery and war. Climate change, and its destructive potential, is on the mind of anyone who has access to media. Any one of these problems could take a world’s resources to solve. Trying to resolve them all at once seems as impossible as putting the first man on the moon in just 8 years. Apollo 11 clearly showed that by taking continual, carefully planned steps and accepting the risks involved, even accepting that some may have to sacrifice everything for the project, a wholly new paradigm can supplant the currently accepted worldview. Multiple paradigm shifts will be required if mankind is to overcome today’s problems. Many people across the globe sense impending evolutionary growth in that most precious of all resources, human consciousness. Indeed, it seems as if our consciousness must evolve, in order to deal with the great issues of today. The obvious question everyone asks is, “What will life look like after we solve these problems?” 2020 Vision offers a few paradigm shifts that address our major issues. Time is short, and we must evaluate options we may never have considered before. Please think about these solutions with an open mind. We must seek solutions that are outside the box, solutions that may at first seem ‘impossible’ or even ‘un-American’. Think about what is presented here; discuss these ideas with your friends and family. Come upon your own ideas and begin to share them with others. The only future that is certain is that inaction will leave us on the path we see before us today. Most of us can agree; that path is not one we want to tread. Open your mind, your heart and your soul and discover new ways of relating to each other and the world around you. Affirm your values, act on your inner wisdom. Together, let’s begin to craft a future we love. 2020 Vision 4 Challenge: Economics America faces economic issues of unprecedented scope. Ever-increasing public and personal debt, corporations focused on short term profits at the expense of people, stagnant wages over decades, rising health care costs, loss of adequate retirement plans, the impending shortage of resources, the outsourcing of jobs that creates rising unemployment, the need to get off an oil-based economy are but some of the major hurdles we must overcome. As we try to make some sense of the way forward, we also must cope with the realization that we cannot continue to tread our current path. Life can never ‘go back’ to the way it was when we were growing up. Talking about the loss of American preeminence in the world is taboo; to avoid facing this reality, fingers are pointed at the other political party to assign blame for economic problems and military setbacks. Even though we are but 4% of the world’s population, we consume 30% of its resources and contribute 25% of the CO2 that threatens to bring climatic calamity. Discussion rages about when we will (or did) reach ‘peak oil’. No politician can get elected on a platform that advocates raising taxes, or one that prescribes cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits; yet can either problem be solved without taxation as part of the remedy? If you live in America, your life expectancy ranks #23 among industrialized nations. In the three years 2001-2003, 82 of the Fortune 500 paid no income tax on over $100 billion in profits during one or more years; indeed, those companies also reaped over $12 billion in tax rebates at the same time. In one of many examples, GE made $12 billion in one year, tax-free. In 1986 there were 13 billionaires in the U.S., in 2006 487, yet during the same 25 years, the average income in America, in inflation- adjusted dollars, rose just $800. The poorest 10% in America earn 1.8% of the total income in a year, and this ranks #83 in the world. In Japan, ranked #1, the figure is 4.8%. In America, 21% of children live at or below the poverty line. In Germany the figure is 10.2%, in France 7.5% and in Denmark 2.4%. In spite of these figures, European nations also appear to value time spent with young children more than we do, mothers receive paid time off after childbirth, as much as two years, and fathers as much as six months. If we look back on the nation’s response to the Great Depression, the last time we faced economic issues on this scale, we find that President Roosevelt forged the New Deal and set the country on a course that would be the foundation for the economic success we enjoyed in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. Looking back on what he had accomplished during his State of the Union address in 1944, he noted, “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff out of which dictatorships are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station, race or creed.” He delineated these rights, including: 2020 Vision 5 • The right to a useful and remunerative job • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing and recreation • Freedom from unfair competition and domination