The Rebirth of Wonder

The holiday season is upon us, along with all of the rare and beautiful opportunities it brings. No matter what name you choose to assign to it, or how you may choose to celebrate it, it will work its own special kind of magic. For just a moment we will stop what we are doing, we will share gifts, spend time with loved ones. Beautiful lights and ornaments will be placed on display, and we will stop to observe them and appreciate their beauty. It may seem like a small thing, but in reality it is a wonderful opportunity. Most of us have been conditioned to live our lives obsessing over what happened yesterday or what is coming next. We spend our lives trying to achieve this or that, and never stop to appreciate those achievements or the wonder and beauty that surround us every day. Make the most of the opportunity, breathe it in deep and take a moment, a day, a week to appreciate your life. Consider making it a way of life; and just in case you need a reminder the next holiday season is only a year away.

Do you remember the wonder and magic the holiday season held when you were a child? The Christmas tree became a shrine to wonderment, and each light glowed with magical warmth. My play would center around it, I would stare at it for long stretches of time that could not be measured because they were time-less. The smell of pine would take me away to a place behind reality, and the occasional trip to the snow with my grand parents, well that was Nirvana. No matter what holiday tradition you might have observed as a child, there were probably one or more aspects that struck you with the same sense of wonderment. And that sense of wonderment and adventure probably didn’t stop there when you were a child; most likely it accompanied anything new that awoke your senses. It is unfortunate that we tend to loose that as we go in to adulthood.

We worry about things which seem important at a given moment, but which mean nothing when observed against the wholeness of our lives. The traffic, other people’s opinions or impressions, how a project will be received, if the kids are going to do their homework correctly, and a million other things fight for every minute of our attention, and we become the slaves of our own worries if we are not careful. We forget to allow ourselves time to just be, and appreciate our relationships and our surroundings In observing the holidays we are given an opportunity to recapture the magic of youth.

So take a moment to quit thinking about what yesterday held, or tomorrow may hold, and enjoy everything you have right now.

What’s the greatest thing you can do to enjoy the magic of the holiday season?

What do you believe?

First of all, thank you all for your kind and inspiring words regarding my mother-in-law’s sudden passing and my mother’s plight as an Alzheimer’s victim.  Your insights and personal emails really matter.  It is so heartening to participate in a community of thoughtful, compassionate people who are striving to make their difference and to live lives of genuine inspiration.

Today I thought I’d just plunge in and take a big chance.  I am talking about belief in the Divine.  I know, I know.  Why do I have to bring it up at all?  Nothing is more controversial.  And it is because it matters so much.  So here’s what I propose.  I’ll tell you how I think about belief and non-belief and you tell me what you think.  No matter what, let’s agree afterwards to still be friends.

As I see it, there are two general possibilities, two scenarios. Both scenarios have their supporters.  Both sides use science to back them up.

Scenario #1 is that we are “accidental humans;” the result of a cosmic chemical spill.  A random mass of colliding electrons guided by unseen forces that proceed without any cause or meaning. Under Scenario #1, consciousness is just a by-product of biochemistry––an epiphenomenon, as the scientists say. If we accept this possibility, then all meaning is self-invented, a comforting illusion to save us from despair. With Scenario #1 values are simply the preferences we invent to help us get along. When humans decide they are the pinnacle of all intelligent life, it opens the door to genocide and child abuse being just as legitimate as charity work because if there are no universal values, life is simply about survival of the fittest. If you think this is far out, consider the long list of early 20th century leaders that believed in selectively breeding out what “science” said were low IQ races: Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Keith Kellogg, Margaret Sanger, and Winston Churchill to name a few.  Eugenics was a very popular fake science.

This view of accidental humanity is quite popular among the highly educated. In fact, it has become de facto religion in most of our colleges and universities. Several well-known twentieth century tyrants used their own version of Scenario #1 to justify their actions.  We all know what happened.  It led to the slaughter of over 150 million of us. If Darwinism is the soulless mechanism of creation, what we end up with is a life based on competing for power instead of one of meaning.

I know there are people who claim religion has done more to harm humanity than non-belief ever has.  But all the wars, intolerance, and torture didn’t happen because of a belief in a divine unseen world.  It happened because humans are corrupt.  The fact that religion doesn’t tame man’s evil doesn’t mean that life is meaningless.  To the contrary.  It makes life’s intrinsic meaning even more important.

All attempts of the “accidental humans” camp to create secular meaning are in the end meaningless. After all, if meaning is made-up, then it really isn’t meaningful. And living without real meaning is not fulfilling—never has been.  It also makes science, art, spirituality, and love meaningless. Just diversions on the road to nowhere.

Scenario #2 says that there is something more to us.  It says that we are significant humans. We are part of something that goes deeper than the electrical wiring of our brain. We are connected to a greater intelligence, a transcendent spiritual energy that is at the core of everything.

Scenario #2 isn’t made-up woo-woo. It, too, has science behind it. Its reality begins with understanding E=MC2––Einstein’s discovery that matter and energy are one and the same and that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  Every physical thing, according to Einstein, is really just energy in a particular form that our particular senses interpret as matter. And energy cannot be destroyed, only changed in form. We don’t actually live in a material world.  Matter is just energy.  It is technically non-material. And the name we commonly use for things non-material is spiritual.  Spiritual energy, imagine that.

What’s wild is that the laws that govern how energy changes form seem to depend on consciousness.  Decades of repeated experiments performed by scores of mainstream renown physicists have categorically shown that human intention powerfully affects the behavior of matter/energy.  Period.  It’s no longer up for debate.  In fact it’s this property of physics that makes electrons behave in ways that make electronic circuit boards possible.  It’s ironic that every computer chip is a reminder of an invisible unexplainable reality.

Our awareness is not an after-effect but a prerequisite. It comes first, not second.  Thanks to new super-sophisticated brain surgery we now have clinical evidence the individual human consciousness does not depend on our brain being alive.  That’s right.  We now know that we can have zero brain wave activity for prolonged periods and still have conscious awareness of what is happening while our brain is switched off.  Now that’s amazing. (If you want to read about a clinical account of independent human consciousness, read The Scalpel and the Soul  by Allen S. Hamilton M.D.

So in Scenario #2, we are not, at our essence, physical, biological hunks of matter that have learned to think. Rather our biological bodies are only the temporary manifestation of some essential, eternal energy––what spiritual teachers have for millennia called our souls. In that case, the source of our true desires and noblest intentions is much deeper than our individual story, our personality, or our brain chemistry. It is an abiding, universal consciousness temporarily housing itself in our body.

What’s the importance of all this? Well, if Scenario #2 is true, then most everything we tell ourselves is important isn’t. At least not in the way we think it is. With Scenario #2, our soul belongs to a deeper spiritual reality. And in that reality love does matter.  In fact, it matters most of all.  I don’t know about you, but I’m putting my chips on Scenario #2.

What do you think?

Insuring the Uninsured

Yesterday morning I helped the board of a Phoenix based non-profit develop a “business” plan to grow during our economic crash. Right now many non-profits are sucking air because people and businesses are thinking about their own survival and hanging on to their money.

This non-profit, the Keogh Health Foundation, is a master at doing the most good with very little. Their goal is to make sure every Arizona resident has health insurance, especially women and children because they are the most vulnerable. They go to poor neighborhoods and enroll at-risk moms and kids in one of the many underutilized public assistance insurance programs available. They’ve developed a simplified enrollment process that gets qualified people insured in 30 minutes via a laptop and Internet connection.

The Keogh Foundation is led by business people with a purpose. They’ve seen the statistic that insured poor children are sick far less than the uninsured. Yes, insured children cost taxpayers less money, and they do far better in school academically (68% better). It turns out that our massive number of uninsured, costs us far more when they finally do get health care than if they were enrolled in assistance programs already funded. And talk about an efficient non-profit. The average cost for the Foundation to get someone access to health care is $6. That means for every $6 raised by the foundation, another mother or child is covered. The Foundation also teaches seminars helping people understand how to get job training, apply for a job and of course get health insurance. What we did this morning was develop sources of sustainable funding to expand their program and create strategies to involve college students as volunteers to help enroll the uninsured.

Whenever I help smart people with projects like this I am greatly encouraged at the quality of our civil society. This Foundation is run primarily on brainpower. Its budget is tiny and its impact is huge. The real capital that supports this organization is vision, intelligence and energy.

It was started by one woman. A woman who just decided to do something about the uninsured. She started without a formal plan but with a noble idea and practical view of reality. The reality of, “How do we erase the barrier of bureaucracy to get the benefits of our tax dollars used for what they are intended for.” Then she surrounded herself with knowledgeable colleagues and just started. One thing led to another and last year 72,000 people got access to health insurance that otherwise would not have because she did something. 72,000!

So what’s the greatest thing we can do…whatever you’re waiting to do when the time is right.

The time is right. Just start.

How to Save General Motors

It is time to think differently.  The argument that all our large enterprises, banks, insurance companies and automakers are too big to fail is simply a way of rewarding failure.  And the rewards are large.  Giving billions to bankroll the leaders who created failure to keep them gambling with our money is stupid.  Outrageous.

In the late 1980’s I led a retreat of executives from General Motors.  At the time their manufacturing quality was in crisis.  They were literally re-assembling Buicks in the parking lot of the Flint Michigan plant because the cars coming off the assembly line were not screwed together.  I said to them, “What unique value do you bring?  If you went out of business, would anyone care?  Or would they just buy Toyota’s?  They looked at me as if I was from Mars.

I also worked with executives at Saturn just previously to its initial launch.  Expectations of the car were very high.  It was touted to be revolutionary as sort of a Jetson’s speeder.  The cars’ production had been delayed and delayed and the GM brass was agitated.  The problem was they hired 700 engineers to design one economy car.  Sure there were many innovations especially in the manufacturing of the car but 700 engineers?  So Skip, Saturn’s CEO, finally selected 22 engineers to finish the project.  It was a last second act of common sense.  In 1993 when oil was $22 a barrel Toyota decided to build a hybrid Prius.  With the same facts GM decided to build big SUV’s.  Today, Toyota is the world’s largest automaker and GM is burning through cash faster than a teenager with her mother’s credit card.  What’s wrong with General Motors is the inbred thinking.  They live in an unreal world.

Here are some problems and solutions:

1. New car development, manufacturing, sales, use, and disposal are some of the most wasteful industrial activities in the world.
2. Consumer research says buying a car is one of our least favorite activities.
3. Nearly all safety, efficiency and anti-pollution improvements in domestic autos have been mandated by law.  Without regulations we wouldn’t have seatbelts and we would have smog belching exhaust pipes guzzling more gas than we can import.
4. The U.S. auto industry has been failing since the oil embargo of the 1970’s.  Market share of GM, Ford, and Chrysler has steadily declined as consumers have found better value from foreign markets.  (Internally, Saturn’s goal was to make a car almost as good as a Honda Accord.  No, I am not kidding.)
5. The J.D. Power Quality ratings are twisted.  Last year Buick was rated top in the first 90 days of customer quality as rated by customer complaints.  But the average age of Buick buyers is somewhere close to 100.  And guess what?  Older folks drive less and complain less.  A Buick has higher quality than a Lexus or a Toyota?  (Actually the two car companies that have the fewest repair technicians per car on the road is Toyota and Honda.  No surprise.)
6. General Motors is loaded with talented design and manufacturing people.  They are strait jacketed by incompetent leadership and a stifling and non-sensical bureaucracy.  The biggest problem is that GM leaders think they’re entitled to succeed simply because they’re General Motors.

Solutions:

1. First of all no government loans should be offered without the top management fired without financial parachutes.  They have failed miserably in virtually every way.  In fact I would start with the top 10% of GM management being fired with an invitation for those who are most competent to reapply.
2. Revolutionize the way cars and trucks are designed to be light, safe and efficient.  Cars and trucks don’t have to be tiny to be efficient.  Actually according to safety experts, the safest vehicles are big and light.
3. Make the car buying process and supply chain more efficient.  A lot of people would hate this, but we ought to buy cars directly from the manufacturers and cut out the wasteful overhead of an old fashion dealer network.  We simply don’t need big dealers with acres of cars that require financing and take up space.  What if instead manufacturers had smaller showrooms in malls or mall parking lots with a few cars to test-drive.  Then we ordered our cars from the showroom or our homes via the web.  Our car was then made and delivered to us in 10-14 days and our trade-in picked up.  Our cars would be serviced by independent, certified repair centers.  The amount of wasted overhead we would take out of the business process could reduce the cost of cars by about 20% while increasing profits and consumer satisfaction.  (Of course we’ll need to re-train all the people who lose their jobs to do something productive.)
4. Finally, we need to think about personal transportation in new ways.  The world cannot sustain billions and billions of people motoring around ribbons of concrete wrapped around our planet like a ball of string.  But one thing is for sure.  It’s stupid to give more to failed leaders.  Stupid.

So what’s the greatest thing you can do? Drive less.  And when you do buy a car, buy the safest most fuel-efficient car you can.  If you want your Congressmen to know how you feel, it only takes a minute. We have a new feature on the home page of the American Dream Project site powered by Congress.org.  Enter your zip code to retrieve your elected officials contact/email information.

Also…comment on our blog, and we will send the best ideas to Congress each week.

Letter to President-elect Obama

Dear President Obama,

First of all, congratulations on your historic victory.  Your election is a vivid affirmation of the American Dream.  Anything is possible in America.  Truly.

Now let me offer you a word of caution.  Please don’t misread your election as a mandate for the traditional Democrat liberal agenda.  What we want is real change.  Change that is not a swing to the left.  We don’t want a refried “Great Society.”  We just want change that gives everyone an honest chance to be self-reliant and contribute to our common good. We want change from the increasingly narrow and corrupt view that creating a class of super-rich would somehow benefit all the rest of us.  We don’t want to have a foreign policy based on fear.  We don’t want an economy based on buying stuff made in China.  We don’t want to be lied to.  What we do want is a President we respect.  We need to trust your judgment and your character.  We hope we can.  Just be what you say you are.

Here is what I’ve heard from Americans across the country over the past five years:

1. We want an economy built on innovation, production and creating a sustainable future.  We want to lead the world in invention and quality.  (We are sick about leading the world into a world-wide recession based on a few people’s greed.)
2. We want universal health care for all Americans.  We don’t want a European or Canadian version.  We want a uniquely American best-in-the-world answer of quality, affordability health for all.  Of course it’s going to be hard, but that’s why you were elected.
3. We want a strong, wise and good foreign policy.  We want the world’s respect.  We want to be moral leaders with moral authority.  We want to respect all cultures and promote local solutions to local problems whenever possible.  We want real strength against terrorists, sound intelligence and a campaign to promote pluralism, tolerance and civilization around the world.
4. We want clean, renewable energy now.  We want you to promote a broad-based investment to create a world-wide solution.  We should lead the world to sustainable non-polluting energy.
5. We want a fair, legal and smart immigration policy.  We don’t want to exploit undocumented workers or build an economy that requires us to.
6. We want free, quality education for every child and every student in high school and college.  This is the greatest investment in our future we can make.  We want education that is efficient, relevant, and engaging.  We must have the best education in the world.  No excuses.
7. We want wise regulation to promote the healing of our environment, corporate governance, safe food and drugs and protection from financial corruption.  We want to trust our banks and business leaders.

Well, we are pretty sure you know what we want.  Now that you’re off the campaign trail and the immediacy of voters in your face, we want you to remember our voices.  Please resist the pressures of special interests.  Don’t listen to those who agree with you.  Least of all those who praise you.  Always reach for a higher solution.  Please bring us together to create a new future.  This could be a great new era for America if you make it so.

Please be the leader you’ve promised to be.  You simply must.  Our future depends on it.  If you do your part, believe me, we will do ours.  That’s something you can depend on.  “Yes you can!”

It’s a great time to be an American if we make it so!

Will Marre

Feedback or additions before I send it off?

If I were President…

There is no job in all of the United States as closely scrutinized as that of President of the United States. Even the celebrity scandals with which much of the country seems to be so completely obsessed at times, can not compete with the scrutiny on this one job. Leadership is the glue that binds us together. Whether or not we realize its value, the effects of its absence are unmistakable. Leadership is more than a title, and there are many who have held the title but failed to lead. Since I, like many others, will be closely scrutinizing the actions of the next President, it is only fair that I answer the question.

What would I do if I were President?

Domestic Policy

The establishment of an aggressive national energy policy.

1. An aggressive national energy policy would be the keystone to my administration. Americans believe in and want clean renewable sources of energy that can be produced here in the United States, but the government needs to create an environment that is friendly to innovation and provides incentives to buyers and producers to make this happen. Up to $700 billion dollars a year would be brought back in the U.S. economy (potentially more with the sale of clean energy technology overseas), jobs would be created, the environment would be cleaner, and we would eliminate the threats to national security that are inherent to depending on foreign nations for a vital resource. Perhaps, most importantly of all, however, is that this is really something we could use to energize the country to work towards a common goal. For more information about the need for a vital new energy policy consider Will’s post Oil Dependence and the Energy Crisis.

2. Formation of a service for education program.
   America has earned its economic standing in the world through innovation: electricity, the automobile, the computer, and the Internet to name a few. We also have a need for educated individuals to serve the community as doctors, nurses, and teachers to name a few. Throughout the years, many young men and women have turned to the military as a way to build a future for themselves. Service to country has prepared many of our youth to become responsible citizens and instilled in them a love of country that is necessary in a healthy society. Education, when offered openly to all who will take advantage of the opportunity, has the potential to be the keystone to balanced equality in our nation. Expanding the definition of service beyond the military and creating structured opportunities for community service in exchange for education would be a priority in my administration. For other great ideas about expanding education, see Will’s “Free Education for All.”
   

3. The establishment of a state/locally run national health care program.
   In a country like the United States, it is inexcusable that working men and women are unable to obtain quality medical care for themselves or their families. If a man or woman works to be a productive member of society, surely they have earned the right to real medical care. We are not talking about taking from the rich and giving to the poor; we are talking about giving people what they have justly earned. Such programs have met with tremendous opposition because we have lost faith in the government to spend our money wisely. I am very sympathetic to this argument.  In order to ensure that people have the kind of medical service they deserve without another bloated federal program, I would work to ensure that the program was implemented at the state or local level. The federal government would require a program meeting basic standards and would provide oversight, training, and support. There would obviously be expenses associated with such a program, and extensive research would be conducted to ensure that they would be minimal and fairly divided. It would replace the Medicare program, and the expenses which currently go to that program would help defray the cost. Participants in the service for education program listed in item 2 would also play a key role to keep expenses down.

Foreign Policy

1. Push for massive reform in the United Nations.
   The U.S. can no longer afford to be the world’s police force. Our adoption of this role has placed an unfair economic burden on U.S. citizens and has done unnecessary harm to our relationship with the global community. Although we can not, and should not govern ourselves by foreign opinion, we should try and maintain fair and amicable relations wherever we are able. We need a global body that attempts to resolve disputes between countries, and that when required, can act to enforce the peace between them. These actions need to be a community decision and need to respect the sovereign status of each of its members. I do not believe that the U.N. is currently up to the task, but I believe the answer is to push for reform that puts reasonable bounds on their authority and seeks to remove corruption from that body. A well run United Nations will free us to focus on making a better life at home, while discouraging the types of aggression that led to World War I and World War II.

2. Heavy reduction in non-humanitarian foreign aid.
   According to the National Debt Clock, the current debt of the United States government is $10, 542,780,984,853.05 or approximately $34,563 per person. I have intentionally left every digit in the sum to convey just how enormous that debt is. Foreign Aid spending adds approximately $15 Billion a year to that sum, with the Cato Institute estimating that number at closer to $50 Billion and heavily opposed by the American people. The United States should be a good neighbor, particularly where disaster relief is concerned, but it is irresponsible to spend such a large sum of money on foreign aid while we are so deeply indebted. This is especially true in those situations where the aid is being used to buy influence. I would not eliminate foreign aid, but I would cut it deeply.

3. Heavy reduction in U.S. military presence abroad.
   The purpose of the military is to defend our way of life. It protects our freedoms, and in a larger sense, our prosperity. Its ability to perform these actions is vital to our well being. Economic vitality is also of fundamental importance to our well being and we must be careful to balance these two competing priorities. $644 billion was requested for military spending in 2008, more than the next 10 highest spending countries combined based on a Reuters release and can be seen clearly on this Wikipedia chart based on the 2006 budget. The military plays an important role in protecting our economy, but we must avoid the danger of the military becoming the economy. Economic instability poses a serious threat to our national security. Heavy reduction in U.S. military presence abroad would be a good start at bringing these numbers under control.

Government Reform

1. Tax Reform
   Taxes should be simple, and loop holes found in fine print should not exempt people from paying their fair share. One solution which has been proposed to this dilemma is the implantation of a flat tax. A true flat tax seems like a good idea on the service but lacks fundamental fairness. Taxation should never cut in to the ability of a person to provide for their most basic needs, and those who are fortunate enough to reap the greatest benefits from our economic system should have a greater share of the responsibility. In accordance with this I would seek the implementation of a three tiered flat tax. I would also seek to identify non productive behaviors that distribute wealth upward, not by productivity, but through control of markets and money flow. The non productive upward distribution of wealth takes hard earned money out of the pockets of working Americans and needs to be stopped. Special taxes, not applicable to most Americans, would be applied to those behaviors in order to discourage them and repair the damage they cause. Every American deserves a chance at the American Dream, and our taxation system should help, not hinder, their efforts. Check out Will’s Voting for the American Dream and Business Model for Corporate Social Responsibility. I would also commission comprehensive studies to look for innovative ways of taking income tax out of the hands of the federal government while still allowing it to function effectively and meet its obligations. I do not know if a workable strategy could be found to do this, but it is worthy of exploration.

2. Massive reform to the U.S. banking system. The current Federal Reserve System gives private banks far too much influence over U.S. monetary policy. Thomas Jefferson so feared the role of banks in the U.S. economy that he uttered the following words:

   “The [privately-owned] Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution…if the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Current events are bearing out his words.

   There are those that would like to return to the gold standard, but I do not believe this is an accurate reflection of our productivity. Our money supply needs to be tightly affixed to a set standard that allows it to maintain equilibrium in the world currency market, thus protecting the buying power of private citizens. I suspect that government and private banks are guilty of abuses in this area. Our currency needs to be released in a manner that provides strict safeguards to keep private banks, corporations, and the government itself from skimming off the top. I would assemble a team of visionary economists to advise me on how best to go about this reform. Also check out Will’s ideas on the Financial Bailout and Slaves to Debt.

3. New ethics rules to eliminate special interest money from the political process. Money and politics do not mix. A system that requires candidates for Federal office to raise millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars from private contributions, compromises them from the very start. A system would be set up whereby candidates are blind to the identity of their financial contributors, and strict penalties would be imposed if a candidate took money directly from a contributor. Tight limits would also be imposed to the total amount of money a candidate would be allowed to receive as an added precaution. In light of the strict financial cap, Presidential candidates who are able to demonstrate broad based support for their candidacy, based on pre-determined criteria, would be given a forum upon which to make their case to the American people. The parameters on this process would be constructed so as to insure that leading candidates from independent parties are included in the process and are able to run on a level playing field against Republican and Democratic candidates.

4. Establishment of new vehicles to remove ineffective politicians.
   The voice of the people must be first and foremost on the minds of our elected officials. We honor them with the offices which they hold to represent our needs and our dreams, and they must be held accountable. We deserve not only good leadership, but great leadership, and I would work to make sure that happened, but giving people the ability to get rid of ineffective leaders. For further information on this subject check out my earlier post, Removing Ineffective Politicians from Office.

5. Reform the Electoral College to give citizens a greater voice.
   I do not believe that the Electoral College works as intended. The number of electoral votes that is carried by powerhouse states such as California, Texas, New York, and Florida dwarfs that of most other states in a winner takes all contest, with no consideration of those who cast the losing vote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Electoral_College_Map.PNG) . The electoral system was initially implemented to keep the voice of smaller states from being overwhelmed by their more populace neighbors. The voices of the smaller states have dimmed as our population as migrated toward coastal states and large population centers. I believe that we might be better served by constitutional reform that breaks those votes down into their respective congressional districts. Smaller states and individual voters, would have a greater voice in government as a result of this action, and events such as the 2000 Florida recounts would have had significantly less effect. In light of the fact that this would be a Constitutional reform, it would have to be considered with great care, and with great attention to the voice of the people and the states.

6. Establishment of a decentralization program.
   The federal government has an important role to play in the well being of its citizens, but it was never intended to wield massive power over the states. Centralized power in heavy concentrations is an ideal environment for waste, inefficiency, and corruption. The federal government should lead, but it has no business managing the states. I would carefully examine each federal program, cut wasteful programs and spending, and return the implementation and management of several of them over to the states, provide training, and ensure that they had the resources and skills to do so. In a decentralized environment, some states would develop innovative ways of dealing with problems that centralized control does not allow. Effective strategies could be observed and taught to other states and the government as a whole would benefit.

   My administration would be one of innovation, guided by the people, visionaries, and philosopher kings. It would seek to make sure that the voice of the people was heard above all others. Each committee and cabinet would have a citizen’s advocate who could be depended on to be strong and impartial, who would interface with real people and represent their voice in each meeting. It would not be afraid to take bold new steps, but would do so with due caution. It would lead through inspiration and post these words prominently throughout the walls of the White House, so as never to forget its responsibilities:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” – The Declaration of Dependence

What is the Greatest thing you could do, if you were President?

**Special thanks to the Dan Carlin’s common sense podcast Episode #136 Confronting The Hydra for his insights on Medicare and military spending.

Voting for the American Dream

This election has the promise to be truly future changing.  But only if the winner seeks a dramatic new course from the wrong-headed assumptions both parties have been operating under for a very long time.  Our nation is the first in human history founded on the ideals of a government designed to constantly promote life and liberty so that all our citizens could pursue genuine happiness.  This is the root of the real American Dream.

I was raised on a ranch where the ideals of rugged individualism and personal responsibility were emphasized.  Those principles are the engine of a strong productive society.  But it’s not all there is to it.  As I’ve spent the past three decades helping leaders and organizations link fundamental values to their decisions it has become clear to me that the questions of the purpose of life and society must be answered or our unbridled individualism will degrade into selfishness and yes, greed.

The idea that our society exists only to enable its strongest individuals to amass power and wealth is a new spin on history’s oldest story.  It’s always told by the people in power.  The higher ideal our founders fought for is a society in which our common responsibility is to help people we aren’t related to, don’t even know, or more importantly the unborn next generation.  It was based on the inspired belief that the best society is one in which all of us help ensure that the most people have a full opportunity to achieve security, dignity and contentment.  This is the vision that inspires me.

I believe that the American Dream has little to do with money.  The dream is not so much materialistic as it is spiritual.  By that I mean the promise of America is the promise of an equal chance to make something of our lives.  The freedom and responsibility to give our gifts and express our most noble desires.  If that sounds corny, maybe it’s because we’ve become so cynical.  That’s a shame.  Our founders were anything but cynical.  They were perhaps the greatest group of practical-idealists in history.

I was reminded of that when I read Dean Calbreath’s column in the San Diego Union Tribune titled “Spreading the Wealth.” Calbreath reminds us that Jefferson and Madison were insistent that significant financial inequality not become life-as-usual in America.  They were escaping a smothering aristocracy in Europe and England and they knew that if the wealthy interests controlled the government, the banks, and the land a new aristocracy would pass laws to insulate themselves from competition and protect their wealth and their children’s wealth in a thousand different ways that would cripple opportunity for the rest of us.  Neither Jefferson nor Madison were socialists but as Calbreath reminds us, Jefferson proposed “taxes could be used to reduce enormous inequality,” and Madison proposed policies to limit “extreme wealth” and promote a broad middle class.  Calbreath also points out that none other than Abraham Lincoln instituted America’s first income tax.  It only taxed the more prosperous.  And Teddy Roosevelt proposed a graduated income tax and inheritance tax.  The motivation of these great presidents was not to punish the hard working, inventive risk-takers and reward the slackers; rather it was to use the taxes raised to create a civil society where the infrastructure of universal education, roads, bridges, and later power, water, and communication would reinforce the force of liberty for all of us to pursue our own dreams.

Our great presidents were trying to create a society that presented the greatest opportunity for happiness and least avoidable suffering possible.  They realized that liberty is not simply an absence of laws and regulations, but rather it is a system of laws and regulations that promotes the common good for us.

Today, those who believe that the opportunities for a well-educated suburban high school student whose parents can help him pay for college, buy a car or a down payment on the his first home and the opportunities for a fatherless inner city girl attending a violence-drenched high school are anywhere near the same are simply ignoring another inconvenient truth.  And any self-made millionaire that thinks they achieved their wealth and advantage solely through their own hard work is as deluded as Donald Trump.

To create our best society those of us who are blessed to have had responsible and loving parents, good teachers and a dose of good fortune have the responsibility to use our considerable resources and innovative minds to provide an infrastructure of education and opportunity for those who aren’t so lucky.  We all know direct handouts weaken and embitter the recipients of no-strings-attached charity.  But that’s not what the real American Dream’s promise is.

Our real dream is based on a mutual promise to give everyone an honest chance at a decent life.  But our pursuit of the common good has been lost in a chorus of “tough luck—it’s your own damn fault” social and economic policies.  I am not proposing we bailout irresponsible behavior of anyone, rich or poor.  Everyone should be responsible to clean up his or her own messes.  But the self-serving belief that wealth is a sign of virtue and that financial struggles are proof of laziness is obscenely wrong.  What kind of a society have we created?  For me what I see is a society that has parachutes and bailout plans for the rich and well connected while everyone else gets pushed out of the airplane and told to roll when they hit the ground.  This is not the best we can do.  We need wisdom, morality, fairness and dignity rather than slogans, selfishness, self-righteousness and nastiness.   To get it we’re going to have to vote for it, from the President to your City Council candidates.

When I look at the example of some of our best presidents, I am inspired.  Inspired by their belief that the best society is one in which those with the most advantages and resources help strengthen the means to rise up the opportunities of all.  For me that’s a renaissance of practical-idealism.  Isn’t our best society one in which the most citizens are empowered to do their best and be their best?  It’s time we vote for the American Dream.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do? So what do you think?  What is the point of society?  Were Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln wrong?  How do we avoid turning a commitment to the common good into a welfare state?  What mutual obligations should we embrace? What can we do as individuals for each other right now?

The American Dream and the Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness is the third pillar of the American Dream.  It’s the payoff for a secure Life and the benefits of Liberty.   Until recently, the “pursuit of happiness” sounded a little airy-fairy.  A little “let’s hold hands and sing from sea to shining sea.”

That’s because the idea of happiness has always been subjective.  It has meant different things to different people.  No more.  The past twenty years have produced mountains of worldwide research on human happiness.  Over 500 studies in the past five years alone.  We have also conducted our own research at American Dream Project. Now we actually know what happiness is and what produces it.  Understanding happiness is one of the great breakthroughs of the last decade.

Happiness is measurable, observable, and verifiable.  Through brain scans we now know that feelings of wellbeing occur when our left frontal lobes, found above our left eye, are stimulated  (Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard When we are anxious or unhappy, our right frontal lobes have their lights on and we are mentally “pacing our cage.”

Happiness is a persistent feeling of wellbeing, despite the challenges and the ups and downs.  Happy people remain generally content and optimistic.  Happiness also requires an absence of anxiety, stress and depression.

We also know that personal happiness has two drivers: inner and outer.  The most powerful is our own inner landscape.  How we think, approach problems, and bounce back from troubles.  But we don’t live in bubbles, so we are greatly affected by the outer “weather” as well.  Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison had it right; society and government have a big impact on how we pursue happiness.  It turns out the societies that have the greatest equality of access to health care, education, and economic opportunities are the happiest.

But, that’s not all.  Societies that have sticky social glue, meaning high family solidarity, low divorce rates, and broad membership in social and civic groups tend to be much happier. Belief in God, participation in religious organizations, and high optimism are also strongly tied to happiness  (Authentic Happiness and Martin Seligman).

The research comes at just the right time because, as a nation, with all our advantages, wealth, technology and power, we seem to stink at the Happiness game.  We’re not even in the top 20 on the first ever World Map of Happiness.

It turns out two of the greatest causes of unhappiness are divorce and job loss.  We are world class at that.  We’ve come to expect regular turnover in our jobs and marriages.  In fact, we now lead the world in those categories. We’ve been led to believe “creative destruction” is a good thing.  Evidently we’ve gotten a little carried away.  Trust, the measure of how much we can count on each other to keep commitments, is half of what it was in 1950. We don’t trust our leaders, our bosses, our government, our schools, our religions, our neighbors, our spouses, our kids, our working colleagues, or the evening news.  When trust in society is shot, social friction slows everything down, makes everything cost more and puts us on guard.  Distrust is the dance music for unrelenting stress.

We’ve been lulled into measuring happiness with a dollar symbol.  The quality of our society is now equated with the activity of our economy.  Our national policy makers worship at the altar of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP); our nation’s health is determined by dividing the total amount paid for all goods and services by the number of citizens.

As an indicator, though, the GDP is both amoral and illogical.  All expenditures are counted as good.  So all the costs of lawsuits, divorces, pollution and disaster clean up, car wrecks, crime, prisons, cigarettes, and even the price rise in health care, college tuition and gasoline add to our GDP.  Does that make any sense to you?  Or is the Gross Domestic Product as Robert F. Kennedy challanged just gross?

According to economists, our standard of living may be rising on paper, but our real standard of life is falling.  When we account for the true economic costs of environmental destruction, urban sprawl, depletion of resources, crime, poverty, illness and education failure, we find our per capita standard of living is declining.  That’s why we somehow feel poorer and more vulnerable even though our house prices have risen and we can buy SUVs with zero percent financing.  Our garages are full, but our souls are empty.

So, what’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?  Everything.  Happiness is personal at its core.  So in spite of our stress-crazed society, we can all make individual choices that matter.  And these choices, our choices, will change the world.

Oil Dependence and the Energy Crisis

Oil. Oil. Oil. According to Oil Industry Profit Review 2007, “in 2007 the oil industry recorded revenues of approximately $1.9 trillion, of which 78% was accounted for by the five major integrated oil companies. Profits for the industry totaled over $155 billion, 75% of which were earned by the five major oil companies, with the largest, ExxonMobil, earning over 25% of the total profit.” Isn’t it outrageous that they’re making billions – record profits – while our monthly gasoline bill has doubled?  You’ll be comforted to know that a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute has stated that the oil companies have a fiduciary responsibility to make as much money as possible.  And they take that responsibility very seriously.  Nearly five hundred billion oil soaked profit dollars over the past five years.  Wow, I feel better already.

Why are we dependent on foreign oil when we had a major energy crisis in 1973?  Why does our economy still run on oil?  How could we allow ourselves to be so dependent on Middle Eastern oil when we have to worry about who is running those countries?

Because there is money to be made.  Our continued dependence on fossil fuel is the single greatest leadership failure of the past three decades.  Almost no progress has been made in our country.  And yet, wind energy supplies nearly a quarter of many European countries’ energy and within a decade will supply half.  There is enough wind blowing in Texas and South Dakota to supply all U.S. energy needs at a current cost of 4 cents per Kilowatt-hour.

Why don’t we change?  Are we really afraid the short-term costs of change are greater than the long-term benefits of fossil fuel free renewable energy?  Is our current stumbling and bumbling really the best we can do?

How can such leadership blunders happen?  Are we really too stupid to see that a reliance on oil and building bad cars is going to hurt all of us?  No.  Corporate and government leaders are smart people.  But we can never underestimate the capacity of smart people to act stupidly if money is to be made.

Who’s really crazy?  We are.  We created this poison and continue to drink it.  We all know the answer and have for a long time.   Some of us are taking matters into our own hands.  A friend of mine, just a regular guy with a small chemical business, just started Pirate Oil.  It is a bio-fuels company supplied with used vegetable oil by In-and-Out Burger and Taco Bell.  It gives a whole new meaning to “trans-fats.”  He already has contacts with local truck fleets for thousands of gallons a week.

But we need more than just wringing oil out of french fries to solve our problems.  We need a full-tilt, no-holds barred national commitment to convert our civilization to renewable energy.   Our current effort is a joke.  Small window dressing.  All we really have are PR announcements and pleas for conservation.  In reality, we have done nothing in decades.  It is time for bold, big action.

So what do the presidential candidates propose?  Here is a brief overview of Obama’s plan.

• Enact a windfall tax on Big Oil, and use money to provide an Energy Rebate to Americans
• Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015, and provide a tax credit for buying these cars
• Ensure 25% of our energy comes from clean, renewable sources by 2025
• Implement cap programs aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions 80% by 2050

Here is a brief overview of McCain’s energy plan.

• Expand domestic oil and natural gas exploration and production
• Focus on wholesale reform of the transportation sector, and enforce current CAFE standards
• Expand “clean coal” programs, and build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030
• Implement programs aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions by 66% by 2050

So what do you think?  Is it enough?  Can it be implemented?  The imperative for this commitment is beyond question.  Anyone with children knows this.  Of course there are a million “hows” to be answered.  But the “what,” the conversion of our civilization from bad energy to good, is an outrageous emergency.  The only thing at stake is everything we value.

What’s the Greatest Thing We Can Do?  Yes, we must conserve, but also we must make noise.  We must demand our leaders do something real, do something big.  Now.  It’s time to end the energy crisis.

World Peace Through Surfing

I just got back from surfing.  Recently I started riding a Rusty Quad.  I can’t get over how responsive it is.  The board seems to go wherever I “think it to.”  So at nearly 59 I’m doing things on a surfboard I’ve never done before.  And that’s what brings me back to wave after wave for 45 years.

I was 12 when I first saw some college kids surfing long boards in 1963.  I felt hypnotized.  I constantly imagined myself gliding effortlessly on a wall of moving water.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  So I worked and worked and talked my parents into a matching grant, and for 80 bucks I bought my first surfboard.  It was a 9’2” green dream.  I remember vividly my first day surfing.  My first wave and my first wipeout.  I was hooked.  I’m a life long addict.  Why?  Why not tennis or golf or the many other sports I’ve played?  Well surfing is not a sport exactly.  It’s more like aerobics for the soul.

Surfing takes me away from every distraction.  It offers an immersion in nature’s huge mineral bath.  It allows me to sit in tranquility waiting for the next wave.  Then it jacks me up in anticipation as I paddle for a wave that is always unpredictable in its flow seemingly creating itself drop by drop underneath me as I pump across its face.  It jacks me up because when I push myself over the ledge of an overhead wave I don’t know what the outcome will be.  Surfing ceaselessly demands vision, faith and when it’s fierce, guts.  Yet even when I wipe out the landings are nearly always soft.  Surfing also takes me to a world away from the ever-noisy grid.  The emails, texts, phones, media, all disappear confined to shore as I escape to the deep blue.

Sometimes I can sit on my board and gaze at the glorious mess called Southern California.  As I look toward shore I can see traffic snaking down the freeway full of people rushing to what is important that day.  Meanwhile I can turn my board seaward and frequently see dolphins playing within 30 yards of me.  Of course there are many times that I join my fellow commuters jamming to the airport to keep my promises.  But I carry with me the rhythmic memory of my last wave.

The ocean is my monastery.  It’s my place of active meditation where I connect to a divine force that keeps reminding me to do what I came to do, but to do it with wisdom.  It keeps me anchored in the knowledge that what I do is not as important as what I am becoming.  Some days as I walk down the sand stepping over shells and polished sea pebbles that litter this little used beach my unconscious pops a new idea on the movie screen of my mind.  Often it’s the opposite of what I was previously thinking.  My mind feels blown open with new possibilities.

The surf was amazing today.  Head-high sets, clear green water and only four people out.  The October sun shone bright and there was not a breath of wind.  Why do I surf?  Because it renews me.  The real me.  Sometimes I wonder if world leaders all surfed maybe there would be no war…World Peace through surfing.

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