Taking a Stand for the American Dream
October 22, 2009
Since starting the American Dream Project I have been an active proponent of the strong values of our founders establishing a society that promoted the greatest happiness for its citizens. This is happiness based on integrating the values of self-reliance and a shared civic concern for the common good. As a nation we seem scared. Our jobs have disappeared, our education and health care systems are broken and we owe nearly a trillion dollars to China. Meanwhile we swim in a torrent of special interests that use the language “personal independence,” “maximum material success” and “sacredness of property rights” to marginalize the values of social responsibility, sustainable consumption and the sacredness of human rights. It is frustrating that when we attempt to solve our problems using wisdom, creativity and higher values the debate degrades to a war of special interests trying to rig the future to their benefit. The only counterbalance to their self-aggrandizement is citizen resolve to reach for new solutions. Solutions that honor all our legitimate values but ensure fairness to all.
This is difficult.
That’s because we believe that what we know is reality. But reality is a tricky beast. The problem is that reality has at least two dimensions. The facts of a situation represent the content of reality while the meaning of those facts is the context. Our sense of meaning is driven by our values. And for our values to be useful in making decisions they must be held in hierarchy. Simply put, some values are more important than other values. Values tell us what to do with facts. That’s why it’s so important not to let others define our values or confuse us as to what’s most important. Because, if we let them, they will create a closed bubble for us. And in the bubble of their emotional logic their conclusions will make total sense. Soon we’ll be interpreting all facts through the false reasoning of the bubble like clones in a frightened world. This is not just a theory. People who call President Obama a Nazi or a socialist and people who label conservatives as hillbillies and hate-mongers make the same error. They are trying to recruit followers through fear. This is very dangerous. It’s what happened when Hitler hypnotized Germany.
When the courageous Christian pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was struggling to find ways to rid his beloved Germany of Hitler, he wrote a series of essays that point out the folly of being seduced by those who appeal to our fear and pride, and pointed out that followers become spellbound by slogans and repeated assertions that gradually become “facts” to morally passive followers. As simplistic slogans are spread by an over-active media, a moral flu has the power to inflict a whole society. When our prejudices are enthroned in a twisted emotional logic that our self-interest is the premier virtue, facts and evidence that contradict our opinions are simply disbelieved and dismissed. As a successful business owner recently said to me, “I know what I believe is true, so why should I listen to anything that would make me question my convictions?” Why, indeed.
What Bonhoeffer, who was executed by Nazis three weeks before Hitler’s suicide in 1945, pleads for is for us to “take a stand.” His call is to stand for love. He called on Christians to save Jews because the great work of moral humans is to bring relief to all who suffer. He challenges us to consider “the outcasts, the suspects, the powerless, the oppressed…with new eyes of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy”.
In my view the greatest act of humanity is to relieve today’s suffering and build self-reliance so that all people can lift themselves to a decent, hope-filled life. My work with the Grameen Foundation, who empower the poorest of the world’s poor to lift themselves by providing access to microloans so they can become self-sustaining entrepreneurs, convinces me that the vast majority of humanity has the will, talent and ingenuity to live a responsible life. They just need the tools to get started.
To return to the beginning, I am saddened that demagogues in our nation can rally millions with fear-based messages with the primal message, “Every man for himself.” I also worry that public spending that weakens our self-reliance and creates institutional dependencies is old failure path. The people I most respect are those who hold strong beliefs, recognize that evil is real, exercise timeless values and continue to have an open mind. Above all, they refuse to be driven by fear, pride or intolerance.
For me there is a higher center that calls for civic engagement in the common good, the restraint of greed, and the promotion of self-reliance. It is time to take a stand. A time to stand for our highest values. This is not time for fear and divisiveness. It’s time for creative idealism and a fiercely open mind. These issues are great questions of our day. (For a view on my suggestion on healthcare that attempts to blend personal responsibility with citizen lead social responsibility, see my other posts: Outraged at the Politics of Healthcare and Will Marre’s Radical Solution to Health Care.)
So what do you think? Am I missing the point? What do you believe are the answers to our challenges?
Who Will Pay for Healthcare?
June 5, 2009
FREE DOWNLOAD: The 4th American Revolution by Will Marre
As the debate on health care rages on in Congress it is sobering to watch the gears of politics grind slowly through the constant dump trucks of sand delivered by the powerful economic interests of the health industry. The incentives of the industry are often contrary to health. Insurance companies make money by charging small companies and individuals who have no bargaining power exorbitantly higher rates than employees of the government or large companies who do. Insurers make more by denying claims of the seriously ill and excluding people who are afflicted with a pre-existing condition. In short, they prosper and please their Wall Street analysts by limiting benefits, which is a cruel way of rationing health care. That’s the very term the far right uses who oppose universal health care.
The economics of drugs is also a labyrinth of questionable practices. Many drugs come as the result of taxpayer-supported research at the National Institutes of Health. Drugs’ retail cost varies greatly based on what country you live in or health plan you have. Again those who have no bargaining leverage pay the most. And most strangely the drug companies spend much more on consumer advertising than on research.
On the cause of the illness side of things, we have cigarette makers who don’t want to be regulated by the FDA even though their product kills 400,000 Americans a year and will kill over a billion people worldwide in this century. That’s 15% of the entire world population currently living. And the fake food industry continues to design, package and sell high calorie low value foods to people most unable to find affordable fresh food. Of course these industries massage their collective consciousnesses by telling themselves we only make what people want. If that logic absolves them from the death and suffering caused by the common use of their products then I guess it’s hard to blame cocaine and meth. dealers who are only meeting the demands of the market. It all carries an economic logic that relieves everyone of his or her social responsibility until your mother or sister starts suffering from diabetes or your father dies of lung cancer.
So we have Congress and their mighty lobbyists trying to sort out an affordable health care plan. I am pessimistic because today we need leadership not compromise. Compromise which ends up with a little of this or a little of that produces a lot of nothing for consumers and new revenue streams for those who see this as an economic exercise.
There are many brilliant solutions to our many health care challenges. And yes, they would overall cost all of us less money, but we have no voice in this debate because there is nothing to be economically gained. So the gears grind on. Who will pay? We will. What are your ideas/solutions?
For more on my views of health care, read the 4th American Revolution.
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