Creating an Economics That Cares and Works!

Inspired greetings

Will the growing national and worldwide economic crisis make 1929 look like "a walk in the park"? Some think it may: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/23/cccrisis123.xml. Incredibly, but predictably, while the corporate media evades the truth of this crisis by only minimal mention and a plethora of distractions, Americans and other human beings around the planet are increasingly drowning in a sea of loss and lack.

Yet there is the executive with the Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank, who describes our current situation as, "A CRISIS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS." The exec elaborates: "I'm not talking New Testament biblical; I'm talking Old Testament hellfire and brimstone. This is the worst credit crisis we've ever seen." And there is this fact that "thirty-six and a half million Americans - one in eight Americans, one in six children - that we KNOW of, because there are no good ways to really measure - live below the official federal poverty level, $20,000 a year for a family of four. Half of us - half! - will have gone through a year or more of poverty by the time we turn 60." (See: http://www.truthout.org/article/media-reformers-its-economy.) We are like the frog in the pan slowly being brought to a boil while being uninformed and unable to see a larger picture of our predicament or any depth of real solution.

While in Mexico I recently completed reading Riane Eisler's book - The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics. And it has been a life-changing experience. It is so difficult to imagine a different world, one in which there are changes that have never happened before. Riane Eisler is among the great visionaries of our time. Her book The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future is now printed in 23 languages and has been read by people worldwide. "The Chalice and The Blade has been the catalyst for new books, art, music, and the spread of Partnership Education around the world." (See: http://www.partnershipway.org/html/subpages/chalice.htm.) L.A. Weekly states that "The Chalice and The Blade may be the most significant work published in all our lifetimes. Read The Chalice and The Blade. . .it may make the future possible." (See: http://www.rianeeisler.com/chalice.htm.) This earlier book was also a deeply life changing experience for me.

In her latest book, The Real Wealth of Nations, Riane Eisler offers a detailed vision of a profoundly new and different - a caring - economics that transcends and goes beyond traditional and limiting categories like "capitalist" and "socialist". Her perspective of a Caring Family Policy, for instance, includes three interacting components: A Declaration of Children's Rights, A Strong American Family Partnership, and A Family-friendly American Economy. (See: http://www.rianeeisler.com/articles/agenda.pdf.) As someone who works as a permanency worker for Child Welfare, and who has worked with abused and neglected children and with families for twenty years, it is my perspective that these kinds of foundational changes - to our culture, our values, and the stories that we live by both as Americans and as global citizens - are critical, absolutely critical, to affecting real and lasting change for children and families in this nation and beyond.

Please go here for a video of Riane Eisler speaking about the "Human Yearning for Caring Connection": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUMpKGV6ynI. Please go here to see Riane speak about a "Caring Economics": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USUeF4YauF8&feature=related. What Riane is giving voice to is deep cultural change. I recently heard Riane Eilser speak for the fourth time, this occasion being at the Green Festival in Seattle. Here is a peak of Riane at the Washington D.C. Green Festival sharing about the passion that is reflected in her new book, The Real Wealth of Nations, and her invitation to us all to become a part of a "caring revolution": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaT57T38zQ&feature=related.

It is sometimes said that it isn't as much what happens to us as what our responses are to the events and circumstances of our lives. I love and have been deeply drawn to Riane Eisler for many years now because of both the work she does in the world and because of who she is. I know of her courageous spirit, her profoundly caring heart, and the great wisdom she carries. I know her story and the incredible role model she has been to me in illuminating the gifts of the alchemist - someone who responded to the events of her life by turning great darkness into illuminating and powerful action, light, and love.

Riane Eisler's biography states that her "story begins in Vienna, Austria, where as a small child she and her family had to flee from the Nazis. They emigrated to Cuba and eventually to the U.S. Riane has said that this trauma could have destroyed her, but instead, it led to her life-long quest to understand why horrible things like the Holocaust can happen – and what we can do so they do not happen again. Riane has become an eminent social scientist, attorney, author, and social activist. She is best known for her international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, now in 23 languages, including Chinese, Russian, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese, and Arabic." (See: http://www.rianeeisler.com/biography.htm.)

I want to offer others who haven't yet discovered Riane Eisler the opportunity to fall in love with this woman and the gifts of wisdom, vision, love, and expansive and passionate hope and opportunity that I have found in the work she does in the world. She embraces an amazing vision and concrete steps we can begin to learn about as we seek to bring positive change to ourselves and others. I know that so many of us are already doing more and more to help create a world that works for all. I have found in Riane a potential role model for us all as she shines the light on new possibilities that are so deeply needed. It is my belief that God/Goddess/Spirit/Creator speaks through others and certainly I strongly sense and experience this greater Presence in Riane Eisler through the profound impact she is having on the world. I love and feel this incredible gratitude for this woman and all the ways that she walks and models the path of the leader, alchemist, and visionary. Here is someone who truly embodies great courage and a heart that loves and cares deeply.

In The Real Wealth of Nations, Riane Eisler "shows that the great problems of our time - such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation - are due largely to flawed economic systems that set the wrong priorities and misallocate resources. Conventional economic models fail to value and support the most essential human work: caring and caregiving. So basic human needs are increasingly neglected, despair and ecological destruction escalate, and the resulting social tensions fuel many of the conflicts we face today." (See: http://www.rianeeisler.com/rwon.htm.) Yet, another world is possible. Jeffrey Hollender, President of Seventh Generation, Inc. writes, "This book should be mandatory reading for every CEO, every economist, every government official, every student, and every citizen of Nations." The Real Wealth of Nations is a book that I will send to Barack Obama. That said, it is my belief that change from the bottom up - something Obama speaks of - is what will bring about the real change that is needed here in America and all over this beautiful interconnected world that we all share. Tag, we are all it...

Peace & Blessings,

Molly

"The Real Wealth of Nations is a call to action. I wholeheartedly agree that it is not only politicians, businesses and financial institutions that must change, but rather each one of us must play a role in developing a more caring society. This book is an important tool that can help us make that happen."
~ Jane Goodall Ph.D., DBE, Founder - the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace