David Korten: A New Level Of Species Consciousness

Living capital, which has the special capacity to continuously regenerate itself, is ultimately the source of all real wealth. To destroy it for money, a simple number with no intrinsic value, is an act of collective insanity -- which makes capitalism a mental, as well as physical pathology.

To create a world in which life can flourish and prosper we must replace the values and institutions of capitalism with values and institutions that honor life, serve life's needs, and restore money to its proper role as servant. I believe we are in fact being called to take a step to a new level of species consciousness and function.
 

The proper goal of an economic democracy agenda is to replace the global suicide economy ruled by rapacious and unaccountable global corporations with a planetary system of local living economies comprised of human-scale enterprise rooted in the communities they serve and locally owned by the people whose wellbeing depends on them.

- David Korten
 

William Rivers Pitt | Killing a Nation With Euphemisms: TPP-Eats-Medicare Edition

By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

President Barack Obama leaves a meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill, June 12, 2015. The existence of the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill - which will draw $450 million from Medicare to provide "assistance" for those losing their jobs because of the Trans-Pacific Partnership - underscores that people in DC know the trade bill will be a job destroyer in the US. (Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)

This week, legislation to give President Obama fast-track trade agreement authority (TPA) will take its star turn in the GOP-controlled Senate. The cloture vote is said to be taking place on Tuesday, and if the 60-vote threshold is reached, the final vote on the bill will happen the same day, or on Wednesday.

More importantly, however, is the following vote, scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday, on "Trade Adjustment Assistance," (TAA), also known as the "We sent your job to a Pacific Rim sweatshop in a country with no labor laws where people work for $2 a day during 18-hour shifts making the clothes you used to be able to afford before we laid you off, so here's ten dollars so you can take in a movie and get your mind off things, but no popcorn for you" bill.

In other words, TAA is a bill to provide "assistance" for all the people who are absolutely going to lose their jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP) passes ... and the passage of that trade bill is what all this TPA and TAA mishigas has been about.

"Trade Adjustment Assistance" ... isn't language just such wonderfully malleable putty? It would not in any way surprise me if, somewhere in the dank bowels of a building in Washington DC, there exists a think tank solely dedicated to the crafting and deployment of crass yet terribly effective euphemisms. "The Clear Skies Initiative," also known as "Let the polluters pollute as much as they want." "No Child Left Behind," also known as "Conformity over creativity and critical thinking." "PATRIOT Act," also known as "We're watching you, bub."

And now, this. You're not fired, laid off, outsourced, downsized, removed, erased, kicked to the curb, bounced, deleted, expunged, cut, dismissed, chucked, or even screwed. Nope. You've been "trade adjusted," right out onto the sidewalk with a box of your stuff in your arms and a disorienting buzzing noise rattling the inside of your skull. Such a kind euphemism for so traumatic an event. The boys in the bowels of that building sure put the work in on that one.

Let's say the TPA survives cloture and is passed ... and let's even say that Mitch McConnell trips over his soul in the men's room and actually allows a vote on TAA, and it survives cloture and then passes ... guess what? The money to "assist" people who suffer "trade adjustment" upon passage of the TPP will come from ...

Wait for it ...

Wait for it ...

Medicare!

That's right! Probably the most successful, well-run social program in US history will take it in the teeth to help support people who lose their jobs to the trade bill that necessitated this "assistance" in the first place.

... and here's the best part. The original plan was to "sequester" - another brilliantly vile euphemism - about $700 million per year from Medicare to fund "assistance" for everyone who gets "trade adjusted" by the TPP. Republicans balked at the number, not because it was stealing from Medicare, but because it was Just Another Government Welfare Program Argle Bargle Blah. After a series of negotiations between congressional Democrats, Republicans and the White House, they settled on carving out $450 million per year to "assist" the "trade adjusted."

It's beautiful, in the way an avalanche on a snow-capped mountain is beautiful before it buries and smothers you.

Please continue this article here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31521-killing-a-nation-with-euphemisms-tpp-eats-medicare-edition

Guns Cannot Protect Us From Ourselves

There are so many reflections and realities regarding the shadow side of America. This quote by John Oliver illuminates what is certainly among the most glaring. 

My deep ongoing prayer is that more and more of us will have the courage and the caring to wake up to increasingly see our illusions, distortions, harmful beliefs, judgments, fears, projections, unresolved wounds AND choose something different. 

We are all immersed in a profound level of propaganda here in this culture, and none of us escapes being impacted. American society is a functioning paradox, proclaiming high ideals and "exceptionalism" while often ignoring all evidence to the contrary. That said, we can embrace and transform the obstacles which block us, our families, our communities, our nation and world from awakening and remembering what is truly most important. We can all learn to live more authentically, more aligned with who we are and the deepest values we hold in our hearts and souls.

Guns cannot protect us from ourselves. Only we can do that... by waking up and doing the hard work of peeling back the veils of our fears and distortions, our unhealthy coping skills, and the harmful stories which no longer serve us or anyone else. Another world is possible. And it begins within our own hearts.  

Peace & blessings ~ Molly

Photo by Molly

 

heart emoticon

Longview Native, Author David Korten Challenges Corporate Power

Courtesy of David Korten

David Korten's latest book calls for viewing the Earth as a living organism.

June 20, 2015 11:30 pm  •  By Tom Paulu

(3) Comments

David Korten to speak June 28

Longview native David Korten will speak on “Change the Story, Change the Future” at 5 p.m. June 28 in Room HSB101 at the Lower Columbia College Health and Science Building

For an interview with him about his newest book, seehttps://youtu.be/JKc2GMAKV38

Comments about Korten's book

Comments on Amazon.com about "Change the Story, Change the Future"

• "This is a concise description of the philosophical misguidance that has got us in such a bad position with a description of the kinds of things we need to do to get to a better place. A great read for someone that really wants to make a difference!"

• "I give this book five stars for its accuracy in diagnosing the problem with society....However, I simply could not accept the story the author put forth as the new frame that will save us all... In reality, this story concept is simply reworked Taoism."

David Korten’s first fame came after he wrote “When Corporations Rule the World,” a 1995 best-seller that criticized the global corporate economy for oppressing less fortunate nations.

Twenty years on, he’s releasing an updated version of the book partly because corporate power has gotten even more concentrated, he said. On the other hand, “We now have massive global resistance movements and massive positive social involvements that are working to rebuild local communities and local economies,” Korten said in a phone interview from his home on Bainbridge Island.

Korten will discuss his ideas about the economy and environment during a presentation at 5 p.m. June 28 at Lower Columbia College. The talk, sponsored by the Interfaith Advocates for Justice, will be in the Health and Science building Room 101.

Korten’s name should be familiar to long-time residents. His family operated a music and appliance store at Commerce Avenue and Broadway in Longview for decades until the store closed in 2000.

After graduating in the top of R.A. Long High School’s class of 1955, Korten left for Stanford University with plans to take over the family business. But once he learned about imbalances in the world’s economy, the college student decided to dedicate his career to helping businesses in developing nations. His younger brother, Bob Korten, ended up managing the store.

David Korten, who turns 78 next week, is the author of more than a dozen books and co-founder of “Yes!” magazine, a national publication that advocates for humanitarian and ecological change.

In addition to the updated version of “When Corporations Rule the World,” Korten’s book “Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth” also was published recently.

That book espouses a philosophy that the Earth is “best understood as a living super-organism,” made up of billions of parts — just as a human body is made up of billions of cells, he said.

“This all creates (an opportunity) for rethinking our framework for Earth” he said. “Rather than an economy to destroy the earth to make money for people who already have all the money they could ever use, we’re beginning to recognize there is a deeper way of understanding ourselves.”

Korten is quick apply this philosophy to the local issue of coal exports.

“We now have an economy devoted to extracting toxins out of the ground primarily to make money for people who already have more money than they need,” he said. And exporting to China supports an economy that is taking away American jobs here and buying up our assets, he said. “It’s both insane and utterly stupid.”

Korten’s earlier works focus on the inequities of the global economic system, years before the term 1 percent became popular to describe the few truly wealthy people in the country.

Korten is disturbed that President Obama and many Democratic members of Congress support “fast track” authority for the president to negotiate trade deals — including the controversial 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“If you look at them more deeply, they are corporate rights agreements,” he said. “They’re not written for people or democracy. They’re written by and for corporate interests.”

Korten acknowledges that most economists don’t share his views — nor does he mince words who disagree with him.

“What we are taught as economics in school and what is preached by most mainstream economists is an ideology that is almost a religion and is totally divorced from reality,” he said. “What passes for economics is totally bogus.”

Another of Korten’s targets is Wall Street and the belief that accumulating money for its own sake is a worthy goal.

“The financial economy of Wall Street has almost morphed into a separate planet where there is no longer any concern for producing anything of value, but creating money and a growth of financial assets out of nothing,” he said.

Please go here to continue this article: http://tdn.com/news/local/longview-native-author-david-korten-challenges-corporate-power/article_10a79673-4f15-549b-8e9a-ab450c7e3b55.html

David Korten Is Coming To Portland!

With David Korten

David Korten will be coming to Portland and speaking at the First Unitarian Church this Thursday, June 25th, from 7-9:00pm. The location is Eliot Chapel, 1011 SW 12th Ave., Portland, OR 97205. I hope to see some of you there, and/or that you may - if you already haven't - be inspired to further explore David's work.

This week will be my third time to see David Korten. I have at least four of his books. He is a powerful visionary and wise elder who deeply inspires me with his authenticity, integrity, courage, truth-telling, vast life experience and wisdom, deep and expansive heart, and profound caring of and commitment to all life. David does not shy from illuminating the seriousness of the crises that we are faced with at this time. He also holds wisdom of a larger picture, one in which a new way of life is truly possible. Birthing that new world - one which the children of today and those yet unborn, will thank us for - is up to each and every one of us. We are all connected and all in this together.

David Korten will be speaking about his latest book, Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy For a Living Earth. Thom Hartmann states that this latest book "is among the most important books of our time, from one of the most brilliant thinkers of our era." 

 About this latest book:

Our current story is about Sacred Money and Markets. Money, it tells us, is the measure of all worth and the source of all happiness. The market is omniscient. Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. Although many recognize this story promotes bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics, it will remain our guiding story until replaced by a more compelling story that aligns with our deepest understanding of the universe and our relationship to it.

A Sacred Life and Living Earth story is grounded in a cosmology that affirms we are living beings born of a living Earth itself born of a living universe. Our health and well-being depend on an economy that works in co-productive partnership with the processes by which Earth’s community of life maintains the conditions of its own existence—and ours. Offering a hopeful vision, this book lays out the transformative impact adopting this story will have on every aspect of human life and society.

David C. Korten is a cofounder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, founder and president of the Living Economies Forum, a member of the Club of Rome, a founding board member emeritus of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a former Associate of the International Forum on Globalization, and a former Harvard Business School professor.

Please go here for more information: http://livingeconomiesforum.org/ChangeTheStory-ChangeTheFuture and http://livingeconomiesforum.org/.

Thank you. Bless us all... 

Molly

Personal Reflections On Father's Day

My dad, Jack Strong, with John Jr. and myself, summer 1954

My son, Brian, now a loving new father to his beautiful son Oliver

Frederick Smith Strong III (my uncle), Jr. (my grandfather), and Senior

Ron and our lovely step-daughter, Allison

Ron & Mounir Ghobrial (Marita's father), now fathers & grandfathers!

Jim proudly stands with our son, Brian, and his beautiful bride, Marita

Jim & our three sons, 1990

For My Dad, For All Fathers, & For Ourselves

Today I found myself reflecting on my dad, on my oldest son who is now a new father, on the ancestors who came before us, on my husband, on my former husband and father of our three sons, and more. And I have so many emotions, thoughts, memories. Today I am filled, most of all, with a deep sense of love. There is so much that I hold in my heart with understanding, compassion, tenderness, gratitude and love. This was not always the case.

Through the generations children are born, many become fathers, and many have sons who go on to be fathers. What it means to be a father, to be a child, to be born into a particular family, ethnicity, class, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, culture and time has a deep impact on fathers and their children. I know this is obvious, but do we truly open our hearts and minds to explore what this means - what this means for us? There are the positive memories, the blessings and love, and there is also this other side, one in which generational harm can weave its invisible web through our hearts, our lives, and the children we parent, and their children, and on and on. Unless we look more deeply.

Father's Day Cards, remembrances shared, celebrations and gatherings in American culture usually illuminate the positive side and the many gifts of fathering and the fathers who parented us. We thank and honor and bless our dads, holding them with respect, gratitude, love. As is good and right. Often, however, the other side of fathering and the fuller experience of what it meant to be the child of our fathers goes unspoken and remains in the shadows.

For many years I idolized my dad, and especially after he died suddenly in 1975 at age 60. I look back today at my younger self, and to the beautiful human being who was my dad, and I am filled with love. There has also been a great deal to mourn over many years - to be angry about, to grieve, to come to terms with, to accept, to transform into blessing. And through this process my understanding of my father and of the true gifts of my dad have become clear. 

Today I do not have to idolize my dad. Nor do I need to be stuck in the sorrows and the enormity of the losses. Today I get to see my dad in all his complexities - all his amazing strengths and sweetness and also his wounds - and simply love him. Love him with all my heart.

My son, Brian, gave me this quote several years ago by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and I have treasured its profound wisdom ever since: "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." 

When I was much younger, and on the other unconscious side of complexity, there was only the simplicity of black and whites and of skimming the surfaces of life. My dad was amazing, smart, handsome, and big-hearted. End of story, thank you very much. 

Then I embarked on the journey of waking up - of making conscious what was hidden and long abandoned by me in my heart, mind, spirit, and soul. Things got real complex as I began to peel back the layers of my wounding, my illusions and distortions, my long held unconscious beliefs and stories, and the truth of the walls I had built around my heart. And why. It wasn't until I was rooted into this path of discovery, of "breaking the cycle," of making the unconscious conscious, that I began to see and understand, for instance, why I kept spinning my wheels and looking for love in all the wrong places. 

As time passed, and as I went deeper into the hurt, healing, wholeness and wisdom of my heart, the complexities - of new insights, of raw emotions, of great losses, of shame and fear and separation - began to shift and evolve and a new simplicity arose. A simplicity imbued with tenderness, connection, beauty, joy, love, kindness, humor, and a growing openness to embracing myself and life as it is rather than as I had believed it should be. 

Today, I can see my dad. I can really see him. And I can see how my father lives on as part of who I am, as part of the wholeness of my being. With this understanding, I am able to much more mindfully choose what it is that I hold as helpful and wise in my heart and the way I live my life, and what is not. And I can give thanks for both. I am able to receive with compassion and gratitude the gifts of my dad, in all their sweet tenderness and amazing strengths. And I am able to see the truth of the shadow side of what my dad unconsciously passed on to me, causing me harm, although he never, ever meant to. This is not about blame or fault. This is, again, about receiving the gifts of our fathers. It is then that we are more likely to be mindful of the legacy passed to us and allow all its lessons to bless us and the generations which follow.

I am more conscious today of choosing each day, as best as I can, to live with tenderness. This is a gift from my dad. So is learning how to open to love, which my dad struggled with. Yet, in doing the heart-work that I have needed to heal and awaken, the experiences that my father, and later I, struggled with have offered their sweet and treasured lessons. I no longer am blindly compelled to look for love in all the wrong places or to blindly perpetuate what has been handed down through the generations. I understand today that sometimes our dads teach us which way to go, and sometimes they come to teach us which way not to go. Most often, I believe, it is some combination. When embraced, there are gems hidden in all, very much including the dark corners that may have been shielded from our sight for many years.

May we all claim those gifts - the gifts of our fathers and beyond - more and more with each passing year. It is such a huge choice, to truly decide and open to receive the gifts of our fathers... or not. We can stay attached to everything was rosy or to everything sucked and is to be resented, which is just the flip side to the rosy story. And then there is the real story. And that is also the one we can choose. It lives on in our hearts. May we open to the depths of its blessings now. And truly know what we have to thank our fathers for. What a gift to give to our fathers - and to ourselves and generations that follow - that their lives in some way supported and blessed our awakening.

And I thank my dad with all my heart. He lives on in my heart forevermore.

Bless all fathers everywhere. Bless us all.

Molly

At the gravesides of my father and brother, Pine Lake Cemetery, Michigan