Standing on the Shoulders of Giants with Myopia

Will this the first generation that looks around at the pressing issues that loom in front of them and say "there's nothing we can do?" As I look at the topics that politicians, pundits, policymakers, and plain folk talk about, so far our record to work out issues in a way that is not polarizing is pretty abysmal. Issues like adequate health care for all, dealing in a realistic way with global warming, global poverty, global water shortages, global trade, global relations or, frankly, anything global, are stymied by our inability to work cohesively.

We did not start from where we are, but we have arrived here. For those younger than us, that is not the case, it has always been this way for them. And for those who are older, they have seen how far (or not so far) we have come. So, though we stand on the shoulders of giants, we, generally, act quite small.

We have got large looming problems, for sure, and we have got to deal with them as a unified people. Wars are not inevitable, nor is the annihilation of our planet. We have to stop being distracted by who sleeps with whom and deal with the miseries that affect us all.

A walk around most any town in America will show you how disconnected we are from our earth. The way we build, the way we hide our garbage in landfills while we use our streets and sidewalks as ashtrays, the way that we set nature apart from our own existence, this is troubling stuff. A simple fact is that we coexist as part of nature, not in spite of it.

This same walk will show you how insular we are becoming from each other: Gated communities with garages that serve as our front door, vehicles that elevate us above the crowd, human interactions that occur electronically rather than face to face. Never has navel-gazing become such a perfected art form.

Though, through it all, I believe our primordial essence is speaking to us and saying "look around you." From the view we are afforded by those that preceded us, you would think we could see what clearly needs our attention. But maybe it is because we are so high up on those shoulders, that everything that needs our attention appears microscopic?

This is not a time for the small-minded or the weak-kneed. It is a time to be the change we wish to see.

Our biological nature remains the same. When faced with danger, we can run or we can fight. Which will it be?

Iranian Sanctions - Other Issues

Can't We Just Get Along?

So let's see. G-4 talks just failed in Potsdam. NATO is being routed in Afghanistan--Russia and the US are thinking about pointing missiles at each other again. Is it my imagination or are we back to the drawing board in world relations?

The same difficulties we seem to have in Congress apparently are rubbing off in boardrooms and diplomatic quarters. Somewhere anarchists are smiling.

At a time when we are in dire need of cooperation, perhaps for planetary survival, our best negotiators can't seem to find middle ground.

I am not a huge fan of the WTO as it has historically worked, but it has a place with regard to opening up markets and leveling the playing field among nations. True it is not often what happens, but it is a mechanism where it can, if nations were truly cooperated.

With respect to NATO, we are spending many of our resources on a war that should have ended in Iraq and not focusing effort in a place where actual progress was being made--Afghanistan. Why is it that we can't see the forest for the trees?

On the bright side, the US and North Korea are negotiating to turn off North Korea's reactor. If we can succeed there, perhaps we can in Iran.