Key leverage points

Donella Meadows wrote a paper titled, Twelve Leverage Points; Places to Intervene in a System. I thought it was brilliant and I still do, so I recommend that you read it too. Perhaps you are already familiar with Who Lives in the "Global Village?" Anyhow, it had a profound effect on my thought along with Ken Wilber's AQAL model (the link at the botton of the page has some cool graphics). Contemplating those things along with the question of what an enlightened person would or should do in these times, I have drawn these conclusions.

Energy sources/usage, womens' rights, democracy, combating fundamentalism and reforming the materialistic consumptive culture are the key leverage points to creating something closer to utopia and farther from dystopia. I don't include education here because that is a given.

Energy sources is the point that most readers should be most familiar with. We all know that we depend on fossil fuels to keep civilization as we know it motoring along and that this is an unsustailable practice with some horrific consequences. Most of us know that we have enough knowledge and technology to transition to greener more sustainable energy sources. Unfortunately, there is significant "inertia and momentum" making this transition difficult. Part of the difficulty has economic compontents. Economy is in large part affected by polity, which leads us to Democracy.

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Democracy is a complex subject with many different forms. Let it suffice to say that democracy is better than tyranny. Democracy appears to be an antidote to war and famine. The Founding Fathers understood that democracy is a work in progress and we have a reminder of this printed on every one dollar bill. Democracy is a principle and a practice, and as such, a dicipline without end. We will forever be tasked with forming a more perfect union and it is this journey we would be wise to embrace, knowing there is no true end.

As a country, our sacred democracy has been compromised by the rise of a corporatocrasy, a kleptocracy of plutocrats, which is why I advocate a 28th Amendment to the Constitution. I besiech my countrymen to study this matter in earnest so that we may know how we have been screwed by those who have wittingly or not, garnered Unequal Protections in the blasphemous doctrine of corporate personhood.

As a race of peoples upon one precious planet, we would be wise to create more global democratic institutions. I advocate for new international democratic institutions to be formed. The United Nations is far from democratic. I am not aware of any country in which the People vote for their representative within the UN. The WTO and the IMF are organizations with increadible power, but they are far from democratic.

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Womens rights are key to making the world a better place. Women are just as smart as men and it is fooloish not to harness the intellect of one gender. Overpopulation of our species threatens global stability and we have seen that when women control their reproductive rights, populations do not grow at unsustainable rates. The feminist movement in developed nations has grown shamefully complacement, narrow and selfish. Our work can only end when all people have equal inalienable rights.

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Fundamentalism comes in many forms. Religious fundamentalism is what we are most familiar with and Islamic fundementalists are making it clear that they are the posterboys for the dangers of violent religious fundamentalism. Dangerous religious fundamentalism is not restricted to Islam however, and we should be aware of other crusaders.

Personally, I am opposed the exclusivity doctrine of any faith, that their way is the one right way. Humanity is one people with one planet in crisis, and religious divisiveness is an unnecessary evil in the world today. Thus, I support an interfaith alliance and any efforts that promote the loosening of religious literal interpetations and the embrace of a "spiritual, not religious" sentiment.

Other forms of fumdementalism are more subtle such as material reductionism, extreme pluralism, Randian objectivity, and free-market foolery, to name a few. It has been said that the price of freedom is eternal vigiliance. Perhaps that is because fundamentalism is a normal human tendency to cling to slimplistic explainations (a phase within a stage) with a limited mind in the face of an infinitely complex existence.

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Conspicuous consumption is a malady born from the marvels of an industrial age, an infection of greed in an economic system that has no upper limit to the accumulation of wealth. We know that there are not enough resources on and in this planet for the world to live the lives of relative opulance that the developed nations presently enjoy. We are beginning to understand the wisdom of Black Elk and we are learning that we cannot eat money. It is part of the foundation of all faiths that we must not get carried away with the glamour of the material world to become lost in mammon.

We stand at the threshold of a brave new world at the cross-road of fate. We can unite as one people on our sacred stone and usher in new world order that may sustain us for the next millenia, or bring the apocalypse of our destruction.