Stand for Something

I just returned from a week-long retreat with 22 other Americans from a cross-section of society. The group included a career diplomat, a large business owner, two software engineers, a young entrepreneur with a Master’s degree in Philosophy, a very successful real estate agent, a petroleum geologist, a scientific lab manager, a dentist, a restaurant owner, a professional photographer, an LA city fireman, and several others ranging in age from 24 to 60. First of all, spending a week with 22 strangers in unguarded conversation is a thoroughly encouraging experience. I am constantly amazed at the thoughtful concerns and original ideas found in everyday people who care about our future. What I learned will not surprise you.

To the degree our wonderful tossed salad group of humanity is a representative of America there is much agreement about our desperate need for moral leadership of our nation and our global businesses. There is a strong sense that the chance for a “systems collapse” of our economic system, environment, energy supply and political peace is not only possible but also getting much more likely. What our group agreed on was that although solutions to all of our problems exist, our political and business leaders simply don’t have the vision or the will to do what it will take to lead us out of our desolate wilderness. We agreed that most of our leaders seem to hope muddling through will somehow produce a magic “soft landing” from our current free fall. Leaders present their fantasy world where we win the Iraq war, gasoline returns to $2.00/gallon, medical care becomes affordable and our mortgages get refinanced at payments we can all afford. Since no one at the retreat believes in magic, we saw this as a failure of leadership in terms of both competence and character. It’s a failure of leadership character because we view our national political leaders and the new candidates who wish to run things as either self-interested or controlled by special interests.

For instance, none of us are naive enough to believe that Bill Clinton’s rock-star income “earned” from speaking in the Middle East to dictators and big global corporations will have no effect on policies coming from a Clinton White House. Most of the group worried that a continuation of Republican leadership would lead to even more special interest corruption, corporate welfare and tax subsidies to oil companies, the synthetic food industry, and predatory drug companies. And while Obama is certainly inspiring to listen to, his actual policies seem like failed refried liberal programs of increasing taxes and more social “programs” that sound good but accomplish little.

People are universally outraged at government waste and out-of-sync priorities. As one person said, “We don’t need more taxes. We need smarter spending.” Turns out our own government accounting office agrees. They recently estimated one-third of our $3 trillion budget is wasted. Just think of what we could do to solve our education crises, rebuild our roads, bridges, sewer and water supplies, find solutions to clean-renewable energy and increase the number of doctors and nurses trained if we spent the trillion dollars we were wasting on priorities that mattered!

But no one believes much will change unless we change it. Most of the group views our present Congress as completely ineffectual, even incompetent, to lead. They spoke with outrage that American oil companies could make $123 billion in profit in 2007 while oil soars to $117 a barrel and yet our spineless, bought-and-paid-for-Congress couldn’t even attempt to cut the $18 billion tax subsidy they give these bad boys every year.

We still have no realistic energy policy, no trade policy, no plan to save our children from the abject collapse of our education system, no sensible foreign policy, no plan for universal health care that we can honestly afford, no plan to rethink social security, except to raise taxes. In short, it seems from our national leaders we have nothing, zip, nada. It’s like watching your house burn down with the fire department standing in the street with their hands in their pockets chatting about who’s to blame.

So what did we decide to do about it? Basically—all we can. We decided to stand for something. As Paul Hawken writes in his brilliant book Blessed Unrest, we are society’s immune system. Our beliefs and behavior can be an immune response to life threatening toxins like political corruption, environmental destruction, economic greed and plain incompetent leadership. Increasingly, concerned citizens are speaking out to identify cancerous thinking and promote robust healing. As Hawkin points out, there are millions of people worldwide increasingly linked into a growing network of activists and supporters fighting for the future of humanity. These are moms and dads fighting for their children’s education, employees confronting bad behavior and wasteful policies and community groups planting trees and cleaning the beaches. It all matters.

So, where to start? One of the members of the group, a realtor, wowed me with his business card. It of course had his company name and contact information and under his own name, in unmistakable type, were the words, “Peace Activist and Environmental Advocate.” Surprised I Said, “Doesn’t this put off some of your potential clients? Doesn’t it create risk for you?” He replied with a shrug, “If you don’t take risks, you’ll never stand for anything.” It got me thinking. What if we all put what we stand for on our business cards? What would you put on yours?

Will Marre

Founder, American Dream Project

To visit American Dream Project’s home page, click here.

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