Crisis Creates Opportunity

The 4th of July weekend was amazing. The surf and weather were virtually perfect in San Diego. My brother-in-law, wife, six children, and a couple arriving on a Harley came and went over four days. It was a circus. It made me grateful that my time being daily responsible for young children is long over. The energy requirements are relentless. Mostly we laughed. It helps that my brother-in-law is as mature as a 14-year-old. He has a heart of gold and is a heat-seeking missile locked on fun. Mr. Harley man is from Texas. He recently finished a country CD titled It’s Rough Being Me. He has a voice like warm honey and tells stories like only a motorcycle riding Texan can.

But in times like these our conversation on the porch eventually turned to the price of gas, oil drilling and the economy. Every one of us has our own window on reality. Bits and pieces of things we’ve read or heard woven into our theory of how life should work. It turns out that Mr. Texas works from a pick-up truck, building oil-pipe lines. Yes, his job is secure and his pay is rising. Interestingly, my brother-in-law, Captain Fun, is also in the oil business. Cooking oil turned into Bio-Diesel that is. For 20 years he’s made and sold chemicals used in the restaurant business. It’s a small family business, only a few employees and teenage sons who work in the evening. As gas prices went crazy, he started collecting used cooking oil, refining it in his tilt-up warehouse and using it to run his trucks. Soon his neighborhood small business owners were asking him to brew up some french-fry juice for their trucks. Captain Fun named his new venture Pirate Oil. He’s expanding as fast as he can pour his profits back into more equipment. Amazing.

When the circus left town I reflected on two things. First, it’s true. Crisis is opportunity. Life-as-usual is going through some fundamental economic changes. And we can all shake our fists at the greed and stupidity that has brought us our rising tide of economic swamp water. But a reading of human history is largely the recounting of how human greed and stupidity causes needless suffering. If we are waiting for a messianic politician or a new technology to bail us out of our personal struggles with what decades of poor leadership has created, we will wait forever. Second, human imgenuity is an act of will. We can choose decisively to do something to better our lives, bless others and use this train wreck of our economy to stimulate us to a better life.

My brother-in-law, Pirate Oil—Captain Fun—Circus Ring Master, only has a high school diploma. But he has expert knowledge. He’s spent 20 years becoming an expert at safely mixing chemicals and selling them to small business people. He is also unafraid to try new things. But that’s about it. He has no stash of cash (six kids will do that to you), no safety net. What he does have is what we all need to survive in our new rock ‘n roll world—expert knowledge, developed skills, and the courage to act.

He is a living example of something I constantly teach younger audiences. That the world honors experts. What do you know or what are you willing to deeply learn that can make your ability uniquely valuable? How can you use that today to propel you through this swirling tornado of change? Make your expert ability of value to others and you will always carry your economic security with you. And don’t delay. Waiting for the world to change for the better is never a good personal strategy. After all, it’s better to burn the french-fry oil as fuel than it is to eat the french-fries.

Imagine that.

To visit American Dream Project’s homepage, click here.

3 comments.

The 4th American Revolution

Today we seem almost numb to the steady stream of leadership failures, scandals, and lies. National polls tell us we are losing faith in our primary institutions of government, education, religion, and business to provide leadership. According to social research from DYG, over 85% of the American Public feel uncertain about our future quality of life, of having a robust, growing economy, adequate personal or national security, or maintaining the quality of our environment.

The time of change is indeed upon us. It seems that every 70 years or so, roughly the time of an average person’s life, our system needs to face a moment of truth, a revolution, a re-thinking about what matters most. This has already happened three times in American history. In each case, the revolution was first led by a thoughtful and passionate group of extraordinary citizens.

The first American Revolution started as a result of England’s corrupt “special interests” turning Americans into second-class citizens. The greed of King George and his cronies made taxes, tariffs, and the treatment of colonists unbearable. Men of great courage and intellect decided it was time to stand for something. American Revolutionaries were driven to create a world that was fairer and filled with more opportunity, more dignity, and more compassion. A world where people’s character was more important than their class. Where merit meant more than pedigree.

The second American Revolution extended the ideals of the Declaration to all Americans. It took a Civil War. The Great Depression ignited the third American Revolution creating public policy to promote honesty in our financial markets and access to opportunity that spawned the greatest middle-class in world history.

Today, we are in a full-blown historical crisis. All of us. If we were a basketball team, we’d be starting the fourth quarter losing by 30 points. And yes, I have great hope that we can still pull out a victory. But we must first be realistic. Our game plan is not working. In fact, it’s a disaster. What we are witnessing is a fundamental change in the viability of our economy. Still, politicians, business leaders, and economic experts insist that our current bleeding of foreclosures, tight credit, raging inflation and our disappearing dollar is only a flesh wound. But it’s not. And most of us have a knot in our stomach because we sense something big and bad may be happening. And well we should. For 50 years we’ve frittered away our greatest achievements and most wonderful advantages. Imagine this. In the 1960’s we rebuilt our schools and rose up a generation of engineers and scientists that first got us to the moon and then gave us the computer age. Then we forgot education was a priority. So today 30% of Americans in high school won’t graduate. We have so few engineers we have to rent them b y the planeload. Among developed nations we’ve gone from first to worst in K-12 education in 30 years.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and America proved to the world that our system was the winner. We won the World War. Unthinkable. Amazing. So today, Russia is reasserting its ominous power financed by its massive oil and gas reserves. The western world is held hostage by over-rich oil lords, mad terrorists and raging ambitions of nobody-is-going-to-tell-me-what-to-do communist China. So much for America’s Golden Age of world peace. Meanwhile failed leadership has bankrupted us. We have $13 trillion economy with over $10 trillion of that coming from our own consumption. The only thing we make that the world wants is our weapon systems and big budget action movies. Basically our biggest export is violence.

In five years the percent of our national debt owed to foreign interests has more than doubled from 20% to over 50%. More than ever foreign governments influence our economic policy. We are so financially overdrawn our infrastructure is collapsing. We’ve spent over $700 billion on a war that will not end while our road, bridges, airports, dams, sewer systems and water supplies decay form decades of neglect. But the biggest failure of leadership is promoting a consumer economy driven by easy money and universal debt. The American consumer has no more assets to borrow against and doesn’t earn enough to pay off what’s owed.

All that must change. For decades they’ve promoted the false idea that rising wages is the core cause of inflation. Now we see inflation is primarily caused by economic and social policy that jacks up housing bubbles, medical costs, food prices, and gasoline. I could go on but that’s not really the point. The real point is, are going to do something about it?

It’s time for a new model of leadership. A model that embraces our joint responsibility for the general welfare of all citizens. This leadership is not yet clearly offered in substance by either presidential candidate. We don’t need refried Democratic liberalism because government bureaucracy is a poor and wasteful provider of actual services. We also cannot endure Republican policies that only concentrates more wealth and power that makes corruption inevitable. What’s needed is a revolutionary view of leadership that is consistent with our nation’s first aspirations. It seeks to neither provide handouts and freebies to the poor or subsidies and tax breaks and favor for the rich. What we need are government and business leaders that have the moral vision to pursue policies that elevate and radically improve education for all from preschool through the many phases of adult life. We need to re-enthrone honest competition and end corporate welfare. We must criminalize what has become brazen, if-legal, corruption of our national government by special interests.

Today our government’s own accounting office estimates one third of our $3 trillion national budget is wasted. We don’t need higher taxes. We need smarter spending. We need ethics and honesty. We all know this. Now we must demand it. All we are asking is for a government of leaders seeking the public interest instead of their self-interest. And what’s in the public interest is universal quality education and an uncorrupt playing field. Americans have the ingenuity to create a new future. We just need a government who will provide the conditions for our talent to bloom. This is called Civic Social Responsibility. It’s nothing new. It’s what our country was founded on. Government by the people, for the people.

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN OUR ATTEMPT TO GIVE AMERICANS A VOICE:
AMERICA’S NEW AGENDA

To visit American Dream Project’s homepage, click here.

8 comments.

My Father Was John Wayne

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My father was John Wayne. Not the actor. He was better than the actor. He was the ideal. He was a real cowboy. A rancher who road the range, mended fences, and drove cattle. He also graduated from Cal-Berkeley in 1940. He never wanted to be a cowboy, but we had a family ranch and he was the only son in an Italian family so ranching chose him. Dad was a naturally spiritual man. My first 4-year-old memories of him were kneeling at my bedside just as I pulled my covers up and praying his guts out for me and my brothers, sister and mom. Then he prayed for rain and finally to know what to do if it didn’t rain. Then he would smother me with kisses. His day-long bristly beard would rough my little boy skin, but it didn’t matter; I felt so safe being loved by such a strong man. My dad was a cowboy and nothing could be better.

Being a cattle rancher was a financial high-wire act. When I got older I realized that every year Dad borrowed the money to buy cattle so he could fatten them on the grass we needed the rain for. If the market price was right at the beginning of the summer he could sell the cattle, pay the bank, our taxes, and I would get back-to-school clothes in late August. If we didn’t get rain or the cattle market was down, we would keep the cattle another year, mom would sew patches on the inside of my pants and we would all pray a little harder. Dad never worked for anyone. He’d rather wrestle with the unpredictability of nature than conform to the “man”. He was a cowboy.

My mother was Katherine Hepburn. At least my dad thought so. Every afternoon at about 3 o’clock she’d take a bath and put on a dress and make-up and start dinner. Just before dinner he’d open the kitchen door wide and flash a big smile at all of us. Then he’d make a beeline to Mom and sweep her up in his arms and kiss her on the lips like a sailor home after a year at sea. This happened all the time. It was their love ritual. My brothers, sister, and I all looked away and made throw-up sounds but out of the corner of our eyes we saw genuine, passionate, loyal love expressed. Dad always told Mom how beautiful she was and how great her food tasted. He was wildly enthusiastic and mostly uncensored. One Thanksgiving during my first year of college he proclaimed to my mother at dinner, “If you weren’t such a great cook, I’d chain you to the bed!” My roommate spit his food out. But this was genuine dad. He always referred to sex as being healthy. Dad was completely unrehearsed, passionate, opinionated, and most of all an advocate for all of us. He knew who he was, what he believed, what he must do.

When I was 14, a down-on-his-luck drifter drove his beat-up station wagon up the ranch road. It was dusk and Dad went outside to meet him. I snuck out and watched through a shed door. The stranger was a rough looking character, and he threatened Dad. He said he would kill him and take what he wanted. Dad calmly asked him if he had any skills. The man said he sharpened knives. My heart was pumping faster than a squirrel dodging cars. Dad said we had lots of things that needed sharpening. He paid him $50 to sharpen our lawn mower and every kitchen knife we owned. He spent an hour talking to the man while he worked. Dad never said anything about it except that the man was “just doing the best he could.”

Well that’s the kind of man who raised me. I have no excuse. Dad really mattered to me. Throughout my life there have been so many times I asked myself, “What would Dad have done?” But today being a father, a real one, not just a biological one, is increasingly rare. According to the Center for Health Statistics, nearly 30% of white children, 50% of Hispanics, and 71% of black children are born out of wedlock. And today more than a quarter of our children have no male in their homes, father or not. This has all happened in one generation. And it’s not fair. 40% of single moms live in poverty. And being a child without an everyday father makes life much riskier. Risk of not finishing high school or college, becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol, becoming obese, suffering from chronic illness, going to prison, getting divorced, or even going bankrupt are all much more likely to happen to children who grow up without in-the-home fathers.

Is this the best society we can create? Being a father is a choice. It’s a sacred life long commitment. I have no excuse. I had a truly great father whose memory I strive to live up to. Being a male is a matter of chromosomes; being a man requires courage; being a father is an act of life-long integrity.

Our world needs fathers.

Will Marre
American Dream Project

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

12 comments.

What Movie Are You Watching?

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The challenge is always the same. How do we survive and thrive under circumstances we do not control? Gas prices, debt, job insecurity and personal challenges such as illness, divorce or loneliness all can trigger prolonged, intense stress. And yes, stress makes us stupid. Stupider than an eight-year-old with a butane lighter. Brain research reveals that stress shuts down access to our creative problem solving and critical thinking centers of our brains. The result is that we can exaggerate feelings of helplessness, despair and rage. Stress triggers strong emotions that focus our attention on the regrets of the past, fear of the future or blame on others. But it’s all we see on TV or hear on the radio. All these emotions are self-destructive. Stress slays us in the face and gets our attention so what’s the solution?

Well, it begins with suspending our fears and frustrations. There are two movie theaters in our minds. One is showing the latest horror film of our lives and the other is a film festival of heroic tales (like Lord of the Rings) and romantic comedies (like Sleepless in Seattle). In our inner movies we are either the victim, getting slashed, squashed or shot, or we’re the hero whereby staying with our values and vision we transcend our challenges and pursue a life we both value and enjoy. We choose which movie to watch every waking minute. Our horror flick makes us stress crazy. Our epic journey inspires personal wisdom. But all of us must choose. But just willing ourselves to be positive and heroic is exhausting. A positive internal reaction to threatening external reality can seem insane. So how do we get the right movie of our life playing?

It requires more than will power. It happens when we change how we think, how we feel, and what we do. It requires one huge commitment. Are you ready? You must commit to really enjoy life as you are living it. Minute to minute enjoyment happens when you show up for every moment. You know your life has become an endless breathless sprint when your mind is constantly preoccupied and obsessed with personal fears or anger at things you do not control. When you’re sitting at dinner pretending to listen to your spouse but you’re actually having a second conversation in your mind, you are in attention deficit. When you’re home checking emails and your young child is telling you a story and you’re saying, “Uh, huh…I’m listening…Go on,” you’re only pretending. There is no such thing as true multi-tasking. Instead it’s called ping-pong focus. It is exhausting to play and never satisfying to any of the players. When your life is in your rhythm, you will be emotionally present for those whom you love. You will see your own feelings. You will savor beauty, taste your food, and laugh easily. You will even be alert in meetings. You will have new options and have more energy. And that will only happen when you pursue your authentic dream, using your most natural talents to contribute to a better future. Yours and others. Most of all it will only happen when you’re driven by love instead of fear.

None of this is unrealistic. In fact, it’s the most realistic way to live. When virtually all of your efforts are being invested in your real dreams, when you are using the gifts that create the most value, and when your prime motive is love, your anxiety for success, your mad panic for relief from stress begin to fade in an integrated life that offers long stretches of active contentment and deep emotional refuge to deal with the inevitable storms of disappointment and setback. It all happens when what really matters in life matters most to you. As soon as we focus our highest energy on creating a long-term life we both value and enjoy the challenges of making whatever changes we must will gradually melt in the light of our sustained vision.

I have seen many people make seemingly unbelievable changes to successfully live their dream life. I’ve seen a single mother, high school drop-out get a Master’s degree and become a high school principal. I’ve seen a multi-billion dollar company CEO leave his stock options and start a local community-based firm so he could spend more time with his family. I’ve seen an executive needing a heart bypass cut his weekly job time by 40% and be more successful. I’ve seen a young family go bankrupt and then have their own business living exactly where they want to within five years. They all did the same things. First they quit being mad or scared. Second, they got clear on what they did want. Third, they pursued a long-term plan (multi-year) to get there. This isn’t self-help drivel from the Love Guru. These are the finding of multi-decade studies of behavioral economists. Life success and personal happiness come to those who resist overreacting to immediate circumstances and consistently invest in themselves for the long run. Believe in your future. Write your screenplay. Be the hero of your own life. It’s a great movie.

8 comments.

Free At Last

I just got off the phone with a physicist from Silicon Valley.  He’s not just any scientist.  He’s been the CEO of a super computer company and now is hired by venture capitalists to determine the potential of emerging hydrogen energy companies.  What he told me was eye opening.  Hydrogen has long been viewed as the ultimate solution to the energy crisis.  It’s the most common substance in the universe and can be converted to hot energy without any CO2 or other pollutants.  The problem is it currently takes more energy to convert hydrogen than the energy it produces.  (This is a common problem for new energy sources.)  Second, currently we have no hydrogen energy grid to deliver hydrogen fuel across the country.  Well both those problems are within our grasp of being solved.  All we need is the political will to make it happen.  My scientist friend said if we had the guts to invest $25 billion a year for five years, we would solve the last remaining barriers to economically creating almost infinite energy.  Second, for an equal amount we could create a Hydrogen Distribution Network to fill everyone’s fuel cells in our neighborhoods.  That’s a lot of money you say.  $50 billion for 5 years is $250 billion bucks.  But wait, that’s just two years of financing the known direct cost of the Iraq War.  It’s less than one half of one percent of Gross Domestic Product.  It’s less than one half the annual profits of the big oil companies.  And for what?  The end of our dependence and entanglements of Middle Eastern oil despots.  And the beginning of a new era of sustainable abundance.  So what are we doing about it?

Well the CEO’s of the bloated oil companies who collectively made $123 billion last year and came to Washington, got nicked with a few sarcastic remarks which don’t amount to more than throwing spit balls at an oil tanker, got on their jet fuel-guzzling private jets and flew back to their mansions. Why doesn’t anything happen?  Could it be the oil lobby has more influence than we do?

A lot is being written about the price of oil now because what’s happening is so serious.  This is how I see it:
•    Oil is a strategic resource.  It impacts the cost of everything.  The oil companies don’t make it.  They just pump it.  Oil companies don’t add much unique value.  Gasoline is as low-tech fuel; most of the energy released by burning it is wasted.  Oil companies have done little invention or innovation except in finding ways to extract it.
•    Oil is a natural resource.  Nature created it.  Since the use of oil impacts the quality of all our lives, those who control it have a special social responsibility to all of us.  This isn’t socialism; it’s common sense.
•    In the 1980’s we decided that competition wasn’t an important pillar of free market capitalism so we cancelled our anti-trust laws and the oil companies merged into a powerful club.
•    In spite of record profits, oil companies are investing little in new oil field development or refineries.
•    As percent of profits oil companies are not seriously investing in clean renewable energy resources; indeed the CEO of Exxon said that Exxon is an oil company not an energy company.  The biggest use of oil profits has been to buy their own stock and issue dividends to shareholders.
•    Demand for oil worldwide (including China and India) has risen 10-15% while prices have doubled.
•    Speculators have created an oil-commodities bubble similar to our internet-housing bubbles.
•    Turning food (corn) into fuel is boondoggle forced upon us by big agriculture.  It’s causing food riots and is a lousy fuel.
•    Our energy policy now represents the greatest transfer of wealth from working Americans to foreign despots in the history of the world.  Our children spend a day’s wage to fill up a tank of gas and money ends up building luxury hotels in Dubai or providing night-vision goggles to the Taliban.
•    The people who control our energy policy don’t care.  They are part of a new class of super-wealthy who have their own jets, their own schools, their own security forces, their own banks and fortresses and private islands to survive whatever happens.
•    There are many myths that all of this is the inevitable working of global capitalism and everything is playing out according to divinely inspired markets.  It’s not.  The economy as been rigged by years of corruption and concentration of power accompanied by a relentless P.R. machine telling us this is the best we can hope for.

One of the healthiest responses to injustice and avoidable suffering is to focus our anger into a loud voice aimed at leaders and allow our cultural megaphone to turn up our volume.  I suggest we grab our Congressmen by their lapels and insist that oil companies invest 25% of profits in a new, private Institute for Energy Independence which funds honest science in scalable clean renewable technologies especially hydrogen.  Insist big oil companies must have independent board chairs and at least 30% of the board be non-stock holders.  And take $25 billion a year out of private, no bid “defense” contracts (we evidently pay KBR $75 to do a load of wash for our troops in Iraq because of a no-bid contract) and build a Hydrogen Energy Web for energy delivery.  If we do this, car companies will build the cars.

None of this will happen overnight, but it will happen if we don’t give up or give in.  We must not listen to stories about how this won’t work by those who prosper from the status quo.  We are not helpless. Go to Write Your Representative or Congress.org and write your Congressperson today.  Demand a focused, funded plan to free us from oil slavery.

Imagine a future  free of oil.  In 5 years.  Just imagine.

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

14 comments.

An evil way to make money?

Grand Theft Auto IV is a new videogame. It sold $500 million in its first week of release. It is the most financially successful piece of entertainment ever released in terms of first week sales. More than any Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Lord of the Rings movies. And it’s just starting. Grand Theft Auto IV is an amazing example of evil-genius. It is a visual banquet of hauntingly realistic animation that is as visually arousing as it is morally repulsive. The game asks you to identify with a sympathetic anti-hero who achieves goals by stealing cars, hiring prostitutes, killing pedestrians, getting drunk and driving wild. Of course the makers of this technically brilliant glorification of self-destructive insanity say it’s all harmless fun. After all, what we watch and think about doesn’t really impact what we really do. And, me, sounding like some very un-cool grandpa only makes it more desirable to my cool-seeking grandchildren to play it. Yea, yea. I get it. But I can’t help it. My blood is boiling.

I speak to business leaders frequently about Corporate Social Responsibility. I sum things up with the proposition that we are responsible for the future we are co-creating. That all of us are responsible for fostering a “healthy planet with healthy people.” All of us. It’s an important message. Today we are constantly tempted to make a buck through “negative innovation.” This occurs when we willfully promote ideas that undermine people’s ability or motives to meet their own genuine needs. It is a high-tech form of toxic pollution. When we separate our economic life from our human responsibility to each other, we descend into predators. When we develop products that destroy our planet, exploit people, and degrade the dignity of our own children, we erode our own spiritual worth. Is it ethical to spend millions of dollars and use the magnificent talents of artists and computer programmers to seduce teenagers to immerse themselves in a world of human misery made to look desirable? Is that the best thing we can do with capital and talent? I’ve talked to people who create or promote predatory entertainment and they all say the same thing. “I am not responsible.” They always claim that entertainment reflects cultural norms rather than changes them. “It’s what people want.” But is this just superficial justification of selling the glorification of suffering?

Media’s biggest cultural impact comes from what it decides to broadcast, post, print, or sell. And very often that’s driven by what sells to the lowest common denominator. At the lowest level of human consciousness we simply seek stimulation. We are attracted to novelty like a bug to a porch light. That’s why the media makers are always pushing the envelope. You see, vulgarity is shocking only if it crosses the line of established limits. And shock is what’s needed to stimulate a young audience. Brain research confirms what all seasoned parents have known. Teenagers are constantly searching for high emotional stimulation for low effort. There is probably no one more susceptible to a jolt from the outrageous, then a 14 year-old. For instance, over the past 25 years MTV has become the monster of the global Grid. It is beamed to over 100 countries and is the icon of American pop culture. It’s owned by a huge media conglomerate. It’s our message to the world of what makes us happy. Silly, isn’t it. Relatively harmless, right?

Maybe not. MTV recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. One media analyst observed that MTV’s primary legacy has been to popularize a culture that celebrates violence, glorifies materialism and exploits women. In fact, MTV may have done more to degrade women than any other single force in recent history. That’s not all. MTV is a steady diet of self-absorption, angst about trivia and a celebration of the paraphernalia of image. It drives conformity and isolation simultaneously. MTV has been very busy creating the new normal for our culture, claiming it’s only what their audience wants. It doesn’t mention that its audience is our stimulus seeking, highly vulnerable children.

While there are still some psychologists who claim watching anti-social, criminal or degrading behavior doesn’t change people’s attitudes or choices, the preponderance of evidence is that it does. New research confirms our thinking actually alters our brain chemistry and our habitual emotional responses. Just like junk food, junk thinking eventually poisons us.

Never in history have humans created a society where vivid emotionally engaging depictions of violence and sexual exploitation surrounded us daily. And frankly no one knows for sure what the result will be. But common sense tells us it does not promote the values of civilization or the behavior of a species serious about their responsibilities to their own children. Isn’t it rather simply an evil way to make money?

Free speech is great and an essential right of every person. It also comes with a responsibility. Shouldn’t we be motivated to use our position, our talent and our technology to create messages that inspire rather than exploit? I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. At the end of our lives will we be able to look in the mirror and say, “I did the most to create the greatest good I could?” Maybe it’s a question we should ask ourselves every day.

If you want to send Take 2, the makers of Grand Theft Auto IV, some feedback, email pr@rockstargames.com.

Will Marre
Founder, American Dream Project
Expert on Corporate Social Responsibility

10 comments.

The Rule of Love

Many of you have responded to my blogs wondering what you or we can do about the issues presented. The answer is more than you may think. The people who most benefit from the status quo want you to feel that you can’t make a difference. It’s called learned helplessness. It’s a lie. No matter what you choose to do, how big or small, each of us matters. We are part of the tipping point for a better future. For instance, I donate a great amount of time teaching and speaking to students, non-profits and community groups about our individual leadership opportunities to help change our world right where we are. This is just one way I try to make my difference.

Last Monday I taught a class in Corporate Social Responsibility to a group of young executives at the University of California San Diego. On the subject of ethics I mentioned that 20th century U.S. culture descended into embracing the lowest level of classical ethics. The result is that our government now routinely enables large companies to sell us poisonous products. You see the bottom of the ethical barrel is the “Rule of Law.” It basically confirms that if something is legal, it’s ethical, even moral. But it’s often not. In fact when a country enshrines the “Rule of Law” as their standard of morality it unleashes a tidal wave of lobbyists corrupting lawmakers to make their special interest desires become legal. For instance, many of our antipollution laws are written so that it’s legal to pay a relatively inexpensive fine rather than clean up the brown field and stop polluting. As a citizen, this pygmy view of ethics puts us at increasing risk of being poisoned by the Frankenstein chemicals in common products and food. When our nation was founded we agreed that life, that is, its reasonable protection, was an “inalienable right,” a fundamental right. But lately our government has increasingly decided to sell its responsibility to provide for our safety to the highest bidder. The result is we still have cigarette companies figuring out how to make their death weed more addictive while they kill 400,000 Americans a year even as the FDA becomes a barrier to our children’s safety.

The latest ethical failure recently came to light when it was revealed that the FDA has ignored over 100 studies showing that BPA, a common chemical in plastic bottles and the lining of canned goods, pose a significant health risk to babies. Babies! Turns out sterilizing plastic bottles causes BPA molecules to get in milk that later stimulates breast.and prostate cancer. Canada has banned BPA plastic, and Japan banned its use in canned food 10 years ago. But in the land of the brave we’re on our own. Yes the chemical companies produced two studies showing the health risks were minimal and since we now have the best FDA money can buy, our safety regulators let it slide. It seems it’s not their responsibility to protect American babies. I wish I were making this up, but the Government Accounting Office just released a report stating that our Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency have been systematically compromised by government contractors and special (business) interests. Turns out over the past eight years these agencies, established to protect our health from the unrestrained gravity of greed, have been taken over by the industries they are supposed to regulate. So the cancer screening reviews of ten common chemicals that you and I are frequently exposed to in our households and consumer products have not been conducted due to internal restrictions on the scientists that you and I pay to protect our children (EPA Undermined on Health Dangers, Investigators Say).

Since the dawn of history merchants have railed against regulation. They always claim individuals right to choose is more sacred than health and safety rules. They always claim that regulation will cause economic collapse. English business tycoons in the 19th century claimed that capitalism would fail without child labor. Slavery was justified for 150 years as an economic necessity. And American carmakers in the 1960’s and 70’s said that government regulations mandating seatbelts and pollution control technology was completely unnecessary. “If the people choose, the market will dictate what is best for us” is always the cry. Using human choice and the marketplace as the mechanism for what is safe to sell is nothing more than a weak attempt to morally justify unrestrained self-interest.

I told the class that there is more to ethics than what’s “legal.” A higher level is the “Rule of Justice.” It’s based on the Golden Rule. It asks chemical company executives and scientists to ask themselves, “What kind of bottle do I want my children drinking from?” If we could just achieve that standard as our ideal we could restore integrity to our entire society. But the highest level of ethics is even more inspiring. It is call the “Rule of Love.” It challenges us to ask, “How much good can I do?” Imagine a world where that was the common question in a business meeting. It’s the concept of Greatest Total Value. What is the Greatest Total Value we can provide to our customers, employees, society? I have found the exciting result of asking this question is it unleashes people to think of previously unimagined value innovations. Innovations that lead to higher quality, less waste, and unique products and services.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with capitalism. It’s morally neutral. The problem is with us. Only humans can make our businesses and government moral. Are we really willing to poison our own babies rather than demand genuine moral leadership? We are better than this.

(Effective Regulation is one criterion of American Dream Project’s America’s New Agenda. To found out more and add your ideas, click here.)

Your single voice matters. It matters because you’re not alone. Your voice can be a part of a chorus, inaudible to you but very noisy to the world. Speak up. Most especially, go to Write Your Representative or Congress.org to get your Congressperson’s email address and write him or her in reasoned but passionate tones (For Congressional letter writing tips, click here). When enough of us do, they will listen. We are changing the world either by staying silent or by speaking out. I send emails to the Presidential candidates. Of course they respond with requests for donations, but no matter, I still express myself. Write someone today. It matters. If you agree with what I am saying, pass it on. This is not my day job. I am doing this for my grandchildren. We all need to do something because we can.
Will Marre, founder American Dream Project

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

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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.

8 comments.

We Are Better Than This

Hope is emotional oxygen. Goodwill toward others is protein for our souls. But it seems so often we are either gasping for breath or suffering from spiritual malnutrition. For the last five years our economy seemed to be booming (now we learn it was really only bubbling), and it looked like everyone was rich. And some really were. The list of billionaires skyrocketed. And the media’s obsession with putting the “cribs” and lifestyles of the increasing number of rich and famous in our living rooms every night baited our inner tendency for social comparison like cheese seduces rats. Repeated studies show that social comparison is a leading cause of stress and even depression. If we are driving a brand new Toyota in a Lexus neighborhood, we mostly feel “So what’s wrong with me?” We wonder, “Am I not as smart or as lucky as our neighbors? Does God just not love me as much?” We ask all kinds of questions that get us chasing our own negative thoughts like a dog gnawing on his own tail. Then some of us, evidently lots of us, decide we’re not going to take it anymore. So we borrow to pay for stuff we think is going to make us feel better. A bigger house (Yah…now you’re talkin’!”), a flashier car, a sexy vacation, a private college education for my angel girl or awesome son. But it turns out that for far too many of us it’s all an illusion. Yes there are 8 million real honest-to-assets millionaires in the U.S., but there are also 292 million of us who aren’t. In fact, half of Americans have a true net worth of less than $10,000. The savings rate of people making between $100,000 and $250,000 is nearly zero. That’s sad. It means that we’ve become so addicted to consumption that even if we have a financially secure life our aspirations to live richer than should makes us stupid.

But social comparison works both ways. Recently American Idol Gives Back was on television (Yes, I know. What am I doing watching American Idol?). This is a modern version of a telethon to raise tens of millions for charities like Save the Children who help suffering children in the U.S. and around the world. Watching the stories of children in rural or gang-infested American neighborhoods and the millions of orphan children in Africa you can’t help but feel like we’re the most fortunate people ever. In fact, I sometimes tell audiences that. Of the billions of people that have lived on our planet, we are the luckiest. It wasn’t that long ago that a typical mother lost half her children to diseases we no longer hear about. Throughout most of human history it was common for people over 60 to die of toothache infections! But it’s hard to stay focused on all the good things of life when we’re constantly tempted to lust after someone’s private jet or even their more secure job.

As a country it is likely we are in for far worse than a rough patch. Our economy needs more than a fresh coat of spending. It’s rusted out. Our budget deficit is much larger than our leaders will admit. And the same people who are crushing Tibetian monks are buying our broken banks. It seems a consumer-based economy (largely driven by social comparison) doesn’t work when we all run out of spending money. So suffering is likely to increase. Our nation is not so much in need of repair as it is in need of a resurrection. We need a wholesale change of thinking. We need new ideas and self-discipline to implement them.

But what do we do now? The best way is to quit feeling sorry for ourselves and take a deep breath of hope. It’s to offer hope to others. It’s to have a steady diet of love protein. No, we don’t have to go to Africa. We can just change our focus to look around us right where we stand and ask who needs encouragement. Who needs a sandwich? Volunteer at school. If you’re a student, offer yourself as a tutor. No matter how bad you think your situation is there are people all around you who are suffering, and the best way to help yourself is to help others.

Now is also an opportunity for us to take a deep breath and ask ourselves what kind of life we really want. What kind of society do we really want? We are a nation of resilient, creative, generous people. We are more than we have become. We are better than this. It’s time to come together to restore a commitment to community, mutuality and goodwill. It’s a time of all of us to offer our unique gifts and abilities to serve higher purposes. We need to multiply the things that are working and starve old ideas and shout down the voices of fear. Damn it—we’re better than this.

Will Marre

Founder, American Dream Project

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

6 comments.

Your Best Future

These days I feel as though I should walk around with a helmet on.  Bad news bombs explode around me daily.  Well actually not really around me.  They explode on my TV, radio and newspaper.  Foreclosures, inflation, bank collapse, re-inflamed Iraq, failing too-expensive education, failing too-expensive health care, debt, global warming, governments beating up monks, steroids…yikes!

But what does this have to do with our personal reality?  Yours and mine?  The truth is to some degree the world is always going to hell.  Just ask someone who lived through the 20th century.  Two world wars, a depression with 25% unemployment, holocausts, the imminent threat of all-out nuclear war.  For the first 50 years of the last century we lived without antibiotics nor a polio vaccine and with legalized racism.  And…the 20th century was amazingly great.  We nearly all got indoor plumbing, lived in houses with heat, got telephones, rode on jet planes, enjoyed great movies, amazing music, high school and college education, and expanded our lifespan by 35 years.  And there was no nuclear war after all.

So was the 20th century awful?  Yes.  Was it wonderful?  Yes.  And so is 2008.  You see, reality is always both + and.  Our jobs are both satisfying and dissatisfying.  So are our lifestyles, our homes and our 14-year-olds.  Reality is messy.  It’s supposed to be.  But the Grid, our media-industrial complex, likes to present reality as an either/or certainty.  Either candidate “A” is the total answer, or he/she is the devil in disguise.  Either we’re in a full-scale financial collapse, or it’s not even a recession.  Either our marriage is gloriously fulfilling everyday, or it’s an unbearable slog of emptiness.  But either/or thinking robs us of keeping a learning, flexible mind.  One that is capable of thriving in a paradoxical world of disappointment and opportunity.

Understanding the multi-dimensional nature of reality is essential to living our “good” life.  Our choices are served up to our consciousness from our brains.  And recent research has discovered we rewire our brains minute by minute by our thoughts.  Our thinking habits create mental highways that our thoughts zoom on like an endless chain of cars in a NASCAR race.  And if we are not careful about what we think about and whether we nurture a solution orientation versus a problem orientation, we build a mental network of anxiety highways that result in “learned helplessness.”  We get in the habit of despair.  The habit of anger.  The habit of thinking like a victim.  Or not.  It’s simple; our brains focus our attention on the version of reality we choose. It’s true we are in an economic, cultural, environmental, geo-political storm. It’s also true that we live in a country and at a time where we have the personal freedom to choose our own path through the wind.  It’s no time to sit and hide.  It’s time to reflect on all the choices we’ve each made that have brought us to our particular place.  It’s time to carefully consider what our best choices are now to take us closer to the life of our most noble desires.  It’s time to fill our minds with new, creative ideas.  A time to learn new skills.  Perhaps make new friends or re-kindle our best old friendships.  It’s a time to read inspiring books.  It’s a time to walk with a deep, inner compass toward the dawn of your best future.  At least that’s what I am trying to do.  Yes life is messy.  Life is great.  What an opportunity.

Will Marre, Founder
The American Dream Project 

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

9 comments.