Well, the results are in. The American public cast a definitive vote for “political climate change.” Thanks to a massive “up-wising,” a critical mass of Americans chose to wise up and vote for a world where “we’re all in it together.”
I was heartened to hear you utter those very words during your campaign. Now it’s time for some action on behalf of this evolutionary idea. You’ve positioned yourself as a twenty-first-century leader, so you might be interested in what the latest science is telling us about human evolution. Thanks to the work of cellular biologist Bruce Lipton (my co-author in an upcoming book, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and How to Get There From Here), the next phase of human evolution will not be to grow a bigger brain, but to grow a bigger community.
Just as surely as each of us is a thriving community of some 50 trillion cells, we are evolving to realize that we are each and all cells in the body of a new organism called Humanity. Interestingly, this new scientific understanding is totally consistent with the spiritual understanding at the root of every religious, spiritual, and ethical path: some version of the Golden Rule. In this shrinking world that could use a good shrink, the survival of our species now depends upon our shifting from “survival of the fittest” to “thrival of the fittingest.”
At a time when our planet’s physical resources are diminishing, we must call on the underutilized human resources of love and imagination to magnify the sun’s energy and grow enough food for all. If we do that, we won’t be spending our irreplaceable resources on humanity’s “auto-immune dysfunction,” warfare. And by committing to insure the health of every human soul on the planet, we grow health and functionality from the grassroots up, and prevent problems before we need to intervene with expensive cures.
Biology—and common sense—tells us that the preventive cure for the ailments of humanity is local food and energy self-sufficiency, in the context of valuing each human being. This may sound like pie-in-the-sky idealism, but unless it becomes feet-on-the-ground real-dealism, we may find ourselves at the top of the endangered species list. It matters not how “fit” the individual: if the ecosystem doesn’t make it, the “ego system” isn’t much use.
The first step in removing ourselves from the endangered species list is removing ourselves from the endangering species list. And it’s not just global warming that is impacting the planet, but global warring. For the past half-century, we have been suffering from a military industrial complex that has brought us to the verge of economic (and moral) bankruptcy. When Americans voted for “change,” that was the change they were seeking—from a “martial plan” where self-determination is suppressed from the top down, to a Marshall Plan where healthy communities worldwide are empowered from the bottom up.
We cannot help but notice that among your early appointees are some ... well, some disappointees. We see some of the neoliberal “kinder and gentler” faces of a neither kind nor gentle empire. Perhaps you see this as a strategic necessity at a time when the powerful force of “we the people” has not yet been mobilized into a power powerful enough to support real change.
Well, we have good news for you. The audacious movement you’ve given voice to will move forward regardless of how much or how little you are able to do in four years.
The awakening that occurred in the wake of an eight-year neocon con job will only continue. Already, groups of individuals are reaching beyond ideological lines to empower a “healthy central voice” for the American people, and for humanity. In February, there will be a Citizens Summit in Denver commemorating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The event, sponsored by the Transpartisan Alliance is designed to help us overcome our partisan trance and establish a broad moral and political authority that reflects the values of a vast majority of Americans: government of the people, by the people, and for the people, where the government does our bidding, not the bidding of the highest bidder.
May you lead knowing that we voted for “us” by voting for you, and may you follow the emerging evolutionary awareness that we humans are here to re-grow the Garden ... and have a heaven of a time doing it.
Steve Bhaerman and his comic alter ego Swami Beyondananda can be found online at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com. For the Transpartisan Citizens Summit, see www.transpartisanalliance.net.
