The next election is over a year away, yet voters and candidates
are already hoping and believing if just the right candidates are elected they
will be able to fix things.
Most conscious
or unconscious maintain economics and wealth as their highest value.
And it drives their choice of party or candidate…
That will not end well.
The definition
of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again…expecting a different
result.
Too few voters and candidates grasp the unrelenting truth
that the greatest long term determinant of a nation’s wealth is its citizens
health and education.
From all that I’ve
learned in over four decades of living, reading, listening, and learning is that
the foundation of any sustainable civilization starts with an unswerving prioritization
of, and investments in, the twin engines of development …
health and education.
But most American’s measure wealth in dollars.
So we end up with a gross National Product.
So gross it should be diagnosed as terminally sick.
Examine
our nation’s suicide rate, opioid death rate, obesity rate, divorce rate, rise
in mass killings from gun violence, debt accumulation, involvement in endless war
and weapons production, loss of species, graduation rates, math and science
scores, rate of extreme weather events, loss of antibiotic arsenal, vaccination
rates, political dysfunction, and social fragmentation… then ask yourself, how
healthy can we be if we are well adjusted to a profoundly sick society?
Real health requires that move from simple thinking (direct
causation as George Lakoff coins it) into deeper thinking (systemic causation).
It is not the guns, the drugs, the
technology, the media, the advertising, the terrorists, the corporations, or
the politicians that are the real problem.
What we value is the problem.
Compare
teacher pay to CEO pay.
If you want to
know what you really value…look in your check book, driveway, refrigerator, and
calendar.
Do you spend your wealth on
the immediacy of looking good and feeling good?
Or being good and doing good…for others and the environment that sustains
us.
Our way of thinking about things that happen to us… as if we
didn’t know the outcome of overeating, smoking, texting while driving, selfishness,
or disconnecting from politics…has got to change.
We are defending our concepts as if they were
more important than the survival of our species and the natural world that we
all depend on …until we can safely leave this planet to its ultimate demise
when the Sun turns into a red giant, an asteroid catches us off guard, or AI figures
out humans are more influence by stories and emotions, than logic, wisdom, and
our children’s survival.
How many times have we said the pledge of allegiance to our
flag…pledging “liberty and justice for all” yet rarely take any action that would
suggest we are serious about this pledge?
Our politicians, military and police swear to protect the Constitution
-- as if it (with its independence agencies) can protect us against the loss of
our freedoms and our security in an irreversibly interdependent world.
It’s as if we think we are somehow disconnected
from the billions of other people we share this planet and environment with.
And then think weapons and wall will protect
us.
We need to think way beyond these ancient technologies.
I’m not sure we can.
Our minds seem glued to the same old, same
old.
And it’s going to cost us
dearly.
