We could be doing three things to fix the economy and the rest of the picture

We private citizens of progressive communities have a greater role to play in the direction of our country than we have had for many dismal years — probably greater in proportion to our numbers than many other locations across the land.  How shall we play it?

There are many ways to peace through peaceful means that harmonize with and reinforce it.

The economic meltdown should be telling progressive-minded people that the time has come, not to shore up the old, top-heavy system that turned the wealth of the country into a vast gambling operation and exploited people and planet alike, but to create an economy that endures.

We should be reaching out to our Republican friends now more than ever, and in a spirit of reconciliation. This was not a ‘victory,’ but a successful change. And an opportunity; and a responsibility.  Gandhi would probably say that the second worst thing would be complacency.

Our job as leaders of the Progressive revolution is to create a secure, dry, inviting stepping stone for people in the middle of a raging stream. The world is tottering, like a person trying to reach safety on stones that are far apart, under the surface, and slippery. We need to build one for them that is close (i.e. non-scary), secure (convincing), broad (visible) and free from slime!

We who follow nonviolence have to point out what the mainstream media are missing in this "saffron revolution," as in many of the nonviolent episodes that have been accumulating with increasing frequency.

We who follow nonviolence have to point out what the mainstream media are missing in this “saffron revolution,” as they have missed in most episodes of nonviolence that have been accumulating with increasing frequency in this post-Gandhian world.

The absurdity of the scapegoat charge only becomes clear after the spasm of unanimous violence has passed. A kind of dense ignorance protects the dynamic from exposure while it is going on, and given the inability of groups to learn from history, the denial is rarely dispelled until it’s too late.

No one likes suffering, but there are times when we must choose between the kind of suffering that just happens and the kind that the brave undergo voluntarily to create a better world.

In the kind of spiritual progressive movement we seem to be groping for, we would be “joined at the heart” not only by our sense of common purpose, not only by the overview that we would be able to articulate, but by our rootedness in a new spiritual vision (which we could also articulate) of what it means to be human and alive on this planet. 

The new sciences support insights of the ancient mystics-that we are fundamentally interconnected, that the diversity of cultures provides "unlimited richness," and that each of us contain the seeds of the whole world order.

Thinking good thoughts is probably helpful, but certainly not the kind of force I am describing. The depth of psychological change I am referring to here cannot happen at an occasion. The battle has to be renewed every day – twice a day if one is going to be serious – and go on the rest of our life. It has little to do with pleasant thoughts or indeed any thoughts, and many daunting ancillary disciplines have to be added to sustain this practice and realize its full effects.

Science advances through a succession of paradigms, or frames of reference, which are often mutually irreconcilable. Without a definite shift in our educational perspective, we can hardly hope to effect a permanent shift in our worldview.