Its time for a new model

Its Easter and one of the world's major religions is celebrating its most significant event. To mark the occasion a religious figure entered the oval office to pray on behalf of a nation. Predictably the impassioned plea to the almighty was
that we emerge from this with a return to a thriving economy.

Well I have seen religions come and I have seen them go. Most are proud of their beliefs and practice them openly. I really don't understand why it was neccessary to hijack the Christian religion to worship at the altar of Mammon.

But how thriving was that economy and who really benefited? Much of the world has been shocked by images of the bodies of hundreds of New Yorkers being dumped into mass graves. The reason for this atrocity: Their families can't afford a proper burial. How the public relations and marketing departments of the world's (so called) largest and most successful economy must cringe at the public confession that in the financial heartland of the world's most wealthy country people are dying destitute.

And how embarrassing to confront the statistic that black or hispanic Americans are more likely to die because they are more likely to be poor. Whatever happened to that American dream so eloquently summed up in the declaration of independance?

We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.

 Its all sounding a bit like a nighmare today. And, at least in some quarters, the pursuit of wealth seems far more important than happiness. No they are not the same thing! For everyone else it seems that preservation of life will have to suffice as the ultimate goal.

"Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil, but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power. Twenty-first century market capitalism, American-style, will fail for the same reasons. Both are edifices constructed by human intelligence, undone by human nature." ~ Arundhati Roy

Do you dare to dream of a different future?

"We must pay close attention to those with another imagination: an imagination outside of capitalism, as well as communism. We will soon have to admit that those people, like the millions of indigenous people fighting to prevent the takeover of their lands and the destruction of their environment - the people who still know the secrets of sustainable living - are not relics of the past, but the guides to our future." ~ Arundhati Roy