June/July 2006

God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
Mark Karlin interviews Jim Wallis

The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right
Mark Karlin interviews Rabbi Michael Lerner

New Business Models for a Sustainable Future
Torrey Byles

How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer
Dean Baker

Will the Major Media Finally Cover the Electronic Election Fraud Issue?
Bob Fritakis and Harvey Wasserman

The Great Turning
Reviewed by Ted Glick

Armed Madhouse
Amy Goodman interviews Greg Palast

Energy Futures
K. C. Golden

Choosing Solar Power Because It's The Right Thing to Do
Jody Woodruff

Reconnecting To Our Essential Nature With Tai Chi
Sean Kelly

Transforming Our Lives and Our Planet Through the Ancient Practice of Qigong
Julia Tucker Interviews Master Mingtong Gu

Rediscovering Who We Really Are With the Persian Sufi Poets
David Fideler

Book Reviews
Deborah Mokma

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

By Deborah Mokma

“The problem is not how to wipe out all differences,
but how to unite with all differences intact”
– Rabindranath Tagore

“True security comes not from defeating enemies
but from not having any.”
- Buddha

Unsure of what the topic of this note should be, I went to bed the night before our last day of production without a clear sense of what to say, but certain that sometime before morning I would know. The first thought I had upon awakening was “we are all in this together.” This concept, although not a new one, is certainly of utmost importance to nurture.

Later, as I read through the morning emails before getting to work, I came upon an article by Jared Bernstein on TomPaine.com, “Rejecting the YOYOs,” in which he describes our nation’s hunger for a challenge to “you’re-on-your-own” conservatism. Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, says the solution to the YOYOs is the WITTs, who believe “we’re in this together.”

In his new book All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy Bernstein shares an allegory about mealtime in heaven and hell:

“It turns out that in both places, meals are served at a huge round table with lots of delicious food in the center. The food is out of reach, but everyone’s got really long forks.

“In hell, everyone starves because, while people can reach the food with their forks, the forks are much longer than their arms, so nobody can turn a fork around and eat what’s on the end of it.

“In heaven, faced with the same problem, people eat well. How?

“By feeding each other.”

It all comes down to the question of what it is we value—when there is more value placed on individual (and corporate) material gain than on the needs of the greater good the result is an extreme inequity in resources, including the very basics of food, housing and health care. I have posed this question on this page before, but it is worth asking again: how many of us would allow another human being to starve if they were right in front of our eyes? How many children could we allow to die from the lack of the most basic health care if we were holding them in our own arms? It’s so much easier to ignore the needs of others when we are busy with our own lives, with work, family and a seemingly endless need to escape from the grind with shopping and entertainment.

I hope I do not appear to be preaching from a holier than thou perspective. There is certainly much that needs to be improved in my own life. I share these thoughts because I believe as a culture we have been led astray, with misplaced values a shared consequence of basing our national economic health on criteria like consumer spending.

What if we changed the criteria? What if our economic picture was only considered to be in a positive light when everyone had at least adequate health care, education, employment opportunities, housing, social security? What if the consumer index was replaced with a clean air and no one going to bed hungry at night index?

We have some wonderful articles in this issue which offer insight into how other people are addressing these very same questions. By considering the well-being of all of us who call this planet home we can create a truly secure world. Because, without a doubt, we are all in this together. And together, we can accomplish miracles.