Overall, the U.S. is very rich. Poverty is inexcusable. We must change laws and policies to create a fair economy.

For decades people have kept saying that the U.S. is the richest country on earth.

We still are.

But tens of millions of Americans suffer poverty, homelessness, lack of health care, lack of hope, and — really — profound alienation from “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The U.S. keeps falling short of what we promise.  We know it.  The victims of our economic, social and political systems know it.  The politicians know it.

So why do the problems persist?  Some people are profiting from the chronic injustices that infect our economic, social and political systems.  And they really do not care that other people suffer, because they themselves are profiting.

For more information about that last point, see the very thorough essays I wrote about the dominant worldviews.  Read the November 2018 essay first.  It is about the problems.  Then read the December 2018 essay (solutions and how to achieve them).  CLICK THIS LINK TO READ BOTH ESSAYS.

The dominant worldview keeps assaulting us in many ways, as the November 2018 essay points out.

The December 12018 essay encourages us to reflect on our best values and re-engineer our society (and our politics and our economic) around our best values and the well-being of the entire human family.

The problems are too deep and too entrenched for us to merely vote our way out of them.

The solutions are so bold and so creative that we can achieve them only by gathering together with other people at the grassroots level — even around someone’s kitchen table or in someone’s living room — and envisioning and strategizing from there.  Then we need to replicate those grassroots efforts many times across the nation.

The workshops I offer in Nonviolent Grassroots Organizing can help, regardless of whether you focus on one issue (e.g., ending homelessness, reforming law enforcement systems, or supporting workers’ rights) or whether you see a broad multi-issue view.  CLICK THIS LINK FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THESE WORKSHOPS.

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org