COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT: ENSURING ECONOMIC VITALITY AND VIABILITY THROUGH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, PARTICIPATION AND OWNERSHIP

We need to empower people at the local level for economic justice and opportunity.

The following is an essay that I proposed for use for a committee of NSP on economic empowerment at the community level, grounded in principles of justice, self realization and empowerment. Though this was never published, I do wish to share it with my fellow blog community.

Community Empowerment
ENSURING ECONOMIC VITALITY AND VIABILITY THROUGH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, PARTICIPATION AND OWNERSHIP

We all belong to communities, as part of neighborhoods, cities, regions or as part of ethnic, cultural or religious/spiritual groups. We identify with our communities. We care about our communities. Our sense of place and even well-being and grounding are often quite linked to that of our community surround. When our community thrives, we thrive. When our community is deprived, we are deprived. When our communities are empowered through ownership, participation, engagement, inclusion in decisions that impact them directly, and most especially in the realm of economics and allocation of resources, we all benefit and are enriched. Economic democracy or participatory democracy in the economic life of the community means every voice is heard and everyone is represented, directly or indirectly, in a local or regional economy. For disadvantaged communities, particularly, that have been so disempowered, it is especially imperative that their voices be heard for proper redress of economic injustices. In other words, not only for rich, not only for poor, but for all! That is community empowerment.

So, in practice what does this all mean. It means that a community has a say if a Walmart is to come in next door to a downtown, whose small businesses might well be routed if Walmart would succeed in such a store location. It means that in urban redevelopment areas, developers getting tax incentives, must demonstrate what community benefits will accrue from their new developments. For example, it could mean that a developer of a large retail space might have to incorporate day care on its premises. As the Nation recently described, it could mean the encouragement of “neighborhood-benefitting corporations building housing and creating jobs in cities across America” and other such programs toward a “New American Commonwealth”. (Nation, January 23, 2006, p. 16, 18)

Therefore, it is our belief that the moral underpinning of economic democracy rests on two principles, the right of citizens to be represented in economic decisions that impact their lives, at all levels, but most directly at the community level where they reside, and that furthermore, citizens have the responsibility to exercise that right through vigilance, care, honest discourse and fair engagement. Faithful citizenship implies a right and a responsibility to ensure fairness, inclusion, stewardship and justice. Succinctly, the standard for the exercise of such faithful citizenship is the Common Good, and when that principle is applied to the economic life of the community, we all thrive.
We advocate two models for economic empowerment proven to be successful at the community level:
The Community Land Trust
From Institute for Community Economics http://www.iceclt.org/
“What is a CLT?
A community land trust (CLT) is a democratically controlled nonprofit organization that owns real estate in order to provide benefits to its local community - and in particular to make land and housing available to residents who cannot otherwise afford them.
CLTs have been established in different kinds of communities, with different kinds of projects meeting different community needs, but they share some important features, including a distinctive approach to the ownership of real estate, and a distinctive approach to community-based governance.” From: http://www.iceclt.org/clt/cltmodel.html
With respect to ownership, the distinctive features are that:
• Land is acquired for the Community.
• Homeownership is on Community Land
• Home ownership remains affordable for rthe the next homeowner
With respect to governance, the distinctive features are that:
• CLT’s are usually membership organizations, whose boards are elected by the members, who 1. either live in or use the CLT, depending on its purpose or 2. are members of the community interested in what the CLT is doing.
• That the Board structure usually includes three kinds of directors: resident members, those not representing the resident group, and those representing the broader community, with both residents and community interests thus being protected and in balance.
CLTs can be utilized for a variety of purposes including: community gardens, playgrounds, economic development activities, open space, or for community services, in inner cities or in rural areas to enhance farming, protect timber and firewood, and to hold conservation easements.
Thus, CLTs provide a community, direct engagement, participation and oversight - empowerment. Members and nearby residents alike are represented in its development and its governance. In this way, the common good is assured by putting in to practice the most essential principles of economic democracy, the right of citizens (community members) to participate in economic decisions or policy making that directly affects them and the responsibility of such participants to be fair, careful, conscientious, vigilant, equitable and just in their planning and governance.

Community Benefits Agreements
The Community Benefits Agreement is another form of accountable development. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy describes a Community Benefit Agreement this way:
“The CBA process begins with interested members of the community, who identify how a proposed development project can benefit residents and workers. Once a list of potential benefits is determined, community members meet with the developer and representatives of the city to negotiate a CBA.
The CBA is a legal document that becomes part of the city's agreement with the developer. It contains numerous provisions stipulating exactly how the development will benefit the community.
Each CBA is unique, reflecting the needs of particular communities. LAANE has developed a CBA menu, which provides a list of potential benefits and how they can help workers and communities. The menu includes:
Quality Jobs
Community Services
First Source/Local Hiring and Job Training
Environmental Improvements
Affordable Housing
Community Involvement”
http://www.laane.org/ad/cba.html
Julian Gross, Legal Director, Legal Director, California Partnership for Working Families describes the CBA this way,
“A Community Benefits Agreement, or “CBA” is a legally enforceable contract, signed by community groups and by a developer, setting forth a range of community benefits that the developer agrees to provide as part of a development project.
ACBA is the result of a negotiation process between the developer and organized representatives of affected communities, in which the developer agrees to shape the development in a certain way or to provide specified community benefits. In exchange, the community group promises to support the proposed project before government bodies that provide the necessary permits and subsidies. In exchange, the community group promises to support the proposed project before government bodies that provide the necessary permits and subsidies. The CBA is both a process to work towards these mutually beneficial objectives, and a mechanism to enforce both sides’ promises.”
“Community Benefits, Agreements, Making Development Projects Accountable by Julian Gross Legal Director, California Partnership for Working Families, with Greg LeRoy, of Good Jobs First and Madeline Janis-Aparicio © Copyright 2002 Good Jobs First and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. All rights reserved.
In essence, Community Benefits Agreements make it possible for communities to establish “win-win” standards for new economic development coming in to the community. It clearly says to the Developer that their development is expected to enhance the community in a way that has some benefit for everyone. It is at once a way for the needs of the most marginalized and least represented, as well as for those whom are the most impacted, to be considered at the bargaining table when new development is undertaken in the community. Developers win through increased support for projects and the community wins because it gains tangible benefits for its overall well-being. For citizens, the community becomes experienced as a fair place to be, a place where they can count on their needs being heard and reflected in economic development and where they can feel a sense of community pride, belonging and ownership. Our communities become better places in which to live.

Views from the Front

Can we find peace? First, we must know and then, we must try.

Cross Posted from JohnEdwards.com
http://blog.johnedwards.com/admin/story/2007/8/19/141257/817

Karita Hummer in News Feed of
8/19/2007 at 5:38 PM EST

Can we find peace? First, we must know and then, we must try.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to know what is really going on in Iraq from those who are carrying the biggest burden: those on the front.
The article is reprinted from CommonDreams.org

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Published on Sunday, August 19, 2007 by the International Herald Tribune
The Iraq War As We See It

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/19/3270/

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.

Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins.

It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at U.S. taxpayers' expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: Had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: One of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, a U.S. Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on August 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the British and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

The most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in communities barricaded with concrete walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal. In an environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act.

Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is a U.S. Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/19/3270/

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These are the views that should make the news.

Karita Hummer
San Jose, CA

Why Rural and Farm Policy Reform Matters

It is essential to reform our farm policy for the family farmer in America and in developing countries.


Cross Posted from www.JohnEdwards.com Blog, Karita Hummer in Arguments & Analyses Feed of
8/18/2007 at 3:55 PM EST
http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/8/18/63543/6284

"I support John Edwards because he's the first national candidate in years who really takes rural America seriously and he's got a solid, bold plan to help turn things around." -- Sen. John Land, Democratic Leader of the South Carolina State Senate

http://johnedwards.com/issues/rural/

When John Edwards speaks of One America, he means just that, for everyone, lifting every boat and forgetting no-one.

His moral vision, clarity, insight and empathy are nowhere better evident than in his vision for Rural America and what it needs. It is a vision that makes me glow with pride and happiness for what could be in America, if we get him elected. His inspiring vision goes beyond what most Democrats have even dreamed, and I am so excited and proud to be part of his campaign.

John Edwards declaration that small rural towns and small farm communities are a proper priority for concern is long overdue and a simple matter of justice. And he has laid out detailed policy for actualizing his vision of justice for all Americans, in this instance, rural Americans.

This is John Edwards vision for the small farmer:

from John Edwards' site:

http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/rural/

"Creating Fairness for Family Farmers: Edwards recognizes that the rules are stacked against family farmers. He supports the strict enforcement of laws against anticompetitive mergers, unfair pricing, and country-of-origin laws. He will enact a strong national ban on packer ownership to stop the spread of large corporate hog interests and create a national moratorium on the construction and expansion of hog farm lagoons. To help family farmers he will also limit farm subsidies to $250,000 per person, close loopholes in payment limits, and expand conservation programs."

http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/rural/

In line with John Edwards' thinking on Farm Policy are a number of other advocacy groups speaking up for fair farm family policy for the US and for foreign countries. For this country and abroad, the proper emphasis of these advocacy groups is on small farmers and healthy food products for our continent and other continents.

Here big agribusiness has made food less safe and healthy for Americans and prevented proper food for overseas aid.

The US branch of CARE is taking just such a twofold position, advocating for support of local production in continents like that of Africa and reduced subsidies to agribusiness that ends up feeding obesity in America.

For example, the American branch of Care recently spelled out the problems with current policy in an article entitled:

"US Food Aid is `Wrecking' Africa, Claims Charity" by Leonard Doyle. In that article, Doyle states:

"The US arm of the charity says America is causing rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation. In America, the subsidies for corn in particular, help underpin the junk food industry, which uses corn extracts as a sweetener, creating a home-grown a health crisis."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007 08/17/3224

A religious advocacy group takes a similar tack:

"The current system should be changed in ways that would strengthen communities in rural America, ensure all Americans an adequate, nutritious diet, provide better and more targeted support for U.S. farm families of modest means, and conserve the land for present and future generations. In addition, such changes are necessary to unlock the ability of smallholder farmers in developing countries, who comprise the majority of the world's hungry people, to improve their livelihoods and escape poverty."

From: RELIGIOUS WORKING GROUP ON THE FARM BILL, Principles for the 2007 Farm Bill, National Catholic Rural Life Conference (which is centered in
Des Moines, Iowa, email address: ncrlc@mchsi.com, website: www.ncrlc.com)

Such rural and farm policy advocacy very much mirrors the integrated vision of John Edwards for economic justice in food production in America and internationally.

It is clear to me that John Edwards is leading from a vision of justice for all, and this is nowhere more apparent than in his vision for America's rural and farm community.

We must shake America from its deep lethargy and make them aware of the grave stakes in this campaign for justice toward One America.

Thank you, Senator Edwards for your vision and your leadership for a sorely neglected sector of America and the world, that of the rural and farm sector both here and abroad.

Karita Hummer
San Jose, CA
Willow Glen One Corps Chapter, Co-Chair

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for "The Ripple Effect" by Rosy Baldwin

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award

The Ripple Effect

user icon Rosy Baldwin in Quick Posts Feed of
8/16/2007 at 1:18 AM EST

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/8/15/21452/9040

America is at a crossroads today. Never before in our nation's history has our choice for President and Vice President been so crucial. Despite the MSM's constant attempts to liken the upcoming election to a "horse race" or a "contest" with debate "winners" and "losers", those of us with insight (Democrats, Republicans & Independents alike) know that the upcoming outcome will affect not only America, but the rest of the world as well. This is a do or die election, folks! Well we know it; it is no "American Idol" popularity contest.

When we read about JRE's solutions, ideas and hopes for our country, we nod our heads in assent (most times!) and we sense that the core problems facing America today really boil down to one thing: Lack of empathy for one's fellow man, indeed for one's fellow creatures who share this planet's fragile space with us.

For when we lack empathy, we cannot see past our own greed, hatred, prejudice & cruelty and we strive only to get the better of others, to out-FOX (haha, pun intended!) them and to take from them what is rightfully theirs, just so we can line our own pockets or make ourselves feel more powerful, more important.

Every time we commit a greedy, selfish act, we are knowingly (or perhaps unknowingly) hurting another living being. This is the ripple effect in our society and it works exactly the same way as when you drop a stone into a calm body of water and you watch the rippling concentric rings spreading ever outward.

On the other hand, hope, kindness, empathy & self-respect can ripple outward in a delightful way. When we care about ourselves and others equally, we take pride in our handiwork, our creations, we reach out to others, we try to iron out our differences, we seek peace and shun war, we solve problems rather than make them.

America has had difficult days in the past but she has always rippled outward with sparkles of hope. The last 6 years have seen a darkening of her waters, a murky turbulence that threatens to grow ever larger. But it is still not too late! With an able captain at the helm (JRE) we will sail through the stormy waters and once again will beam a beacon of hope...from sea to shining sea.

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for Integrity 2008

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award

Cross-posted from John Edwards 08 Blog

Own House Cleaning - Integrity is the key to lead an honest campaign! by Integrity 2008

user icon Integrity2008 in Arguments & Analyses Feed of
8/15/2007 at 5:46 PM EST
http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/8/14/152156/638

There is no doubt that Rove, Hughes, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have created big troubles for all of us.

But as a priority, it would be even better to go through our party and reform it.

It has become a rich man club.

This great country has to be a place were decency, honesty and integrity are back in our life.

At the same time the Republicans have to initiate a similar clean up. Let us see what they can achieve from the own forces. Let us stop the mutual bashing while we are in a fragile state of party politics, too.

It is not good that the candidates are begging for donations from billionaires, and are afraid to set moral goals and pragmatic corrections.

So let us bring back the integrity and moral principles.
Let us be champions of a classical enlightened decency.

And to be totally transparent, let us see if the consultants of Edwards are really the right people for the difficult jobs.

PS Painting of Ferenc Deák - click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_De%C 3%A1k

"A President Is Impeachable If He Attempts To Subvert The Constitution", Barbara Jordan

Cross posted from JohnEdwards.com





Let Barbara Jordan* inspire us now!


I was in Austin this past week, and on my arrival there, in the Barbara Jordan Passenger Terminal of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, was a beautiful statue of Barbara Jordan, and an essay depicting this remarkable woman's public service.

I was reminded of the powerfully eloquent way she addressed her fellow Congresspersons at a time of another Constitutional Crisis in our Country's history, at the time of Watergate.

But, whereas, Barbara Jordan and other Congressional representatives of both parties rose to that occasion, our current representatives are all too timid to raise their voices to any degree of certitude.

Certainly, it can be argued that this time of ours with an Executive branch run amok, goes even beyond the abuses of Watergate and warrants an even more vehement response. Does this indeed speak to the even greater crisis in which we find ourselves: that voices are silenced and intimidated? Witness the stampede of last weekend when the atrocious warrant-less wiretapping bill was allowed to be passed by an all too obsequious Congress, shaking in their boots or in a rush to run off to a vacation.

Just look at Barbara Jordan's clearheaded words:

"The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of this body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive. In establishing the division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same person.

We know the nature of impeachment. We have been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to "bridle" the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the President in order to strike a delicate balance between a President swollen with power and grown tyrannical and preservation of the independence of the Executive. The nature of impeachment is a narrowly channeled exception to the separation of powers maxim; the federal convention of 1787 said that. It limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term, "maladministration." "It is to be used only for great misdemeanors," so it was said in the North Carolina ratification convention. And in the Virginia ratification convention: "We need one branch to check the others."

The North Carolina ratification convention: "No one need to be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity.""

http://www.watergate.info/impeachment/74 -07-25_barbara-jordan.shtml

Contrast the behavior of our current representatives with that of one of our great defenders of the Constitution, Barbara Jordan, yes, sadly of another era. How much have we lost with this truly repressive regime of the Bush Administration that so few are mustering the will to stop it in from further encroachments. Why didn't one senator last weekend stand up against the warrant-less wiretapping bill by filibustering against the Bush version of the bill?

As awful as Watergate was, we at least found a remedy then and were blessed to have had those who would stand up to the abuse of Unitary Executive(s) run amok.
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to be reminded of heroines and heroes past, especially of Barbara Jordan, who still can teach us so much we need to realize again today.

"A President Is Impeachable If He Attempts To Subvert The Constitution", Title of Argument in Congress, by Barbara Jordan, July 25, 1974

http://www.watergate.info/impeachment/74 -07-25_barbara-jordan.shtml

Karita Hummer
San Jose, CA


* Barbara Jordan, American Political Heroine

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for Saje Williams

Cross-posted from JohnEdwards.com

No time for Tyrants, by saje williams


Thom Hartmann likes to say that democracy is in the American DNA now and that we'll never tolerate anything less.

I like to think he's right.

My faith in us, not only as Americans, but as humans, is perhaps misplaced. I think some people believe it is--that we're rightfully doomed and our fate will be exactly what we deserve. I don't get the self-loathing, to be honest. Yes, we've made some terrible mistakes, but for all our weaknesses, greed, and selfishness, there is a spark of something majestic in us as well. Something transcendent, something that lifts us up above the pettiness that suffuses so much of our history as a race.

And I like think we have a destiny beyond ultimate self-destruction, that we can make a fate for ourselves far beyond the tool-using apes with no purpose other than falling on our collective face. We're curious monkeys, with a fierce desire to know all there is to know, even if it IS out of reach. In some ways that's a dangerous thing, but it might well be our salvation as well.

I think those who think like Bush and company greatly underestimate us as well. They think we're all as petty and fearful as they are--certain that everyone not precisely like ourselves mean us harm.

On one hand we have the people who believe it's our destiny to destroy ourselves because their God says we will, and, on the other, we have those who think it's our destiny to destroy ourselves because we are young and foolish monkeys and we play with things beyond our understanding.

I, personally, will take the third path. We will NOT destroy ourselves and, in the end, we will confront the truth of our past, and our evolution, and find a way to move beyond it. It may take a trip to the edge, and a long stare into the depths of oblivion, but we will pull ourselves back from that precipice and move forward together into a spectacular future the likes of which few men and women have ever contemplated.

I can only pity those who seem to hunger for our doom. Those who think we are sinners by nature, or that our dark natures outweigh the light that also resides within us. We argue with such great passion about freedom, and justice, and hope, and yet we condemn ourselves often in the same breath as creatures not worthy of being saved, or saving ourselves.

No, we do not have time for tyrants, for power-mad dictators wrapped in visions of their own glory. We have things to do and places to go, and a planet to save. A future to forge, reaching beyond our limitations toward a place of infinite possibilities.

Do not despair for our follies. Exalt in our potential. One will win out in the end.

I'm betting on the latter.