The Red Pill

We're in the mountains for the end of the year and thus I was able to read a book called Escaping the Matrix that DC gave me. It's written by an Irish American, Richard Moore. The book opens with a quote from Frances Moore Lappe:

"We've lived so long under the spell of hierarchy-from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses-that only recently have we awakened to see that regular citizens have had the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crisis cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let along thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high."

The first Chapter is on the Matrix and of course there is the Red pill and Blue pill story. In the movie, Neo takes the red pill and he awakens to a reality that is outside of the Matrix. For what Neo had assumed to be reality was only a collective illusion, fabricated by the Matrix mainframe and fed to a population that is asleep within it. Like Plato's famous metaphor of the cave, true reality and perceived reality exist in different planes.

The author, apparently finding his own pharmacy for red pills, finds that our consensus reality-as generated by official rhetoric and amplified by mass media-bears very little relationship to actual reality. Starting with Imperialism and the Matrix, he quotes Abraham Lincoln: "Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object." He then moves to the London banking elites, their strategy of oil based dominance, and of course the Anglo-American Pax.

He sees World War I as the first oil war, which of course it was. At the beginning of the war, the newly discovered mid east oil fields were under control of the Turkish-German alliance. After the armistice, they were controlled by Britain and their allies.

So, within the Matrix, we had "unfortunate entangling alliances", where in reality, we had a trap secretly set by the British which was intended to ensnare Germany into war.

The same goes for the Versailles peace conference. In the Matrix view, it was dominated by the personalities of Clemenceau, Wilson, and the other victors who because of their vindictiveness and shortsighted policies were responsible for the post war debt regime which brought stagnation and hardship on Europe and ultimately another war. In reality, it was the House of Morgan just collecting its debts.

Most of us who work in the public life know that there is almost always a back story. And rarely does the back story make it to the light of day. Far too many of our brethren have been domesticated to see the world within the images and framing of those who profit from those who live their life within the pharmacology of the blue pill. Like other domesticated animals, our keepers come to us and scare us with their shouts and arm waving to move us out of the barn and into the green field where we find food and drink. As the day ends, they come and scare us again back into the barn. They keep us on their leash.

We actually allow ourselves to be called consumers.

But this book is not about describing the world of the Matrix, it is about escaping it. It is about envisioning a transformational movement and a liberated global society. Its about understanding and employing the dynamics of harmonization and cooperation.

In our little village in the mountains, the Red pill is known. Many here understand that the reality that is painted on their TVs (if they watch at all), in the newspapers, and in our Hollywood movies is shaping...a form of mind control that was developed long ago, but perfected in the previous century by Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays.

It is impossible to fundamentally grasp the social, political, economic and cultural developments of the past 100 years without some understanding of Bernays and his professional heirs in the public relations industry. PR is a 20th century phenomenon, and Bernays was widely eulogized as the "father of public relations" at the time of his death in 1995.

The Father of Spin actually wrote the book on PR in 1928. It was called Propaganda.

Escaping the Matrix gives real hope for finding practical ways for each of us to act by taking personal responsibility for changing the world through local action.

But how do we awaken from this dream?

How do we shake this shaping?

Where is our Red Pill?

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photo courtesy of red pill films

Eleven Eleven Eleven

I wanted to post something on 11/11/11, the 11th month of the 11th day on the 11th year of the century, but the day, like so many days these days, was in my rear view mirror seemingly before it even came. But it's still eleven eleven, although just barely. And indeed, it is the 11th hour.

The eleventh hour is a colloquial expression meaning "a time which is nearly too late". The phrase originates in the book of Matthew of the Christian Bible and references workmen being hired late in the day (Matt 20:6). "And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?"

Certainly, it is the 11th hour on climate change, and once again another meeting on the subject is most likely going nowhere. Take this story:

Leading American environmentalists complained to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Wednesday that her negotiators at U.N. climate talks risked portraying the U.S. as an obstacle to fighting global warming because of its perceived foot-dragging on key issues.

Separately, European delegates and the head of the African bloc at the 192-party talks also denounced U.S. positions at the talks, which are seeking ways to curb the ever-expanding emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. (clip)

Discontent directed at Washington came as the U.N.’s top climate scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, warned the conference’s 15,000 participants that global warming is leading to human dangers and soaring financial costs — but that containing carbon emissions will have a host of benefits.

Although he gave no explicit deadlines, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change implied that the world only has a few years before the Earth is irreversibly damaged by accumulations of carbon in the atmosphere. You see it everywhere, in the drought in Texas, in the bleaching of ocean coral, in the oysters in the Northwest.

Meanwhile, for the first time ever, there were more investments in renewables last year than in conventional sources. So, even as our political system continues to sleep walk into the dark night, there are workmen everywhere toiling late into the day on the new energy systems we need now.

Yesterday, while lunching with a true pioneer in the electric industry, I was criticized for being too conservative in a recent solar plan I had authored. And I suppose it is true. When you are working for real in an unreal world... a world where Capital has artfully hypnotized a great many folks into believing a great deal of nonsense, you learn to advance your cause with caution.

But thanks to many in the Occupy Wall Street movement, a few more folks are now at least looking in the right direction. For our nemesis is not the Rs or the Ds or even the 1%. For "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings".

For until we understand our own shortcomings, our inability to truly see our culture and the belief systems that provide the foundation for the cultural edifice we take for granted, we will be lost in a endless Sisyphian do-loop of wasted effort. For we must re-envision ourselves.

Thanks to Michael Moore, here is OWS's first try:

We Envision: [1] a truly free, democratic, and just society; [2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus; [3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making; [4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others; [5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments; [6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few; [7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings; [8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible; [9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.

But we must go much further than this.

And our Principles must address the very foundation

of the unreal, unjust world we have created.

For after the 11th hour,

Is another day.

Why stand ye here all the day idle?

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Illusion is Reality

There was a fairly remarkable occurrence this Halloween. Somewhere just before one on October 31st, the population of humans on earth reached 7 billion. Since it was daylight savings time, I guess it was actually close to noon. Of course, since these are pretty gross estimates, it could have been a nice piece of promotion.

I tried to watch the world-o-meter, but as the time grew close, the site was overrun, and I didn't see it actually hit 7 billion. (based on their prediction)

When I was born, there were 2.5 billion folks on the planet. It is estimated that the population of the world reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It would be another 122 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to rise by another billion people, reaching three billion in 1960. Thereafter, the global population reached four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, and now, seven billion in October 2011.

Of our 7 billion sailors on this spaceship, almost a billion are undernourished and one and half billion are overweight. Meanwhile, about 30,000 will die of hunger...today.

The InterAcademy Panel Statement on Population Growth, which was ratified by 58 member national academies in 1994, called the growth in human numbers "unprecedented", and stated that many environmental problems, such as rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution, were aggravated by the population expansion.

At the time, the world population stood at 5.5 billion, and lower-bound scenarios predicted a peak of 7.8 billion by 2050.

Yesterday, I made a speech to the Texas Electric Professionals at the Ritz Carlton in Dallas. The title of my speech was the Unified Photonic Energy Web. Even though I was one of the keynotes of the day, these folks weren't much interested. They were more interested in selling electricity in our deregulated electric markets...any kind of electricity. Their markets do not consider carbon, or for that matter depletion. But to their credit, they did invite me.

I wanted them to imagine the possibility that they were like a bunch of buggy whip manufacturers in 1905... That a huge wave of change is upon us much like it was at the turn of the century 100 years ago. Here is part of my speech:

For thousands of years, humankind traveled locally from town to town, province to province with the assistance of animal power. Look at the pictures of our cities in the late 1890s. They look like the cities in 1790. The City planners of the day proclaimed that cities would never grow over a million people because of the limitations imposed by the amount of manure that needed to be managed. Yet these limitations were transformed in a proverbial blink by a new way of thinking. Horses would be replaced by Horsepower.

In 1905, just before WW1 was getting started, the British Automobile Association was formed and the Wright brothers stayed aloft for a whole 38 minutes. William Durant buys Buick. There were 6500 Oldsmobiles, not quite 4000 Cadillacs and 4000 Ramblers made that year. Ford and the Franklin and the White each made a little over a 1000 cars each. The 5th National Automobile Show had 177 gas powered cars, 31 electrics, and 4 steamers. And Goodyear came out with universal rims. A new car cost $1500 and a new house cost $2400.

By 1915, car manufacturers in the US alone produced a million cars and trucks. Cannons that were pulled into place by horses at the beginning of the war were now moved with trucks and tanks. Meanwhile, the US auto industry agrees to cross license its patents. Due to Henry Ford’s innovations in mass production and marketing, Ford was now dominant in this new market with 500,000 vehicles a year.

And because of Ford, the average cost of a car dropped to $500 while the cost of a house rose to $4500. In 1915, daily traffic on 5th Avenue in NY is now 25,000 vehicles a day.

Meanwhile, Albert Einstein proposes a new theory on gravity, and on space and time. And the telephone begins to appear in our houses.

And it is Einstein’s work with Light that I speak of today.

Albert Einstein's mathematical description in 1905 of how the photoelectric effect was caused by the absorption of quanta of light (now called photons), was in a paper named "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light". This paper proposed the simple description of "light quanta", or photons, and showed how they explained such phenomena as the "photoelectric effect".

Einstein's explanation of the photoelectric effect won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921... Not E equals MC Squared... Not the theory of Relativity.

And just as the car meme took off in the last century thus completely changing the landscape of our cities, our neighborhoods, our roadways, our homes themselves, and the very fabric of our culture, Einstein’s ideas about light are now perched on the gantry of human experience. And a new cultural meme is about to take off."

I told them that the cost of solar was dropping...that in the last 3 years silicon had dropped from $360 /kilogram to $36/kilogram. I showed them that solar in large quantities in our deserts was now around 8 cents/kWh, and thus cheaper than new nuclear or new coal. I talked of a unified photonic energy web that would be fat with capacitance and smart. That it would be unified with our transportation sector through the new Volt like plug-in transportation appliances that are now at your local car dealer.

And of course I told them that Climate Change is real, and dangerous, and that we must deal with it now. I read quotes like this from the American Association for the Advancement of Science: "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society."

I told them that the Future will change us. I had lots of great graphs and pictures. I closed with that famous picture of "earth rising" taken by our astronauts and with that Bucky Fullers Dymaxion World map which depicts a connected earth if you just take a different point of view.

They were more interested in the guy who told them that the fuels of the future are the fuels of the past.....That the answers to our problems tomorrow are the problems of today.

Einstein often said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

He also said, "Reality is merely an illusion,

although a very persistent one”.

With these folks,

Illusion is Reality.


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The Day the Rain Stopped

We flew in from San Francisco yesterday and my window seat behind the bulkhead provided me a great view of the land below. And it was an eyeful. The parched earth below had a redness more like Mars than the Earth I remember. Like Mars, there are huge canals where water used to be.

True, no one actually can point to the day or even the month when the rain stopped, but we certainly know the year. It was 2011. Here in Central Texas we are headed for the driest year anyone of any age has experienced. We've had 7 inches of rain so far.

This comes from the Lower Colorado River Authority.

"With the extreme hot and dry weather showing no signs of relenting, LCRA forecasts that this drought could become the worst on record by early spring.

Given this forecast, LCRA’s Board of Directors decided Sept. 21 to ask the state for permission to significantly curtail or cut off water for downstream agricultural use next year if the levels of lakes Buchanan and Travis remain low. You can read more about that decision here.

The 11 months from October 2010 through August 2011 have been the driest for that 11-month period in Texas since 1895, when the state began keeping rainfall records. This summer in Texas has been the hottest in the country's history, according to the National Weather Service.

These historically hot and dry conditions have reduced the flow of water in the tributaries that feed the Highland Lakes, the region's water supply reservoirs, to a trickle. From January through August, the amount of water flowing into the lakes, called inflows, has been less than 10 percent of average. Inflows for June, July and August are less than one percent of average, making that three-month period the lowest for inflows of any three months in recorded history. September is on track to be the lowest single month for inflows on record, and 2011 is on pace to have the lowest inflows of any year in history."

My Partner and I see this at a ground zero level each Friday when we celebrate the end of the week by driving to the cove on the other side of the dam and swim in those remarkably clear waters. Each Friday, we see with our own eyes how the level has dropped. We now swim 50 feet below the rocks we used to sit on while dangling our feet in those limestone contained waters.

We watch as the Lake reverts back to what it was and is...a river canyon.

The politics of water are legion and they are intense. And with any understanding of the effects of Climate Change on the watersheds which give us our water supply, its easy to imagine that the politics of water treatment plants will soon give way to a far more grave scenario...diminishing supplies. This year, less than 100,000 acre feet flowed into the Highland Lakes. Our average is closer to 900,000.

Climate Change scientists have been warning us for 3 decades that the Southwest will become drier, and that the great western American deserts are moving east and north.

When you drive to Marathon and Alpine, you see trees, all kinds of trees, cedars, shrub oak, dying on the proverbial vine. In the real desert around Terlingua even the lechugea is giving up.

When I was a boy, I remember the dry times that were the 50s when Austin actually got less than 10 inches of rain in 1954. My home town in the Panhandle was the center of the dust bowl in the 30s. Yes, we can act like this is all natural, and remember that three years after those 9.98 inches of rain in 1954, we got 55 inches of rain in 1957, and that things will surely even out like they always do.

You can be satisfied in your wisdom based on your past experience.,

You can sort of believe all those Academies of Science representing the entire earth that are warning we Earthlings that we must change our energy systems and plan to adapt now. But, kind of like being a Methodist, you don't really believe. Not enough to change.

It won't be my house that burns to the ground, or my city that has no plan B for water, or my region that can no longer support its population, or our own nation that has no plan for Climate Change because of a broken political system which favors Capital over Community.

When the rain stops,

everything else follows.

And the Red States

will beg to be blue.

Again.

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The End of Work

Last night, as I drove by the offices of the AFL/CIO, there was a large picnic in their parking lot, just a few yards from the front lawn of the Texas state capitol. With Labor Day just around the corner, and with everyone talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, and practically no one doing anything about it, it, it, it seems like a timely subject to think about.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit.

By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

But today, the glory days of labor are long gone. Almost 36% of American workers were represented by unions in 1945.

Today, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union--is 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent a year earlier. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.

In 2010, 7.6 million public sector employees belonged to a union, compared with 7.1 million union workers in the private sector. The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.2 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers (6.9 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.3 percent. This group includes workers in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and fire fighters.

Private sector industries with high unionization rates included transportation and utilities (21.8 percent), telecommunications (15.8 percent), and construction (13.1percent).

Today most unions are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO created in 1955 and the Change to Win Federation, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.

Personally, I like Richard Trumka the President of the AFL-CIO. He's got the traits of Hoffa without the dumpster. His speech for Obama during the 08 campaign was a remarkable feat.

Ever since they passed the Taft Hartley Act, the R's have attacked unions. They are still doing it today. The would probably repeal Labor Day if they could. Instead, they will content themselves taking labor's rights away wherever they can, diminishing pensions whenever possible.

In a just world, unions might not be necessary. Or it could be argued they would be essential.

It used to be that it was in the best interests of Capital to build up a strong middle class with workers sending their sons and daughters to college to become lawyers and doctors. This kind of leavening of the society would bring more prosperity for all.

But the big markets are no longer primarily in US or in Europe. They are in China and India. And that means even tougher times for Trumka and his workers, as American bosses seek to compete in those burgeoning markets.

Sure, I wish the president would put everyone who wants to work to work-building fast trains, and renewable energy supplies, and fair housing, and all the other things that would bring us true prosperity and well being.

But if you didn't want to work, you should be given a minimum national salary, much like that socialist Richard Nixon proposed when he was president.

I suspect that won't happen.

For we have forgotten greatness,

And our super ego has us hypnotized.

For the End of Work

Is upon us.

We just don't know it yet.

Its a big job.

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Change the Frame

Many years ago, I was asked to be the host of a global climate change debate. "What's the format I asked?" There will be two on the climate change science side and two on the denier side they said. No thanks I said, the denier side wins with that kind of set up. If there were 9 on the science side and one on the denier side, that would more accurately reflect scientific opinion.

They assured me that would not happen, but urged me to reconsider, saying that I could make my position about the debate format clear. Well I did. And with the theatrics I created, I think the point was made. In fact, the guy from the Western Fuels Association pretty much came unglued.

His frame had been undone.

Today we are being overwhelmed with another frame. That frame is that the US is broke, that we must make huge cuts in our government, that medicare, social security, Pell grants, and our hopes of a civil, compassionate, and enlightened future must all be reconsidered. We are broke.

This is the ultimate capitalist frame.

Even as these same corporations and individuals enjoy some of the largest profits in their history and in the history of humankind, they are using their ownership of the media to convince their flocks that indeed the good old days of plenty of grass, plentiful spring water, and shelter from winter storms are over. We have spent too much money on those things, and now we will need to cut that back. It reminds me of the chocolate reductions in Orwell's 1984.

And don't think it's just the Rs. The D's are right there with them, creating the back side of the tsunami wave that is inundating the collective thought forms of so many.

So, here's my list of the myths that have rushed over the levee of thoughtful discourse.

Myth Number One, "the government is like a household". Everytime you hear a politician tell you that we must get our fiscal house in order, that we, like any other home or business can't spend more than we take in, ask yourself, "but my household doesn't own a bank. My household doesn't own a federal reserve and a banking system that creates money whenever it likes". In fact, our national household probably could always spend more than it takes in. The real issue is why do we pay interest on our debt at all...the private banking sector creates money and though they charge us interest, they pocket that interest as profits.

Myth Number Two, "Money represents value". No, money is not value. Money isn't even money anymore. And if you are still using the printing press metaphor to describe its creation, you are hopelessly in the dark ages. Money is privilege. Those with it, have it, and those who don't, don't. Those who have it, don't want there to be too much of it. Otherwise their privilege is reduced. From a totally practical economic standpoint, money is lubrication. It makes things move easier and faster. Lots of money heats up the economy, less money cools it down.

Debt is the way the system generally creates money. Almost all growth comes from this created money. So debt is not bad in itself, especially if you have privilege. For Debt is the primary vehicle or money elevator that moves money up the privilege pyramid.

Three, the Capitalist system is democratic. No, our economic system is most definitely anti-democratic. It couldn't be more Monarchial and Kingdom-like. Corporations may let their stockholders vote, but like most autocratic organizations, there is only one slate of directors to vote for. And as corporations and the wealthy gain larger and larger shares of the total privilege pie, our own democratic systems become less and less able to function properly. They begin to function for and by the capitalist structures that control them. That is why the two party system of the US is simply a coin with left and right faces. I prefer the left, perhaps you like the right.

As long as the present system is allowed to run amuck, democracy will suffer. It could even succumb completely as a modestly informed, somewhat educated public is replaced by a public that has been lulled into unconsciousness by a steady stream of shaping, propaganda, and most recently, outright lies.

Myth number Four, "the present economic model is the best one we can imagine". Capitalism beat Communism, so therefore it is the best for humankind. (Actually China makes mincemeat of that ridiculous notion) There are tens of millions of folks in Africa, India, and in your home town who would beg to differ. Many are starving today. Many many more will come. And as climate change moves over the land, their numbers will multiply.

I marvel how a rather straightforward truth about the efficiency of free markets has morphed into the religion of our age. "Let the market work", say seemingly sane educated people. These Chicago educated followers of the Guru of Markets have deregulated the airlines, water systems, some electric grids, and the result is almost always less service and less reliability, at the occassional lower price. (It should be cheaper, it's crappier)

Myth number Five, "the Debt Ceiling talks are a crisis". No, this is not a crisis, it is a coup, the ultimate Capitalist coup. And like any other coup attempt, the President should step forward, use the 14th amendment, exert emergency powers, and put an end to it.

Then we change the frame.

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Respectism and The Endeavour for a Respectul Society

Respectism is the belief that a respectful society is a pragmatic necessity for survival.

A respectful society is defined as a society based on individual and institutional respect for self, others and place.

When we talk about containing pollution or genocide or nuclear weapons, it is surprising that we have not recognized the central truth: We are the problem.

At this late date, too few have recognized the most basic political issue: We have got to get along better, or we will kill ourselves off.

There is a failure of respect among the human beings that connects the big fist hitting the child next door to the bomb that goes off in the crowd on the other side of the world.

Until the truth about the universal failure of basic respect is recognized and addressed by enough of us, we will never be able to solve the perilous riddle of how to survive our weapons and our waste.

Not everyone is ready to believe that a more respectful society is essential to our survival.

Throughout history, there have been selfish and mean leaders, those who have willingly followed them, and those who have said we will never change.

For a more respectful society to exist, those of us who believe basic respect should be extended to all human beings, and to our fragile home under the sky, will want to do the following.

First, individual and institutional respect for self, others and place will have to be relentlessly advertised.

Second, fair dealing, based on listening dialogue and honest negotiation, must be promoted as the norm in public and private life including governance, economic exchange and the meeting of basic human needs.

Third, the success of a respectful society must be measured in the decrease of all acts and threats of violence and involuntary detention including those needed for true self-defense of the individual or society.

Fourth, the abusive must be respectfully kept from power, and the personality types of those who rule through fear, abuse, exploitation of prejudice and distortion of principles must be commonly recognized in order to assist with that endeavour.

Fifth, the principles of a respectful society must be kept simple and clear enough for young children to learn, adults to believe and the weak to own as well as the powerful, so that respectism is never confused with authoritarianism, or made the enemy of liberty and equality.

If a respectful society seems like an idealistic fantasy, please answer this question: "How will we survive without changing our behavior towards one another?"

No one knows exactly how we will create a respectful society anymore than the inventors of the first flying machine could have imagined a space shuttle.

We must start performing countless experiments in respect, if we are to survive.

We should start now.

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