Welcome

WELCOME TO THE GREEN PEN!

It's my personal soapbox, a place for me to express thoughts and feelings, musings and rants, reflections and recollections; to have fun with words -- about things spiritual, environmental, social, political, economic, and, from time to time, personal. And of course about peace. Soapboxes are in public places (as London's legendary Hyde Park) on purpose, and so I invite conversations with you, for it is through civil discourse that we can gain some perspective on the seeming chaos of these changing times and learn together how to shape a positive future for ourselves, our communities, and the generations to come.

Friday, April 19, 2019

The Green New Deal: A Youth Movement for Holistic Advance in Human Evolution


The Green New Deal. Yes, it is a resolution formally submitted to the U.S. Congress by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey. Yet it is so much more than that.

It is part of a global youth-led movement that presents a vision for a sustainable and resilient future based on social, economic, and Earth justice. And it outlines a path for realizing that vision within one generation. Ocasio-Cortez describes it eloquently in her short video, A Message from the Future.

"It Can't Happen Here" - Or can it?



It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, and a 1936 play adapted from the novel by Lewis and John C. Moffitt. Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. 

But it can’t really happen here. Can it?

All-Systems Change for Life


Buckminster Fuller famously said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Well, maybe not “never.” Sometimes it does help to give the existing reality a nudge or two. But that alone, while possibly causing change, will not necessarily bring about life-enhancing change. In this time of all-systems breakdown and breakthrough, The Next System Project is doing just that, coming up with holistic, systemic, ideas for how we might evolve our human-created systems to be more in alignment with Earth, with Life.