Daily the news is disconcerting. There is no end to the egregious excesses and vast injustices we are witnessing. Governments have become nothing but lapdogs for big business and banks. Corruption has become de rigeur and resentment is growing beneath the surface everywhere.
We are no longer a republic. We are now an empire and all empires fail due to debt and arrogance.
Here in Sonoma County, we are at a cross roads. Our land, which is our heritage, has been usurped by big business, private equity, hedge funds and institutional investors thanks to cheap money much of which is pretty dirty (courtesy of the Federal Reserve.) None of this would have occurred had there been regulation, a gold standard, the Glass Steagall Act, and the abolition of the fractal reserve system. QE means only one thing now and that is deference. Pensions are losing money and governments will implement higher taxes. Hence history will repeat itself. This is what destroyed the Roman Empire.
Is true democracy possible? I believe so because democracy is what it means to be fully human. In order for that to occur, it will take enough people realizing that it is human to be concerned about all of life. It is human to love and that if we do anything less, we dehumanize ourselves. But it must begin with ourselves, first and foremost, and that very well might be the shot heard around the world.