THE GREAT DEPRESSION II

I am giving you here a recent dialogue about anger and social change (this last week) between me and Derrick Jensen and David Korten, and some excerpts from my new autobiography. I think this is some of the greatest writing and the finest discussion you will get a chance to pay attention to in this day and age. I love this conversation and think it is breaking new ground in terms of contextual thinking. These quote from The Progressive and three short paragraphs are the context within which our conversation occurs. This ezine is one you will want to read and keep and pass on to your friends. Or not.

"The gap between rich and poor in the United States has widened exponentially over the past three decades. The Congressional Budget Office reports that since 1979, the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners have seen their incomes shoot up by a 229 percent during that same period. Under the Bush administration, the average income of most Americans has fallen, but the average income of top wage earners (those above the 95 percentile range) has increased from $324,427 in 2001 to $385,805 in 2006. Only one other year has seen a comparable income gap: 1928, the year before the Great Depression."

World War one used to be called the Great War, or The World War, and then the name got changed to World War One when the second world war came along and they named it World War II. The depression that happened in the 1930’s used to be called The Great Depression. The history books will all be changed like they were before and that will be called The First Great Depression, or Great Depression I. That may be soon.

If Barack Obama gets elected and gets killed and the American economy collapses completely and the world economy follows suit and there is not enough water and fuel and food and you name it, you and I are going to need some skills and friends and capabilities that we are not currently in possession of or do not have honed.

If Obama gets elected and doesn’t get killed and the American economy doesn’t collapse, etc., we might be able help to bring about a reinvention of how people live together in the world. Those are the catastrophic and anastrophic expectations. The most likely reality will probably be half way in between those two predictions, neither the worst or the best. Prepare yourself to contribute to the great re-design, or maybe I should say, Redesign I.

From David Korten:

Brad: I'm contacting you at the suggestion of Thomas Bruck who called my attention to the fact that you are promoting my book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. I'm honored by your endorsement and am always pleased to connect with fellow truth tellers. David Korten

Brad Blanton responds: (and copies Derrick Jensen and others he'd previously mentioned)

You are quite welcome David. We have been buying 20 of your books at a time and are suggesting that, particularly people in my training program, read your book after reading some by myself, Micheal Brown and Derrick Jensen. (To read the entire dialogue and a little more, click here)