Robert Kennedy Sr. on the limitations of our way of measuring national well being: GNP

Consider this beautiful message from the late Robert Kennedy (father of leading activist Robert Kennedy, Jr.) :

"The Gross National Product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear out highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for people who break them. GNP includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and nuclear warheads... and if GNP includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend.

"It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. it is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials... GNP measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

Have you actually read, or even heard of, the UN Millenium Development Goals?

Many of us are attuned to the idea of "you have to have specific goals to achieve what you want" or new movies like "The Secret"( http://thesecret.tv/home.html )to help align us with the alchemy of manifestation...

Well, as a community of human beings all around the world, we are to gain by having specific goals to increase well being of our human family. And by putting our mind to these goals as a human family, they can be achieved!

Along those lines, global leaders gathered at the UN in September 2000 to set goals for a better life for our brothers and sisters around the world.

The Millenium Development Goals are a set of goals made for a just and sustainable civilization on this planet.

They stated it is our "collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human
dignity, equality and equity at the global level."

I would agree. Who wouldn't? Many don't.

Let's hold this vision for a better world by envisioning and learning more about how we can support the attainment of these goals:

1- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2 - Achieve universal primary education.
3 - Promote gender equality and empower women.
4 - Reduce child mortality.
5 - Improve Maternal health.
6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases.
7 - Ensure Environmental Sustainability.
8 - Develop a global partnership for development.

The goals target dates are 2015

Learn more:

Detailed Progress report 2006 : http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Evolve? Or learn to Be Evolution?

YOU are the edge of evolution.

What does evolution have to do with Wealth? Sustainability? Happiness? Quality of Life?

A close friend of mine just sent me some clues in an article by great thinker Tom Atlee who is founder of The Co-Intelligence Institute.

I'll give you a hint of my thinking from Tom's article below "flourishing." Now think about it, isn't the aim to flourish is at the heart of much of our striving?

Hmmm.... read below, and the article in the following link, and I'll let you decide for yourself....

Tom's article is titled "Learning to Be Evolution" enjoy!

"Learning from evolution how to be evolution

Lessons from our long evolutionary journey offer rich sources of guidance about how to consciously participate in the evolutionary process. Taking this guidance seriously can help us transform ourselves, our consciousness, our social systems and cultures, and our technologies in ways that serve our long-term collective flourishing as part of a flourishing Earth.

Here are just a few of the evolutionary dynamics and opportunities we can explore and use, which are described further at the end of this article. A major project of the Co-Intelligence Institute now is researching more of them, and how to best apply them all, and spreading that new old knowledge.

1. LOVE AT THE CORE. Our common past makes us kin, and deep inside we know it. We are wholeness enroute to new wholeness. This deep truth can be called forth to help us resonate with each other. Much of what we need to do next taps into this powerful fact of life.

2. A NEW DANCE OF COOPERATION AND COMPETITION. Evolution has evolved with cooperation enhancing competitiveness. As we become a global society, competition will necessarily evolve to support cooperation.

3. SYNERGY BETWEEN SELF AND WHOLE. Life on earth finds novel ways for self-interest and the whole to serve each other. We are called to create new ways to design this dynamic into complex 21st century societies.

4. HIGHER LEARNING. Evolution is, itself, a vast learning enterprise -- and emergence is its learning edge. That edge involves new forms of ongoing collective intelligence and wisdom, and reframing education to meet the challenges of conscious collective evolution. By its nature, learning on the edge requires a growing capacity to embrace the unknown.

5. SELF-ORGANIZATION AND EMERGENCE. Evolution starts simple and brings forth increasing complexity. At the same time, it creates remarkable ways for life to self-organize without top-down direction. Our social and technological complexity is now calling forth new forms of creative, conscious human self-organization.

6. EVOLVING CONSCIOUSNESS. Consciousness shapes social systems and culture -- and social systems and culture shape consciousness. This insight, combined with new and ancient methods of expanding consciousness, offer tremendous leverage for humanity's conscious evolution.

7. THE JUICE OF OUR DIFFERENCES. A major driver of evolution is the creative use of diversity, conflict, crisis and dissonance. And our uniqueness -- our individual specialness -- is a vast nascent resource for the world. These insights challenge us, in times of collective trauma, to move beyond peacemaking and crisis management to catalyzing inclusive evolutionary breakthroughs.

8. IT'S ABOUT PROCESS. The essence of evolution is the emergence of outcomes from powerful interactive processes. But it isn't about being attached to particular outcomes, since they, too, will change and evolve. If we want to become evolution, we would be wise to learn how to let go and focus on manifesting powerfully interactive, life-serving processes."

I strongly encourage you to read the entire article and more here at Tom's website:

http://www.co-intelligence.org/Evolution-Learning2BEvol.html