The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as our ideals. When at last we learn humility, our republic will bloom.

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Founding America

by Jacob Needleman
YES! A Journal of Postive Futures

I was born in Philadelphia and grew up loving America. My immigrant grandparents spoke with tears in their eyes of the goodness of this country, and to my father, Abraham Lincoln was just a little lower than God.

I remember the fervor with which we young children protected the flag. If you allowed the flag to fall, even if it barely brushed the ground, and even if it was only one of those cheap paper penny flags that abounded on the Fourth of July, touching the flag to the ground was a grave sin that could be redeemed only by instantly kissing it.

I loved America. Down deep I still do–as do most of us, no matter what we may condemn as unjust, ugly, or evil about this country.

The Inner America

As a child, when I loved America, I loved freedom, hope, nature. I loved, in my childlike way, the authentic inner possibilities of human existence. If we see only the conformity, corruption, rank injustice, materialism, superficiality and vulgarity, meta-physical squalor, and blind attachment to physical comfort, then I see the death of America. But if we look more deeply, we may still see a nation and a people granted for a brief moment the material and spiritual conditions enabling us to step into the real future of humanity, the future of the developing soul.

We find evidence of the great gifts of America by looking at some of the insights left to us by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Peacemaker of the Haudenosaunee, Frederick Douglass, and other founders of America. They passionately strove to create a place where the Good–some called it God, others called it Reason–could enter human life.

The Great Peacemaker

One of our earliest founders lived well before Columbus discovered America. The Great Peacemaker is said to have been born in the Great Lakes region of North America sometime around 1000AD. His people, the Haudenosaunee, now called the Iroquois, were beset by endless conflict. Village fought village. Blood raids led to retaliation. No one believed there was a way out. Then came the time of the Great Peacemaker.

… When he comes of age, the Great Peacemaker tells his grandmother and his mother that his time has come to seek out other tribes and nations and bring the message of peace. He sets off in his canoe, scanning the horizon for rising smoke. Day after day he sees nothing, for all the settlements are now hidden in the hills to protect themselves from the war parties plaguing the land.

Finally, the Great Peacemaker sees hunters running along a barren shore. He beaches his canoe and says to them, ìGo back to your settlement and tell your chief that a new and good message has come, the message of peace that is power.”

When the tribal chief hears their news, he asks the hunters, ìWho told you this?”

ìHe is called the Great Peacemaker in the world.”

The chief wonders at this and asks, his eyes turning toward the stockades that hold his starving, quarreling people, ìHow could it be? From what source will such peace come?”

The hunters reply simply: ìIt will come.”

The hunters´ strength of conviction fully opens the chief´s mind to his own faith that in the world of man there is a force of peace that can come to the people if only they will turn their minds to it.

ìTruly,” he says, ìthis is a wonderful thing. This news of itself will bring the beginning of peace to our people if once they can hear it and understand it and believe it. It will begin to free their minds of the hatred that comes from fear.”

The Great Peacemaker passed from settlement to settlement, and the same scene was repeated with each of the chiefs as they were quickly convinced of the power of peace.

Why should these proud nations and warriors so readily accept the message of peace? Not because they were afraid of war. The message is accepted not only in the hope of being freed of something negative, but also because they glimpse a peace that is infinitely more honorable than war and more active. This peace demands a higher level of courage and sacrifice than war. It is neither static nor dull; nor is it a fantasy of endless pleasure. It is a force that can harmonize the actions and impulses of human life in all their multiplicity. It is a unifying energy that paradoxically allows each element to flourish in its individuality. It is the call to serve that which is far greater than oneself. Who would not agree to this peace?

This is just one part of the longer Haudenosaunee story. It tells of a messenger, sent by the Creator, who leads the people back to their true path and guides their creation of a constitution known as the Great Peace. Its laws enable humanity to live as one family and to permit the power of divine peace and harmony to enter their lives. The Great Peace has ruled Haudenosaunee society since then, embodying principles similar to those that later found expression in the governance of the United States.

George Washington´s defense of liberty

George Washington´s stature and legacy derived not primarily from what he did, but from what he did not do. Ironically, our nation, which thrives on ever-accelerating outward motion and ìdoing,” began with a man whose action was a renunciation of action.

Consider his resignation in 1783 as commander-in-chief of the American forces, a step that historian Gordon S. Wood calls ìthe greatest act of his life.

ìIt was extraordinary,” Wood writes. ìIt was unprecedented in modern times–a victorious general surrendering his arms and returning to his farm. … Though it was widely thought that Washington could have become king or dictator, he wanted nothing of the kind.

Historians cite numerous personal reasons for Washington´s decision. But the most telling was that he stepped down in order to preserve the essence of the American republic.

Had Washington died in office, the presidency probably would have become a lifelong position of individual power, comparable to that of monarch. But Washington´s withdrawal allowed an election to take place with his approval. His stepping down signified that the people and the Constitution are the only rightful source of authority in the new nation.

By stepping down, Washington made room for something greater than human pride. Surely, no healthier redefinition of the idea of will can be imagined: the voluntary surrender of accumulated personal power for the common good.

Thomas Jefferson´s Bill of Rights

When Thomas Jefferson first saw a draft of the Constitution, he immediately urged that the Bill of Rights be added. Why did he believe it was necessary to add these guarantees of freedom of religion, speech, the press, the right to assembly, the right to petition for redress of grievances, and all the rights protecting the individual in matters of law, arrest, privacy, and personal security?

ìHuman rights” for Jefferson did not mean solely the right not to be interfered with by government. It meant the right to pursue one´s authentic obligations as a God-created and potentially godlike human being through the latent power of divine reason (or conscience) within oneself.

Democracy, Jefferson maintained, must be neutral with respect to sectarian religion, but positive spiritually and morally. Freedom of religion also meant freedom from religion, that is, freedom from imposed or suggested beliefs. Only within the frame of this freedom could individuals discover the moral and spiritual power of reason within themselves.

For Jefferson, the aim of self-government was not the satisfaction of desires, but the incarnation of our free will. The pursuit of happiness, as Jefferson and the Founding Fathers understood it, is not the pursuit of consumer products. The happiness Jefferson spoke of is a matter of the human spirit, our moral and intellectual faculties in harmony with nature.

Jefferson saw clearly the dark side of human nature and sought a form of government that would keep this aspect under control through a mechanism of force and counterforce resembling the way nature itself works. But he also passionately believed in the capacity of individual human beings to grow under specific conditions of communal life and individual effort. These conditions combine the development of the mind through free intellectual intercourse and free access to knowledge; the feelings, through the struggle to allow one´s neighbor the right to his opinion and his place in the social order; and the physical organic substrate of human nature through a life in direct contact with the Earth and its rhythms, its demands, its bounty, and its severity–namely through a life rooted in agriculture.

Democracy as a political system was to be the skin and bones that supported and protected the pulsing movement of human life toward the goal of individual obedience to reason and conscience, ìNature´s God” within oneself. The new government, in Jefferson´s eyes, should be an armor that would allow and support the growth of moral power within the individual members of the society.

Frederick Douglass and America´s heart

On July 1, 1852, Frederick Douglass was the honored speaker at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Born into slavery in 1818, Douglass escaped to the North at the age of 20. He traveled throughout the northern states speaking about the meaning for America of slavery and its horrors, and became widely respected for his courage and intellect.

The bitter irony of a black man being invited to celebrate the Fourth of July was not lost on him–and he made certain it would not be lost on his audience.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? Ö The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?

It was precisely because America was only recently conceived as an expression of humanity´s greatest moral ideals that its contradictions and failure called out so clearly. It was America´s greatness that makes its evil so clear and so shocking. In accepting the contradiction of slavery, America had lost its soul.

Look at yourself, said Douglass to America. Look at what you are and measure it against what you imagine you are and what your conscience tells you you must be. Be shocked, America! Be stunned, be overwhelmed by what you see, and feel at the center of your being the purifying fire of remorse.

Douglass then called for that rarest of movements a human being can make–a fusion of inner opening and decisive outer action. Feel the truth of what you are, America, and at the same moment act! Risk yourself for what you know is right and true. It was what Douglass himself had done when, as a 16-year-old slave, he committed the unthinkable act of physically turning against his slavemaster.

The hope of America cannot be renewed without acknowledging the reality of slavery and allowing its consequences to speak their truth to our hearts and minds. Seen in their universal meaning, America´s fundamental failures enable us to root our moral actions in the harsh soil of history, rather than in a vague and anxious self-condemnation or a mindless fog of self-justification. It is by facing our nightmares that we may pull ourselves free from America´s futile dreams of progress and face our role in the barbarism that has so deeply stained the fabric of human history.

American seekers When we accept these truths about ourselves–both our triumphs and our failures–how will the story of America change? Will our heroes no longer be heroes? Our triumphs no longer triumphs? Not at all. Instead, something entirely new and necessary will fill every limb and cell of the story of America, and that ìsomething” has a very precise designation–humility and remorse.

I seek neither to revile nor to romanticize the actions and actors of America´s past. The cultural hero of the present age is no longer the Warrior or the Savior or the Adventurer, the Lover, or the Wise Man. It is the Seeker. Our heroes will remain heroes, but now more clearly heroes of both the inner and the outer worlds of history.

We ask for a vision of America that can help us see more clearly what we actually are and what we can work to become. This is the same kind of vision that we need as individuals struggling for self-knowledge and moral power. Like America itself, we must discover how to look impartially at both our inner greatness and our profound weaknesses–self-deception, arrogance, and betrayal.

America is an original expression of ideas that have always been part of the great web of Truth. Explicitly and implicitly, the idea of America has resonated with this ancient, timeless wisdom and has allowed something of its power to touch the heart and mind of humanity. We must recover this resonance, this relationship, however tenuous and partial, between the teachings of wisdom and the idea of America.

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Adapted from The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders, by Jacob Needleman, published in Feb. 2002 by Tarcher/Putnam, NY. (Amazon) 

This is the Land, by Carlos Cortez, reprinted with permission of Charles H. Kerr Publishers

This article was reposted from YES! A Journal of Postive Futures.

On the Art of Losing Money

Daan Joubert

Making money on the Stock Exchange is easy. All one has to do is wait for the start of a long bull market, invest your money and wait until the top is reached. Then sell and bank the profit until the beginning of the next bull market. Actually very simple.

Of course, some people think making money is hard work. They are always reading the financial pages, subscribe to letters on stock selection, viewing the financial channels and spend hours in front of computers massaging the prices of a host of stocks in every which way, using the charts to pick up the next Intel or Cisco or Microsoft early in its career.

What the people do not realise is that there was only one Microsoft, or Cisco, but there are many more Amazon´s and eBay´s and Pets.com´s (if one got in early enough!!) and Wal-Mart´s. One should simply spread one´s money around across enough stocks and sectors – preferably disregarding Transports, Utilities and the Dow giants and, of course, gold, although that might be changing. The return over time will balance out between the good and the very good performers and the gains will pour into the bank.

But only during primary bull markets, of course.

However, if making money is easy, losing money is an art. Many people daub paint at canvas and think themselves artists, but the work of the true artist stands out from the rest, easy to recognise as superior talent. The same is true of losing money on stocks. There are the amateurs and then there are the masters.

The art of losing money on stocks

As we all know, to be good at art is mostly in your genes. Learning to drive is a skill, and most people can master it, more or less, given sufficient interest and practice. And of course , survival. On the other hand, driving poorly is an art, and as for any art, one must have the right genes, too. A skill one can learn, given enough time and practice; to be good at an art is mostly hereditary.

The inbred, and subsequently well practiced, ability to select a loser is the most important element in the art of losing money on stocks. It does not come easy. In a bull market very few stocks are losers and it takes way above average insight and understanding – some would say clairvoyance – to recognise a loser before it really starts to lose money. Of course, it is always easy to spot the loser once it had lost 20% or 30%. Or 70%.

[As an aside, market analysts must be among those with the right genes. Their ability to spot a loser and recommend its purchase to their readers is often of a very high standard. Not for them the warning to avoid these stocks - no; they are nothing if not consistent in their recommendations to purchase these stocks even as the price falls through the 50% level from the high, seemingly intent to cover the remaining 50% in record time. People who have problems losing money on their own initiative could do worse than follow the market analysts.]

In a bear market most investors lose money – then it takes the true artist at losing to pick the real winners, those stocks that collapse by 40% or 50% or, glory be, the ones that straight line it down for 80% or 90% and wipe out almost the whole investment in one go. And when one succeeds in picking a future ‘ten-center´ while it is still trading at $10 or perhaps $25, what a pleasure!!!

Once the purchase of the loser has been made, the process of losing money becomes almost automatic. Some faint hearted people do not know or understand the joy and tense expectation that is experienced when a price goes down . . down . . down . . – the missed heartbeats when it looks as if it might all be in vain, when the price turns around and starts improving rapidly, then the rapturous feeling when the price suddenly reverses and plunges to new lows. These dum-dums they chicken out far too early and close out their positions, but they do not know what they are missing. Dilettantes, not true artists.

Oh, you say because most people lose money in a bear market it is not an art?

Yes, losing money is easy, once a bear market starts. What makes the difference – what distinguished the true artist from the plebs – is style. Picking the real losers from among the also rans, as explained above. That is why losing money is an art – the subject of this treatise. Everyone can use brute force and blindly stay long beyond the end of the bull market and well into the next bear market. That is common place; even people who do not understand the difference between a stock and a bond, or between the NYSE and Comex, nor know a put from a call if one should happen to come for a visit, even they find it easy to overstay their welcome in a bull market and then lose money in a bear market.

So just losing money in a bear market doesn´t count. It is the way it is done, with panache and finesse, and – most importantly – the flair to select the real losers that count.

Discipline, discipline, discipline!

As mentioned, the first step in losing money is to identify a good loser (which of course becomes a winner when it loses enough money!).

Once this important hurdle has been crossed, the key to the quality of the artistry on display can be found in the size of the investment. It is easy to recognise people who will never amount to much in the select world of losing artists. They ponder long and hard before staking only a fraction of their wealth on what is clearly going to be a real loser.

The Picasso´s and the Rembrandt´s of the stock market plunge their whole stake into the market on the basis of “winner loses (nearly) all” – and what makes it all so exciting and so thrilling is that sudden and steep bear market rallies may trip up the unwary loser and may even saddle him with a profit!

“Faint heart never won fair lady”, is often heard in affairs of the marriage route. The same is true of the joys and pleasures of losing in the stock market. Never a faint heart be – be a devil and take the plunge!

Once the chips are down and the game begins – and the losses start to mount! – good care must be taken not to succumb to the very strong temptations that will soon be tugging at the conscience. This is where the three main requirements for success come in: they are discipline, discipline and discipline.

Stick to the rules that are given at the end of the article. Do not deviate.

The real, true artist must be able to distance himself – this chauvinistic pronoun is used intentionally; men are much better than the opposite sex at the fine art of losing money – from the distractions that try to pull him away from his magnum opus.

These distractions can be minor, such as the fading memory of the Ferrari that he has been ogling for three years now, long hoping that he could lay his hands on the extra $50 000 he needed to make the top of the line his own. Or perhaps the skiing holiday in St Moritz that he may just as well cancel now that it is turning into spring. It gets much more tough to stick to the discipline, though, when one has to find an excuse not to take the family to the local five star restaurants, but has to sidestep the issue with, “The McDonalds advertisements have become so cute now, perhaps we should support them, too, occasionally.”

It gets downright dangerous for the loser´s mental health when he sits and watches his money disappear while his wife is trying to arrange a loan from Father-in-law so that the mortgage installment will actually get paid at the end of this month now that the warning letters for the three missed installments have arrived. If the banks only knew how distracting those letters are to one who is intent on setting a record loss for the quarter, they would reconsider the practice.

While it is undoubtedly the weakling´s way out, perhaps one should fund a small trust for the wife and kids, even sticking the house into the trust as well – just to get them and their nagging off one´s back to ensure peace and quiet while one goes the whole hog with the rest of the household wealth.

If the expert artist can deal successfully with these extraneous events and other intrusions that threaten to shatter his concentration, the point will eventually be reached when the second most important decision has to be made – only second in importance to the one that selected the loser in the first place.

When to sell?

Sell too early and then one has to watch in disbelief as the price keeps on falling. Sell too late and then the disappointment of missing the true bottom will linger for a long time.

Heretics who believe in that abomination known as a “stop loss” just do not know the pure joy one experiences from that most difficult feat – selling right at the bottom. That is the true pinnacle! (Not even the rare occasion when one manages to buy right at the top comes near, although that achievement too is one to tell envious cronies over and over at the local pub. A spirited rendition of how it felt when the stock was delisted with no remaining value is sure to have one of the listeners order another round.)

Ah! How rare is that most exquisite of triumphs, when one attains the “Perfect Double” – buying right at the top of a bull trend in the chosen stock and then managing to sell right at the bottom of its bear trend. Magnificent! Particularly if the selection had been a good one that lost more than 80% on the way down. Or even a heady 90%!

That is what dreams are made of! Despite its lure, and the great effort all losers expend in pursuit of this most glorious achievement, very, very few taste this kind of success even once in a lifetime of trading.

Of course, the fact that the trading career of most losers is of limited duration may have something to do with it.

Throughout this, there is one cardinal rule that MUST be obeyed at all times!! This is the principle of STOP PROFIT! If one buys a stock and the price insists on going higher, it is imperative to sell very soon, immediately the rising trend is confirmed. One can always use the excuse of, “It is wise to bank a profit before it turns into a loss.”, or “Nobody went broke taking a profit”, to bluff those acquaintances who have the perverse desire to make money on the stock exchange. For one´s colleagues in the losing stakes, a better excuse will be that on occasion one has to accept a profit, building a stake while waiting for the right opportunity to pick a loser.

Just like the pigments and brushes painters must have if they are to practice their art, the loser has to have money to begin with. Some inherit it and others have to save for a long time before they have a stake to lose. Then, at times one has to pocket one´s pride and accept it from wherever it comes – even from a profit.

Provided it is not too large and does not happen too often.

Conclusion

For all aspiring losers out there, novices as well as people who have been contemplating the market and wondering whether they should take the plunge – with the emphasis on the term “plunge!” – here are some hints:

During bull markets the real pro keeps his money in the bank. It is not worth the effort and risk to try and pick a loser when almost all stocks are hitting new highs every week. However, the novice may find that his bank roll is a little too thin to become a star at losing. In that case it is acceptable that the novice climbs in during the bull market to make as much money as possible. Provided he does not brag too often about it – remember, during a bull market it does not take any skill to make a profit. The whole herd is doing so.

When the bear market starts – that is the time to aim for. Make sure to speak to your bank manager about an overdraft and check what size mortgage you can get on the house.

Select a loser. Some experts say that the most likely losers are those stocks who have run the most during the bull market – particularly those who have kept on hitting new highs while the rest of the market was already under some pressure. Others say, “No. Go for the ones that have already been beaten down during the tail end of the bull market – now known as ‘value stocks´. They are the current dogs and when the bear market begins they will be beaten down even more.”

Do not spread your cash over too many stocks. Trust your judgment and stake it all on the one you believe will be the real loser of the bunch. Now don´t be chicken and go for a half hearted attempt!! Take the plunge! Jump in right at the deep end!

Seal yourself off from all distractions that might cause you to slip up and sell before the bottom is reached. However, if you do fail, bear up. There will always be another bear market a few years from now.

Remember, if your purchase was poorly timed and the price persists in increasing along with the rest if the bear market rally, there is an easy solution – the Stop Profit.

The sign of the master at losing is the “Average Down”. When it is evident that a true loser has been selected, purchase some more as the price plummets. This is the time when a mortgage on the house can really come in handy – why look around for other stocks to shift into when you have been so spot on in your selection. Double up and make sure you lose the lot!

Lastly, and the very most important – Close your ears to the heresy of a “Stop Loss”. Many a true losing artist has fallen by the wayside, never to realise the full potential of his natural talent, simply because some misguided soul has hypnotised him and enticed him into that abominable practice.

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The above is not written in jest, nor in ignorance.

It is the result of a lifetime of observation and personal experience that speaks.

Losers, listen. Success winks. Simply follow the rules. Enjoy!

 

© 2000-2002 Daan Joubert

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Daan Joubert is an independent market analyst. Trained originally as a physicist, he did research on cosmic radiation in Antarctica where he was the leader of the South Afrikan SANAE team. He has also worked as a systems software engineer, in management of information systems – MIS, and for the stockbroking firm of Barnard Jacobs and Mellet. He currently makes his home in South Afrika.

More by DAAN JOUBERT

What Is Real Security ?

by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins
YES! A Journal of Postive Futures

America’s security faces many serious threats. Strategic planners, however, have tended to focus almost exclusively on the military threat. They have largely ignored equally grave vulnerabilities in vital life-support systems such as our energy, water, food, data processing, and telecommunications networks. And they have likewise neglected to safeguard the national assets that form the foundation of our security.

In our 1982 Pentagon study Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security, we found that a handful of people could shut down three-quarters of the oil and gas supplies to the eastern states, cut the power to any major city, or kill millions by damaging a nuclear power plant. Such hazards remain real today. Between April 25 and May 11, 2001, for example, infiltrators accessed the computer system of the California Independent System Operator, the agency that operates California´s power distribution network, potentially gaining the capability to black out whole cities, and cause physical damage to equipment.

Reliance on fossil fuels and their extended pipelines contributes to our insecurity. Even where fuel is extracted from politically stable regions, it must be safely transported via accident-prone ships, trucks, rail, or pipeline. On October 4, 2001, a drunk shot a bullet through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, shutting it down for 60 hours and spilling 285,000 gallons of oil. Previously, the pipeline has been shot at on over 50 occasions. A disgruntled engineer´s plot to blow up critical points then profit from oil futures trading was thwarted by luck two years ago.

How, then, can America become less vulnerable to attack and more resilient to mishaps that do occur? How can we prepare for a future that may hold increasing uncertainty, unrest, and even violence? The answer may be found by basing engineering on nature. Natural systems are efficient, diverse, dispersed, and renewable, hence, inherently resilient.

The most resilience per dollar invested comes from using energy very efficiently. Minimizing energy waste both eliminates dependence on the most vulnerable sources (such as oil from the Persian Gulf) and makes energy failures milder, slower, and easier to fix. Efficiency is also the cheapest way to meet our energy needs.

During 1979–85, energy savings enabled GNP to rise by 16 percent while oil use fell 15 percent and Persian Gulf imports fell 87 percent. This was primarily achieved by making cars more efficient. Just making cars about three miles per gallon more efficient could eliminate all Persian Gulf oil imports. Did we put our young people in 0.6 mile per gallon army tanks because we did not put them in 32 mile per gallon cars?

Another key to resilience is to replace centralized energy sources gradually with many richly interconnected dispersed ones. This is the strategy of a tree that has many leaves, each with many veins, so that the random nibbling of insects won´t disrupt the vital flow of nutrients. The value of dispersion was proven in the Northeast Blackout of 1965, when a power engineer in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was able to unhook the city from the collapsing grid and connect instead to a local gas turbine. The money saved by not having to black out Holyoke paid off the cost of building that power plant in four hours. More recently, in Sacramento, citizens suffered none of the power shortages or price spikes that other Californians faced. About ten years ago the city voted to shut down the troubled nuclear plant that provided nearly half its power. Instead, Sacramento invested in efficiency and a diverse supply mix emphasizing renewables and distributed generation. These investments boosted county economic output by $185 million and added 2,946 employee-years of net jobs. Efficiency plus a diverse, often decentralized, supply portfolio kept electricity supplies reliable and constant-price during California´s power emergencies.

As the Sacramento example shows, dispersed energy systems don´t cost more; indeed, they´re already winning in the marketplace. Major homebuilders nationwide expect to enjoy a marketing edge by providing hundreds of grid-connected rooftop-solar systems on new housing developments; indeed, five Sacramento projects already offer solar power as standard equipment.

Central power stations, no matter how well engineered, can´t supply really cheap electricity and simply cannot be made secure. The power lines that deliver the electricity cost more than the generators and cause almost all power failures. On-site and neighborhood micro-power is cheaper and eliminates grid losses and glitches. Rooftop photovoltaic systems, fuel cells, or biomass-fed microturbine or engine generators can be built on site to provide power for individual buildings or neighborhoods. When such systems fail, the effect is small and localized. If several small systems are interconnected, one failure may hardly be noticed. Widespread disruption of such a network would be difficult because it would require too many agents and too much coordination.

Dispersed systems are even more reliable when they use renewable energy sources. Thus, Department of Energy officials in 1980 had just cut the ribbon on a West Chicago solar-powered gas station when a thunderstorm blacked out the city. That was the only station pumping gas that afternoon. Manhattan´s CondÈ Nast office tower recruited tenants at premium rents by offering the two most reliable known power supplies, fuel and solar cells, incorporated into the building.

The importance of energy resilience to national security may hold wider lessons. First, focusing exclusively on centralized military planning to counter overt military threats may create costly frontal fortification while the back door stands ajar. Indeed, there are many back doors. The average molecule of food is shipped some 1,300 miles before an American eats it. Damage a few Mississippi River bridges and easterners will soon starve. A malicious PC user could probably crash the whole financial system. There are doubtless other key vulnerabilities not yet discovered, and security experts are only now starting to think about how to reduce them.

Whatever military might has accomplished, then, it has not yet made us truly secure. Perhaps it never will. The roots of real security go deeper than armies and missiles alone. The parable of energy security reminds us that real security in its widest sense begins at home and is strengthened by self-sufficient, decentralized, sustainable communities.

Even more basic in our quest for real security, we should understand the role of our nation´s strategic assets. These include a geography that shields us against physical invasion from overseas; a freedom of expression that shields us from ideological invasion by exposing concepts to the critical scrutiny of an informed public; an ecosystem much of whose once unique fertility can still be rescued from degradation; a diverse, ingenious, and independent people; and a richly inspiring body of political and spiritual values. To mature within these outward strengths–strengths more fundamental and lasting than any inventory of weaponry–will require us to remain inwardly strong, confident in our lives and liberties no matter what surprises may occur. This in turn will demand a continuing American revolution that expresses in works a sincere faith in individual and community effort. It was this faith that inspired our Republic, long before strategists became preoccupied with the narrower and more evanescent kinds of security that only a faraway government could provide. It is that faith today, the very marrow of our political system, which alone can give us real security.

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Hunter and Amory Lovins founded and lead Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit applied-research center that fosters efficient and restorative use of resources to help make the world secure, prosperous, and life-sustaining.

Fear will hold you prisoner

Joanna Frizzell

 ”Fear will hold you prisoner, but love will set you free. Come on Joanna, you can do it. Breathe in….breathe out. Have faith in yourself and in this world, you’re going to die someday anyway so why not make it worthwhile.” I constantly repeat this little paragraph in my head trying to soothe my nervous tension, trying to stir up as much inspiration and motivation as I can. Most of the time quotes and positive thinking puts me right back on track, but lately words have not been of much help. I watch the news and interact with my fellow southern Iowan country- folk, and it only brings worry to my mind and sorrow to my heart.

Everywhere I look all I see is fear. My mother and friends constantly talk about how the United States will only become more of a police state as more and more laws are passed freeing authorities to invade upon our privacy as they see fit. I listen to the daily news as they tell me about new security measures being taken and the billions and billions of dollars it is costing us. And I wonder if it will help one bit. Will it protect us from the rest of the world and all the danger associated with it? Will it protect us from ourselves? I really don’t think so. Thomas Jefferson said,”Those willing to sacrifice freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either.” To me security on this earthly plane is only an illusion. Living is a risk. This world poses challenges and threats day in and day out. From day one it has been a struggle to survive for any inhabitant upon this earth.

Our fear comes from what we do not know (ex. fear of death and the afterworld) and what we cannot control (ex. fear of aging). In reality we have absolutely no control over anything except for ourselves and our own behavior. The most secure people I have ever met all had these things in common; they had the complete faith in themselves, in humanity, in this world, and in the afterworld. They were tolerant, patient, loving, unjudgemental, humble people. And you know what? It was not an easy road to walk down for any of them. It took a lot of concessions and a lot of surrender. They had to let go of their fears. They had to experience the pain of letting go of deeply imbedded predjudice and double standards formed from bitter life experiences. They had to let go of the “rules of conduct” that they learned from their own society’s dogma. Now, I think that these are the kind of people that we should all aspire to be.

For us to achieve world peace we need to let go of our fears. We need to become loving, tolerant, patient, forgiving, aware, faithful, open-minded and open-eared people. Anything created from fear will only create more fear and more obstacles (ex. the atom bomb). What is created from love will only bring more love and more togetherness (ex. Habitat for Humanity). Let go of the need to control and don’t push away things that you are not familiar with just because you are not familiar with them. Celebrate differences, celebrate adversity, and celebrate changes and challenges that come with every day. Life is hard and painful, one struggle after another. And we must embrace our pain and our suffering because that is where our beauty, our revelations, and our greatest accomplishments come from. I would now like to leave you with a quote.

“The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of a rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.” –Helen Keller

Many Civilisations Have Nurtured Humanity

Fayza Aboulnaga
Egypt’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva

A review of the life and history of my country, Egypt, could provide the best evidence of the possibility of coming together between all civilisations and cultures and possibilities for joint action. The father of all prophets, Abraham, married one of the Egyptian princesses. And on the land of Egypt, prophet Moses was born and grew up and it was on Mount Sinai that he received the heavenly message. Egypt and the Egyptian people have given refuge to the Virgin Mary and her child Jesus Christ. The Egyptian church has contributed to greatly enriching world Christian thinking and it has created the Christian monastic orders. Egypt has also received the message of Islam. It has become a lighthouse for Islamic teaching and thinking.

Before that, Egypt had given the world the Pharaonic civilisation, which has lighted the path of humanity and along with Greek civilisation, it has constituted the Hellenic civilisation which gave the whole world the knowledge that constituted the basis for all sciences which are being taught in all parts of the world today. And it has given its contribution to the Roman culture. Moreover, it has also led the Arab and Islamic civilisation. This land throughout its period of history was a refuge to all those who fled from various parts of the world because of persecution of one culture or civilisation by another. So many immigrants came from Africa, Asia and Europe. On the land of Egypt there was a mixture of so many civilisations and cultures from all parts of the world, which were all melted together to constitute our Egyptian culture and personality. And on this land, you find side by side Islamic mosques, Jewish temples and Christian churches.

We believe that every civilisation represents the sum total of the cultures of its people, shaping its distinctive personality. And each civilisation has reached a certain level to enable it to make a special contribution to human thinking and therefore, all religions are able to contribute their values and principles. This is quite natural. It is a healthy phenomenon because value systems have developed within the framework of history, politics, social and economic affairs. And they have passed through various stages. This also applies to Islamic civilisation as well as Western civilisation and Asian and all other civilisation.

Here I wish to clarify that the term Islamic civilisation does not necessarily mean those who profess the Islamic religion but the adherents of this civilisation live on lands which extend from the Atlantic ocean in the West to the borders of China in the East, passing by parts of Asia, Africa and South Europe. And they belong to different religions. They are brought together by common or similar value systems. An attempt is made to describe this civilisation as being reactionary and rejecting progress, advocating violence and refusing to co-exist with other civilisations and cultures. We even hear those who reiterate that terrorism is linked with this civilisation because of practices carried out by a minority of those who adhere to this civilisation, or who might adhere to this civilisation. This is despite the fact that similar examples are to be found in other parts of the world, among people of other civilisations and religions. But unfortunately, sometimes such conceptions find their echo in different parts of the world.

This misconception ignores the comprehensive view of the reality of Islamic world, particularly contemporary Islamic world. These negative concepts have created the wrong impression of the existence of a confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. There is no doubt that it will express the crisis lived by the world since the inhuman, criminal attacks on new York and Washington on 11 September. But it leads to a misconception because the source of terrorism, its causes are not because of an absence of dialogue between civilisations. It is not due to confrontations between religions as some claim. The source of terrorism is the feeling of injustice, of marginalisation and the suffering, the indignity and deprivation of the most elementary human rights and the continuation of aggression and occupation for so many years and for so many decades. Whether this injustice is political or economic, social or even cultural, following this trend will have dangerous repercussions, unless we all try very genuinely and with a joint faith to correct such misconceptions and misrepresentations.

Islam did not spring up in the last decade, nor did it come up to fill an ideological vacuum. Islam, such as the other heavenly, divine religions, has been established in the world long before those modern ideologies have cropped up. We do not ask the West to recognise something that we have not done. Members of the Islamic civilisation did not attribute to this civilisation of the West two World Wars. The most violent conflicts of this century were those that beset the countries that belonged to the western civilisation until the middle of this century. And the main cause was conflict of interest rather than a conflict of civilisations. This is the best evidence of the wrong views of those who advocate this concept of a conflict between civilisations.

Undoubtedly, we need further action in order to attain deeper understanding on the part of every culture and every civilisation and every religion – an understanding of the other cultures, civilisations and religions. There is a need to base our understanding on serious and deep knowledge in order to be able to realise the positive interaction between cultures and civilisations. This is likely to help us strengthen the basis for peaceful co-existence. The adherents of the Islamic civilisation all throughout the past fourteen centuries have enriched the western civilisation – culturally and scientifically. And today, the adherents of the Islamic civilisation do not deny that they have benefited from the accomplishments of the Western civilisation in the scientific, technological and medical fields. I would like to quote from an article by Mr. Miguel Moratinos, Special European envoy to the Middle East. Its title in English is “Europe and the Moslem World – International Relations.” I quote, “Perhaps western societies should re-think their traditional outlooks instead of focusing on the exclusive desire to export their own cultural and civilisational models. It is time for them to accept cultural imports and to improve their understanding of an increasingly and complex and inter-dependent world.

I would like to dwell on the important role that can be played in this context by the serious mass-media in the process of building bridges between the adherents of different civilisations. Because they are watched and read by so many people, the media should seriously carry out their responsibility of disseminating knowledge and facts without any attempt at distorting reality or exciting feelings.

We do believe that in addition to dialogue, which is a basic constituent to promote under-standing between the adherents of various civilisations, it is also certain that the achievement of economic progress and the elimination of poverty is a cornerstone in the achievement of this objective. The attainment of justice between the inhabitants of this planet resides in the meeting of their basic needs. This is a decisive factor in bringing about stability. In this connection, we welcome of the adoption of international targets for development.

I would like to announce that in the coming few months, we plan to re-open the Alexandria library, which has preserved the heritage of human cultures for so many centuries. And now Arab and Islamic Egypt will revive this ancient library so that it remains forever a lighthouse, guarding the heritage of all humanity with all its diverse cultures and civilisations.

Originally published in the South Bulletin-Oct 2001