perspectives

Dear President Obama: Considering MORE War

Dear President Obama,

It is the eve before your Afghanistan Policy Speech. Like millions of other Americans that supported your election and have put faith in your leadership judgment, I am saddened about what is to become a new phase of US aggression if press reports are correct. We didn't elect you to be a new "war president," but I agree with many that you will wear this mantle, if you proceed as it appears you are planning to do tomorrow.

I also know we are not the only ones bracing ourselves for the delivery of your policy message. The whole world is watching and I imagine there are Afghan people worried and scared at the US once again staging to show its military might, destroying more of their homeland and killing more of their innocent men, women and children.

Why? There must be a better solution.

Please reconsider. 

Tonight, I read a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope you will read it before you speak from the podium at West Point about MORE War:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left this important message...
(A Time to Break Silence, April 1967)

"A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: 'This way of settling differences in not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense... War is not the answer..." 

I remain grateful for not personally knowing the experience of WAR in my lifetime... However, I admit I'm also haunted by a message left by someone with a credible opinion, Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, well-known as America's MOST decorated soldier. He told us...

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in life."

Please live up to the promises you made to all of us. Bring our troops home, save lives, save money we don't have, and STOP THE MADNESS of WAR. Please do the harder, more courageous act of doing what is RIGHT for our country, our troops, and for the world.

Respectfully,

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
founder, president, and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies
author, Putting Our Differences to Work

PHOTO CREDITS: An Afghan man looks on as he stands at a bus stop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)

Lessons from JOHNNY APPLESEED

These are sobbering times --- yet, there signs of hope, new possibilities and opportunities standing right in front of us. A new and different path for mankind must be forged, don't you think? A new global consciousness among all people would be a big start.

Where do we begin?

A while back, I happened on an amazing read =====A copy of the original story of the real Johnny Appleseed, an American pioneer hero written in Harper's Magazine - November 1871.

I always thought he was just a guy that planted apple trees and wore a funny tin hat. He was much more...

---- as a matter of conscience he never purchased a pair of shoes. When given a pair, he passed them off to a boy in a needy family moving westward who he felt needed them more.

---- he purchased animals that he saw were being abused and found them good homes.

---- he wore the tin pan he used to cook his meals as his hat, adding an innovative pasteboard visor to shield his eyes.

---- he was loved by moms, dads, grandma's, the Indians because of his kindness and interest in them.

---- he believed in eating only food from the ground and was a strenuous opponent to wasting it because it was a Gift.

---- he was well educated and took time to read to others in such a way that he created pictures for others to understand.

---- he respected all forms of life.

---- he was trusted by all...and courageously warned his neighbors of British and Indian attacks saving many lives with his prophetic message.

---- he gave his money away.

He lived a good life as a loving neighbor and friend.
When he was near death, it his recorded that his features were all aglow with a supernatural light.

If we could just live our lives with a little more care for our neighbors and our world ---- a little more like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, the world would be much different.

What do you think?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book!
Putting Our Differences to Work:
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Video BOOK Review by futurist Joel Barker  

Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com 

Personal Responsibility: Changing the World

Reflective Audio Program:
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY:
It's Role in Creating a Better World
...a virtual online dialogue with nine Berrett-Koehler Authors

News Flashes...
St. Valentine's Day 02/14/09
Afghanistan: DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Staff Sgt. Marc J. Small, 29, of Collegeville, Pa., died Feb. 12 at Faramuz, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion...

Iraq: U.S. Confirmed Deaths
Reported Deaths: 4243  |  Confirmed Deaths: 4242   |   Pending Confirmation: 1
DoD Identifies Army Casualties (4 of 4) --- Pfc. Jonathan R. Roberge, 22, of Leominster, Mass...died Feb. 9 in Mosul, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle.

Source: http://icasualties.org/ Thank you!

The news today in Afghanistan and Iraq and places around the world paralyzes the mind with disbelief.

Oh, I want so much to be a part of changing this world, don't you?

Leaving just a little imprint on creating a world that works for everyone.
If we just thought more about each other;
About people we don't know or can't see.
If we just became a little more conscious and aware
About what is happening around us every day;
Across the world and in neighborhoods we can't even imagine.
If we listened more; objected more; paid attention more;
Spent more time thinking through the implications of our actions
and behavior day to day, choosing what's most right for a better world.
If we took time to be informed and to teach others.
If we were committed to loving our neighbors...

What difference could these small changes make?

It overwhelms me sometimes---I feel helpless and worried.
The small acts of one person seem so insignificant when
you look on at the mess we are in --- a mess we all collectively
shared in creating...


Then I recall this story...

The Starfish Story
by Loren Eiseley

"I awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.

As I approached, I sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the bay, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves," the youth replied. "When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the sea."

As the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth's plan became clear to me and I countered, "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference."

The youth paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, "I made a difference to that one."

I left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. I returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea."

What small difference will you make today? tomorrow?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
founder, Global Dialogue Center
author, Putting Our Differences to Work:
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance

Learning from Gandhi

In several places in my home, I have small framed signs with one of Gandhi's messages strategically placed to catch my eye during the day, "My life is my message." It is interesting how those five words have shaped so many days --- so many actions --- so many decisions. They place the question of rightness to every action and decision. It is humbling on many days to realize that my humanness has kept me from living up to this proclamation in the way I wished I had.

GANDHI's Message
The story goes like this:
Gandhi remained silent one day a week. He was traveling on a train on the one day a week when he did not speak. A journalist came up to his window, screaming out to him, "Do you have a message for me to take back to my people." Gandhi scrawled a few words on a piece of paper and put them up in the window... "My life is my message."

Over the years as I've thought alot about the commitment this message takes, I realize that if each of measured our behavior by it every day with a new kind of consciousness about all we do, we could change the world in short order, don't you think? How many things would be different throughout the world? Think of it.

In my book, Putting Our Differences to Work, recount Gandhi's warning to us about the personal traits that are the most perilous to humanity. Imagine how we could change the realities today by changing and measuring our behavior and actions. I also introduce Five Distinctive Qualities of Leadership and propose each of us add them to our portfolio. The one that seems to embrace all the others is "make mutualism the final arbiter" for all actions and decisions (e.g., behavior, products, services, profit-making) measured by just six powerful words:

Everyone benefits; no one is harmed.

With this conscious shift in our thinking and actions, we could reverse those personal traits that caused Gandhi worry. Think of it...

• Wealth with Work
• Pleasure with Conscience
• Science with Humanity
• Knowledge with Character
• Politics with Principle
• Commerce with Morality
• Worship with Sacrifice

How does your life stack up and contribute to these virtues?
I leave you as I ponder this question myself.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
founder, Global Dialogue Center
author, Putting Our Differences to Work

new book!
Putting Our Differences to Work
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership and High Performance
by Debbe Kennedy ▪ Berrett-Koehler ▪ 2008 – Hardcover
ORDER a copy at AMAZON.COM

Putting Our Differences to Work was selected as as among
"the very top business books" for review in August, 2008.
Read it!

Also available in DIGITAL DOWNLOAD at Berrett-Koehler

President-Elect Obama: Together we are changing!

It would be hard to deny that this hasn't been a week of great promise for our Nation and the world. For one clear reason...we had the shared experience of electing a new President with the whole world watching and cheering with us --- a President for all of us with a family that mirrors our diverse and inclusion ideals in the US. Even with all the uncertainty and harsh realities of our economic meltdown, having a new President-elect Barack Obama with a mandate and a vision of a new direction for our country has left me elated. Having a beauitful, young First Family-elect with Michelle, Malia, and Sasha (and the new puppy) is a boost for a country --- a relief from years of what seemed at times to be overcome with the utter darkness of war, greed, division, injustice, disrespect of our neighbors and neglect.

Even if you cast your vote differently, what we know for sure is that what we're doing hasn't worked. We need a fresh new approach and through the millions of votes by United States citizens, we boldly opened the way for a new beginning. 

It has been a week that I never imagined that I would see in my lifetime and I am so grateful to have had my family experience a sense of unity across the US that we just have not seen on this level in my memory. There have been signs since election night that we are coming together. Emails have flown in to congratulate the U.S. on this incredible achievement and mandate for change. For example, check out these "love notes" from blues to reds each reaching out to make peace.

I was especially moved by the Time magazine article. The first paragraph said it all. "Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope. Barack Obama never talks about how people see him: I'm not the one making history, he said every chance he got. You are. Yet as he looked out Tuesday night through the bulletproof glass, in a park named for a Civil War general, he had to see the truth on people's faces. We are the ones we've been waiting for, he liked to say, but people were waiting for him, waiting for someone to finish what a King began."

...and we have a new song from Will.I.am. It's a New Day debut on Oprah.

I end this week deeply grateful for this new day. May we work to ensure that by putting our differences to work, we live up to the promise of our actions this week.

Your thoughts?

Best...

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

 

Obama: Fired UP and Ready to GO!

Tonight there seems to be an almost silent calm. Even the spammers aren't spamming. It's like we are collectively holding our breath. There is sense of our nation and our global neighbors being in a kind of unity. If the World Could Vote and Bridges for Obama demonstrate this phenomenon.

Our collective hopes seem to be coming together even in small ways. Today I was walking down the street and I met the smile of a Latino restaurant worker taking a break outside. I said, "One more day!" and then we traded thumbs up and beamed each other a big grin, knowing we were engaged in the same promise.

Before I cast my VOTE tomorrow in person at my polling place, I decided to write down my thoughts on why I am VOTING for Barack Obama to be our President. From a leadership standpoint within this long two years, I say "ditto" to the brilliance, vision, and approach to governing and other specifics that Colin Powell outlined when he announced his endorsement of Senator Obama. I also couldn't say it better than Fareed Zakaria in his compelling endorsement. Beyond these specifics, I also believe what we've witnessed and experienced from Senator Obama in the last two years is the most telling in how he plans to govern our country at this critical time in history.

Here is a summary of my observations about Barack Obama:

1. He proved that his "community organizer" experience mattered. He built a magnificent team and  highly innovative approach to his very disciplined campaign that has engaged our nation and the world in ways we could have never imagined. I love thinking about having a President again that can learn from their experiences and apply their knowledge to complex problems, using innovation and brainpower to redefine what has been done before.

2. He led an inclusive campaign inviting us all in, building a sense of unity among us, and stretching our own limitations to reach for goals higher than any party affiliation. I want our president to care and respect all people. We've got to move beyond dividing our country and the world with hurtful labels and exclusion.

3. He has been steady, clear, and unruffled by the constant stream of "McCain Palin" mud, challenging them at each turn with bigger ideas and focused attention. "You don't need to boo; just vote!" he told us.

On the other hand, John McCain seemed to sell out and it was both sad and disappointing from a man with a distinguished career of service. His mean-spirited, angry, disorganized, dishonorable, and dishonest campaign didn't reflect the temperament and qualities I believe we need in a President for the twenty-first century. We need new language --- "fighting" is not the strategy that will heal the world. Without discounting Sarah Palin's accomplishments in Alaska, McCain's choice of her for Vice President of the United States of America has proven by her own behavior and actions to be a choice that would put our country at risk because of her lack of readiness for this level of office. I admit she is a good campaigner, but I don't personally believe this translates to qualifications for Vice President and President of the United States when our country is in crisis and war. This was clearly a reflection on Senator's McCain poor judgment.

Tonight  Senator Obama in his final campaign rally before 100,000 people in Virginia, reminded us that we are less than 24 hours away from voting in the change we need.

May God grant us the will to live up to "Yes, WE CAN!".

I am fired up! ...and ready to go!

MOST OF ALL...VOTE!

Politics of Hope, Original Oil by Sally K. Green - www.sallykgreen.com

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

 

BE the CHANGE

I'm sad as I watch the tearing down vs. the lifting up in the political process. I'm know much of it is part of what we have allowed to be "customary" in our politics, but it doesn't make it right. I can't believe what we have watched the last few days as Sarah Palin has stood at the podium at McCain's campaign rallies. The hate-filled words she says against Senator Obama, with a syrupy smile, do not cover-up the racial overtones and inferences --- and the visible hostility and harrassment it is creating. As a governor of a state in the United States or any other goverment official, it must be a violation of their oath of office. At the very minimum, it is dangerous and it is not becoming to any leader to set such an example for others. How shameful for all the young people that are watching. It lacks basic decency, respect, and humanity. It is heart-breaking to see the "pitbull" in sheep's clothing" from a woman, especially when so many worked so hard to make the possibility happen.

It is a time for leadership. Being the change you want to see in the world asks more of us. It means stepping out of our comfort...for some, stepping out of indifference...for others, stepping out of silence. There is no time for mocking each other or scorning one another. This time requires not just hovering to take in...but also doing what you can to bring your own personal Light to a troubled world. It means exericising your right to vote to a whole new direction. It means standing up and moving out together.

This morning I again came across a poem of Rumi's that I had humbly adapted from another translation long ago. It is a call to action for us all.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Come out from under your fear, you so
   so fond of hiding and running away.
Don't cover your face.
The world is reeling,
Its heart so sick,
And you are one who can serve
   as an influence for good.
Don't hide the candle of your clarity.
Be with people.
Lead the way.
Be a teacher of souls by example.

---Rumi
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Put your mark on this time in history. The world needs you! Do your part.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
founder, Global Dialogue Center
author, Putting Our Differences to Work:
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more... www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Blog... www.globaldialoguecenter.blogs.com/differences

First Presidential Debate: Obama

With our country screaming for our attention on every front and the world looking to us for leadership, the long awaited First Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and John McCain was a top priority for this Friday night at my house. Seeing them side by side affirmed for me that we need fresh new thinking and a whole new style of problem-solving and approach to the presidency.

Even Pat Buchanan described McCain's style as mean, contemptuous, angry and a tough character. Other descriptors of McCain's body language were hunched, "look 'em in the eye," snarly --- yet, he never found the "big leadership" moment to give Barack Obama the courtesy of looking at him. McCain came across as rude and disrespectful --- Enough! We can't afford another "rough around the edges" president not at this time in history with so much at stake and so many relationships to repair around the world.

In contrast, Obama brought a whole new approach and leadership command of issues --- a fresh, visionary leadership strength that we've not seen in a long time in this country. He is emerging to a new height as the Change We Need to lead our country!

So tonight I celebrate Barack Obama debuting a beautiful new original oil painting (24x30) by Sally K. Green, Bay Area Artist. Learn more at www.sallykgreen.com.

Reflections the day after the night before...

• Grading the First Debate - Time
• Canadian Perspective - Toronto Star
• The First Debate: A Win for Obama - New York Times
• Sharp Jabs Mark Debate - Kansas City Star
• European Perspective - BBC

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com 
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

BUSH's BAILOUT: $700 Billion in Bush's Hands?

Do you realize what Bush's "emergency bailout" means? This was the frightening description the New York Times offered to American taxpayers:

"The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms.

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place NO RESTRICTIONS on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt." 

Bush was quoted: “I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

KEY QUESTIONS??
Assuming we all agree that we need to do something drastic to stabilize this financial fiasco, there are some serious questions we need to consider:

• Why would anyone in their right mind, give the failed Bush administration $700 Billion, especially without restrictions? What has this administration done that would give us the slightest indication that this would be a wise decision?


• Why is $700 Billion in Bush's hands presented as an all or nothing proposition? Based on the failed policies, practices, and administration characterized with its greed, incompetence, poor judgment, mismanagement, and corruption, shouldn't we more thoughtful about how we implement any solution and with whom, especially when we're told it is a "crap shoot" whether this proposal will work.


• Shouldn't there be a targeted shared responsibility for those who have already took their "profits" on the front-end of the meltdown? If the taxpayer has to bear this responsibility for this "emergency bailout" for generations to come, shouldn't the corporations and banks and others involved, also be charged with helping to pay back the bailout with their future profits?


• Shouldn't the failed leadership in the government, banks, and corporations that created this financial meltdown have their severance packages trimmed down? Shouldn't this bailout be built on accountability of those in charge all the way to the top where BUSH sits? Shouldn't the bailout make severance packages for the executives in parity with what the thousands of employees will get for their abrupt layoffs, eliminating the "golden parachutes" for unsatisfactory performance and financial and business misconduct.

This is what kept me awake last night.

What are your thoughts?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com 
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business

GOP POLITICS: A Dissenting View Palin's Introduction

I think it started with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani's speech last night at the GOP convention. I found his vicious words and blood-thirsty mockery more disturbing than at other times. I wanted to yell, "ENOUGH!"

Watching and listening to the display that followed said a great deal about him, McCain, Palin --- and all we've all become as a nation living under the "Karl Rove Playbook" of hate and fear and intentional culture wars and mean-spirited attacks on others for political gain. Even seeing Sarah Palin come on stage, looking sweet and beautiful, then transforming into a "smiling snake" with venom spewing out at key moments in her introduction to the nation with thousands cheering the distortions, the put-downs and the sarcasm of personal attack---another "wolf in sheep's clothing" in a female form.

Based on the morning headlines, hailing the "success" of GOP convention program last night, I am in the minority in my view. Of Palin, the headlines read, "She hit the ball out of the ballpark..."

What I know for sure is ...

• we can't heal a nation with these techniques.
• we can't lead in the world modeling this kind of leadership behavior.
• we can't be a beacon of peace with leaders stooping to this level of rhetoric.
• we can't teach our children by setting the example we witnessed last night.
• we can't repair our standing the world with this kind of thinking and behavior.

Funny, as I watched, I remembered a young friend, age 8, a purple belt with green stripe in Karate, who mentored me by teaching me his daily mantra:

Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Watch your words, for they become your actions.
Watch your actions, for they become your habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

I have personally worked to advance and support women and think of myself as a pioneering women executive. This morning women have been saying, "She's just like me!" She's just like us!"  Isn't this what we swallowed when we chose George W. Bush --- a real regular guy and look at the devastation we are left with as he exits.

Somehow, in my vision for who would breakthrough the glass ceiling, my hope was for a women of substance, one mastered in the human dimensions of change; someone with knowledge and know-how about all the issues and pressing  problems we face. A woman willing to respect and protect women's rights that so many worked and sacrificed to achieve. A leader who's behavior is above reproach; a beacon of strength, integrity, and goodness.

Sarah Palin doesn't fit this bill and I recognize she is not just like me.

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author and founder, President and CEO
Global Dialogue Center and Leadership Solutions Companies

New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com
Berrett-Koehler - BK Business