Dear Friends,
Another frequent question I am asked is how would you characterize the American level of awareness? In a recent podcast, I had a chance to share my perspective. Here is an excerpt:
How would you characterize the American level of awareness?
It’s abysmal. That’s what we need to change. That’s why I wrote the book. When I wrote this book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’ I knew I was sticking my head in a noose in a way and I am not suicidal or self-destructive, so I only did it with the feeling that we can change this. I am very optimistic, but the way we got to change this current situation is by more people becoming aware. What I hear a lot is Americans are so busy just trying to struggle for survival. I don’t really think we are struggling to survive, there is a very, very poor segment of our country that is struggling to survive and I don’t mean to speak of that lightly at all. But for so many Americans, we are living pretty comfortable lives.
Ask yourself, what did most Americans do this last Saturday and/or Sunday: An awful lot of them watched football and spent tremendous amounts of energy. Think of the energy and money spent on just these things.
It’s taking us away of what’s really happening in the world. We are very comfortable doing with our lives and we need to change our perspective. We need to think about our children and our grandchildren. And if we think about them, we know we have a tremendous amount of work to do. I am struck by what an amazingly selfish, self centered generation mine is. Anybody that is an adult at this point in time is so oriented towards the next widget, the next meal, the next restaurant we are going to, the next quarterly report, the price of stock today; very, very short term things. No other culture in history that I am aware of has looked at things this way.
It’s one of the great teachings of indigenous culture where they are very, very careful to preserve resources for their children and their children’s children. We are just no looking at the world that way and we need to, we need to become fully conscious. I think that is the single most important thing today. ---and I really believe it can happen. When we understood that it was unfair for women not to have the right to vote, it took a while, but eventually women got the right to vote. When we understood that it was unfair for blacks to ride on the back of a bus, we changed it. When we understood that it was crazy to have eagles going extinct in this country, and rivers burning because of pollution, we changed.
People can change things. Consciousness changes things. A whole new mindset dissolved the Soviet Union and it actually has changed China from a very poor isolated backward country into something very different today. I am not saying that all these things are good, but I am saying that changes of consciousness change the world. And we in the United States are in a position of great power and great influence and we have amazing resources at our disposal if we can just change that consciousness and be focused more on the future. For our children and our children’s children and to realize that your child and mine, whether they are living in the United States or wherever they are living, cannot have a great future unless the children of the poorest countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America also have a good future.
How would you characterize our awareness?
I welcome hearing your thoughts.
John Perkins
Visit the John Perkins Collection at the Global Dialogue Center
Confessions of Economic Hit Man with new material in paperback
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