Why do we do this? Why are we as a species so ready to foul our own nest?

This widespread fouling is created by the acts of countless individuals, acts prompted by individual perceptions and decisions. Although the perceptions and decisions are individual, I believe they can be seen to be prompted by certain common assumptions, psychologies, and myths.

A common human assumption, because it has been true for all our tens of thousands of years of history up until the last few hundred years, is that, no matter how much of a mess you make, it's ok, because nature covers over everything sooner or later. In the last hundred years, we have gone from maintaining small pockets of human culture in a vast sea of nature to the reverse situation.

The human psyche is built for individual survival. When we were islanders in the vast sea of nature, subject to plagues and droughts and ice ages, bands of humans learned to compete with each other for scarce resources and hoard them against hard times.

And the predominant myth of the dominant culture on our planet is an angry and jealous god, harassed by an evil other whose strength is in this world, a god who will resolve his struggle with that evil other in a way that will destroy this world we live in—probably very soon. This god, like a feudal lord, cares more about whether we humans acknowledge his suizeranity than how we behave among ourselves.

These are the attitudes that we, as Greens, face when we take up the challenge of altering the course of American politics. They run deep. They are not swayed by intellectual arguments, catchy phrases, demonstrations, or legislation. To change them, we need to know how to change attitudes and override psychological conditioning. We need a countermyth that posits a steady state world, free of overarching cosmic conflict.

That is a lot to come up with from scratch! Fortunately, there are a few places on earth where humans have been able to create high culture in harmony with nature, and by studying these, we may derive a template which can be applied to the reshaping of America.

Tibet was one of those places. In Inner Revolution, Robert Thurman tells the story of the rise of Tibetan culture, weaving it in with the rest of world history in an inspiringly unique way. For example, the early part of the seventeenth century saw widespread conflicts over the interplay of religion and government. In Europe, this was known as the Thirty Years' War, and resulted in the disestablishment of the Catholic Church and the placing of the quest for material wealth and power in the driver's seat of our civilization. In Tibet, by contrast, the struggle ended with the ascendency of the Dalai Lama, who was (and is) recognized as the incarnation of Compassion (as if the Pope were Christ incarnate), and who proceeded to act to create peace and harmony in the country based on the realization that the millenium has come and we are living in it.

Thurman's narrative is not only historical. He also imparts the essence of Buddhist philosophy and practice, and the fruits of that practice. Here is a paragraph that shows this kind of bridging:
"Millenial or apocalyptic consciousness, on the other hand, develops when a person breaks through the shell of habitual self-centeredness, sees through the falsely created view of the absoluteness of the ordinary world, and realizes truth in an instant. A healthy person in the melting aspect of the moment of full orgasm loses himself or herself completely and has an instance of apocalypse before the structures and boundaries of inadequacy return with all their force. People absorbed in activity—runners running, musicians performing, artists creating , mothers giving milk—all of them have a taste of millenial consciousness, a momentary blissful freedom from dissatisfaction, self-concern, and pain. The consciousness in the enlightenment movement is called millenial when the vision of this freedom expands so greatly that it aims to create a nationwide and ultimately a world-wide society of perfect happiness based on enlightenment. It is apocalyptic in the sense of being instantaneously revelatory and ultimately decisive."

I think that pretty much all of us who are involved in Green politics derive our passionate involvement in it from what Thurman is talking about here.

I felt very enthusiastic about reading this book. It is rare to see such adroit interweaving of politics, psychology, and spirituality, and I think anyone who cares about the fate of the earth and those of us here on it will be inspired and instructed by Thurman's opus. The only things I would fault him for are failing to include an index or bibliography—but perhaps the lack of bibliography is to better encourage each of us to make our own search, which is all the more self-empowering—and that is the theme of this book.

I would like to leave you with some quotes from Thurman's ten-point platform.

"Lately (the) democratic process has been effectively threatened by virtual autocrats who have pretended to champion the individual and his or her liberty against the supposedly oppressive domination by "big government." These corporate spokespersons have used the "big lie" technique and have come close to subverting democracy in the name of individual liberty. They have led revolts to diminish taxes for the very rich; called for law and order to imprison the very poor; tried to reestablish racist dominance patterns; attacked women's rights to chose their roles and relations; pretended to defend religious freedom to promote religious bigotry; supported a demented international arms industry and an insane level of citizenry armament; attempted to remove all protections of the environment from short-sighted exploitation; and generally fostered a sense of alienation, apathy and confusion among the people. It is therefore essential that we reassume the idealistic high ground of democratic political activism and put libertarian principles at the fore of all policies. A skillful arguing of these principles will solve the major tough issues of the day and reinvite the divisive, single-issue splinter groups into a winning coalition. To succeed, we must try to present enlightenment reinforcement as a developing middle way through the crippling polarizations."

"The leaders of the 1980s rolled back the American and European welfare state by rejecting government's role in managing society, holding up the white racist's specter of the black welfare mother with nine children on the dole who rides in Cadillacs and swims in luxuries and so on. But this image was only a racist fantasy, and, on top of the injustice, these leaders didn' t save any money at all but ran up the biggest deficits in history. What was saved in school lunches, nutrition for pregnant mothers, and so on was spent tenfold in crime prevention, prisons, and futile measures against the sheer destruction that always results from injustice. Job training was cut so that more money could be spent on unemployment benefits. Taxes were somewhat cut, but mostly for the rich, and the massive transfer of wealth to the top one percent of the population resulted not in a bonanza of investment and job creation but in a massive flight of capital to tax-sheltered investment in cheap-labor areas, with a disastrous loss of jobs and infrastructure in the developed societies. Our platform must be to reaffirm the altruistic welfare state, to prove that money invested in the lower end of the economic scale is money well spent. The removal of a poverty-ridden disaster area of the country is not only just but also saves funds in the long run and creates an incalculable treasure of human potential."

"Enlightened activists are pro-wealth. They consider it the karmic evolutionary fruit of generosity in previous lives. A bodhisattva or messianic person wants to accumulate wealth so he or she can give it away to needy people, most creatively by investing intelligently in things that will provide long-term happiness to the people. But if wealth becomes an object of obsession, if it is used carelessly, it can be incredibly destructive, most of all to the wealthy people themselves. The enlightened democratic system institutionalizes revolution and uses progressive income taxes and other mechanisms to rebalance the rich/poor equation gently and continuously. Our platform reaffirms this policy of continuous, peaceful revolution out of compassion for both the poor and the rich. True wealth is a rich network of loving people, a pleasant and healthy lifestyle, a beautiful environment, and an inviting setting for expressing creativity. Money alone is a heavy burden, isolating its owner from real affection, ennobling unhealthy addictions, harming the environment, and causing boredom, frustration, and anxiety. Enlightenment cures all these problems through its prime virtue: generosity in all things."

"We are committed to not censoring the Internet, but we are becoming more and more conscious of the dangers and the potential abuse of the Internet within the community," Mahathir has said. "While we would like to ensure that there is no censorship, we want to know whether there can be some way to prevent negative content from affecting the stability and peace of our community." -- Several Asian countries clamp down on Net by Mark McDonald, Silicon Valley

"...With the possible exception of the alternative press, magazines and newspapers in many major markets are cutting their staffs...." -- Chroniclers of New Economy Hear Their Own Bad News by Felicity Barringer and Alex Kuczynski

"Every year, anti-consumerism organization Adbusters has its 'uncommercials' -- for events such as Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week -- turned down by the major networks in Canada, the United States, Australia and the U.K." -- See Our Film, Join Our Cause by Jenn Shreve, Wired

"Rome, Italy, Aug 7 -- An elite Italian police unit which carried out a bloody raid against protesters at a Group of Eight summit in Genoa was trained by US police chiefs, an Italian newspaper reported Tuesday.... Not only is the use of foreign expertise likely to cause consternation, but the fact the officers came from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), a notoriously corrupt and brutal police force [see article p.2], also raises serious questions. In a midnight raid on a school which was acting as a headquarters for protest groups during the July 20-22 summit, 62 people were hospitalized and 93 arrested. Many were laid out on stretchers with blood-stained faces. Reporters who entered the school soon afterwards saw blood stains on the walls and broken teeth scattered on the floor. At least one protester has since undergone brain surgery. Ninety-two of the 93 arrested in the raid have since been released without charges.... As well as brutality, there were also allegations that police sexually assaulted female protesters.... Many [protesters] say that they were tortured, and that their human and civil rights have been violated." -- Asheville Global Report "Either we wage this struggle when there are still living forests, running rivers, and resilience left in the life support systems of the planet, or we fight when the damage is even deeper and the hope of healing slim." -- Starhawk "...For the first half of 2001, US companies said they planned to cut 777,362 jobs, more than three times the number announced during the first six months of last year...." -- US job cuts hit record in July by Anupama Chandrasekaran, Asheville Global Report "In the end, we all want the same thing: A better world, or, at least a less disgusting one." -- Giuliano Giuliani, father of slain Genoa protester Carlo Giuliani, speaking at his son's funeral, quoted in The Nation "Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not...." Lynn White for Science magazine, quoted by The Shalom Center, an organization dedicated to pursuing peace, seeking justice, healing the earth, and building community within nature's rhythm of work and rest, doing and being and to working toward an eco-Kaballism defining God's dance in the universe "Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibility of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a person is not a person, but a member, an instrument, a thing." -- Thomas Jefferson, quoted in Washington County Democratic Party Politics in Review, August "Predominantly white, exurban, evangelical and national parachurch leaders, should be careful not to presume to speak for any persons other than themselves and their own churches." -- John DiIulio, Head of Bush's faith based initiatives quits by Laura Meckler, Salon Magazine "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with catsup." "The economy is geared for the rich, and it's never going to change," Emil Wentt, a dog groomer, said over the buzz of clippers and the light jazz coming from tinny speakers. "They get rich off the sweat of the poor." Added Marlon Cooks, 29: "Everything goes up except your paycheck. You have to keep on making your money stretch. That's not my perception, that's reality.... Do you know what `job' means?" Mr. Smith asked. "Not many people know this, but it stands for something: `Just Over Broke.' When the economy was good people around here had jobs, but they didn't have careers. For people who have never had anything, that job is great. But the job isn't worth anything. Once you've put in your 25 years, guess what, you're broke again. And you're out there looking for another job.... It's just been that it's been so rough for so long that we're content to do little more than survive.... People today think that cutting a two-week vacation down to 10 days is a financial problem.... Well, they ain't seen nothing yet." -- Gloomy Economic News Takes a Toll on Optimism by Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times "... Every society depends on trust and loyalty, on courtesy and kindness, on bravery and reverence...." -- George Bush "Extensive data from around the world show that IMF-imposed austerity and economic reform programs have stripped many women of what meager health and education benefits were once available to them. Women's formal sector unemployment has increased due to IMF-induced recessions, privatizations, and government cutbacks." -- 50 Years is Enough, U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." -- Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Article I (Bill of Rights) Chandra outer space e-cards "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands." -- Revelations, 7:9, The Big Bang Theory of Art by Brad King, Wired News