Ron Paul vs the Commons

There is increasing buzz among people I talk with about the candidacy of Ron Paul for President. The focus of his support seems to come from three basic positions he has held for many years: 1) bring our troops home from overseas, 2) abolish the Federal Reserve and the corrupt, manipulated currency system it oversees, and 3) limit the control government has over our lives by slashing its authority and budget and relying upon personal responsibility to carry the day. He is the only candidate, to my dismay, that espouses the first two points. It is the last point that I want to examine today.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that the supporters of Mr. Paul that I encounter, while quick to point to government interference as a major problem within modern America, are unwilling or unable to discuss their own role in perpetuating government involvement in their lives. Typically they depend upon Social Security to provide money for their retirement, and Medicare to pay for the health care after they are no longer able to work. They defend these entitlements by saying they are just reclaiming their own contributions to the system. While this may be true in the beginning, it is not too long before SS and Medicare recipients have tapped out their “account”, and become dependent upon taxes paid by others to keep the checks and benefits flowing.  As the ratio of workers to recipients shrinks during the Baby Boomer retirement, the burden borne by workers will continue to increase. I would argue that this is manifestly unfair and unethical. I’ve talked with very few defenders of Mr. Paul who are ready to dispense with either of these two programs in the name of “personal responsibility”, or even as a path towards smaller government. And as these two programs consume (today) nearly 40% of spending, and interest on the national debt takes up more than 10%, nearly all revenues taken in by the U.S. government are gone once these 3 budget items are paid. It makes no sense to me that one can argue for smaller government and greater personal responsibility, while demanding that only “my personal benefits” continue.

I ask: what did Americans do before Social Security and Medicare? Before the EPA and the FCC and FDIC? These programs are all relatively new, and in ceding protection and control of these Commons areas, we have left ourselves helpless in the hands of the corporations that dominate life today. Coming to depend upon government tax revenues to eat and pay for power and heat and cover medical expenses once I can no longer work, allowing Big Business to buy power and elections and thereby gut the regulations that protect us, to leave environmental protection to the personal responsibility of polluters, to leave deposit protection and loan guarantees to the personal responsibility of bankers, and to leave guaranteeing truth and free speech in media to the ever-smaller number of broadcasters, has left increasing numbers of people dominated and exploited in ways beyond their own control. That’s not personal responsibility, that’s plutocracy.

Rather, all of these issues can be addressed by our local community, a network of caring neighbors and friends, who take responsibility not just for themselves, but the others in the group who may be experiencing illness, hard times, or delusion: just like we did before. The idea of defining borders around small bits of land and calling it ‘mine” is something that has only developed, historically speaking, in the most recent blink of an eye. The land, air and water that we all depend upon for life had always been a shared resource. We hadn’t made it, how could we hoard it? Food was inconsistent; but rather than jealously guarding what little I may have found until it spoiled and was of no use to anyone, I quickly learned that sharing what I had found would invite others to share with me, in turn. A sort of ‘instant karma’, if you will, led to a generous, gifting attitude that served the whole community well. A hunter who managed, after long struggle, to kill large game would benefit little from trying to store the meat for future use. He knew that his ticket to frequent meals lay not in preserving and transporting a large storehouse of meat but in sharing his bonanza with his tribe, thereby securing their support and largess in return. Security came by working together, not alone. No one used money as a marker to keep score, no one benefited by allowing resources to spoil or lie unused; no one hoarded life-giving supplies while others in the community died from their lack of access or luck. Jesus fed the multitudes by using everything he had, not by holding something back ‘just in case’. Buddha asked, “What is the best use now, in this very moment, of the energy I have at hand?”, rather than “What is mine to hold back in reserve?”

Personal responsibility has its place in society; we each have a responsibility to share, to speak truth, to feel compassion and empathy, and to act. But there is also a common responsibility: to not foul our own nest, to ensure that the least among us are as exalted as the greatest, to bring about a thriving, flourishing, and loving community that allows our personal abilities to be expressed for the benefit of everyone. Government’s role is not to allow people to isolate and become dependent upon the state; it is instead to ensure that the Commons we all share is not polluted or destroyed, nor hoarded by the few to the detriment of many. It is to foster sharing and gifting and compassionate service, neighbor helping neighbor, not to give a series of larger and larger handouts. Man has lived this way before, without government and without money. If anything, our high technology should make this way of life easier, not more difficult. But it depends upon the one aspect of life we sorely miss in this time of tech and instant, global communication: having deep, loving relationships with each other, and not with things. This is the personal responsibility that we all need more of; feeding our hunger for connection not by consuming more disposable petroleum byproducts, but rather by building a network that includes more and more of our brethren, not only humans but throughout the Natural world.

 

 

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derek@derekjoetennant.net

Indignation Abounds

Indignation abounds. Many people are offended by tents pitched on public spaces, by the idea that there could be a free and equitable distribution of food and warm clothing, by the thought that protestors who claim to value sharing and caring over making money might actually operate their Occupy encampment using these ideals, successfully. Police, so heavily militarized and shielded by our nation’s profound fear of terrorism at home, use techniques straight out of their manuals to intimidate, injury, and repress the very populations they are tasked with defending. And all of this is done in the name of society’s indignation.
Why are we so easily disturbed? Why do we look the other way, as our rights and freedoms are trampled underneath the boots of corporate power today, manifesting as law enforcement and debt? What do we fear, such that we demand a return to the status quo, despite its inherent and growing dysfunction? Why can’t we have a dialogue, not a harangue, that points to alternatives and a resolution of issues in ways that serve everyone? Why are we so afraid of the unfortunate people who have no place to call home, who suffer unimaginable terrors and injury due to medical, psychological, or spiritual challenges? Where is our compassion, our caring?
Occupy has no list of demands for one very critical, fundamental reason: the only possible demand is that society change. It would be presumptuous, if we truly wish to have a sharing, compassionate culture that actively facilitates change and human development, to think that a few could mandate the required new rules to establish this paradigm. Our new way of being requires that we listen to others and find our common humanity, that we be willing to give even when it is not easy or comfortable, that we touch the goodness in others that is always there and then speak to that part in our neighbors and friends. Can we reach outside our comfort zone, into the scary future and alternate realities, and find there the needs that every human has: needs of love, security, enough food and water, a chance to be educated and to create, in order to satisfy needs as well as to create for the sheer joy of creating?
Our culture depends on us operating from a place of isolation, from competition, from judgment and domination or victimhood. Many of us don’t have tools that allow us to manage our life in any other way. But there are alternatives: can we instead, to quote Randal Amster:
“… develop and implement practices of mediation, conflict resolution, nonviolent intervention, facilitation, dialogue, and community engagement to address individual behaviors that transgress consensed norms and expectations.” ?
What do these tools have in common? They are about holding a conversation, not an instruction. They guide us to open our minds and our hearts to the bliss we find as we feel our connection with others: with our shared goals and in our ability to grow much faster together than if we grow alone.
We envision a new society; one that relies on sharing and understanding rather than competition and fear. We will endure fits and starts before we find our groove, learn from our mistakes, and begin to craft the culture we want to pass on to our grandchildren. But can we do this any other way? No human before has been faced with such global dysfunction, none has had the tools of instant, global communication and access to mankind’s complete trove of wisdom teachings available, and none has been blessed with the opportunity to craft a new, global consciousness, not just of humanity’s needs, but of the needs of all life on Earth. We have the chance to do what has never been done before. It requires that we step into our voice, and share that voice with all who may listen. Please join the dialogue, and listen well.

Waking Up

For years, my self-appointed mission has been to become as educated about the world situation as I can, and to then spread that word to others. It was a lonely task at first. Few people had heard of peak oil, or believed the science around climate change, or understood how money is created and the reasons why debt is unsustainable.

And now we have 2011: a year when our collective consciousness has taken a giant leap forward. It began with a street vendor, shamed by the treatment accorded him by a local official, igniting not only himself but the flame of rebellion across the globe. This revolution of awareness, currently manifesting as the #Occupy movement in thousands of cities around the world and ongoing protests on streets that cannot be occupied without spilling blood, feeds on the energy and passion of downtrodden, exploited humans. It is born in the imaginations of young people, hardly acculturated to blind obedience to authority, and taps their willingness to demand change in a system they do not want to join. The system we have allowed to overtake our own sensibilities of youth does not appeal to them: a life filled with consumption and isolation and domination. They will not be subjected to the abuse of a monetary system that requires debt to function. They will not continue to serve in the death squads sent into foreign lands or the streets of the homeland, merely to enslave a population and to ensure that the flow of wealth into the hands of a few rulers does not cease. They do not accept that modern warfare, thanks to drones and “smart” bombs and retribution borne by suicide bombers, now kills 9 civilians (read: children, babies, women, parents, lovers) for every soldier.

I remember my own protests against war. We thought we had changed the world when we brought Americans home from Southeast Asia. What went wrong? Maybe we rested on our laurels too soon, or too much. Maybe we did not understand capitalism. We had not been taught that business thrives; first as it supplies armies with the tools of death, and then as it reaps the rewards that flow from rebuilding the lives and structures it so recently destroyed. We were not told that money is created out of debt, but that the money to pay the interest demanded on the debt is not created. This necessitates someone losing and, as if being caught without a seat in the game of musical chairs, being unable to find the money for interest payments, going into default and paying a steep and sometimes deadly price. We did not follow the logic that higher interest rates on our debt would just funnel all of our money to our Masters, faster. We were not told that through so-called “free trade” agreements with other nations, we would enter into a global competition for jobs that would push wages lower and end many lucrative industries in America. We did not anticipate that the computers, and later robots, that promised a life of leisure would in fact take over our jobs. We didn’t grasp that Nature is finite: we cannot just throw our waste away forever without filling once-pristine air and water and lands with toxins and unintended consequences. But I have not forgotten my own need to change the world, and it has re-awakened deep within my heart.

What are your first thoughts as you read: “The system is broken for you, too”? You are part of the solution, if you begin to craft a vision of the future that replaces those dysfunctional parts that you just identified with a compassionate, caring, and sustainable lifestyle and share that dream with others. I don’t have to wake you up. You are already feeling that sensation in the pit of your stomach that signals, “Something is very wrong here.” If you spend time with that feeling, you know we cannot continue down the path that leads to our own extinction. You will also feel the tickle that says something amazing is possible. Like the caterpillar entering the cocoon, we are hard-pressed to say exactly what that is. But humans have joined in community first as family, then as tribes, then city-states and nations. Now we stand on the verge of our next step in the evolution of humanity and of our home, Earth. This new consciousness has been pointed to by prophets and seers and shamans for thousands of years. We know, you know, that we have to change course. Whether we redefine work to include caring for our young, our elderly, and our sick; or we manage to get corporations out of politics and reclaim our government and our democracy; or we stop using oil and coal and instead embrace what our own, local community provides within biking distance; or we find a spiritual strength that feeds our soul and allows us to disengage from the consumption-driven economy as we walk our path to fulfillment; in all these ways a future is coming towards us that offers challenge and opportunity. With love we can meet these challenges. We can come together as one organism that we now call humanity: seven billion manifestations of energy that cherish, see, feel, taste, touch, and thrive. Seven billion who come together and act as if we are all connected, all family, all one being. Do you feel it too?

Transform the Economy: More Reasons Why

I want to throw two more aspects of this economy into the discussion. First, money is created through debt. Only 4% of “money” is paper and metal, the rest is just an accounting entry on a computer. Banks make loans predicated upon the borrowers’ promise to repay; they don’t have the money in the vault awaiting a borrower. You sign the loan papers and you get an amount in your account to spend. This has consequences: banks don’t create the money needed to pay the interest due on the borrowed amounts; hence there always need to be new borrowers taking out new loans, or there is not enough money in “circulation” to service existing debts. This is important because, a) when credit is tight, the chance of foreclosure increases because fewer loans mean fewer new dollars created to cover interest, b) there must either be foreclosures and defaults, or new borrowers, neither of which are caring and compassionate ways to operate an economy (and is why this debt-based money  is referred to as a “Ponzi scheme”), c) if your response to a tightening of credit is to increase government spending through bailouts to the banks using money that has to be borrowed, then the government is shifting the burden of repaying the loans onto the backs of taxpayers when the “profit” from the loans has already been claimed by banks, d) when you increase the money supply, in particular if you are using a fiat currency not backed by anything tangible, then you inevitably bring on inflation in the medium- and/or long-term, and e) if your response is to slash government spending then you are taking money out of the system and making workers/consumers/taxpayers scramble harder for the ‘dwindling’ funds needed to pay for their own debts. In other words, if you don’t fix money then you don’t fix anything.

Second, the issue of the financial sector being responsible for over 40% of corporate profits bears examination. These profits come primarily from 3 sources: interest collected, fees collected, and gains from a bank’s own trading, some of which is speculation and some just moving “financial products” which, because their value “derives” from something else and is thus very intangible and open to misstatement (some would say lie) and therefore creating “phantom” profit and not real wealth. Interest rates have been allowed to become usurious, often over 30%, which creates a fast way to funnel resources away from those who are resource-poor to begin with, hence needing loans, and giving those resources to those with the resources to lend. This widens the rich-poor income gap. Collecting (and increasing) fees, when you are already making huge profits, is just plain scandalous. And making money by speculating and shuffling “assets” that are two- and three-levels removed from anything real, and calling it “good” demonstrates how dysfunctional this system has become. I’d like to point to Charles Eisenstein, “Sacred Economics”, Chapter 12: “Negative-Interest Economics” for a very different perspective on what is possible. If you aren’t willing to go that far, how about at least letting the government compete with banks and lend to citizens at minimal, 0 – 5% rates (as the Federal Reserve already does with banks) so that interest goes back to taxpayers, not for-profit entities?

Your thoughts?

TRANSFORM WALL STREET AND THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

I spent last evening listening to Sasha Lilley, author of Capital and Its Discontents. She made mention of how economists and right-wing politicians had recently forecast ten years of austerity, here in America, in order to recover from the excesses of borrowing that the poor and middle class have indulged in. She further stated that more recently, as the crisis in Europe shows no signs of improving, these same talking heads have now begun to speak not of ten years but rather of an Age of Austerity.

To most people that is a scary thought. Austerity is code for slashing or eliminating government programs that aid the weakest and most vulnerable in our society. In these times when all economic classes recognize how vulnerable they are to uninsured illness, to layoffs, to underwater mortgages, to rising food and energy prices, and to credit card debt and interest payments that seem to grow with each passing month, we may well fear that the cuts to programs today may affect our own ability to survive in the near future, no matter how well off we may seem to be.

If we look around, we see that this fear has many manifestations:

• Increased migration of unemployed workers, both within our own country and in population shifts out of the most desperate countries and into other nations under less economic stress
• An increase in the strident rhetoric and sublime racism of conservative politicians and pundits about the supposed problem with immigration, and their willingness to forgo rights and protections of the Constitution in order to stave off some perceived threat from immigrant workers
• A general willingness to accept increased workloads as co-workers are laid off (and not replaced), and an acquiescence to management demands for more hours and more productivity even as wages stagnate or decrease
• Our silence as the bailouts continue, the money-printing continues, the charade of the Super Committee continues, and the celebrations of a rising stock market and record corporate profits continue
• Ever-rising food and energy prices cutting into our budgets and often forcing us to make painful decisions about what to pay for and what to let go into collection or default

 

And yet, these are the results of the old system. Many Americans are waking up to these problems and finding their voice of discontent. Regardless of whether or not you feel that the Occupy Movement should hasten to issue a list of demands or not, it serves us best to focus our discussions and our energy on beginning to identify the big-picture changes we need to make in the systems of economics and governance that will overcome the decades of dysfunction we now face. Fear arises when we see no alternative, and no way out, of a present predicament. Yet there are many new and fulfilling ways of being, and some are already taking shape in your own neighborhood. Garden swaps, Move Your Money campaigns, fights to save schools from closure or teacher layoffs, book discussion groups, burgeoning time exchange groups; all are manifestations of a new, caring economic model that is arising from the cracks of the old paradigm.

Many people believe the pundits who say, “If we can just get the economy growing again, more jobs will be created and our problems will be solved.” We will never return to the economy we had ten or twenty years ago. If you examine the arc of economic history over the last 40 years, since the dollar was taken off the gold standard in 1971, five issues stand out. First, wages have not increased. All gains in lifestyle stem not from increasing pay but rather they are due to the increase in two- or three-income households, or the increase in borrowing, first through the use of credit cards and more recently, through the use of home equity credit. Both methods of coping are no longer available to the majority of citizens. Second, wealth has increasingly become concentrated in the hands of fewer people. While this trend has accelerated since the turn of the century because of lower tax rates on individuals and increasing tax credits and deductions for businesses, it has mainly been the result of the need for workers to borrow in order to meet their needs. Although lenders are not actually loaning out their own money, they are nonetheless allowed to collect interest, often at onerous rates of up to 36%. When you devise a system that requires people to borrow in order to survive, and to pay interest at rates that prevent people from ever really being able to pay down their loans, then you have created an effective system to syphon financial resources from the borrowers to the lenders. As our debt has increased, so has the flow of capital into the hands of the few with the ability to lend money they don’t have: the banks. This is why the financial sector today provides more than 40% of the record $1.7 trillion in corporate profits, even during difficult economic times. Third, our debt load as a nation; government, corporate and private, has doubled 5 times in these last 40 years. Today in America it stands at just over $50 trillion, and has not grown much these last four years as the economy has struggled to arise from the Lesser Depression. For the economy to look like it has during these previous four decades, and for the economy to continue to grow as we claim it must, we need to add another $50 trillion in debt in the next six years. There is no way that can or will happen. Thus, the economic rules we have played by for decades no longer apply and the sooner we realize this and begin to make plans for dealing with new realities, the better off we will be. Fourth, we live for the first time in a global economy. Not only has manufacturing spread around the world in order to tap into less-regulated environments, cheaper labor pools, and low transportation costs due to soon-to-disappear cheap oil, but our financial system has spread its dysfunction into every industrialized nation, and into many that are not considered First World countries. It is not, on the surface, much concern to America whether Greece defaults or not. U.S. banks have loaned Greece barely $7 billion, a drop in our bucket of debt. But the recent creation of credit default swaps, basically insurance on the debt of another, exposes American banks to huge risk should the default trigger the need to cover the debts of some European banks. These new financial instruments are unregulated, and therefore hidden from the eyes of anyone who could tell us details such as how much is insured and by whom. No one knows, and truly: no one knows, the extent to which American banks are on the hook should banks around the world begin to fail because of debt defaults in Europe. The one fact we do know, since the market for these swaps has been estimated (by the International Settlement Bank) to be north of US$600 trillion, is that it would again place the American taxpayer dead-center inside any bailout. Globalization has developed one other insidious aspect: just-in-time manufacturing. As we have seen this year (2011) with the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the flooding in Thailand, our economic system is less resilient when parts manufacturing is scattered around the globe and not redundant. Disruption of one plant can force numerous other factories to halt production while they await a particular part. This means that isolated events now have global effects. And lastly, the growth of corporate spending on politics: through campaign contributions made largely in secret, by paying lobbyists, and by running media ads that are political in nature rather than focused on advertising a product, means that companies now effectively control the laws that are made and the budgets that determine the amount of enforcement of laws we already have. In effect, there is no difference between our two political parties in terms of the constituencies they serve; both serve corporations at the expense of the people. Thus any change in either politics or the economy will have to start with the people. We cannot wait for a leader to take the reins of power and force a change upon the system. We will be lucky if we can build enough of an alternative economy in our local communities before this old one collapses to allow us a peaceful, easy transition.

And transformation is our task today. This is why demands are useless. Demands imply that you are working within a system and willing to compromise. We can’t compromise, allowing corporations to continue to pollute or to privatize that which should be a public-owned space or service in return for some minor concession or regulation. We have to dream big: what will it look like when we take care of each other rather than spend all our energy in a race to acquire more stuff than our neighbors? How will we feed ourselves when we eschew eating oil, and instead begin to eat what grows in healthy soil? How will we build the relationships that ensure we will be well-taken care of in our old age, without reliance upon 10% annual returns from a stock portfolio driven to find profit regardless of the environmental or social impacts of profit-despite-all-costs? How will we survive with help from our neighbors, without depending on government assistance? How will we help educate, house and feed each of the now-seven billion people on the planet? And how will we do this for the people in our own neighborhood, who need our help today?

We risk everything when we fail to dream big enough. Band-Aid solutions are not going to work. Every problem is interconnected, just as we ourselves are interconnected with every living being, and more, in this Universe. How can we tap into this sense of our connectedness in order to find our freedom and our security? Money, and economics itself, is just a construction of rules that we have agreed to follow. Now we see how the rules are flawed. It is time to transform the rules, to play a new game. This time let’s play without fear and with compassion for all, even the 1%.

Transform

The Occupy Together movement is rightly focused on change. The modern system, focused on consumption and profit and fraud, is deeply flawed. But we have to face some harsh realities: winter is coming, the police are getting antsy, and although our message resonates, we are not getting the large numbers of bodies we desire onto the streets of our towns.

It is right to make this movement inclusive: “We are the 99%” means exactly that. The initial talking point: that corporations and politics can only lead to bad outcomes for people, is a message that reflects the feelings of most Americans. Making a demand, however, leads us quickly down the road towards compromise and marginalization. How can we maintain a movement that includes all points of view? By having an honest exchange of ideas and concerns, even if that means actually listening to a conservative point of view in order to find common ground. How can we join our neighbors in a new society that addresses the problems of the modern world without experiencing a collapse of civility and order? By crafting a vision that arises out of shared values and working together to bring that vision into reality. How can we maintain and grow the movement in the face of adversity, both from snow as well as from rubber bullets? By focusing on creating, rather than destroying. Aren’t we all more excited and filled with energy when we are making something together that fulfills our passion, than when we are tearing something down?

Perhaps it is time to transition our focus from occupy onto transform. Would you be more eager to attend an event hosted by Transform Oakland, or Transform Wall Street, than you are about attending Occupy events? Can we begin to talk about the new future we envision and how to manifest it, rather than just occupying and tearing down what is already crumbling? Doesn’t occupy convey a message that we are here for the long haul, but still deeply immersed in the status quo? I’d rather not stay inside an edifice that is crashing to the ground, thank you very much. Instead, I prefer working together to transform dysfunction into utility, to reclaim our rights and powers as citizens, and to manifest a world that works for all. I want to transform the world we live in, not just occupy a public space. Let’s transform America, starting today!

Divide and Conquer

If I may, let me restate an obvious fact of conflict: divide and conquer. Do you think that the powers that be have forgotten this axiom of warfare? As we descend into literal class warfare, as the rich slurp out the last dregs of your milkshake from the cup that you have held your entire life, before pitching us all into the trash; do you think they don’t know how to play this card?

Look at how the Republican debates spend so much time discussing the illegal alien problem, as if solving that is the most important problem of our day? Do you yourself, point fingers at those people who have gone into foreclosure due to a “liar’s loan” gone bad, saying “they should have known better, they have themselves to blame”? Are feeling superior about your own housing situation? Are you blaming yourself for the recent performance of your investments within your retirement plan? Are you feeling alone, ashamed, or inadequate, because you can’t see how you can afford to buy a car that gets better gas mileage, or to move close enough to work or a bus line that you don’t need a car?

Even as you pray that you can keep your job, and accept long hours, increased workload and mandatory work on days that used to be your days off all in order to stay employed, do you point to the folks who have been unemployed now for a year or more, and say that they are “just taking advantage of their government benefits”? Do you complain that the young people coming out of school and into entry-level jobs are making it harder for older folks like yourself to keep working?

And even harder to admit, do you still feel uncomfortable in one-on-one conversation with someone of another race? It may be that you haven’t quite assimilated the understanding that we are all One, or it may be the reverse: that you feel some amount of guilt for the way other races have been treated in the past by those of us who are white and unenlightened. Either way, though, we are still separated by the establishment into little compartments of race, creed and class.

This is why we cannot succumb to making demands of the system at this time. We all have been hurt by the system. Demands that appeal to one may not address the primary issue of another. Demands make it appear that we have room for compromise, that a deal can be struck that pleases no one and that allows the injustices to continue, just at some abated level, for a short amount of time. Demands mean that this system is repairable when it clearly is not. Demands drive people away; people that are just as unhappy, just as hurt, just as exploited, as you have been, but in different ways. We need to come together as the 99%. We need to find those issues that speak to all of us: corporations are not people, our money system is beyond repair, we need to find ways to end war and care for one another. This is simple. It is not easy. But it can be done. Don’t get sidetracked into a myriad of details or a long list of demands. And don’t let one disagreement get in the way of you giving your heart and soul to helping this movement. Open your heart and speak from that place deep inside. Have meaningful conversations with those you love and with those you meet. Know that we are all struggling; this is really hard, right now. We are past meekly accepting “no” for an answer when we suggest solutions. It is time to say “YES!” Yes to life, yes to caring, yes to enough, yes to sharing, and yes to seeing our similarities, not just our differences.