A Nation Out of Balance

There are a multitude of strident and cacophonous voices speaking out on the many issues that confront a nation that is in the midst of crisis. Yet, the critiques that range from unreasoned rage to unflinching and relentless recrimination, fail to reflect the underlying source of the national malaise.

We are a nation out of balance. As a people, we have allowed our intrinsic understanding of our place within the human community and the natural world to be supplanted by the artificial requirements imposed on individual lives by the demands of purely commercial interests.

There are millions of unemployed people who have lost their livelihoods as a direct result of the manipulation of the financial markets by those who remain untouched by the crisis that has gripped so many lives. We have engineered a social order that operates on the premise of the exploitation of need and the manufacture of desire. The majority of those who are employed spend their working hours performing tasks that fail to satisfy the fundamental need to do meaningful work.

We are a population so out of touch with our essential connection with the natural world that we still do not recognize our role in the inexorable deterioration of the natural environment to the degree required to make the changes that could avert future catastrophe.

The manufacture of armaments and weapons of mass destruction have become a fundamental part of the national economy. War and the accepted use of violence to resolve human conflict on the national and individual level has become a seemingly permanent aspect of our world view.

Our President, members of Congress, corporate leadership and others who are relied upon for formulating public policy cannot help but reflect the hallmarks of our culture. We are a nation and people dramatically out of balance with the fundamental realities that are a necessary part of a sustainable future.