(Note: a Rep*blican friend sent this to me tonight. I take that as a sign of hope amidst their ashes.)
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A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
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Try to imagine our Dear Leaders, who are currently disappearing more dollars than I want to repeat (because it's obscene), behaving in such a way as this. This is the sort of model around which to wrap pent up hope and goodwill around a doable nucleus. And that nucleus can be converted to government policy -- domestic and (gasp) foreign.
What if. What if we conducted foreign policy like this? What would happen if our money used to bail out the worst among us were used in same measure to bail out the least among us? Remember, this model is not charity. It's not welfare. It's not a gift. It's loans. Loans that are usually repaid so borrowers are eligible to borrow again and/or recommend others to the program.
Kiva is an Internet adaptation of what Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank started three decades ago in Bangladesh. Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts, so this is certainly not an obscure paradigm anymore.
Doing that would change the world as we know it, in a direction that so many here have fought for so long and so hard. Consider: we need more jobs in the US, and the world needs more programs like this. We can replicate Grameen's efforts, and we can replicate the efforts of organizations like Kiva.
Further imagine, if you can, a US Department of Peace -- an entire cabinet with the sole aim of promoting peace through peaceful means. The Grameens and Kivas of the world, adapted as formal, official US government policy. I'm not talking about Peace Corps or USAID. Those can be folded into the Peace Department. (Plus, the latter isn't what I wouldn't refer to as tilting toward feckless and inept too much of the time. Obama's team is poring through all agencies for reform or termination, and that's one to look at very closely because of bloat and waste.)
We have a new world ahead of us, for better or worse. Better is up to us. Worse is just letting things go pretty much as they've been going, then screaming about the injustice of it all. US government needs an overhaul. That's us. Even with Rep*blicans joining in!