Tag Archives: plutocracy

Remembering September 11, 2001

Posted on by
Reply
Deb HillardTom SchaeferCindy CookeStan MusickFrank BynumKatie Russell
Kay NelsonGary & Stephanie EvansDan StewartRobert HendeeHugh SolomonMisty Dalton
Sharon KerseyMarla StewartRandy RileyChuck WattsMark DulleaSigrid Solomon
Mary GibsonJim BurgeSally MillerSteve Black MDJohn LundbladMolly Dullea RN

Empathy Surplus’ photostream on Flickr.

By Chuck Watts, Co-Founder, Empathy Surplus Project

We all know where we were on that awful Tuesday.

In the aftermath of the single largest mass murder committed on US soil and the criminal destruction of the Twin Towers of New York City there was a brief period of our American and world response where we experienced a true empathy surplus.

For a brief period, measured by a few days, we united around a compassionate vision of freedom, facilitated by an unambiguous movement of protection and empowerment of each other no matter our political persuasion.

We threw off plutocracy’s authoritarian chains of self-interest and ran toward the towers to embrace our neighbors.

We disobeyed plutocracy’s Marketer-in-Chief’s command to go shopping and ran toward the towers to embrace our neighbors.

We rejected plutocracy’s call to personal responsibility and self-discipline to maximize profits and ran toward the towers to embrace our neighbors.

Every heart was big and we were all caring citizens. We were ALL 1st responders in the uniforms of citizenship as diverse as we all are. We were all focused on protection and empowerment of each other, the focus of true democracy, and many gave their lives to that effort. I can still remember the scores of different kinds of boats that seemed to instantly appear in that harbor ALL headed toward the towers.

The American Dream of a well-functioning democracy, based on empathy and shared responsibility was alive and bright. That vision of hope coupled with determination is the vision of the piloting of Caring Citizens Chapters, an Empathy Surplus Project.

I believe we all are called to a caring citizenship that focuses on re-imagining that American Dream in our own neighborhoods.

I believe we are all called to weekly investment in our 1st Amendment freedom to gather with one another for conversations that matter to identify how to expand our human rights over and above all others.

I believe we are all called to invite one another to this endeavor on a daily and weekly basis by promoting our human rights collaborations.

And, finally, I believe we are all called to implement those human rights promises by direct dialogue with our elected leaders beginning with our closest precinct party representatives.

Strong, caring citizenship can be a legacy of 9/11.

Main Street Wilmington, OH

Posted on by
Reply

Main Street Wilmington, OH

Steve Brown, Director, Main Street Wilmington, dropped by my office today and asked a very open ended question (Thanks, Steve): What should we be doing in Wilmington, OH?

In a nutshell I answered that we need business men and women taking time out of the routine of business planning and making money to think about how we can expand human rights and the freedoms of our neighbors. Think of it as giving back.

From a brain insights perspective we need business men and women (all of us really) to spend time every day exercising that part of our brains where empathy and compassion reside. The plutocracy infrastructure of financial language / neural pathways is well-developed; the democracy infrastructure of human rights language / neural pathways is extremely underdeveloped.

If our existing infrastructure of two party representatives per precinct in our county of 38 precincts were actively seeking to facilitate neighborhood conversations that matter in our county, that would mean 76 weekly conversations.

Assuming a dozen people at each weekly gathering to exercise our 1st Amendment freedoms to petition government, where do we find 76 public meeting rooms? Just a thought.