The responsibility for change lies with us

Article Summary

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

Alvin Toffler: "We must be willing to shape ourselves and our institutions to deal with the new realities."
We become what we think about. We will be significant or insignificant because of the quality of the choices we make.
"If it is to be, it's up to me", leadership is an action process, not a position.
In Crimea and in WWI trench warfare was adopted, but reluctantly. The old generals couldn't adapt to problems first encountered 40 and 50 years before.
In the 1960's after the post war boom, people were very optimistic about the future. We could all be rich. We would live long productive lives.
James Burke in a television series tells us that "our ancestors were as certain about their facts as we are."
We see what we expect to see, we're all conditioned by social and cultural pressures to "see" some things as important and to ignore what's unimportant.
Your world view dictates what you think is important, what questions you can ask, what you imagine is reliable evidence, and how you can respond.
Sir Karl Popper: "We must relentlessly search for errors in our own thinking. The readiness to discover our thinking errors is essential.
The eruption at Mount St. Helens came after much warning from the scientists on the mountain. When the mountain exploded, 58 people were killed.
The numbers on the screen are telling us something. Can we tell when the numbers are important, and when the numbers are insignificant?
Michael P Nichols: "Most people take the path of least resistance. Real change is hard to achieve."
Alvin Toffler (1980): "(There is) widespread disillusionment, anger and bitterness against the worlds Second Wave Governments."
The responsibility for change, therefore, lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely.
Thirty years later the Second Wave Governments are still firmly in control, and steadfastly opposing necessary change.
read the National Security Document published in September 2002
"The USA intends to use it's superior military and economic strength to impose an American solution on problems as defined by the USA."
"We will operate outside the bounds of International Law."
"The USA alone will determine what constitutes justification. "
Open Future Limited hopes and expects that Americans may begin to see that they have other options.

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