American Sports Radio Personalities Kornheiser
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I just returned from watching the documentary film “Inside Job”. It’s a movie with regards to how the housing bubble and crisis was created. I couldn’t get out of the theatre fast sufficient to take a shower and wash the nasty grime left on me from watching a bunch of grown men in suits act out their adolescent fantasies of power at the expense of others. The level of corruption in our financial and political foundations is stunningly amazing. What’s even more stunning is the lack of collective outrage from the standard public. It could be that we aren’t asking the right questions. Instead of asking “why isn’t any individual going to jail over the housing scam?”, we’re asking “where’s Obama’s birth certificate?”. Can you say “Red Herring”? I recognise I just threw red meat to the conspiracy theorists, but there is something defective when we’re missing one of the most adverse series of events in the civilized age. Now that I’ve said that, let me also say that Sustainable Society Leaders don’t have to go after the robber barons in Washington and New York in order to get heard. Leave that dirty occupation to Mike Rowe and people who write, like me. The Sustainable Society Leader need only take the high road. For those of you who don’t know, Sustainable Society Leaders (SSLs) are the emergent leaders who are now directing a new philosophical approach to how we live. For over 100 years, the American approach to the earth, it’s resources, the other humans living in it, our approach to government and our way of managing our future was “damn the torpedoes… full speed ahead”. Part of that came from the theory that the world has a never ending supply of stuff. The other percentage comes from the Judeo/Christian system of belief that we will have to have “dominion” over the world rather of living in harmoniousness with it. Both of those ideas came together in a toxic brew that told us we didn’t have to worry with regards to the future…somebody else will fix it, or we’ll get caught up in the rapture anyway. Well, the SSLs are those “somebody elses” who are here to repair it. Their fix, however, means a dramatic modify in the way we see ourselves in the world. It means sharing, the reduction of consumerism, taking the long view, giving careful consideration to the needs of future generations, making hard conclusions regarding what’s necessary, each and everyday environmentalism, protecting true free enterprise and entrepreneurship, valuing community and devising social networks as well as ways to empower the individual. Who could argue with those values? Sustainable Society Leadership merely involves encouraging these conceptions and their practical implementation in a modern society. These leaders go beyond using this discussion as a slogan for a big corporation or leveraging it as a venture promise. SSLs are the ones that recognize the need to get past the current ideals because these are questions with regards to our long term survivability as a people. Because these values are reasonably universal and have a wide appeal, they are veritably the high road equated to the negative partisan bickering ofttimes celebrated as a blood sport on contemporary radio and television talk shows. The SSL doesn’t have to engage in a debate with the opposing view to validate the importance of the sustainability message. Simple town hall meetings that ask citizens to fetch their questions will suffice. Taking the high road in leadership has many times been resisted by the progressed politician because, all the current exploration shows that for better or worse, humans tend to respond to negative campaigning and negative news. People say they want something dissimilar than the bickering and fighting, but it’s the negative stuff that they tend to respond to. We say we want positive news, but the most eminent ranked news shows are filled with negative images, divisive language and graphic violence. However, SSLs may and will tap the one aspect of the humane condition that may trump negativity. It’s called hope. Researcher Rick Snyder at the University of Kansas came up with the Hope Theory that says we tend to gravitate to ideas, conceptions and people that aid us move from dreams to reality. The occupation of the Sustainable Society Leader is to articulate the dream of a better future and then precisely articulate how to get there. The key is to do it in outstanding detail. That is the essence of hope. It is also the key to the high road – spelling out a possible and probable hopeful future without brawling with naysayers. My mother applied to say, “never fight with a fool, for passersby won’t know the difference”. The SSL may refrain from looking like a fool by concentrating on hope. Since hope trumps negativity, hope is the high ground in the battle amidst the two. Be aware, though. People of innovative societies have developed a taste for the negative since they’ve been on a steady diet of it for a long time. The SSL ought to think of this as a diet change. People will think it’s kinda weird at first. Some will straightout object to it. But in the end, SSLs are supplying something new for those who may have had their fill of the unhealthful slop they’ve been fed so in a faithful manner for years. The windows of chance will be produced over the next few years. Now is the time to step into the future prospects or potentials by taking the high road…… that will lead to the high ground. |
