3 steps

Rumor has it the TPRP (T-party / Republicans) are going to back away from blowing up the economy in an attempt to extract concessions from Obama. That is good news, if it is true. Still, it would be better if the TPRP realized that it isn't Obama they are trying to coerce but rather the entire American public. It would be even better if the segment of the American public that voted these lunatics into office realized the same thing.

If the TPRP actually backs away from being the economic equivalent of suicide bombers we get just a few more minutes of respite from our teetering and failing social /economic / military / corporate structure. It probably isn't enough of a respite to prevent disaster, but it may be enough for a new mentality to begin to grow. Imagine MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving - a hugely successful social movement) morphing into something bigger. Maybe they could add in the fathers and include more of the human family. Let them work toward the right of children to survive their childhood superseding the right of gun lovers to provide weapons to every nut case on the street. They might even point out that a gun in a house with children is like putting them in a car without a seat belt. Call it PAMMC (Parents Against Mass Murdering Children).

If that works, maybe PAMMC could grow into AAASV (Americans Against All Sensless Violence). Even more inclusive this could include people who are not parents. They could work against the endless worship of violence that poisons our society. Not only gun violence but rape, domestic violence, and assault. In a group like this off-the-reservation types (like yours truly) might find some allies among the more liberal religious traditions who don't believe that god loves the NRA. 

(A gun loving god is the ideology of the far Christian right. It is also the ideological home for Young Earth Creationism, Climate Change Denying, Obama is a Muslim, and Capitalism is Blessed claiming crowd, any or all of which would have me abandon the name "Christian" even if I still was one. I would figure any real god would understand and approve.)

Who knows, maybe then we could take the last big step to being an intelligent species, TEHFAW (The Entire Human Family Against War). As long as we remain a war fighting species we can't really claim to be an intelligent species. Sure a world full of TEHFAW would mean the end of the US as we know it. Reduce war, the mechanisms supporting war, the funding for war, the love of war, and the endless involvement in war, and what is there for the US of A to add to the global debate?We abandoned social justice long ago, have ceded economic vitality in the name of corporate profitability, and are quickly abandoning intellectualism, science and innovation to religious fundamentalism. Should the world turn away from war what will become of us? Will we take to fighting with each other and end up like the Balkans? A place of endless misery in a world that has, otherwise, moved on?

This society is heavily invested in violence, weapons, war and hate. Turning to something new will mean nothing less than a wholesale rejection of what we have been building for that last several generations (at least) and turning to something that is utterly foreign to American sensibilities. That being the idea that there are other people in the world who are just as valuable as we think we are, and they don't share our love of violence. Three steps. I'll be rooting for those who try to make them, but I don't think we can.