Bush, Kerry, or World 5.0?

This was a very, very controversial article at the time. Make sure to read the Addendum as well, which was written in response to the heavy feedback....

As the mainstream media and voting public increasingly focus on Kerry as the man to beat Bush, I want to ask a provocative question, one whose answer is typically assumed rather than addressed.

Would a Kerry administration for the next four years ACTUALLY be better for the long-term health of our world than a Bush administration?

Many Democrats, blinded by disgust for Bush and his henchmen, proudly wear the badge of ABB - Anyone But Bush. Their assumption is that Bush is the absolute worst president we can have and we need to rally behind whomever seems likely to defeat him.

The Bush administration has done a lot of disturbing things, from getting us involved in an expensive, deceptive, and largely unjustified war, to rolling back privacy and civil rights, to creating a secretive, corporate-ruled, debt-ridden culture in Washington, to accelerating the decline of our planetary ecosystems. America has begun seeming like an arrogant empire to many countries in the world.

All of which seems very bad. Unless it turns out not to be. The reason I say this is that the most fundamental need we have as a planet is to move our structures of power and governance to a new level, rather like installing a new operating system in a computer. We need to become world-centric rather than nation-centric. We need to build the structures of international peace, cooperation, and justice. We need to address our massive global ecological crises. I am convinced that we need an evolutionary step up rather than slight modifications. Instead of going from the World 4.0 operating system to World 4.1, we need to do a full upgrade to World 5.0. Since America dominates the planet, our government and leadership are major determinants of how quickly that shift happens.

As dangerous as the Bush administration appears, it has also been acting to galvanize and mobilize the forces that actually CAN lead us to World 5.0. The problems of the current operating system are becoming much more obvious and much more painful. This pain and frustration can drive us to create another level of planetary health for the long term. The Bush administration arrived with a World 4.0 platform and has been heading steadily downwards toward World 3.0 in such a way that the forces of World 5.0 have gotten much more active, focused, and engaged.

This can result in a slingshot effect, allowing a powerful launch in the opposite direction, all the way up to World 5.0. To use another metaphor, an addict typically needs to bottom out before getting into treatment and getting clean. Bush is helping us to bottom out as a country with the current operating system.

This brings us back to the question of whether a Bush or a Kerry administration for four years would be better for the long-term health of the planet. For me, this boils down to how quickly and effectively either administration would catalyze the emergence of World 5.0, which is the only system that can address the issues we currently face. Is it better to have four more years of World 4.0 with regressive elements of 3.0? Or do we want 4.1, with a few minor improvements to the basic operating system?

My answer, which will likely infuriate many ABB Democrats, is that we are probably better served in the long term by four more years of Bush than Kerry because I think that would build the passionate, revolutionary fire necessary to make the great leap.

The reason is this: Kerry speaks the language of change but he doesn't have the track record of a change agent. He's only passed seven bills in his time in the Senate, if one Internet source can be trusted, and four of those were largely symbolic. He has voted for key parts of the Bush program - the Iraq war and Patriot Act for example - and is committed to continuing the war and even increasing the size of our army. He has taken more special interest money in the last fifteen years than any other Senator. He is one of the wealthiest members of Congress via marriage. A man who can pay cash for a $750K speedboat is going to be a bit out of touch with the needs of the working class. If we dig deeper, it turns out he's even a member of the same secret society as Bush, the Skull and Bones society of Yale. Finally, he's getting heavy financial backing from the executive levels of various media conglomerates.

In short, he is a World 4.1 politician - an establishment insider who is positioning himself as enough of a populist and "winner" to get the nomination. And it appears to be working.

My honest read is that if we elect Kerry as our president, he will do a mediocre job and more or less perpetuate the status quo. Given party power dynamics, though, he would still be running in 2008 as the incumbent. The Democratic party machine would not seriously entertain another contender. And then we would have two options: four more years of World 4.1 or a swing back to World 4.0 with a new Republican challenger. It would be 2012 and possibly 2016 at the earliest before we would have another chance for a president of the United States who is leading us to World 5.0.

I don't know about you, but that seems like a long time to wait if you are committed to creating World 5.0 and aware of the pain and suffering caused by the current operating system.

One alternative, then, is four more years of Bush. If we can get past our visceral reactions to the man and examine this through the lens of shifting to World 5.0, Bush is actually a great catalyst - the last hurrah of a declining paradigm, the ultimate foe for the forces of 5.0 to triumph over. He's almost a caricature of the last worldview. There's every reason to bet that if he's in office for another four years, we'll have a great revolutionary leap to authentic World 5.0 leadership for America rather than a compromise formation of World 4.1. Sometimes things need to get worse before they get better.

I probably won't be able to bring myself to vote for Bush this fall, if for no other reason than I would feel guilty admitting it. But in a funny way I'd be cheering for him if Kerry ends up with the nomination. I want to live in the World 5.0 system as soon as possible and I think Kerry would actually decelerate that process rather than help it. I feel similarly about Dean and Edwards: both talk the talk of change but neither is really dedicated to the fundamental shifts necessary to launch World 5.0. Dean and Edwards are World 4.1 or 4.2, although both have worked rhetorical magic with their followers to give the impression that they are true agents of change.

There is, of course, one other option, which is what I've been putting all my energy into for the last six months: nominate Dennis Kucinich. I believe he's the leader we need for the new operating system. On all fronts, he is a champion for World 5.0 and he's got the specific platforms, experience, intelligence, and heart to pull it off.

The main problem has been a psychological one. Democrats have been so entranced by the ABB rhetoric and so afraid of Bush's war chest that even the most progressive factions have been stuck thinking we can't have 5.0 this round. We need to settle for someone who can beat Bush, they say, which means sticking as close to 4.0 as possible with a few phrases about change thrown in to appease the progressive wing of the party.

The problem with this logic is that anyone who is authentically, legitimately, and actively working for the emergence of 5.0 is going to run out of steam working for a candidate that is 4.1 or 4.2. They will get bored and lose interest. The youth won't get animated. The non-voting populace will grumble and return to non-participation. And the election will come down to a fight over the voting citizens who want something between 4.0 and 4.1. Those who are champions of the new operating system will be bored by the election and many will believe their time is better spent on local projects and initiatives.

I have been a passionate champion and campaigner for Dennis Kucinich and I continue to believe that we do have a window of opportunity to elect him as our president. However, that window will close in the next three weeks unless the trance is broken and the forces for World 5.0 rally fast around Dennis. I've been making peace in the last two days with the idea that if we don't have what it takes this time, we'll have a better shot at World 5.0 with four more years of Bush than with four years of World 4.1. It's grim but I think it's true.

There could, however, still be a major breakthrough of momentum. It's got to come from the youth. The gray haired change agents of the sixties aren't going to produce the breakthrough by themselves although we should honor them for continuing to carry the torch. It's people in their twenties and thirties who will have to add their rocket fuel. I also believe this burst of momentum can only effectively happen in California before the March 2nd election and that it would have to lead to a win. A second-place finish will not cut it. America only takes winners seriously and California is really the last hope for an actual win before it is too late. Without a win, Kucinich cannot build enough momentum to take the nomination from Kerry. With a win in CA, things could turn around quickly. So, we find ourselves with 18 days and long-shot hopes. But we can turn it around if the full vigor, passion, and power of the next generation of torchbearers blazes forth.

I have honestly done everything I know how to make the leap possible. It's now up to a lot of other people getting sparked and lighting
wildfires everywhere they can in service to the transition to 5.0.

Otherwise, I'm going to plan for four more years of Bush and lay the groundwork for the connections, momentum, and energy to make the leap that we really need to happen in four more years. But I would accept that conclusion only with a heavy heart. We've got one last hurrah, torchbearers. Are you willing to go for it?

Addendum to Bush, Kerry, or World 5.0?

After further reflections on my article of yesterday, I want to provide an addendum, which I would be grateful to you to circulate wherever the article is circulating (or attach this if you are sending the article). Internet forwarding can be a blessing for outreach but a problem when people think I'm a neo-fascist or, on the flip side, that I speak for the campaign or for Dennis Kucinich. Neither are true. Kucinich has stated unequivocally that he would support whatever nominee is chosen. I spoke only for myself and I now realize that I was doing some manipulating in the article that wasn't about truth but instead about my own fear. For that I apologize.

The thing which made some folks angry about my article was my suggestion that we might be better off in the longest-term view with four more years of Bush than of Kerry. They read that as me championing Bush and telling people to vote for him. I slipped over a certain line here and I see now how I was being provocative rather than just truthful. I stated the case more strongly knowing that it would provoke people, not because I thought it definitively true but because I wanted to detach people from the fixation on Kerry. In my mind, I am more worried about Kerry getting the nomination than a Bush victory because I think Bush is going to lose to whomever runs. It would be a very sad day for me to watch Kerry be sworn in instead of Kucinich, who I think can lead us to another level as a country. It would feel like a lost opportunity and I would take little pleasure in it. It would feel like a small hop rather than a leap

To be clear, I would vote for Kerry against Bush if it came to that (which I hope it won't). And it is true that I wouldn't be as impassioned about it for many of the reasons I outlined.

But here's where I got manipulative in that article. I was trying to tip the momentum towards Kucinich by undermining Kerry and playing the division card that has so wracked the Democratic party and resulted in Nader being the scapegoat for so much anger. In doing so, I was manipulating the state of heightened fear about the possibility of Bush's second term and the disasters it could bring to undermine the establishment candidate. The underpinning logic was, "Oh yeah, if you want to trot out a the same old kind of establishment candidate, then maybe I'll quit playing for the team." Which is manipulative, no matter how much other stuff I pad around it.

In reality, I'm personally not worried about Bush having a second term because I don't think it's going to happen and, if it did, I think the World 5.0 forces will be much more active, engaged, and exposing of the lies and corruption and thus catalyze a pop the next time around, just as I wrote. Whether true or not, that is my reality; I am more worried at the moment about a Kerry nomination than a Bush victory.

What I should have done in the article is be more direct and transparent about my actual goal, which was to dissolve the ABB fear-fixation. I think ABB is putting in danger the possibility of the Democratic party doing anything bold or interesting this year, when we've got an enormous opportunity.

The psychology of ABB is a form of personal disempowerment because it orients our power around the other, in this case Bush. There is no positive declaration of what we want in the world, no advocacy for what we see as true, right, and beautiful. We become so wrapped up in the oppositional stance, driven by fear, that we lose our sense of who we really are and what we believe in.

I think the ABB psychology reinforces a sense of weakness in the Democratic party rather than strengthening it. Swing voters and those who are typically unengaged are turned off by the ABB stance because it seems so negative (and it is). If anything undermines a victory this year, it will be the ABB stance, which also tends to make people more risk-averse, retreating to the center, hovering over polls, and generally being reactive, even attacking others in the party who voice alternative opinions because those are signs of division. In this way, I believe that the ABB psychology leads us to be more out of alignment with our democratic principles. I thus think it needs to be challenged in order for people to open to their deeper truth.

Nonetheless, I do have compassion for the ABB stance. For most, it comes out of personal suffering or an acute attunement to the suffering of others. And I know that there are a lot of very real people in very real pain. However, I think that when we set our compass by ABB, which is mostly what seems to be happening around John Kerry right now and the whole electability question, we undermine our very foundation and the positive, creative potential we have in us. And we could well elect someone who offers very little in the way of fundamental change.

So my article was meant to challenge the ABB worldview but I did cross over the line from speaking my truth into provocation. I have been afraid that we aren't going to make that deeper shift this time, even though we have a legitimate shot at creating World 5.0 leadership in America this year, which is what I personally really want. There is still an opportunity to make that happen but the horizons are short.

I apologize if my article tweaked you rather than provoked a better understanding, especially the parts where I went from truth into provocation.

All I really ask is for you find the truth in your heart and set your compass from there, working for the world you want to create. If Kerry is your man and gets the nomination and you feel passionate about him, then support him with everything you've got!

The thing I want us to remember, though, is that we do not yet have a Democratic nominee. We have a front-runner and 75% of America has yet to tally their vote. Before this month, people assumed it was all over and Dean was the nominee but campaigns can change quickly. We can still nominate Dennis Kucinich, not just for our country but for the new operating system for the world.