Mohammad Yunus, for example, who won the Nobel Prize last year for Peace, is involved in microfinance for women, helping female entrepreneurs open up businesses. This is a vital effort. Empower women in ways that they deem appropriate, and you will have changed the face of the Middle East.

Your thinking is right on target, and so is the work that you do. I would like to work with people like yourself, and maybe we can make some projects happen, which tell the world that a Vision of Hope can be made real if people choose to make it so.

If you like, you are welcome to visit my website at http://www.sellingavisionofhope.org and you can register and e-mail me on the contact page, and post on the forum page. Maybe we could get a dialogue going, and work together to make the contacts who could actually make something happen along these lines. There are wealthy people out there who want to leave a legacy, and what better legacy is there than peace?

regards

Business speaks louder than “words.” Business has a way of creating its own ideological imperative. If we can make money together, and if we can speak to one another with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity, and if we can inspire each other with a sense of hope for the future, then together we can turn this thing around.

And then, even the extremists will have to buy in, because in the final analysis, the will of the people will not be deterred. The extremists will not be able to capture the public’s imagination once people begin to imagine a better life for themselves.

And Elinor, I am a big fan of God. But as you know, God helps those who help themselves. I think He will help us, but He is counting on us to do most of the work. If we are good, and if we prove that by doing good works, then He can point to us as proof that His creation is indeed good.

regards to all

How exactly will it all play out? I don’t really know. This is not a one man show. And I don’t have the ability to make it happen on my own. But I do see that things must go in this direction if we are to bring order to the world. That is the big experiment that we find ourselves in. That is probably the reason we were put on this good earth. Can we find a way to bring goodness to our lives, or do we continue to go down the path of death, destruction, and despair? The choice is ours. It always has been. And everything we know and love hangs in the balance.

I think you’re trying to say that sometimes, when we blame others, it is really we who are at fault. And it’s easy to blame others, but difficult to see what’s wrong with us.

I can agree with you on this. In fact, the first part of Selling a Vision of Hope is to come up with a new ideology, which I call An Ideology of Common Sense, which will allow us to talk with one another with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity.

Instead of talking at one another, we should be talking with one another. We should build bridges across the ideological divide. And to do that, we have to feel each other’s pain, not only our own.

So I can agree with your point of view. The question is: What do we do about it? My answer is like the 5 fingers of the Hamsa:

1. Speak to one another with common sense and with a sense of personal dignity.

2. Invest in one another with projects that resonate with hope, that create jobs, and that protect the environment.

3. Use ideology and investment to sell people on a Vision of Hope.

4. Sustain the hope with public diplomacy.

5. And when necessary fight, and fight hard, but position the fight within a Vision of Hope. Raise the fight on the ground to a higher moral plain, by giving the fight a moral clarity of purpose.

That’s my story. What can you understand from this story?

WHAT CAN U UNDERSTAND FROM THIS STORY?

Something about a deaf guy and a chicken.