MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR ON THE WEAKNESS OF VIOLENCE:

The ultimate weakness of violenceis that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.......Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

THE GLOBALMARSHALL PLAN

Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)

Dear Network of Spiritual Progressives:

I’m proud to be workingwith you to build a cam-paign for a Global Marshall Plan along lines thatyouhave developed on yourwebsitewww.spiritu-alprogressives.org. Rabbi Michael Lerner and Ihave great respect for each other, and frankly I’mhappy that this initiative comes from cooperationbetween me, the first Muslim elected to the U.S.HouseofRepresentatives, anda rabbiwell knownfor his commitment to peace, social justice andecological sanity for our planet.

I have introduced into the House of Representa-tivesHouseResolution 1078endorsing theGlobalMarshall Plan. I’m also glad to have been joinedin this effort by those Members of Congress whohave signed on as co-sponsors in the House (see

sidebar).With yourhelp,manyothermembers of theHouse andSenatemayjoin as co-sponsors as well.

Sixty-three years ago, theUnitedStates emerged fromworldwardeterminedto rebuild a devastated continent and to sow the seeds of lasting peace andprosperity, even for people whose governments had been our enemies. TheMarshall Planwas a great success: it helpedEurope recover anddramaticallyincreased the goodwill of the world toward theUnited States, generating in-creasedU.S. influence for two generations. TheMarshall Plan demonstratedthe transcendent power of America’s political and financial generosity.

Todaywe face challenges at homeandabroad that rival the scale of that time,and Ibelieve the circumstances call usnow tomeetmoral obligationsbeyondwhat our current systemof public diplomacy and foreign aid are designed tohandle.

Foreign aid to poor countries in Africa, Asia and South/Central America,whether considered as a proportion of the Federal budget or as a proportionof gross domestic product (GDP), has never reached close to the amount ofmoney that we used in the first years of theMarshall Plan.Meanwhile,morethan 1 billionpeople onour planet struggle to survive on less than$1per day,and another 1.6 billion people on less than $2 per day.

House Resolution 1078 recognizes that lasting security for America will bebest achieved throughpolicies of generosity and caring toward the rest of theworld. It points out that theway toachieve thesegoals is throughanewGlobalMarshall Plan in which the U.S. dedicates 1%-2% of the GDP each year for

the next 20 years toward once and for all eliminating domestic and globalpoverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, inadequatehealth care,and repairing the environment of the planet.

The resolution also calls for creating international non-governmentalmech-anisms for receiving anddistributing such funds inways that ensure that themoney is safeguarded from corruption and protected frommanipulation toserve elite interests, but instead isdistributed inways that are respectful ofna-tive cultures, are environmentally sensitive, and reach the people who needit. It calls for the revising of existing trade agreements inways thatwould im-prove the lives of the poor of the world, providing training in environmentalsustainability, family andparental support, emergencyhealth techniques, andnon-violent communication.

The campaign for a Global Marshall Plan will require years of work to helpchange the dominant way people think about homeland security. That cam-paign is being led by Rabbi Michael Lerner and the Network of SpiritualProgressives (NSP). I hope you will join with him and the NSP in this badlyneeded effort, and I, formypart,will dowhat I can tobring thiswayof think-ing into the conversation in theU.S. Congress.

Hon. Keith Ellison (D, MN)House of RepresentativesWashington, D.C.

CongressmanEllison and the otherswho have endorsedHouseRes. 1078 (theNSP versionof the Global Marshall Plan) have not seen and do not necessarily endorse the specificarguments and analyses put forward in this booklet, which go further than HR 1078 inexplaining the intellectual and spiritual foundations of the NSP approach.

Rep. Tammy Baldwin [D-WI]Rep. Emanuel Cleaver [D-MO]Rep. John Conyers [D-MI]Rep. Susan A. Davis [D-CA]Rep. Chaka Fattah [D-PA]Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA]Rep. Raul M. Grijalva [D-AZ]Rep. Maurice D. Hinchley [D-NY]Rep. Michael M. Honda [D-CA]Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson [D-TX}

Rep. Carolyn C. Kilpatrick [D-MI]Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich [D-OH]Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA]Rep. Jim McDermott [D-WA]Rep. James P. Moran [D-VA]Rep. John W. Olver [D-MA]Rep. Donald M. Payne [D-NJ}Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky [D-IL]Rep. Fortney Pete Stark [D-CA]Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey [D-CA]

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Security Through Domination: The Current Paradigm

Most people on this planet want to live in a loving and compassionate way.The problem is, we’ve been taught by our culture that to live that waywouldput us in danger of being taken advantage of by everyone else. The domi-nant assumption of our culture is that we live in a world filled with hurt-ful people who care only about themselves, people who are likely to takeadvantage of us unless we protect ourselves by getting power over thembefore they get power over us. For thousands of years much of the humanrace has been living with the notion that the only way to achieve personaland collective security is through domination of others. That notion is dra-matically reinforced by our daily experience in the competitive market-place and the world of work where we frequently experience ourselves assurrounded by people who seem to be only “looking out for number one.”Many people develop a cynical and fearful attitude about others that car-ries over, and often influences, our personal lives.

Though the levels of fear in theWest were dramatically escalated post 9/11,these dynamics have been growing steadily for hundreds of years, with pro-found psychological and spiritual consequences for our daily lives. Peoplehave increasingly withdrawn from loving contact and emotional opennessto each other into cocoons of imagined safety. We assume social roles thatkeep us trapped in isolation and loneliness while yearning for real contactand yet denying to ourselves and others that yearning for genuine recog-nition and loving community for fear of being humiliated and rejected.The desire to transcend these crippling dynamics is omnipresent, and theneed for recognition and deep connection to each other and to a larger

Whichworks better, a globalmartial plan…

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framework of meaning and purpose for our lives beyond “making it” interms of money or power or sexual conquest or fame is ever-present andready to break through to a world of genuine connection to other people,to our own deepest feelings, and to joyous celebration of the universe. Yetsimultaneously our fear of being humiliated by expressing these needsopenly and then finding ourselves made vulnerable while others fail to re-spond often leads us to repress our own deepest desires or to deny them as“utopian.” In that state of mind we may respond to calls for communitythat only extend to the people of our own race, religion or nationality, whileassuming that “the others” do not share our desires andwould, if given thechance, frustrate our needs.

Nurtured by the media, by nationalist or fundamentalist dominated edu-cation, and by politicians who constantly adopt that “us vs. them” rhetoricin order to show that they themselves are “responsible” and “realistic,”many Americans accept the notion that the world is fundamentally unsafeand that the goal of American policy should be to advance “American in-terests” by dominating the world, either militarily, or, through one-sidedglobal economic arrangements and diplomacy. Democrats andRepublicans differ on the relative balance betweenmilitary and diplomaticpower, but many in both parties share the mistaken assumption that theonly way to achieve security for America is to build aworld inwhichwe get“ourway.” And “ourway” usually ends up being defined in terms of thewell-being of themost powerful corporations and their allies. National securityis frequently defined in terms of their interests, so we end up spendingvastly more on the military than on social programs.

…or aGlobalMarshall Plan?

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These next two decades are likely to be the last in which US economic andmilitary power decisively shape theworld. As China, India and other coun-tries become more powerful, they will likely draw upon the precedentswe've set as a world power. If we could dedicate our next two decades toshowing how a world power could transcend "Us" vs "Them" thinking, wecould be proud of the American legacy.

To do that, we have to stop talking about keeping America "number one"and stop ignoring the suffering of billions on this planet. We should showthat world power can act in ways that seek the advantage of al people onthe planet.

Too many otherwise decent people shrug their shoulders in despair aboutachieving this kind of consciousness in America. They tell themselves thatto be "realists" they must accept the current way that the capitalist systemfunctions and the way that elites of wealth and power shape our systemwhile so many others simply "go along to get along." As a result, they endup participating in a society that continues to promote a global ethos ofmaterialism, selfishness, and "looking out for number one." They even put-down thosewho advocate formore fundamental change, changes that theythemselves actually really want, because they've been convinced that theworld that they really want is unattainable. But it is this belief itself, sharedby hundreds of millions of very good human beings, that makes itunattainable.

Even those who preach "change" in politics have allowed their vision to beconstricted. To prove that they too are tough and "realistic," they buy thevery distorted militarist assumptions that brought us to the idea that wecould beat terrorism by making more wars or issuing more threats of warand violence. To change these dynamics in American politics, we need asocial movement that can unequivocally assert that our well-being asAmericans depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet andon the well-being of the planet itself.

Security Through Generosity, Respect, and Caring:The New Paradigm

TheNetwork of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) rejects a reality based on fearof others. We believe it is time for a fundamentally new approach to secu-rity and foreign policy. We suggest that generosity and genuine caring forothers can be a much more effective and morally coherent approach tohuman safety, peace and development. We call this approach the “Strat-egy of Generosity.”

Building the Strategy of Generosity and caring requires that we reconnectwith the human capacity to recognize others as embodiments of the sa-cred, or, in secular language, as fundamentally worthy because of who theyare and not just because of what they can do for us. This profound and in-tuitive connection among peoplemust become the center of our campaignfor peace and environmental sanity. The bonds of caring among humanbeings can andmust be fostered and nurtured by our policies, because oth-erwise they are often undermined by economic and political arrangementsthat make these fundamental human ties seem “unrealistic” and eventhreatening.

The key to our alternative, what we call the Strategy of Generosity, is ourcommitment to cultivate trust and hope among the peoples of theworld sothatwemight begin to reflect and act effectively to endworld poverty in ourlifetimes and save the global environment from almost certain destruction.

An essential element in this strategy is to recognize that terrorism is gen-erated by a global system that demeans the values and the lives ofmany onthis planet. While we in the West tell ourselves that our globalized corpo-rate culture, our sex- andmoney-crazed media, and our political domina-tion of the world are bringing enlightenment and rationality to a“backward” world, many people experience it quite differently. They seethe extreme individualism, materialism, and deterioration of families andreligions in the West as a sickness that threatens to overpower throughforce or through media indoctrination the values and communities uponwhich they have built their own self-esteem. The demeaning of their cul-tures by theWest coupledwith the imposition of global economic arrange-ments that impoverish many in the economically underdeveloped worldis experienced as a humiliation which threatens to destroy their ownsources ofmeaning and higher purpose in life. This combination of povertyand humiliation drives many people into frenzies of rage and into

re-interpreting their own religious or cultural traditions to emphasize theneed to drive out the foreigners or the imposers of a form of secularismthat threatens to engulf and destroy their last vestiges of self-esteem. TheGlobalMarshall Plan provides an alternative whichmaintains a strong na-tional defense but nevertheless reaches out to others and siphons off theirrage and brings them into connection with a world of people who actuallydo have respect and caring for them. A strategy that provides this kind ofrecognition of their humanity, coupled with generous help to provide foreconomic well-being, is a better alternative, more likely tomake us secure,than driving themmad through military, economic, political and culturalforms of humiliation.

What is the Global Marshall Plan?

The Global Marshall Plan is a planfor all the world’s people to work insolidarity to eliminate poverty onceand for all and to heal the environ-mental crisis.

The Global Marshall Plan takes itsname from the post-World War IIMarshall Plan, amassive and success-ful project to provide aid to WesternEuropean countries—including Ger-many, which had been our antagonistin the war. Historians have debatedhow altruistic the plan was. Someargue that a large part of the motiva-tion for the originalMarshall Planwasto strengthen capitalist economies inEurope to prevent them from becom-

ing Communist. A similarmotive to prevent theworld fromdevolving intoterrorist-generated chaos might inspire some who will join our efforts fora GlobalMarshall Plan. But other historians point to the strong strands ofgenerosity that were tappedwhenAmericans embraced rebuilding the dev-astated lives of the defeated nations against which they had just wagedwar.This was enlightened self-interest, and it can ally with strong altruistic ten-dencies that persist in Americans andmany others around the world, thistime mobilized to combat the suffering of humanity that leads to destruc-tive wars, violence and ecological irresponsibility.

Over the past 25 years, various ideas have emerged for a similarmassive re-lief effort for developing nations. They are called “Marshall Plans” because

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there are tens ofmillions of Americans still alive todaywho rememberwithpride that moment in American history when our country acted gener-ously to help others, and the program actually worked!Unlike subsequent“foreign aid” which was scant and given frequently in the form of militaryassistance to undemocratic elites and not for the purpose of ending poverty,the Marshall Plan, precisely because it was massive and aimed at thewell-being of the majority of Europeans, has retained its favorable statusin the memories of the American people and others around the world.That’s why in 2008, when calling for a global effort that had many ele-ments in common with what we are proposing, U.K. Prime MinisterGordon Brown called for a “Marshall Plan.” The idea is growing, and theNSP is dedicating our efforts to build public support for the underlyingStrategy of Generosity, caring for others, and humility that are at the heartof this effort, even as we continue to advocate for our larger SpiritualCovenantwithAmerica (please check it out atwww.spiritualprogressives.org).

The spirit of generosity that is needed for aGlobalMarshall Plan has fallenvictim to the rise of fear and looking out for number one that has domi-nated American politics in the last thirty years. Today, while other wealthycountries do poorly enough by giving only 30 cents in aid per $100 of in-come in their countries, theU.S. does evenworse: it gives only 17 cents per$100 of income. The Right has successfully convinced many Americansthat we are giving a huge part of our budget to aid—but the facts are quitethe opposite.

Posters from the originalMarshall Plan.

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Here are the essential elements of theplan as developed so far by theNetwork of Spiritual Progressives(NSP):

• Provide enough funding to elimi-nate domestic andglobal poverty,homelessness, hunger, inade-quate education and inadequatehealth care, plus repair the globalenvironment.Themostmodest es-timates for this would be to dedi-cate 1-2% of the Gross DomesticProduct (GDP) of theworld’s devel-oped nations toward funding thisgoal each year for the next twentyyears. We do not want to wait untilall of the G-8 nations are involvedin this project; we believe that theU.S. must lead by example, dedi-cating at least 1% to 2% of its GDP toward this goal starting as soon asthe American people can get Congress to fund it.

• Create an international, unbiased, nongovernmental agency for re-ceiving the funds (from both foreign aid and alternative sources offinancing) and distributing them in a way that is environmentallysensitive, respectful of native cultures, safeguarded against cor-ruption, protected frommanipulation to serve elite interests, andempowering of thepeople in each region.This agency ormechanismshould be governed by a board of ethicists, religious leaders, artists, writ-ers, social theorists, philosophers, economists, scientists, and socialchange activists, all of whom have demonstrated in the ways that theyhave lived their lives and conducted their public affairs that they givehigher priority to the well-being of others than to the well-being of cor-porations or wealthy elites.

• Revise trade agreements in which the U.S. is currently involved sothat they no longer privilege the most powerful and economicallysuccessfulWestern countries and the elites of other countries at theexpense of the poor of theworld.Global trademust be bothmultilat-eral and equitable. New agreementsmust provide support and encour-agement forworking people to organize, receive a livingwage, andworkunder adequate safety and health conditions and environmental

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AnIndianvillagerparticipates ina "People'sSummit Against Poverty" in New Delhi,India, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005.

safeguards. Trade agreements must also protect farmers, both at homeand abroad, encouraging food prices that make it possible for farmersto make a living and poorer people to buy adequate food, and encour-age land use that is environmentally sustainable.

• Ensure hands-on involvementfrom peoples of the worldthrough an International Peaceand Generosity Corps whichwould provide ways for peoplewith useful skills to volunteer twoyears (at any age) toward the goalsof the Global Marshall Plan. Highschool graduates would receivecollege tuition and room andboard following their service, andolder Americans would receive ayearly salary equivalent to their av-erage salary for the past five yearsof work, as well as a guaranteed job after service is completed.

• Fund trained, unarmed, civilian peace teams such as the Non-violent Peaceforce to intervene in areas of conflict. Retrain thearmies of nations around the world to become experts in ecologically

World trade policies frequentlyharm farmers. This poster com-memorates SouthKorean activistand farmers’ leader Lee KyungHae,who died protestingWorld TradeOrganization policies.

APeaceCorpsvolunteer (right) learns to cooktraditional food inGhana.

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sensitive construction of those aspects of their own societies that needrelief and reconstruction, including agriculture, health care, housing,infrastructure, education and computers, and other appropriatetechnology.

• Train everyone on the planet intechniques of nonviolent communi-cation, diversity, environmentalsustainability, family and parentalsupport, stress reduction, emer-gency health techniques, diet andexercise, and caring for others whoare in need of help.

• Empower girls.Amajor focus of ourprogramwill be the empowerment ofgirls through literacy, education andskills-training, plus opening up ofwork for young women. This processrequires building support in the localvillages and families for this kind ofswitch in the role of girls, so that toobecomes part of the educationprocess.

• Ensure that the local village com-munities feel empowered by theprograms being introduced, thatthey have and experience “ownership”of the programs, and so feel a realstake in the success of the programs.The involvement of people on thelocal level is critical. At the same time, we will consciously take steps tomake sure that government bureaucrats do not feel under-recognized or“dissed” by the programswe introduce. The goalmust be to achieve on-going “buy-in” and involvement by all the stake holders, rather thanpassivity and resentment.

• Empowerment is a central goal.We seek to promote active involve-ment of the recipients of support in developing their own skills to thepoint that they can enter and strengthen local economies.

• Vast improvement of health care systems globally, including: giving

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Women in Indiamanagemarkets,mines, farms, fisheries and otherbusinesses which got financialstartup funds (microfinance)through Self-Help Groups (SHGs).Here an SHGmembermixes concrete.

primacy to health promotion rather than only treating illness; dramaticreduction of the role of private insurance companies and health careprofiteers in the delivery of health care; recognition of quality healthcare as a fundamental right to be provided without regard to the ca-pacity of individuals to pay for such services; free availability globally ofvaccines, antibiotics, food supplements, training in health care promo-tion and prevention in every school system and every village; and freemedical school training. Health care is a form of caring, and caringshould shape every aspect of the way we deliver medical support.

• Recognize that the private sector, the public sector, NGOs, privatefoundations, academia, social change activists, and religious andspiritual communities all have important elements to contribute toour Global Marshall Plan. Each sector should be involved in provid-ing their special capacities in the development and implementation ofthe Global Marshall Plan. The public sector can contribute monies tofunding basic scientific research that will help in developing alternativeenergy sources, medical advances, and environmentally-friendly formsof production of goods and agriculture; the private sector can providehelp in implementing programs and in providing funding; NGOs canhelp with finding the appropriate people to provide leadership in theconceptualization and implementation of local, regional and nationalplans; academia can support both the scientific research and graduatestudents with the skills and capacities (ethical, intellectual and emo-tional) to develop and sustainwidespread support for a Strategy of Gen-erosity and/or to participate in the hands-on work of an International

An Interfaith Convocation on Hunger was held at the Washington National Cathedral in2007.OrganizedbyBread for theWorld, it attractednearly 1,000worshippers from45states.Catholic,Protestant, Jewish,Muslimandother leadersurgedanabiding commitment tobring"bread to those who are hungry, and hunger for justice to those who have bread."

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Peace and GenerosityCorps; and religiousand spiritual commu-nities can providecareful monitoring toensure that the pro-gramdoes not becomedrowned in bureau-cracy and spiritualdeadness and hencecapitulate to the ethosof looking out fornumber one or mak-ing unnecessary com-promises in focus toaccommodate the in-terests of economic

and political elites, and they can join with social change activists bothto ensure that the program does not lose its central ethical focus andspiritual goal to elicit in people of the world a new sense of caring foreach other and to ensure that genuine involvement of the recipients be-comes the hallmark of this program.

• Environmental goalswill be central toGMP funding.Thesemust in-cludeways to: slowor stopdeforestation; reduceby80%the carbon emis-sions from our factories, furnaces, automobiles and energy sources;achieve a global limit on overall greenhouse gas; adapt to the likely dam-age already done to the global environment (whichwill impactmost dis-astrously on many countries that are already suffering from extremepoverty); secure safe drinkingwater and sanitation for all; reject privati-zation of water; increase water efficiency in agriculture; protect biodi-versity; dramatically reduce the consumption of meat in order to shiftcroplands tomore efficient foodproduction; protect global fisheries frompollution and excess fishing; promote family planning and stabilize theworld’s population.

• Engage the loving life energies of the universe, to re-instill hope andgenerosity in people involved in this program whether as donors, re-cipients, trainers or in any other capacity. We will judge our programsuccessful to the degree that it makes people feel safe and cared for byothers, less alone,more trusting andmorewilling to personally engage inacts of caring andgenerosity towardothers andmore capable of caring forthe planet earth and responding to the majesty and mystery of the

“WorldHarmony” by SalmaArastu. Born aHindu inIndia, Arastu embraced Islam through hermarriage.See www.salmaarastu.com.

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universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of allthat is. It is this spiritual outcome that is our bottom line. If done withthis intention, we believe we can construct a set of programs that willnourish and excite the souls of everyone alive on the planet, so that theyburn with passionate intensity for life, and embody a new level of innercalm and gentleness that can help repair the planet.

We estimate that this program, if fully implemented, could cost as much as3-5% of the GDP of the world. Our commitment is to start with the 1%-2%of U.S. GDP andmove from there.

People will be tempted to dismiss this plan as “too unrealistic.” We mustbreak through our entrenched assumptions about what is realistic so thatpeople can look at the Strategy of Generosity not through the frame of ex-isting inside-the-beltway assumptions or the “common sense” thrown atus daily by a corporate-dominatedmedia, but rather through the frame ofwhat the human race and the planet earth urgently need in order to sur-vive the 21st century. Don’t ask what is possible, since possibilities changeas people’s awareness changes. Ask, instead, “What is necessary?”

A Global Marshall Plan for Domestic Needs as Well

• Part of the NSP version of the Global Marshall Plan aims at elimi-nating poverty, inadequate education, inadequate health care andrepairing the environment in the advanced industrial societies, par-ticularly in the U.S. where wealth disparities are so extreme and envi-ronmental responsibility so underdeveloped. Some of these funds, then,

will be used to finance so-cial welfare programs forhealth,education, jobtrain-ing, alternative forms ofenergy and transporta-tion, and support for ourelders and for the unem-ployed. Caring for ourown is not a first step buta simultaneous step withcaring for others and hasequal ethical validity. Ithas political wisdom aswell. As economist JeffreySachs points out, “social

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welfare spending not only reduces inequities and uncertainties withina rich society but also bolsters the confidence and trust within the soci-ety to be more generous on the international stage. Countries treat theworld’s poor and vulnerable as they treat their own. U.S. policies, bypursuing a constricted notion of social insurance, foster a society of fearand vulnerability that lacks the readiness to contribute more to globalcooperation. Mainstream Americans feel increasingly unnerved bywidening income inequality at home, and are themselves less likely tosupport assistance for the poor abroad.”

• Learn to bridge the divisions that keep us apart. Economist JeffreySachs points out that people are more willing to pay for programs thathelp people like themselves, so they are less likely to support programsfor the disadvantaged if the socioeconomic divisions coincidewith racialor ethnic divisions. Unlearning racism and dismantling its economic,political, ideological and institutionalmanifestations is a critical need ifthe Global Marshall Plan is to succeed. The poor—of our own or an-other race, ethnicity or religion—are not “other.” They are all “us.” Sim-ilarly, strengthened unions can play an important role in mobilizingsupport for both domestic and global aspects of the Global MarshallPlan if their leadership elites can think beyond the narrow forms of self-interest that have sometimes paralyzed the best instincts and deepestspiritual truths that undergird the imperative to organize and defendthe interests of working people.

The current economicwoes facing theU.S. are in large part a product of theabsence of the consciousness of mutual solidarity and generosity that theNSP version of theGlobalMarshall Plan seeks to develop. The dramatic in-crease in oil prices is not just a result of increased demand but of the de-sire on the part of speculators to make super-profits without regard to thesocial consequences of their greed. Similarly, the home mortgage crisis islargely generated by reckless encouragement of debt by the large banksand selling of those mortgages in a global banking system detached fromconcerns about providing affordable housing formiddle income people. Itis the lack of connectedness to human needs, which are being played withirresponsibly by our advertisers, speculators and financial institutions,which underlies our current economic tensions. Because funding for ourplan does not involve new taxes onmiddle income people (see below), theGMP will not add to our economic burden, while the values of solidarityand caring for others that it will foster are precisely what is needed to sta-bilize theworld economy and purge it of the striking irrationality that hap-

penswhen an economic system is ruled purely by a drive for profit and self-ishness without the balance of generosity and caring for others and for theplanet.

A Spirit of Humility

Weoffer this planwith a com-mitment to humility and aconviction that it cannotworkunless it is understood as de-riving from our own commit-ment to the well-being ofeveryone on the planet andnot primarily as a self-interested plan to advanceAmerican or Western worldpower and influence, thoughof course we know that this isactually a far better way toachieve homeland securitythan the trillions that theWestern world spends onarms, military assaults, and“defense.”

We must also insist that the plan be implemented with a clear messagethat although the West has superior technology and material success, wedo not equate that with superior moral or cultural wisdom. On the con-trary, our approachmust reflect a deep humility and a spirit of repentancefor the ways in which Western dominance of the planet has been accom-panied by wars, environmental degradation, and a growing materialism

and selfishness.

We have much to learn from the peoples oftheworld, their cultures, their spiritual andintellectual heritage, their ways of dealingwith human relationships. That insightmust guide the kind of Global MarshallPlan that the NSP supports, so that this

doesn’t end up being a new installment of“theUgly American” pushing our agenda around

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the world. On the other hand, we will also avoid the manipulation thatsometimes takes place when elites of the third world tell us that we in theWest have no ideawhat their people need and that only they can representtheir own people. We do know that people need an end to poverty, home-lessness, hunger, inadequate education, inadequate health care and envi-ronmental degradation, and we want to work only with people who aretruly dedicated to those goals.We are not going to bemanipulated by thosewho demean as “a form of cultural imperialism” all ideas that come fromthe West, from whites, from men, or any other of the categories that aresometimes used tomake people in theWest feel guilty.We are all in this to-gether, and people in theWest have reason for humility, but not self-abne-gation.

“Realistic” and Right

It is in our own interests as humans to recognize that our individual andsocietal well-being depends on the well-being of everyone else on theplanet. The Global Marshall Plan could save the planet from nuclear andconventional wars and jump-start the process of global environmentalplanning.

“Enlightened self-interest,” sure. But is the Self...

THIS? OR THIS?

But there is an even more crucial reason to adopt it, and that is because itreflects our deep need to care for each other as momentary embodimentsof God (or whatever name you use for the goodness and love and generos-ity of the universe at its current stage of evolutionary development). Wewish to foster an ethos of caring and love for others because it is ethicallyand spiritually right to do so, not only because it is instrumentally the onlysane policy for saving the planet and saving the lives of our children andgrandchildren.

The Global Marshall Plan (GMP) can only work if it is perceived not as anew way for the West to dominate the world or fund further penetrationof Western corporate and media dominance around the planet, but if it isperceived primarily asmanifestation of a new awareness that has grown inthe Western world of our interdependence with and caring for everyoneon the planet. Even domestic support for the NSP version of the GMPwillgrow to the extent that people perceive it as a manifestation of genuinecaring rather than primarily as a smart and savvyway to protect theUnitedStates (which it also is) or as a way for some smart liberal and progressivepoliticians to gain greater public support (which it also is).

For us, the Global Marshall Plan is worthy not only because it serves thebiblical imperative to care for the poor and the down-trodden, but alsobecause the very debate around the idea of a Strategy of Generosity willbe empowering. If the campaign for a Global Marshall Plan adheres tothe approach we present here, it will helpmany people recognize their ac-tual deeply held (but sometimes denied) desire for mutual recognition,genuine caring and love. Insisting on values like generosity, repentance,humility, and transcending selfishness and materialism provides a lan-guage to challenge the one-dimensional technocratic rationality thatpresents itself as the only form of respectable thinking. Our languageseeks to support the re-emergence of a heart-centered rationality that in-volves responding to others with overflowing generosity and to the uni-verse with awe and wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of allthat is. Though it's likely to take a long time before the NSP version of theGlobalMarshall Plan is adopted by the US and other world governments,the campaign for it has an intrinsic value because of the way it will placeinto public discourse the fundamental human needs that have been toolong ignored, and will challenge notions of what is realistic that have con-stricted our imaginations and crippled our politics.

How Our Global Marshall Plan DiffersFrom Other “Aid” Plans

Where aid has failed to work as expected or hoped, it is not only becausefunds have often been siphoned off or misused, but also and primarily be-cause they have not been part of a comprehensive plan to once and for allend both domestic and global poverty. Imagine that you wanted to endmalaria, but instead of draining all the swamps in your area, you draineda few at a time, often with inadequate funds to even do that effectively.Then, after some time, people in your society said, “lets stop draining theswamps—after all, that hasn’t had much of an impact on malaria, butmeanwhile it’s costing us higher taxes.” They’d be right—the partial stepshave not worked and will not work.

But we don’t mean to suggest that our vision of the Global Marshall Planshould be seen as an alternative to other partial programs that are doingimportant work. We fully support the One Campaign, Oxfam, Bread fortheWorld, and dozens of other enterprises that aremotivated by the samedesire to end the suffering of people around the world. In fact, there’s agood chance that as more people rally around the Global Marshall Plan,more of the corporate interests and conservative elites that run the West-ern world will suddenly discover that they have found ways to raise thefunding for these other more partial plans as a way to head off too muchsupport for a more comprehensive plan. We welcome that—because wedon’t want to suggest that people shouldwait till a GlobalMarshall Plan isfunded in order to take significant steps to relieve the burdens imposed by

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debt, poverty, and exploitativetrade arrangements and envi-ronmental insensitivity. Webelieve that the campaign for aGlobal Marshall Plan is likelyto bring evenmore people intosupport for these other cam-paigns which we view as allies.At the same time these cam-paigns have been educatingthe public inways that are crit-ical to building support for ahuge national effort. Would itnot be a great flowering oftheir work to see a GMP comeinto being? And it is clear thataGMPwill need all of their ex-pertise to make sure it worksas intended.

On the other hand, we think a major reason that many people don’t want“big government programs” is because they have watched for decades astheir taxes have risen to support programs for the poor that never endedpoverty, but seemed to be sinking people’s hard-earnedmonies into a bot-tomless pit. This feeling is reasonable and not always a reflection of self-ishness. So a comprehensive plan that can be seen to be viable in actuallyachieving the One Campaign’s great goal to “Make PovertyHistory”mightgeneratemore public support andmorewillingness to raise taxes than lesscomprehensive programs that —despite their good and sometimes amaz-ing work—in sum only put bandages onto a world that is bleeding moreheavily than the bandages can contain. People will bemorewilling tomakesacrifices for a larger goal that would actuallymake a huge difference thanfor smaller goals that will only perpetuate the world as it is, with all its ob-vious pain and suffering.

The NSP is working closely with other groups moving toward the same aim, including theCentre for Global Negotiations, the GlobalMarshall Plan Initiative, andGlobal Commons.org

Where Will the Money Come From to Pay For a GMP?

Please note that themilitarists and political centrists who have funded ourwars and foreign policy misadventures never get pushed to answer thisquestion for their strategy. When Congress voted a blank check to the

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President for the war in Iraq, it didn’t include a plan for how to fund thewar. Close to a trillion dollars later, the Democrats who ran in 2006 withthe promise of ending thewar continued to vote for hundreds of billions tocontinue it instead. Why? Because for them as for the militarists and cen-trists, the question of where the funding comes from and what other pro-grams have to lose their funding is never asked by the media or by thesociety as a whole, it being “obvious” to everyone that when it comes to na-tional security there is no relevance to the question and that the govern-ment will find a way to fund it. The same approach is appropriate for theGlobal Marshall Plan, since it is in fact the best possible approach to na-tional security. Once we’ve been able to convince people about that, therest of the funding issue will recede in importance.

One source of money will be the military budget itself. The GMPwill be aprimary part of that budget. In turn, huge savings of hundreds of billionsof dollars will be possible each year that we implement the GMP by re-ducing other useless military spending.

In addition, a tax of one percent on all international financial transactionsof over $1 million could generate the rest of the funding. This CurrencyTransaction Tax can also be supplemented by a tax on world trade: goodswould be subject to a 0.5% tax, which would have only a tiny impact on

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consumer prices. A tax on carbon emissions, on international and domes-tic sales of arms and ammunitions, ocean fishing, maritime freight, off-shore oil and gasmight also contribute to the sources for funding theGMP.

Eliminate The Military Entirely?

Though the success of the GMPmight lead to a world in which the elimi-nation of a military becomes conceivable, we are not yet there. In this his-torical moment, a GMPwill only win mass approval if it is seen as one legof a two-legged strategy, in which military defense is still intact andpowerful.

A rational defense policy coupled with the GMPwill provide far better de-fense than the U.S. currently has been able to muster by depending pri-marily on military interventions around the world. The direction wepropose would involve withdrawing U.S. forces to our own borders, clos-ing our military bases around the world, and strengthening internationalinstitutions that could provide nonviolent interventions, but if necessarymilitary interventions in the case of clear and present danger of genocideor ethnic cleansings. Althoughwe believe that nonviolence is the only pathfor the future of the human race, we understand that convincing Ameri-cans of the viability of a nonviolent defense will take many years, and thatone of the steps in that direction will be the success of a Global MarshallPlan which proves that generosity can actually work to increase security.Nevertheless, in implementing the two-prong strategy, we will be able toachieve huge savings in the military budget by a new balance that focusesmilitary defense on our borders.

TheGMP is themost appropriate weapon for thewar on terror. It replacesthe failed strategies of military interventions with the Strategy of Gen-erosity and caring for others. A strong national defense requires the GMP,and those politicians who refuse to move in this direction should be seenas stuck in the 19th and 20th centurymentality and as a result as “weak onnational defense.” It’s as if they are spending money on muskets from the18th century, whereas we need to use the power of kindness and generos-ity. There’s no point in being wimpy about this—love, generosity, real re-spect, and caring should be advocated for in a strong way, not defensivelyor as if we suspect that they are really “secondary measures that would benice to integrate if we could afford to, but we cannot.” The truth is that theadvanced industrial societies of theworld can’t afford to anything less thanthe GMP.

The GMP and theEnvironmental Crisis

Solving the global environmental crisis will re-quire the active cooperation of all the people ofthe world. We will need a global plan for pre-serving natural resources, preventingwastefulproduction and consumption of unnecessarygoods, allocating increasingly scarce food andwater, and a coordinated plan to reduce therate of population growth. This kind of coop-eration is impossible as long as the U.S. orother countries rely on the strategy of domi-nation to achieve our goals. Here’s why:

The Western world holds a vastly dispropor-tionate amount of the wealth of the planet.Talk of reducing consumption to save the en-vironment is inevitably heard by many in thepoorer countries as a way to freeze this in-equality. “Why,” people in the third world

argue, “should we condemn our citizens to a lower level of material well-being than the West already enjoys? We have the same rights to excessiveconsumption as they have had for the past 200 years.” It’s useless in that sit-uation for the West to preach about “the greater good” when the Westhordes its wealth.

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Moreover, consider the situation of an individual in the third world. Shemight be told that cutting down the trees in the Amazon or increasing thenumber of her children in India or Pakistan or Indonesia orUgandamightbe a long-term threat to the environmental sustainability of the world. Buther immediate situation is that living on less than $1 a day, she faces mal-nutrition, inadequate health services, and inadequate education to allowher children to do better than she. She has an immediate survival need toact in ways that might be unsustainable but which might achieve survivalfor her family. If she has enough children, she could reason, some of themmight survive and provide her with theminimummaterial needs to phys-ically survive when she is too old to work. Saving the global commons canonly be done when people feel that their own personal survival is also partof the plan. Otherwise, we are likely to see both individual and nationalstruggles, even possibly world wars, fought in the 21st century over water,food, and other declining resources as one group or country after anothertries to take for itself without regard to the well-being of the rest of theworld.

AGlobalMarshall Plan provides a direction to solve these problems. Donecorrectly, the Global Marshall Plan will put into place health care and ed-ucational systems and a more functional economy. The revision of worldtrade agreements so as to protect small farmers and allow for local pro-duction of organic goods will not only save on energy resources but willalso allow for the development of local sustainable economies thatwill raise

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the material well-being of people in thethird world and givethem an alternativeto environmentallyunsustainable anddestructive practices.

Because theNSP ver-sion of the GlobalMarshall Plan puts somuch emphasis on achange of conscious-ness, its impact onenvironmental issues

will be profound.When people in the advanced industrial societies see theworld through the framework of generosity and caring for others, it be-comes possible for them to take seriously the immediate dangers to survivalthat their own profligate spending and misuse of the world’s resourcesconstitute. The significant reduction in the accumulation ofmaterial goodsand the transformation of energy, transportation, and production of goodsnecessary to preserve the planet will no longer feel like an impossible bur-den to be resisted, but a gift to be given to the planet and to the peoples ofthe world whom we in the advanced industrial societies have learned toembrace. A life of simplicity can feel like a rise in one’s standard of livingeven as it is a decrease in one’s level of consumption, if it is accompaniedby an end to domestic and global poverty, the resulting decline in crime, fullhealth care for all, a growing sense of community and connection to thepeople around us, and a reviving global environment.

Most important, the NSP version of the Global Marshall Plan insists onimplementation that respects and honors the wisdom and cultural speci-ficity of recipients aswell as environmentally sustainable projects. The shiftin global consciousness from domination to generosity within the moreadvanced industrial societies will eventually generate a new level of trustaround the globe, and it is that level of trust that is the indispensable pre-condition for the development of rational global environmental policies.TheGMP is thus the necessary first step toward saving the planet from en-vironmental destruction. All themore reasonwhywemustmake theGMPan immediate priority for our public attention and action.

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What You Can Do

Jump into this project with all your heart and all your energies. Make thisa major focus of your non-work activities.

1. Talk about these ideas with everyone you know.Don’t allow them to tellyou it’s unrealistic, when the world as it currently has developed is un-sustainable and leading to endless wars, poverty, suffering and envi-ronmental destruction. Perhaps they don’t yet really allow themselves toknow that the UN estimates that between 15,000 and 40,000 childrenunder the age of five die every single day of diseases related to malnu-trition or becausemedical care and drugs are not available to them thatcould have saved their lives—approximately 12 million per year. Only aGlobal Marshall Plan at the level we are proposing could change this.

2. Invite people to your home and have themwatch a video from the NSPabout theGlobalMarshall Plan. Then engage them in discussions aboutwhat they are willing to do to help get this idea the support it needs.

3. Join the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) and give us the fi-nancial support we need to reprint this brochure and develop other ed-ucational tools to promote thismessage.With your annualmembershipcomes a free subscription to TikkunMagazine.

4. Approach local and na-tional religious organiza-tions (such as yourown church, synagogue,mosque, ashram, zendo,etc.), trade unions, profes-sional organizations, civicorganizations, colleges anduniversities, electedofficialsand people or political parties seeking yoursupport during elections—and ask them allto officially endorse theGlobalMarshall Planand lend their names to our campaign.

5. Educate your own elected officials about theimportance of the Global Marshall Planand ask them to teach their colleaguesabout the importance of supporting thisplan.

6. Donate, create fund-raisers, approach peo-ple you know who have money or contactsin foundations, and ask for them to supportthe NSP in this project.

7. Get your local city council, state legislatureand elected representatives in theHouse and Senate to enthusiasticallyand energetically back the NSP version of the GMP. If they won’t, col-lect signatures to put it on the ballot if your state allows that initiativeprocess, or collect signatures on a petition to elected officials.

8. Challenge the media to cover this campaign and to represent the per-spective of those who believe that this is the best path to homelandsecurity and national defense.

9. Build a localNetwork of Spiritual Progressives, composed of peoplewhowant to build support for the Global Marshall Plan. Once they join asmembers, they’ll receive our information and our latest tools for build-ing public support. Create your own leaflets or circulate our petitionand get names of supporters who endorse it (and send that to us). Cre-ate a videotape. Spread our message on the web. Write op-eds or dovideos on YouTube and other parts of the net. Create a movie, a song, anovel, a dance, a poem, about this movement!

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10. Change your WILL and give a generous donation or bequest to NSP(tax-deductible non-profit name: The Institute for Labor and MentalHealth).Write an ethical will for your children, sharingwith them yourwisdom and ethical vision, and urge them to support NSP.

11. Volunteer in our office, and encourage children and/or grandchildren tospend a year with us as an intern for the Network of Spiritual Progres-sives. Do acts of spontaneous generosity in your own life—by sharingwith others, open-heartedly forgiving people who have offended or hurtyou, and taking care of others who are in need without expectation of a“return on your investment” of time and energy and money. Be gener-ous also in accepting the foibles and weaknesses of those who join youin this campaign—accepting that everyone on this planet is somewhatwounded and somewhat inadequate, but since that’s all there is on theplanet, we have to work with our own and each other’s problematicparts. And do this work with joy at the opportunity that it gives you todo “tikkun”—the fundamental healing and transformation of theworld.It’s an amazing privilege to have time give back to God and to the uni-verse in this way—so use the opportunity you have to the fullest! Don’tever say, “Nobody told me how I could be of help.” This is the way to beof help—please JOIN US!

Why Bother?

The future of the world is at stake. Our survival physically. Our spiritualhealth. The quality of human relationships on the planet. The survival ofmany other species and their ecosystems.

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Some people believe that once good people are in place in the government,these problems will go away. Yet our own conversations with elected offi-cials teach us that they are faced with massive pressures to keep going inthe same old directions and to keep funding and relying upon the strate-gies of domination. The media will show massive cynicism toward anyleader who talks about genuine caring and generosity. Members of Con-gress will respond to their funders and to the calls for being “realistic.” Eventhe most idealistic of themwill feel constrained by their own advisors andtheir allies in Congress, unless they can point to a huge politicalmovementthat is equally determined as the lobbyists and the special interests, equallycapable of getting its message heard, and equally insistent when meetingelected officials, media, or other public-opinion shapers on the urgency ofgiving the NSP version of the Global Marshall Plan a solid commitment.

This is not the task of someone else. Even if you are a full-time student, orraising your children, or working two shifts or in a professional job thattakes all of your time, or an aging senior who is confined to bed, you canstill help. You can make a phone call a week to an elected official or to ajournalist. You can invite people to your home to show them anNSP videoabout theGlobalMarshall Plan. You canwrite a letter a week. You can talkabout these ideas to everyone you know. And you can donate 1%of your an-nual income to supporting our campaign for the Global Marshall Plan.Whatever you do will make a difference. �

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YES, I’LL JOIN THENSPCAMPAIGNFORAGLOBALMARSHALLPLAN (GMP).

Sign me up as an endorser of the NSP version of the GMP. I commit to doing all Ican to support your efforts andpublicize these ideas.Usemynameas oneof the sup-porters of your efforts.

Name:

OrganizationalAffiliation:(for identification purposes only and does not imply that the organization endorses the GMPor other ways that you’d wish to be identified)

Email (absolutely essential, so write carefully):

Address:

City, StateZip:

HomePhone: Business Phone:

YES, I’LLDONATETOHELPTHISGMPCAMPAIGN.� Enclosed is a checkmade to theNetwork of Spiritual Progressives GMPCampaign.

� You can deduct the following amount frommy credit card:

� $2,500 Patron� $1,000World Transformer� $500 Pillar of the GMPCampaign� $150� $100� $60� $100 eachmonth till I tell you to stop:Maximizer of Generosity� $50 eachmonth till I tell you to stop: Sustainer of Global Caring� $35 each month till I tell you to stop: Basic Supporter� Other: $____________� I can’t afford anything at thismoment, but I stillwant tomake the following com-mitment to help build thismovement (pleasewrite clearly, and if youwant to attachanother piece of paper describingwhat youwill domore fully, please include on thatpage as well as this one all your relevant contact information).

Signature:

Credit Card#: Exp.Date SecurityCode:

Return to: Network of Spiritual Progressives, 2342 Shattuck Ave, Suite 1200,Berkeley, Ca. 94704 info@spiritualprogressives.org

or Call 1 (510) 644-1200 to donate and give credit card info by phone

Or sign up and donate on the web atwww.spiritualprogressives.org/GMP

What is the Network of SpiritualProgressives (NSP)?

NSP is a project of the Institute for Labor andMental Health, a non-profit organization seeking to provide education to the public aroundissues of the relationship between health/mental health, on the onehand, andon the other hand, howwe structure our economic andpo-litical lives. Our research has taught us that the world deeply needs aframework ofmeaning andpurpose that connects to the highest spir-itual aspirations of the human race for a world of love, kindness, gen-erosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and awe and wonder at thegrandeur andmiracle of theuniverse.WecreatedTikkunmagazine asa voice for thatmessage, and theNetwork of Spiritual Progressives asan education arm to promote these ideas in the public sphere.We donot back anyparticular political party or candidate for office.We are a501-c-3 towhich contributions are tax-deductible. If youwish tomakeyour contributions directed primarily to lobbying efforts, you shouldindicate so by making your check or credit card to the Spiritual Pro-gressiveFund, a 501-c-4whichhas the legal right todo lobbyingwork.Send those donations to us as well, because for the moment we arehosting them in our offices.

NSP National Co-Chairs Rabbi Michael Lerner, Benedictine SisterJoan Chittister, PrincetonUniversity Professor CornelWest

www.spiritualprogressives.org