From time to time I offer a vision to enable people to end poverty, abolish war and reverse global warming. People have Trump fatigue from exhausting efforts to limit his damage.
I ask everybody to share your thoughts with elected officials, candidates, newspapers, friends, relatives and the world.
We shall overcome,
Ed
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We Can Get to There from Here
February 4, 2026
“Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for
the stars”.
Casey Kasem
Where there is no vision, the people perish. Proverbs
29:18
‘’The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right.
It’s top vs. bottom. Billionaires want us looking left
and right at each other instead of looking up at
them.’’
James Talarico, Texas state representative, running
for the US Senate
But over the last 40 years, starting with Reagan,
America went off the rails. Deregulation, privatization,
free trade, wild gambling by Wall Street, union-
busting, monopolization, record levels of inequality,
stagnant wages for most, staggering wealth for a few,
big money taking over our politics.
Robert Reich
We are here to help each other.
Mark Carney, prime minister, Canada
In the 1970s, an attorney in Houston observed that
reality is one level above the people who are running
the show. Maybe it has always been this way.
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Nowadays, reality is two or three levels above the
people running the show.
Nowadays, humans must abolish war and reverse
global warming. This idea is frequent with
establishment figures not just the hippies. Woodrow
Wilson, Calvin Collidge, Albert Speer, Henry L.
Stimson, General Douglas MacArthur, Pope Paul VI
and now Pope Leo XIII have asked us to turn swords
into ploughshares. General Douglas MacArthur has
been the most eloquent. Here are excerpts from his
speech to the US Congress on April 19, 1951:
Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.
Various methods through the ages have been
attempted to devise an international process to
prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the
very start workable methods were found in so far as
individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics
of an instrumentality of larger international scope
have never been successful. Military alliances,
balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn
failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the
crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now
blocks out this alternative. We have had our last
chance. If we will not devise some greater and more
equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.
The problem basically is theological and involves a
spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human
character that will synchronize with our almost
matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all
material and cultural developments of the past 2000
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years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the
flesh.
Even the most left-wing politicians, AOC or Bernie
Sanders ignore the bloated Pentagon budget. Naomi
Klein, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg are likewise silent.
For example, Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book
covers the waterfront talking about climate refugees,
water shortages, forests, plastics, fossil fuels and
everything else but leaves out nuclear weapons and
the Pentagon’s footprint with a budget equal to the
next 9 countries in line.
In these days with President Trump, Gaza, the
Ukraine and every other misery, it is easy to be
discouraged and it easier to give up entirely. Never
Trumpers are exhausted from efforts to limit DT’s
endless damage.
What Watergate did to Richard Nixon the Epstein Files
are doing to DT, who is a pedophile or accessory. In
these days, the main effort is to limit DT’s
considerable damage. I ask you to structure a vision
showing how you want the world to be.
We have material abundance never seen in human
history. Non-rich people have access to health care,
entertainment and information that was not available
to even the rich a few years ago. At the same time,
we have anxiety, suicide and depression at high
levels.
Yuval Noah Harari examines this situation in his 31
minute YouTube presentation:
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The New Crisis of 2026 Won’t Be Economic — It
Will Be Emotional, Says Yuval Harari
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wb0MroKwKA
A partial response to the disconnectedness and
depression that people feel is that we have the
greatest wealth imbalance in human history. In the
US, three men have as much wealth as 160 million.
The political, social and economic structure revolves
around people who are as addicted to wealth and
power as much as addicts are attached to heroin. At
the same time, 40% live from paycheck to paycheck.
In the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street criminals
received bailouts and immunity while non-rich got
evictions. Today’s One Percent are the greatest con
artists in human history. In the US, the bottom 50%
owns 2.5% of the nation’s wealth. The One Percent
have 30% of all the nation’s wealth but have
convinced the totally ignorant that black people,
brown people, immigrants and gays are picking their
pockets. When I was a teenager and young adult, I
looked to the One Percent as our society’s guardians.
Nowadays they support a convicted criminal who says
the global warming is a Chinese hoax.
I ask Warren Buffet to design a Twelve Step Program
for the One Percent. May they turn away from their
insatiable greed and cold indifference to the wreckage
that they are inflicting.
In the United States, the One Percent have been
working for decades to enrich themselves and
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impoverish everybody else. They got much help with
Ronald Reagan. When he became president, the
national debt was $800 billion, pocket change today.
He weakened institutions that protected the non-rich.
They got help from the Supreme Court with their
Citizens United decision that permitted the One
Percent to make campaign contributions in unlimited
amounts.
Times are tough but we can recover just like the Allies
did in World War Two.
Spring, 1942 was the hardest time in the war for the
Allies. The Axis Powers were advancing on every
front. The Allies, however, did not lose heart. They
started achieving significant defensive victories at
Midway, El Alamein, Stalingrad and Guadalcanal. In
February, 1943, it was a long way from Stalingrad to
Berlin and from Guadalcanal to Tokyo but they had to
start from somewhere.
During the Second World War people in the Allied
nations were looking for a better world, not just
military victory. They looked at the conditions that
lead to the war, the Great Depression and the tariffs
which deepened and prolonged the terrible downturn.
They generated the Bretton Woods Agreement, the
United Nations, the World Bank, the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs and later the Marshall
Plan.
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The only way for life on our planet is survive is
achieving a better world for everybody. This means
that every family will have access to:
a safe neighborhood,
food,
the Internet,
education,
running water,
electricity,
clean water, clean air and uncontaminated soil.
I ask for a Second Marshall Plan that will end poverty
in every country and reverse global warming. This
has benefits for the most cold-hearted person. How
many people are going to trek through deserts in
northern Mexico or cross the Mediterranean in
unseaworthy ships when they have a good job at
home?
The US economy depends on their labor in harvesting,
construction sites and nursing homes. Provide health
care for everybody like they do in west Europe. This
will be cheaper for everyone when the primary care
physician is not the emergency room.
The fundamental thought that I pass on is that people
are good. Anne Frank said this. “I still believe, in
spite of everything, that people are truly good at
heart.”
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In my sophomore year at St. Thomas High School,
Father Walsh told us that humans seek the good. Sin
is an apparent good. When you are in the Sahara
Desert, the water that you see is probably not water
but a mirage.
Jeremy Rifkin in The Emphatic Self, maintains that
humans are hard-wired for good. He presents
medical and psychological evidence.
Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, tells us that we
are here to help each other.
When I was taking a teacher preparation course,
educational psychology, at UT-Austin in autumn,
1966, our professor, Mendell Granoff, told us that
humans had hardly scratched the surface of our
potential. I had read this previously but hearing it out
loud brought it home.
We have Apollo 11, the Internet and technology that
was only science fiction in the 1950s. I am sending
this message to 50 people for free, no stamps, no
envelopes and no fuss. For many years, Jim Simmons
has maintained the www.edorourke.com website.
Websites and e-mail are recent novelties in human
history. We can reach out to each other for free.
Social and political progress has come at a slower
pace but it has happened. For many centuries, wife
beating, child abuse, animal cruelty, slavery and
torture were standard operating procedures. Gradually
people started seeing them as uncouth and then
barbaric.
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Now capital punishment exists in only a few nations.
To be sure, some countries are mighty big like China
and the US. Bullfighting is allowed in fewer nations
than in the 1950s.
The US has more prisoners per capita and in absolute
numbers than anybody else. Impose alternative
punishment in many cases. Cancel the War on Drugs
with all its devastation. Have a world-wide agreement
to regulate drugs that have been around for a
thousand years. Look to the Netherlands, Portugal
and Uruguay for models. Drug lords would have to
close their businesses and go on welfare.
Ever once in a while, there would be a sudden
decision. Prussia’s King Frederick the Great
announced that torture was forbidden. No exceptions,
no excuses.
Sometimes leaders arise from nowhere. Rosa Parks,
Martin Luther King and Lech Walesa found that they
had leadership skills. They were probably surprised.
You are the leader that you have been waiting for.
Jody Williams who received a Nobel Prize for her work
on the Landmine Treaty was not a famous actress or
athlete or politician. She served as the founding
coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines . Her campaign picked up when Princess
Diana joined her. The princess called Parliament
members asking them to see Jody. Who has going to
tell the princess that they did not have the time?
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Greta Thunberg started with no support whatsoever.
She was like the beggar at the Swedish Parliament
building.
Wall Street and the One Percent see the same
material that you, I and Greta Thunberg see. Their
addiction to wealth and power is a strong as any
addict’s addiction to crack cocaine. That is why they
support Donald Trump and the Republican Party who
protects pedophiles and billionaires.
My income tax proposal is to make all net income over
$10,000,000 one hundred percent taxable. Only
families making over $250,000 would pay income tax.
There is enough money to reverse global warming,
poverty abolition everywhere on our precious planet.
There is much to be concerned with artificial
intelligence. As far as unemployment goes, have a
guaranteed annual income for every person on Earth
is a solution. Some are concerned about the lazy
people effect. The late Wendell Gordon, economics
professor at the University of Texas at Austin, offered
an answer: Give them a bunk in an opium den. What
makes prisons expensive is the guard service. Having
people in voluntary place is cheap enough with food,
clothes and medical care.
The United States has more prisoners in absolute
numbers and per capita than anybody else. Provide
alternative punishment in many cases. Seek a world-
wide convention to end the failed War on Drugs which
has been ineffective and corrupt. Look at drugs laws
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in Portugal, the Netherlands and Uruguay for
guidance.
When abundance is universal, wars will exist only in
history books.
Make this happen. British historian, Arnold Toynbee,
was famous for his empire studies, showing how they
rise and fall. Until now, wars, famines, floods could
inflict catastrophic could devastate huge areas and
leave the rest of the world untouched. Not anymore.
Nuclear winter and global warming will kill all life on
our precious planet. We are in this together. There is
no planet B. We are here to help each other to
abolish war, reverse global warming and eliminate
war.
Global warming will kill all life on Earth. Humans,
animals and plants are living through the Sixth Great
Extinction. This includes everybody, including the One
Percent. Dedicate world-wide efforts to plant trees,
implement conservation programs and restore habitat.
Subsidize alternative energy programs in
underdeveloped countries. Instruct defense
departments everywhere to cancel all research and
development projects. Train soldiers to learn foreign
languages to work on environmental projects in other
countries. Give bonuses to those who take on the
tougher languages.
Make global warming reversal theme number one.
Make Al Gore our next president. After a while, the
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One Percent, Wall Street and the World Economic
Forum will see the light.
There are few times in life that you come face to face
with absolute evil and overcome it. My parents or
many others did this in achieving military victory over
the Axis Powers. It is our turn now. It is time to step
up to the plate to abolish war, reverse global warming
and end poverty everywhere.
In 1969, Tommy James and the Shondells told us
what this world will look like when the One Percent
pay taxes, reverse global warming and abolish war
when they sang Crystal Blue Persuasion:
Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
There will be peace and good brotherhood, Crystal
Blue Persuasion.
When the United Nation president announces that
humans are reversing global warming and another
one that poverty will be eliminated within 5 years, we
can play this song from the Electric Light Orchestra:
E.L.O (Electric Light Orchestra) All Over
The World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh3i3vWgPyk
We can get to there from here.