QUOTES
Markets
and money must again become the servants and not the masters of our vision and
values.
Today,
when the consequences of our actions (and inaction!) reach further into time and
space than at any previous point in history, we more than ever need politically
engaged citizens.
Today
there is an urgent need for a council that expresses our values as citizens of
the world, rather than just global consumers. It would seek and offer counsel
and moral leadership on the future of the planet, guiding us on the most challenging
journey we have ever faced.
Our
basic problem is not a "values vacuum" but that widely agreed values are not acted
on. Their voice is increasingly drowned out by the cacophony of commercial speech.
At a
time when the world craves visionary leadership, our political leaders have become
prisoners of an economic fundamentalism which undermines the values and institutions
on which the urgently needed, wrenching transformation of our societies needs
to be built. They no longer represent us as citizens, only in our (much narrower)
capacity as consumers. They have chosen to focus their energies on giving the
international legal protection of corporate profits a higher standing than basic
human, social and environmental rights. Our political leaders therefore face cynicism,
disinterest and violent opposition. For we feel alienated from a system which
offers such dismal choices. We feel cheated by empty promises of a "global village"
against the reality of enforced brutal competition and the introduction of adversarial
money bargaining into all areas of life, breaking down trust and community.
