A Better World

Contrary to the assertions of much of the Congress and the mainstream media, those “99 percent” members who have staked their ground in New York City’s Liberty Plaza know what they want, and in the video below nine of them tell you in a few words.

Occupy Wall Street from David Sauvage on Vimeo.

If I had to sum up what I'd like to see in one word, it would be humaneness. While I do understand that different people define kindness, mercy, and compassion -- the components of humaneness -- differently, if each of us made the effort to be more humane in all we think and do, we could work through our differences in a more productive manner.

When I look at our government and economic system, what I see is that humaneness is lacking big time. Instead of compassion, most things get boiled down to a cost-benefit analysis; what costs can be shifted onto the public and what benefit the 1% can obtain.

Even if the basic structure of our society continued to be not my cup of tea, I would still be far more hopeful if basic humaneness was part of the deal.