The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. —Sarah Ban Breathnach
Taking over the world may be as simple as taking one single action: voting
One of my favorite cartoons ever originated the same year my oldest son was born. Warner Brothers’ Animaniacs holds a place of nostalgic importance within our family for many reasons, but one of those is the concept that anyone with the right determination, effort, and a little luck, might take over the world. Where did we get that idea? Pinky and the Brain. In every episode, Pinky asks, “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” and Brain answers, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world.” They’re mice, and more than once they come quite close to succeeding.
Given the interconnectedness and interdependencies among nations, taking over the world is probably a more realistic goal now than it ever has been. The solution is rather simple and I’m not the only who has noticed, I’m sure. Affect the stock market in one major country and watch all the others respond in kind. This makes gaining economic control easy. World food supplies are largely controlled by a handful of companies. Control the food supply and you control people. The entire world, including governments and the global power grid, are connected by computers. Â One well-written virus and you control who has electricity and who doesn’t.
Perhaps most frightening is the realization that one intelligent individual could probably achieve that level of control without the aid or knowledge of their own government. Fortunately, controlling a stock market and the global food supply requires a substantial form of capital and not many people have access to that wealth. Still, it is a very real danger. Who has access to that kind of wealth and power?
The President of the United States.
Whether we like it or not, we cannot deny that the US is a global power and that the decisions made here affect events and people around the world. For example, the United States is the sole source for a number of life-saving drugs. Should we decide to shut down production of those drugs, especially those for fighting diseases like Ebola and Malaria, the results could be devastating on a global scale.  Were our government to enact a policy that makes it impossible for international companies to make a profit in the US, the global economy, including our own, would crash overnight. Where we decide to put troops affects the safety and well-being of millions of people. Pull the Marines from Okinawa and that region of the world would almost certainly collapse as North Korea’s insane leadership would see that as an opportunity to assert domination.
The President could affect all of those situations and more.
When we’re considering for whom we are going to vote, or whether we’re going to vote, our tendency is to look at domestic issues, specifically, “What’s best for me?” Â As such, our vision tends to be incredibly short-sighted. We too often want a President who will encourage and enact policies we think will make our lives better, even if it is to the detriment of someone else. We are as selfish in our voting as we are in our use of money.
What might have a greater effect on our longevity and quality of life, however, is how we relate to the world. Even our domestic policies such as health care and minimum wage affect things such as immigration and foreign investment. We like to think we’re all big and mighty and powerful on our own, but the fact is we hold a lot of debt and in many ways are just as dependent on other countries as they are dependent on us.
One of the first stories to slap me in the face this morning is evidence that Syria’s President al-Assad is coordinating efforts with Daesh. Â This is bad news for the entire world as Syria appears to be directly funding terrorism. Both the economic and military strength of the United States are principal aspects in stopping this atrocity.
Oh, and there’s more evidence that China’s economy lacks a solid foundation. China influences the US economy in three ways: investment, debt, and trade. Should their economy crash, they could easily take down ours and the European Union at the same time. US foreign policy is critical in helping keep the Chinese economy stable.
Then, there’s the increasingly worrisome matter of North Korea. Not only have they now limited movement in and out of Pyongyang, but they’ve banned weddings, funerals, and any other form of assembly ahead of their party congress next week. This increases speculation that the country may attempt a nuclear demonstration during the event. Even North Korea’s one reluctant ally, China, is depending upon US intelligence information in helping to form an international response should the rogue nation decide to do something stupid.
The United States is tied to events all over the world, which makes the US president a key component in how those events are resolved. While we don’t need a president who is going to be overly aggressive and intimidating toward foreign leaders, we also don’t need someone who fucks it all up with a religious-based ideology or a hesitant approach to taking action. We are dogged by the hindsight that had we taken a more forward and active role in foreign matters prior to WWII, we might have prevented at least some of the atrocities committed in both theaters of that war. We don’t have to like being a world power, but the world depends on us stepping up and taking that responsibility.
Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch to say that the US rules the world entirely. We have our vulnerabilities. Still, whoever we elect as President wields incredible power over the lives not only of Americans but the seven billion plus citizens of this planet. We should take extra care in deciding how we’re going to cast our ballots. After all, Pinky, we know taking over the world is possible. We need to be careful about which lab mouse we select to do so.
Love As A Political Platform
I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. —Jeff Koons
What if we ditched the existing political parties and went with one that has love as its political platform? Consider the potential
Another Sunday morning. I’ve already taken the dog for his morning walk, both of us enjoying the extra light from the full Hunter’s Moon. The second pot of coffee is on. Dishes are washing in the dishwasher. Clothes are drying in the dryer. For the moment, everyone is asleep except me and the black cat, Burberry. She’s taking advantage of the quiet to give herself a thorough cleaning. For however many seconds this lasts, it is calming.
We are so incredibly inundated with politics this season that there seems to be no escape. Â I don’t mind admitting I’m concerned. I doubt the accuracy of polls in a race where a large number of voters are likely to go with a literal coin toss on election day. With Russia threatening, Yemen simmering, and Syria ready to explode (again), moments like these where my blood pressure is almost back within normal range are few.
At moments like this, I can’t help wondering what might be Poppa’s sermon topic were he preaching this morning. He disliked politics and didn’t  think they belonged anywhere near the pulpit. Yet, in an atmosphere as politically charged as this one, even the church isn’t immune.
Perhaps he would artfully dodge the matter by talking about love as a political platform. He would use John 13:34 as his text: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. He liked that passage. From there, he would develop the political platform based on the qualities of love. Perhaps something like this:
Love As Domestic Policy
When developing any political platform, one has to first consider how they are going to handle matters here at home. Certainly, we can use a lot of love right here, right now, and there are myriad ways love could be applied. One strong move might be to dissolve the two existing major political parties. They have become so incredibly polarized that they are no longer able to function. The hate between the two sides of the aisles in Congress has brought much-needed legislation to a standstill. Dissolving both parties and starting over with a stated intent of working from a basis of respect, loving those of contrary opinion, willing to sacrifice for the sake of consensus, would set a strong example for the people of the United States to follow.
Across the country, applying love through everything the federal government does would have a profound effect. We would end mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and find ways to actually help those who are challenged to fit into society. We would take an attitude of moving from community policing to community helping, perhaps putting more social workers on the street who can help people address problems before any law is broken. We would abolish the failed war on drugs, look at the legitimate power of cannabis, and address the basic conditions that lead to severe drug use.
A political platform that uses love for domestic policy invokes radical changes in the way we think, in the way relate to each other. We are not adversaries as many would have us believe. We are brothers and sisters committed to each other in Love, and that is a power that can take communities from the slums to the heights of prosperity, from crime to celebration, and from desperation to hope.
Love As Economic Policy
The economy is a huge and very sensitive issue in any political platform. When President Obama first entered office in 2009, we were in the throws of the worst economy since the Great Depression. Yet, while the numbers say that the economy has improved dramatically, those improvements haven’t been felt on the street where people are still struggling. That we need to apply some love to our economic policies seem obvious, but exactly how would we do that?
Perhaps we need to start by de-incentivizing greed. Love does not hoard, love gives. We have, since the beginning of the stock markets, based our measurements of economic growth based on monetary accumulation. We look at sales growth as a primary indicator of a company’s value with no consideration of whether they bring any actual benefit to the national or global population. If we change our valuation away from one that rewards greed to one that rewards actual benefit, we incentivize growth that is actually felt outside the corporate boardroom.
Love also is found in an economy where no one has too much and no one has too little. Our national wage system is in tatters and reinforces a social caste system that keeps the poor and disadvantaged, especially people of color, from making any personal economic progress. Yes, love rewards those who achieve, but it does not turn its back on those who struggle. Love sets a wage standard that allows everyone to live without need, without fear of being in want, and with an ability to be proud of who they are and what they  do.
Love As Foreign Policy
Insomuch as the United States is a global power, we have a lot of influence in what happens around the world. We have the ability to change everything from the spread of deadly disease to the ability to grow crops and make a region self-sustaining. We have, too often, used our influence and power for bad. The world desperately needs for us to turn our foreign policy around and use it to spread love across the globe.
We do that by funding programs and providing assistance to efforts that help people, not those that hurt them. We spread love by helping to stabilize economies so that there is an absence of need. Love comes not when we sell our surplus weapons so that one tribe can have power over another, but when we trade their weapons for food, medicine, and economic support.
To those who insist on war and doing harm to others, we respond first to those they victimize, welcoming refugees, especially those persecuted and in need of medical attention. We keep our offers of love on the table at all times, but we fund no one’s aggression and do not allow our acts of kindness to be manipulated and misused. We defend where we must, but we do not utilize aggression as a means of getting what we want.
Love As Education Policy
Love facilitates learning throughout one’s lifetime. Love looks for ways to remove the barriers to learning whether they be financial, logistical, emotional, or intellectual. Love finds ways to help those for whom learning is a challenge and is not satisfied with any excuse for one not being taught to the full level of their potential. Love rewards those who learn and encourages them to use what they know, along with the skills and talents they possess to make the world a better place.
Love also understands that as much as we are all lifetime learners, we are also teachers. Some may teach in a classroom, others may teach through skill development or helping to advance understanding in critical thinking. Love values teaching because it understands the necessity of teaching to improve the learning that moves the world forward. As a political platform, teaching is critical because we have, for too long, relied on inappropriate standards of measure that punish actual broad instruction. Love gives teachers room to utilize different styles, methods, and pedagogies to meet the instructional needs of their students.
More than anything, Love shares knowledge and wisdom with respect, teaching history with regard to its impact on different cultures, teaching science as the progressive understanding of the earth based on fact rather than mythologies, teaching mathematics in light of its practical applications, and teaching the arts as an open expression of culture and personhood.
Love As Healthcare Policy
There is no political platform that can promise to make everyone well, to increase everyone’s longevity, or prevent new disease. Living and loving involves risks and where there are risks there is inevitably pain and infirmities that love on its own cannot prevent nor take away. How love responds to these critical moments of need starts by, once again, removing the greed incentive that has placed adequate healthcare out of the reach of many. Healthcare as a profit center is not love. Medicine as a source of profit is not love. Instead of rewarding the healthcare system based on the amount of profit it can produce, love dictates that reward instead be based on the amount of good being done.
Love does not deny anyone the best available healthcare, neither does it distribute care based on status or economic or social standing. Love provides to each the treatment they need at the time they need it without any unnecessary delay. Access to medicines is universal and availability of appliances such as artificial limbs are unhindered.
As policy, love takes medical care wherever it is needed, looking for creative and different ways to reach remote rural areas where care has too often been sparse and insufficient. Love leaves no one hurting and seeks to improve the quality of life for all.
Love And The Interior
Responsibilities for the Department of Interior are overly broad and too frequently under-funded. Everything from infrastructure to energy to the environment falls under this enormous umbrella and its myriad subdivisions. Yet, here too, a political platform based on love offers a more balanced and practical way of addressing the many physical needs that occur throughout our country. Â Love reaches out, looks forward, and protects our resources.
Love develops infrastructure based less on what currently exists and more on what is necessary for the future, looking at new technologies and embracing means of transportation that improve efficiency while reducing environmental impact. Love longs for sustainability in an energy policy that relies less on resources that can not be replaced and emphasizes those that are naturally occurring and provide benefit to the environment.
Love understands that we are firmly connected to this planet and must be good stewards of its use. Protections for waterways and all that exists within them is critical to a loving environment. Reducing our own footprint is a demonstration of love that allows those who come behind us to continue enjoying the natural wonders that fill our lives with beauty and pleasure.
Love As Social Policy
Our society is ill from all the partisan bickering to which we’ve been subjected. This is not a new disease for our country, but one which has reached such a critical point that have lost the use of some through alienation and marginalized many through hate. We need a political platform that brings love back as the dominant force in our society, encouraging and rewarding those who do for others before doing for themselves.
We need a national social policy that is wholly inclusive, so that people of color needn’t cower in fear, so that no one should ever be afraid to express who they are or what their sexuality might be, so that everyone gets an equal voice, even those with little to offer in return. A political platform based on love does not disregard the elderly no matter their age or level of ability. Neither does it leave children abandoned, starving, and without sufficient care.
Love rewards those who give, whether in terms of finances, or skills, or time spent holding the hand of one whose days are nearing their end. Love rewards those who strive for peace, diligently working to end conflicts before they escalate to violence. If the United States is to be the shining beacon of hope we want it to be, we must utilize love more than anything to stamp out all the fears that keep us from trusting, from engaging, and from appreciating those around us.
Starting A Conversation
We are, quite obviously, too late to impact this election cycle with a political platform so radical as that dominated by love. We can, however, begin a conversation that moves us forward toward a future where our political discourse is less dominated by hate. There will always be those who disagree. Vice is as much a part of the human condition as is virtue. Yet, the one we feed, the one we emphasize, the one we practice in our own dealings is the one that will dominate the next election.
All religions, not just Christianity, hold the same mandate given in scripture that we are to love one another. Love is not an option. Even if one holds no belief in a higher power, the universe demands unity, Â cooperation, respectfulness, and peace. We have seen the depths to which the ravages of hate can take us. Now, let us reverse course and set our sights for the heights possible through love.
Yes, I realize that this all sounds so very  Pollyanish. Ideals set goals that are seldom achievable in reality. Still, we get out of our government exactly what we put in . We have endorsed hate for too long. Perhaps it’s time we try the alternative.
Peace be unto you.
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