Work for People

Subject: Economy, response desired

Dear Mr. President:

The problem in America - indeed, the world - is not that there isn't enough essential work to do. We need food and clothing and shelter. We need education and community services and health care. We still need - honest-to-God NEED - many goods and services. And so do a great many people around the world who are still very poor in material things.

The problem is that our ACTIONS show we would rather depend on machines and fossil fuels to do the work than depend on ourselves and each other. When we shop, we look for the lowest price. When we invest, we seek the highest rate of return. When we manage businesses; when we consider work to do at home; we look for every opportunity to replace human beings with "labor-saving" machines. If it was our express purpose to create massive unemployment, we could hardly do better! But we TALK like none of this is happening.

And this leads us to the real problem. We lie to ourselves, we lie to each other, we elect leaders who have to lie to get elected. We use words like "labor-saving" rather than "labor-destroying". We pretend that "growth" will save us.

Please stop the lies. If we want useful, honorable, wholesome work for ourselves and one-another, we need to get INTENTIONAL!! This is not an economic crisis. This is a spiritual one.