Start at about the 3-minute mark.
From my notes: The era in which we are living may be the most important period of this country ever. Including the Revolutionary War. Including the Vietnam era and the ’60s. The system is running out of options. In the 19th century, they ran out of land. In the 20th century, wars solved the problem of economic depression.
We are in a different era. It is almost impossible to have an massive industrial war, because nuclear weapons make it impossible. Small wars are also getting less and less powerful. So we’re running out of war.
Lots of problems that the political system can’t manage the way it’s structured. This is a systemic crisis.
There is growing consensus that either we transform this system or . . . violence, repression, possibly fascism.
The top 400 people own more wealth now than the bottom 185 million Americans taken together. That is a medieval structure!
Look at how Occupy galvanized people! The number of people saying we’ve got to start at a different place and build something new is growing.
This is an era where things are beginning to open up over time. . .
What’s happening that the press does not cover: on the ground now
• ten million people involved in worker-owned companies
• 130 million are involved in credit unions or coops — 40% of society
• Four or five thousand neighborhood owned corporations. Thousands of social enterprises . . .
• 20 states now looking at state-owned banks
* 20 states now looking at single-payer
• In Cleveland, a network built on the Mondragon model: a series of worker-owned integrated cooper, in a neighborhood with an average $18K per family, coops linked together to build a community, not just make workers richer.
These kinds of experiences are the pre-history of the next great revolution.
