Re: What is your counsel?

Description: We are not taking advantage of our ability to create multinational, multilateral alliances.

Question: Collectively, what should we be doing?

Transcript: Globally I think we are not taking advantage of our ability to create multination, multilateral alliances. I think even on a smaller scale than nations, we’re not doing enough to combat global warming. We’re not doing enough to educate people who are incredibly talented in this world. We’re not doing enough to deliver healthcare to infants, and children, and women who are, again, wanting to be enterprising around the world. Those are the issues that we’re not addressing. But there’s one underlying cause of our not addressing that, I believe; which is not taking advantage of how we can come together despite our differences, and deliberate and decide to do good. We need more institutions that bring us together in civil but robust ways to do good in the world.

Question: What should America be doing?

Transcript: America as a great constitutional democracy should be at the center of the democracies of the world. Working multilaterally to bring more peace, and democracy, and economic well being to the group of democracies that already agree that democracy is a good thing; and to those non-democratic countries, where we can act multilaterally rather than unilaterally, we’re not doing that. We’re in a deep hole in Iraq right now. I don’t have the formula for diggings us out of it; but when you’re in a deep hole, you don’t keep digging.

Question: What should we be doing as individuals?

Transcript: Individually, we should each use our talents to ally with other people; not necessarily people, and ideally not people who are just like us; but to ally with other people who do some good in the world. That means . . . whether we should be educating kids who otherwise wouldn’t get education. We should be figuring out ways of decreasing carbon emissions if that’s what we have the talent and the opportunity to do. We should be delivering healthcare to people not as individuals, but as collectivities; and not depending too much on our government for doing it. Because a dependent citizenry is asking for trouble. We have to take initiatives all over. And I would say first and foremost, we have to begin locally. That is, the idea that we would know how to save the world without doing some good in our own community is a form of hubris. And it’s a form of hubris that’s brought a lot of damage to the world.

Recorded on: 7/5/07