America’s industrial production capacity dropped from the over 80% global share in 1945 to 20% today.  America has turned from the world’s largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation.  The Self-appointed winner of the Cold War obviously cannot back up that claim on basis of economics.  Deceit has to be maintained by pathological control that has to be maintained by complicated legal systems devoid of common sense.  Complicated legal systems without common sense can only lead to the productive population escaping abroad or giving up. America becomes a nation of victims without victors.  All activities that improve the well being of people domestically suffer as consequences – healthcare, income equality, infrastructure, education, the list goes on and is only too familiar to most Americans.

Since year 2000, that the American Constitution has finally been visibly destroyed is a fact for all to see.

One of the reasons that so many Americans, post Korean War and Vietnam War, have been joining the born-again Christian movement in the past couple of decades is because they sensed the fast destruction of their own democracy, and intuited correctly that they needed to take actions of a religious nature to restore it.  Unfortunately, too many of them no longer know that critical differences exist between a “Christian Nation” dogma and the “Deist Christian Nation” of their Founding Fathers’.  Most intellectuals in America have thus been deeply concerned that fundamental Christian influence in American politics, a trend of growing force in the past two decades or more, will be the death nail, rather than the intended cure, of the demise of democracy in America.  The introduction of new cultural element is most likely essential before the gridlock can be broken.  Daoism should be that ideal new cultural element and can do much to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable cultural divide that has held America hostage today.

America’s most respected political thinker/writer Bill Moyers, in his 2007 graduating key note speech at the Occidental College, pleaded passionately for youth in America to follow Jefferson’s advice of having a new revolution every 25 years, and to begin its third revolution so that the 21st century will bring about a democracy that “leaves no one out”, saving democracy in America from the present “melt down”.

Lest we think history 60 years ago is unimportant, I quote Tom Ridge, President Bush’s first 911-created Homeland Security Chief, when asked on national television in 2003 why the task force drafting the Patriot Act One had worked in such secrecy and demanded such immediate Congressional passage of the bill: “We went back to study our history.  We learned our lessons well from President Truman who decided to get tough with the Communists after WWII ended. …”

Yet it is all the more important that mankind does not lose faith in democracy as a form of governance in this new century. We need to take to heart that until the destruction of American democracy became sufficiently complete, its war perpetrators did have to wage wars under the cover of “Cold War” through secrecy and deceits. None of those wars thus was declared by Congress, with its accompanied oversight, until the present Iraq war II. That alone proves that Democracy, when in full form, works to a degree in preventing wars. Therefore, ironically, it is from the spectacular failure of American democracy that we actually can, and should, derive appreciation for it as a political system of choice by mankind.

From that failure we also realize the importance of having good spiritual guiding foundation for democracy: President Truman knew  that the only war he could possibly sell in 1947, even with power of governmental secrecy and deceit, would be a religious war. It is not until 2007 after people finally see the Gulf War II as the religious war it has always been that one of the most astute columnist, Boston Globe’s James Carroll, finally wrote to call the 60 year war by its proper name –“a religious war” – on the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the “Truman Doctrine” on March 12, 1947, by quoting those exact words of one of Truman’s own advisors at the time! (Ref.5,7).

Similarly, it is not until 2007 that America’s best Cold War historian William Blum finally realized that the Cold War was a one nation war –- America fighting its own shadow of sins kept secret.  As psychiatrist Winnecott said: “Lies not discovered are disastrous for the liar”, America with its highest mental disorder rate in the world at a staggering 26.7% of the adult population, according to a 10 year long survey reported in 2006 by the United Nations, is arguably its own worst victim of the past 60 years’ religious war so long under disguise against itself.

These are hopeful signs that President Truman’s Weapon of Mass Deception (WMD), the only real weapon of mass destructions ever used since after the two atomic bombs were dropped, is finally no longer working well.  There are certainly an abundance of signs now that President Bush’s WMD is failing fast.  That is mankind’s real new hope.

As an encouraging companion front, there are indications that more people in leadership positions are coming to grip with this recognition.  In year 2000, the entire European Common Union (EU) proclaimed at its inaugurating ceremony: “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. ...We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace....”  (Earth Charter Initiative, 2000)

That initiative has spawned a movement of “Great Turning”, gathering support around the globe through Internet communities.

Proposed Actions for Global Renewal Guided by Dao

2007, I hope, is both the first time a practical road map to global peace with justice can be drawn as well as having a chance to be made known to enough voters in the world to have effects on democratic representations.  Much encouraging signs has indeed appeared.

I outline one such road map below in three essential movements in the spirit of “casting bricks to induce jade”:

(1)“Global Truth and Reconciliation” fashioned after South Africa’s that was the brainchild of Nobel Peace Laureates, President Mandela and Bishop Tutu.  For almost 30 years now, I have believed this to be a crucial and essential first step. Mandela and Tutu gave proof to its practicality almost 20 years later.

Religious war can only be healed through spiritual reconciliation as South Africa has demonstrated.  American leaders must do the same to the world that it had turned into a killing field in the past 60 years 

However, it is still not until this year that I have real hope that such a spiritual healing can succeed at a global level.  That real hope comes from progresses in Internet technology to the present level, so that U-tube was able to give New York Times’ “only other new superpower on the block” of 2003 a real sword of peace that could win the necessary votes in 2006 to change democratic representation.