Humans not slaves to Trading Elite!

On the last day of a turbulent year, named 2010,  as we begin another calendar year named 2011, let's take a look at some of the kinds of resolutions that would make this world a little more receptive and welcoming and suportive to humans, or in the current vernacular, "user friendly"!
Let's resolve to begin a transformation in the way we measure the success of our social and our political lives, by counting and reporting, not the GDP and the unemployment rates, and not to the balance of trade figures, but the GLOBAL, MONTHLY

• rate of increase in literacy ( how many more people can read this month than could read last month)
• rate of decrease in disease and mortality
• rate of increase in the average length of life figures
• rate of increase in the number of people who are no longer starving
• rate of increase in the number of young boys and girls who are enrolled in state sponsored learning
• rate of decrease in the number of wars in which people are engaged
• rate of decrease in the number of child soldiers
• rate of increase in the number of people who support themselves, with help, in their own enterprise.

O.K. you get the picture.
We are concentrating, and have been for far too long, on those figures that the political class considers important, and the reasons they think the current numbers and reporting are important is that they think that economic output, especially production and trade, are the reason for the existence of the society in their country.
Unfortunately, they are wrong.
The trade figures are not the only, or the most important figures by which we ought to be forging our way into the future. They are not even the most important figures that justify the policies of government in any country.
They are the holy grail of the elite, and that holy grail and that elite will have to give way to the rest of the people, whose  lives and whose existence in peace, with adequate food and shelter and water and education and health care must be our global goal...and we must take on these goals in a collaborative, and global manner.
The G8/G20 does not exist for the benefit of the rich people or the rich countries. It exists so that the countries who consider themselves "have's" can negotiate a better life for all those who are "have-not's" both within those countries and across the globe.
We must develop a new global mandate and new global negotiating and arbitrating mechanisms that put our healthy survival as individual human beings at the top of the list of political and cultural 'to-do' list.
And those political and corporate leaders who currenlty believe that THEIR leadership including their unwavering support by the media is the only, and the inevitable and the proper 'way of doing business' must be both challenged and replaced with an agenda that puts our authentic and shared purpose of caring in the spotlight everywhere.
It is not longer tolerable to make and sell billions of dollars of weapons, as part of the economy of any country.
It is no longer tolerable to make and sell pollutants that kill our lakes and rivers and poison our water supply.
It is no longer tolerable to send billions of gallons of gases into the atmosphere, to suffocate the people who work in those industries.
It is no longer tolerable to watch children die because they do not have enough food, simply because we cannot provide an adequate distribution system, not because there is not enough food.
It is no longer tolerable that some children will be educated, and others will not.
It is not longer tolerable that some people are hired, by state governments, to kill other people.
It is no longer tolerable to consider the rest of the world our potential enemy.
It is no longer tolerable to consider "my" religion "better" than "your religion," or even my language and culture better than your language and culture.
It is no longer tolerable to say "we cannot do anything about these things," and turn a blind eye to let those in charge have the playing field to themselves.
Let's make 2011 a year when all people everywhere take back the agenda of our collective life together.
Happy New Year!