The future is a blank canvas awaiting our brush strokes. We can stand back and let others soil it with their putrid mess or we can step forward with our own palette, loaded with ideas, energy and excitement and paint the masterpiece of our dreams.
The secret to success is to observe what works and repeat it; observe what doesn't work and delete it. For me, the process of transforming my ideas into reality has always been successful when it begins with a vivid picture of what I want to achieve. Because I'm artistic, I will often draw what it is that I'm imagining or write about it in graphic detail. This isn't something new. Philosophers and mystics have given this process fancy names throughout the ages, and it has even been proven scientifically to work.
So, if one person can create reality by creating a picture of it, imagine hundreds of thousands of people creating the same vivid, positive picture. That's powerful! That's what Brazilian Archbishop Camara was talking about when he said, "When we dream alone, it is only a dream, but when we dream together, it is the beginning of reality."
I began my campaign for Congress eight months ago as one person with a dream. I didn't listen to the naysayers telling me I had to have lots of money and political connections. When people told me this was an impossible race, I turned off my hearing aides. When well intentioned advisors told me I have to move to the middle, I just smiled and told them about the pictures I'd already painted, of a campaign where we do things the way we think they should be done, instead of the way they've always been done - where we make up the rules as we go along, combining creativity with common sense - where honesty and compassion are paramount - where the candidate spends her time actually listening to the people - where voters are inspired and empowered and respected. And that campaign became reality. It turned out that there were a lot of people just waiting for that kind of campaign, and eager to support someone with the vision and integrity to be that kind of candidate.
The future we get is the one we dream. We can spend our time wringing our hands with despair over how messed up the current administration and Congress has made things. Or we can start painting a different canvas. It's our painting and we can do whatever we want with it, so why not be bold and creative and uncompromising.
I'd like to share with you a series of paintings I've created of our future. Feel free to embellish them, talk about them and make them our communal dream.
Election Day Celebration!
It's the night of November 7, 2006 in California. Results have been pouring in from elections all across the country. In one state after another, voters have turned out in massive numbers never seen before. People have ignored party lines and all of the faux issues the Karlrovian's tried to use to distract them. In the weeks leading up to the election, the press finally broke down and started telling the truth. They couldn't resist the fresh, positive ideas coming from the new Democratic candidates running in races the DCCC had earlier labeled hopeless. Shining stars who held fast on their progressive values emerged from solid red districts and now the numbers flashing on TV screens confirmed them as winners. And here in District 49, one of the biggest upsets of all -- Jeeni Criscenzo, a candidate who refused to take contributions from any corporations involved in making war, harming our environment or guilty of abusing human rights, who ran a positive campaign on a shoestring, knocked on thousands of doors and promised she would represent the regular folks, wins by a landslide! Her opponent is so shocked he can only stammer and cry when he concedes. At her victory party, Criscenzo, still wearing her well-worn red shoes, promises her jubilant supporters, the best is yet to come!
January 2007
Not since the first Congress convened, has there ever been so many freshman legislators in the House and Senate. In the House of Representatives, the Democrats have a clear majority, and even the Republicans are new, progressive and eager to cooperate. The excitement and positive energy is infectious. Within weeks, inquiries have convened on hundreds of corruption scandals. Impeachment proceedings have begun on the President and Vice president and countless members of the administration are under indictment for illegal activities. Legislators are working 16-hour days on repairing the damage of the previous six years. An exit strategy for Iraq has been approved and will commence in a matter of weeks. Strong environmental regulations are being reinstated. U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol is back on the table. Trade agreements are being studied for massive revisions that will prioritize human rights and environmental regulation. The Patriot Act is scrapped along with the Medicare Drug program and work has begun on establishing single-payer universal healthcare.
November 2008
There are no surprises in this election. American citizens are so pleased with the fast turn-around made by the new Congress that most of the incumbents are easily reelected. Across the country, voters used voting machines running on open-source software that provided paper ballots and were overseen by an independent federal agency. Most campaigns were run using public funding under the new Federal Clean Money Campaign laws. The newly elected President is someone who wasn't even on the radar three years ago - someone who wouldn't have stood a chance without Clean Money Campaign Financing. This is someone who has brought the country together, who is committed to the environment and who made peacemaking a key component of their campaign.
The biggest news of the year is the re-building of New Orleans. Former residents have been welcomed back and given jobs in the process. Programs have been created to bring new life to the African-American communities, and solid environmental planning has been incorporated into the re-development program. In fact, New Orleans and surrounding areas are being used to showcase models for sustainable, energy-efficient, diverse communities.
December 2012
Just as the ancient Maya had predicted, a new era has begun. Thanks to a concerted effort to change foreign policy, the U.S. is held in high esteem and most countries are eager to emulate our re-invigorated democratic system and adopt our new economic strategies that put human rights and environmental concerns on equal footing with profitability. Vast improvements in education and opportunities for women in third world countries has resulted in a stabilization of world population growth and a dramatic decline in AIDS.
Worldwide cooperation has also resulted in amazing technologies that promise to slow down global warming and could actually begin to repair the ozone layer. Through skilled diplomacy, China has agreed to join the United States and every other industrialized nation in converting to alternative energy sources. Soy is being grown to decontaminate soil and then converted into bio-diesel. Local organic farmers are thriving as healthy eating becomes a national obsession. Universal single-payer healthcare is available for every American, funded in a large part by taxes on junk food.
Thanks to inspired marketing campaigns, Americans have wholeheartedly embraced conservation as a way of life. More and more Americans rely on public transportation as their primary means of getting around now that mass transit is convenient, reliable and safe. U.S. reliance on foreign oil is fast becoming history. New jobs are being created every day in the environmental technology field. Along with the growing demand for skilled workers, comes improved working conditions, increased wages and abundant opportunities for advancement. Contrary to previous concerns that a reduction in consumption would hurt the economy, things are really humming along as more and more Americans start living within their means, slowly getting out of debt and saving money again. The middle class is flourishing once again, and fewer Americans are living in poverty than ever before.
Public schools have thrived under new programs that focus on rewarding success instead of punishing failure. Every student with the drive to go on to higher education can do it thanks to expanded grants and student loan programs.
And thanks to America's improved standing in the world and efforts to alleviate world hunger, along with elimination of the culture of corruption by getting corporate money out of the election process with publicly financed elections, the budget for the Department of Defense is a fraction of what it was five years earlier. That, combined with a completely overhauled tax structure that requires the super wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share, has reduced the national deficit which is scheduled to be fully paid off in another decade.
That's the dream. Are you ready to help me paint this future? Go to www.DREAMofJEENIforCONGRESS.com and sign up to volunteer, host a living room forum or contribute to my Red Shoe Fund. The paint brush is in your hands.