FROM AN UNSUSTAINABLE STATUS QUO ...

To the possibility of a just and peaceful world.

We’re living at a time of historic phase transition, in which one world is falling apart and another is struggling to be born. We’re called at this time to be both death doulas and birth doulas, helping transition wisely and responsibly from an increasingly unsustainable status quo to the possibility of a just and peaceful world.

For that, we will need a movement - and a president - focused not on perpetuating the old but on bringing forth the new.

America’s political status quo is a village of societal dinosaurs, deeply resistant to any challenge to their well established perch of power. According to their minions in the world of mainstream media, President Biden is running unopposed. The voices of those asking for change go unheeded, and those who question their authority are simply deemed not to exist.

To much of the mainstream media, therefore, I apparently do not exist. But that of itself is not what bothers me.

What bothers me is that to them, the poor do not exist.

The chronic anxiety of those struggling to make ends meet does not exist.

Hungry children in America do not exist.

The corruption of their corporate sponsors does not exist.

The destruction of the earth does not exist.

Of course they seek to invisible-ize those who bring up such inconvenient topics.

The derision of the status quo’s gatekeepers is almost a badge of honor in a world where the status quo is such a cesspool of denial and naïveté about the state of our country and the risks to our world.

The paragons of the political elite would like to ghost me. Begone with me!:) But it is they who are the ghosts, representing a world that is dying before our very eyes. We must - we must - resist the agents of stagnation, and welcome in our hearts the agents of change.

I don’t have any Trump-like “Only I can do it” sentiments running around in my head. It’s not that I think I’m the only one who can do it, so much as I’m the only one who is doing it. Some might do it better in certain areas, and I might do better in others. I have learned a lot about when to speak, and a lot about when to listen. I now have confidence that the experiences I’ve gained over the years - both my successes and my failures - have prepared me for this moment in time. I would not be running for president if I didn’t feel I could do the job in a spectacular way.

How many times have we all read, “But she isn’t a serious candidate!” Contrary to those who seek to minimize my life and career, however, I am a serious woman. And I haven’t lived this long to let someone else determine that I’m not. Someone who founded an organization that has fed over 16 million meals to homebound people with AIDS and other critical illnesses is a serious person. Someone who has written 16 books that have reached bestseller lists and served the journey of millions of readers is a serious person. Someone who has had a forty-year career speaking to, writing about and teaching about the universal principles at the heart of all the religions of the world is a serious person. It’s time for those who believe this to stand up to the smear-mongers who would have people think otherwise. The erasure of a serious career is at a certain point a serious offense.

I appeal to everyone who agrees with me, to stand with me. We are the people and this is our time. No one person can fix the mess we ‘re in; we’re all going to fix the mess we’re in. But first, we have to override the power of those who have no intention of our doing so.

And that is serious.

Please join me.