STOP!
We humans know the difference between right and wrong. It is time to stop doing what is wrong and start doing what is right. Sounds simple? It is, and this is what we need to stop, now:
1. Stop extracting, processing, selling and burning fossil fuels that damage our planetary ecosystem causing harm to billions of people and other forms of life.
2. Stop all activities that damage the Earth’s water, air, soil, plants and animals.
3. Stop passing laws that take away a woman’s sovereignty over her own body.
4. Stop paying a woman less than a man for the same work.
5. Stop paying workers a wage on which they and their families cannot live.
6. Stop allowing our fellow human beings to live in poverty.
7. Stop the fiscal, monetary and economic systems that allow 1% of people to own 43% of all assets and for the bottom 80% to own only 6%.
8. Stop financial institutions from creating and marketing toxic investments.
9. Stop allowing our children to grow up without an education.
10. Stop denying health care to every person.
11. Stop the filibuster from being used to block virtually every piece of legislation.
12. Stop gerrymandering voting districts that ensure a permanent majority for one party.
13. Stop passing laws that make it difficult or impossible for women, youth, the elderly and the poor to vote.
14. Stop government from spying on its citizens.
15. Stop people of one religious belief system from harming people of another tradition.
16. Stop people of one sexual persuasion from harming people of another orientation.
17. Stop people of one race from harming someone of another race.
18. Stop maintaining a prison system that must generate inmates in order to make a profit.
19. Stop allowing the manufacture and selling of arms.
20. Stop attacking and killing people around the world with drones or other means without due process, a UN resolution or a declaration of war. (In fact stop harming anyone for any reason by any means.)
We can do what is right by changing our individual minds and behaviors and by transforming our collective cultures and systems. We need a moral awakening that expresses itself in new values, citizen action, policies and institutions. We can do this, now. But first we must STOP.