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Nation Building at Home: Where is America’s Great Wall?

By Akio Matsumura

President Obama, in his second State of the Union address, said that we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea – the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.  The president emphasized that we need to work on developing America as a nation.  “Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age.”

Indeed, America was founded on an idea, and great ideas inspired and led to the nation we have today. The transcontinental railroad, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the NASA space programs were hallmarks of American leadership and progress.

When my parents visited the US for the first time from Japan in 1979, we toured the East Coast.  They were amazed by the Queensboro Bridge, built before my father was born in 1909; the US Capitol building; and the six lane highways that connected them.  We drove from Niagara Falls to Washington, D.C.—a length of 2,500 miles, or 1 ½ times the length of Japan.  When my father learned that we had not driven into the middle of the US but had stayed only on one coast he asked, “Akio, why did Japan attack such a large country?”  But many of the monuments, bridges, railroads, that amazed my parents were built over 100 years ago, even in the time of the Civil War. America’s leaders inspired by a desire for a Great America—and yes, by extraordinary profits—set their sights far into the future and undertook incredible projects that continue to awe visitors to this day.… Continue reading

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New Strategies in US Foreign Policy: Building Perception instead of Animosity

by Akio Matsumura

We are out of money.  The 2008 world economic crisis and economic recession have forced many governments to cut back in spending. The media reports daily on which programs will be kept or cut, and lobbyists are working hard to make sure their piece of the pie is not tossed out. In Europe, Greece’s austerity measures—while staving off disaster—have caused riots. In many countries, national security budgets, despite ballooning to epic portions, will be the last to go, though surprisingly, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last week announced that the Pentagon will slash spending in the years ahead.

The defense budget will remain high because of a national paranoia (perhaps rightly) of foreign attack, influential business interests, and the all-important fact that the US is still fighting two wars.  And their position on both fronts looks increasingly untenable:  the effects of the “surge” in Iraq–General Petraeus’ miracle work–is now reportedly dissolving; Western efforts in Afghanistan are producing fewer results than hoped for.  Just this week the New York Times published an editorial, “The State of the War in Afghanistan.” Their survey is disheartening:

But, like many Americans, we are increasingly confused and anxious about the strategy in Afghanistan and wonder whether, at this late date, there is a chance of even minimal success.  

Military efforts are continually stifled or delayed.  What is the Commander in Chief’s next step?  Approval is waning (although a majority of Americans still support the war).  Military operations–even if professed to diminish in the coming years–will continue on at least for the greater part of the decade. … Continue reading

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Spotlight: Fritjof Capra

Fritjof Capra is an Austrian physicist and educator living and teaching in Berkeley, California. His lessons of ecoliteracy, webs of connections, and sustainability, among many others, are integral to living more harmoniously, in terms of issues of the environment, culture, religion, nutrition, health, justice, and more. These lessons are embodied in his Center for Ecoliteracy (www.ecoliteracy.org), an organization based in Berkeley, California that is “dedicated to education for sustainable living”, and works to communicate and spread lessons of these topics and their interconnectedness throughout K-12 schools, especially in California. Author of several books, Capra has touched on the fundamental similarities between Eastern Mysticism (Taoism, Hinduism) and western physics, the importance of school lunch, and the teachings of Leonardo da Vinci. He is able to write on such a wide of array of subjects for his way of thinking.

His terribly strong scientific background has allowed him to think systemically, holistically about the world. Organisms are interconnected through their mutual dependencies in ecosystems, but social systems also rely on dependencies between organisms and functions. Capra recognizes these dependencies, cooperations and competitions, so evident in a biological study of ecosystems, between science and art, or the evolution of language. The recognition of systems and their contained mutualisms can extend to cultures, religions, or politics.

Capra, with the backing of the Center he cofounded, is a pedagogue of sustainability in California’s children. Ecoliteracy needs to pervade beyond a handful of California’s school systems and into the rest of the United States and then into each nation.… Continue reading