CAMPAIGN FOR A POSITIVE FUTURE
CHAPTER 1: FAMILY AND ANNOUNCEMENT
In 1983 Barbara addressed over 450 international delegates, dignitaries at the Congress of the Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose in Toronto, Canada. The video entitled “Navigating Evolutionary Change” contains the first part of her talk. In this, the final part, she talks about her large family and the leadup to her intention to become selected for the office of Vice-President of the United States in 1984. Barbara describes what led up to this decision and her strategy for achieving it
Barbara: It started out on April 11th of this year, and I made a decision to do something which had never happened in the history of my personal family. I have a very big family, about 60 people, with a father who just died and an uncle who’s 86 and an aunt who’s 92. And the three elders of the family had been feuding for 10 years. And their offspring of the aunt, the uncle, and the father had been told by the ancient parents, most of whom were dead, not to be friends with each other. My sister’s son was getting married, and it turned out all the men were away. My brother, all the ones who would have been sort of running the show. And I realized, Barbara, you’re 53 years old. And you have never taken a step to see whether this family, who has been fighting for 10 years, might like to talk to each other. Now this was a very bold step in my family. You can’t imagine how much courage it took me to even think of it. And it is surprising because it’s so completely simple. But I called out my sister. I said, ‘Patricia’—she was to be married to Daniel Ellsberg, and she’s quite a wonderful sister. I said, ‘what would you think if we had a family party and we all sat on the floor and told each other who we are?’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘What do you think they’d would think? What would it be like?’ I said let’s try it, called up the other sister with three sisters on their late 40s and 50s. I mean, my God, we were still somewhat skeptical.
And then I started to make telephone calls to at least 40 people. Some of them were 10 years old, some of them were 50 years old, some of them were 90 years old. And I said something very important is going to happen and it is essential that after this wedding you come. I hired a room at a hotel so we could sit on the floor and not be in a restaurant. We are going to find out who we are. Find out who we are. And everybody came, absolutely from ancient Aunt Rose who was 92 and Uncle Mickey who was 96. Right on through to my three-year-old, four-year-old granddaughter, and my one-year-old grandson. And they arrived and there was a little shyness, and the evening was getting late, and people were sort of hoping I wouldn’t do it. They thought they might be able to get away with just an ordinary event. And suddenly I said, ‘well, how about sitting down on the floor and just in the circle, sort of like an Indian circle, and tell each other who we are.’
And there was an immense shyness. And there were 10-year-old children standing close by their parents, holding on, and Aunt Rose’s tribe and uncle Dave’s tribe and my father’s tribe. And they all sat down. And I had the presence of mind to turn to the most ancient aunt, Aunt Rose, and I said, ‘Aunt Rose, you are the Elder, would you start out telling us who you are?’ And Aunt Rose said, ‘I have this golden seed, and the golden seed is my potential.’ And she started out sounding like Abraham Maslow. You couldn’t believe it. And she went through the fact that every person on earth had this golden seed.
So, then came my sister, and she said, ‘my golden seed is that I want to be an artist.’ And then we went to ancient Uncle Mickey, who said what his golden seed was. And we went all around the circle, and it was like seeing buds opening. Bud after bud after bud, and the 10-year-old children and the five year old children and one of them said,’ now that I know we all have these golden seeds, when I get married, I can tell my children about the golden seed.’ And it became a tremendous symbol, and the family instantly loved each other. I mean, and what struck me is that after 10 years of feuding, all they had to do was sit in the circle and tell their golden seeds.
Now, on that particular evening, April 11th, I turned the television set on, and it turned to be the Academy Award evening. So, we drifted from the family party and the Golden Seed event to watch the Gandhi film win all the rewards. And we heard Attenborough quote from Gandhi about peace, and we heard the cheers and the roars, and we saw the scenes from the movie after having had our own family Golden Seed event. And it was an interesting juxtaposition. And then everybody left, and they have had another event by the way, they’ve already had a family tree party. I wasn’t there, but they’re off and running, and there’s another one planned and another one planned. It’s like the Planetary Initiative—they won’t stop.
And after watching the Gandhi film, I was very touched. It was like my golden seed, because I did start out the family party by saying, you know, we are the descendants of people who came over from Europe and who were successful, and here we are the children and the grandchildren of those of that generation of Americans. And our question is, which way America? Because I’ve asked my family to let us know which way America. So, I sat with my five children—and it’s very rare for all five children to be together in one room; it was now about two in the morning—and I said to them, ‘Why should we be less than Gandhi? I mean why?’ Look at the family party. Maybe because of people like Gandhi, it’s not that hard anymore. Maybe, the barrier that separates us is so thin that if anybody has the nerve to say, let’s all sit down and tell our golden seeds, they will find that the seeds are ready to pop! Because it’s time. You know how seeds are. If you try to get them to grow in February it doesn’t work at all, but you can’t stop them in May. And I got a feeling it’s May not March. So, I was leaving that party with that inside me. And then I heard a tape by Joan Holmes, who heads up The Hunger Project. And it was a tape on vision. And she said, you know why people don’t dare have vision?
Because it develops very deep structural tension. If you let yourself experience your vision, and then you experience the structural tension between where you are and what the vision is, you will be uncomfortable. Because, if you realize that that vision is the flowering of that seed, how can you stop yourself from moving outside your comfort zone? So, most people keep the flower closed so it’s not the half to experience the structural tension of their vision. But for me. My vision had opened up and I couldn’t resist it. And the vision is the activation of the creativity of the body politic of humanity, basically, the great suppressed resource, the great untapped, unknown, unquantifiable resource of human genius.
As an American citizen I realized I had to narrow my scope a little and concentrate on the untapped creativity of the American people. And I decided after the Gandhi movie and the family party, to attempt something new. Which is to say, if it’s true that we have this creativity, we have these visions, we have these options, and if it’s true that it May not March, let’s launch a political campaign for a positive future and see who comes to the party. And that’s what I’ve decided to do, and it’s quite appropriate as somebody pointed out to me that I made the first real public announcement of it is off the soil of the United States at the Planetary Initiative Toronto, which gives you some idea of the meaning of this campaign. It’s a campaign for the planet.
And I would like to conclude with encouraging everybody from every nation here to take whatever initiative they can within their own country to become the leaders of the new. Thank you.
CHAPTER 2: A VISION FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENCY
It’s called the Campaign for a Positive Future. I chose to take the Vice Presidency because, first of all, no one wants it. It’s an act of political imagination. There’s no other office that nobody else wants. It’s really amazing. Nobody wants to be vice president. What an opportunity! Now I’m recognizing that the body politic is in a state of trauma as it is, and I don’t want to further traumatize it by doing something untoward or unbecoming to a lady. But I am a running mate. And I do believe that it is no longer appropriate for two men to be running. I think it is whoever is going to be Vice-President, and the Democratic Party is very open to this. That we need the balance on that ticket. And the vice-presidential role is a good one for a woman. Now I thought about the role of the vice-presidency because somebody said what in heaven’s name will you do if you win? What if the Red Sea opens up? I mean, we know it won’t happen, but what if it did? So, I started to think about it. See, since my original purpose was to just create, like Donald did with Planetary Initiative, a place for people to be able to express themselves, and for the media to be able to pay attention to it. And for us to identify a constituency, I mean that that’s really my basic feeling of what it’s going to be. But I can’t run for it without thinking about the office.
And as I started to think about the office, I realized that a new function is needed in our society, and it’s the function of a continuing process of examining our innovations, our creativity, our potentials, our long-range goals in an interactive synergistic method.
So, what I will be proposing and developing with as many people who wish to develop it with me is, first of all the process of the campaign which would be taking something that we’re learning here and moving throughout the country, region by region, inviting people together to share, inviting the media to cover it. And networking is gentle. It’s really gentle. Leading to a continuation of the process in the vice-presidency, so that the means and the ends would be similar, and that this function would become a resource for the American people—and to the peoples of the world.
CHAPTER 3: THE DOLLAR BILL
…because we have to agree that America, right now, the United States of America is sitting on the hot seat of evolution. And we’re not doing it right. And yet, as an American citizen, I feel that we’re programmed by the vision of this country, of our country, as probably the roots of every culture, there is a similar programming. But ours is overt. Because if you look at the dollar bill, there it says my campaign fundraising technique will be: read the dollar and give it. And I’ve actually raised quite a few dollars that way because people pull out their bills. They read it and they gave it to me. It’s very nice. And what does it say on the dollar bill? It says E Pluribus Unum—Out of many one. And that is an evolutionary goal, and it doesn’t mean just people in one country, it’s like it’s the whole world—out of many one. That’s what’s on the dollar bill. Then it says, In God we trust: One. Also, a pretty obvious take. It’s not hidden at all. And then over there on the left it says Novus Ordo Seclorum, New Order of the Ages. And there is an unfinished pyramid with a cosmic eye. Now that symbolizes to me that when we combine our building power with our spiritual wisdom, we will, we collectively, the human race, will build a new order of the ages. Doesn’t that sound like the new pattern—in the Prigogine model? — that out of many, we become one? It sounds like an evolutionary perception that’s encoded in the founding of this country, of the United States.
And then above that it says, Annuit Coeptis, He favors this enterprise. Woah! Now the founding fathers were Masons, and that goes through Rosicrucian’s. And what we’re really talking about is the perennial wisdom of the human race. It’s encoded, I would think, in just about every national psyche somewhere. But since I’ve, and you’ll forgive me for talking about the United States, and what I’ve been saying is that we need to do it nation by nation and region by region. But so, I’m not saying the United States in any way is superior, better than or worse than. I’m just saying, first of all we can cause more damage than any country in the world. So, it’s more important that we learn than any country in the world. Secondly, we attracted people from all over the world who came for something new. Let’s do it. That’s gonna be the campaign. We came here to do it. Let’s do it!
Let’s build. Let’s build with all the peoples of the world, our vision. Let’s shift in the next 10 years from weaponry to livingry. Let’s make that the goal or our campaign. And let’s ask how to do it. And let’s pray for it together. And let’s call the genius together to design it. And let’s convert the military industrial complex which has genius, to the great acts, joining with all the rest of us to build it. Now, as I do this, and as I say it, I feel connected to the entire human species. Not only in present, but past. Egypt, India, Greece, Islam, Christendom—they’ve all had it. They’ve all said it and it’s come to our time. So, I would like to conclude with the thought that there are some specifics that we should do.
I think it’s really wonderful that the Planetary Initiative—and this is the first real public announcement of the candidacy—that I should have the privilege of doing it at the Planetary Initiative. Isn’t that wonderful? Truly wonderful. I would like to pledge myself to work with all of you to see that the Planetary Initiative becomes an ongoing context for united peoples of Earth. And secondly, I would like to have the opportunity of learning what the various issue groups have come up with, not only here, but around the country, and bringing them forward as options in the campaign for a positive future. As Poco said, we’ve met the system and it’s us.
And those of us who live in countries that have free democratic systems really have an obligation to the human race, because there’s some countries in which you can’t do this. But the countries like Canada and the United States and certain countries in Europe and England, where we can, we must. I really take this one right by the horns and say we must enter our own political processes. To stand outside at the time of an evolutionary transformation saying nah, nah, nah to the system is completely wrong.
I’m going to, in my campaign, be asking people. So, I commit to the Planetary Initiative, to put my energy into working with Donald and others to make it into that and to carry whatever I can into our political system where it’s applicable. What I will be asking people to do for the sake of the campaign, those of us who are from the United States of America, is several things. One, I’m going to ask people to enter the delegate process and become delegates to the party of their choice. The delegate process is open. And every one of us can go down to our caucus in our in our district, with our friends and try to be elected and enter that process. And I’d like to see as many of you as possible in San Francisco, July of 1984. What we intend to do in San Francisco July of 1984 is put on the most powerful demonstration that there is a new constituency in this world for a positive future. Thank you.