It was 1974 when I came to the conclusion that the US, and most the rest of the world, needed A New Paradigm. It was two years after the re-election of tricky Dicky Nixon, an event I thot would surely wake progressive people up as to what was going on, where it was headed and maybe some inspiration as to what to do about it. Interestingly, he won against a candidate kinda similar to Bernie, George McGovern. But my expectations far exceeded the reality. And tho many of my activist friends appreciate the notion of a New Paradigm, none have made it a major focus. But I think one could cogently argue that there is a change of consciousness in the air. It seems that more groups and organizations are sensing that working solely on individual issues is not going to fix the system, that it is a systemic problem, as the Next System Project folks put it, and is going to require systemic solutions. Several groups are describing their events and conferences in similar ways. So I decided to attend several of these events, talk to organizers and attendees and try to get a feeling for the current status of what I call "The New Pardigm". I found that there is indeed a trend towards more holistic solutions and a growing – I would even say a more sophisticated – consciousness concerning these things; but also found that we are somewhat distant from where we need to be to truly take on the challenge of creating a substantially better world.
At the same time I felt rather inspired from meeting many folks who are getting more focused on, and much better organized and coordinated around, doing the things I feel are necessary if we are to succeed at getting to where we are trying to go. So I am again going to take the conference/gathering tour to get a feel for how things are progressing; and will report back on what I find. And … move myself towards getting more focused, organized and coordinated about compiling a website that does indeed help the viewer achieve a much better understanding concerning where we are at, what is being done and what we “need” to do if we are to indeed create a New Paradigm that kinda resembles paradise.