Good Governance Based on Strong Values.
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You are part of something greater and bigger than just yourself. You’re part of a family stretching across the whole earth. All of us are connected to each other and we are inextricably connected to the earth: the plants and animals, the water, air, and land. By our very nature, we are social beings. Our success comes in large part by our ability to cooperate and work towards common goals.
Those common goals have been eroding. It isn’t just the policies we’ve enacted, but a poisonous mindset that has undermined stability, solidarity, and harmony. This mindset is based on the myth of hyperindividualism, of selfishness and greed, of wastefulness and ecological destruction, and the exploitation of our human family and our biosphere. There are logical conclusions to where this system will lead us: You cannot run an economic system indefinitely on a planet with finite resources. You cannot run a socioeconomic system that exploits the majority of humankind for the benefit of a very wealthy few. And you cannot run a democracy with a politics based on corporate corruption, corporate money, and cutting people out of the political process. It’s time to reimagine what our societies, economies, and politics look like. What we need we cannot currently find. We need a forward-thinking politics that take into account that the actions we make today will have serious consequences down the road; we must be mindful of our decisions. We need a politics that acts to transform social, economic, and political systems at their roots to overcome the many social problems we’ve created from decisions made in the past. A healthy democracy is only as strong as the voice of the weakest among us. Therefore, we must do all we can to create a society that offers everyone as equal a chance as possible to succeed, to pursue happiness, and to contribute to the greater good. That means we need to harness the collective power we hold to mitigate poverty, seek racial and gender justice, and protect nature. We must realize that by developing the talent among us, it makes all of our lives better. |
Policies will change over time, as they should, but the principles and values that inform them are immutable and constant: Cooperation, compassion, empathy, hard work, sharing, community, broad prosperity, personal and societal development, justice, ecological wisdom, broad participatory democracy, honesty and truth, courage in the face of fear, tolerance and acceptance, diversity, compromise and consensus, equality. These are the best values of the human condition and we should strive to create a society that embodies these values and principles.
A prosperous society is measured by the empathy and cooperation that flow through it. These values are central to the survival of a working democracy and are the greatest social virtue we can develop and possess. Empathy is the ability to sense others’ emotions and understand what they might be thinking or feeling. Empathy is not simply feeling for someone but feeling with them. As human beings, we evolved to have empathy for and be cooperative with others. Empathy creates social unity which means that empathy and taking responsibility to act on it allows societies to survive and thrive. So much of our politics and government have moved away from this to where they moralize greed, selfishness, and only looking out for themselves. There is nothing more destructive for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our nation. We cannot sustain a "you're-on-your-own culture" of individuals always in competition with each other. That is unnatural to who we are: social beings who are interconnected to each other and the earth. The antidote, then, is to inject empathy into who we are and what we do. We must ask, are we caring for one another? Are we upholding our values? Are we willing to sacrifice on behalf of our future generations? And we must resoundingly answer: Yes! |
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About James.James Singer is a Diversity Fellow in Sociology and Ethnic Studies at Salt Lake Community College. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Sociology with a concentration in Labor Markets & Social Policy. His research is concerned with social mobility and the “American Dream.”
In 2018, he was the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District and the first Native American (Diné/Navajo) to run for U.S. Congress from Utah. James plans to serve his community and run for public office in the future. James' advocacy has led him to serve on several boards of directors and give speeches, lectures, and panel discussions. James is available for speaking events, consulting, and community advocacy work. Areas of expertise: politics, social mobility, social change, environmentalism, indigenous issues. When not involved in community action or at work as a professor, he loves playing soccer, singing, drawing, watching Star Trek, and spending time with family and friends. |
What do Politics centered on social and environment justice look like?
- Ecological Harmony
- Fairness in Society
- Broad Participatory Democracy
- Nonviolence toward Others and the Environment
- Sustainable Coexistence of Human Civilization and the Biosphere
- Respect for Human and Ecological Diversity
- Global Responsibility
- Consideration of the Implications for the Future
a prosperous society has a balanced proportion of public and private resources. government's role is to protect the people, their general welfare, the less-fortunate, the land and its resources.
"Free" Markets have come at an enormous cost
For millennia and hundreds of generations, my indigenous ancestors lived within the cycles of the earth, following the ebb and flow in a harmonious path. And while we currently experience great material comfort in the United States, it has come at an enormous cost as a global phenomenon:
We live in a 1 percent market economy where most of the income and assets go to the top 1 percent of society while the contribution of the 99 percent are ignored.
It isn't that the 1 percent have worked harder or even earned their wealth (at least 1/3 of the richest Americans inherited their wealth or a part of it), it's that they redesigned to economy to service them.
Workers like you and me have been producing and continue to produce more profit for the companies we work for but aren't getting paid for it. In fact, wages in the United States have barely risen over the past three decades.
- We have sacrificed the health of our planet, its ecosystems, its very ability to sustain life.
- We have sacrificed our humanity by forcing millions of people into precarious labor conditions, essentially tying them to wage slavery.
- We have sacrificed our happiness by focusing on an insatiable lust for greed that can never be extinguished, no matter how much stuff we buy.
- We have sacrificed our morality by focusing only on satisfying our own personal desires and ignoring the responsibility we all share towards each other.
We live in a 1 percent market economy where most of the income and assets go to the top 1 percent of society while the contribution of the 99 percent are ignored.
It isn't that the 1 percent have worked harder or even earned their wealth (at least 1/3 of the richest Americans inherited their wealth or a part of it), it's that they redesigned to economy to service them.
Workers like you and me have been producing and continue to produce more profit for the companies we work for but aren't getting paid for it. In fact, wages in the United States have barely risen over the past three decades.
Pledge: I will work tirelessly to protect our water, air, and landscapes and to preserve a high quality of life for all Utahns.
conservation wins
It is past time to phase out the old polluting energies -- coal, gas, and oil -- and replace them with eternally present, clean, and free energy sources: the sun, wind, water, and soil energies. We should not be giving corporate handouts to dirty energy. Instead, in terms of energy alone, conservation is equivalent to drilling. Drilling destroys while conserving saves. Conservation should be subsidized as an investment to a better future. For Americans, conservation wins. For oil companies, drilling wins. Which matters more to you?