#208 / Civics

Our power to transform the world, to make and remake it, is both individual and collective.

Empowering our children, and giving them a vivid sense that they can change the world in which they find themselves, is a basic responsibility of every parent.

We are not, however, in this world alone. We are not just a collection of individuals. We are in this life together. Teaching "empowerment," in any serious way, means teaching civics.

Democracy may well be defined as "people over government," but how can we solve that equation in the real world, and particularly in the "modern world," where the dominance of a government controlled by private wealth is so far advanced that it seems unchallengeable by ordinary men and women?

If we don't have a "lesson plan" for democracy that can teach our children how to take back governmental power and restore a governmental system that is, of, by, and for the ordinary people of the world, we will have set them up for failure.

I said, one time, that these daily writings might well be thought of as "notes for a book." I guess it has to be a civics book.