Knights of the Progressive Round Table

How we can do better than the "Turn on, Tune in and Drop Out" that has characterized some change movements?. How can we lead from within organizations, from within power and from within organizations that we sometimes strongly disagree with? Whether it is a spiritual organization or a political organization, we all have experienced extreme disparity between values and actions, lately. I see us like knights of round table, who specifically serve a set of values instead of a monarchy. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the heroes. Each of us comes with different skills and different strengths. Our diversity is our strength. Lets be, lets act and lets lead. We are all working for the common good.

• Live by personal conscience and personal spiritual responsibility
• Doing gets the job done
• Happiness and fun is part of all that we do
• Better is better, perfect never happens
• Resources and tools are good, lets collect more
• Spend money and resources by our values

Live by personal conscience and personal spiritual responsibility! Basically at the Nuremburg trials we all decided that everyone is responsible for individual actions, there is no following orders defense. I am a historian, I personally find the Catholic church to be an incredible mixture of good and evil. So I choose what I do, and I speak truth to power. I am going to die anyway, so I choose not live by fear but rather by choice. I do not just accept, I consider, I discuss, I decide and if I need to, I speak very publicly and clearly. Leadership comes from people who lead and those who choose "support" very carefully. One voice speaking publicly and clearly can have great impact. Leverage that one voice with a little grassroots power and we can be awesome.

Doing gets the job done! Complaining, ordering someone else to do it or giving up are all much easier than doing. Just like the dog poo on the kitchen floor, that no one in the family sees or cleans up, it is always easier to find a reason to not do something that to do the work that needs doing. I volunteer, I strategize, so I work smart and hard, I pace myself, so I can keep working at causes for my whole life. No one setback is going to cause me to stop. No burnout, no quiting. This is who I am. I do.

Happiness and fun is part of all that we do! We can be happy, make work into a party and just socialize with peace activists. The Dalai Lama leads here. Good is fun, great and happy. This tends to be contradiction in Catholic teaching, where everything happy seems to be a sin. So use personal thought, reasoning and responsibility to find happiness and goodness together! Choose goodness and happiness!

Better is better, perfect never happens! I have so many movements not go anywhere because something is not yet perfect. I prefer completing long journeys by little steps. I work from within, I lead not condemn.

Resources and tools are good, lets collect more! Power, strength, tools, wealth, and all resources are all good things to have. Just like having enough food to last the winter was historically important. Every tool can be used for good or bad. That is a reflection of the decision maker not the tool. So lets go collect resources, we have a long winter coming

Spend money and resources by our values! Personal spending should be done within our values. I buy Minnesota beef directly from the farmer and freeze it, I shop the farmers markets, I shop COSTCO instead of Walmart, I go to local owned non corporate restaurants. Most of all, I give carefully. First of all I give $50 to the Democratic party, that in 2 months is refunded by the government, making this free. I give carefully to the best organizations like MPR, like NSP.