The Free Flow of Ideas

How freely do we exchange ideas? How freely do they flow? Remember just a few months ago when the media was telling us that a financial catastrophe was inevitable unless we gave the banks, brokerages and insurance companies $700 billion?

Do you remember any discussion of what else we might have done with that much money to boost the economy? Did anyone propose setting up some kind of agency to disburse those funds to prevent foreclosures of homes? Did anyone propose using that money to provide start up funding for new businesses? Did anyone suggest helping finance the construction of more cost efficient, more energy efficient homes? Did anyone really debate if there was any better way to use that money?

Why would it have been so bad if they companies who squandered their capital had folded and other, better run banks and brokerages took their places? Why is the wisest move to give the money to fix the problem to the ones who created the problem? How do we know the problem is fixed?

You can find articles and documentaries about other ways to build more cost efficient and energy efficient homes if you scour the internet and read alternative publications. But you won't see these ideas that present solutions to some of our problems featured in special TV shows or news programs. Why not?

When people ask what happened to all that money that those bankers and financial companies were given, we do not get an answer as to what is happening with that money.

In order to build a world that works, we owe it to ourselves to research all the possibilities and consider all the solutions. It is a shame that the major media does not serve us better in that way. TV, daily newspapers and radio would have been a suitable forum for presenting and examining issues from all angles. Those are the big voices that permeate our environment. Instead, what we got was a drumbeat of blabber that said that we needed to hurry up and give Paulson and his buddies $700 billion, because we had no other choice.

So when people say that if you do not watch the TV news that you will not know what is going on and you will not be well informed, that is not correct. You may become better informed without them. Just ask yourself. Instead of the scary stories they have been presenting us, when was the last time they promoted other possible solutions to the problems?

Ideas could flow much more freely than they do. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to note that the range of options the major media presents us is limited. In order to create a world that works well for us, we really do need a free flow of ideas.

The internet is millions of websites and blogs created and maintained by millions of people. It is simply a fact that if TV stations today were to broadcast a show or series of shows about how to strengthen our economy, it would reach a lot more people than a blogger or even a handful of bloggers, or people with their own websites doing the same thing. We can start the ideas, and hopefully they will make it into the larger consciousness and conversation.

Ask yourself if you feel that we really have a free flow of ideas. If not, how can we help to increase that flow so that we can shift consciousness?