It is horrific that no person in the USA with a voice seems to recall these same circumstances sparked the French Revolution

Does the study of Economics need to include Moral Imperatives?  (reddit, 12/2018)  

Please read on if you care about current events.  Thank you.  This is not some stuffy article or academic essay, and it isn't religious or about JESUS.

It is about Peace

It is about history, history of protest and dissent, and is a first-person "we were there" old-school Hippie outreach to world gone insane with greed, violence and war (again).  Hope you like good music.  Best if enjoyed with a California Cigarette.  JH


This is wild stuff - and the video was done 50 years ago, about Donald Trump.  Watch and see if you disagree.  So, we invite you to please enjoy this 1960s protest video and accompanying award winning Peace anthem by Creedence, Clearwater, Revival (used with permission from creator)

People I'm old, grumpy and my feet hurt - start this thing at :15 seconds, I can't remember how to do it and the first 15 seconds aren't worth hearing.  It is however, the grooviest thing you'll listen to this year.

This is the music of my youth.  And the voice and the true moral compass we should aspire to in a new and compassionate America.

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Hey - Thank you for asking this question.

How interesting the current situation is here in the United States. We are truly in great difficulty as a nation, living as we do in an entire planet dying from our greed and our bombs and our 40 year uninterrupted history of being a bully and weapons dealer on the world stage.

Installing as financial and repressive puppets monsters like the Shah of Iran, Noriega, and yes - Sadam Hussein.

Do you think the world is unaware of the 60% of military hardware we sell for profit into every conflict on this earth? They don't reel in horror as we each, every American, drink or throw away as foul 200 gallons a day of fresh water?

Do you think that forcing them to trade the land they need to grow food for pieces of paper is a wise policy?

Well, we do not. We are New Hope, and our new and small but independent university (non-Carnegie system) specializes in History, Moral Economics and Peace Studies.

We emphasize a comprehensive study of the history of conflict and rebellion.  We believe history is yesterday speaking to today, offering numerous examples of painful experience if a nation or culture ignores the needs of all citizens.  This knowledge is necessary indeed before we take action today, and certainly should guide or choices as we struggle worldwide with immigration, violent conflict, economic realities and hard decisions.

Rich in science, tradition - yes We are faith based, but your beliefs are sacred to us. We don't convince, convert or beg money.

Not... what other faiths seem to care about. We do object as they approve of openly (Mike Pence) or through complicit silence during endless undeclared for-profit US wars, and thus silently ignore genocide and "sanctions" that starve children.

If you are unaware of Yemen at this moment, or Paris, I weep for our country. I am an American Patriot, and fought in the Vietnam conflict. With a typewriter, a voice, and a sign.

So now, we teach.

My thoughts/our thoughts?

The failure of the USA to measure their own success and human rights record not by some statistic or average, but by simply being compassionate and responsive to the life experiences of the poorest, the weakest, those in most desperate need is a terrible truth in the "richest country in the world."

Our failure to stop labeling other countries, and simply replicate and improve on best and most compassionate policies and practices? This demonstrates a near-deliberate ignorance of the history of revolt.

Is it intentional? I cannot answer. It is rather unforgiveable from afar, and those we despise and attack stand horrified, knowing as they do our own poor people live in tents and prisons as the rich hike rents to the point it exceeds income.

Nobody in the USA is well educated enough to seem to recall that this particular set of choices are what sparked the original French revolution.

I hope we choose not to kill them (the wealthy, the greedy, the selfish) Because after all, if a revolution happens again, they built us all those lovely prisons. We might use those?

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This is a formal and multi-disciplinary response to the question raised about the inclusion of morality in any analysis of economic theory or policy decisions by leaders.

The contributors are numerous, but the author is our chancellor and the Carl Zehr Professor of Moral Economics and Peace Studies at our home here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Thanks for reading.