Now, the future is uncertain, but we may be able to catch a glimpse of it through the child's blue sweater.The child is a little girl and goes to school every day wearing the same blue sweater.She likes it because there are zebras in front and mountains in front of her chest.
The girl is too big to wear a sweater.
One day, when she was teased about wearing a sweater two yards too small, it was time for her mother to convince her to let go.With a few tears, the blue sweater was donated to a thrift store.Years passed.The girl, who grew up as a woman, turned her interest to development work in Africa.
It became her passion.
Her motivation is a huge gap between rich and poor countries in the world.One day, she came to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and noticed a little boy wearing a blue sweater.Her heart began to beat.She walked over and asked if she could see the collar of the sweater, where she found her name on the label.
She saw this amazing coincidence as a sign of our connection.Our actions and inaction will affect people we may never meet and never know.The woman's name is Jacqueline novolglaz, who wrote a visionary book, properly called the blue sweater, "committed to providing opportunities for the poor in all countries in an interconnected world.
The future is here.
In the past eight years, when the United States is asleep, it is clear that one of the two paths will be taken in the future.Either the rich countries find a way to raise the poor countries to a decent standard of living or the poor countries pull the rich countries down.In the past, this was not a serious choice.
For centuries, we have lived in a world where rich countries can maintain an unbalanced lifestyle.They have money, oil, bombs and political leverage to keep poor countries at a safe distance.This is no longer the case.Now everyone lives in an entangled world, not a separate one.
Economies are stuck in a complex trade network.The lives of people are plagued by immigration and refugee.Terrorism has made security a global problem.
A planet suffocated by greenhouse gases makes borders meaningless.No matter where you go today, you will find your old blue sweater --That is to say, you will encounter conditions that directly affect your life.Rich and poor were a moral problem in the past.
Morality tends to lose to money, so over the past decade, as the market has boomed, the divisions between the richest and poorest have become even more serious.If a poor country like Thailand is destroyed because of Wall Street's currency speculation, a moral disaster is ignored in the worship of free markets.Everything has changed now, and our biggest hope is that Barack Obama will see the change ahead of time.
He felt lucky in a strange way.
His own entangled identity has made him his greatest power in the past (strange, that is, compared to white American Protestant.With the identity of crossing the old border, he can lead us across the border.Of course, if we do, a large part of the country will have doubts.
Changes have come too fast, with shocking crashes and confusing new plans for the future.Right-wing people strongly oppose any future that is different from the Reaganite past.But just as no society came out of war like in war, AmericaS.
Not coming out of this recession as it used to be.Not only will Wall Street change, but financial regulation, health care and education will change dramatically.We have been sticking to a rich, indulgent way of life like a little girl on her precious blue sweater.
We need to put it down, hopefully, and one day we will meet it on the other side of the Earth.If that hope comes true, it means that we have the courage and vision to take the rest of the world to our level, rather than having major issues pull us down