"How to Create a 'Local Peace Economy'" – CODEPINK Interviews Director Jared Seide

CP: How do you personally define the “Local Peace Economy?”

JS: I think there are some profound “fundamentals” that are shifting – that must shift – in order for our culture and our world to be sustainable.  The immense imbalance amongst us in resources and access has created unhealthy and corrosive conditions for a great many… and systems seem to be breaking apart under the strain.  Any read of political, economic, health-care, educational, correctional systems reveals much to be concerned about.  And it feels to me that underneath it all is a fundamental, fear-based sense of separation.  It is simply impossible and unbearable to continue to pretend that we are not deeply interconnected.  The story of the “other” is unsupportable.  As we pay attention, we see that what happens to you, impacts me; what emerges in me is about all of us.  And in our fast-paced lives, driven by all these systems and efficiencies, it sometimes takes a backward step - a slowing down - to pay attention.  Systems that dehumanize in the service of efficiency are unsustainable. I see a great need to bear witness, lean in, grieve, celebrate and embody the re-humanizing evolution at hand.  Many of us are engaging in practices that enable us to embody and enact this inter-being – and I am sensing that this shift is finally mobilizing broad-based support from across the cultural and political spectrum. ​

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