as 'power over' instead of 'power with'. Power over others, and thus safety and happiness, is the fairy tale we have to wake up from and grow beyond, if we are to survive as a society.

The gun issue is absolutely about personal power, people who feel the most 'left behind' in this changing world do not have adequate coping skills to shift with the times. Ironically the values of cooperation, community, tolerance, harmony with nature are very ancient and what is required is remembering who we are as Earthlings.

We are a part of the Earth, and the power-over myth that has been taught to humans through religious, racist, and cultural myths has interfered with us holding on to our ancient roots as human beings living in harmony with each other and our planet. The uses of fear and loathing to craft these myths has resulted in a very sick society, because they have a war mentality.

The myths that are harming this country and the world at large, are based on war and a form of Armageddon. This dystopian view of the future teaches people to hoard food, guns, land and an eternal vigilant state of fight or flight. It is a very destructive state of mind, and needs to be countered on every level and at every opportunity---and replaced with better ways of coping. I agree with Dennis Kucinich that we need a Department of Peace. Put as much time and effort studying ways of helping people cope, and the sharing of resources.

We as a country need to grow up past consumerism, exceptionalism, racism, dominionism and all the other destructive religious interpretations--and truly recognize these old assumptions as the toxic and harmful belief systems that are at the root of our identity crisis.

These myths teach us to accept 'power over' as a given--by those FEW people who have defined it, because their power mostly depends upon us BELIEVING and ACCEPTING this definition. As we believe in 'power over', we GIVE our POWER of CHOICE away to them. This has been going on for millennia, and today we are seeing the culmination of this belief system. This is how we have arrived to accept a piece of paper as more valuable than life.

Peace~~Felix