
On my first training run, we came to
an unexpected split in the trail. As several of us looked at the map, we came
to different conclusions about the right way to go. As the leader, certain of
my reading and not wanting us to get lost on my watch, I decided to exert
my authority and go against the decision of the others. We ended up lost in the
mountains in the growing dark, adding three hours to the experience. I learned
the value of cooperation and consensus decision making. They learned it through
a negative experience.
We always have a choice for
cooperation and consensus decision making. It can make for a better hike, a
better camp, a better organization, a better product, a better country.
Cooperation could make America great again. Instead of nationalizing rugged
individualism and competing with every country on the planet, we could regain
leadership in the free world by freeing ourselves from our delusion of superiority
and greatness and cooperating for the betterment of all. Let me cite a few
examples.

2. The Secretary General of the U.N.
has called for a global ceasefire. Recognizing that the war against the COVID
19 pandemic is taking, and will continue to take, enormous resources of every
country on earth to save lives and economies, it's an opportune time to
cooperate in ceasing the other wars around the globe. It could be a game changer
for the human community. Imagine, instead of encouraging the U.S. Navy to fire
on Iranian boats, giving oil a helpful bump on the Stock Market, we lifted the
sanctions on Iran so medical supplies and equipment could flow to the Iranian
people. Or what if we dropped test kits and protective equipment on Somalia
instead of bombs?
What if we cooperated with that U.N. ceasefire and called our
ships back from Venezuela, our troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and put the
savings into ventilators and PPE's instead of the F15? What if we put the
resources we spend on missile building (classified as an essential industry)
into paying farmers for food being wasted as restaurants are closed and putting
that food in our feeding programs?

3. Instead of 2 slices of bacon with
my eggs this morning, I only got 1 1/2 pieces. I didn't ask if this was because
of the Smithfield plant closing in Sioux Falls. We now know the Sioux Falls
plant produced four to five percent of pork products. The normally invisible
workers there are an important part of the food supply chain. Without them, we
don't get our bacon and the hog farmers don't get their market. Now we know
many of them are recent immigrants; as are workers at other processing plants;
as are workers in the California vegetable fields and the Washington state
orchards; as were the roofers who put new shingles on our house.

4. In 1997 a treaty was signed to
ban land mines. At present there are 164 countries that are cooperating and those
that have not yet signed are generally not producers or users. Land mines are
indiscriminate, usually killing or injuring civilians. The treaty has been a
model for international cooperation. The U.S. has just announced, during the
pandemic, that we will not be following the treaty. Add it to withdrawal from
the Iran Nuclear Deal, the fracturing of NATO, and go it alone trade deals. We
continue to go our own way, making singular decisions about what path we should
take without consultation, certainly not consensus decision making.

Unlike anything else in our history,
the pandemic and the increasing problems of climate change should convince us
of the need for planetary consultation and action. We can't afford leaders who
take us down the paths of "I know best." We'll end up lost in the
dark. Our current isolation and social distancing reminds us how much we need
and want each other . We have an amazing opportunity for new cooperative
ventures and inclusion of all in the decisions for the future. Let's do it!
We're all in this together.
Carl Kline
Carl Kline
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