October 2008

Transform Your Life with
An Interview With
U
Frances

Moore Lappé
HU (hyoo) is a love song to God.
Chant HU to connect with God,
find spiritual truth and protection.
Eckankar Center – Broward County
7677 NW 57th St., Tamarac
954.718.6224
Request Free Book:
EckBroward@gmail.com
or visit www.Eckankar.org
Co-leader of Small Planet Institute and author of
Diet for a Small Planet
by Linda Sechrist
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What led you to write your latest book,
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Getting a Grip, which has been charac-
what is the difference between
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terized by Barbara Kingsolver as “a new
what you call Thin Democracy
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pair of glasses,” making the world more
and Living Democracy?
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comprehensible, more manageable,
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and even more beautiful? Lappé: Thin Democracy is an unwork-
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Lappé: While researching my first book, able mental map that keeps us from
Diet for a Small Planet, I learned that coming to terms with local-to-global
I could think for myself and no longer crises. This inherited map includes such
needed to blindly follow experts. I ideas as: democracy is something that
discovered a better appreciation for my is done to or for us by distant officials;
sense of curiosity and the importance of it is a set system of an elected govern-
asking questions, such as: ‘Why are we, ment plus a market economy; public
as societies, creating a world that we, life is ugly and alienating, so that even
as individuals, abhor? the most thoughtful citizens are relegat-
This particular question has propelled ed to simply voting, working and shop-
my life for decades, compelling me to ping. A single rule—the highest return
search for answers as to why we invent to shareholders—continues to drive
rules that generate a sense of scarcity the market, which tends to concentrate
for hundreds of millions of people— wealth and power, which in turn influ-
rules that leave us feeling powerless ence the political process.
and robbed of the energy and creativity Living Democracy, a learned art, is
needed to form a world we are proud an ongoing culture of change and a set
of. I wrote Getting a Grip to get a grip of qualities that permeate and shape a
on what we know about these rules, rewarding way of life. Its values of inclu-
what informs us and how we make sion, fairness and mutual accountability
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the choices we make in our daily and naturally infuse not only political life,
public lives. Investigation led me to but economic and cultural life, as well.
see how we have become trapped in Living Democracy is always evolving,
a limited understanding of democracy, as citizens use their voices and values to
one that prevents us from realizing that shape public choices. The people set rules
we all have the power to create the to keep wealth continually circulating
48 Broward County
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