I was musing about what things might be like after the pandemic. The possibility of starting all over drifted up. With the radical nature of how things have changed so quickly in the last month I imagined starting the country with its glorious democratic ideals, but transforming the three major original sins that were baked in: Genocide of the native people, Slavery as the engine of the economy, and Disempowerment of everybody but the white male landowners. I would add a fourth positive element that they couldn’t have known about then, the interconnectedness of everything on Earth.

So the four principles for starting over would be

1-Structural generosity toward native people, recognizing that we owe them an unpayable debt.

2-Structural generosity toward African American people, recognizing that we owe them an unpayable debt.

3-Explicitly equal structural empowerment of all who stand outside the category of white male landowner.

4-Replacing the sanctity of sovereignty with an overarching Earth-centric perspective in all relationships with other national entities.