This morning, we watched the much touted face-off between Jon Stewart and financial commentator Jim Cramer on "The Daily Show." Please bear with the discomfort of watching someone publicly exposed as an unethical liar, and watch it. Jon Stewart, a comic, is such an unlikely hero; but here he is doing the hard work of real journalism - researching the facts, asking what, why, how, and reporting them with candor and passion. After one video clip of Cramer describing how to manipulate markets to make a lot of money quick (at the expense of someone who actually works for a living), Stewart describes how sick and angry it makes him that the retirement accounts of so many hard working folks were played around with like this.
What does this have to do with "living locally?" We're watching an economic system collapse, and along with it - one hopes - the collapse of greed and self-centeredness as the admired and rewarded traits they became among us. We've got something to learn as we do the hard work of remaking the way we take care of ourselves and each other - which is, at its core, what economic (and food, and healthcare, etc.) systems are for.
Jon Stewart unveiled a little more of the truth last night. I'd love to see us turn our anger and disgust into passion for change and the energy to make it happen.
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