Marianne Williamson on How to Bring Consciousness to Politics

What you're going to hear in this interview might shake up your sense of personal growth. You see a lot of people here on our community at mindvalley think personal growth stops at becoming the best version of yourself. Today we're with Marianne Williamson, and what you're going to hear is a radical idea that will make you see your growth in a different way. Marianne, welcome to mindvalley.

Thank you so much for having me.

So what captivated me about you is that I saw Marianne speak on stage to a group of personal growth enthusiasts, and she emphasized to them, and when I heard this, Marianne, it changed my life. How our personal growth cannot stop at just us. We. We need to go beyond, just for lack of a better word, a great yoga butt and instead use everything we are learning to go forth and fix the world. In other words, if we stand for health, if we're a health coach, we can't just stop at teaching people healthy nutrition. We have to stand up against the food companies that use bad labeling and false advertising to create an epidemic of obesity. So let's start with that topic.

I think you see the best template in nature when you see a cell in the body that actualizes and becomes all that it can be. It doesn't just sit there. It is guided through a natural intelligence to, whether the pancreas, the lungs, the heart or whatever, to collaborate with other cells so that together they serve the healthy function of the organ and the organism of which they're part. So the fullest actualization of the cell is its participation in that collaborative matrix. Now, when a cell disconnects from its sense of collaborative function, that's a malignancy. When a cell thinks, oh, it's all about me, I'm going to go off and do my own thing and build my own kingdom. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with serving the healthy function of the organ of which it's part. That's cancer, and that's a malignancy not only in the body, it's a malignancy in consciousness. And that malignancy in consciousness has infected the human race. The evidence idea that it's all about me. So the ego mind is very sly and it loves to talk about religion and spirituality as long as it's all about me. So what appears to be this fullest actualization of the best version of myself is actually the worst version of myself if it doesn't include the extension of myself into the public sphere, something further than my private domain. Even when you talk about something like nutrition? Well, yeah, A lot of. Well, to do something small part of the population of the world can sit and have really nice conversations about nutrition, while millions of people don't even have food, much less better nutrition. So the highest level of our personal growth is an extension into recognizing the systems that are larger than our personal behavior, that need to be transformed the way we did.

And you know why that's so beautiful? There's this blogger called Tim Urban. He writes a blog called Wait, but why? And Tim is a genius. Elon Musk calls up Tim to have Tim explain complex ideas around Tesla and SpaceX. And there was a post that Tim Urban wrote. Elon Musk asked him to write this post, and it was about one of Musk's new inventions, neuralink. But Elon went on to state something similar to what you did. He said, the unique thing about the human race is as we're getting more connected through technology and Facebook and Skype, we are moving into a different level of our species. You take a human being today, you send them 10,000 years into the past, where we were just in hunter gatherer mode, and that baby might grow up to be a hunter gatherer. You could take a baby from 10,000 years in the past, put him in the world today, and that baby may grow up to be an engineer. Human beings as individuals have not evolved much in 10,000 years, but collaboratively. True technology we have. And that's why the world today has engineers, has satellites sending rockets to the moon. We have created, according to Tim Urban, a new species called the human colossus. Now, here's the interesting thing. All of us are part ourselves in this human colossus, this giant being that envelopes the planet. And as you said, many of these cells are not healthy cells, but cancer cells.

Well, the problem as I see it is that technology does give us this tremendous opportunity to connect, but it also gives us an opportunity, should we choose that, to further disconnect. I mean, technology of itself does not, does not make the heart join with the heart of another. It can also be used for the worst kind of exploitation. It can be used for the worst kind of oppression, even. It can be for the worst kind of sales mentality, transaction at the expense of human relationship. So I think that the largest issue of the 21st century is not technology, but consciousness. And technology must serve consciousness spiritually. Everything in the material world is of itself neutral. It either serves the ethic of love and connection, or it can serve the ethic of fear and disconnection. So I think in all of our Excitement about technology. It's important to remember that it is ultimately the decisions we make on the level of the heart, on the level of consciousness, which, which will determine where we go in the future. We all know that so many people these days don't even look up from their screen to have an interaction with the person sitting next to them. And there's nothing that that computer can do yet to mimic what your brain can do and what my brain can do. So millions of years of evolution have gone into the various signals and synapses and everything that can happen when you and I are just talking, right? So let's remember that, because some of this technological obsession is addictive. Some of this technological obsession, and this is not in any way to minimize the possibilities that it brings forth. But I think that we run the risk these days of underestimating what can happen when your heart, my heart, your brain, my brain, what nature has done with a BRR is much more evolved than anything that can happen on there.

I love that vision that you have that we are all part of a collective species, right? And we are cells in this 8 billion cell being. How do we know if we are functioning as a proper cell?

The answer to that from a spiritual perspective is inner peace. If you're at peace, you got it going on if you're not at peace. And once again, this goes back to the genius of the psyche. That's the signal. Inner peace is a signal you're on the right path. And a disturbance of the heart is a signal that you're not on the right path. This is one of the reasons the over pharmaceuticalization of our society is so dangerous. Because psychic pain is there for a reason. Psychic pain is an immune system function. Just as the physical body registers with pain when there's a problem you need to address, the psyche registers with pain when there's a problem you need to address. So if you feel disturbed about something, this is not something to cover over so that you don't feel disturbed. When you feel disturbed about something, it's something to listen to. What is the disturbance telling me? And the whole issue in politics is that the fact that there is such a disturbance in the field is a sign it's time to move in another direction. And the same focus on connectivity, the same focus on new consciousness and new technology that forms the evolutionary impulse of the 21st century needs to be expressed as everywhere. It needs to be expressed in politics, no more and no less than it needs to be expressed anywhere else. But right now, our politics, particularly in the United States. Not just particularly in the United States, around the world, but my focus is on the United States. The politics of the United States is regressive and it has to do with bolstering a system that is not only inadequate in terms of its capacity to forge a sustainable future in the 21st century, it's also inaccurate in its conceptualization of what's real.

That's fascinating. Why is it inaccurate?

It's inaccurate because it posits us as machines. It's a very Newtonian paradigm. And the political system is stuck in this 20th century model, which 20th century science itself has evolved beyond, which sees the world as a machine. So if there's a problem, you just tweak the pieces of the machine. But those are just symptoms, those are just effects and they are products and consequences of things happening in human consciousness. So we need a politics that's whole person. We need a politics that is based in consciousness. We need a politics that is based on a realization that, number one, we are here to love each other and everything we do, life works when we place ourselves in service of that which would increase the field of love and connectivity and divine right relationship. That's when your individual life works and that's when our collective lives work. So any conceptualization of the world which posits that anything else is going on, such as an economic primacy as opposed to a humanitarian primacy, is inaccurate if it in any way is promoting the idea that that's what will bring forth a good society and a peaceful world.

So do you think like the measurements of politics today, ideas like GDP like tax rate, that there's an over emphasis on that?

I think they both represent what is best, basically an obsolete operating system for economic theory. I think we are moving into an entirely new conceptualization, not only of where money comes from, but where wealth comes from in terms of financialization over monetary system. We have a whole economics is just one more area where the way we've been thinking based on where we landed by the end of the 20th century is about to break open completely. That's why there are all these new conversations about universal basic income, about basically seeing money coming from payment rather than tax. It's an entirely new conceptualization that is coming forth. And that's why we need a new political conversation that will be open to the new ideas that are springing up everywhere else.

What is your view of the world 20 years from now if this new era, this new vision of politics became more commonplace?

You can't just fight disease, you have to cultivate health. And when it comes to war and peace, we don't cultivate peace. We don't wage peace. Most of our focus when it comes to national defense strategy has to do with preparing for war. And you begin with, what's the vision of? What is the likely consequence if you continue that way? Our defense strategy has very little to do with creating peace 50 years from now, much less creating peace 100 years from now. So you want to move back from what you want. What do we want? We want a world without war. We want a world at peace. That's my vision. So then you start with a vision, and then you move back from that, and you realize, well, how am I going to have a peaceful world if all I do is prepare for war? I have to wage peace. So the things that wage peace have to do with the expansion of economic opportunity for women, the expansion of educational opportunities for children, the diminishment of violence towards women, and the amelioration of unnecessary human suffering wherever possible. When you have those factors present, you have a more peaceful community. Right now, for every dollar we spend on genuine peace creation, we spend $1,000 on actually preparing for war.

What it's that the ratio is that what?

Absolutely, absolutely. We have a $718 billion defense military expenditure this year, and we have what we give to the State Department and to the United States Department of International Department of Peace. It's like a little fraction of that. And we know why, Vishen. It's because no corporate profits are made. No corporate profits are made from expanding economic opportunities for women, expanding educational opportunities for children. So what happens is that those efforts, while they exist within the State Department, once again, the money that is given is completely disparate for the money that is given for preparing for war. Another example is that in this current administration, the first Secretary of State, the former CEO of ExxonMobil. So the first secretary of state in this administration was not a great humanitarian or diplomat or peace builder. He was the former CEO of Exxon. So that tells you everything you need to know in terms of what the basic goals are.

Right.

So this is not what is corrupted.

At a fundamental level.

Right. Corrupted at a fundamental level 20 years from now.

20 years from now. If you were running the world.

Yes. Well, the president of the United States does not run the world.

No, no, but I mean, but this is a hypothetical question. If you were running the world, what would you ask humanity to shift?

We have to shift from a sense that we are separate to a shift that we are one, to the realization that we are one. That is the only way the 21st century will be survivable. We have so. Our technology has so outdistanced our wisdom that we are a threat to ourselves, our behavior on this planet. You know, in any species that behaves in maladaptive ways, maladaptive in terms of the survival of that species will either evolve or it will go extinct. We attack our own. We routinely attack our own habitat. And our relationships with each other are so weaponized that we literally will not be able to withstand the assault presented by our own pathological behavior. And that's what I meant. It's not enough to have the technology for connectivity if we don't have the consciousness of connectivity. And the consciousness of connectivity is bred through the realization of that we're all in this together. You know, when you talk about nutrition and you talk about, you know, I say to people all the time, good luck with all that green juice and good luck with all that gluten free. When they are overturning the. They are gutting the Clean Water act and gutting the Clean Air act and overturning bans on pesticides that we know harm a child's brain. Every public issue will ultimately get to your private door. So right now, a lot of people feel we can wall ourselves off from what's happening in the public domain and just create our own little, beautiful little world over here. But there's no. That's a lot of things. But it's not spiritual because there's no religious or spiritual path that gives any of us a pass on addressing the suffering of other sentient beings. And the world is too connected. So when you're living a really nice life and it's all cool for you, but people are suffering on the other side of town, or, or people are suffering on the other side of the world, you should see those as canaries in the coal mine, because this cannot last. It's unsustainable. How few people on the planet are able to enjoy the fruits of all this creativity versus how many are at the effect of the mistakes that we're making.

But how do we know which people to support? Again, there are people on the other side who say, build a border wall because they are these asylum seekers who are going to come into the country, take jobs, assault people, and so on. Do we keep our compassion only to our nation? Where does the line end?

Well, what you just described is what I consider the politics of fear. And that's what has happened in our country, is that someone has harnessed fear of each other for political purposes. What we need to do is harness love of each other for political purposes. We need to harness our dignity and our compassion and our love for political purposes. And that love cannot just be kept in the private sphere. It's not enough to give, for instance, a million dollars in charity if the system is such that a billion dollars are being sucked out of the pockets and out of the opportunity creation for millions and millions and millions of people. So we know who to support. The issue for the transformational community is not figuring out who to support. It's. It's developing the cultural habits of supporting political candidates. You know, the field of transformation that you and I are part of, there's money here, right? And people spend it, but we have not developed the habit, the cultural habit of spending money in support of political candidates that support our views.

And I want to read this quote by Martin Luther King, which I think in a way helps describe why this is happening. It helps describe why I find you fascinating as a candidate. So Luther said power without love is reckless and abusive. And you can see that in today's politics, it's power without love. He also went on to say, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. And so many people in the spiritual community practice love without power.

And that's why I say all the time that this field is a little infantilized. We're not producing enough really strong men and women. We're producing a lot of men who feel that they've been given permission to stay little boys and too many women who feel they've been given permission to stay little girls. Because that's what happens when love is only about you. It's weak and it's sentimental. We need to be fierce. We need to be authentic in our truth telling. That's what we need.

He goes on to say, power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

That's right.

Your take on this.

Well, I totally agree with him. And the point is that those things which stand against love have to do with huge political and economic systems. When Martin Luther King was talking about dealing justly with every system that stands against love, Some of them, as we know, are in our heads, but some of them are in our societies. Some of them are in our societies. When you have in the United States, we have millions of American children who go to school every single day in classrooms that don't even have the minimum school supplies to teach a child to read and if that child cannot read by 8, the chances of high school graduation are drastically diminished. The chances of incarceration are drastically increased. Where's the love there? How can we sit and talk about love? And I say this to our community vision. How are we talking about love and not addressing these children whose despair has just been normalized?

But what can the average person do? I mean, the average person who's living paycheck to paycheck, the average person who has their own, like, dark side and depression to deal with, how can they start making a change to other people's lives?

This is an issue of leadership. The average person is fine, but the average person has had their brain scrambled. This is what leaders are supposed to do. But too many leaders aren't mentioning those children. I think the American people are good people. We're no less good decent than people anywhere else. We're just the same as everyone. People are good. There are a lot more lovers than haters in this world. But the haters are effective because they're strategized and they're convicted. We need to be convicted around our love.

Okay, so that's really fascinating because you look at the people who are the haters.

Yes.

And they seem to be so passionate about what they're against. Then you look at people who go down the spiritual path and they decide that politics and spirituality don't mix. So therefore I will not vote. I've even seen this at mindvalley. Every time we stand for something, we get accused of being political. We do it anyway. But why is there that false belief among spiritual folks that they need to step back?

Because too many in our field, for the sake of their own brand protection, have promulgated that view. That's why then I think we need to look at that because the truth of the matter is when you say, don't be political, like what? You know, when people say to me, we're not going to talk about religion or politics, I'm so like that leaves me out at dinner. Don't be political. What is that? What does that mean? You know, Gandhi said, anyone who thinks politics and religion have nothing to do with each other don't understand religion. There is no spirituality that just distracts itself that's not spiritual. To distract yourself from the suffering of other sentient beings. Call it a lot of things, but please don't call it spiritual. And that's the dark side. That's the shadow side of our own community.

I am so, so glad you so glad you're saying that because it IRRITATES me how so many health people do not stand up against the food companies. How so many people who are in the health and wellness and personal growth and spiritual movements shut up because they.

Are afraid of loose climate and the environmental policies and the fact that we have an EPA which gutted the Clean Air act, gutted the Clean Water act, overturned the ban on pesticides that we know harm a child's brain. And we should be the first to speak up about this. I think for the health and wellness space, you cannot. If you're talking about health and wellness, but you're only talking about the health and wellness of the individual without addressing the health and wellness of the larger society, then that's not a full on health and wellness.

You're focused on a single cell rather than the larger being. Now, the statistics are. In a recent study, 75% of Americans said that they want CEOs, they want leaders to take a stand. And they suggested that they will buy more from companies and leaders that actually stand for something.

Well, but those CEOs were hired by boards of directors who, who are part of this economic theory of trickle down economics where over the last 40 years, the idea is that the fiduciary responsibility of the corporation to the stockholders overrides any ethical or moral responsibility to the larger group of stakeholders, the workers, the communities, the environment, et cetera. That's the sociopathology of our current economic system. It is completely soulless. It has no sense of ethics. It's just profit for the stockholders. Profit for the stockholders.

And so very, very, very true, very true. But you're starting to see things change. Look at what Nike did with the Colin Kaepernick campaign, right? Nike stock dipped for a while and then boom, it shot up.

Absolutely.

And now I only wear Nikes.

Well, there's no doubt about this. The problem is not with the consciousness of the people. That's not where the problem is. And more in support of what you're saying, look at the rise in socially responsible investing, et cetera. People are ready for this. The problem is our political system. The problem is that we have in the United States, especially since the Citizens United campaign, such an undue influence of money, particularly corporate money, on our political system, that our politics is little more. Our government is little more than a system of legalized bribery which advocates for those corporate interests which only want the stockholder, the stockholder increase, as opposed to advocacy for the betterment of the people and the planet.

What you said is controversial, but so true. Our government is little More than legalized bribery.

I don't even think it's so controversial these days. It's true, but we still. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Nothing has changed.

See, this is where you've been talking to a bunch of people in this rarefied, little precious environment, and then I talk to people out in America. So when you talk about the little precious, rarefied health and wellness community, which you said yourself isn't even voting, so it's stuck in this, not seeing what's going on. When I go out into the world, I don't care whether you're liberal or conservative. We get how money has corrupted our system.

So if that's the case, how did Trump end up becoming the leader of America?

Trump became the leader of America. There are two main issues to look at. Number one, the Republican Party was gobsmacked by his success the same way the Democratic Party was gobsmacked by the success of Bernie Sanders in 2016. It's because both of them were blind to the level of economic despair among millions of Americans.

Wait, both of them?

Both of them?

I thought Bernie was open to it.

Hear me out. I'm talking about why the Democrats were gobsmacked by Bernie. Bernie saw it and Trump saw it. Bernie named it, and Trump named it the Democratic establishment. We know what they did to Bernie. So my point is that because of all this economic despair, there was going to be a populist cry. It was either going to be through an authoritarian populist, which Trump was and is or a progressive populist. And I think if the Democratic Party had allowed Bernie democracy to really rule, and if Bernie had actually had the chance to run, I think he would have beaten him. For that reason.

I believe the same thing. So now, as we go into the next election, one of the primary strategies in the Republican Party is to label people like you who are. Who deeply care about everyone else. No, but before we go here, though.

I want to go back to why he won.

Okay.

Which, by the way, I'm not a socialist, but let's go back first, the fact that Trump won in 2016. You know, it's an issue of personal growth. We have to apply the same principles of personal growth with which we transform our individual lives to the transformation of the civilization. So one of those principles of personal growth is who you have to look at for what the bad thing that just happened is yourself. What part did I play? Because until you recognize the part that you played in your disaster, you're not going to be able to change it. Okay. Trump did not win just because of a group of people who were almost cult like in their support of him. He won because of all the people, such as the ones you mentioned, from our community who didn't vote. Yes, people who didn't vote.

49%.

Thank you. Well, hello. What more?

What the hell were they thinking?

Well, they were. They were. Had been. They were part of this. This mentality. Too little challenged by our peers.

Now, do you think that's the case.

That you can disconnect from that somehow? There's something spiritual about disconnecting from politics right now.

I was so shocked by the fact that 49% didn't vote the day Trump won. We decided that Mindvalley was gonna take an active political stance. Because I see this man as a fraud and I see this man as dangerous, not just for America, but for the entire planet Earth. We breed the same air. And I was shocked that Americans elected a man who was so clueless about global warming, a man who is so racist that he invented birtherism. And I decided that we can't sit back any longer. But like everyone else, I was afraid of taking a stand. But again, the lattice, the latest data shows that when companies take a stand, their sales go up, not down. People are so, so much more awakened now after what happened.

Well, I think that's true. And at a certain point in our own personal growth, the ultimate question isn't how will I ultimately make more money anyway? The pinnacle of personal growth is that you know that it's not about you. You're serving the ages. So I don't think our argument should be, you know, there's actually money to be made in doing the right thing. I think the issue is that life works when you do the right thing, and money is one of the things that works better.

So, again, we're talking about corporate boards here and CEOs and what they have to be accountable to. And I'm hoping that that will change.

Well, but that will not change until they're held accountable. I mean that.

And that's up to us and the people we're seeing.

Well, that is up to politics. Because what you're saying could still just include the idea that CEOs are going to all of a sudden have a burst of enlightenment and they're going to, quote, unquote, do the right thing. I think two things. I think there are CEOs who read the same books you and I read and are part of all this, but know that they would be fired in a Quick five minutes by their boards of directors. If they did anything that was other than directed towards increasing stockholder value. That's number one. Number two, in an economic system, the idea of just leaving it to the ethics of corporations should never have been the case to begin with. We have child labor laws in this country. We have unions in this country. We had Glass Steagall in this country. We have antitrust laws in this country. The historical narrative is to push back against the overreach by capitalism and vishen there are. It's bigger. It's bigger than, oh, we'll make more money if we do the right thing. The people who are really the good thinkers on Wall street, the people who are really the good thinkers in capitalism, know that if they don't reclaim an ethical core, they are going to create their own repudiation and it's not going to be pret. You already have a generation coming up that talks as though capitalism is Satan. Because in their experience, what has global capitalism ever done for me who talk about socialism like it's the Messiah, neither one of which is true. So if you know anything about the French Revolution and you know anything about the Russian revolution, and if you've ever read Yertle The Turtle by Dr. Seuss, you know that this is unsustainable. So the argument is much more sophisticated, we need to be much more advanced about this at this point than just, you know, guys, you'll actually make more money in the long run. We, we need to be saying, this cannot continue. They will start storming the Bastille and you're already starting to see some things happening. This is a very. There's an earthquake. There's an earthquake happening right now. Now, the positive ways we could go, I was talking to a man the other day, an ex Wall street guy, very powerful Wall street guy who now lives in Boulder, Colorado and has come up with these entirely new economic ideas. I was saying to somebody, when the Wall street guys start moving to Boulder, you know that a change is in the air. Right?

Right.

So we have these new kinds of economic theories, but they go beyond the old capitalism. They have to do with a capitalism which has reclaimed its ethical center and which realizes they themselves, and you were right, they themselves will make more money if we move into a system that has to do with justice and real democracy. But it can't just be, hey, guys, you'll make more money in the long run. It's got to be those of us who, who have, you know, I was in the last two days, I spent time with a group of very, very, very wealthy young people, most of whom had inherited their wealth from family foundations, et cetera. And my conversation with them was, you should be leading the change because you know how money works. This change has got to happen. And this change is going to happen. You can't have. What we have in the United States is wealth inequality greater than we've had since 1929. You have 40% of the American people who couldn't bear a $400 hit. And when you ask, how did we get Trump? This is how we got Trump. Large groups of desperate people should be seen as a national security risk. Desperate people do desperate things and are more vulnerable to ideological capture by genuinely psychotic forces. So this change is going to happen. It's either going to happen because of very dysfunctional, either pathological revolt or out of wisdom. So those who have money, who are leading in the capitalist world, should be the ones designing the transition.

Absolutely. And I'm going to put this chart up here. This chart shows that when you have high income disparity in a country, it coincides with a rise in all the things that you do not want in society, from crime to corruption to, to drug abuse.

So you asked me how we got Trump, that's how we got Trump. And if we don't deal with this, we will get even worse.

And wealthy people who think that this high level of economic disparity means that they got to live in a mansion. Well, if you have a mansion in a slum, you're still living in a slum.

But you know what, and I'm so interested to talk to you about this, my sense is that the smartest rich people don't think that anymore.

They're waking up.

Yeah, there is an awakening. There is an awakening, but it will not be an awakening. And it's inadequate if it was only an awakening where CEOs wanted to do better things. And you know, I'll tell you something else that concerns me. The status quo protects and perpetuates itself by co opting disruptive language. So when some of these people brand themselves like they care because they gave a million, but meanwhile the system is sucking out a billion on their behalf. No, no. This is why I'm running for president. I'm running for president because a better version of the same old, same old is still going to lead to catastrophe.

So one of the things that I know the Republican Party is going to be using as a weapon is the word socialism. I know you're not a socialist. I know Bernie Sanders is Not a socialist, because most people who are educated know the difference between socialism and democratic socialism. But how would you explain your vision?

Well, first of all, these words are just used to. These labels aren't even. Don't even serve us anymore. But within that contextualization, I would say capitalism with a conscience.

I like that. Capitalism with a conscience. Yeah.

I mean, I grew up at a time where it was understood and expected that the corporation would have some sense of ethical responsibility to the workers of the community and the environment, not just fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders. Even Milton Friedman, interestingly enough, when we think of where this whole trickle down economics came from, the idea of just let loose the market forces to do what they want without any kind of government interference, we have thought, that's Milton Friedman. So everybody thinks. Who realizes how much damage that has done? Have thought. Well, Milton Friedman was the genesis of this horror. Milton Friedman also wanted there to be a universal basic income. So they leave out that part.

Right.

So I'm all for letting the market, you know, but letting the market do its thing in the sense that when you're in the club, and I know this when you're in the club, there's no better place to be. In my country today, not enough people can get into the club. That's unsustainable.

So what are the top three issues or the top three vis. Let's rephrase that. What are the top three things that you would do for America if you were president?

Well, I don't know about the top three. We have to. There needs to be an uprising among the American people. People need to reconnect to their role as citizens. Democracy does not just give us rights, it gives us responsibilities. When you talked before about the 49% in our own community who didn't vote, as long as there's that level of disconnection, you know, the French say, if you don't do politics, politics will do you. So there has to be a realization among the American people. We do have at this point an economy who's functioning as sociopathic, that we have to take ethics back. And I believe that because of that, I do believe we should have a massive infusion of hope. We have millions of American people who live with chronic economic anxiety. What will I do if I get stuck? What will I do if one of my children get sick? How will I pay for them to go to college? How am I going to pay my college loans? So immediately we need a Medicare for all system. We need a $15 an hour minimum wage, although I am for some compensatory actions in places where that's just simply too big a leap for certain communities. We need to have a system where people, regardless of their economic circumstances, can go and get a good education, where, whether it is a state college, university or one of the best technical schools in the world, and where this unbelievable burden of this trillion and a half in college loan debt is taken off the backs of our young people. So that's your immediate infusion of hope then? We have to address the fact that our country is practicing what amounts to collective child neglect, given that there are millions of American children whose, who as I mentioned, are merely basically in that cradle to prison pipeline because they have no way to compete with the clout, the economic clout of those corporate interests in Washington. I believe that in the United States we need to do a deep, deep dive into creating the next phase in racial reconciliation. If you kick somebody to the ground, I think we'd all agree you owe it to them to do more than to stop, stop kicking. You owe it to them to say, here, let me help you get back up. So we ended slavery in 1865. It took another hundred years of what amounted to institutionalized violence in the American south before we had the civil rights movement. With the civil rights movement in the 1960s, we dismantled segregation and we granted equal voting rights to blacks, although that has been chipped away at over the last few years. But we have never gotten to the piece of economic restitution. Economic restitution was promised in the form of 40 acres and a mule at the end of the Civil War. It was most cases not given. Even in most cases where it was given, once the federal troops left, that acreage and those mules were taken away. So there has been a gap in the ability of the former slave population and their descendants. There has been an inability on a large systems level to enter into the vibrancy of the US economy to the point where even now, while if you're a genius, if you're an Oprah Winfrey or a Tyler Perry or a Magic Johnson, you can make it, that of itself is not social justice. And that is why I believe we should pay reparations for slavery, just as the Germans have paid reparations to Jewish organizations since the Holocaust.

What would those reparations look like?

Well, in my opinion, that we should have a council, a reparations council. I think it should be somewhere between 200 and 500 billion dollars. No, I'm involved enough in this conversation. There are always going to be people who say, wow, that's way too much. And there are going to be people who say, wow, that's way too little. This could be a council that would be obviously carefully chosen from black leadership in America, specifically American descendants of slaves from culture, from business, from academia, from politics, who would disperse over, let's say, a 20 year period of time that money to projects which support economic and educational renewal.

Got it. So it's not going to people directly, it is going to projects.

Correct? Correct.

Right.

The other thing I think is what I was talking about before. Just as our economic policies have nothing to do with creating a vibrant economy in 10 years from now, the economic system, the way it operates now sucks in the present from any possibilities for future vibrancy except for a tiny group of people. And similarly, our defense strategy has nothing to do with creating peace on earth. So we need a massive system of peace creation and waging peace both domestically and internationally.

What would be the changes you'd make to the military?

Well, you know, my, my problem is not with the military. You know, when you look at the dastardly way in which so much of our defense policy is ruled by advocacy for corporate profits among military industrial contractors, as opposed to peace creation, that's not the military's fault.

It's not right.

You know, it's not the military's fault. The military. So this is not about the military. It is about the decisions. You know, the head of our Defense Commander in Chief is a civilian for good reason. That's how America is protected from ever having a military coup. But at the same time, this is one more area where our politicians, both in Congress and the White House, have behaved more as advocates for profits for corporations than for such issues as creating peace on Earth. An example of this is the fact that the man who currently stands as the head of our Defense department was a 30 year executive at Boeing. I'm sure you realize that for the sake of $100 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the United States is now acting as technical support for a war they're prosecuting in Yemen, where tens of thousands of people have starved, including children. It is so immoral. Now, Mike Pompeo, our current Secretary of State, has said, well, you can have strategic partnerships with people who do not share your values. They should know you can't. That means you have sacrificed your values. We've become such a whore. This nation is not seen around the world from moral leadership anymore. People see that, they know what we're doing. And by the way, part of that is the $500 million deal that Boeing has with Saudi Arabia.

And if you look at all the Pew pals of foreign opinions of America, it has plummeted since 2016.

Of course. And this is dangerous. You mentioned earlier. What is happening here is not only dangerous for America, it's dangerous for the world. We should be proud of the fact that it's not like we've ever been perfect, right, domestically or internationally.

But America's greatest power has never been its military. It's been soft power. It's been the image and the ideals and the values of America. And that has what has been eroded dramatically.

And the Dalai Lama himself said to me, Americans, the people of the world, he said, no longer see Americans as champions of democratic values around the world. Because in too many cases, we have not been right. As president, I would make sure that changed.

What would your presidency mean for corporate America?

Well, for corporate America, they would know. Guys, I like you, love to have dinner with you, but you shouldn't be running things. Your profits should not be the organizing principle of American society. And the fact that your profits have become the organizing principle for American society has not only corrupted our government, but it has hijacked our value system. Now, some of you guys I know know exactly what I'm saying, and I really look forward to getting all the help and advice from you, because this is a new kind of economic council we're going to have here. But those of you who represent the old view, you're not going to get any help from me. I like you, friends. I've kind of known a bunch of you for years. But this government has stopped. It's going to stop being your handmaiden.

And corporate America is changing so, so dramatically. It's becoming more and more aligned with that vision that you just saw.

I don't know, you're a little more optimistic about that than I am. Well, if you look, you were talking about climate change. Look at how the oil companies are obstructing any real evergreen climate change.

But here's the thing. You go back 20 years ago, the biggest company in the world was an oil company. Today it's Google, it's Facebook, it's Apple, and it's companies where the vast majority of their employees lean towards ideas that you've just espoused.

Yeah, but hold on a second. So let's even talk about that. The tech companies, that's another shift going on in our society. We thought five years ago, oh, they're so cool because they dress like us. You know, they're part of the counterculture. They're this. No, no, no, no, no. We really need to get over that illusion, including Facebook.

So I'm not worshiping the tech companies.

I have major issues with Facebook, let's be clear. And also when you say that their employees are with us, this is my point. So you have a bunch of like well heeled employees who get to work at Google and stuff and they're with us. Meanwhile, they're not the ones who are suffering. They're part of the one. You know, they're 1% or close enough to the 1%. The fact that they've got more higher consciousness is exactly what you and I were talking about. Our own communities. So we have these really cool, like health and wellness things at really cool spas in Arizona and stuff like that. Like, hello, we need to wake up.

But companies are changing. Recently, Microsoft, its own employees wrote a letter to the CEO to object to its HoloLens device being used to train soldiers to kill people.

I agree with you.

Facebook employees had a massive walkout in protest to some of its corporate policies.

I agree with that. And I'm not, I don't want to be negative here. I don't want to be cynical because cynicism is just an excuse for not helping. My point is that still within the private sector, it cannot remain within the private sector. You cannot. No amount of private, of private charity can compensate for a basic lack of social justice. So this idea that if we just change corporate mentality, that alone will be enough. It's not because too much of that amounts to what is in essence, in too many cases, window dressing.

So let's go back to that word you just said, social justice. What does that look like for you?

Social justice for me means that we try to apply within our social systems our larger economic and political and social systems the same level of compassion that we try to express in our personal lives. That you can't talk about having more loving relationships. We're all sitting here, loving relationships. Meanwhile, what about our relationships to these millions of American children who are stuck, who are trapped in these prisons of despair? What does it mean when, I mean, you know, I'm not even saying that I know for sure, you know, I'm not saying let's bring those people home from Afghanistan because I realize what's going to happen to the women of Afghanistan if the Taliban just takes over. But I'm saying that our conceptualization of right relationship and love and compassion should apply as much to how we think about the Yemenis and how we think about the women in Afghanistan, how we think about the children on the other side of town. And as it applies to what's going on in Silicon Valley among people working at cool places.

What would your presidency mean then, to the people of the world?

I think that it would mean that the people of the world realize that America is trying her best to right the ship of our ethical core. We have so swerved. Our government has swerved and our economy has swerved from its moral core, from its ethical core. We act like making money is more important than treating people well. We have an economic rather than a humanitarian bottom line. We act as though politics is so disconnected from wisdom and heart and it justifies itself being separated from wisdom and heart. The world would know that with me in the Oval Office, that was going to change. Now.

Now, what would it mean for people in the red states, the people who otherwise typically lean to the right?

Well, first of all, I don't. You know, Obama had said many years ago that every state was really purple. I think that we know that many people have voted against their own economic interests. But I think a lot of people in those states, as well as everywhere else, are awakening to the fact that, that they have voted for people and policies that, as things actually unfolded, did the more harm than good. But I want them to feel that it's not just that we're against that. We are for the things that will help you in your life. How could someone who is dealing at a near poverty level not want, unless their brains were scrambled about it, not want to know that? You know what? We're going to create a situation where you don't have to think about it, health care is handled for you and your kids. We're going to create a situation where you don't even have to think about it, your kids can go to college. We're going to create a situation in which you don't even have to think about it. You're not going to be burdened by these college loans. And we want to actually prosecute with antitrust laws, et cetera, against these corporate conglomerates that have taken away from you the dignity of farming, that have taken away from you, the dignity of work that have taken away from you, the time to be with your family, the time to talk to your kids, the ability to just breathe, find your own creative space. We cap people's dreams in this country today. And really, the beauty, you know, when you talk about capitalism, the place where capitalism is its high side is it gives people a chance go out there and create, go out there and soar. But if you cap people's dreams so much that they can't spread their wings, then this is neither democracy, freedom, nor even what capitalism should be.

Bill, do you think the American Dream is still alive?

The American Dream is alive in many people's hearts. It is not functioning for. No, actually, it is not even just that it is only functioning for a few people. The means that it's only functioning for a few people means that it's not functioning because the American dream is the idea that anybody, if they work hard enough, has an opportunity. So the aspiration is alive. I mean, I'm running for president. I'm one of millions of people who are giving our all to, you know, that fire, that light, that eternal torch to bring it forth. So, yes, I think it's alive in people's hearts. But it's not enough for a woman to be pregnant at some point, she gives birth, and every generation has to not only grow pregnant with the American dream, but give birth to the American dream, and it's not happening today. And we must change that.

Let me ask you a question that I believe your opponents would ask. Your visions are great, Marianne, but who's going to pay for all of this?

You know, they never say that when they're about to pass a $2 trillion, $2 trillion tax cut in 2017, where 83 cents of every dollar went to the very, very richest and the very richest corporations with the canard, of course they were going to create jobs, which is 40 years has proven that's not the way it works.

Right? It doesn't work.

And every dollar that you put into education, every dollar you invest in people is a dollar you are putting into your economy. Every dollar we put into health care, for instance, when you look at how much of people's budgets they have to spend on health care, which is a huge portion, that means once health care is available to them, they have that much more money to spend. You are actually creating more of a consumer base. That's where jobs come from. Jobs come from the fact that people have more to spend. People have more to spend. So that company needs to have more people working for it because of the larger consumer base. So we need to push back against that delusion that has been promulgated so that a few people who find democracy inconvenient could make more money.

Your opponents are gonna also use the word socialist on you. How would you respond to that?

Well, I respond to that is, look at my life. But, you know, I'VE done well in the private sector. The private sector's been good to me. I understand the free market. I understand how it can operate. I understand the high side of it, and I understand conscious commerce. I understand righteous commerce. I understand that commerce can be win win. I do. I mean, as a writer, I write, the publisher publishes, and then people pay for that. And what they get is the value of the book. Everybody won. So I'm all for a market based economy when the market is behaving in a way that is ethical, not at the expense of people, but in mutual sharing with people. But when you look at something like the police department, the police department is basically a socialist institution. The fire department is a socialist institution. Public schools are actually a socialist institution. So all we're talking about that is extending that to health care.

Yeah, and let's do it.

All we're doing, I mean, you know, little pieces of. So this whole conversation, and let's be.

Honest, you, Bernie Sanders, you guys are not socialists. It's one of those clever, magical words that people on the right. Sorry. It's one of those clever, magical words that men like Newt Gingrich came up with as part of their marketing campaign to take down politicians who they don't agree with.

Yeah, but I think that there's no point to keep using the phrase democratic socialist if obviously it's being misunderstood.

Now, one of the biggest existential threats in our world today is climate change. What would your presidency mean for the ecology?

I see climate change as a complete and total existential threat and peril to even, you know, possibly even to the sustainability of life on Earth. We currently have an Environmental Protection Agency which is run by an ex chemical company lobbyist and the guy before him was an ex oil company executive. First thing that would happen is a world class environmentalist would be placed in charge of the epa, Environmental Protection Agency. Everybody who runs counter to actual environmental protection no longer has a job there. And we would attract the most world class environmental scientists and experts on sustainability, green technology, et cetera, to come work for the Environmental Protection Agency. We would immediately go back to the days when the Clean Air act was robust, the Clean Water act was robust, et cetera. When it comes to the things that need to be done over the next 12 years in order to get the carbon out of the atmosphere, in order to sequester it in the ground, all of the things that we need to do to get off fossil fuels to develop green, sustainable technology. We have the people in this country and we have people around the world who know what to do. And they would have in me. They would have in me a president that says do it. You have the full force and power of the executive branch of the US Government. Go.

You'd be, if you won, you'd be the first woman president of America. Is there a particular leadership style that you think a woman president would bring in that might be unique, new, different?

Well, I'm sure that you would agree with me when it comes to enlightened leadership, which really is a feminization process, I see circumstances where men practice those principles even more than some women do. So I don't think that of itself is so much gender. I think bringing the feminine values to the fore. Sometimes women do that, sometimes they don't. Sometimes men do that and sometimes they don't. So I don't want to make too much about that. I do think, however, that the fact that I'm a woman makes my concentration on the well being of women and girls much stronger than it would be were I a man. I think we need a US Department of Childhood and Youth because of the unbelievable risk of so many millions of American children who live in chronic trauma. We need wraparound services, we need anti trauma training, we need restorative justice, we need conflict resolution, anti bullying in our schools, and in such a way that too often has been treated as peripheral issues when in my administration would be seen as core.

And the final question, people know you for this quote. It's one of the most cited quotes in the world. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. What does that mean to you?

You know, it's so funny. That paragraph is just part of a book. It's not a special section, it's not a poem. Such a strange thing that it's been singled out. I mean, I'm honored. But what it means. That book is reflections on the principles of a Course in Miracles. You and I, there's really, on a spiritual level, no place where you stop and I start. And my ego mind, where all the ego is, is a false belief that we are separate, doesn't want me to see that because. And it says, no, don't go there, don't go there. Don't allow yourself to fall into the oneness. Because the ego mind knows that that's the death of the ego. So we're afraid of the light more than we're afraid of this little comfort zone of playing small. That's what it means to me. And I believe that what spiritual practice does for us is it opens us up to the realization that all things are possible and that you're dwelling. You know, Emily Dickinson said, I dwell in possibility. Dwelling in the idea that all things are possible is the safe place to be, not the dangerous place to be. Dwelling in the place that we're all here just to love each other is the safe place to be, not the dangerous place to be. The ego mind says, oh, it's going to all be dangerous if I allow myself to just love everybody. It's going to be dangerous if I go around thinking anything's possible. But really that's the only safe place to be. That's what that means to me.

Thank you, Marianne.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for listening. Guys, if you enjoyed this interview, if this resonates with you at an intellectual and a heart level, support this campaign. Where can they go to donate?

People can go to marianne2020.com or marianne williamson for president or Marianne for president. But that Marianne 2020 is where a lot of people are going.

Marianne2020.com and all you got to do is donate. It's a dollar. Just one dollar makes a difference.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Martin.