Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Acknowledgments     xv
Invitation     1
Leaving Behind the U.S. Cultural and Moral Border
A Modest Re-Encounter with Indigenous Communities: A Continuing Confrontation of Cultures     6
Forewarnings     8
Fiesta     10
A Struggle Renewed     12
Cultural Genetics: Do We Need Cultural Diversity?     13
Biological Diversity and GM Crops     13
Cultural Diversity and Healthy Human Beings     17
Mixtec Children on Culture     19
A Glimpse into the Mixtec World: Do These People Have Something to Teach Us?     21
The Culture of Dona Soledad     23
Plowing with Don Agustin     24
Ancient Tombs     25
Living History     28
Privatizing Land, Privatizing Culture     31
Ancient Rules     32
Ancient Alien Values
A Mixtec Teaching about Work: Work, Tequio, and a Day at the Office     36
Work in the Land of Quetzalcoatl     38
Hay Bale Technology     40
Labor in Today's Market-Driven, Corporation-Driven Economy     42
The Vocation to Consume     44
Creative Work     45
Money, Wealth, and Mixtec Fiestas: Which CulturesCreate Wealth and Which Create Scarcity?     47
Wealth and Money     49
Seeds: Creating Scarcity with Money     51
Free Trade, Privatization, and the Scarcity Trap     56
Free Trade: Creating Money and Poverty     59
Objection!: Romanticizing Indigenous and U.S. Cultures     63
Romanticizing Traditionalism and Poverty?     63
Why Mexico Has Never "Made It"     66
De-Romanticizing U.S. Culture: Our Nineteenth-, Twentieth-, and Twenty-First-Century Resource Wars     68
Maria's Story     72
Culture and Violence: Who or What Is behind Indigenous Violence- and Our Own Violence?     78
Quetzalcoatl and the "Reign of Peace"     82
Violence in Western Culture     83
The Body Count     84
The Human Nature Excuse     86
Reasons for Amoltepec?     88
Interlude     90
Learning Hope
Mary's Paradox: U.S. Policy Errors Stimulate New Visions in the Global South     94
A Vision from Below     94
Mary's Paradox     96
The Paradox of Hope     99
The Organizing Poor and Their Advocates: Values for a Hopeful Planet     102
Citizens' Movements: The World's Second Superpower      104
Hope for Local Communities, Hope for Us     105
The World Social Forum     107
Civil Society and Change     108
Global Hope from Campesino and Indigenous Communities in the South     109
Exchanging Universes: Loving Unseen Possibilities for Change     116
Exchanging Universes     116
The Energy to Change     117
The Voice of Indigenous America     119
A Special Time of Hope: The "Mixtec Principles" and What They Suggest for Us     124
A New Kind of Politics     125
A New Kind of Civil Society     126
A New Kind of Science and Technology     127
A New Kind of Economy     128
A New Kind of Education     130
A New Kind of Work     131
A New Kind of Ecology     131
A New Kind of Religion     132
And a Very Old Way     133
Happiness and a Sustainable World: How Can We Respond to the Invitation of Indigenous Peoples and the Global South?     134
From Personal to Public Change     141
New Community and Policy Moves in the United States     145
Support and Information to Continue Learning     147
Citizen Declarations     162
Notes      173
Glossary     183
Index     185