Jim Garrison - Bush vs Kerry: The Deeper Dimensions of the Choice Before America

In this talk, Jim Garrison discusses the critical choices and profound consequences that define the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. The stakes far exceed any particular issue or personality. It is as if America has arrived at a great fork in the road, facing a choice between two candidates, two possible paths to take, and two profoundly different sets of social and political forces that will be set in motion by the man who becomes the 44th President of the United States.

“This is the most critical election of our lifetime. There are actors on the stage, issues being profiled, and forces that have been unleashed since September 11 that are unprecedented in their scope and potential impact. Understanding the deeper dimensions of what is occurring is essential in ensuring that American power will be used for good rather than ill in the next phase of human history.”--Jim Garrison

BIO

Jim Garrison cofounded the State of the World Forum in 1995 with Mikhail Gorbachev. The Forum is a San Francisco-based non-profit institution created to establish a global network of leaders dedicated to those principles, values, and actions necessary to guide humanity toward a more sustainable global civilization. With President Gorbachev as its Convening Chairman and Jim Garrison as its President, the Forum has brought together leaders from around the world to its annual and regional convenings to deliberate upon and take action concerning issues of global concern. Jim's most recent focus, and that of the Forum, has been the Integral Governance Initiative, dedicated to establishing global issue networks to solve global problems.

Garrison became active in foreign policy issues, particularly with Soviet-American relations, in the mid-1970s. From 1986 to 1990, he served as Executive Director of the Esalen Institute Soviet American Exchange Program, which engaged in nongovernmental diplomacy with Soviet counterparts in a variety of sectors. In 1991, he founded the International Foreign Policy Association in collaboration with Georgian President Edward Shevardnadze and former Secretary of State George Schultz, focusing on providing humanitarian relief for children in the former Soviet republics. He has also written six books on various aspects of philosophical theology and history, including Civilization and the Transformation of Power (2000) and the most recent America as Empire (2004).

Garrison was born in Szechuan Province, China, in 1951 to Baptist missionaries. He lived with his family in Taiwan from 1953 to 1965, after which they settled permanently in San Jose, California. He holds an M.T.S. in Christology and History of Religion from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from Cambridge University.