Paul Glover Quotes

Health Democracy () (2007, second edition 2011)

Growth is a good thing, up to about seven feet tall, then it starts to get inconvenient. People eight feet tall bang their heads, their backs ache, their circulation slows, they spend more for food and clothes, and when they fall it really hurts. Who can they make love to? ---The same is true of cities. After a certain size they get more frustrating than exciting: People collide and anger turns to crime. Streets become dangerous, housing costs more, tax rates rise, schools teach less, structures dwarf people, air smells stale, water fouls and traffic slows no matter how wide the roads.

The world is coming to a beginning rather than an end. We have the knowledge, tools, creativity, and capital to proceed. Our challenge is merely to begin where we live, with whatever capabilities are at hand.

While dissecting the universe scientists discovered that uranium, a metal invisibly boiling, can boil water to spark electricity. They believed the 'peaceful atom' would give cheap clean power. Recent years cause many to doubt this.

As usual, the future will be different. Philadelphia's responses to global warming and market cooling, high fuel and food prices, health unsurance, mortgages, student debt and war will decide whether our future here becomes vastly better or vastly worse. Whether we're the Next Great City or Next Great Medieval Village.

These new green laws, organizations and personal styles show understanding that, no matter how super our computers, we will never invent substitutes for food, water and air, that our nation will progress or erode with its soil, that ultimately the land is the law of the land.

An empire can do a lot of damage as it flails deeper into quicksand. Wrapping ourselves in flags does not pull us free. Permanent war justifies permanent unquestioned dominance by military and industrial interests.

Creating is more fun than consuming.

Hometown Money () (1996, second edition 2011)

All of America's institutions have become too big to change. Like sumo wrestlers in a basketball game, they move too slow. Big Government, Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Finance, Big Agriculture, Big Highway, Big Education, Big Military, Big Prison, Big Police, Big Poverty-- these feed on disaster and control. They no longer exist primarily to fix problems, but to grow.

Without the expansion of a Mutual Enterprise economy responsible to communities and nature, this present boom will bust, creating a Greater Depression than that of the 1930's.