Goldman Sachs is on track to dispense a record 23 billion dollars in bonuses in 2009 and, at the same time, has been well represented by membership in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. What an amazing coincidence. And some people say that the law of attraction is a hoax!

When people think of the movie Wall Street, what mostly comes to mind is Gordon Gekko's "Greed Is Good" speech. But the theme of the movie really emerges towards the end when Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) has manipulated Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen) into selling out the airline for which his father works. Angry and disillusioned, Fox storms into Gekko's office. Gekko points to a picture on the wall and notes that he purchased the picture for $60,000 10 years earlier and, he exclaims, it's now worth $600,000. He then goes on to say, "The illusion has become real. And the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it." The movie was released in 1985. But Gekko's speech is very much of our moment. Today, many of us are Bud Fox. We're waking up from our illusions, angry and upset.

My expertise is in resolving conflict and I've written a lot about the importance of seeing all sides, giving up the need to right and distinguishing wants from needs in order to resolve conflicts. I still maintain those are the correct techniques for conflict resolution. But I've also written that there are times to be uncompromising and to adopt a take it or leave it position. This is one of those times. Compromise has become capitulation. People will die today in our country due to a lack of healthcare insurance. People will go bankrupt today in our country due to a lack of healthcare insurance. People will be told today in our country that the insurance they thought they had, they don't. What kind of a nation have we become? I'll tell you. Every Sunday, the New York Times Magazine runs a column called "Consumed." I'm still waiting for the column called, "Citizen." The real question is what kind of a nation will we be?

Will we be citizens or merely consumers? The Buddha was once asked if he was a man, to which he responded, "No." "Are you a God," he was asked. Again, "No." "Then what are you?" "Awake," said the Buddha. It's time for us to wake up from our illusions and to confront the usefulness of our disillusion. Useful because, as the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote in his book "To Have and To Be," "Knowing, then, begins with the shattering of illusions, with disillusionment." So now we know that much of what we thought was real was merely an illusion. In many cases, the stories we've been told were lies. The people we thought we could trust, we couldn't.

Those whose integrity we relied on have shown themselves to be utterly without it. This is an appeal to my fellow citizens for a return to integrity, morality and common decency.

During the 1970 Christmas season, John Lennon and Yoko Ono put up billboards all over the world proclaiming, "War is over. If we want it." Well, the age of illusions is over...if we want it. We have the power to make this a country of citizens and not merely consumers...if we want it.

QUESTIONS? Comments? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan: http://www.conflictresolutiontraining.net