The latest popular movement is to take down every confederate flag and to basically say, “All confederate flags, no matter what, are ipso facto symbols of hate and should be removed.” Even if that is the case, and even if we take down every confederate flag, would we really remove the hate? Or would the flag then be elevated to martyr status and become a symbol of some twisted form of resistance? When they outlawed the swastika in Germany, the Nazis went underground and began to use the swastika to terrorize people.

There are many countries throughout history, including our own, which allowed or advocated slavery and various forms of genocide. Their flags still fly. If the Native Americans had won, would they outlaw the Stars and Stripes for what we did to them? The fact is that the Confederacy is part of our history, like it or not.

William Churchill once said, “Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.” We can’t erase history by simply removing the flag. The best we can do is never forget that it existed, what it stood for, and how it got there. Hopefully that memory will remind us that it could happen again without knowledge of history and the reasoning at the time. We have to be vigilant that history doesn’t repeat itself, but we can’t do that without the knowledge of history.

So are we removing the Confederate flag or trying to erase our embarrassing past? If we are successful at the latter, we are more likely to repeat it. Sure, it’s easier to focus on the symbol, and we can even remove it from all public places. But are we doing it to try to cleanse ourselves from the sins of our past?

Shouldn’t we instead redouble our efforts to understand and teach the next generation that the Confederacy was in fact a group of states whose economy at that time was dependent on slavery? They broke away and fought for their livelihood as they knew it.

It’s tragic that their flag is involved in such heinous hate crimes. But simply banning the flag won’t stop those kinds of crimes. Only education will! The confederate flag really stood for a way of life and an economy that was non-sustainable. Yet so many Confederate Americans’ livelihood depended on it.

Today we are ready to hand off a world to the next generation whose very livelihood seems to depend on the destruction of the environment. President Obama says this is the last generation that can make a difference in the environment. But shouldn’t we be telling this generation that the environment they will inherit is caused by the economy? Are we being politically correct in one area and trying to erase our history by banning symbols, while not understanding the economic causes behind the destruction of the environment? Why? Because like the Confederacy, our very livelihood seems to depend on staying the course.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post “Nuevo PC” can Oversimplify and Miss the Point appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

As we approach the nation’s 236^th year of independence from England and thereby Europe, we find ourselves glued to the financial news out of Europe like we were still part of it. And we are, more than ever. We worry about the economies of China and Russia as if they were our own – regardless of our political differences. Why? Because our very livelihood depends on the world’s economic and environmental health.

We live on the Pacific Coast where debris from the Japanese tsunami is now just starting to wash up from a catastrophe clear across the world’s largest ocean. Beyond our human empathy for the brave people of Japan, many Japanese products we took for granted became scarce. We were confronted with how the damage to their infrastructure affected our marketplace.

If there’s even a hint of an interruption in the supply of oil from the Middle East, we feel it at the pump. That cost trickles up into everything we buy, including the food we eat.

On the West Coast, we’re now getting air pollution from China. If the developing world continues to copy our approach to “prosperity,” we will suffer the health and environmental consequences right here in the USA.

So yes, we wave the flag and celebrate our great nation. We are thankful for the opportunities and freedoms we enjoy. We are proud to be Americans. But independence? We are all here on the same planet, all interdependent and becoming more so every year.

The good news is that the superpowers all know that their customers and suppliers in the other superpowers are too important to allow anything that would hurt their infrastructure, economy, or the world atmosphere. The bad news is that we haven’t yet realized that our economies and health are ultimately dependent on the health of the environment.

But we as individuals are not completely powerless, especially in America. Over and over again we hear that the world economy depends largely on the health of the American consumer. We all know by now that we vote with our money. In our incessant desire to get everything at the very lowest price, we can inadvertently subsidize political, social, health and environmental practices we would never allow in our own country. Every purchase we make is a vote for how it was made, the working conditions and how it got to us.

It’s hard to blame the government when the lobbyists are financed by our choices. If all politics are local, as it is often said, we can start to make changes in the way we spend our money. We can shop at the local organic farmer’s market and try to buy as many goods and services from local merchants as possible. We can avoid the purchase of single use plastics and vote for cleaner beaches. We can vote for lower healthcare costs by making healthier food choices. Every time we fill up with gas we can at least recognize where those funds are going and hope the day will come soon when we will have cleaner alternatives. Car-pooling, biking, and just plain walking are great votes for a more sustainable future.

This Independence Day let’s recognize our interdependence and how our individual choices can shape the future of not only our great country, but also the world. We are free to make independent choices in how we spend our money, thereby casting our votes. We can yet bring in the “New Order” that our nation’s founders called for by recognizing our true power right here in our wallets.

Happy Birthday USA!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post On Independence Day, We’re more Interdependent than Ever appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.