Education

Interview with Nader Khalili of Cal-Earth Institute: Hesperia, California

The whole business with the thirty-year mortgages - that system works okay by itself. We're not here to turn that whole system upside down. This idea is just like everything else in this country: the pioneering spirit still exists here. People if they just keep at it they don't need to hand all of the power to the banks and the insurance companies. I've watched the issues from cigarette smoking to abortion, how they can topple this way and that way. You can't get that almost anywhere else. That's why it takes action here - they pay and learn and build and that gives them power. We've given these workshops in Chino prison, San Luis Obispo prison; the prisoners skipped their lunch, they were so interested to learn. Because they wanted to get out and build their own homes somewhere and they knew they couldn't get any credit or anybody to help them out.

I always tell them at SCI-Arc, it makes no difference if they send me one student or twenty. I give the same lecture, the same instruction, because it doesn't take millions to change everything. It just takes one person at a time. If you, one person, take this and put it on the Internet, you can effect millions. In Iran, I've seen it happen with the Shah and Khomeni - they said there's no way the Shah is vulnerable, he's got all of America behind him. Imagine, President Carter came and they had a big New Year's Eve celebration to show how much support there is for the Shah, and six months later it had fallen apart, the whole thing. A couple of people came along and toppled the whole thing. That's the power in a few people.