In South Africa’s Fabled Wine Country, White and Black Battle Over
Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon and Facebook
Two articles this morning remind us of the challenge of our time. The same challenge of past times. The concentration of wealth and power has and remains why class struggle and revolution often time follow the concentration, which to often is the flaw of capitalize.
When one class can separate itself from another. Those who have the ability to achieve this isolation, forget the pain of those on the bottom.
Recently I was drawn to learn about the American Pledge of Allegiance and found this timeline expressing the changes that occurred to the pledge as this nation evolved.
The Pledge of Allegiance, as it exists in its current form, was composed in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist,[12][13] and the cousin of socialist Utopian novelist Edward Bellamy (1850–1898). There did exist a previous version created by Captain George T. Balch, a veteran of the Civil War, who later became auditor of the New York Board of Education. Balch’s pledge, which existed contemporaneously with the Bellamy version until the 1923 National Flag Conference, read:
We give our heads and hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag!
 |
|
1892 (first version)[1] |
|
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” |
|
1892 to 1923 (early revision by Bellamy)[2] |
|
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” |
|
1923 to 1924[3] |
| “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” |
|
1924 to 1954[3] |
|
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” |
|
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” |
As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants https://nyti.ms/2GqnbC9
As I read this article my mind asked the question what drives an organization and its American employees to forget they are American citizen’s with responsibilities to protect this nation from the acts of our enemies.
Excess profits, what other motivation could there be. The one motivation which is and will remain the greatest threat to society, the environment and our grandchildrens’ future.
Be it the concentration of power which drives excess profits or the reduction of quality, weight, volume or size, simply to maintain price and margin the shareholder will be served after senior management take its plenty. Stakeholders – client and employees come second, after the key executive and strategic shareholders are rewarded.
Russian’s and our other enemies will find our weaknesses and take advantage deluding us with propaganda and lies, all to achieve their aims.
Reading about the history of the NRA I was surprised and pleased to learn of the original purpose of the NRA, Marksmanship. It was all about assuring the effective use of firearms. As I continued to read I was further impressed when I read the following from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association
Karl Frederick, NRA President in 1934, during congressional NFA hearings testified “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. … I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” Four years later, the NRA backed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938.
As I read the second amendment, the NRA President seems to embrace the first clause.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The NRA focus seems to have been on making sure those who bear arms are properly trained. Clearly a principal roll of a regulated militia is the training of its members.
A key word in the initial phrase of the Second amendment is “regulated”. This word means:
control or supervise (something, especially a company or business activity) by means of rules and regulations.
Reading more about the history of this organization there was a unfortunate strategic shift.
Until the middle 1970s, the NRA mainly focused on sportsmen, hunters and target shooters, and downplayed gun control issues. However, passage of the GCA galvanized a growing number of NRA gun rights activists, including Harlon Carter. In 1975, it began to focus more on politics and established its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), with Carter as director. The next year, its political action committee (PAC), the Political Victory Fund, was created in time for the 1976 elections. The 1977 annual convention was a defining moment for the organization and came to be known as “The Cincinnati Revolution”. Leadership planned to relocate NRA headquarters to Colorado and to build a $30 million recreational facility in New Mexico, but activists within the organization whose central concern was Second Amendment rights defeated the incumbents and elected Carter as executive director and Neal Knox as head of the NRA-ILA. Insurgents including Harlon and Knox had demanded new leadership in part because they blamed incumbent leaders for existing gun control legislation like the GCA and believed that no compromise should be made
I then read a bit of Harlon Carter’s history. Convicted of murder and one can sense a racist attitude. Maybe the manufacturers came later and the white supremacist came first.
We America need to take politics out of the discussion and commission a panel of professional English language grammar scholars. We should ask them to carefully read the language of the second amendment and provide clarity as to what people, at the time it was written, meant if there is a strict interpretation of the Grammar. This thought led to a search for some previously prepared analysis of the construction of the second amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment
Clearly there are multiple interpretations, ranging from the objective of “Maintain a well regulated militia” to the objective of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms”.
I personally am of the view that what one of these articles described as the “Collective Rights Approach”
Given these multiple interpretations, we the people as the majority of the people should vote and decide which we seek to be the appropriate interpretation.
The three of you represent my interests as members of the legislative branch of our country. I have written to each of you at various moments in time expressing my concerns on specific issues. On this Thanksgiving Day I write not of one issue but of many.
I worry about:
• The cost and state of our Healthcare system
• Safety of our citizens be they at school, temple, church, out for the evening or at work.
• The inability to properly manage immigration be it legal or illegal
• The new trade wars that are emanating from these tariffs we are imposing on our trading partners.
• The need to preserve and protect the members of the fourth estate and to make sure they have the ability to, as appropriate and with the right level of decorum, forcefully question our appointed and elected leaders.
• The vicious and untampered attacks on the judicial and legislative branches of our government by the leader of the third branch of our government.
• The continued erosion of our position as a world leader.
• The loose of respect we are sustaining around the globe, especially with our friends and allies.
• The lack of confidence verbally expressed in the work and working of our dedicated intelligence services.
• The inability to express our disappointment when the leader of Saudi Arabia orders the killing of a US Resident.
Yes, I understand the implications and recognize this should be limited to a slap on the wrist not all out sanctions, they should understand our disapproval and national disappointment in their willful act.
• The continued warfare happening on this planet and the continued animosity, religious intolerance, tribal hatred, racial hatred, and economic inequities of our global economy.
• The concentration of wealth & power.
• The reduction in competition and belief in excess profit at the expense the employees and citizens.
I could continue and I am sure all three of you are fully aware of and can add items to this list I could not even imagine.
Our two-party system was designed in such a manner that consensus would be the result and that our government would seek to address the will of the majority. Unfortunately, the way our system has evolved: the will of the minority, the company with the loudest voice, the affiliations with the most money to contribute to the reelection of you are your colleagues and those who work as lawyers and lobbyist dominate the halls of our capital and the results of your deliberations.
I implore the three of you to work collectively to bring order, respect and decorum to the workings of our government and make sure that the freedoms, liberties and rights our constitution established are respected and maintained.
CC:
Senator Purdue
Senator Isakson
Representative Scott
First an ask to all those who read this. Please share. I will start a personal campaign to send this to my senators and representatives through their contact page. Maybe even a few by snail mail.
To those that are empowered as the representatives of the “We the People”. As I write these three words I immediately think I need to hold true to what originalists would expect. This said I hope we can all agree that in the Declaration of Independence one word is out of place.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.”
The word “men”. This word I hope you all would agree should instead be “people”, “male or female” or “men and women”. I would also hope that when we think people or “men and women” we mean all entities that can be called Homo Sapiens,
no matter, their color
, place of birth, sexual orientation, age, religion or other descriptive variable.
If we are suggesting that we must read this literally! Then we have a major issue and this would explain why some of you explicitly exclude women from much of the deliberations. I do hope I am wrong, in writing this last statement!
The declaration then goes on to argue why we needed to declare our independence.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
We are at a time in the history of this great nation when one must wonder if we should seriously considering altering the nature of our Government. The 45th President has no interest in representing “We The People”. He panders to his base, not the majority as demonstrated by the populate vote and the results of multiple polls since he took office.. You, the legislative branch of our government have divided yourselves divisively into two tribes and as have demonstrated an inability to to work together as one body. This might suggest a need to alter how our government operates.
I would plead with all of you to find a bipartisan way to restore the dignity of the various legislative bodies you are a member of.
This country stands divided and if it cannot restore unity it is at great risk. It is incumbent on all members of the legislative branches of our governments to restore balance, as one set of bodies and not as multiple sets of tribes and parties.
President Donald John Trump
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
United States of America
July 6, 2018 Ref. Mine thoughts and Those of My Canadian Friend
Dear Mr. President, Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Mr. President as an American who had the opportunity to work in five states (NYC, NJ, Georgia, MN, & NC), four countries (USA, UK, Belgium and Canada), two super cities & three major cities (Manhattan, London, Brussels, Toronto and Atlanta); I have had the chance to see and hear about our great country from multiple angles and perspectives.
August of 2008, after 23 years away, I returned home, after spending 7 years in Toronto; in a 35-foot motor home. Parked across the river from the town of my birth, near Liberty State Park and with the Statue of Liberty as my morning view. I learned about and had to accept the misfortunate of the recession. A recession resulting from the creation of those mortgage backed derivatives. Compounded by the devious behavior and the greed of the speculators, I brand “Wall Street”.
I will remember September 15th 2008, the day Dick Fuld, who I had worked with while with Shearson Lehman, made that fateful announcement. Newly returned to the United States, I had to learn about what 8 years of Republican control of the Executive branch of our country had achieved, what the heightened religious fault lines across this country were and the anxiety of the terror emanating from the middle east had done to this nation. Like 9/11, we were swept into another spiral of despair and anger.
We have been a great nation; for most of my life, we were seen as the great white hope. A country willing to stand up to tyrants, bullies, jihadists and anarchists. A great nation capable of reaching any part of the world. Strength built on the military and diplomatic respect we established with both our enemies and most importantly our allies and friends. I will admit I am an urban dweller. I have lived a good life. I found success in the world of Financial Services and the application of technology. I do not appreciate the struggle those in the manufacturing and agricultural economy feel.
Words like labor arbitrate, outshore resources and outsourcing are familiar. What stands behind these words has much to do with the state of our nation and the situation in most of the developed world. It is the result of these actions so many people in middle America feel left behind.
In 1982, when I first began to build a Wall Street trading room for Bankers Trust, I saw how Shareholder value not Stakeholder value, had become the most important factor within our capitalistic system.
People, be they customers or employees, no longer mattered. What I learned and frankly was disheartened by is that the only thing that matters anymore is the returns, as seen from the superrich executives, the shareholders’ and the financial analysts’ perspective. We had become a nation focused on the balance sheet and the quarterly report.
Yes, I have my views and recommendation as to the state of this nation and what we need to do to make sure we remain the great nation we live and believe in.
If I think about the economy. We do not need to bring the manufacturing or restart coal mining. We need to embrace the fact that our nations wealth is now in our service economy. A national of American healthcare works taking care of the sick and wounded, American call center operators serving Americans, American programmers developing systems for our digital world, American innovators creating for all and American business leaders is what we need. Yes, we need to rebuild our infrastructure and address public transportation. Yes, since 2010 our economy is growing, I hope we can sustain that growth and assure the people good wages, good jobs and a bright future.
If I think about healthcare. I felt the most exposed when I returned to the USA and discovered I did not have healthcare. I was unemployed and did not have the funds to simply go out and buy an individual healthcare plan. Healthcare was a big topic on the news as Washington worked through what ended up being a terrible mess of a healthcare plan. In my immediately family there are 5 Doctors. four practicing and one just finishing med school. As you can imagine it has been a topic of conversation since I was very young. Now the conversation is about how broken our system is. I take the view of someone who has lived within multiple national health programs. It bothers me that this great nation cannot figure out how to assure the health of every American, affordably.
If I think about education. We as a nation should make sure that every person living in this country is WELL EDUCATED. There should be no excuses. There should be no bias. Property taxes tend to pay for primary schools. It is primary education we must make the best in the world. Unfortunately, the way our system works the poor get poor schools – the rich have great schools. We need to figure out how to assure everyone an equal chance with a GREAT PRIMARY EDUCATION. Your idea of apprentice programs is exactly what our primary education system should assure exist. Everyone should be able to walk into the world with a set of skills at age 18. Graduating from primary school everyone should be able to go our and find a job, join an apprentice program, join the military or decide to invest in higher education. A college degree should not be required to succeed. A University education should be there to allow those who are gifted the ability to excel.
If we think about the environment. Please listen to the majority of scientist who know we are affecting the environment. It is the pollution we create and the materials we inject into our environment that is responsible for the state of our environment. We the people and our corporations are responsible for all the islands of floating plastic, all the Carbon, Sulphur or who knows what we inject into the atmosphere and all those chemicals we pour into our rivers and oceans. We must continue the good work, you and I saw, when we cleaned up the rivers around Manhattan. Environmental work making it possible to breath the air in central park, swim in the Hudson river or taking a cruise from the East 23rd street mooring, you used all those years ago.
If we think about our military and our role as the defender of peace. We need a strong and well-funded military. Not too much and not too little. We need to make sure we have strong alliances. Frankly, Mr. President, I would hope we would discourage other country form investing in military hardware. Our goal should be to have the best. Our goal should be to watch and gain as the cost of maintaining the peace and avoiding war and conflict falls to zero.
If we think of our role as a global leader. What more is there to say. We need to be diplomatic. We need to pursue the growth of democratic societies. We need to focus on quelling violence and protecting human rights. We need to be the partner everyone wants to have on their side and the enemy those who seek to do us harm; do not want to enter into a conflict with the United States of America, because they know they will lose, before they start.
If we think about the Statue of Liberty. She stands proud in the harbor of New York beaconing people to our shores. Yes, we need to manage the flow of immigrates into this great nation. We must remember those that come seek the opportunity this nation promotes. We need to accept all with kindness, grace and dignity. When necessary only then should we return those, who have not followed the published policy, back from where they came, gently.
We must also remember they come because they know they can find work. As long as employers can hire people who do not have the right to work in this nation they will come. Stop American companies from hiring illegal immigrants and they will stop coming. Simple economics – reduce the demand will eliminate the supply.
If we think of our nation and its people. You must lead by example. You are the President of all of us. Whatever our color, race, religious views, social position, economic situation or sexual preferences you are the President and you must be an example for our children and our nation.
We do not want our children to believe lying is OK. We do not want our children to believe bullying is ok. We do not want our children to shun someone because they are different. It is your role to bring the parties together, to lead the left and the right back to the middle ground and restore civil discourse.
On these next pages is the note my Canadian friend wrote.
Given you are into social media I will also post this via Twitter, Facebook and on my own website.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Andreae
Dear Mr. President:
I am writing you as an outsider, someone who has always loved your country for the values it represents and has fought for.
I was going to write you to express my appreciation for your efforts to dial down the risk of nuclear war by meeting with Kim Jong-Un and initiating a peace process which should make life less stressful for our Asian neighbours as well as for us here in North America.
But the euphoria didn’t last long, only because of the children. The ones separated from their parents at the US/Mexico border. You see them on either the front pages of the major newspapers or on the various media outlets and you know, this is not going away.
Children are ever the fly in the ointment which disturb our individual and collective conscience. Riding in the back seat of a car downtown on any New York or Toronto street and they are the ones asking, ‘Why is that man sleeping on the sidewalk?’ or ‘See that military vet begging in front of Dunkin Donuts? Is that the way we treat our soldiers?’
The children are invariably the ones who ask how did we let our world become so uncaring that we confine the elderly to institutions where nobody visits them, or send our street youths to jail when they had no opportunity to succeed?
And now they are congregating at the border asking ‘why are we being separated from our parents?’ ‘Is that how America treats its most vulnerable people?” ‘Isn’t this the land of the free, the land of opportunity, the land who has inscribed on its Statue of Liberty:
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-lost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
However, it has occurred that there are now over 2000 children separated from their parents along your southern border, you are the one person who can fix this. It doesn’t mean you have to allow them all in – which would be my preference – or decide to send them all back home.
That’s not the issue. The issue here is the trauma your administration and by extension, all freedom loving grown-ups, are foisting on innocent children for which there are lifelong implications.
That is the issue which you alone can change.
Unzero the Zero in Attorney General Session’s Tolerance Policy, so the one thing that isn’t being tolerated is the confinement of children in cages and gymnasiums separated from the people who love them and who have risked everything, in the hope of a better life here.
Again, whoever is to be blamed for things ending up the way they are now is not the issue. The issue is – what is happening now is wrong, and you are the one person who can make it right.
I know as someone who relies on Christians of sincere conviction to help shape the bigger decisions one has to make in life, the one thing devout Christians all agree on is that God so loved the world, not that we would put our children in cages, but love them in such a way that regardless of who they are or where they are from, our treatment and care for them would reflect God’s thinking about them, that ’theirs in the kingdom of God.’
I can assure you, that kingdom does not include a cage. Nor should ours.
Thanks for hearing me out on this.
Sincerely,
John Deacon
In a NYTIMES article “What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer” the following statistic jumped out
Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.
The article then goes on to show that most of the assumed contributor to why America has such a high rate of mass shooting. after demonstrating how none of these can be identifed as the contributor it makes th following statement
Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed, that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.
Our love of guns seems to be the major contributor.
More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries, among American states, among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries.
The article relies on data to establish its argument. The net result, America is a culture unlike any other with a second amendment right, which one can argue, is the reason we are such a dangerous country to live in.
After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.
The article concludes with the following statement that cause one to wonder who are we this country called the United States of America
“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
I agree with the actions you are all taking, yet. I am not a democrat nor a republican. Constantly begging me for a donation creates friction.
When a party emerges that is in the middle and represents
When these values which I hold dear become the focus on a party, then maybe.
All I see today is Greed, Pride getting in the way of common sense and mutual respect. All I hear is ugly noise from both parties. I see a city frozen. The election of President Obama created a racial divide. Washington now smelling like a cesspit, not just the swamp Trump spoke of.
We, through our electoral system, elected Donald Trump.
Am I happy
Does it bother me that:
Let him get on with doing his job. Yes the legislator must do its job and make sure we have a check and a balance. We must restore order and civil discourse.
That said, the press needs to spend less time talking about him. Yes, the press must do its job and be allowed and pushed to continue to do its job. They should highlight what is being done and what some think. But hours of talk only makes the divide wider. Today for any sensible individual to understand the reality one must watch BBC, CNN, FOX, CBS, PBS, NBC, and how many others to filter truth from spin.
We must restore respectful dialogue.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2
June 25, 2018 I read this opinion piece –
White Extinction Anxiety – https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/opinion/america-white-extinction.html
And I reflected on the CBS News article my colleague sent me The message “86-ing” Sarah Sanders sent to conservatives – https://apple.news/AFUXCTyw5RS668F_2_ElK0A
When he and I we spoke earlier today, the following statement created the impetuous to write. He said the Sanders incident was “the step to far” I would argue it is simply another step in the wrong direction. Have we stepped over the line? Maybe yet all we have to do is read @realDonaldTrump tweets to wonder where the line is. I then think about:
Adam Smith, I think, spoke in respect to a village economy. What I will call a closed system. Yes, this village can be free market. It is the ability to separate and push, that which is not part of our village, out; that defeats the equity built into that village.
This is further complicated by the divide between the rich and the poor, between the haves and have not and now between the Republicans and the Democrats. I could have spoken of race: Angle Saxon versus African versus Asia versus Japanese or Chinese and I am sure we could add a myriad of other point of contention. The issue is we are becoming less divided not more
It feels like we have devolved into a world that thinks – “If you are not one of us you are not my neighbor. How then do we find and restore balance? How do we merge these two Christian thoughts into one?
“The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
“How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.”
Earlier I was going to use the word Jihad. When I looked to the definition I had to hold that thoughts and use it in a different and more informed way. If I look at the two definitions 1. is what I planned to speak of. While 2. is what all of this is about.
Definition of jihad
When Obama came into office our legislators found every reason not to work together. The Tea party emerged. The left drifted farther left.
Hillary divided this nation. There were those not willing to see the Clinton dynasty survive. There were those who wanted to turn inward, a protectionist state. There were those afraid of the future and the implications of the Fourth Revolution. There were those who did not believe in any form of social welfare, be it universal health, education or wealth.
All of this leaves me adrift.
The associations expressed support for draft legislation released by Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) that would create a level playing field of nationally consistent data protection standards and post-breach notification requirements. This bill would not create duplicative standards for financial institutions which are already subject to robust standards, but rather extend similar expectations to other sectors that handle consumer data.
“The goal of the bill is simple — raise the bar so that all companies protect data similar to how banks and credit unions protect their data, and create a common-sense standard to ensure consumers receive timely notice when a breach does occur,” the groups wrote.
The draft bill contains a provision that recognizes the existing, effective regulatory framework for covered financial sector entities. While the provision was intended to prevent banks and credit unions from being subject to duplicative notification requirements, it has been the target of recent negative campaigns circulated by the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which incorrectly suggested that banks do not notify customers of breaches on their computer systems and The ads from the retailer groups also mischaracterize and exaggerate the share of data breaches occurring at banks and credit unions while omitting their members’ (higher) share of data breaches.
The financial trades refuted the notification assertion, noting that “banks and credit unions have long been subject to rigorous data protection and breach notification practices for financial institutions to follow,” and that in the event of a data breach, banks and credit unions work continuously to communicate with customers, reissue cards and enact measures to mitigate the effects of fraud. They added, however, that “no solution will work unless everyone has an obligation to take these steps.” For more information, contact ABA’s Jess Sharp.
Tonight while preparing to listen to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra play a bit of Beethoven I have a moment to reflect on the Worldview.
Once upon a time one could turn on the news and get a glimpse of what is happening at home and round the world. One could pick up a newspaper and think this will provide me a glimpse of the truth.
Then! In emerged the capabilities of communications and the capacity to write and distribute anything to a vast number of individuals. Otherwise called the Internet.
Yet, what is different? In the past books were burned, history was rewritten and lies were told. The challenge,today we can manipulate what people believe, on a global scale, in realtime. We can spread disinformation and drive the masses to believe anything people with a voice and the power to thrill want to convince them to believe.
Starting in 2016 who would become the American President proved this to be possible. The media demonstrated that they can spin the truth in whatever direction they so desire.
This week the story is about how the DOJ and the FBI obtained warrants from one of the strictest courts in the land. Every 90 days bringing new information, they convinced the FISA court to allow them to continue to investigate the potential actions of our enemy, Russia, or, what was the USSR. What the Russians did was evil and manipulative. I somehow doubt the GOP’s version of the trutb.
Vindicated! Donald thinks he is. Yet, for those who take the minutes to read, one can only wonder what does this incomplete review of the facts actually prove? Nothing!
I wonder why I waste so much of my time listening, reading and worrying. Is there truly a risk? Are we so divided that it matters. Maybe!
Part of the challenge, many think President Trump is doing good. They accept his narcissistic personality and read his tweets with a simply, oh please stop. The rest of us cringe and worry. We consider the risks. We watch our leaders splinter and the divide expand, and we hope for a better day tomorrow.
Fir thise that seek out the truth, we explore and we become aware of the elements that are driving us into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It causes us to wonder what can we do to bring the masses, those unskilled workers, who have been marginalized by intelligent robots, programmers, engineers and managers out of desolate. We work to reduce the numbers of workers and expand productivity all while ignoring the realities of the human repercussion ahead.
When I started this note, the thinking was about those who do not accept science, believe the world is flat and maybe 9,000 years old. They do not accept, we human kind, are responsible for the wrath of our planet’s climate. They do not appreciate the dangers ahead, as we change the balance of our atmosphere and pollute the lands and oceans that sustain us.
What next?
Today I was confronted with volatility. In a two week period gas prices had gone from 2.395 to 26795, quite a climb of less than 14 days.
Volatility, this is what we must remove from peoples lives. Stability and comfort are what is important. Having gameful activity to allows us to contribute to the whole. Being idle is unproductive and only benefits the traders who prey on short term activity to enjoy profits from volatility.
Our President must accept that the Wall Street lobby must be squelched for a while as volatility is banded from the marketplace. This will take an acceptance on the part of the wealthy that they cannot take it beyond the grave and before that excessive income is not acceptable to the healthy grow of civilization.
Set a maximum salary of say 2 million.
Foreign exchange markets are another area of concern. Volatility based on war and famine must the mitigated out of the civilization.
Our civilization is global and provisional limitations such as food subsidies need to be removed.
Remember they are simply subsidies paid by the tax payer. Government should be limited to a percent of the population; remembering its role is to only assure the the primitive functions of justice, liberty, freedom and security.
Regulation is something that must be removed and a new form of peer review established with responsibility to maintain quality, service, stewardship for the planet, and a judicious use of nature resources. Free enterprise is encouraged by remembering that it is the relationship between the customer and proffer that ultimately decides success.
I met a man with a deep understanding of the Red Words, who told me a little of his life and how he spent $180,000 resolving medical issues associated with a stoke. Little was done, given the amount spent and the available technology and medical sciences.
Today, he believes, based on sound medical opinion, that exercise, surgery or medication could eliminate the de-habilitating impact on his sight, mobility and hearing.
After spending his life, saving, my friend lives comfortably in a 250 square foot home with nothing but the bible and his spirit.
Where is the VA for a VIET NAM vet; there were provisions made under Nixon for long-term medical care?
What should a more balanced system do to afford my friend a comfortable retirement?
http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/05/unemployment-what%e2%80%99s-to-blame/
Unemployment: What’s to Blame?
Posted: 08:44 AM ET
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicts U.S. unemployment could hit 10%. Currently the nation’s unemployment rate is at 9.8%.
So, what do you think is most responsible from the worsening employment picture: a failed stimulus package, an economy much worse than we knew, employers cutting deeper and hiring more slowly than expected, or something else all together.
Leave us a comment. We’ll share some of them on air in the CNN Newsroom, 11am ET — 1pm ET
So there we are. A picture and a set of points on why we are where we are with unemployment. Now what about this idea.
First, there is an issue of Greed. A small percentage of the global population has accumulated a massive amount of wealth. I am not here to judge the right or wrong of how they or their ancestors acquired the wealth. I am here to suggest looking forward.
Ponder this. If equities is suppose to represent the inherent stability of the corporations that employ our neighbors; what happened starting in 2000 and culminating in the bear Stearns collapse in 2007. Is Wall Street unravelling the growth that began in 1982 and went into a hyperactive phase in 1995, and simply correcting itself.
What next should represent a step change in how we think about governance, compensation, risk, responsibility and morality.
What I think a lot of us forget is that our society evolved over millennium and here we are thinking we are so important. What is important, is being faithful to a common morality, and making sure that we leave something better for our children.
I agree with the Dali Lama, all we want is peace and happiness.
So what next?
Shel Harris of Brooklyn said the election changed his attitude.
I am reading William D. Cohan’s book “House of Cards” and then I read this extremely long article on the Secretary of the Treasury and his culpability!!!! 🙁
As discussed in an earlier post our President says and I quote
“We cannot go back to an economy that is built on a pile of sand — on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards, on over leveraged banks and outdated regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of us all,”
One of the key-members of the executive branch of our Government was sitting in the fortress down on Wall Street, deep into discussions with everyone that mattered and is responsible for the abyss, crisis, depression that has taken the world into uncharted waters.
How can our President, that does not want to “go back to an economy built on a pile of sand, hire, support and continue to seek advice from Mr Geithner. this man was there there, saw the crisis brewing and helped to make it worse. Now we expect the leopard to change his spots and fix it. He had his chance when he was president of the NYC Federal Reserve. If the book I’m reading and this article are accurate he has had his chance and failed.
Please Mr. Obama find someone who is risk adverse, intelligent and not part of the club.
Today in a New York Times Article reviewing President Obama’s press conference, held Wednesday April 30th 2009, he is quoted to have said:
“We cannot go back to an economy that is built on a pile of sand — on inflated home prices and maxed-out credit cards, on over leveraged banks and outdated regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the prosperity of us all,”
Reading these words all I can say is YES. Yet, I remain troubled. We’ve all read about the various programs our government is implementing to “fix” our economy. Too often these programs are simply a mechanism to take money from Honest Tax Payers and distribute it to those that over-leveraged themselves and where reckless. President Obama that is not what those word would suggest your policy is.
We seem to think that whatever we do the Government will bail us out.
Nature is and has been since God set the universe in motion. Moses in his dialogue with God learned of the beginning and in Genesis he recorded those first days of Adam’s life and how easy it would have been to follow the rules.
The LORD God put the man in the Garden of Eden. He put him there to work its ground and to take care of it.
The LORD God gave the man a command. He said, “You can eat the fruit of any tree that is in the garden. But you must not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you do, you can be sure that you will die.”
He gave us the chance to live in paradise for eternity. He gave us plenty. All he asked is that we work the ground, take care of it and not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of …
I do not mean to look at original sin nor do I want to talk about how the serpent beguiled woman and man simply ate with her.
What I am concerned with is that Obama is saying all the right things. Yet, when we look to the results we see money flowing into the pockets of those that took us into the abysm. We tell credit card companies that they should reduce interest charges and not protect themselves. We simply seem to be protecting those that are reckless.
This idea that some companies are just to big to let fail sounds smart. Yet, unless they are also made to appreciate their failings we will simply see it happen all over again.
They personally must feel the pain not simply do as Merrill, AIG and all the CEOs want to and do do, get a government hand out and still get the big bonus. They need to be held accountable and made to put their money where their mistakes are.
New york Times 28 July 2009
It is one thing to offer same sex couples rights and protections under the law, call it common-law. It is another thing to allow them to Marry; which is a religiuously rooted event that should adhere to the laws God so long ago defined and have worked so well for so many years.
Same Sex couples are people and we should love them as we love our nieghbor, YET!
