It's the Reason for the Seasons of America Thing

Dear America,

so many debates, so little time.

and just when you think the coast was clear for awhile, This Week with Christiane Amanpour throws another one into the mix...and so unexpectedly, I might add.  And can you say, that's entertainment?

For me, it is enough just to listen to the attitude drooling from the corners of Christiane's lips; but pursing that together with the left-leaning dribble, and we got ourselves a super model for media bias trying to pass herself off as the intellectual elite.  But maybe that's just me.

Gotta love the title for the show, though:  The Great American Debate -- "there is too much government in my life!"  Featuring....Barney Frank, Robert Reich, George Will, and my personal favorite (really), Paul Ryan.

Granted, I was making myself homemade mango turnovers with a vanilla bean glaze drizzled all over.  I was a wee bit distracted.  But the gist of it was this -- look what happened to Wall Street, that's why we need more government...and...look what happened with Fannie and Freddie, that's why we need less government.

Sure, it wasn't just about Wall Street and Home Loans; and it wasn't always so black and white -- there were times when the polar opposites almost agreed with each other.  But both sides seemed to keep far and away from a reality that nobody seems willing to talk about.

Whether we live in an environment where government is breathing down our backs, or not (which is certainly debatable until the end of time) -- we must first face a striking conclusion:

Until such time we restore our faith in Something Greater than ourselves, and return to the making of good, decent people -- starting at birth and continuing to give it our full attention until death do us part -- our society will falter.

end of story.
go to commercial.
start the reruns.

Now, I normally only turn the television on on a Sunday morning to tune into Joel Osteen, switching it to the Heart of the Nation to listen to the Catholic Mass immediately following.  It's just my thing.  The house is quiet, I have my coffee, and it becomes the time to bring me back to center, just me and God.

So, as Spirit should have it, Joel added another dimension to what I had just heard, you know, following the interruption of Christiane, Barney, Robert, George and Paul (who very well could be a saint in government issued clothing).

Joel reminded us not to get comfortable in our blessings.

cha-ching 

and cue the lightbulb against the green screen

It's not so much about too much government in our life (even though it IS); it is more about having too little faith --  hardly even enough God --  and very little reverence to the attention of the itty bitty details to growing our good.  In short, America has become way too comfortable in it's blessings.

And right now -- collectively -- we are being encouraged to change our ways (again).

Divine Providence is working behind the scenes.

Joel impressed upon his audience the importance of affirmative action in every way.  And paraphrasing here, he said something like this, 'every blessing isn't supposed to be permanent.'  Going on to remind us not to get too comfortable, even when life is good.  And then, he throws in a timely anecdote to make his point...

he's like, you know, in the beginning, mothers nurse their babies, right.  babies get all they ever needed right there...but eventually, it becomes time for the baby to start taking a bottle.  And they don't likey likey too much (ask me how I know).  they fight it every step of the way.  but eventually...they adapt. 

And as we all know, the bottle becomes the perfect replacement to mama and life is good again.   .....ah....but lo and behold...cog in wheel right around the corner...eventually, mama wants to replace the bottle with a sippy cup...and then a real cup...and then eating real peas and carrots and spinach (yuck!)   All the while, it is up to the baby to push itself beyond what it has come to know as comfortable, even letting go of the everything it every wants or needs for something better, and basically, only doing so by pure faith.  the baby trusts the mama every step of the way.

America has had some glorious years -- we have acquired wealth, expanded wealth, created wealth in ways unimaginable to the naked babe in the woods.   The logic back behind how we got here can be debated by ideology for the rest of time.  But history does not lie.

America was founded upon principles and values of the ages and for the ages.

"We have a right to expect that men so aggressively religious as to encounter persecution, and so rigidly conscientious as to become exiles rather than submit to ecclesiastical tyranny, would embody their convictions in the government they constructed, and stamp their characters upon the legislation they enacted."  Bishop Charles Galloway, Christianity and the American Commonwealth, part of a series of lectures.

continuing...

"Those living seed, watched by a favoring Providence, watered by the tears of a sanctified patriotism, warmed by the genial sun of civic righteousness, and cultivated by the industrious  hands of a peerless statesmanship, have produced the magnificent Americanism of to-day. Despite its defects, and notwithstanding the sad chapters of its history, our Americanism stands for all that is purest and grandest in the world's modern civilization."

Let's just say we have evolved.

"The Christianity of the colonists taught the supremacy of conscience, the sovereignty of the individual, the inviolability of private rights, the sacredness of human life, and the brotherhood of man.  Out of these cardinal doctrines came the fundamental principles of our republican government:  liberty, equality, fraternity, and the protection of life and property.  Religious liberty created and sustained  an inexorable demand for political liberty.  Freedom of conscience claims the right of free speech and personal independence."

We have long ceased the nursing stage. Untethered to the heart of who we are as a nation, unattached to the true "freedom of conscience"  -- and the subsequent individual responsibility and duty to uphold it -- we are floundering.  The rattling of the line 'if men were angels...' seems to be ringing in my ear, right next to the clinking of a silver spoon.

The purposeful making of good people has been left to chance.

Minus the reality of the last few years staring at us in the face, America has become way to comfortable in its blessings.  We have forgotten to give thanks; we have extinguished the rites and ritual of a loving, peaceful people; we have suffocated our very existence with stuff that does not matter; we have stifled the voice of direction, and promise, and goodness, that only Divine Providence can bring.

More important, we can do whatever we want but we can't stay here.[reminds me of a great song about that...]

Finally -- and in a twist of irony -- perhaps it may be time to swaddle ourselves back up again and bring ourselves back to the creature comforts of the simpler things in life...'liberty, equality, fraternity, and the protection of life and property.'   ga ga goo goo

but maybe its just me.

Make it a Good Day, G

It's All in the Narrative Kind of Thing

Dear America,

it's all in the narrative, isn't it.  isn't it?

imagine spending hundreds of millions of dollars every weekend...
frivolously.
mindlessly.
some may even say, irresponsibly.

and getting essentially nothing in return for it.

just imagine it.

That top 1% -- the ones who reap the benefits, that is -- laughs at us all the way to the bank and back again at the arrival of each and every Monday morning [past, present and future].

HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.  Every weekend.
did I mention frivolously...mindlessly...maybe even totally irresponsibly.

Return on investment?... for just a couple hours of our time (in banker years, just a flash across the ticker) ...

perhaps a little heartburn.
maybe some lingering goosebumps.
maybe even a couple of bloodshot eyes (from tears, you know).

Yup.  After killing two hours (three if it's of 'epic' proportion), a box of Junior Mints and a bucket of popcorn with extra butter, all of which you paid $24.75, you have yourself nothing to show for it really. absolutely nothing.

You have ownership in nothing.

You have helped Hollywood's top 1% buy another home, yacht, or diamond.

You see, the funny thing is, the top 1% are everywhere and within everything.  and we really wouldn't want it any other way, when you consider the options.

We want the possibility to grow wealth.

Do you think the key grip (whatever that is) should demand getting paid the same as Julia Roberts or Tom Hanks?   How, exactly, would the redistribution of wealth look like in Hollywood?


At least ANYONE can play the stock market.  At least ANYONE can start a business and grow it into a chain of stores (thank you Walmart and McDonald's).  At least ANYONE can work for a living, working for either the government or a private industry, having the opportunity to invest a portion of their hard earned money into long term funds, mutual funds, bonds and stocks.   Sure, the return has been dismal to say the least over the last couple of years -- but that is the nature of the beast, isn't it.  isn't it?

Wall Street merely took advantage of the market place; is it without fault?  certainly not.  Human beings -- chock full of a whole lot of human nature -- are kinda funny like that;  we've got some good ones and we've got some bad ones.  Got some good movies and we got some bad movies.

And earth to the occupiers -- some of us still have our retirement tied to Wall Street's long term survival.  hello?  ET phone home...'you can't handle the truth'....'make my day'....'what, did you go to college to get stupid?'  

But talk about elitist...you've got to know somebody to be somebody in Hollywood; to get on the ground floor of a movie, to make the big money, you must be seriously connected (or incredibly lucky, might as well just play the lottery).

What got this started this morning?

TIME magazine.
Person of the year?  THE PROTESTOR.

Occupy Wall Street (and the like) just got themselves a plump Christmas bonus.  Even after the latest tally -- 5,425 arrests in 94 cities  (thank you to The Daily Caller) -- without breaking down the fits of violence including, rape, murder, arson, robbery, just to name a Few Bad Men.  (aw, was that being sexist? so not sorry) -- they still get awarded with kudos of praise and admiration.  It's almost like having an award show where the deciders are the recipients and the recipients are the deciders and everyone goes home with a gold-leafed goody bag.  It's almost as bad as having Alec Baldwin be the spokesman.

Nope.  Hollywood gets BILLIONS of dollars through their hot little hands (mostly going to the top 1%) and the stupid people who pay to play get absolutely nothing. nada.  zippo. nothing but niet.

What a racket.

How about we start occupying where they live, like Rodeo Drive?  anyone?


Make it a Good Day, G

It's a Means to a Bitter End Living On and On Thing

Dear America,

classic.

I gotta say....great quotations are being made for the history books these days.  wow.


To the press, regarding that drone that is currently MIA (actually, that is totally incorrect -- we know where it is)  anyway, he says, "we have asked for it back."  (yeah -- from Iran! -- that's a good one)

To the press, via 60 Minutes, he says, "I didn't over-promise and I didn't underestimate how hard this was gonna be."  stopping just shy of making a knee-jerk reaction...with a wink into the camera.


Gotta love his audacity, huh.

With a Narcissist-in-Chief like this, who needs enemies, right?


He is right, though.
Everything IS going according to plan.

IF you happen to check in with the G thing from time to time -- you would know I started a new book -- and one that I have been taking my sweet time with, by the way (also known as, reading only when I have a chance).  It is called The Naked Communist.

Jumping into something that may sound off the beaten path, the book makes a point of mentioning how Lenin was admonished for not doing more during the Russian famine for the people.  Putting Lenin's so-called "in-action" this way:

"But Lenin would have none of it.  He would not help set up soup-kitchens nor join a relief committee.  Later is was accused of welcoming the famine as a means of accentuating the suffering of the people and firing up their revolutionary will to act."  and they would be right...

Lenin -- who grew up reading Marx --  eventually grew out of his religious faith as well, aligning himself more and more with the "cynicism of the Marxist interpretation of life."  And in a calculated manner, "to give himself some kind of professional status, Lenin made an intensive study of law."  But after finishing his studies (first in class even)..."Lenin then attempted to practice law, but for some reason lost nearly all his cases and, therefore, abandoned the law and never returned to it."

hmmmm just who does that sound like?

Or maybe, he sounds more like this -- when the book describes one of Lenin's favorite comrades, Leon Trotsky, as "a handsome, arrogant, anti-social intellectual who sometimes offended his fellow-Marxists because of his flare for elegant clothes."  (or was it the outrageous number of vacations and golf outings???)

But it was Joseph Stalin who could really relate to the people -- characterized as a "true revolutionary member of the peasant class -- a rough, unrelenting, two-fisted man of ruthless action."

It is about a page and a half later, when this naked Communist is uprooted fully in all of his glory --

"The years 1907-1913 were pick-and-shovel years for Joseph Stalin.  No one could accuse him of being merely an 'intellectual Communist' as they sometimes described Lenin.  Stalin learned every trick of propaganda, pressure politics, mass communications, strike techniques and labor agitation."

Guess this president wasn't as "shovel ready" as we thought.

Hardly.  Again, going back to what we noted a few paragraphs up -- everything is going according to plan.

"I didn't over-promise and I didn't underestimate how hard this was gonna be."

He [Obama-linsky] studied Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin -- just as he has well studied his favorite, more modern day, revolutionary, class-warfare, Bolsheviks/Occupy Wall Street/aka The 99 Percent Mentor: Saul Alinsky.

The answer to everything is absolutely nothing.  And let me quickly explain:

"Problems of morals would be solved by doing away with morals.  Problems growing out of religion would be solved by doing away with religion.  Problems of marriage, home and family would be eliminated by doing away with marriage, home and family.  The problems arising out of property rights would be resolved by not allowing anyone to have any property rights.  The problem of equalizing wages would be solved by abolishing wages.  Problems connected with money, markets, and prices would be solved by doing away with money, markets and prices.  Problems of competition in production and distribution would be solve  by forcibly prohibiting competition.  Finally, they would solve all the problems of modern society by using revolution to destroy society.  It seems the phantom of Communist hope [and change] can only arise from the bowels of the earth through the ashes of all that now is."

Look around you.

This is exactly what is happening to us.

"I didn't over-promise and I didn't underestimate how hard this was gonna be."  

Means to a bitter end lives on and on.
And all I can say now is, I hope we get our country back.

Make it a Good Day, G

did you know "Bolsheviks" is wussian for da "majority" -- the ninety-nine percent -- the opposite of the one percent -- akin to the 'this isn't about class warfare.  this is about the nation's welfare' words of wisdom spoken by this president of ours.... when regurgitating the progressive stupidity of teddy roosevelt just last week in osawatomie, kansas.  [just go to my last blog for speech backup...]

It's a Read It and Weep Thing

Dear America,

This morning I am going to try something different.

Running in the same vein with yesterday's theme -- being just plum tired of being lied to -- we will link to the entire transcript of the president's speech to America.  Wrought with simply too many contradictions to pick out one by one, I will leave it to YOU, the party of one, to read thoroughly at your leisure. Amazing stuff; and not in a good way.

But before we begin, my apologies for opting to use the NY Times as the medium between; while that runs second in condolences for the thirteen pages to read in turn.  Having said that, you must realize taking the president's majestic persona out of the mix, reading the speech in his own words, one by one, double speak and rhetoric and all, changes everything.

On the virtual eve of ringing in another election year, we must realize how presidents from both sides of the aisle have toyed with us, lied to us, played with us; America has gone from the free market plum to a dried up prune, allowing progressives to alter our foundation, our traditions, our free enterprising spirit under a slow, constant depletion of the natural resources required to grow our true good.

Evaporating the very ideals that have made America great, this is what progressives do best.

Pay attention to every word from this stunner of a speech; print it out, underline key phrases... match them up with the contradiction, flat-out lie, or distortion of American fundamentals in nearly the very next breath; over and over and over, this president leaves us wanting, searching for the vine of truth.

Frankly, this speech makes him sound like an idiot; he is reaching for something that remains a total mystery [for him] -- you know...given his background, his community organizing mindset, his Marxist family history, sitting in the pews for twenty years with his Black Liberation Mentor and Church Leader, given his terrorist neighbor who launched his political career, his host of Czars in the White House linked to socialism and communism and Mao along with social engineering aplenty...

..this speech should scare the living daylights out of every American.

So without further adieu, here it is. Read it and weep.

Make it a Good Day, G

need a second opinion?  Read THIS.  Free market has NEVER worked according to THIS American president.  shocker.

It's All About a Girl Tired of Being Lied to Thing

Dear America,

...feel like "Jules" from the movie St. Elmo's Fire...'just so tired of being lied to.'

what's a girl to do?

just where does a girl turn?

and dare I ask, just how do we save the country without losing our sanity, if not our total self in the process?

real relationships are kinda like that -- we must somehow cling to who we truly are, while at the same time, learn to let go of parts of ourselves...you know...in order to create that more perfect union.

Nobody is perfect [nobody].

Nobody will ever be the all and end all; that 'all' is already within us [in theory].

In my experience, looking outside ourselves to fulfill anything  -- whether it be an emotional void or tangible capital interests or anything else one can dream of  -- usually results in catastrophe for everyone involved.  The key to fulfillment is becoming that which we need, want, desire and aspire to be ourselves; while the attraction of someone who so-called 'completes' us, becomes simply the icing on the cake.

No.
Scratch that.
We should really be the icing, too...

...perhaps... the one we ultimately attract should  be considered more like part of our decoration... like a rosebud, or the swirling scallops found gallivanting around the edges, or the  dreamy layers of chocolate mouse or butter cream only known to those within the circle of our inner sanctuary.

'Jules' kept living her life inside out; always looking for the guy, the drug, the piped-in  imitation cream filling to do whatever it was she couldn't live without...also known as the things she should already be doing [being, creating...] for herself.


As a nation, we need to stop looking to the outside...


Certainly, after the ever-loving sweetness of Herman Cain has gone so wrong -- and so completely burst our bubble -- we hurt; that was a tough one (after all, we were so committed, you know); it is no wonder the most common refrain I keep hearing around me is something like, 'I'm done with politics'.  I mean, my goodness, talk about a blow to the heart and soul.

Everything we saw in him was utter perfection:  the anti-Washington layer, the outside the beltway layer, the businessman layer, the simple man from humble beginnings layer, the man of character who adores his wife of something like 43 years layer (can't exactly remember just how many years, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn). And anyway, I feel like we all got a handful of cake up our nose with this guy, and not in a good way. 

But us silly Americans easily fall for the wrong guy, now don't we.

we are just that trusting, we are just that believing....I mean, look at how hard we all fell for Obama. And when I say 'we all' I really mean, you all...at least enough of the party of YOU to make him king.

Oh I'm just so tired of being lied to.

But first off: it would behoove all of us to work on all of us, and by that I mean beginning with ourselves.

If this is the best the GOP has to offer [the one who is ultimately becomes "the one" facing the best the Dem's have to offer... and by that I question whatever it is they see in Obama], then it should ring a few bells and whistles; we have work to do [on ourselves!].  Collectively and Individually, we have so much work to do.

That's pretty much all I needed to say today.

But if I had to choose........

The only one left I really trust is Michele Bachmann.  And in my mind she's got a couple things going for her -- one, she is not a man.  And two, she is a woman.

A strong woman.
A woman who already knows who she is already.
A woman who doesn't need anybody else for anything more than what she can already be, do and have for herself.
A lawyer.
A Congresswoman.
A mother of 28 kids and counting.
A wife.
A woman.

A woman who seems to live by a firm faith, from a foundation of sound principles and values; a woman who leads with her character shining from every part of herself. [or so I believe, anyway, outside looking outside...]

I think I love her. With Bachmann, I just might be willing to risk another broken heart.

Make it a Good Day, G

got a little 'tongue tied' on the video for the day -- click on "it's all about a girl tired of being lied to thing' and see for yourself.  Great vibe to play loud and dance with yourself.  happy tuesday...

It's All About the 115 Trillion Ton Gorilla in the Room...It's a Pretty Big Thing

Dear America,

happy thursday.

to save time, let's just assume I know everything...

that's kinda funny, isn't it.  read it on a t-shirt once and stored it away with the apples of my cheeks just waiting for the right moment to insert a nugget of silly.

Considering the mood I'm in and from where I sit, me thinks the world could use a little silly.


Scratch that -- we have the world on fire in every which way to Sunday and what do we silly Americans do?  Escape -- as the top Google trends in recent days have included Demi Moore, Kim Kardashian, gift ideas and apple juice...

seriously people?

As if we don't have enough issues here at home with our own Central Bank "helping" us too much, now we have to be concerned with the entire world of central banking going gangbusters and global.  And the market is happy with this?  [see Wall Street's best day in years, just yesterday; right...but we hate Wall Street....I betcha even Alec was okay with what happened @Wall and Broad...tweet that, baldwin-boy]

If you have some time, here is an interesting overview, from The Atlantic. In a nutshell, here ya go:

"Don't be fooled by Wednesday's early stock-market rally: Hardly anyone believes that the central banks' actions are anything but scotch tape over the shattered window of the European economy."

got that right.

We, the people of silly Americans, are all aflutter from a five hundred point leap in the market, when we are in fact trillions in debt.  And we're not talking about the mere 15 Trillion it shows on record as our 'national debt.'  Hardly.  We're talking T  R  I  L  L I  O  N  S.  Honestly, it's an amount that will take multiple generations to pay back...if ever.  Collectively, we have stored in the apples of our cheeks not for the future, but for an onslaught of future unfunded financial liabilities, and all we keep doing is try to stuff in more.

From my favorite libertarian hang out, The Daily Bell, I bring you sustenance, including alternative perspective with plenty of back up [and may I recommend you take a basket with you...plan to camp out, take a picnic perhaps, for there is just way to much going on here].

Like most things, some of the most fascinating information comes underneath the article itself within the commentary back and forth.  The Daily Bell responds actively to questions posed by suspect minds, sharpening the original argument to it's finest pithy points.  Let me elaborate a wee bit....

From The Real Reason Bloomberg Sued to Open Up Fed Records:

"There have been a lot of reasons advanced as to why the New York Fed printed as much money as it did, but most of these elaborate justifications are just that ... justifications. What the elites of the day did during the "Roaring Twenties" (that they created) was to DELIBERATELY destabilize and undermine the system. It was probably done on purpose (in hindsight) to create a depression and perhaps a war that could then give birth to a new world order.

And in fact, this is exactly what happened. World War II gave way to a whole panoply of global institutions: the IMF, the UN, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, NATO and more recently, the International Criminal Court. We are expected to believe this was some sort of coincidence, a "reaction" to the second Great War. Was it really? Can we STILL be so sure in this era of the Internet?"

From The Daily Bell, in the comments section:

"The Fed, headed by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, argued that revealing borrower details would create a stigma -- investors and counter-parties would shun firms that used the central bank as lender of last resort -- and that needy institutions would be reluctant to borrow in the next crisis. Clearing House Association fought Bloomberg’s lawsuit up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the banks’ appeal in March 2011.

$7.77 Trillion

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

----

The 7 trillion is only part of about US$16 trillion that was revealed by an audit initiated by Congressman Ron Paul ... We subtracted about US$3 trillion because ... "Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows."

Our central bank has already loaned out $3.08 trillion to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium ...according to our own GAO!  Who's paying for that?  I'm not paying for that.  Are you?

Oh, but lookie there, Paris Hilton just got a new 280k Ferrari...
and Demi and Ashton are splitting up...

and Kim Kardashian is divorcing her husband of 78 days...

and...

and...

and...

and we're trading dollars for euros on borrowed time.  everything should work out just fine.

Make it a Good Day, G

OWS should be storming the White House and The Federal Reserve Bank.

This might be a good time to sell.  But what do I  know, I'm just the 115 trillion ton gorilla in the room.