- Mr. Ridge of Homeland (American) Defense was on this
morning with his new Readiness Program for Americans. Besides duct tape
and plastic; batteries, flashlights, bottled water, and canned foods should
be in your emergency kit! Mr.Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania has
some Army experience. I don't know, but for something of this magnitude
(170,000 employees) one would wish that in all the nation there couldn't
be found someone with a little more expertise! Mr.Ridge reminds one of
Forest Gump..."War is like a box of chocolate". He just doesn't
convey confidence-or leadership abilities. But then if we look around,
on our local scene, domestically or internationally one is hard pressed
to identify just what leadership is??
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- The infantile behavior of name-calling in foreign relations
is appalling. President Bush "loathes" Kim Jong I of Korea and
labels him a "dwarf". Great! France and Germany are identified
as "old Europe" and "weasels". Mature! Senator McCain
said the other day that "France is like a woman from the forties trying
to get a dinner on her looks". Good John! President Bush says, he's
"losing patience" waiting on war. Now that's rational reasoning.
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- No matter where you look there seems to be no presence
that instills confidence in the people. Like errant sheep (the people)
rush to and fro in panic, wrapping their homes in plastic--screaming vindictive
accusations at one another. A national philosophy of "those not with
us are with the terrorists" certainly has encouraged these attacks
on those not wanting war as "treasonous-anti-American, Communists,
Stalinists, left wing wackos, Saddam lovers etc". Weekly warnings
of 'High Alert" be vigilant, alter your routines, go shopping, take
the subway, let the professionals handle it; add confusion and panic to
an impressionable--susceptible--easily influenced, unstudied, uniformed,
programmed public. Leadership? I think not!
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- Leadership? On the local (look around), a lot of smooth
talking, patronizing, glib, double-speak, buzz words, snake oil, bloated
pomposity, and just plain LIES. Lies about everything. Economic development,
budgets, the state of local economies, electric rates, regional plans,
waste plans, educational mayhem, regulations, standards, joblessness, and
social crisis!
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- Smarmy Carny men dressed in suits vote and write loopholed
legislation to pander to and protect the money boys whatever the industry.
The wizards in black robes with their Tarot cards and crystal balls wave
their gaveled wands over the cauldron and pronounce it legally sealed.
Citizens? Ha! Driven up the midway, enticed by the flickering lights, the
aroma of sausage, popcorn, and fries; hypnotically they enter the madness
of carousels, rocket rides, bingo games, win a prize for the little lady,
everyone's a winner!!
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- Freak shows, side shows, and the Fun House, with it's
cackling plastic painted clown invites one into the surreal, the macabre,
the cheap thrills of Boo! Bread and circus time...keep the crowds occupied,
distracted, entertained, and amused. Behind the scenes, in the outer rimmed
darkness, amidst the cages, trailers, stale beer, sawdust, and stained
patched tents, the real business goes on. The payoffs, the rapes, the brutality,
the inhumanity of man! Cheap, but no different on the larger stage...just
dressed better with Cuban cigars and good Scotch!
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- The carnival, the fair, the theme park, the baseball
stadium, the concert, the religious gatherings, the exotic clubs, used
car lots, gilded board rooms, city manager offices, economic development
regions, theaters, casinos, prisons, malls, committees, foundations, trusts,
energy deals, mergers, marbled halls, granite halls, toxic dumps, oil fields,
gas reserves, privatization of water, damns, terrorism, weaponry, wars-wars-wars-and
yes, even peace, are about grasping insatiable greed-profits over people,
deal making, mailing lists, and power. Pigs at the trough...each out for
his/her piece of the action. If not about the business of making it, then
they are about the business of protecting it. Exhaustive business money!
The people be damned in the whole process, except for the garnering of
wages, the scut work of cleaning toilets, mowing grass, mindless computer
programming, taxed for subsidies- giveaways, penning crowds at rallies,
toiling in fields, cannon fodder, or guarding and securing the elite from
the masses.
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- While the few, own two-three-four homes, thousands of
acres of property, untaxed offshore bank accounts, stocks, private planes,
yachts, and stables of cars; the masses of people throughout the world
work in conditions of unimaginable servitude for minuscule wages! Foundries,
mills, auto plants, ship building, fishing ports, and family farms have
given way to Mc Fast food restaurants paying Mc Wages. Small town businesses
are now closed with Wal-Marts, Staples, Home Depot, Office Supplies, and
fortress concret malls; herding people into their windowless enticing enclaves
to shop till they drop oblivion. A trip across the nation has you never
leaving home as generic strip malls and obscene golden arches cover the
land.
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- None of this happened overnight, but is the cumulative
result of decades of deal making in communities across the nation. Deals
for malls, and mega stores displacing downtown shops. Deals for hog farms,
chemical factories, incinerators, and toxic dumps in rural communities
having no political clout or influence. Mills, foundries, and the auto
industry shipped to Third World countries, made easy by tax incentives
and subsidies by our legislators. Farms replaced with corporate farms...the
little man no longer able to compete. Prisons, casinos and waste related
industries and service jobs are now replacing manufacturing jobs. A service
economy, with many employees now contract workers (no benefits) cannot
support our economy nor the massive debt growing by the hour, for a war
that is estimated to cost in the multi billions upon billions! It's simple
arithmetic ...having nothing to do with the right wing fanatic, the left
wing wacko, the communist, peacenik or anything inbetween. If they work
their cards right and keep the masses distracted, ripping and tearing at
one another in the blame game, the victim game, they've got it made. "Kill
all the Arabs, nuke'em, ship'em out. Tear down the confederate flag, give
us restitution, we want vouchers, we demand affirmative action, keep it
green and clean, gay rights, women's rights, stop the smokers, get the
guns, close the borders, stop the Mexicans, get the dead beat dads, three
strikes you're out, lock up the traitors, animal rights, flea rights, owl
rights, coded warnings, evacuate airports, strip search the elderly, triplicate
ID, etc." Yes, everyone given their two minutes of hate...disjointed,
fragmented, each focused on their narrow interests and needs for funding,
paying no heed to the rest of the world. Wonderful. I couldn't have planned
it better.
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- Note that there are special enclaves of protections from
strip malls, hog farms, dumps, incinerators, chemical factories, and coal
plants. These are the recreational, ski resorts, lake side havens, majestic
mountain enclaves for the elite to relax and vacation in. They don't defecate
where they live or vacation. That's for the rest of us.
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- While the masses were kept distracted with 500 TV channels,
video games, designer shopping, fast food slop, and aerobics, the nation
became an echoing wasteland of rusted mills, deserted downtowns, boarded
windows, and dumbed down kids unable to read, do simple math or write a
decent paragraph. Even the once promised land of computer jobs are being
replaced with foreign workers brought in on special work visas. Cheaper,
with no fuss about benefits, vacation or unemployment insurance. Senator
Sununu of New Hampshire (others) deserve a thank-you for this and also
for their help in securing off shore banking for the money crowd.
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- Leadership? I think not. No more than you see it in a
barnyard with the snorting and pushing at the trough! The blame game played
so masterfully in local and domestic politics is just that a Game. Government
is the people not an abstract concept. If there's any blame, it's us believing
every snake oil salesmen who has come to town promising locals the world.
When you leave the decision making, the wheeling and dealing to the few,
without questioning, without personal involvement, without a studied investigation
of whatever the deal, you can expect duplicity-subterfuge-dishonesty-compromise-and
being sold down the river. Dat's de scor'.
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- "Leadership is not magnetic personality--that can
just as well be a glib tongue. It is not 'making friends and influencing
people'...that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to
higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard,
the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations." Seen
any of this around lately?
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