At this beginning of the second year of the second decade of the second millennium, I’d like to see improvements over the firsts. I’d like to see words recognized as having actual meaning instead of being sneaky emotive prods. I’d like to see improvements in the relationships among finance, industry, government and society resulting from a better sense of what is real and what is mere narrative.

A little reality music, maestro: Forty-six countries had deeper deficits than the US in 2009, such as Japan with its debt equal to 160% of its GDP. And yet these countries are not on the brink of default or the termination of social services. This is because –one more time, please- while a family, in its budgeting, answers to banks, nations do not, and can raise their debt ceiling if they choose to do so, and why wouldn’t they, if they can? So it can involve more complications than that, but this still points out that the overheated talk we’ve been hearing, the supposed need to gut government or see America foreclosed-on by China, is political-ideology-driven, not reality.

Deficits result when tax revenue falls below levels needed to maintain what had been an acceptable level of activity just before the tax cuts that produced the deficit were put into place, legislated or recession-caused. Governments don’t casually go hog-wild and spend like a pickpocket with a fistful of stolen credit cards. It makes for a politically productive pout, though, a farcical but useful faux outrage, to make out that one particular administration is able to bypass every procedural restraint, every check and balance, and spend the country into ruin. Citizens should ideally be less prone to swallow the unrealistic tales told by the tireless enemies of that administration, but we’re not.

These hyped deficits are used to malign and attack government, public institutions, unions, Social Security, progressivism, pro-worker/pro-middle-class Keynesian policies,- in short, everything to the left of Genghis Khan. Where FDR said, of protections from the financial disasters of job loss, old age, illness, “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,” the right seems determined to guarantee those disasters and a dependence then on the mercies of a financial overclass. The right says that we are dependent on the government, but it’s our own money the government backs with guarantees and returns to us as promised and assured, as pensions, medical insurance, infrastructure, food inspections, and so forth. The right says it believes that business must be totally catered to, sacrificed for, that we should depend on the very vague and uncertain hope that business might give us back some part of our money.

To spend so many tons of money not on people,-schools, clinics, small farm support, occupational training, pension and medical insurances,-but rather to buy mouthpieces for this increasingly difficult to rationalize ideology, is obscene. What a clear waste of money this is, while the right says that it’s the government that’s wasting money on –oh, let’s see- schools, clinics, small farm support, occupational training, pension and medical insurances, and the like. The people’s money spent on the people who provided that money is a waste that must be stopped, the right says. Money should only be spent on multi-billion dollar corporations that don’t even pay taxes, we’re told.

A number of countries with far less natural resources and blessings of climate than us nevertheless have thriving economies, sound infrastructures, and high standards of living, with generous social safety nets, ‘even though’ they have much higher tax rates. Somehow we can’t seem to manage what these stupid socialists do. Why is that? Is it maybe because so many of the stirring phrases in the right’s ideological choir book serve only to stunt progress?

Trujillo’s thugs were virulently anti-socialist, anti-communist, because communism is a threat to the powerful, to “opportunity.” Opportunity to live the Dominican dream. A threat to the Chilean dream of Pinochet, the Iraqi dream of Hussein. The opportunity to live in palaces and lord over the peasants. Hail opportunity. Heil opportunity.

If a government is weak enough to be taken over, it will be taken over. A sharply hierarchical government, as in a dictatorship, is weak. A broad, mostly horizontally-structured government that is firmly established is the best protection against dictators and instability. The alternative to horizontality in government is dictators, and in society, financial overlords. Enablers of dictators of all sorts always scream “Communists! Socialists!” because these opportunists fear horizontality and jealously guard their status. Each level in a hierarchical society puts down those below; hence old money puts down new money, which puts down the middle class, which puts down the working class, which puts down the poor and immigrants.

Christ leveled people. It was later revisionism that insisted we all need the opportunity to be tempted, if we’re to prove ourselves before God, to show our morality, that we can’t be moral unless we’re tested. Cute argument, which sets the table for the Madoffs, Trujillo and his thugs, Beck and company. Cute argument, that kneecaps Christ and reduces His teachings to “Yeah, right” status, and reasserts the blueprints for a hierarchical society. The Medieval Church, after all, was at the top, so what else would it teach to those below, and Christ be damned.

The political right is like the Medieval Church, teaching whatever ideological arguments it needs to plant the claim of authority in the hierarchy that it sets up. The political left’s supposed evilness is in its efforts for the broad society instead of the rich and powerful. Seriously, could a decent human being, if he knew what he was doing, support the right’s hierarchy, out of greed for some opportunity to get ahead, at the cost of betraying his neighbors? Could a decent human being, if he understood the ultimate consequences of supporting this hierarchy, not feel as ashamed as Judas? And could he betray in spite of that?

The near collapse of our economy, that dragged so much of the rest of the world down with it, for the second time, no less, is the wake-up call of our time. Somehow we have to banish forever even the possibility of the hucksters of greed being able to talk us into letting capitalists operate unregulated, ever again, no matter how many legislators are bribed, no matter what stirring but logically meaningless phrases are sung in a field of American flags by ersatz soccer/grizzly moms pasted from stockphotos.com. The 80% of us who defend Social Security and Medicare will stop the righties from sucking these entities dry and killing them. So, too, if more of us are shown the distortions and lies we’re being fed every day regarding other good things, 80% of us will preserve these also.

Saying that we have the internet to provide us with more voices to challenge the lies of the moneyed and the extreme disregards the result of having an overwhelming buzz of too many voices sans bona fides; we despair and then commit to the familiar we had earlier been willing to try to verify. Also, more voices doesn’t mean more research; quite ridiculous claims in a blog can go viral,-a particularly apropos term for this infection of a large part of our entire society by this germ of an ideology spread by the most effective disseminator to appear on this planet. A browser can then show this idea apparently from a thousand independent sources, when really it was the odd notion of a single kook, repeated without citation by a thousand susceptible individuals, making something “true” by repetition, not by empirical verification. So we are today effectively LESS able to find the truth than when we had a few TV news shows and the Fairness Doctrine. Having more voices may also appeal to our belief in the wisdom of majority rule, but this majority is more and more often wrong these days, fed repeated misinformation, like a nationwide version of the children’s party game of “telephone.”

Summing up, at long last: Words matter. They have to matter, or we’ll continue losing ground.

Happy New Year.

I found it interesting that when he was stumping for Meg Whitman in California he jumped in the face of a person who was asking a legitimate question of Whitman.When he had a teachers meeting in Parsippany NJ he got into a confrontation with another person who was there.

Now that the heat is on him he showing how thin his skin is.

There is a qoute from a local paper which answers everything

It was a tricky trip to the Magic Kingdom
Published: Sunday, January 02, 2011, 1:02 AM
Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

Sorry Mr. Mulshine I can't resist.

"Well, if anyone’s got a photo of Christie in Mickey Mouse ears, he might as well just stay in Mendham from now on." LOL!!

A New years Resolution:

All should embrace the truth, along with it's principles and reject 'ignorance' of sound honest judgment, in order to propagate a blind ideology.

Both the believer in small limited government or big expansive government are corrupt, when they ignore basic principles and truth in order to push forward an agenda. The big government believer does not see a deficit, because they worship big government and seek ways to make it grow even bigger. If one's heart is pure the first questions should be: What can we afford? What must we cut? What must we keep? If these questions are never asked or there is no limit, then clearly big government has become our God. On the other hand, if one claims to be principled, believing in small limited government, yet want to cut entitlements only and ignore spending on military, then that person is a liar. The honest person sticks to principles, even if it goes against their ideology. The ideologue's top priority is the agenda. Truth is not a requirement but an after thought. Regardless of our belief, if we focus on the truth with an open mind, we will find it.

The problem I see with Christie is the same problem I see with so many of our leaders today, simply not leading by example. When those in authority don't lead by example, it creates a sense of entitlement, which is open for criticism.

The tough thing works when coupled with substance of point of view, it doesn't replace sorry or a real explanation of how the chain of command worked or may not have worked.

Mike Q: I believe that with that first post that you've left for us to ponder that there remains within you a heavy dose of "true" believer in the Good Lord, his teachings and his message.
Being opposed to organized religion and its charlatans does not make or preclude that one submit wholly toward the designation of calling oneself an atheist.
For obvious reasons of profit and control the commercialized variantions of Christianity have condemned those who have come to that knowledge and serenity independent of their strictured clutches and mind games.
GOD IS LOVE ....AND WE ARE ALL OF ONE FAMILY.

Happy New Year!!!

I work for a utility commission,which their employees are part of the states pension plan, but not considered a state employee. The commission provides benefits on their own, but yet we have to follow the states new policies paying the 1.5 percent towards our benefits. We haven't had a raise in a year and a half, and when we did get a raise it was only 2 percent. I am not complaining, just trying to paint a picture of what the governor is doing effects everyone. I agree with the Governor and what he is doing. It is long over due to clean house in this state, which is looked upon as one of the worse states in the country to work and live in. The double and triple dipping that has been going on in state government has put this state in the financial state that it is in. Christie may come off as a bully, but as long as he is working with both sides of government, I see nothing wrong with his methods. So no raises, paying for benefits, and possibly extending pension time and age. So I go out to dinner one time less a month, one less movie and watch my spending. small price to pay to help keep taxes down/stablized. If anything, lets learn from the mistakes our own federal government has made over the past 50 years.

"Is Christie's Tough Guy Routine Running Thin?"

Its not a routine, he is tough. He was a very affective and tough state prosecutor
that did exactly what he said he would do and now he uses the same approach as Governor. The majority of the people elected him because they know he will do what he says he will do.....cut spending, hold taxes at bay and cut the deficit.

John: Christ was remarkable. I appreciate His teachings deeply. As for this keeping me out the ranks of atheists, my understanding has been that my not believing in the deity of anyone or of deity itself gives me that designation. But I defer to your view.

Whoops, darned autofill put in my whole name instead of Mike Q.

Gov. Christie defends decision to stay in Florida during radio interviews
Published: Monday, January 03, 2011, 9:45 PM Updated: Tuesday, January 04, 2011, 5:24 AM
Ginger Gibson/Statehouse Bureau By Ginger Gibson/Statehouse Bureau

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