Being Thankful

For many years I have been thinking about family and what makes it. I have been thinking about the ties that bind, love, responsibility, forgiveness, and care. I love my siblings dearly because I know them intimately. I trust them. But is there something greater than trust which allows us to give of ourselves freely without recrimination or fear? While wisdom is the principle thing, love is its guide and it needs no history, just familiarity. We are one. Happy Thanksgiving. I love you.

Being a Police State

A Police State has one purpose: to protect the powerful. And there is only one reason to fear peaceful protestors: if the powerful are threatened.

Being Partisan

While we fight the not so good fight of partisan politics, those who are defending on the same side. How do we know these? We know them by the millions they receive as former congresspersons now consultants and lobbyists, and the apparent quid pro quo of present congresspersons exonerated by the body that governs itself. Newt Gingrich (R) served as a consultant for Freddie Mac receiving $1.6 million from this quasi-government agency marred in the subprime scandal. Kent Conrad (D), along with former senator Chris Dodd (D), were handling the negotiations for Country Wide while apparently receiving personal favors from this embattled institution. The Senate Ethics Committee saw no wrong doing. There is nothing new about any of this, but what is old is our ongoing fight of who's better when both parties have repeatedly failed us.

Being Inspired by Others

Being the People We Have Been Waiting For

While we need to draw attention to legislation that have made investment banks and corporations such as GE and AIG like commercial banks with depositors with the protection of the government that are themselves now too big to fail, why don’t communities do something about this? Commercial banks couldn’t survive without our deposits and investment banks couldn’t subsist without our investment. Goldman Sachs, for example, is heavily invested in cities throughout the country and many throughout the globe. We have to get creative and rebuild smaller thriving communities and essentially create the likes of Black Wall Street. But this time the segregation will be by choice. (Desegregation, by the way, helped to destroy the concentrated wealth of Black Wall Street.) We need to collectively segregate our capital and pool it in ways that will directly benefit the communities where we live. We are indeed the people we have been waiting for and in this regard it has nothing or little to do with elected officials and chief executive officers.

Being Healthy

"Let food be thy medicine."

--Hippocrates, ancient Greek physician (460-377 BC)

Being America

Happy 4th!