September '11 rains (raos)

love like breeze through leaves,

song of future longing,

autumn in the wind

 

 

 

The object is not in the doing, but the being. It is in developing ever deeper relationship with self, enjoying the jokes and music, being -- as that becomes.

 

 

 

don't worry over the work; feel the music

 

 

 

out on the interwebs, the cybercity

 

 

 

In this post-postmodern future, we can weave together knowledge from every source, be more resourceful.

 

 

 

Those who are avowedly anti-government, elected to destroy from within, are not going to put the necessary effort into making government function better for the common benefit.

 

 

 

Of course government spending grows the economy -- just as any spending does.  With the assumption that government is not just throwing money into the ocean, but is spending on useful projects, a variety of public good is created, aka wealth. 

 

If you start with the assumption that government is the problem, you are negating the possibility of using government sensibly as an organizing entity.  If the private sector were taking care of the people's business, providing needed infrastructure, safety net, job training, and so forth, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

There are goods and services best provided in the private market. There are goods and services best provided as public projects. All of the economic transactions, public and private, make up the overall economy. This doesn't have to be an either/or war of all against all. We could, you know, act like reasonable human beings and figure out how best to provide the benefits of civilization rather than get caught up in ideologies.

 

Government, along with private transactions are the economy.  The money does not come from the private sector, but from the US Treasury.  Government at its best is the backbone structure of public projects within which private enterprises can more successfully grow while providing for the overall good of market mechanics.  If government has become corrupt, that is just laziness all around.

 

The problem seems to be that neither government representatives nor private concerns are willing to take necessary risks to move forward.  Everyone wants to blame.  No one wants to be responsible.  No one wants to lead with both reason and vision.

 

Government literally creates the currency, and the system of laws, the infrastructure both physical and in values, on which the economy rests.  The private sector without some overarching system would only be barter of goods and services on a simple level.  Taxation, as it has come to be used, is not so much for revenue as for influencing economic activity.  Were we to have tax structure geared to revenue needs, it would most likely resemble some kind of flat tax whereby the costs of the national enterprise would be proportionately incurred by the public.

Yes, public/private partnerships are what make this country.  Government programs often are overly layered with outdated concerns and bureaucracies.  We could and should look to streamlining, creating a different paradigm for public/private projects that are open to scrutiny, clear in objective, and easily adjustable to changing needs, knowledge and abilities.  This will never be even looked into if the mantra is "government is bad".

 

 

 

Is it "moral decay"?  Or, is it, as that great poet Donald Rumsfeld might say, a transitional time of untidiness.  The world is changing in every way imaginable; and imagination falters in the wake.  People are, quite naturally, panicking, confused; the old order is no longer secure.  As people slowly readjust, hopefully wise leaders will show where the best possible futures can be built, help to create a new, more flexible order that is more suited to a new world.

 

 

 

Kindness can be an intuitive response to the wider survival benefit understanding of enlightened self-interest.  It is in our self-interest, for a variety of survival related and life enhancing reasons, to spread a kindness meme.

 

 

 

Why do those with nothing worth saying fill the air with hateful barbs cast at those offering thoughtful expression?
Why do folks project their so-called sins onto those they perceive as the opposition?
Why are they with nothing to say so loud?

 

 

 

Pushing kids into college as a lockstep after high school, unless they have a clear career requirement, is not the best course.  Better for most people to work for awhile, discover exactly what education they need for the next step, and how best to acquire it.

 

 

 

Perhaps better business models could be developed on ideas of small, local, community-based enterprises. I wonder why there doesn't seem to be broad-based leadership to promote unemployed workers coming together to pool their talents into worker-created businesses.

 

 

 

To feel like they are accomplishing something or at least occupied, people need better things to do than a great deal of destructive effort put out now in the name of "the economy". I love creative people's lack of such need. Creative people create, figure out how to get their "music" out even in crazily adverse circumstances. Perhaps what is needed is to bring out the creativity in everyone, rather than training so many to be so dependent on employers.

 

 

 

There is no keeping money out of politics. What we need to do is make it irrelevant.

 

 

 

Marriage is FOR people who want to marry. Apparently good marriages lead to greater health; bad marriages lead to horrible lives. Maybe we need better public conversations about marriage -- apart from trying to make it a divisive issue.

 

 

 

The problem with apocalyptic Christianity is that when one's purpose is to bring on the end of the world and God's Judgment, there is little to negative incentive to work to improve conditions in the here and now, or for the future.

 

There are Christian sects, some quite prominent at least in the US right now, whose avowed purpose (like the avowed purpose of some of their Congressional Reps. is to destroy the Obama presidency) is to end the world, bring the End Times of Revelations, asap. Of course, if their goal is an End to the Earth, they have no interest in making anything better. It seems to me that these people are mistaken when they accuse others of Satanism, because the God they worship is the God of Evil, Destruction, Death, and Despair. They have no interest in being loyal and good stewards of God's Creation. They feel entitled to destroy it.

 

But I think the real question is, why do so many people hate their lives so much that they prefer to live in dreams of ultimate destruction?