Government and those that govern, both in the States and in Washington just are not doing their jobs. There is no common sense, no personal responsibility, no financial accountability. There is no change, it is business as usual and shouts of “the sky is falling” everywhere you look. The right things must be done to solve our country’s issues before we become an also ran in the world. Every day the government is taking more from all of us in every way and giving nothing in return.

What are the highest priorities for our country? We need a constantly updated list and a logical, responsible plan to address those priorities. Congress’ daily disarray of poorly thought out, special interest oriented, cost is no object solutions don’t and will not work. They are media/special interest obsessed egotists who just don’t care about the American people let alone the unprecedented convergence of critical issues needing to be addressed.

It is sad to say in a way, that Will is right, we need to take care of ourselves and our own the best we can while looking to the horizon for the next opportunity. But at the same time, part of the bigger problems our country faces are a result of repeating past mistakes and not properly caring for and dealing with the growing number of our fellow human beings at the bottom of the pyramid. Haiti is the latest, because it happened to be news because of a tragedy (but let’s face it, Haiti has been there a long time and it has always been a disaster under our noses). But why does it take an earthquake or a tsunami, or a genocide to get everyone’s attention? The poor around the world are out there every day living under unbearable conditions, regardless of whether there is a natural disaster to trigger our attention. Somehow, I believe, we were not just meant to live our lives on this earth in a solitary fashion just to be “successful” according to someone’s definition of what that means. We are meant to be the best we can be in every way and reach our highest potential, while simultaneously sharing what we are and have with those less fortunate and less enlightened in order to uplift all of us.

The world we live in is our mirror of who we all are, both as individuals and as a society. We must all take that responsibility seriously because there is no denial. We create that world out there every day and we are the only ones who can change it for better or worse, it is our choice either way. We have hit the tipping point in way more areas than one could imagine – we really overdid it this time, in oh so many ways, and the sooner we all realize it and begin to swing things back to what made us great in the past, we will have to live with what we created. I for one just took my first step forward on a new path to a better future. Anyone else out there care to do the same? we sorely need you all.

Let’s take state socialism and compare it to state capitalism. They are mirror images, in a way. State socialism (primary textbook example: the defunct Soviet Union) conceptualized itself as being on a lower level of development than Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communism, and therefore did not do away with government; Bolshevik ideology imagined the dynamism of revolution embalmed in government for as long as necessary until supposedly reaching the goal of full Communism (“from each according to his ability; to each according to his need”). Therefore, in Soviet state socialism, people lived under the slogan “from each according to ability, to each according to work” because work was the motor of the ‘living revolution’ (government). Can anyone ‘smell’ the…(ahem) decay? Is state capitalism any different?

Let’s see: capitalism is all about people needing and wanting stuff (demand) and creating ways to provide stuff (supply), and this is done by the free flow of ideas, money and labor. This is the ideal, isn’t it? But instead, this ideal, inaugurated 230+ years ago by Adam Smith, could not be implemented whole-hog; those whose goods and services would be in high demand one moment would eventually not be in high demand, if free-flowing capitalism were the order of the day. The only way to somewhat preserve one’s advantage in the market would be by eliminating competition and establishing monopoly. So, the flow of demand and supply could no longer be free. Government either facilitated this arrangement by favoring businesses or stepped in to break up monopolies. Either way, government had to be involved, and which way it went depended on who was friends with whom, who was enemy of whom, and what mix of avarice and philanthropy was operative. And so it is today.

As William Penn wrote centuries ago in the Preface to the 1682 Frame of Government of Pennsylvania, “Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.”

So, yeah, ‘bigness’ as an aspect of complexity. It is the breakdown of ethics in a very complex economic environment and in a sold-out political climate. And because we are blind to it, and we don’t care so much about it, and we therefore idiotically keep it going, the problem is also us.

The populous is enraged, but you have to look long and hard for any evidence of this in the media. That is because the banking cartel, and the large corporations that have grown up around them, owns or control all the major media outlets. The information is extremely biased with an agenda of keeping the the status quo. If you listen only to the media, you would be left with the opinion that there are no realist alternatives.

There is a movement on captial hill to audit the fed. We should all support this so that for once we can see that what goes on behind the curtain is unconstitional and does not represent the interest of the citizens of this country. This is the last thing the fed wants and they are mighty. One of the few avenues of near term hope we have is to continue to express our outrage and support of this measure.