tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20047466390330354822024-02-07T04:43:19.084-05:00Life among the Ordinary ...-Michael D'AngeloMichael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-39937269863358538532018-05-27T18:00:00.000-04:002018-05-27T18:00:03.692-04:00“Happy Days” ... Or, The Other Side of the Coin (Part Two)<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Editor’s note: The
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2018/02/happy-days-and-other-side-of-coin-part.html"><span style="color: red;">first segment</span></a> of this multi-part series begins a discussion in part on how the place
of the black man is marginalized in the American experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. In
Part Two, that discussion continues.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Prior to the
Civil War, in the nostalgic era of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gone
With the Wind</i>, each Southern state has enacted a “slave code</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>slave code</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">,” which defines the slave owner’s power and
the slave’s status as the white man’s “property” --- and designed to control
the slave’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, the slave
code has been written and enacted by the same Southern white elite group which
has authored the Bill of Rights</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Bill of Rights</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, the slave code could be viewed, correctly, as the Bill of Rights,
only upside down!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the years before and after the
Civil War</span><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'><span style='mso-element:
field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Civil
War</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN" style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, with
the shadow of secession looming larger and larger over the national landscape, black
Christian churches are constructed exclusively in the South, since Southern
white churches refuse blacks from participation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://mtviewmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2619813_orig.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img alt="Image result for black codes" border="0" height="101" src="https://mtviewmirror.com/wp-content/uploads/2619813_orig.gif" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By the turn of
the 20<sup>th</sup> century, states have replaced the slave code with</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>so-called “black codes</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">” --- also known as “Jim Crow” laws --- to
legalize racial separation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">These laws have the
practical effect of restricting African Americans' freedom and compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. Although </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">free, blacks become the subject of the legalized segregation of the races,
“separate but equal” facilities, so the US Supreme Court</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>decides in 1896.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Legalized
segregation is meant to demonstrate once and for all the superiority of whites
over blacks as evidenced by a system of control of one race over the
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incredibly, even the simple act
of a black man whistling at a white woman, walking down a public street, is
deemed illegal in the South in this context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Black codes</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "black
codes" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are
enforced more strictly in and come to define the South, stifling its
economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Even so, a steady trickle of African
Americans choose to leave the South, primarily in search of jobs in northern
cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the public mood is still
such that when Theodore Roosevelt</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>extends
the first invitation to a black man, Booker T. Washington</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Washington, Booker T." </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, to a White House dinner, T.R. is publicly
lambasted for his troubles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is at a time when statistics show
that black lynchings in the South are still at a rate of approximately 100 per
year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That comes to a lynching every 3-4 days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://toughtalkdc.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/whites-only.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for whites only sign" border="0" height="192" src="https://toughtalkdc.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/whites-only.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By 1918, near the
end of World War I</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "World War
I" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, a “Great Migration</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Great Migration" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">” has led half a million southern African
American citizens north to the “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Land</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename w:st="on">Hope</st1:placename></st1:place>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But their hope is fleeting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Following World
War II in 1945</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "World War
II" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, President Harry Truman</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Truman, Harry" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>can
only watch with chagrin, as newly returning black veterans --- who have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">earned</i> the right to the same sort of
progress at home with their blood, too, spilled over the battlefields of Europe
--- are beaten mercilessly by their white overlords as soon as their feet have
left the transport vehicles and landed back on Southern soil.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The black man would be made to remember his place, such that by the end of World War II </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s greatest economic problem remains the South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not to be deterred, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">President Truman</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>desegregates the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> military in 1948, accepting the challenge to advance what is described as the “Double V” campaign</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As applied to African Americans, it is said to be a double victory over racism both in Europe’s Nazi Germany</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and at home in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Symbolically, Truman is the first president
to issue a formal invitation to the NAACP</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "NAACP" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People) to receive a White House address.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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By the early 1950s, <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">however, it is factually determined that f</span>or every $150.00 in
federal spending at “white schools,” only $50.00 is spent at their counterpart “black
schools.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, a<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">fter a stormy, 50+ year existence, the US
Supreme Court</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>US Supreme Court</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>finally
overrules legalized segregation in 1954, deciding that “When it comes to
opportunities in education, separate but equal is inherently unequal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Hailed as a
“Second Emancipation Proclamation</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Emancipation Proclamation</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">,” the Supreme Court’s decision overruling separate but equal
educational facilities and ordering the desegregation of the nation’s public
schools is one of the most significant decisions of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is rendered unanimously, 9-0
in favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nevertheless, President
Eisenhower, the former military General and hero of the World War II
battlefield, is</span><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "Eisenhower,
Dwight" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reluctant to throw his support behind the
ruling and embrace the landmark change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
president actually comes on record as saying the decision is a “mistake” and
“not a great moral issue.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The president
continues: “I don’t believe you can change the hearts of men with laws or
decision.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editor’s note: The third
and final segment of this multi-part series takes readers behind the impregnable
walls of the Senate filibuster in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> Congress to the present.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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-Michael D'Angelo</div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-31128032903852550502018-02-06T22:10:00.000-05:002018-05-29T08:50:03.458-04:00“Happy Days” ... Or, The Other Side of the Coin (Part One)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(Editor’s note: This is the first segment in a new multi-part
series. …)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span lang="EN">Ten years following the <i>Mayflower</i></span><!--[if supportFields]><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;
layout-grid-mode:both'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span></i><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'> XE "Mayflower, Compact" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'><span style='mso-element:
field-end'></span></span></i><![endif]--><span lang="EN">, a prominent landholder
named John Winthrop</span><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'> XE "</span><span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;
mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'>Winthrop, John</span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:
both'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN"> organizes what would become a
20,000 strong, great migration to <st1:place w:st="on">New England</st1:place>
by 1642. Before landing, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Winthrop</st1:city></st1:place> delivers a sermon
entitled “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which he asserts: “We must consider that we shall be as a City
upon a Hill</span><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'><span style='mso-element:
field-begin'></span></span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'> XE
"Hill, Anita" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:
both'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN">; the eyes of all people are upon us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Does today’s <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> seem like a City upon a
Hill, as the metaphor suggests? Or is <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> more
like a </span>gated community trying to
divert its eyes from those in need?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The historical
context is sobering. Over a period of
350 years, some 10 million blacks would be transported to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Americas</st1:country-region>. This fact stands as a testament to the
greatest forced migration of a people against their will in the history of
Western Civilization. <span lang="EN">Consider</span> that when Thomas
Jefferson<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "Jefferson, Thomas" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> wrote
the Declaration of Independence<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Declaration of Independence" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, nearly 50% of the inhabitants of his home
state of <st1:state w:st="on">Virginia</st1:state>,
fully <span lang="EN">500,000, </span>were
African American. Yet, the
interpretation of his political writings in those days seem to ignore that
particular demographic reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A recent film
depicts <st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state>’s crossing of the <st1:state w:st="on">Delaware</st1:state> on Christmas
night of 1776 and the ensuing Battle of Trenton. The film and the valiant struggle it
represents are emotionally moving, but the eerie feeling about this version of
history is that there are no blacks in it.
No black civilians, no black soldiers, no black slaves or body servants
--- just white people bravely and busily creating a new nation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpD216zeUDZ30fBq1WEM4yIwSsMuxgstXgiTnhn78BxKNFRF6Fp29K8YrUJplESmI_4oYcLa68PhUpeminsdn0X9ypyNjXcflShIbI1qumW1bLMroMhiW5lLJcxyYw0IfUObb09JKAzQ9k/s1600/gty_happy_days_cast_wy_140115_ssv%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpD216zeUDZ30fBq1WEM4yIwSsMuxgstXgiTnhn78BxKNFRF6Fp29K8YrUJplESmI_4oYcLa68PhUpeminsdn0X9ypyNjXcflShIbI1qumW1bLMroMhiW5lLJcxyYw0IfUObb09JKAzQ9k/s320/gty_happy_days_cast_wy_140115_ssv%255B1%255D.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The cast of Happy Days!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Similarly, the
popular TV show, <i><span lang="EN">Happy
Days</span></i><span lang="EN">, depicting life in the good old days of the 1950s,
also has no black characters. The “other
side of the coin” is not be depicted, almost as if it doesn’t exist. Perhaps, it is wishful thinking. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Indeed, <st1:place w:st="on">Jefferson</st1:place>’<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Jefferson, Thomas" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->s own writing indicates that his earliest
memory is of being carried on a pillow by one slave riding on horseback to the
day he’s lowered into the earth in a coffin made by another. Yet, he finds it impossible in his domestic
culture to effectively denounce, let alone attempt to eradicate, the
institution of slavery, in a life cushioned by the subjugation of others.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In 1807 the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> legally
abolishes the slave trade, which only seems to make slave “breeding” more
desirable and profitable to their white overlords. In the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century, the
question lingers on what to do with the <span lang="EN">African American </span>slaves, if freed.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many in the
South favor a mandate to simply send them back to <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>. <span lang="EN">The nation of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Liberia</st1:country-region></span><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:
both'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'> XE "</span><span lang=EN
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:both'>Liberia</span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN;layout-grid-mode:
both'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN"> in western <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>
is founded, but only for those who wish to return to a part of their ancestral
homeland. But t</span>he plan is scuttled, when it becomes
understood that <span lang="EN">African Americans like it here,
too, and aren’t going anywhere again, involuntarily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Yet following the </span>conclusion of Civil War<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Civil War" </span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> hostilities <span style="font-size: 12pt;">through the Reconstruction
Era</span>, Frederick Douglass, perhaps the most famous black abolitionist,
notes in 1882 that the <span lang="EN">newly freed slave “was</span> free from the individual master<span lang="EN"> but a slave to society. He had
neither money, property nor friends.”</span><br />
<br />
One may be
assured that a man who is guaranteed the right to “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness” after toiling away, displaced for hundreds of years as
free labor --- possessing neither money, property, nor friends --- faces a
stark reality indeed.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>(Editor’s note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2018/05/happy-days-or-other-side-of-coin-part.html"><span style="color: red;">second segment</span></a> of this multi-part series continues this survey from the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century to the two World Wars to the turbulence of mid-century.)</i></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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<br />
-Michael D'Angelo</div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-32125576749272485492017-12-27T19:43:00.000-05:002018-04-10T09:49:25.251-04:00Restoring Balance And Harmony (Part Five)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(Editor’s note: Should a lawmaker be permitted the right to
serve indefinitely, for unlimited term or duration, in many instances for life?
The final segment </i><i>--- Part Five --- </i><i>in this multi-part
series on <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/04/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-one.html"><span style="color: red;">Restoring Balance And Harmony</span></a> addresses the back
end of the legislator’s term of service. </i><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN">The
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/08/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-three.html"><span style="color: red;">solution</span></a> for reversing the greatest concentration of wealth disparity in
American History is no simple task, targeting reform of the legislative branch at three critical junctures:
<i>first</i>, before the legislator is
elected; <i>second</i>, while the legislator
is serving; and <i>third</i>, on the back
end of the legislator’s term of service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN">The
solution’s first component calls for the abolition of gerrymandered districts,
the second for an end to the filibuster custom.
</span>This final segment brings us to the third and final component.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhfLO8EXT2MEmktKq6PCZBmVHmCJDRZOXM0-JZk7f8pvTuKhBsVqp6sL5Wf6yLPRjU-Ld9EWsBkQX3wT1wNgvmijFncsD7G1T0kAlqZzmqYNUfy_YnxuckuWiQz1Xx1tdrTK_7XfpLsHi/s1600/01c081eeeb8c4cbcb1ff8baf683d6051%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="451" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhfLO8EXT2MEmktKq6PCZBmVHmCJDRZOXM0-JZk7f8pvTuKhBsVqp6sL5Wf6yLPRjU-Ld9EWsBkQX3wT1wNgvmijFncsD7G1T0kAlqZzmqYNUfy_YnxuckuWiQz1Xx1tdrTK_7XfpLsHi/s320/01c081eeeb8c4cbcb1ff8baf683d6051%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a><i><span lang="EN">Third</span></i><span lang="EN">, on the back end of legislative service, </span>George Washington<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on"><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Washington</span></st1:State></st1:place><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>, George</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]-->’s precedent of <i>executive</i> term limit<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "Term limits" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> must be extended on a constitutional basis to
the<i> legislative</i> branch.<br />
<br />
If lawmakers are made to understand that they
are out of office after a time certain --- returned to private life with
strict, transparent<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "Transparency, corporate social responsibility" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> limitations on future economic dealings at
government expense --- they will possess little incentive but to act
conscientiously in the affairs of the people.
Their perpetual concern about re-election as a distracting self-interest
proposition and corruptive force will have been effectively removed.</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, a
limitation of twelve (12) years in elected office is suggested as a flexible
starting point for discussion. Those who
come to view their place in the federal government as a hereditary or
privileged entitlement will be removed by the regular operation of law, <span lang="EN">so that fresh, new, ordinary blood can
renew the people’s fight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Theodore Roosevelt<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> did not believe</div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">that any man should ever
attempt to make politics his whole career.
It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole
livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of
real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the
heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding
office. A man should have some other
occupation … to which he can resort if at any time he is thrown out of office,
or if at any time he finds it necessary to choose a course which will probably
result in his being thrown out, unless he is willing to stay in at cost to his
conscience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Steering this proposal into law will serve to render a
legislative seat more responsive to the will and strengthened vote of the
ordinary citizen and not to concentrated economic power. Consequently, lawmakers will regain their
rightful place as the <i>impartial</i>
umpire<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE
"<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>umpire</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> in the affairs of the people’s business set on
a level playing field.</div>
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<span lang="EN">This
proposal does, however, contain one catch.
And it is a major catch.
Unfortunately, lawmakers cannot reasonably be expected to legislate away
in regular session privileges they have devised, perfected and come to expect
and enjoy for themselves by tradition over the course of more than two
centuries. This is to be anticipated in
the context of human nature’s important lesson --- that </span><span lang="EN">reasonable people will act
reasonably in their own best interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">To implement change for the greater good, we must provide
favorable conditions without </span>the
constraints of today’s competing, partisan ideologies. <span lang="EN">It is apparent that these reforms</span><span lang="EN"> simply cannot be accomplished, therefore,
absent a national constitutional convention</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN style='mso-ansi-language:EN'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span lang=EN style='mso-ansi-language:EN'>Constitutional convention</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN style='mso-ansi-language:EN'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN"> called
specifically for this purpose. Delegates
to the convention must be pledged solely to the great unfinished business of
the nation, not to partisan, special or self-interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Herein lies the problem. Does the
ordinary citizen possess the courage to meet this challenge?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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-Michael D’Angelo</div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-84595565023411834032017-10-19T18:00:00.000-04:002017-12-27T19:44:30.200-05:00Restoring Balance And Harmony (Part Four)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>(Editor's note: Our multi-part series on Restoring Balance And Harmony traces in part how we have arrived at the greatest concentration</i><i> of wealth disparity in American History --- and constructs a practical solution. The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/08/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-three.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">previous segment</span></a> </i><i>discusses the solution's first component. Part Four presented here highlights the solution's second component.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">As we have seen, the founding fathers entrust the </span>legislative branch <span style="text-align: justify;">of
government as <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-umpire.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">umpire</span></a> with the important if not unenviable task of steering the nation’s
ship by making laws to promote the general welfare of its people as a whole.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Not surprisingly then, the solution for
ameliorating the greatest concentration of wealth disparity in American History
targets reform at the level of the legislative branch.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Specific
reform addresses the legislative process at three critical junctures: </span><i style="text-align: justify;">first</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, before the legislator is elected;
</span><i style="text-align: justify;">second</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, while the legislator is
serving; and </span><i style="text-align: justify;">third</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, on the back end
of the legislator’s term of service.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">The </span><i style="text-align: justify;">first</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> critical stress point --- prior to
the legislator’s election --- is the subject of the solution’s first
component.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Specifically, the elimination
of gerrymandered legislative districts is discussed in the previous segment.</span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;">The <i>second
</i>critical stress point concerns proceedings while the legislator is in office. Consequently, the solution’s second component addresses the
lawmaker’s seat, once serving.
That seat must be restored to a </span><span style="text-align: justify;">position of public trust</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"> from the anomaly of a fully evolved individual prize</span><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">A</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"> place of profit must be restored to a
post of honour</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"> ---
meaning a post of <i>service</i> --- as
originally designed.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">How can
this best be accomplished?</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">We can start
by <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-purchase-system.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">denying the lawmaker </span></a></span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-purchase-system.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">any </span></a></i><span style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-purchase-system.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">privilege</span></a>
which is not the right of every citizen --- in a broad range of issues from
working conditions to compensation to health care to retirement.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">A lawmaker must be barred from voting on any
proposed legislation which may affect his or her family members
personally.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Special interest perks must
be eliminated by use of a bright line.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">This component will provide more than enough
incentive, urgency and assurance that any disparity which needs fixing will be
fixed.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">The US Congress must no longer be
maintained, nor should any legislative body, as an exclusive, closed door
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-establishment-paradise-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">establishment paradise</span></a> for its members.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Additionally, how can we best accomplish the goal of
redirecting lawmakers to conduct the people’s business, instead of just
stalling?</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">This great question requires
an analysis of the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/harnessing-properties-of-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">function</span></a> of the two branches in the legislative scheme.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">On the one hand, the House of Representatives by its
populist design stokes the passions of the masses.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">It is the place where the great issues are
designed to be bantered about openly.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">On
the other hand, the Senate is designed by use of calm deliberation to cool the
passions of the House of Representatives, as by analogy boiling hot tea is
cooled by transfer from teapot to cup and saucer. </span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="text-align: justify;" title="">[i]</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1vNZUg7NboGAkjTPYz_L1vEWlJYsi0ljFKxGfz8hwQND1H9KJKty_r1HIp5BnIQ_qhuTMdtUMV7NKL1Dea4bv3B89mTyL7kbsho8R292CWSlpc1gDyHmm2oYoVbtDWtqXFBtykwpnbli/s1600/1_123125_123102_2111732_2117013_050420_cb_fillibuster_tn.jpg.CROP.original-original%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="205" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1vNZUg7NboGAkjTPYz_L1vEWlJYsi0ljFKxGfz8hwQND1H9KJKty_r1HIp5BnIQ_qhuTMdtUMV7NKL1Dea4bv3B89mTyL7kbsho8R292CWSlpc1gDyHmm2oYoVbtDWtqXFBtykwpnbli/s320/1_123125_123102_2111732_2117013_050420_cb_fillibuster_tn.jpg.CROP.original-original%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: justify;">The Senate is not designed to be a wall.</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">But enacted since the time of the founding fathers,
the <i>filibuster</i></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><i> </i></span><span style="text-align: justify;">has added an “unconstitutional dimension” to
the legislative process. </span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Through the
filibuster</span><span style="text-align: justify;">, a senator can talk
indefinitely relative to a proposed measure to keep it from ever coming to a
vote, thereby hijacking the very heart of the legislative process. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">The filibuster</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">has been described as a peculiar institution
responsible in large part for Congress’ failures, “purely and simply an
undemocratic technique to permit rule by a minority.”</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">It has delayed --- for decades in certain
instances --- passage of social legislation by the House and desired by a
majority of Americans. </span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="text-align: justify;" title="">[ii]</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">The technique serves to transform the Senate from a
moderating force into an impregnable barrier, blocking the rising demand for
social justice. </span><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: justify;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></span></a> </span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">The result effectively transforms a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-traffic-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">designed cooling period</span></a> into a protracted ice age.</span><span style="text-align: justify;">
</span><span style="text-align: justify;">This is not how the founding fathers have intend</span>ed the <span style="text-align: justify;">Senate to function. </span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Consequently, its unrestricted use must be abolished.</span><br />
<br />
<i style="text-align: justify;">(Editor’s
note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/12/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-five.html"><span style="color: red;">fifth and final segment</span></a> in this
multi-part series on Restoring Balance And Harmony addresses
the solution’s third component --- on the back end of the legislator’s term of
service. Should a lawmaker be permitted the
right to serve indefinitely, for unlimited term or duration, in many instances
for life?)</i></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">-Michael D’Angelo</span><br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<br />
<hr size="1" style="text-align: left;" width="33%" />
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<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Caro, <u>Master
of the Senate, supra</u>, at p. 9.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><u>Id.</u></st1:state></st1:place>, at p. 385,
446.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The quote is attributed to the
liberal <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place>
Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey<!--[if supportFields]><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Humphrey, Hubert H.</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, Jr., D-MN, upon his election to the Senate in
1948. Humphrey would later serve as Vice
President during Lyndon Johnson<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Johnson, Lyndon</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s administration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Balance%20And%20Harmony.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on"><u>Id.</u></st1:state></st1:place>, at p. 83,
92, 105.</span></div>
</div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-89422066409028868022017-08-22T18:00:00.000-04:002018-06-07T16:39:00.823-04:00Restoring Balance And Harmony (Part Three)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(Editor’s note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/06/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">second segment</span></a> of this multi-part series traces in part how we arrived at
the greatest concentration of wealth disparity in American History. In Part Three,
we begin to construct a practical solution.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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How do we restore meaningful equality of opportunity<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "E<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality
of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> --- identified by Theodore Roosevelt as the
third great crisis in our nation’s history? Consider that the power to do so derives in
the place from which all legitimate power originates in a democracy --- <i>from</i> the ballot box.</div>
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The solution is at the ballot box. It involves <i>strengthening</i> the ordinary citizen’s vote to elect lawmakers accountable
to the public interest. Strengthened and
unshackled, the ordinary citizen’s vote is
bound to improve equality of opportunity<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "E<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality
of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> over
time.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The solution accepts the plain reality that the
omnipresent “influence”<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span>
XE "<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>\</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'>“influence</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>\</span><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>” (Thomas Jefferson)</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> which Thomas Jefferson first <!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Jefferson,
Thomas</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:
field-end'></span><![endif]--> identified
cannot and should not be eliminated. It
can, however --- and must be --- reasonably checked.</div>
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<span lang="EN">T</span>his
can be accomplished by insulating
lawmakers from the pressures and corruptive influences of special interests in today’s
money-craving, material society. If the
incentive for self-interest is effectively contained, chances are much improved
that lawmakers will serve the people’s business, for they will be left with
little choice. The very idea of service
can be made to mean service --- and only service --- once again.</div>
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<span lang="EN">The good
news is that implementing a</span>
sound, practical solution<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Practical solution</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> is not
complicated. It also appears to be readily
available. Consider the following
proposal, which contains three components, the first of which is discussed in
this segment.<span lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">The </span><i><span lang="EN">first</span></i><span lang="EN"> component is tied to the front end of legislative
service. Our democratic system is
designed for voters to choose their legislators at the ballot box. But lawmakers have long chosen their voters in a self-serving custom by drawing arbitrary, movable lines around voting districts to make them </span>“<span lang="EN">safe</span>”<span lang="EN"> from </span><span lang="EN">challenge by the other side. It</span>’<span lang="EN">s opposite </span><span lang="EN">the way it’s supposed to work in a representative democracy and
therefore must be abolished. <a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Harmony%20and%20Balance.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small;">[i]</span></span></span></a></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Harmony%20and%20Balance.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
</div>
</div>
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By way of
example, in the 2012 midterm elections, Democrats receive over 1.4 million more votes for the US House of Representatives than Republicans. Yet Republicans win control of the House by a
margin of 234 to 201 <a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Harmony%20and%20Balance.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a>, using
their distorted majority to frustrate the popular will on a range of important
issues. This is not democracy, certainly
not the way the founding fathers have envisioned it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhlwH9unE1VllVKXOWORh1795AR9O_7Dd2Ybp83jfw03IU8MwbgLqXNweRdYpP4XLiPixAFWxTMoaw2JRwnsUvh2C3jSru5TbgsgqGPIgaSTeaLFonG6mHUoZKC9wEa08ZwcO4P5zifP0FGGkk6I2k57XKNM6iTR7kCOs4Ywwut2yszDq1L8byrwabbU_8k=" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.capoliticalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/redistricting1.jpg" height="313" width="400" /></a><span lang="EN">To be fair,
Democrats have reaped the benefit of this unfair and imbalanced system for
decades prior. The reality is that both
parties are culpable. Both share blame equally. The system has evolved such that in the 2014
Congressional midterm elections, relatively few incumbents actually face
realistic challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">The drawing
of legislative districts so tightly in their favor to suit the pleasure of each
party’s ideological base serves two efficient but self-serving, undemocratic
ends. First, the possibility of ouster
is seen as being remote. Second, the
incentive for compromise</span><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN
style='mso-ansi-language:EN'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Compromise, principle of</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN style='mso-ansi-language:EN'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN"> in crafting
national legislation is greatly reduced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Put another
way, primary candidates must pander to their party’s extremist elements. To the frustration of the ordinary citizen,
and the mainstream at the center line, the concept of partisan gridlock
results. And so it goes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Moreover, Republicans in this instance now seek to extend
and advance this system of cherry picking constituents to the presidential
electoral college. The scheme, initiated so that the loser of the popular vote could more easily win
key states and the presidency, is an undesirable threat to representative
democracy and must be strongly resisted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i>(Editor’s note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/10/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-four.html"><span style="color: red;">fourth segment</span></a> in this continuing multi-part
series highlights the solution’s second
component.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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-Michael D’Angelo<span lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Harmony%20and%20Balance.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span><!--[endif]--></span></a> On the federal
level, the practice is popularly known as “gerrymandering,” or <span lang="EN">setting electoral
districts that attempt to establish a party’s political advantage by
manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan advantaged
districts. The practice </span>dates back to the early 1800s and was named for
Elbridge Gerry<!--[if supportFields]><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Gerry</span>, Elbridge" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Massachusetts</st1:state></st1:place>
governor who resorted to the practice by signing a bill that redistricted the
state to aid his party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<a href="file://pc-office/m&j/Documents/MDD%20Ofc/Life%20among%20the%20Ordinary/Blog%20Archive/Blog%20111-115.Restoring%20Harmony%20and%20Balance.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="font-size: small;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Wang, Sam,
“The Great Gerrymander of 2012,” <i>The New
York Times</i>, February 2, 2013. ... </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">For an analysis of how voting
districts are being made more “safe, lily-white” as the nation is becoming more
racially diverse, see Friedman, Thomas L., “Our Democracy Is At Stake,” </span><i style="font-size: small;">The New York Times</i><span style="font-size: x-small;">, October 1, 2013.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.capoliticalreview.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F09%2Fredistricting1.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhlwH9unE1VllVKXOWORh1795AR9O_7Dd2Ybp83jfw03IU8MwbgLqXNweRdYpP4XLiPixAFWxTMoaw2JRwnsUvh2C3jSru5TbgsgqGPIgaSTeaLFonG6mHUoZKC9wEa08ZwcO4P5zifP0FGGkk6I2k57XKNM6iTR7kCOs4Ywwut2yszDq1L8byrwabbU_8k=" -->Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-79755150883181530502017-06-26T18:00:00.000-04:002017-08-22T20:48:47.380-04:00Restoring Balance And Harmony (Part Two)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(Editor’s note: The
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/04/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">first segment</span></a> of this multi-part series discusses in part how we arrived at the
greatest concentration of wealth disparity in American History. In Part Two, that
discussion continues.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Popular
government devolves to the national level as the arbiter of important questions
due to no particular virtue of the federal system. However, a unique benefit of local government
is that mistakes typically do not imperil national security. This enables local governments to act as
crucibles of experimental democracy.
With local grassroots support, the most successful of these experiments
can serve as a model for federal reform.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But national lawmakers, in particular, seem to be
crying out for help with the difficult task of legislating transparently in the
public interest. The finger may
rightfully be pointed at the corruptive forces of money, used to prostrate
honorable public servants from acting in the public interest. Special interests for private gain have
effectively accomplished this through the transformation of legislative office
from a position of public trust to an <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-establishment-paradise-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">individual prize</span></a>. It is said that the main role of a legislator
these days is solely to insulate corporations from complying with the
laws. Society’s unrest naturally
follows.</div>
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Meanwhile, a coefficient of legislative inertia and
weakness is to some extent the expansion of executive and judicial power, which
is compelled to fill the void. Left to
their own devices, these complimentary branches in a system of checks and balances
sometimes overreach into the legislative sphere, throwing the separation of
powers into harmful imbalance.
Allegations of imperial presidency as to one branch and judicial
activism as to the other foster mutual mistrust, distracting from the primary
mission<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE
"E<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]-->.</div>
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It has taken a significant amount of time --- and
stealth --- to amass a record level of wealth concentration. Corruption<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'>Compromise, principle of</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> of the legislative “umpire”<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'>umpire</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--> has
carved out a chasm which appears to be morally indefensible. <span lang="EN">This confounds the quest to complete our great unfinished business, which
calls upon our economic system to provide a fair shot for the many</span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvfXHlZJlNhyphenhyphenX3rtc4bCogYVRle7eKcxZvpXnOHN3nImjJj88Ex9J5fcXuyvjq8ick0mt6_2Jof2DN2sTqjGv49DZI-xbghyjnUqf3zwZe06iRYRPnNAqSqFnvJ7EDoLJAWjMg4Z4_K0E/s1600/ca057a7b167905384da4650c24e096fc--the-rich-the-americans%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="490" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmvfXHlZJlNhyphenhyphenX3rtc4bCogYVRle7eKcxZvpXnOHN3nImjJj88Ex9J5fcXuyvjq8ick0mt6_2Jof2DN2sTqjGv49DZI-xbghyjnUqf3zwZe06iRYRPnNAqSqFnvJ7EDoLJAWjMg4Z4_K0E/s400/ca057a7b167905384da4650c24e096fc--the-rich-the-americans%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a>As applied to its lawmaking body, <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> simply
has been unable to come to grips with the self-interest component of
concentrated economic power on the human condition. Put another way, what has Congress, the legislative branch, done to
ameliorate wealth disparity and insure a level playing field? If the answer is “nothing,” then it becomes
compelling that something has to change. Consider it a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/08/when-moral-issue-is-secondary-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">moral issue which can no longer be secondary</span></a>.<br />
<span style="text-align: right;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: right;">But no matter how diligently we strive to create a more perfect union, collecting things and changing money remain the great motivation which obscures life’s true purpose. Sideshows in the political process have a tendency to swallow substance, reducing important questions to a partisan, smallness debate on the proper size of government --- not on whether government actually works.</span><br />
<br />
At the same time, entrenched status quo interests spread dollars around systematically, muddying the water so that change becomes all but impossible. To check this, we must move beyond a traditional analysis affixed to economic cycles of boom and bust, war and peace. To progress meaningfully from one stage to the next in an upward course, we must aim higher.<br />
<br />
Then <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-would-washington-do.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">how best</span></a> to do this? One might say, “If the lawmakers don’t perform, throw them out and replace them at the next election with those who will perform.” If only apportioning equality of opportunity more equitably under the law were to be so easy. Those monopolizing opportunity would never agree to change the myriad of laws necessary to do so. And the monopolizers have sufficient power to ensure that these laws would never be changed. Therefore, it is folly to attempt changing these laws through present means.<br />
<br />
Rather, the way to end the indignities is to unleash
the ordinary citizen’s power to put them to an end. That power comes <i>from</i> the ballot box. Consequently, if the
ordinary citizen’s vote to elect lawmakers accountable to the public interest
is <i>strengthened</i>, the ordinary citizen
will then be liberated to do the rest himself. Do this and equality of
opportunity is bound
to improve over time.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN">How then can the </span>ordinary citizen’s vote be strengthened
to <span lang="EN">reasonably
check the self-interest component of the federal lawmaker? How can the ordinary citizen participate more
effectively in the management of his and her government? </span>Put another way, <span lang="EN">since concentrated economic power rules, </span>how
can we limit big money in politics? <span lang="EN">How
can we re-direct emphasis away from </span>the traditional measure of American
success on a strictly material basis, moving the ancient principle of service back
to the political center?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>(Editor’s note: Do not despair! The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/08/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-three.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">third segment</span></a> in this continuing
multi-part series considers some practical solutions. Yes, we can do this!)</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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-Michael D'Angelo</div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-970695036826996652017-04-25T18:00:00.000-04:002017-06-26T18:43:52.606-04:00Restoring Balance And Harmony (Part One)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i>(Editor’s note: This is the first segment in a new multi-part
series which begins here today. …)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The Founding Fathers’ <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/harnessing-properties-of-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">plan</span></a> for the new central government is nearly
flawless. The power of the government derives
from the people and is distributed to three equal but independent authorities. The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-umpire.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">legislative branch</span></a> is to make the nation’s
laws. The executive enforces them. And the judiciary interprets their
legality. By a system of checks and balances,
each authority a check on one or both of the others, a separation of powers virtually
ensures that no one individual citizen or branch can amass inordinate status.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/08/when-moral-issue-is-secondary-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">thorny political issues</span></a> which simply cannot be foreseen will arise
in the future. But the US Constitution is
a remarkably flexible undertaking. It is
said to be a living, breathing, organic document that is built to stand the
tests of time that have befallen the noblest efforts of bygone eras. And despite the predictions of European cynics
who consistently predict its demise, the great <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/president-washingtons-dilemma.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">American experiment</span></a> in democracy
now well into its third century remains a remarkable <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/01/hamiltons-liberty-and-pursuit-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">success</span></a> by any reasonable
measure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But with praise aside, 21<sup>st</sup> century <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> society is not akin to utopia
on earth. Ordinary citizens complain
through hardened experience that what was once a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/opportunity-to-plan-americas-future.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">land of opportunity</span></a> is now
hardly recognizable as such. While
excuses abound, <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/02/elizabeth-warren-game-is-rigged.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">explanations</span></a> are not simple.
At present, wealth concentration in the hands of the <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/swimming-in-river-of-wealth-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">privi</span></a><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/swimming-in-river-of-wealth-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">leged</span></a> </span><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/swimming-in-river-of-wealth-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">few</span></a> is
at a higher point than at any time in our nation’s history. <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/unnatural-alliance-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Wealth concentration</span></a> and <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/09/pope-francis-unfettered-capitalism-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">monopolistic ten</span></a><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/09/pope-francis-unfettered-capitalism-is.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">dencies</span></a> do foreclose opportunity.</div>
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<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/07/swimming-in-river-of-wealth-part-one.html" target="_blank"></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5aXTwMiovElUO-b9rmn43a2aKp1y21J6pV_YEdgZCV1kk-0Jbbo3nghqqFtm8jjgH8dE42_VCTfa1dQ7Wif0dv4GP709XcVpAhxeZ3xo8OUL_pa46nB9sodQ7XAfuzT6DgD7XvUNt1pc/s1600/US-Land-Wealth%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5aXTwMiovElUO-b9rmn43a2aKp1y21J6pV_YEdgZCV1kk-0Jbbo3nghqqFtm8jjgH8dE42_VCTfa1dQ7Wif0dv4GP709XcVpAhxeZ3xo8OUL_pa46nB9sodQ7XAfuzT6DgD7XvUNt1pc/s320/US-Land-Wealth%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a>The numbers tell a chilling story.
The 400 richest Americans today possess more wealth than the bottom half
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
population (150+ million) combined. This
primary economic factor is <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">morally indefensible</span></a>. It is apparent that our economic system is
failing to provide a fair shot for the many, confounding us from completing <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/10/our-great-unfinished-business.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">our great unfinished business</span></a>. As a
result, American society is plagued with unrest, imbalance and disharmony.</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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How did we arrive here is a key question.
And <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">can it be fixed</span></a>? In order to
answer these questions fully, we must trace the root cause of society’s unrest to
the beginning. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the Founding Fathers’ vision, the three branches of government are created
equal. But in reality each branch is hardly
considered to be on an equal footing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Founding Fathers’ familiarity with the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-purchase-system.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">British parliamentary system</span></a> places
the legislative branch at the helm of the ship, setting the national course. Indeed, the Founding Fathers design a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/06/steer-or-drift-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">sophisticated steering mechanism</span></a>, meant to be operated by the legislative authority, or
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-congressmans-mystique.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Congress</span></a>. Execution of the plan depends
upon Congress to steer the ship by the making of laws for the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/tr-and-noblesse-oblige-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">public good</span></a> in
its sole and ultimate discretion.<o:p></o:p></div>
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By contrast, the executive branch is viewed as little more than a puppet
of Congress, although George Washington places a distinctive stamp on the
office. In reality, the power of the so
called President is virtually non-existent. The executive acts merely as a
rubber stamp of the proposed legislation passed on to it by Congress. The executive “veto” power provided for in
the Constitution dare not be exercised.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And as for the poor judiciary branch, nobody really seems to know, or
care, what the proper function of that branch is actually supposed to be. Considered the weakest of the three branches,
the authority of the judiciary to interpret the Constitution is not yet
clear. Exactly zero cases are decided by
the US Supreme Court in its first 18 months of its existence. So lightly is the Court regarded and slight its
prestige that when the government moves from <st1:city w:st="on">Philadelphia</st1:city>
to its new home in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Washington</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">DC</st1:state></st1:place> in 1800, no provision is made
for it to be housed. Neither is money
provided nor plans drawn up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Andrew Jackson later <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-politics-of-extortion.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">changes</span></a> the conception of the executive branch in a
high profile manner, putting the executive on an equal footing with Congress. Similarly, John Marshall defines the judicial
branch, establishing itself as the arbiter of constitutional authority and
affirming the Constitution as an instrument of the people. Under <st1:city w:st="on">Marshall</st1:city>’s
leadership, the Court is molded into a major force. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As the power and stature of the executive and judiciary authorities
increase over time, the legislative branch, in turn, begins a slow yet precipitous decline. <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-establishment-paradise-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Ominous warnings</span></a> sounded by such distinguished
citizens as Benjamin Franklin go unheeded.
And so the wounds to the legislative authority are largely
self-inflicted, in a decline that can be foreseen. As a result, the ship’s steering mechanism is damaged and fractured, with <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-senators-son.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">no accountable authority</span></a></span> setting
navigational direction. <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-baltimore-riots-and-kerner-report.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Disharmony</span></a> becomes
the rule.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/06/restoring-balance-and-harmony-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">second segment</span></a> we <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/06/progress-in-pursuit-of-happiness.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">identify</span></a> and begin to analyze the specific causes of
legislative decline which lie at the heart of early 21<sup>st</sup> century
unrest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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-Michael D’Angelo</div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-53051731189522746002017-02-28T18:00:00.000-05:002017-04-13T11:21:26.137-04:00A Blueprint for America's Future (Part Four)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editor's note: This is the final segment in our four part series under title of A Blueprint for America's Future. The prior segment <span style="color: red;">(part three)<span style="color: black;"> highlights </span></span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">psychic</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> interlude which interrupts the weeks leading up to the 1912</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">general election.</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> ...)</span></span></span></span></i> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>delivers a final speech in New York City in the days before the general
election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Occasionally he attempts to
raise his right arm, then winces and drops it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The pain is intense from the wound as a result of the recent
assassination attempt. Nevertheless, T.R. rises to a memorable occasion:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Friends, perhaps once in a
generation, perhaps not so often, there comes a chance for a people of a
country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the
age-long warfare for human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">doctrines</span></a></span> we preach reach back to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the
Mount.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They reached back to the
commandments delivered at Sinai.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
that we are doing is to apply those doctrines in the shape necessary to make
them available for meeting the living issue of our own day.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""></a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxgDJpTX1SyNZUGXLYHDlp7tUzo-5EjvmQjubAUV1in9KzKfnV8E3wWmUXvazSqnf33FuohAxDJ2tQmJKInCeufAHpHgWpeaL_LC8-Hpdi-omQCex6tBFnhI9vUoFjE4St-5BMRayzAus/s1600/History_TR_Succeeds_to_Presidency_rev_SF_HD_1104x622-16x9%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxgDJpTX1SyNZUGXLYHDlp7tUzo-5EjvmQjubAUV1in9KzKfnV8E3wWmUXvazSqnf33FuohAxDJ2tQmJKInCeufAHpHgWpeaL_LC8-Hpdi-omQCex6tBFnhI9vUoFjE4St-5BMRayzAus/s320/History_TR_Succeeds_to_Presidency_rev_SF_HD_1104x622-16x9%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The end result might
have been a nation of individuals, cooperating intelligently instead of
competing recklessly, with the requisite character to understand duty --- a
democratic society that could reach new heights in both moral and material progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is not meant to be.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the ensuing
national general election, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, now the political third party outsider on
the Republican left, actually outpolls the incumbent president (Mr. Taft) on
the Republican right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is to be
little consolation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Republican Party
vote is thereby split.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The election is
thrown to the candidate who commands the center, former president of Princeton University and Gov. of New Jersey,
Woodrow Wilson</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, a Democrat. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Progressivism is to take on the newly
developing image of the Democratic Party.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Twenty years,
one World War and a Great Depression later --- the roots of the New Deal
experiment may be traced here --- to T.R. in 1912. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda of
1932 adopts much of the 1912 Progressive Party platform in what will be the
lynchpin of his four term presidency. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
New Deal conceives the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-is-social-safety-net.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">social safety net</span></a>, a</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/07/fdr-dispossessed-and-new-deal-social.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">constitutional delegation of power to the general welfare</span></a></span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hereafter, people come to expect the help of their government, especially
in time of need. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Passage of i</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ts landmark
twin pillars, the Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act,
furnishes the pathway for entry into middle class life for millions of American
citizens, mainly immigrants.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1960, President
John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier follows. The torch is passed to a new generation
of Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr. Kennedy’s vision drives
the important legislation of the day, including the historic Civil Rights Act and
Voting Rights Act of 1964, the Immigration Act of 1965, Medicare/Medicaid and
the onset of the Great Society steered by Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.</span><span style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span lang="EN">With the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, National
Public Radio (NPR</span></span><span lang="EN" style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">) is born, m</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">illions of listeners having come to rely upon NPR</span><span lang="EN" style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> over the past 50 years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">President Reagan, an ardent New
Deal proponent in his younger days, moves with good intentions to scale back
the size and scope of the federal government. Once again, <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/06/liberty-and-equality-of-opportunity.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">individual initiative</span></a>
has its day, unbridled by the constraints of government. But history teaches
that individual initiative works best only within the framework of a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/06/progress-in-pursuit-of-happiness.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">collective social responsibility</span></a>. One for all, and all for one, as the saying goes.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Presidents
Clinton and Obama are direct lineal descendants of these historical figures in
American History.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The enactment of President
Obama’s signature 2010 Affordable Care Act, together with meaningful progress
in the environmental battle to arrest the ill effects of global warming, stand
as landmark achievements.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In closing, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the accomplishments of the past 100 years have been many and must not be discounted. But s</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ome insist we've yet to match the substance and passion of <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-true-conservative-triumph-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">T.R.'s 1912 legacy</span></a>. With 2017 now upon us, that's worth remembering.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D'Angelo </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">he national vote tally i</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">n
the presidential election of 1912:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><u>Candidate</u>:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Party</u>:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Popular
Vote</u>:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Electoral Vote</u>:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><u>Voter Participation</u>:</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Woodrow Wilson</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Democratic </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">6,293,454 (41</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.9%) </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">435 </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">58.8%</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Theodore Roosevelt </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Progressive </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">4,119,538 (27.4%)<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">88</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">William H. Taft</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Republican </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">3,484,980 (23.2%) </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">8</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: grey;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Eugene V. Debs</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Socialist </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">900,672 (6%) -<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><br /></span></div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-60417475776233387962017-01-03T18:00:00.000-05:002018-06-07T16:37:05.596-04:00A Blueprint for America's Future (Part Three)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 1.5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i><span style="text-align: start;">(Editor's note: This is the third segment in a multi-part series titled A Blueprint for America's Future. The underlying theme highlights the iconic presidential election of 1912, which some believe contains the true blueprint for America's future. The </span><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part-two.html" style="text-align: start;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">second segment</span></a><span style="text-align: start;"> covers Theodore Roosevelt's transformation of faith, acceptance of the nomination for his new "Progressive" or "Bull Moose" Party and vision for a moral society.)</span></i></div>
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As October 1912 reaches
its midpoint, the political calendar reflects that <st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place> presidential election day is
still about three weeks away. This provides sufficient time for mystical interlude. For if superior wisdom accepts that reason
lies on one side of the purely psychic --- and faith on the other --- that interlude
would project into the psychic realm.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A twenty-six-year-old
unemployed recluse named John Schrank<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Schrank, John</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> lives
above a <st1:city w:st="on">New York City</st1:city>
saloon which had employed him once. This
is before Theodore Roosevelt<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, then police commissioner, had gone on a
Sunday-closing crusade. Schrank has been
unable to get a job.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Shortly after
President McKinley<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>McKinley, William</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> had
been assassinated in 1901, elevating T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> to the
presidency, Schrank has a dream. His
shabby surroundings are transformed into a funeral parlor full of flowers. An open coffin lies before him. President McKinley<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>McKinley, William</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> sits up in it and points to a
dark corner of the room. Peering out,
Schrank makes out the figure of a man dressed as a monk. Under the cowl Schrank recognizes the
bespectacled features of T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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“This is my murderer,”
McKinley<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'>McKinley, William</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> says. “Avenge my death.” Schrank awakens from his nightmare and checks
his watch. It is 1:30 A.M. He goes back to sleep. The appeal would not be renewed for another
eleven years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Fast forward to September
1912. John Schrank sits writing poetry
in his two-dollar-a-week apartment in downtown <st1:city w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:city>.
It is the anniversary of the McKinley<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>McKinley, William</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> assassination.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>When night draws near<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>And you hear a knock<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>And a voice should whisper<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Your time is up. …<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
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As
Schrank doodles, he feels the ghost of the dead president lay a hand on his
shoulder. It does not stop his pen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Refuse to answer<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>As long as you can<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Then face it and be a man.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
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Later, it is revealed
that the appeal of McKinley<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>McKinley, William</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s ghost has been renewed at the same hour of the same night of the
week as the earlier episode.<br />
<br />
Back in the real
world, T.R. is scheduled on October 14, 1912
to give an important speech on Progressivism in <st1:place w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:place>.
On the way to the hall he takes his customary right-hand seat in his
roofless, seven-seat automobile. His
escorts fan out to take their seats.
Acknowledging the crowd, T.R. stands
up to bow. At that moment, no more than
seven feet away, Schrank fires. </div>
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<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7KzkKI_0B0srKnBg5NZdWUtkSdHxHJMYFakcDivDwFZEWvj37166ieC4K_7lZfgoXwEbQTlVVWxO4ELzP_cFoLinXDMfwWcKCGQbS-0Q4IR0RwgLnYhlr6DSXQAkACK_y75HaHrfx4t6/s1600/b99590448z.1_20151013184055_000_goicuk90.1-1%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7KzkKI_0B0srKnBg5NZdWUtkSdHxHJMYFakcDivDwFZEWvj37166ieC4K_7lZfgoXwEbQTlVVWxO4ELzP_cFoLinXDMfwWcKCGQbS-0Q4IR0RwgLnYhlr6DSXQAkACK_y75HaHrfx4t6/s320/b99590448z.1_20151013184055_000_goicuk90.1-1%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a>The bullet lays
embedded against T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "Roosevelt,
Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s fourth right rib, four inches from the
sternum. Heading straight toward the
heart, its upward and inward trajectory has to pass through T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s dense overcoat into his suit jacket
pocket, then through a hundred glazed pages of his bi-folded speech into his
vest pocket, which contains a steel-reinforced spectacle case three layers
thick, and on through two webs of suspender belt, shirt fabric, and undershirt
flannel, before eventually coming into contact with skin and bone. Even so, the force has been enough to crack
the rib. T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s personal doctor points out that the
spectacle case has deflected the bullet upward.
Had it gone through the arch of the aorta or auricles of the heart, his
patient would not have lived 60 seconds.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A witness to the
shooting marvels at the freak coordination of all these impediments. Had Schrank’s slug penetrated the pleura,
T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "Roosevelt, Theodore"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> would have bled to death
internally in a matter of minutes.
“There was no other place on his body so thoroughly armored as the spot
where the bullet struck.” As if by some miracle, T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> survives the attempt, and actually recovers
quickly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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At times Schrank claims
he is penniless. Other times, he claims
he had inherited <st1:city w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:city>
real estate from his father, a Bavarian immigrant. Whatever his finances, he has enough cash to
purchase a gun and pursue T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "Roosevelt, Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> for
two weeks through the Deep South and on across the Midwest --- intending but
failing to shoot him in at least five cities before <st1:city w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:city>.
“I intended to kill Theodore Roosevelt, the third termer. I did not want to kill the candidate of the
Progressive Party.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6GxYxOG4jAyyOKHQ01nOkD9yzHlm0UA6dbl5FnHY9uCP9bbhEtTtMrC-tIomIhpJ1OFJ7hsbffe8MbvAGhF_L07is4g6hv4PDkWcFAFS2zP1jhz_ARlY9zs5SXWpIE2LO6t6CxL3i7PiR/s1600/schrank_page_1%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6GxYxOG4jAyyOKHQ01nOkD9yzHlm0UA6dbl5FnHY9uCP9bbhEtTtMrC-tIomIhpJ1OFJ7hsbffe8MbvAGhF_L07is4g6hv4PDkWcFAFS2zP1jhz_ARlY9zs5SXWpIE2LO6t6CxL3i7PiR/s400/schrank_page_1%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a>Schrank later claims
that he was neither insane nor a socialist.
T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "Roosevelt, Theodore"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> is inclined to agree. “I very gravely question if he has a more
unsound mind than Eugene Debs<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Debs, Eugene</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> (the
Socialist Party candidate for the presidency).”</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pleading guilty to T.R.’s
shooting, with qualifications, Schrank is committed to the hospital for the
criminally insane and remains there until his death on the anniversary of his
first vision of the ghost of McKinley thirty-one years earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">-Michael D'Angelo</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(</span>Editor's note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part.html"><span style="color: red;">fourth and final segment</span></a> closes this multi-part series with the results of the 1912 general election --- and its aftermath.)</i></div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-35778605556566862372016-10-26T18:00:00.000-04:002018-06-07T16:32:29.452-04:00A Blueprint for America's Future (Part Two)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>(Editor's note: This is the second segment in a multi-part series titled <b>A Blueprint for America's Future</b>.
The underlying theme highlights the iconic presidential election
of 1912, which some believe contains the true blueprint for America's
future.</i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">first segment</span></a> traces Theodore Roosevelt's exit from the Republican Party and the foundation of his new "Progressive" or "Bull Moose" Party.</i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>)</i> </span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many times,
over the years, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>compares the machinery of politics to the
workings of a kaleidoscope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At times
brilliant colors and harmonious patterns can be seen, sometimes carefully
shaken into shape, sometimes forming of their own accord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the slightest hitch, however, brilliance
and harmony can fall into jagged disarray, leaving the viewer with clashing
colors, shapes and shafts of impenetrable black.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>knows
that his third party candidacy is a long shot and that he would not likely
win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he sees it as his duty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My public career will end next election
day,” T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tells a visitor in the days
preceding his new party’s own nominating convention.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He asks his
wife to say what she thought of his situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A house guest relates that “She was quite radiant with trust and
affection, as she expressed her faith that the path through honor to defeat was
the one to take.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s transformational embrace of faith cause
critics to suggest at the Progressive National Convention in August 1912 that
Progressivism is a religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He nurtures
the theme that he is engaged in Holy Work.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Familiar church hymns
ring through the course of the proceedings, which are also held in Chicago, as the delegates
sing and chant, surging the religiosity in the hall to the point of delirium.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With the cross of Jesus going on before.</span></i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In his acceptance
speech for the party nomination, entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
Confession of Faith</i>, T.R. repeats what he had stated earlier at the
Republican National Convention, to a tumultuous response: “I say in closing
what in that speech I said in closing: We stand at Armageddon, and we battle
for the Lord.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> reporter writes that “It was not a convention at
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an assemblage of religious
enthusiasts.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The mocking prophecy
of Eliju Root</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, US
Senator, R-NY, and formerly T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s Secretary of War and then Secretary of
State, appears to have been fulfilled: “He aims at a leadership</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>far in the future, as a sort of
Moses and Messiah for a vast progressive tide of a rising humanity.”</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ9RaK01K60_qMWYKK6_EI_2b0ghRAh8K8TYQjK4itfMjTT6nojCmASMCGXMbGyP_JrIDi9jD5ywBahTvxYnQaJcHybX9YSkQgniUzkXtYVo9rBVEx2txPc7_LmT7JQrJE5HpC4mR3Qr4z/s1600/PassProsperityAround%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ9RaK01K60_qMWYKK6_EI_2b0ghRAh8K8TYQjK4itfMjTT6nojCmASMCGXMbGyP_JrIDi9jD5ywBahTvxYnQaJcHybX9YSkQgniUzkXtYVo9rBVEx2txPc7_LmT7JQrJE5HpC4mR3Qr4z/s400/PassProsperityAround%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Jane Addams</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, a proponent of women’s suffrage, says that
“I have been fighting for progressive principles for thirty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the biggest day in my life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The convention commits the Progressive Party
to a vast program of social, economic and environmental reform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has
made Progressivism a “moral” issue, entitled to use a superlative when
he calls the program “much the most important public document promulgated in
this country since the death of Abraham Lincoln</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Progressive motto is to be “Pass prosperity around.” <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
his vision of a moral society, ethically based, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>poses
that the</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Material progress and
prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral
and material welfare of all good citizens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of
sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs, --- but, first of
all, sound in their home, and the father and mother of healthy children whom
they bring up well, --- just so far, and not farther, we may count on
civilization a success.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The soldier, or
ordinary citizen, has to have the right stuff in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has to have “the fighting edge, the right
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most important elements in
any man’s career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we
speak of as character.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">We must have the right kind of
character --- character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home,
a good father, and a good husband --- that makes a man a good neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You must have that, and, then, in addition,
you must have the (right) kind of law and the (right) kind of administration of
the law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best
possible chance for development.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It comes as no
surprise that the platform of the Progressive Party of 1912 amounts to a
re-drafting of T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s New Nationalism program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not matched again for initiative and
specificity in detail until the platform of the Democratic Party in 1964.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D'Angelo</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>(Editor's note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part.html"><span style="color: red;">third segment</span></a> in this multi-part series takes the reader on a spiritual journey, as events </i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>--- which may only be described here as </i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>psychic</i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> --- unfold in the weeks leading up to the 1912</i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> </i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>general election</i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> ...). </i></span></span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-89117546868291215042016-09-25T19:02:00.000-04:002018-06-07T16:30:40.110-04:00A Blueprint for America's Future (Part One)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i>(Editor's note: This is the first segment in a multi-part series under title of <b>A Blueprint for America's Future</b>. The underlying series theme highlights the iconic presidential election of 1912, which some believe serves as the true blueprint for America's future.)</i></div>
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2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the
first woman nominated by a major national political party for the American presidency, has
invested her campaign with the slogan: “Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America’s
Future.”</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some students of US history do well to trace this blueprint to the platform of the Democratic Party
in 1964. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others may take it back further
to 1932 and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” agenda. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Still others link the blueprint to its genesis
in the iconic three-way </span>presidential election of <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">1912, Theodore Roosevelt</span> challenging the democratic process to
higher ideals.</div>
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Several twists and turns bring America to the place it is then situated,
as the political calendar turns to 1912. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By the
end of his presidency in 1908, T.R. is the Republican heir to Abraham Lincoln’s
grand old party and champion of Progressive Era reform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But against this responsibility he views with
consternation the presidency of his hand-picked successor, President Taft, who has
ominously transformed into the nation’s top reactionary in the ensuing period
between 1908 and 1912.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A series of articles
which can be reviewed <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a></span> traces T.R.’s political transformation to a more spiritual basis during Mr. Taft’s
presidency. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alarmed by Mr. Taft</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s passiveness and political about-face, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is
compelled to renew the contest, seeking the Republican Party nomination once again
in the 1912 election.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The 1912 Republican
primary contest is vicious on every level. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It pits President
Taft</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, the conservative, whose powerful base
champions the status quo</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, against T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, the upstart, whose base favors the
continuation of progressive change.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R finishes the
Republican primary contest in strong fashion, about as well as can be hoped
for. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sweeps through and wins each of the last
five voter primaries, including Mr. Taft’s home state of Ohio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But T.R. finds, as is typically the case, that it is nearly impossible to
wrest the nomination from an incumbent president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the nominating convention in Chicago, the Republican
Party wages an epic, internal civil war battle, whose effects reverberate to the present day.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>concludes his speech at the Republican
national convention in an attempt to sway the delegates with the following
language:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Assuredly the fight will go on
whether we win or lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happens to
me is not of the slightest consequence; I am to be used, as in a doubtful
battle any man is used, to his hurt or not, so long as he is useful and then
cast aside or left to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We fight in honorable fashion for the good of
mankind; fearless for the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with
unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes; we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for
the Lord.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Never before
has T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>used such evangelical language,
or dared to present himself as a holy warrior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is also said that never before has he heard such cheering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Intended or not, he invests progressivism
with a divine aura.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But obtaining
the Republican Party’s nomination is not to be, coming as no surprise when
President Taft</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/conservatism-and-status-quo.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">conservative</span> <span style="color: red;">base</span></a> carries the day to secure
the nomination, beating back the progressive tide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Republican Party that T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>knew
has lost the liberal conscience of Abraham Lincoln</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And everyone knows that the Republican National Committee has decided to
field a losing candidate (Mr. Taft</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">) in November (1912), rather than gamble on
one (T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">) who would “radicalize” its “traditional” platform.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In turn, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>makes
a monumental decision. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He precipitously
bolts from the Republican National Convention --- and the Republican Party --- to form
the new Progressive Party or “Bull Moose” Party</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
decision is occasioned by what T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sees
as his compelling sense of duty, his conscience and his station. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Progressive would now contain a capital “P.”</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D'Angelo </span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>(Editor's note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-blueprint-for-americas-future-part-two.html"><span style="color: red;">second segment</span></a> in this multi-part series covers the 1912 Progressive Party --- or "Bull Moose" --- National Convention and the drafting of its historic progressive platform for the ensuing general election.)</i></span></div>
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Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-77922970935135389972016-08-01T18:30:00.000-04:002016-08-29T16:29:11.787-04:00Election Noise and Desiderata<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As the 2016 US presidential election cycle
ramps up toward its culminating crescendo, this ordinary citizen is blessed to
appreciate the value --- </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">of </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>silence</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reflecting on <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/ordinary-mans-pursuit-of-happiness.html" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Desiderata</span></i></a></span>, posted previously, adds yet to the blessing. Note how that noble poem begins:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Go placidly amid the noise and haste,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and remember what peace there may be in silence.</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/30/c5/9a/30c59a0b89fb1a75648ba6dbb550c3b1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/30/c5/9a/30c59a0b89fb1a75648ba6dbb550c3b1.jpg" width="246" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The din of the presidential nominating
conventions is now safely behind us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
occurs to this ordinary citizen that should the average voter not be able to <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/10/distinguishing-wheat-from-chaff.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">distinguish between wheat and chaff</span></a> in all of 5 minutes, then one could dedicate the next 10 hours explaining yet they’d still not get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps human nature is such that some may never get it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must be at peace with that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Consider that in the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/06/herbert-hoover-and-crisis-of-old-order.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">1932 election</span></a> --- 3+
years into the depths of the ongoing Great Depression, the unemployment rate at an alarming 25% and
the Republican candidate promising “to do nothing” as a platform for
re-election --- nearly 40% of the electorate still voted the national Republican
ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remarkable as that may now seem, we must be at peace with that,
also.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Silence is often the time we can hear the
best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said that’s why God has given
us one mouth but two ears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> To </span>facilitate listening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why make our own contribution
to the noise, when we are better served to listen?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the silence are sure to be the answers we seek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poem continues:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all
persons.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ordinary citizen has more than enough balls </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">in the air </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">to juggle within the competitive </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">economic </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">landscape than to negotiate the din of who will be elected next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
What then? </span>If the system does not <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/10/our-great-unfinished-business.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">provide a fair shot for the many</span></a>, as some suggest, the
ordinary citizen might be well served to go to that place where material things give way
to matters of the spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fear, doubt,
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-baltimore-riots-and-kerner-report.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">hopelessness, despair</span></a>: consider that none of these are real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be easier to be at peace, were one to have
this simple understanding.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We must look within for spiritual guidance:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But do not distress yourself with imaginings.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We must be easier on ourselves, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider that the idea of <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/02/important-lesson-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">forgiveness</span></a></span> begins with forgiving
ourselves first --- primarily for judging others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, we must be reminded that we ---
all of us --- are children of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one person is better than any other. We are all the same --- connected to each other as
children of the one God. Doesn’t that
make life seem a bit easier?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, the poem concludes:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And whether or not it is clear to you,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">…</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">keep peace in your soul.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">…</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">it is still a beautiful world.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Be cheerful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strive to be happy.</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
Why may we not see ourselves giving Love as a means of livelihood for that is what we all do? Love is the exchange for all. Forgiveness, healing and love are truly the <i>sine qua non </i>of this evolving universe.<br />
<br />
Peace and good will to all.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D'Angelo </span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-32601659830270136602016-06-30T18:00:00.000-04:002016-07-22T15:24:34.056-04:00Progress in the Pursuit of Happiness?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_piramide/piramide_orion2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_piramide/piramide_orion2.gif" border="0" src="http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_piramide/piramide_orion2.gif" height="320" width="238" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps it is one of those rare moments in the
recording of history when the stars are in near perfect alignment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/pursuit-of-happiness-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">expression of the American mind</span></a> identifies
certain self-evident truths, that all men are created equal and possess the
inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But an uncharted course in self-government
requires the flexibility of experimentation.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/11/compromise-is-not-dirty-word.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">consensus</span></a></span> of the educated, most respected citizenry
concludes that individual pursuits are limited, doomed to failure, absent a
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/harnessing-properties-of-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">social compact</span></a> for collective, shared responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But while severing ties with the mother
country, the citizenry agree to adopt its proven economic model, over objection
that the system flows from principles adverse to liberty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/president-washingtons-dilemma.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">greatest good for the greatest number</span></a> under
man’s creation produces enviable physical results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prosperity abounds in a land of plenty.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The individual’s happiness is indeed plentiful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He celebrates success with a triumphant display
of material conquest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not satisfied, he is
further inspired to consolidate and advance his control over a larger portion
of the bounty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neglecting the notion of
a social conscience, he conspires to perpetuate his gains, assuring aristocratic
privilege and hereditary status among those subsequent generations who will
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">possess more than they earn</span></a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He validates
his actions by the blessings of a divine providence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The anointment process is complete.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Since <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/conservatism-and-status-quo.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">protecting the status quo</span></a> is all that
is required, why would the successful individual welcome a suggestion of
meddling interference with the order of a wholly rational universe? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He deftly uses the mechanism of obstruction,
seemingly mistaken for legitimate conservative values.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his actions expose the popular
myth that <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/04/business-success-and-civic-virtue.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">business success</span></a> is a guarantee of civic virtue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While his material position has not been
harmed, his moral prestige is gone.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Some say the successful individual has
manipulated the system for his own advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Of course, this would serve to over-simplify the complicated dynamics of
the historical process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the
methods employed are sometimes questionable, unscrupulous and dishonest, they
are not illegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is difficult to
escape the conclusion that while it may be a simplification, it is not a
falsification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man proves <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-unreality-of-personal-ambition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">by his deeds</span></a>
according to the laws of human nature that the greatest number is typically the
number one.</span><br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the masses of the unknown, who comprise the vital base from whence the strength of the nation derives, complete this picture. The <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-shadow-of-immigration-wall.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">newcomer</span></a></span> especially is no less energetic, industrious or talented. Attracted to the table by a promise of reward for an honest day’s work, he learns that a feast has been served previously and all that remain are crumbs. His opportunity effectively foreclosed, the newcomer is not likely to achieve a comparable level of success or prosperity by a reasonable measure.<br />
<br />
At the crossroads the great crisis comes into view. The ordinary citizen reflects how the loudest yelps for liberty may have been heard among the drivers of the African slave --- amid a similar call today for less government from he who would monopolize economic opportunity. In reclaiming a <span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">fair shot at the American</span> <span style="color: red;">Dream</span></a></span> for future generations of the unborn, the stakes could not be higher. This great crisis may only signal the next important step forward --- <span style="color: red;">progress in the pursuit of happiness</span>. Or perhaps the task of completing our great unfinished business is destined to be mankind’s final stand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The successful individual marvels at the
folly of an ordinary citizen to believe that a society is <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-would-washington-do.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">capable of change</span></a> to reach
new heights in both moral and material progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He deploys a campaign of fear to distort the
message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He rues an ordinary citizen’s determination,
which is sustained by the search for truth as an imperative duty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That search views the twin pillars of reason (science
and materialism) and faith (spirituality and duty) as coefficients, working together, in the promotion of human welfare and the quest for progress.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://kidsforshore.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/kidsloveglobe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://kidsforshore.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/kidsloveglobe.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The ordinary citizen has no army but is an
<a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/harnessing-properties-of-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">apostle of enlightenment</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His path embraces
the symbol of hope, and the principles of balance and harmony within nature’s law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He respects property, but he understands that the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-true-conservative-triumph-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">creature of man’s making</span></a>
must be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he knows that the ultimate reward
of a richer, fuller existence contemplates the discharge of a duty of service which
is faith in action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is marked by adherence
to an incorruptible, disinterested <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-compulsive-ethical-obligation-part.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">ethical obligation</span></a></span> that distinguishes the
unselfish citizen from the mere hoarder of gold.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nothing real can be owned. Nothing gained, withheld. In the end, we take nothing home --- the place where forgiveness begins. While it is <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-second-lesson-of-us-history.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">not ours</span></a> to judge, <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/first-lesson-of-us-history.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">sharing</span></a></span> and <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/andrew-carnegie-and-gospel-of-wealth.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">giving back</span></a> hardly
bring to the table any new ideas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D'Angelo </span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-903699474678190152016-04-27T18:00:00.000-04:002016-04-28T10:57:43.678-04:00The Compulsive “Ethical Obligation” (Part Four)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: both; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">(Editors note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the fourth and
final segment in a four part series under title of <b>The Search for Truth in a
Reverent Spirit</b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The underlying series theme
features the clash between reason and matters of the spirit which defy rigid
limitations of scientific calculation, as best told through the political transformation
of Theodore Roosevelt.)</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What is the mystery food that distinguishes the unselfish citizen from the mere
hoarder of gold?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: red;">Special Message </span></span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>to Congress</i>, intellectual <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">plaudit</span></a> </span>and lofty <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">speech</span></a></span> on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Nationalism</i> aside, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">heart
</i>of Theodore Roosevelt’s political transformation</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>occurs in December 1910, when he chooses to
publish an extraordinary essay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is, for him, almost a religious confession.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To measure the progress of social advances and the elusive search for
truth, rigid materialistic standards in science that reject the imaginative or
metaphysical are simply too regressive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reason, as in evolutionary science, and the accompanying blunt physical
force of materialistic pursuits, is alone insufficient.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R. has seen that rigid theories, or dogmas, no matter how provable they
seemed in the marketplace at a given time, are typically swept away by the
currents of historical change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other
words, today’s “law” might be tomorrow’s superstition, and vice versa.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Important factors such as, for example, the human emotion of love, and
common sense, are not sufficiently accounted for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, there can be no advancement of
knowledge absent the part of wisdom to accept the teachings of experience, and
practice humility in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
the first essential requires the willingness of men to say ‘We do not know.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Moreover, where experience has plainly proven that the intellect has
reasoned incorrectly, true wisdom requires that the teachings of experience be
accepted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In such case reason must be
humbled --- just under like conditions experience would require theology to be
humble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>feels that any steady scientific or social
advance has to give way to “bolder, more self-reliant spirits … men whose
unfettered freedom of soul and intellect yields complete fealty only to the
great cause of truth, and will not be hindered by any outside control on the
search to attain it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">He is saying that wider recognition must be given to faith, the spiritual
qualities inherent in “the narrowness of a shut-in materialism.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This permits the opening up of a new theory
that the principle of group development in human beings is as instinctive and
organic as that in biological evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The embrace of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both</i> faith <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> reason is necessary for a person of
“conscience” in searching for truth, as something entirely practical, yet
divine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Faith and reason are seen as coefficients, not opposites, in the quest for
progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Superior wisdom understands
“that outside the purely physical lies the psychic, and that the realm of
religion stands outside even the purely psychic.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Those who profess faith while allowing materialism to persuade them are not
having philosophy both ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the
contrary, they are “in a position of impregnable strength,” rightly holding
that religion itself is evolutionary and has to adapt as it progresses</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">To them Christianity</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, the greatest of the religious creations which
humanity has seen, rests upon what Christ</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>himself
teaches: for, … the performance of duty is faith in action, faith in its highest
expression, for duty gives no other reason, and need give no other reason, for
its existence than ‘its own incorruptible disinterestedness.’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sums
up his argument concerning duty and the notion of an ethical obligation:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 65.7pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Surely we must all recognize
the search for truth as an imperative duty; and we ought all of us likewise to
recognize that this search for truth should be carried on not only fearlessly,
but also with reverence, with humility of spirit, and with full recognition of
our own limitations both of the mind and the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
those who deny the ethical obligation implied in such a faith we who
acknowledge the obligation are aliens; and we are brothers to all those who do
acknowledge it, whatever their creed or system of philosophy.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
<br />
All the books he has consulted concern progress from one state of held beliefs to another over the course of history. <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All try in vain to
deny, and have accepted, that faith (belief) is as transformative a force as
reason (materialism), as well as a necessary catalyst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a lifetime of rejecting spiritual
speculation, in favor of the body electric and the physics of (military) power,
T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>concedes the vitality of faith --- not
necessarily Bible-thumping, but at least the compulsive “ethical obligation”
that distinguishes the unselfish citizen from the mere hoarder of gold.<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuvQyGiCXu7mYqVVAItDR8aZGwFAswGApQN-LqcKcaf3RRwSeD_KsZ-9JJZofSg12eIL_oG6g9VUxlBmk-y7Jix6Pqg8_QBPUoket-yp9EktvoeOsIb71M_N1Rm22xhDkNfF317uaCXlsD/s1600/lincoln+cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="lincoln+cartoon.jpg (400×282)" border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuvQyGiCXu7mYqVVAItDR8aZGwFAswGApQN-LqcKcaf3RRwSeD_KsZ-9JJZofSg12eIL_oG6g9VUxlBmk-y7Jix6Pqg8_QBPUoket-yp9EktvoeOsIb71M_N1Rm22xhDkNfF317uaCXlsD/s400/lincoln+cartoon.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">If nothing else, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is now
sure that whatever he does with the rest of his life will have to have moral
purpose. His efforts will reach an apex with t</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">he captivating presidential election of 1912, in which T.R. c</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">hallenges the democratic process to higher ideals. With the 2016 election looming, this </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">will be the subject of upcoming articles.</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael
D’Angelo</span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-64641006653800946712016-03-28T18:00:00.000-04:002016-04-27T21:37:02.489-04:00The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit (Part Three)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editors note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the third
segment in a continuing series featuring the clash between reason and matters of the
spirit which defy rigid limitations of scientific calculation. The previous segment - <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Part Two</span></a> </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">- identifies </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Theodore Roosevelt’s political transformation
as one which neatly highlights this distinction.)</span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What is the essence of any struggle for healthy liberty and human
betterment? How can we measure the central condition of progress?</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Try as he will, Theodore
Roosevelt is unable to deny the spiritual qualities inherent in all
materialistic pursuits, from science to business to politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the ink barely dry on his 1908 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Special Message to Congress</i>, by 1910 T.R.
boldly envisions a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New Nationalism</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some label his words “Communistic,” “Socialistic”
and “Anarchistic” in various quarters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others
hail “the greatest oration ever given on American soil.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reflects that there have been “two great
crises in our country’s history: first, when it was formed, and then, again,
when it was perpetuated … .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The third
great crisis is upon us, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> struggle “to
achieve in large measure equality of opportunity</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In every wise struggle for
human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been
to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and
through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the
next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the chief factors in
progress is the destruction of special privilege.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The essence of any struggle for healthy
liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class
of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has
not been earned by service to his or their fellows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 65.7pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 65.7pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">At many stages in the advance
of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have
earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central
condition of progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our day it
appears as the struggle of freeman to gain and hold the right of
self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free
government into machinery for defeating the popular will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At every stage, and under all circumstances,
the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and
give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value
both to himself and to the commonwealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is nothing new.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>New Nationalism </i>envisions “p</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ractical
equality of opportunity</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for
all citizens” as the </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">socially desirable result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will permit</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> every man to </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 65.7pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">have a fair chance to make of
himself all that lies in him; to reach the highest point to which his
capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the
special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family
substantially what he has earned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Second, equality of opportunity</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>means that the
commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is
capable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No man who carries the burden
of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service
to which it is fairly entitled.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Its central tenet is government protection of property
rights, the traditional approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>New Nationalism</i></span>
elevates human welfare, the second critical component, to a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">higher</i> priority and the critical measure
of any presidential administration</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">T.R.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>insists that only a powerful federal
government can regulate the economy and guarantee social justice</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">, to protect the laboring men, women and
children from exploitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>supports graduated income and inheritance
taxes, a social security system, a national health service, a federal
securities commission and the direct election of US senators.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The platform also supports the democratic principles of initiative,
referendum and recall as means for the people to exert more direct control over
government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In short, it is a platform
which inspires much of the social agenda of the future New Deal</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a
generation later:<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The man who wrongly holds that
every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate
of human welfare</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to
the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the
public welfare may require it.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">New Nationalism</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> further admits “the right to regulate the
terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly
in the interest of the common good.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wages
must be “more than sufficient” to cover the cost of living and hours “short
enough” to permit the worker the “time and energy to … help in carrying the
general load.”</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Moreover, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>New Nationalism </i></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">prohibits </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the
use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political
purposes and strictly regulates political lobbyists which is to be “thoroughly enforced.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sentiments of this nature will tend to put
the political world on notice, if not take it by storm.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Editor’s<span style="color: black;"> </span>note<span style="color: black;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To be continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-compulsive-ethical-obligation-part.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Part Four</span></a> in the series arrives
at the heart of T.R.’s political transformation to spiritual icon …)</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> -Michael D'Angelo</span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-53487102897385950032016-02-29T18:30:00.000-05:002016-03-28T20:22:36.317-04:00The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit (Part Two)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editors note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the second
segment in a new series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">first segment</span></a> </span>introduces readers to the fork in the road caused by the clash between proven
scientific principles with matters of the spirit which defy the rigid
limitations of scientific calculation ...)</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In a land of plenty, something still appears to be missing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is it?</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Thomas Jefferson aims at
the pursuit of happiness, with virtue as its foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alexander Hamilton, by contrast, envisions the
</span><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/01/hamiltons-liberty-and-pursuit-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">physical greatness</span></a> of the state as being above the happiness of its
citizens. To the extent that the two are at odds, Hamilton would choose the former, and
happiness will follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Resolving the
dispute among his two top cabinet members, President <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">George Washington decides in Hamilton’s
favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For better or worse, t</span>he
course is set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America is
constructed on this foundation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But although physical
greatness does expand to levels unprecedented, the ordinary citizen’s “something
is missing from life” experience continues to gather its own inexorable
momentum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The elusive ingredient involves
a search for Truth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientists reject any
“new” principle which cannot be scientifically proven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirit guided intuition, on the other hand, allows
for the potential of a broader understanding and a higher trajectory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In American History, a
study of Theodore Roosevelt’s political transformation typically flies under
the radar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it neatly highlights the above
distinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>T.R. has spent a lifetime
of rejecting spiritual speculation, in favor of the body electric and the
physics of (military) power --- from the land prizes of the Spanish American
War --- to the construction of the Panama Canal
--- to re-building the US Navy, almost from scratch, to a military size
befitting the ability to successfully prosecute a two ocean war --- which he
foresees 40 years in advance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
dawn of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, his presidency cements his reputation as
the Republican heir to Abraham Lincoln’s grand old party and as the champion of
Progressive Era domestic reform.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But T.R., too, feels
the hunger pangs of the something that’s missing phenomenon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With his successor botching T..R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s progressive agenda and becoming the
nation’s top reactionary, T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>contemplates a return to political life as the
calendar turns to 1912.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time a political
transformation is taking place within him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He would begin to argue for wider recognition
of the spiritual qualities inherent in all materialistic pursuits, from science
to business to politics.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The roots of this
transformation can be traced to several sources. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first dates back to T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s presidency (1901-1908), specifically the delivery of a
<i>Special Message to Congress</i> in January 1908, his last year in office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It argues for automatic compensation for
job-related (industrial) accidents and federal scrutiny of corporate boardroom
operations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It campaigns “against
privilege, part of the campaign to make the great class of property holders
realize that property has its duties no less than its rights.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also campaigns against “predatory wealth
--- of the wealth accumulated on a giant scale by all forms of iniquity.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is to be a war “against successful dishonesty.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The issue T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>raises
in this message, perhaps more than any other utterance in his career, convinces
Wall Street</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that
“Theodore the Sudden” is a dangerous man.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>scoffs
at this criticism, stating that it is “fundamentally an ethical movement:”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The opponents of the measures
we champion single out now one, and now another measure for especial attack,
and speak as if the movement in which we are engaged was purely economic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a large economic side, but it is
fundamentally an ethical movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
not a movement to be completed in one year, or two or three years; it is a
movement which must be persevered in until the spirit which lies behind it
sinks deep into the heart and the conscience of the whole people.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 1.5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Followed quickly on
its heels is the publication of Herbert Croly</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Promise of American Life</i>, which becomes the bible of the new social
movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book argues the need for a
strong central government (Hamiltonian), calling for a war on indiscriminate
individualism</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Jefferson</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">) and unearned privilege (Jacksonian).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it also calls for T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as the
only leader in America
capable of encompassing both aims.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 1.5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 1.5in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But after completing
two presidential terms featuring a </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-true-conservative-triumph-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">progressive agenda</span></a> of activist reform,
T.R.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">upholds the tradition of
George Washington</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> and </span></span>declines to run for a third term.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1909, T.R.
is now a former president --- s<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">till relatively young by historical
standards at age 51 </span> --- but
nonetheless outside the political power structure looking in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With his spiritual evolution continuing, T.R.
begins to plot his future course.</span></div>
<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editor’s note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
be continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next segment <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">(Part Three)</span></a></span> will continue to explore
the underpinnings of T.R.’s political transformation to spiritual icon …)</span></i></div>
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<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael
D’Angelo</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span></span></span></span></a>
</div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-34138378374472491662016-01-24T14:31:00.001-05:002016-03-14T14:35:06.208-04:00The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit (Part One)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editors note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the first
segment in a new series.)</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Many ordinary people find
that something important is missing from life’s daily experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cosmic balance has been <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/01/hamiltons-liberty-and-pursuit-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">altered</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/pursuit-of-happiness-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">pursuit of happiness</span></a></span> has, so it seems, </span><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/president-washingtons-dilemma.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">evolved</span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">
into a mindless and impersonal pursuit of <span style="color: red;">material gain</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times, it tends to consume us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more we have yields the illusion that
we’re almost where we <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/12/needs-vs-wants.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">need</span></a></span> to be --- if only we could get a little more?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Why do the multitudes who
possess so little appear to have much?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Conversely, why do people who appear to have so much in reality possess
little?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it’s just a matter of
perspective.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Possession may mean
one thing, when the goal is competitive advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its motivating force is a heavy <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/04/business-success-and-civic-virtue.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">burden which may consume</span></a> the material aspirant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
possession may mean something altogether different in a spirit of cooperation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, do <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/02/from-popes-to-puppies-at-play.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">puppies at play</span></a></span> really fight
over a bone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is there another dynamic
involved?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What is the elusive
ingredient we are searching for, absent from this great experiment in democracy
we call the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/thomas-jeffersons-personal-pursuit-of.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">pursuit of happiness</span></a>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
not an easy question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who have
given it serious thought are content to label it a search for Truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, this search leads to a <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/speckled-ax-was-best.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">fork in the road</span></a>: on one side is science --- on the other, spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bright line divides the two.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In science, discovery
of any “new” principle is little more than a matter of black and white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a principle cannot be scientifically
proven, reason dictates that it simply be rejected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor is it ever a matter of
interpretation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea that the earth
is round was first proposed in the 6th century BC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it remained a matter of “philosophical
speculation” until the 3<sup>rd</sup> century BC, when the earth’s spherical
shape was “established” as a spherical given.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Surely the laws of
gravity existed before man “discovered” its scientific principles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider that nothing changed, in fact,
except man’s understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would it not
be pure folly, then, to debate the scientific <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/02/harnessing-properties-of-light-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">properties of light</span></a>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we can --- and should --- continue to
ponder life’s important questions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where
does</span> light <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">come from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is its
source?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so it is not difficult to
understand the controversy over whether global warming is “real” --- for in a
competitive landscape, many lives do <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/03/conservatism-and-status-quo.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">hang</span></a> in the <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/11/compromise-is-not-dirty-word.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">balance</span></a></span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other side of
the divide are those whose lives are guided by spirit --- an energy force which
surely cannot be explained by science alone --- if at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To them, reliance on reason alone is a limiting factor in the search for
Truth --- unacceptably limiting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In the scriptures <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/02/important-lesson-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Pilate's questionioning of Jesus</span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>went something like this: “But what is
truth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is truth unchanging law?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both have truths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are mine the same as yours?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To say that these questions are provocative ---
in such an unequal exchange --- would be a gross understatement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/ordinary-mans-pursuit-of-happiness.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">ordinary man’s consciousness</span></a> ever be
raised to the point where such answers do become scientifically defensible?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Liberated from the
limitations of science, those who are guided by spirit are driven more commonly
by intuition. This allows for the potential of a
broader understanding --- Theodore Roosevelt labeled it <i>The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit</i> --- and a higher trajectory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Non-discriminatory by its nature, this <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2011/11/welcome.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">path is available to everyone</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the
transformational principle --- is faith.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While scientific
skeptics may be constantly nipping at the heels of spiritual mystics, somehow
the latter remain undeterred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When an
interest in Truth exceeds any interest in blame, expectation, or any form of
comparison,” notes Matt Kahn, the spiritual teacher, “it is an indication that
life has successfully prepared you for the soul’s true journey.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-would-washington-do.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">progress and aim higher</span></a>, that <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-unreality-of-personal-ambition.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">journey</span></a> supplies
the <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/tr-and-noblesse-oblige-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">richness</span></a> by which we --- and <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/03/speckled-ax-was-best.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">our lives</span></a> --- will come to be defined.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editor’s note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Search for Truth in a Reverent Spirit</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> continues. Read <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-search-for-truth-in-reverent-spirit.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Part Two</span></a></span> ... )</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael
D’Angelo</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-68280484457387911222015-11-29T18:53:00.000-05:002015-11-29T18:53:56.540-05:00Global Warming, Terrorism & Inconvenient Truths<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In late September 2015
your blog host had the privilege to receive the benefit of three days of
training in Miami
sponsored by the Climate Reality Project, of which former Vice-President Al
Gore is the Chairman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The training
created another core grouping of those who would earn the title of Climate
Reality Leader.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The purpose of the
Climate Reality Project is to raise awareness of the effects and consequences
of climate change occasioned by the phenomenon of global warming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The purpose is also to educate ordinary
citizens as to what we can do to stem the tide, mitigate the processes and
reverse the destructive momentum.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The training
effectively empowers Climate Reality Leaders to present a slide show which
updates information initially brought to light in Al Gore’s 2006 Academy Award
winning (2007) documentary film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">An
Inconvenient Truth</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In making the
film, Mr. Gore was the subject of an Intergovernmental Panel on climate change
of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The fact is that the
global climate has begun to warm appreciably, especially over the past 150
years coinciding with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it may be true that the sun heats the
earth, it is also true that carbon heats man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hence, the term “carbon man” </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">enters the vernacular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coal had been the preferred fossil fuel,
prior to oil, and its use is widely still prevalent at the nation’s large
electricity generating power plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
phenomenon of fossil fuel burning on such a mass scale (coal burning in
combination with oil) is what scientists attribute to the concept of global
warming</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Scientists are in near
unanimous agreement (97%) that climate change is the result of carbon-based fossil
fuel emissions as a by-product of energy production mainly from oil, coal and
naturally gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>makes the
powerful case that stewardship of the environment is not merely a convenience
but, rather, a moral issue.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The statistics are
sobering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US comprises less than 5% of the
world’s population, yet consumes about 25% of the world’s energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each and every ordinary American citizen uses
about 3 gallons of oil per day, twice as much as people in other industrialized
nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America
is a throw away society, with dismal recycling rates, producing roughly twice
as much garbage as Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until most recently, perhaps, the political
parties have seemed content to put the idea of economic growth on one side of
the spectrum and environmental protection on the other, as if the two are
somehow mutually exclusive.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But the wild card
today remains oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The US consumes approximately 21
million barrels of oil per day, about 65% imported.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2004746639033035482#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 8.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
not an exaggeration then to say that US <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dependence</i></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on imported oil is a greater
threat to national security than any threat from terrorism, real or perceived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps at no time since the pre-Civil War</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South’s economic dependence</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on
slavery can it again be said that the US reliance on oil is so acute as
to constitute a life or death economic dependency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The need is so alarming, so encompassing, and
so pervasive, that any moral issue that may come up along the way, including
human rights and/or the environment, can also be dismissed as secondary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which begs the question: Once the problem of terrorism
is theoretically dispensed with, are we then “free” to heat the planet into
oblivion?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The slide show presentation
challenges audiences to ask themselves three basic yet provocative
questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, must we change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, can we change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And third, will we change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As President Obama has stated, “We’re the
first generation to feel the effects of climate change … and the last
generation who will be able to do anything about it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As leaders get set to gather next week in Paris, France
to attend the long awaited gathering on climate change, the stakes for our way of life --- including the survival of our planet as we know it --- can hardly seem greater.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael
D’Angelo</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span>
</div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-22345261921694475902015-10-19T15:30:00.000-04:002015-10-20T10:04:25.615-04:00Our Great Unfinished Business<div class="tr_bq">
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As civilizations become more inter-connected
through the amazing technologies of the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, t</span>he
<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">third great crisis</span></a></span> in our nation’s history celebrates a significant birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The great crisis of wealth disparity as a
result of unequal access to the field of opportunity --- first identified by
Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 --- is now unfortunately more than 100-years-old!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
For the
ordinary citizen, the American Dream is at risk like at no other time in
American history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response, many ordinary
citizens are reaching for the pull chord and the alarm bell to stop the train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many others, however, believe that such
matters lie in the natural order of things --- as a necessary byproduct of an
every man for himself mentality of Social Darwinism --- and that everything
will work itself out in the end.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The sympathies
of President Obama appear to rest in part with the former group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On August 28, 2013 the president<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>gave a speech on the 50<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of Dr. King’s march on Washington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost five years into his presidential term,
he reminded the ordinary citizen that his eye remains on the ball, as he
strives to <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">mold America to a
purpose he boldly envisions</span>:</div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination --- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the march, for the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract idea. They were there seeking jobs as well as justice -- not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal?<br />
<br />
This idea that --- that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood, that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new.<br />
...<br />
Dr. King explained that the goals of African-Americans were identical to working people of all races: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures -- conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.<br />
<br />
What King was describing has been the dream of every American. It’s what’s lured for centuries new arrivals to our shores. And it’s along this second dimension of economic opportunity, the chance through honest toil to advance one’s station in life, that the goals of 50 years ago have fallen most short.</blockquote>
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The president
continued:</div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote>
... the measure of progress for those who marched 50 years ago was not merely how many blacks had joined the ranks of millionaires; it was whether this country would admit all people who were willing to work hard, regardless of race, into the ranks of a middle-class life. The test was not and never has been whether the doors of opportunity are cracked a bit wider for a few. It was whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many ... . To win that battle, to answer that call -- this remains our great unfinished business.</blockquote>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Why does our great unfinished business hearken
back the name of Benjamin Franklin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
he</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>returned home after participating in the
secret deliberations to draft the US Constitution</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, Franklin was said to have had an
inquisitive exchange with a Philadelphia
woman:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“What have you made for us, Dr. Franklin?”
the woman had wanted to know.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“A republic, madam, if you can keep it,” was his infamous reply.</span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TGJTniY1L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TGJTniY1L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="320" width="248" /></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Franklin</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> understood that democracy was not forever
assured --- that active, informed citizenship would be required not only to keep
but also to help it evolve. As the jurist Louis Brandeis once observed, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“</span>We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The challenge of ordinary citizenship, then,
is to promote progressive ideas towards the improvement of our democratic
ideal, regardless of the politics, regardless of the political party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That means solving the crisis of achieving
meaningful equality of opportunity</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for
all citizens --- and completing our nation's great unfinished business --- once and for all.</span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D’Angelo</span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-45464678763808491162015-09-18T18:30:00.000-04:002016-07-12T16:14:28.257-04:00Pope Francis: Unfettered Capitalism Is "a New Tyranny"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(Editor’s
note:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pope Francis makes his first papal visit to the US
in a swing through the Northeast --- Washington, DC, New York City & Philadelphia --- September
22-27, 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon his arrival, he is greeted at the airport by President Obama, in a change of protocol which
typically rolls out the red carpet only at the White House.) …</span></i> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In March 2013 Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the new Pope of Christianity’s Roman Catholic Church, at the age of 76. Francis is a pope of many firsts. He is the first pope from the order of the Society of Jesus (better known as the Jesuits), the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European pope in almost 1,300 years.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On the night of his election, Francis reportedly took the bus back to his hotel with the cardinals, rather than be driven in the papal car, in a style that news coverage has referred to as "no frills." He told journalists that he had chosen the name in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, out of special concern for the well-being of the poor. He had previously expressed his admiration for St. Francis, explaining that "He brought to Christianity an idea of poverty against the luxury, pride, vanity of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the time. He changed history."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Francis quickly served notice that he was to be a new kind of pope. He chose not to live in the official papal residence in the Apostolic Palace, but to remain in the Vatican guest house, in a suite in which he can receive visitors and hold meetings. He is the first pope since Pope Pius X (1903-1914) to live outside the papal apartments.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At the outset of his papacy, in a hopeful and encouraging sign for ordinary citizens, Francis set out a platform for his papacy in an 84-page document known as an apostolic exhortation. In it he attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny,” calling for an overhaul of the financial system and warning that economic inequality and unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence. Absent a solution to that problem, Francis said, “no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.” Francis attacked the “idolatry of money,” urging politicians to “attack the structural causes of inequality” and strive to provide work, healthcare and education to all citizens.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Francis also called upon the affluent to share their wealth:</div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; layout-grid-mode: both;">Just as the commandment ‘Thou
shalt </span><span style="background: white; font-size: 10.0pt;">not</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; layout-grid-mode: both;"> kill’ sets a clear limit in
order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou
shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such an economy kills.</span></div>
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“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure,” the pope asked, “but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSL_JIMAhKHsQShA0KixsrTQsL8FoLYuuO9SVbCnLZThaKJgZYb1rdM2T4Nlsz_plL2kb99hXN-tunYc34rRGRfOdHFydzB83kRXmszNZ7bRWqOxZumHjBxmjfQs20I9l5s9-d63-joM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-11-26+at+12.27.36+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSL_JIMAhKHsQShA0KixsrTQsL8FoLYuuO9SVbCnLZThaKJgZYb1rdM2T4Nlsz_plL2kb99hXN-tunYc34rRGRfOdHFydzB83kRXmszNZ7bRWqOxZumHjBxmjfQs20I9l5s9-d63-joM/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-11-26+at+12.27.36+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets,” the pope wrote, “rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In June 2015, the pope followed up his papacy directive with a 184-page encyclical, termed <i>Laudato Si</i>, calling for sweeping action around the globe to combat environmental degradation and climate change that he said was due mostly to fossil fuels and human activity.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anita McBride, executive in residence at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University's School of Public Affairs, says the excitement surrounding this papal visit to Washington is a "sharp contrast" to the last one, in April 2008, when Pope Benedict XVI huddled with President George W. Bush. McBride should know. Previously, she served as chief of staff to First Lady Laura Bush. White House aides at the time feared the pontiff might make sharp public comments about America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although he did not.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It appears that the times finally may be changing, Pope Francis sounding --- and acting --- very much like progressive leaders in the US who are aligned with President Obama. This bodes well --- not only for the poor --- but also for the spirits of millions of ordinary American citizens and people in developing nations throughout the world.</div>
<br />
<br />
-Michael D’Angelo<span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></span>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-60120334186460835332015-08-20T18:50:00.000-04:002015-08-21T09:25:01.815-04:00The Purchase System<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A force of immense power and remarkable
quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experience of victory without
equal demonstrated in the world time and again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Seasoned veterans of economic and great world conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An elite group full of pride and confidence
and arrogance, and it has much to be arrogant about.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As a social institution, it is a
study in paradox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unique coats of arms
honor family accolades which recall an era of bygone royalty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A creature entirely of lawmakers, its
traditions are cherished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The common
people take pride in its achievements, but at the same time its power is deeply
feared and kept in check.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
More
paradox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its individuals are highly and
professionally skilled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They go about
their business as both a science and career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But they cultivate high society with a casual air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in most cases they acquire their status
by purchase at a high cost, the higher the title the greater the cost.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Over the
generations, this “<i>purchase system</i>” is condemned as “organized incompetence and
institutionalized corruption.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But its
purpose ensures that those of status have a “stake in their society and are not
dangerous to its institutions.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
purchase system keeps the social institution “firmly in the hands of an
aristocratic governing elite, who control most of the wealth and power of the
nation.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
Structurally, a
final paradox lies in the fact that this social institution is “both
bureaucratized and decentralized.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
that reason, there can never be a coup in the land of America’s
mother country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The British military
proves itself time and again in the twenty plus years preceding the 1776
American Revolutionary War, fighting on five continents and defeating every
power that stands against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All in all,
it’s an impressive, efficient set-up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
And as with
many of its other time-tested institutions, America adopts the economic
component, if not the military structure, of the British purchase system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America’s wealthy class seems to be
firmly in the hands of an aristocratic governing elite, controlling most of the
nation’s wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And with wealth in the
purchase system comes power (<i>see cartoon</i>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-10-20_toles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-10-20_toles.jpg" height="269" width="320" /></a>The good
news?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, the wealthy class has,
thanks to the purchase system, a critical stake in its society and consequently is not seen to be dangerous to its other
institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A revolution from above
seems unlikely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
But there is bad news,
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/10/preserving-american-dream.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">startling graphic</span></a></span> is that the 400 richest Americans possess
more wealth than the bottom half (150 million) combined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, wealth disparity which is
already at record historical levels continues to widen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Equality of opportunity for the masses of
the unknown upon whom the strength of the nation derives --- essential to
keeping the American Dream alive --- continues its decline in lock step with the shrinking middle
class.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">N</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ewcomers, especially, are perhaps hit the
hardest, their opportunity to achieve a realistic level of prosperity by any
reasonable measure effectively foreclosed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The 2016 US presidential election is still more than one year away. But the
issue of wealth disparity frames the coming debate, as the </span>third great crisis<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> in
our nation’s history comes into <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/07/life-among-ordinary-completing-our.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">full view</span></a></span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A campaign ad for
one of the political candidates strikes a chord of provocation in direct terms:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Which side
are you on?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you on the side of
ordinary people struggling to put food on the table, send their kids to
college, live with some dignity --- or are you on the side of millionaires and
billionaires whose greed has no end?</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.1in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.1in; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
Sometimes ---
in real life --- we are left with little alternative but to make <span style="color: red;"><a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">choices</span></a></span> and
take sides.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .1in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Michael D’Angelo</span></div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-13864933561157882952015-07-17T21:53:00.000-04:002015-07-24T12:32:07.882-04:00Steer or Drift? (Part Two)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i>(Editor’s
note: This is the second and final segment in this two part series. The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/06/steer-or-drift-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">first segment</span></a> explained how the founding
fathers provided the ship (our federal government) with a precise yet
sophisticated steering mechanism. Given a record level of wealth
disparity in society today, the problem devolves to one main
consideration: whether to steer the ship --- or simply
to drift.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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In the present context, the promise of
economic freedom and prosperity has exhausted its supply of natural
opportunities. Its redemption, attempted
unsuccessfully by T.R.<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "Roosevelt,
Theodore" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> in
1912, fully 100 years ago, may prove to be beyond the patience, the power and
the wisdom of the American people and their leaders. But if the promise is not kept, democracy, as
it familiar to us, will no longer exist.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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What a wage earner needs, and what the
interests of a democratic society require, is a constantly higher standard of
living. If it is to earn the wage
earner’s loyalty, a democracy must recognize the legitimacy of his demand, and
make the satisfaction of it the essence of its public policy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Many say we have passed the point of critical
mass where the drift of indiscriminate individualism<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>individualism</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> requires the increasing control of property in
the public interest. A more scrupulous
attention to federal responsibility naturally follows the concentration of
corporate and individual wealth, dedicated only to the further proposition of
perpetuating its gains.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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Unless American independence emancipates
itself from its traditional illusions, its spirit vanishes. Perhaps the American people understood this
if only instinctively by the 2008 election, choosing to seat a leader who has
begun a new chapter in the process of steering once again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But it doesn’t necessarily have to be either
all steer<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>steer or Drift</span></i>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> or all drift. The two principles can and should peaceably
co-exist, working together if not always in perfect harmony. Each, however, must make a legitimate
concession to the other. Both the
individual and national interest must sacrifice their extreme elements for the
joint benefit of individual distinction and social improvement. The two principles must become subordinate to
the higher principle of human welfare<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN'>human
welfare</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
However, it can be expected that the
privileged classes will be hospitable only to those reforms which spare their
privileges. But their privileges cannot
be spared, to the extent that rational ideas may achieve any decisive influence
in their political life. The
consequences would be the cultivation of contempt for intelligence, the
excessive worship of tradition and complacent social subserviency.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
It would be intriguing to view the vexing
problem of inequality of opportunity through the lens of human welfare<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span lang=EN style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN'>human
welfare</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> ahead
of any other legitimate interest. The
goal would secure the benefits of the existing organization, while casting the
net of opportunity over a larger social area.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Conservative principles, traditions and
national history require only the gradual alteration of adverse social
conditions in the name of progress.
Perhaps a people can best exhibit its common sense so clearly as to be
contemporary without breaking the ties of historical anchorage. To move too suddenly by uprooting any
essential element of the national tradition would come at a severe penalty, as
ordinary citizens discovered when they decided to cut slavery out of their
national composition.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEgtVyejUy-LIhQrYTTA5650AlTlqujOHdsNH2Ub4O92HA6hdVnnMWQ52szMG_uQK0H-SdXyr013FXujLqJOJ5ip_PQbaANjvj8SFQ-yUILCnhptiSCLe5x7x2LRZoebphPxZlc-Jkav8eQQt5o4MSpLWDFFcU6RUGVknWZhsbwzQaQ=" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.usps.org/localusps/flint/Captain%20at%20the%20helm.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a>It is assumed the people wish to escape the need to regain their health by means of another surgical<br />
operation. They must then consider carefully how much of a reorganization of traditional<br />
institutions, policies and ideas are necessary to achieve a new, more stable national balance. They must also consider that any disloyalty to democracy by way of national policy will in the end be fatal to national unity. In steering the ship toward <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/07/life-among-ordinary-completing-our.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">meaningful equality of opportunity</span></a> to complete our great unfinished business, seldom has so much been
at stake.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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-Michael D’Angelo</div>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usps.org%2Flocalusps%2Fflint%2FCaptain%2520at%2520the%2520helm.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEgtVyejUy-LIhQrYTTA5650AlTlqujOHdsNH2Ub4O92HA6hdVnnMWQ52szMG_uQK0H-SdXyr013FXujLqJOJ5ip_PQbaANjvj8SFQ-yUILCnhptiSCLe5x7x2LRZoebphPxZlc-Jkav8eQQt5o4MSpLWDFFcU6RUGVknWZhsbwzQaQ=" -->Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2004746639033035482.post-84150006342822819272015-06-18T18:30:00.000-04:002015-07-24T12:36:25.160-04:00Steer or Drift? (Part One)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i>(Editor’s
note: This is the first article in a two part series on how we resolve complex problems here in America under our democratic system.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<b style="text-align: justify;">How
do we keep our American core values in a continuous state of progress? Is it prudent to charge ahead
proactively? Or should we delay and react passively to conditions?</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
Fortunately, the founding fathers provided the ship (our federal government) with a precise yet
sophisticated system of navigation. Over
the succeeding generations, the problem of forming a more perfect union came to
be simplified to one main consideration: whether and when to <i>steer</i> the
ship (Hamilton) --- or simply to <i>drift </i>(Jefferson).<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The stated goal has never varied much, an
equality of opportunity<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "E<span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> for
all citizens, regardless of status, with special privileges to none. When that equality was at risk, it was time to
steer<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>steer or Drift</span></i>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->. Once achieved, it was time to
leave it alone and drift. The aim was “a
better quality of human nature effected by a higher type of human association.” Its foundation was “mutual confidence and
fair dealing.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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But some say <st1:city w:st="on">Hamilton</st1:city><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Hamilton, Alexander</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> was guilty of over-steering, to
the extent that his capitalist system is dogged by the ill effects of preferred
status, unscrupulous competition and selfish materialism. Others say <st1:place w:st="on">Jefferson</st1:place><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Jefferson, Thomas</span>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->’s fundamental principle gave rise to an indiscriminate individualism<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>individualism</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, fatal “to both the essential individual and
the essential social interest.”
Over-drift was akin to abandoning ship.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 13.5pt; margin-right: .1in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 27.0pt 45.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Yet liberty and equality of opportunity<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "E<span style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, each a desirable principle, are often at
odds. Insofar as equal rights are freely
exercised, they are bound to result in inequalities, made to be perpetual. The “marriage,” which the free exercise of
equal rights is designed to consecrate between liberty and equality, “gives
birth to unnatural children, whose nature it is to devour one or the other of
its parents.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Consequently, the principle of equality of
opportunity<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "E<span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>quality of opportunity</span>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> cannot
be “confined to the merely negative task of keeping individual rights from
becoming in any way privileged.” It must
go further. The nation’s task in its
collective capacity must progress to a selection among the “various prevailing
ways of exercising individual rights” those which contribute to national and
individual integrity.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As a threshold matter, whether and when to
steer<!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span> XE "<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>steer or Drift</span></i>"
<![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--> the ship demands a national
consensus. But when does an issue become
national, requiring centralized action?
To be sure, there were those in the 19<sup>th</sup> century who believed
that human bondage was merely a local issue which failed to meet the
threshold. Others in the 20<sup>th</sup>
century believed similarly in the throes of economic depression. When is the line crossed wherein action in
one’s own best interest is in fact unreasonable?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Such is the suspicion of reasonable men to
subject themselves to the corruptive and abusive effects of political power
unacceptably concentrated. Better to
stall and prostrate the legitimate legislative function with a jammed circuit
board of competing economic special interests.
Better yet to neuter the executive function, while decrying the
judiciary to stick to legal interpretation and refrain from activist law
making.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps human nature is such that there will
be those who deem the ship to be in a safe port, sheltered from </div>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg6QOW6prQpCguLoHC4vo6zgJkhbz22R-6ZqFL6XuJdc7BzdmAGxAl_LrWxFFbTIJlPnQDe1tIy5Mnjkc06989Ke4uG4dfmaSWTatqbXtw0-kzzhEck7oZ2j4GJ6ex1vt6qT4Ijb0NeC6uGV1mo-2rHsbtj-orDpvKk-4u3zHUh-A=" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.ientrymail.com/devwebpro/tutorials/StormySea/8.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a> the storm,
where steering is not necessary.
Just as soon as there will be others who, with a sense of alarm, see the
same ship as careening toward a direct confrontation with rocky shoals or the
Titanic’s iceberg. Perhaps there can be
no effective reconciliation between these contrasting visions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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All the while, the pendulum swings back and
forth. We steer<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span></span>
XE "<i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-size:
12.0pt'>steer or Drift</span></i>" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->, then drift.
The process repeats itself. Each
cycle brings us arguably closer to a more perfect union.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>(Editor’s
note: The <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2015/07/steer-or-drift-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">second and final part</span></a> in this two part series contemplates how our society
can steer its way back to good health, given a record level of wealth disparity. By moving too suddenly, the danger of uprooting any essential element
of the national tradition would come at a severe penalty, as ordinary citizens
discovered when they decided to cut slavery out of their national composition.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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-Michael D'Angelo</div>
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<div id="edn2">
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For those old enough to remember, scenes from Baltimore conjure up images from the 1960s, standard-bearer for racial unrest in the modern civil rights era. Were the Baltimore riots (and events perhaps yet to come) the result of the mistreatment of just one man? Or is there more involved? As the national economy ebbs and flows, prosperity in this age of acquisitive individualism appears to have bypassed Baltimore’s inner city neighborhoods, which remain largely unchanged in 50 years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Why did they riot in Baltimore? Why did they riot in the 1960s? Are events related?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The 1960s riots took place in the Watts
section of <st1:city w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city>, as well as several other
major northern <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> cities,
including <st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city>, <st1:city w:st="on">Detroit</st1:city>,
<st1:city w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state>,
D.C. and <st1:city w:st="on">Newark</st1:city>. The riots were not confined to the <st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place>,
however. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Great
Britain</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">South Africa</st1:place>
also experienced race riots during this time.</div>
<div>
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;">The riots had
begun in 1965, due to mounting civil unrest, and continued for three successive
summers. President Lyndon Johnson</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"> appointed a federal commission on July 28,
1967, while rioting was still in progress.
He determined to learn </span><span style="text-align: justify;">the
cause of the race riots and unrest. </span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;">Upon signing the
order establishing the commission, the president asked for answers to three
basic questions about the riots: “What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening
again and again?”</span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;">The commission’s
final report, named the Report of the
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, or Kerner Report</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;">,</span><span lang="EN" style="text-align: justify;"> was released on February 29, 1968, after seven months of investigation. The
426-page document became an instant best-seller, with over two million
Americans purchasing copies. Its basic
finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic
opportunity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
critiqued the report a “physician’s warning of approaching death, with a
prescription for life.”</span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">One of the commission’s core findings was
that the federal government had engaged in unfair and discriminatory loan
practices. For example, in important
matters of employment, education and housing especially, federal low interest
loans under the GI Bill were made available to World War II and Korean war
veterans who were white, as an incentive to flee to the “safety” of the
suburbs, where a better quality of life awaited. Black veterans were illegally denied equal
treatment under the law.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">The Kerner Report’s
most infamous passage warned, “Our
nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white --- separate and
unequal.” The report berated
federal and state governments for failed housing, education and social service
policies, also aiming some of its sharpest criticism at the mainstream media:
“The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all,
with white men’s eyes and white perspective.”</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiJkh6up1Fapn8O0hR589MqQtJekM2EQs4tqJJVR6OlKPZLueLKf1HgGjIExn7ksdEYrkMm93FiFb7QlX3W_xIbvZi4Yl-sJO3a7iHbPPHw8nkSABY3C7kWCzkKDRUfZraiY_P1v81ozP_2oYQrEuccQOUHgQ=" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.cagle.com/132/2015/04/29/163401_600.jpg" height="290" width="400" /></a><span style="text-align: justify;">The federal commission concluded that the
riots were the result of poverty, police brutality, poor schools, poor housing,
attributed to “white racism” and its heritage of discrimination and
exclusion. The equation was a simple
one: no education, no job, no housing and no political power equaled no hope.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Following the riots of the 1960s, </span><st1:place style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">America</st1:place><span style="text-align: justify;">’s
suburbs continued a trend of becoming more white and its cities more
black. This phenomenon occurred as much
in the North and on the West Coast (</span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Newark</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Detroit</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Philadelphia</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Trenton</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Camden</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Cleveland</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Oakland</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;"> and </span><st1:city style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city><span style="text-align: justify;">) as
in the South (</span><st1:place style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on">Atlanta</st1:place><span style="text-align: justify;">
and Charlotte).</span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">The Johnson
administration had the report analyzed but dismissed its
recommendations</span><span style="text-align: justify;">, however,</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">on budgetary grounds. Soon the Great Society would be sidetracked anyway by external events in a far away place called </span><st1:country-region style="text-align: justify;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="text-align: justify;">. The War on Poverty would be </span><span style="text-align: justify;">swallowed up</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> and </span><span style="text-align: justify;">replaced by the
Nixon administration’s War on Drugs, with all the attendant shortcomings of
that campaign. Some argue persuasively
that the resulting discriminatory enforcement of these laws was by design ---
and is alive and well to the present day.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: justify;">Is this some of what's going on --- and not going on --- in Baltimore?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">-Michael D'Angelo</span></div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Democracy is self-rule, freedom in its purest collective sense. Self-determination is a process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government. Individually, it is a process by which a person controls their own life.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If only democracy were to be so simple.
Perhaps once upon a time it was simple.
But, today, when one nation’s economic “foreign policy” interests clash
with a people’s right to self-determination in some other place, near or far,
it gets complicated.<br />
<br />
A New York Times editorial flashes across the screen with the nebulous title, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/opinion/iraqs-cycles-of-revenge.html"><i><span style="color: red;">Iraq’s Cycles of Revenge</span></i></a>. Laying out the peoples and interests which comprise present day Iraq, the piece paints a worrisome picture of chronic behavior which is difficult to modify. Unfortunately, the piece merely scratches the surface of what may really be going on there.<br />
<br />
For a better view, one need go back at least a hundred years. If it were only to be about democracy and self-determination, as President Wilson had envisioned at the Palace of Versailles peace table, to settle the differences which remained (among Western powers) at the end of World War I.<br />
<br />
Long planned by Great Britain and France from the early days of World War I, the balance of the former Ottoman Empire was “partitioned.” Though not completed at Versailles, the partitioning facilitated the creation of the modern Arab World. The League of Nations then-governing world body granted the United Kingdom mandates over Mesopotamia and Palestine and Jordan. Out of the former, the nation of Iraq was conceived.<br />
<br />
The British navy’s conversion to oil during World
War I had
provided the critical military advantage over its German rival, which was still
using coal. Consequently, absent its own
domestic source of oil, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Great Britain</st1:country-region>’s “Mandate for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>” was, purely and simply, a
plan to implement a foreign policy initiative whose goal was to secure a safe,
abundant domestic oil supply. First and
foremost, the oil would be used to power the royal navy in continued military
domination of world shipping lanes.<br />
<br />
The administration of the plan facilitated a
secure supply of Arabian oil over land to <st1:place w:st="on">Western Europe</st1:place>. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> identified the lines of the Tigris and <st1:placename w:st="on">Euphrates</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Rivers</st1:placetype>
as the most favorable supply routes from the cities of <st1:city w:st="on">Mosul</st1:city>
and <st1:place w:st="on">Basra</st1:place>. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> then
struck upon a set of arbitrary lines around the physical arrangement, through which
it could administer both efficiently and productively, and called it “<st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place>.”<br />
<br />
Suffice to say the local inhabitants were not
consulted. Consequently, it mattered little
to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> that
the new nation would have a Shiite Muslim population in the south and east,
Sunni Muslims in the west, and the nomadic Kurds in the north. The latter group also had a significant
population north of the arbitrary border, in southern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region>. As
between the Shiites and the Sunnis, the Sunnis (Saddam Hussein’s people) were
the decided minority, so <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> decided to arm and provide them with the local
ruling authority under the mandate. Some
called it “nation building 101.”<br />
<br />
These three disparate groups had little in
common otherwise, with claims of Holy War made as early as 1920, when Muslim
leaders began to organize an insurgent effort. A fatwa (religious ruling) was then issued, which pointed out that it was against
Islamic law
for Muslims to countenance being ruled by non-Muslims. Muslim leaders thereafter called for a jihad (holy war) against
the British. Following World War II,
with the torch of leadership of Western Civilization effectively passing from
the British to the Americans, the phenomenon of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> officially became “our”
problem.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmT7zDQwW6QRant0sgL7dE9up3pnSwdihbJMPmkJLSIHQ1iGNYKAeI2ZzLvQ4R5twrPv9L6Gzc1QGEUNK17avJR9YhahduOzfjqHidJFkFnsLuJsbYVztTK7V3V22R4DHNGV6M7ukttWs/s1600/89734_600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmT7zDQwW6QRant0sgL7dE9up3pnSwdihbJMPmkJLSIHQ1iGNYKAeI2ZzLvQ4R5twrPv9L6Gzc1QGEUNK17avJR9YhahduOzfjqHidJFkFnsLuJsbYVztTK7V3V22R4DHNGV6M7ukttWs/s320/89734_600.jpg" width="320" /></a>In the aftermath following the toppling of its former dictator in 2003, the idea of an “Iraqi revolution” seems absurd, given the arbitrary nature of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>. Let’s face reality: The indigenous population is no more “Iraqi” than we Americans are from Mars.<br />
<br />
If it is about American core values of
democracy and <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2014/05/trs-new-nationalism-and-central.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">promoting human rights</span></a>, what part do national energy security and
our economic <i>dependence </i>on the
commodity of oil play? Are stewardship
of the environment and the common duty to <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/tr-and-noblesse-oblige-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">pay forward</span></a> for future generations primary considerations? How vital are American core values of equal protection of the laws coupled with freedom of
worship as against thorny <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2013/08/when-moral-issue-is-secondary-part-two.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">moral issues</span></a> of race, color, creed and gender distinctions? What is the relative importance of countering
extremism, regardless of cause?<br />
<br />
Above all, what part is to be played by ordinary
citizens? Who is to serve as <a href="http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/04/map-keys.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">our guide</span></a>?<br />
<br />
<br />
-Michael D’Angelo</div>
</div>
Michael D'Angelohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01832202370732293777noreply@blogger.com0