Jiang. Leader;military general, to take, to hold.
The quality of the leader determines the quality of the organization.
A leader who lacks intelligence, virtue, and experience
Cannot hope for success.
In any conflict
The circumstances affect the outcome.
Good leaders can succeed in adverse conditions,
Bad leaders can lose in favorable conditions,
Therefore, good leaders constantly strive to perfect themselves,
Lest their shortcomings mar their endeavors.
When all other factors are equal,
It is the character of the leader that determines the outcome.
___
A good thing to think about when deciding how you want to vote for our next president, and look at the results of the last seven years.
We face a coming time of upheaval and crisis. How we choose our leaders during this time is important, and will set the course of this country for the next century. What direction do we choose to move? Forward, with vision and strength, reaching out to the world to help through the coming difficult years, or inward, closing down, alienating our allies, hardening our enemies with weapons and strong words rather than weakening our enemies by being the shining city on the hill that reaches out to its neighbors, its friends and says, “Come, join us, live with us in peace and harmony. We will fight together with you to weaken the enemies that threaten us, but to all who come to us with peace, we are your friends and will support your efforts. Your religion is not our enemy, your nation is not our enemy, and we will not take your nation from you. We will let you make the choice to live in peace with us, and share our wealth with you. Tell those who fight us that we wish to make peace.”
That’s the America I want to live in. Not one that rewards its wealthiest, but supports its weakest. Not one that hoards the wealth of the world to those privileged few who use our armies to enrich themselves, but the America that shares its greatness and wealth and knowledge with the world.
We built this Internet. We use it to speak with everyone in the world we can reach. We shared it with everyone, without limits, without control.
We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
..
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Is our American dream dying, moving into fascism and repression, or are we going to reignite that wonderful, real American spirit, not the fake one that the rich and powerful use to try and manipulate and oppress us?
We are the ones who get to decide. Especially you, who are younger than me. My generation is polarized, divided between those who already have but want still more, and those of us who know we have far, far, more than we could ever possibly need, and want only to share our wealth, our knowledge, our experience and our riches with the entire world.
We built you this Internet, children. It is our last, best possible gift to you. Please, use it wisely, tell your friends that they can make this the next, greatest generation of Americans the world has ever seen. We want you to be loved, admired, looked up to and blessed for the rest of the your lives by the entire world. We do not want you to be scorned, sneered at, ruled by a smirking leader who says like “Who cares what you think?”. We want you to pick strong, courageous leaders who can make this country great in the eyes of the world again.
I am only one voice, I am only one small person here sharing my hopes and dreams for the two wonderful people I have helped to bring into this world and raise. I do not want them killed in a senseless war to lead to wealth for a group of rich people who think they own this earth. I want them to live in a free, happy, open, giving and renewed country. I want a society where everyone knows their basic health is assured and their needs met, where those who have are willing to share, and the “have mores” are not the “base” for a president that promises them even more riches, but are the endowers of great foundations again and the saviors of the world from its medical and societal problems.
I want my kids to be able to walk anywhere in this world and be surrounded by friends and strangers who smile and thank them for being Americans, for being the best hope and strength of this entire planet.
That is my small little dream.
What’s yours?
7 Responses
My dream is close to yours but less patriotic, I guess. My dream is a world where people are thanked for what they do as an individual, or as a part of a group, but not for being part of a group as amorphous as a nationality, a race or the like.
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
– lao-tse – 6th century bce
[…] I spent a couple of years studying and blogging about Taoist philosophy. A search for “Tao” on my blog will turn up hundreds of posts. It is […]
Donna, that is all so beautifully expressed. Amen to every word. Thank you.
I just love the words Dick Scobie used on the occasion of his retirement from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee: “I hope I can keep reaching for a world in which those seeking justice will find it; for a world in which children wake up to days of promise and laughter; for a world in which old people will be respected and go to bed warm and secure; for a world in which young people will find love and work and there’ll be no need for guns, or police, or prisons; for a world of dancing and music where all manner of diversity is a cause for celebration; for a world without need for the tools and cruelty of war; and where the green pastures, the air and the water are kept clean.”
May it be so.
from http://quotesqueen.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/presidential-politics/
Amen.
absolutely reflects what’s on my mind, in my own dreams and heart. getting from here to there still a challenge but trying the one-step. -naomi
Just as occurred during the Roaring ’20s when the widening divide between the haves and have nots was similarly breeding instability, we have a strategic opportunity to return compassion and hope to an increasingly marginalized majority with proactive government policy employing the very unique capacities built into our federal constitution.
My hope is Americans will sooner rather than later realize as much has been done to weaken our nation’s full potential as has been done to strengthen it over the entire course of its history. Indeed, the battle for Independence continues to this very day. The burdensome rise in the price of necessities is only a most graphic slap in the face. The muscle behind its sting goes by the same name today as it did in the beginning: “Tyranny.”
Yet, too, we live in extraordinary times offering opportunities not every generation of Americans has been given to see. Those most pervasive agents weakening our nation’s full potential as a temple of Liberty and a beacon of Hope now find their power tied to a hopelessly bankrupt arrangement.
Thus, my dream is we would anticipate better days foremost with practical understanding of what is meant by, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Indeed, it is our own fault when someone like Donna drops a comment at Naked Capitalism saying, “So many have nothing to fall back on. I feel for them…”
So long as one has a mind, a heart and a soul, they will have everything they ever need to fall back on. Woe is those who shudder to act with passion from within.
Consider this thought as an individual. Then consider it as a social force.
How do you think we got that Constitution in the first place? Therein lies the ground where living souls among 330 million citizens must be led to tread…