Prime Directives

Prime Directives
Baltimore American Statesmen

Bookstore www.primedirectivespublishing.com

AN essay - today's socialists, tomorrow's conservativeS

Stable accessible government institutions, with leaders elected in fair elections, not bought, not profiting from privilege, serving the interests of “We The People”, is a desire and goal of all Americans, citizen and non-citizen.

Following the American Civil War political leadership stepped aside giving the captains of industry and finance political leadership. The cycle repeated with progressive leadership taking hold again in the early 20th Century again replaced by today’s captains of industry and finance. History is not linear but cyclical.

In the years before the American Civil War, our country witnessed inspirational leadership as seen in Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, John Adams and his son John Quincy, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln and many more on all levels of leadership. Young, bold and daring, these leaders were driven by principle, love of country, not ideology.

The years following the Civil War saw leadership pass from men of greatness to men of wealth and greed focusing not on their country but themselves.

With the rise of what became known as the Robber Barons of the last half of the 19th century, men and women alike stepped forward arguing for schooling of children, care for workers injured on the job, laws saying children under 12 are to have their hours regulated in the mines and elsewhere, urban and government reform, the ones in wheelchairs are no less equal than those walking on two legs, the veteran having lost his hearing, and much more, due to the roar of the cannons, and worse, should receive special consideration. Progressive thinking flourished not based on ideology, but simply on what was seen right by the laws of common sense, by people possessing good values and character.

These advocates, labeled socialists, communists, and worse, of their day are still alive today, arguing for universal health care, fair tax laws, removal of corporate money from elections, affordable and decent housing, respect for the worker but called the same as the ones calling for children under 12 not to work in the mines. That is socialists, communists, scum and worse.

Of this cyclical dynamic, the tyrants of industry and finance do their evil thing. Americans, citizen and non-citizen, involuntarily live under the “Iron heel… of corporate domination” to use the words of President Glover Cleveland (1888).

Time to return to leadership seen in the early 19th century. Young and bold leadership is emerging from the bottom, moving to the top of the social and political world. One such leader is Daniel Lurie, Mayor of San Francisco. Called by the Washington Post as San Francisco’s quiet radical, Mayor Lurie recently cut “The ribbon of a locally owned grocery store in North Beach, a neighborhood that has been without a full-service store since the Safeway closed in 2023.”

There is no radical talk heard from this mayor just his words, “I think it is radical for an elected official to think about his or her city and just stay focused on that…in San Francisco…we didn’t keep our eye on the ball...If we do that, if we do the basics of government for the people…they’re going to do the rest.”

Since 2024, the year of Mayor Lurie’s election, those living in tents in San Francisco has fallen by 85% with the level of unsheltered people down 22% from 2024 to 2026. Mayor Lurie says his city’s CEOs are to be treated as, “A part of the city”, unlike that said by Mayor Katie Wilson of Seattle to her city’s CEOs- “Bye”.

When President Franklin Roosevelt was asked whether his New Deal policies made him a socialist, he replied, “I am a Christian and a Democrat.”

Mayor Lurie speaks of being true to our values, that is the value of taking care of each other. Taking your neighbor as he comes not as desired and render to him aid. Sounds not like socialism, communism but old fashion values put forward in the Testaments, Old and New, and the Qur’an.

Time it is to move on with new leaders knowing their ideas, labeled crazy, are tomorrow’s conservative ways of thinking giving rising to new ideas with today’s new leaders becoming tomorrow’s old guard facing tomorrow’s new leaders.

A SPIRITUAL statement

An acceptable and pragmatic spiritual belief is necessary to achieve happiness with the Spiritual Pillar, one of the Five Pillars of Man, as important as the Physical Pillar, embraced as part of everyday life.

The primary aim of life is happiness. But as hard as man struggles, happiness remains elusive because we are of temporary lives, here today, gone tomorrow, living as if the temporary is forever, inexorably leading to a world of emptiness, loneliness, and sadness hiding behind the glitter of the world.

I begin by saying I exist, otherwise how do I explain my thinking and writing of these thoughts and words, but my existence is not of my doing, making me contingent on an agent, seemingly external and perhaps indefinable.

I conclude you exist, otherwise how do I explain thinking and writing of that which does not exist, but again like me, your existence is not of your doing, making you contingent on an agent, seemingly external and perhaps indefinable.

This agent either made us, setting you and me aside, moving on leaving you and me alone or made you and me, with this agent staying with us.

The former I call creation. The latter I call emanation.

Now this agent did not come from nothing for it is not possible for something to come from nothing for if it did, there must be something in nothing.

Thia is an emanation (an extension) from an indefinable property (the agent spoken of) but being an emanation, this property, no matter how indefinable, lives on within me and you.

This agent acts as an absolute in my life, and yours, implicitly making this agent a sovereign whose road of travel is the road upon which you and I travel.

The grasping of this agent, this sovereign, this absolute, is the grasping of the universals, universals being another word for laws of morality, demanding an ethics in conformity and supportive of the laws of morality guiding us on the road to happiness.

This grasping requires man to see the secrets beyond the illusions of life seeing the Good. Whereas the man sees only the illusions of the secrets sees evil. And the type of will man possesses is determined by what he sees.

A laborious effort free of bias, tradition, dogma and conventionality, necessary to grasp this agent seeing beyond the illusions of life to the Secrets of life, requires a genuine and sincere effort.

It is an effort not making sense without the expectation of life after death with the current life being the life by which we learn, and the next life lived by what we have learned, understanding without this expectation what is the reason to go on living.

This effort begins with a single road at birth, a road equal to all in matter and spirit, but due to the ways of the world, comes to a split, becoming two roads, one smooth and level - the road of Good, the other rough and rocky - the road of evil.

This grasping though cannot be achieved without a cooperating political order, more importantly the foundation of the political order, that is the economic order.

A cooperating political and economic order frees man not only from the chains of poverty and oppression setting him free to achieve his human potential but to provide the way to unity with the agent making attention to the economic order an attention to the agent.

In doing this, the customs and comforts of this world are seen, for what they are. That is here today, gone tomorrow. Of the impermanent they are, leaving me, and you, out on a high cliff with no choice but to search for the foundation, the permanent, upon which all rest.

This search for the permanent gives us the laws of morality demanding an ethics in conformity and supportive of these laws guiding us to happiness.

As such man has one duty. To care for his neighbor, taking him as he comes, not as desired, knowing the workings of inequities create poverty, oppress the working man, steals from him to give to the few, robs him of his artistic talent and rightful place in eternity.

This duty is because each of us lives as a sheep and a shepherd. As sheep, each of us has a shepherd. As a shepherd, each of us has sheep. But this cannot be if we disrespect our neighbor refusing to be a shepherd making us a wayward sheep.

Any other way is meaningless.

THINK NOT AS A MAN, THINK AS A GOD-A QUARTERLY eSSAY

It has been written, “Man with no check on his feelings is like a city with no defenses” making ascertainment of these checks a duty. This ascertainment begins with acknowledgment that each of us is going the way of all mankind.

No man is a master of his breath, master of the day of his death. No exemption is there from this struggle. The good, the evil, the just, and unjust are all in the same lot, each experiencing the dawn of a youth fleeting.

You may ask, what do these checks look like. I say there are signs in the Messengers of history and the nature of man shining on the right checks.

To give these words their due, faith in these words is not to be treated as a boxable thing hidden away on a high shelf in the closet taken out when convenient. This faith is to be one’s core.

Faith is not to be separable from everyday life. Placing faith in service to humanity, fighting for justice, is the highest expression of religious faith.

Make your weights and measurements of life honest. Do not let the clergy be the same as the Pharisees of the time of Jesus.

People can say tomorrow will be a fair day with a sunny look based on observation of the sky of the prior evening. Are we not able to see the right vision shining on the right checks by what we see, hear and feel in everyday experiences subject to an unbiased reflective mind?

It has been written that a tree is good when its fruit is good. If the tree is not good, its fruit is rotten. If our unbiased reflective mind working at its best can present to us the sure signs, life will be as the tree bearing good fruit.

The right vision shines upon these laws. Fidelity to these laws grows the good tree bearing good people. Piety towards parents, reverence for the dead, doing to no one what you dislike, is of the good fruit.

Thinking that is abhorrent, narrow and vindictive stands in the way of observation of the law. Thinking this has been throughout the ages.

The sacrifices and fasting of olden days are to be replaced with true sacrifices and fasting seen in the showing of compassion for the wicked, your enemies, the orphan, the widow, the poor, while plotting in your heart goodness, not evil, for your neighbor as he comes to you, not as he is desired.

Thinking, flowing from right vision, demands a heart not lured in service to false idols.

This vision shines as a lamp acting as the breath of man. Rich and poor hold the commonality of being of the same fabric surely returning to this fabric. A house built upon wisdom is as the good tree, firm in all definitions of the word.

No one can serve two masters. Choose not the ways of the world but the power behind the world, being not a slave to the impermanent, gone tomorrow.

Live consistent with an ethics based on the moral law. This is the way forward. This is the Solution. Turn your ears to wisdom, your heart to understanding.

George Washington in his Farewell Address states that “religion and morality are indispensable supports” for national prosperity. “National morality can (not) prevail in exclusion of religious principle”, Washington added.

People of the good tree are the moral conscience of the state, serving as its guide and critic not as a silent partner. Faith is to be placed in action. It is to be an active, not passive, faith building a fair and humane society.

WE ALL WANT TO LIVE IN A COMMUNITY WHERE...

the streets are safe, where we can go out into the neighborhood, to the park, to the store without fear. A community where we send our children out to play knowing they will come home safely, where our children go to school without police patrolling the hallways.

We all want to live a life as lived as once a child in a community where schools educate with the best teachers, the best books, the best technology.

We all want to live in a community where our work is meaningful with pay sufficient to care for family with no need to pay the rent, the electric bill, water bill, food bill with a credit card or a government handout. We all want a job where we are respected.

We all want to live in a community with decent affordable housing with a faith making sense, that speaks to us.

Each of us respect family, freedom, kindness, integrity, democracy, seeing these foundational beliefs as the core of happiness.

These foundational beliefs translate into a shared belief in clean air and water, quality education, protection of privacy, real and affordable health care. Consumer protection, including banning excessive prices on the necessities to live, is of these beliefs.

Ensuring our leaders are elected by you and me in fair elections not bought by the few with assurances our leaders serve the interests of We the People not using their privilege to profit themselves is our common quest.

But the above is elusive mandating a thinking that the credit card (the slippery lender), the government handout, corruption defining our lives, are to be avoided through an economic system in which you are respected as a human being and as a worker, assuring fair and adequate wages, the very physical foundation of the spiritual foundation necessary for the happy life.

A thinking uniting us, not dividing us, keeping us strong with the few becoming weaker and the many stronger is our common quest. A faith grounded in our neighbor mandating love for children, spouses, parents, friends, is to be extended to love for our community.

A thinking this is mandating this faith is not to be kept in a box hidden away in the closet taken out when convenient.

This faith is to be manifested in citizenship where the concern is not to be charitable but to establish rules giving us a world where charity is no longer needed.

A thinking that seeks a community where The Five Pillars of Man, that is the Physical, Intellect, Emotional, Spiritual and Love, are honored in belief and deed giving us the American values long cherished as foundational to personal independence and self-reliance.

Assuring a fair chance for all regardless of background and beliefs, succeeding in an economy based not on public ownership but private ownership and a free market is key. As is moving about in freedom from an arbitrary control denying personal choice, free will, living a life meaningful with real participation as citizens in our government institutions.

Essential is the grasping of this desired world achieved through the blossoming of The Five Pillars, in particular The Spiritual Pillar.

project

POVERTY, AMERICA’S INDUSTRY

IT NEEDS TO BE STATED RIGHT UP FRONT, THAT THE PEOPLE WORKING IN THE SUBJECT OF THIS ESSAY, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, ARE DEDICATED, HONEST AND HARD WORKING. FROM THE JUDGE IN CHARGE TO THE MAN CLEANING UP AFTER THE HOMELESS, EACH IS IMPORTANT AND TO BE RESPECTED. WITH THIS STATEMENT, LET US BEGIN.

This chapter serves as a description of a project, entitled “Poverty, America’s Industry”, based on the premise that the leading industries in the United States are not limited to the steel industry, the oil industry, the technology industry, the munition industry and the like. The poverty industry is to be included in this group. CLICK HERE TO POVERTY, AMERICA'S INDUSTRY