monthly essay - today's socialists, tomorrow's conservative
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.
WE ALL WANT TO LIVE IN A COMMUNITY WHERE...
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 can send our children out to play knowing they will come home safely, where our children go to school without police patrolling the school hallways.
We all want to live 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 money sufficient to care for family and children with no need to pay the electric bill, the water bill, the food bill with a credit card or a government handout. We all want a job where our input and we are respected.
We all want to live in a community with decent affordable housing. We all want to be able to have a faith in our lives that makes sense. That is a faith that speaks to us and our families.
To put it another way, we want economic stability and security, safe communities ensuring safety in the home, the schools and workplaces, and stable accessible government institutions that serve the interests of We The People.
Each of us respect family, freedom, kindness, integrity, democracy, seeing these foundational beliefs as the core of happiness.
These 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 us in fair elections not bought by the few with assurances our leaders will not use their privilege to profit themselves.
None of the above is happening mandating a thinking that the credit card, the slippery lender, the government handout, the 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 in the happy life.
This thinking is to bring us together, not divide us, not to keep us weak with the strong and the few becoming stronger and fewer. A faith grounded in our neighbor mandating love for children, for spouses, for parents, for friends, is to be extended to love for our community.
A thinking that mandates this faith is not be kept in a box stored away somewhere 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.
We seek a community where The Five Pillars of Man, that is the Physical, the Intellect, the Emotional, the 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 to succeed in an economy based on private ownership and the free market, moving about in freedom from arbitrary control denying personal choice, and meaningful and real participation as citizens in our government institutions.
Essential is grasping that this desired world is achieved through the blossoming of The Five Pillars of Man, in particular The Pillar of the Spiritual.
We all want to live in a community where the streets are safe, where we can go o
PICTURES OF PEOPLE STRUGGLING TO LIVE
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
