Vision vs. Change

Bob went away on a weekend Men’s Retreat. While there, he engaged in discussions about work, family, relationships, on being a good father, husband, co-worker. He came away from the weekend, refreshed, energized and ready to be the man he decided he wanted to be.

Alice is finishing up her last week at the rehab center. Alcohol had controlled her life for almost a decade and is now preparing a new life with a new perspective.

After two weeks working with Street Children in Romania Claire and Tom return with a new vigor on life and a new perspective on what is important. They walk in their lavish middle class home, disgusted at the plethora of clothes and shoes in their closets, the abundance of food sitting in their pantry and begin to clean house. Meanwhile a group of Romanian kids gather in the playground trying to recreate the games they played with foreigners over the past two weeks.

Significant events have happened in each of the lives of the people above. But did change happen?

Learning occurred, perspectives influenced, but in each case, more times than not, there will be a change in behavior for a short time, a few days, maybe, but rarely a couple of weeks. Then behavior will return to what it was before. Bob will go back to old habits, Alice will continue to struggle against her temptations, Claire and Tom will replenish their clothes and the street kids will return to the streets.

What is happening here is not change but learning. Each were given a new perspective, insight, or a vision of what could be and for some reason, we accept that as change.

Yet, unless the conditions that helped create the former situation are dealt with; unless support structures are put in place to guide the change from vision to reality; unless discipline is instituted which provides accountability to reinforce the change, change will NEVER happen.

Everything is the way it is because conditions support it to be that way. Your special relationship claims change, the government claims change, even you claim change for yourself, but unless steps are taken to destroy the infrastructure that created what is, and replaced it with a new one to support what will be, it will never work, regardless of intentions.

That change would be seen in severing relationships, creating a new social network, changing daily routines, giving new authority to existing relationships, and committing to new behavior until it becomes habit.

Whether your change is personal, relational, organizational, communal, or even national, don’t fool yourself; vision is not change, but a pre-cursor to it.

Change is not merely a decision, it is a full restructuring process.

On Growing Up American

The United States, the most successful economy in the history of the world, is THE Land of Opportunity. It is different, not because of money, not because of military, but because of people.

The US by make-up is a nation of immigrants who left their homes, their lives, their comfort, venturing out into an unknown in order to seek a new life, a new path, a better opportunity.

Most have come with little to nothing, and built one of the most successful nations in the history of the world. We grew up with stories like “The Little Train that Could.” “The Bad News Bears”, “The Mighty Ducks,” stories of the common and non-special doing the extraordinary. We cheered with “Rocky,” and the “Karate Kid” and dared to share their dreams.

We dreamed as kids of being sports stars, astronauts, presidents. We grew not afraid of risk nor failure.

We are resilient, competitive, progressive. We don’t think of ourselves as the best, but compete as if we were.

We don’t wait for someone to tell us what we can do. We go until we’re told we can’t

We look for opportunities; we don’t wait for hand outs.

The US is a country where:

· Dreaming is encouraged

· Creativity is seen as a blessing rather than a lack of discipline

· We are motivated and put energies into rising above the competition rather than bringing it down

· Discrimination is confronted and dealt with rather than ignored and suppressed

· Opportunity is limited to your performance not your station, certification or special relationship.

· We learn to compete from an early age, and understand chance, loss, and winning.

· Performance outweighs relationship in competition.

· People are not afraid to hope, not scared to shoot for the stars, and willing to raise the bar.

· Culture supports opportunity, because if we don’t take it, someone else will.

· Individuality is celebrated.

So when our leaders create policies of penalty rather than opportunity; when they believe the people serve them, rather serving the people; when they believe the people want hand outs rather than choice, when they believe were satisfied with arbitrary distribution rather than fair competition, when they think we will simply give up after failure rather than push on and persevere, and when they think we NEED them…

It is clear….they are not American regardless of what their passport says, they don’t think American, and don’t understand the American spirit.

Climate Change Bill: Moving America to...

Under the cover of all the hoopla happening on Friday, the House of Representatives slipped in an hour to vote on and pass the historic mammoth 1500 page Climate Change Bill, of course, which almost no one had read.

A big win for the environment, which speaker Pelosi calls “A move to the future.” But as we learned, or hopefully learned, from the Kyoto Accord, the promise of the bill needs to match the process designed to meet that promise, which was its weakness.

Amidst the craziness that some are calling “Cap and Trade” include:

· A mandatory 20% reduction of fossil fuels by 2020 replaced by yet unknown alternative energy (nuclear not included)

· US companies buying an allotment of Pollution Permits from the government, let alone being forced to also purchase Al Gore’s venture capital invested carbon measuring software.

· A doubling of many household’s utility bills

· Other oddities added to the bill, probably in the 300 pages added at the last minute:

· All houses must conform to California housing standards

· Houses but be pre-approved by a federal energy efficiency inspection before it can be sold.

· And even something about shower police??

· Bottom line, it is, regardless of what side of the political spectrum you lie, the biggest tax hike in US history.

After the historic victory Obama said, “It's a bold and necessary step that holds the promise of creating new industries and millions of new jobs, decreasing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil."

So obviously there are more questions:

Does the US need the Government to create new markets and new jobs?

If dependence on foreign oil is such a big deal, why don’t we just use what we already have and are not using?

Since government will create the market and therefore these jobs, who will pay for it? Is this another FORCED distribution of wealth, opposed to consumer driven consumption?

The allotted permits are determined by what and who? Isn’t this simply more government getting involved in economical matters? One could assume more arbitrary carrots to dangle in front of corporations to do the bidding of the government. “Sure, we’ll give you more allotments, if you…..” But I’m SURE that would never happen…

Why is the government pushing through MAJOR legislation that drastically affects the future of our nation without letting not only the public at large, but even those voting the chance to read it?

How will US companies, already fighting an uphill battle against foreign competition do better? What is to keep them from just moving? For example in the last 8 months, AT&T cancelled up to 12.000 US jobs at about an average of 38,000 USD per year. Many of those went to Slovakia where they pay less than 1/3^rd that amount.

A couple insights, first, if you’re not into day-trading it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get familiar with it, as more and more companies move operations overseas to stay competitive, meaning less work available, day-trading I predict will be the best option for self-employment .

There is a strange desire to emulate Europe. This is the US, which has led the world in most things developmentally since its inception. It is European to imitate, while American style is to innovate. Our government today acts more like older European leadership then even the current European leadership.

A previously White House suppressed EPA report has recently surfaced claiming that the Earth temperatures since 2001 have stayed the same or cooled while CO2 emissions have gone up. An investigation has already been called in the Senate.

The US is unique in that is truly is not only the land of opportunity, but the ONLY land of opportunity.

That being true, the US as the strongest most successful economy in the history of the WORLD, should just take advantage of that which made us strong, which is opportunity through potential, not this limitation through penalty.

The president believes he can FORCE change on Americans rather than simply incentivize them, provide opportunity and potential in the direction you want to head, and American will COMPETE to get there first. But you would need to be raised American to understand that. Clearly, the administration doesn’t get it, or just doesn’t care.

I agree with Pelosi in that this bill is a move…maybe not to the future as she foresees it.

If you haven’t experienced other cultures (outside of US boarders of course) I’ll explain in detail what this last point means in the next blog.

Above the Law?

More facts about the Honduran ouster of former President Zelaya have emerged today, and tell us a lot about our current administration.

According to the Wall Stree Journal:

After the supreme court denied Zelaya the allowance to seek a constitutional referendum (Honduras has a history of dictators) he went ahead anyway with the vote getting ballots from ….Venezuela.

When ordering the military to carry out the voting logistics, the commander felt obligated to follow the supreme court’s ruling and not comply.

Mr. Zelaya fired him.

The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated, Mr. Zelaya refused.

He broke into the military installation with a mob stealing the ballots and having them distributed regardless of the attorney general making it clear that anyone carrying out the referendum would be prosecuted.

Under court order, the military arrested Mr. Zelaya and exiled him to Costa Rica, which means this was not a military coup as the international media is promoting.

The response from the President of the United States, the world’s leader and protector of democracy, liberty, and freedom. ”We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there.”Later, he added ”It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”

I’m still at a loss here, Honduras defended their own constitution. A country whose history is riddled with tyranny and dictators, now threaten by a coalition with Chavez and his boys. They react according to the law of the land against their elected leader who blatantly tried to defy the law.

What exactly is illegal about it? What other options did they have?

Why stand against those who followed the law and with those to openly defied it?

Yes he was the democratically elected president and in democracies, the people's chosen their leaders are not changed by militaries. But this isn’t freshmen level politics. Although democratically elected, it doesn’t give carte blanche to do anything or does our President believe that? What amazes me is that he was a constitutional lawyer.

The 80/20 on the matter, is that possibly Obama is using politics to deal with Latin America on a larger scale. However, I don't see how going against EVERYTHING we as America stands for to soothe the problem children of the South benefits us.

In short, the President’s response to this matter is telling, scary, and quite revealing. It shows the possibility that he believes, he has four years to do whatever, and there's little anyone can do about it.

American’s better start paying better attention.