Where have all the leaders gone?

Let me draw your kind attention please.
Please be cool and not cold.
You live in a country which is a distraction and not attraction.
The leaders you had projected are not blemishless .

my humbel request is this.
Come down from your ego arrogance.
Treat the global citizens as equal and consume not too much with credit card and borrowed money.
Happy Xmas

LAST WEEK, superinvestor Warren Buffett, America's second richest man, testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the subject of why people like him can well afford to pay taxes. In fact, Buffett is ceasing to be among the very wealthiest because he is giving most of his fortune away to philanthropies while he is still alive.

"Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise," Buffett told the senators. "Equality of opportunity has been on the decline. A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward a plutocracy."

Buffett also proposed higher taxes on the wealthy in order to give working people a break on their payroll taxes, which now cost three Americans in four more than they pay in income taxes. And he supports taxing hedge fund bonuses at the same rate as ordinary income, so that billionaire hedge fund managers don't pay taxes at a lower rate than the people who clean their offices.

The conservatives on the committee were somewhat nonplussed, since Buffett is a poster boy for capitalist entrepreneurship. He isn't supposed to hold such views. And indeed, few Americans of great wealth do.

Another one who does is William Gates Sr., who writes in the current issue of the magazine Politico with coauthor Chuck Collins that "Without our society's substantial investments in taxpayer-funded research, technology, education, and infrastructure, the wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans would not be so robust."

The source of great wealth is not just private entrepreneurs, but the society they inhabit and the public resources on which they build.

Collins, a Bostonian who gave away an inherited fortune while still in his 20s, has organized a new group called Business for Shared Prosperity.

One of the leaders of that group is Jim Sinegal, chief executive of Costco, which offers a business model that radically contrasts with rival Wal-Mart.

Sinegal not only provides decent wages and health insurance for his employees, but was part of a small group of business leaders who actually lobbied for an increase in the minimum wage.

One has to admire citizens like Buffett, Gates, Collins, and Sinegal, patricians who look beyond their own personal fortunes to the fortunes of the Republic and who lay constructive civic roles beyond their business interests.

The problem is that there are not nearly enough of them. And their attitudes run contrary to the gospel of our era that the prime duty of a corporate executive is to make as much money as possible for shareholders, no matter what the cost to employees, communities, or the environment. I recently attended a conference called the Summit on the Future of the Corporation, which brought together enlightened corporate executives and their critics. Half the people attending were corporate leaders convinced that socially responsible businesses could solve everything from environmental degradation to uplift of the poor. As engaged consumers and informed investors reward benign corporations with their pocketbooks, they contended, more corporations will be socially virtuous.

The other half of the room responded that most corporations, even those that want to do the right thing, are largely undermined by the cutthroat competitive environment in which they operate.

Pay decent wages, try to keep good jobs at home, provide good health and retirement benefits, swear off dubious products like junk food for kids - and some competitor who takes the low road is likely to out-compete or underprice you.

Further, much of what passes for socially responsible behavior by large corporations is so much marketing and "green-washing."

It's nice that Wal-Mart promotes long-life light bulbs, but when is Wal-Mart going to pay a good wage?

Some businesses like Costco can perhaps do it all (and God bless them). But for the most part, standards need to be set and financed socially.

That project calls not just for discerning consumers and investors but for engaged citizens crusading for public laws and public funds.

Leaders like Warren Buffett should be prized, both as executives whose civic values shame their peers, and as advocates for better tax-and-spend policies generally. If society is to get the resources so that healthcare and secure retirement (not to mention child care and job training) are not left to the whims and public relations of corporations, Congress had better follow Buffett's lead on tax equity, and restore our ability to finance these benefits as citizens.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/11/21/the_future_of_the_corporation/

Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.



It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though



Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.


it is. Something like that
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.



Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

You
Yes
Ah= USA
you had lost the respect
not because of BUSH the occupier of
the corporate controlled corrupt house= white house
but because of your way of barbaric life.
Sound nasty?
Sorry

Do you honestly expect anyone to read that flood?

what a waste of bandwidth.

Ragman
I presume you are an intellectual
It is only my presumption.
My views are as unpalatable as that of many around you and me.
I beg you your pardon if i made this compliment about you.
Allow me to say thanks for your participation in my thread
The subject of this thread is nothing to do with you nor with me.
Rama

umm...

Right!

Dude, ya can't just throw blood in the water. Fishing is an art....

RH