The Watch is the Statism Watch for Liberal Left and Conservative Right.

Capitalism makes no stranger of statism of any brand of statism: fascism, nazism, phalangism, communism, and socialism. State ownership of the means of production under our system of laws should actually maximize employee/worker due process rights (no termination without just cause).

The really bad press for state ownership is really about enshrining the profit taking behavior of the investor class and the management class at the expense of the working class and the consumer class. Then on top of the bad press, we the American public are told time and time again that income tax assessments of corporations are passed through to the consumers with increased prices. Well, that is a no duh (and what corporation fit to invest in ever really has taxable income?).

What is wrong in all of this is that the effective income taxation of personal income of investors from sale of stock and payment of dividends is minimized by Congress. Thus over time the top 10% and the top 1% grow filthy rich, the middle class of employed workers and consumers begins to shrink, and the poverty class is badmouthed as the cause of social reform public expense (which shields us from recurrence of the Watt's Riots and the revolution that results when society is destabilized by true ruling class - the wealthy). Go figure. But do your homework.

True patriotism is keeping our society open (which means accountable from the top down) and progressive and inclusive.

Note bene. The recent entries by this author to the blog concern statism (which concern properly understood ties the conservative right (even libertarians) to the liberal left. Notice I did not say conservatives to liberals. The reason I am a liberal is that I believe in effective societal and community care with government taking the lead and responsibility for the welfare of people for which and to whom it must be both responsible and accountable. I reason I am a leftist because I want government not to exceed necessary state power. The debate in Congress and the state houses of the country is about that very thing - the extent of state power - and the Courts both state and federal must monitor with absolute rigor what then is both unnecessary and unreasonable grabs of power (which is our watch for creeping statism which unites the right and left in this country with the middle or moderate folks).

Lenin deserves no honor, no remembrance of his birthday

In some quarters, the birthday of V.I. Lenin is being marked today. If you do not object to any honor for Lenin,think again. Why should one object? Here's why and whether you are a conservative or a liberal, or, most especially, a socialist (as in a non-communist socialist):

Bad blood after all these years as between socialism (which is neither atheistic nor theistic nor Christian, and so on ...) over the absolutism of Marxist Leninism. Had Democracy or even representative democracy been allowed to proceed in Russia of 1917, communism might, even if atheistic and anti-religion in its politics, have had some legitimacy in my eyes.

The revolution preceded the crimes of Lenin. The revolution led to the Republic and most assuredly was dead with the execution of Karensky. Sad, very sad.

Just so you know that for years and years I prayed the Rosary for the conversion of Russian which was by state decree atheistic and persecuted persons of religious conviction. Not sure if God can be said to have currently prevailed in the modern Russian state. Today I again pray the Rosary but for a different reason.

What time has taught many of us is that Russia in its very soul lives or dies if the center (the center being the power brokers in the Kremlin) does not hold. Unfortunately for the Russian people and all the bullied ethnic minorities of Russia and its client states, the center has time and time again trashed minorities, especially the individual who says emphatically to the state: NO! The tsars did it, Lenin did it, Stalin most assuredly did it, and others, and sadly Mr. Putin, the old KGB man does too.

Absolutism and statism scare the bejesus out of liberals such as myself, and pardon me if I retch at any idea of celebrating the birthday of Vlad!

Liberals and conservatives who do not know the dangers of statism of any stripe scare the bejesus out of me (as in fascists, nazis, and communists to name a few). Limited government gives people hope, and legitimate government requires of itself the reasonable and necessary curtailment of state power.

Communism in control of the state has proven again and again that it is its own worst enemy for no greater reason than that it prevails by becoming absolutist and dictatorial and extremist. China carries the banner of vested interest in capitalism today. In that sense it provides for now a future for its communist regime (at least if one ignors the human rights abuses rampant in its realm). Capitalism and communism are not strange bedfellows anymore than it was for the Nazi and the Fascists and the Phalangists.

Once again welling up in me is such joy

The fact each human being has an experience of God (even if termed atheistic as a "selfie") does not in fact warrant the existence of a knowing God, creator God.

In Christian understanding, we are made in the image and likeness of God and can not be fully realized as humans we are created to be but for and by the grace of God in becoming other Christs both in our submission to the Father God's will and in the humility of our service to our fellow human beings.

Joy for me is the tattletale on the riggings of our little sail boats which tells us Christians that we are truly onto something in living the life of Christ. If one has need of such joy one is indeed experiencing the joy of relationship with God.

Please do not think I espouse a notion that the only valid experience of God is Judaeo-Christian, but the searcher after connectedness with God who happens upon the Gospels and the Bible would be fortunate indeed to try it on for its authenticity. Jesus, just a closer walk with thee . . .

Public Domain version of the hymn "Just a Closer Walk with Thee":

I am weak, but Thou art strong;
Jesus, keep me from all wrong;
I’ll be satisfied as long
As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.

Refrain:
Just a closer walk with Thee,
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea,
Daily walking close to Thee,
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Who with me my burden shares?
None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.

When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more;
Guide me gently, safely o’er
To Thy kingdom shore, to Thy shore.

On line source for hymn: http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Just_a_Closer_Walk_with_Thee/

Before slumber repose

Meditation

The focus of the eyes required
Amid the immediacy of the moment
Begans to blur now, its necessity
And its productive attention wanes.

Just moments ago the “busy-ness” of the day held sway,
What with the children to usher and to clock
And with the household quieted and errands run and
Ledgers balanced and quotas met and exceeded.

The trip home of congested lanes of traffic
And the queue of freeway ramps and
Grocery store check out counters
Has now quickened and resolved.

The day already is starting to recede
Though still immediate, becoming now
Without regret the immediate past.

Already the lull of concern for the morrow:
The homework which is due,
The supplies running low,
The likelihood of the uncalendared
And the urgent demands of bosses or customers
That will just have to be addressed!

The concern too of whether
We will be needed or not,
Whether we will be put to our best use or
Put to the challenge.

Have we left undone that which
Will permit tomorrow to go as planned?

Across the city and the burbs
At some point the teenagers
And grandchildren are all thumbs
And the vibrations of day settle beneath a hum
And the intimations of what the morrow
Will bring must come to a stop.

So I close my eyes now
And enjoy that stilling within
That is the necessary first rest
Before sleep and its hoped for sweet dreams,
Its restorative oblivion that can,
I want to believe, restore me
And before the dawn of day.

I picture myself on a swing
Atop a prairie hillock with a view
Across green hills of trees and grassy meadows.

I hear a tolling of a distant bell
Lessening, resolving in the twilight,
The twilight of a rosy sunset
That fades to the first star,
The first star of evening.

From the wooden bench of the swing,
I follow the taut line of its ropes
Up into the canopy of this old oak
And between its leaves, I notice
Sirius, brightest of stars, the Dog Star,
For it’s now high summer,
And the Earth gives off its warmth
Just as a distant lake swells
Sending its breeze onshore
Bringing on the cool that rewards
All who have endured the heat of day.

Now I stand up and out of my pant pocket
I draw a ball of string my child
Insist I keep and for just such a moment
As this one.

I take that ball of string
And I roll it from one palm
Into the other and than back again.

Examining the ball, I find
The loose end of its strand
And holding it tight in my left hand,
I throw the ball of string up into the sky
Just as very far as I can.

Just enough light to see
The string unraveled slackened
As it settles down and into
The meadow below me.

With my left hand and then
My right I start to tug the string,
To reel it in, but
It’s held fast in the briars and brambles.

Without realizing it at first,
I am descending the hillock
Drawn into the dampening tall grass
Coiling the string as I go
Into its expanding ball,
As I head down, down, down into the meadow,
Into the long good night,
The good night of a child
Readied for sleep, who only
Needed to reconnect with
The deep, deep, deep, . . .
Reality of Sleep.

God, let go of grandeur,
Must know such repose!


From A Few Memories Before Sleep
by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber.
© 2014 by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber. All rights reserved.

Lake Lida in the Dark of a Moonless Night

Lake Lida in the Dark of a Moonless Night

You’ve been careful to go off by yourself
Up to Sylvan Pond, hoping for clear night sky.
Your little sister Jodie comes running out to you.
She wants to know if you have seen glow bugs.
Her flashlight lens is covered in red cellophane and
She is careful to keep it pointed at the ground.
You tell her as if with the back of the hand:
“It’s too late in the summer for bioluminescence.”
She says to you that you do not know it all -- at all!
There’s always next year you tell her and
You remember it’s been four years
Since you last saw fireflies and
Have told her every year since
That she maybe one day would be so lucky
As to have seen lightening bugs too.
If you ask, she saw fireflies that night.
All I remember is what I went out to see:
The night sky with the Milky Way
Smudged across the southern sky
And to see star light off the pond.

From A Few Memories Before Sleep
by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber.
© 2014 by Richard J. (Rick) Hilber. All rights reserved.