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The Importance of Lehman Brothers of Wall Street to American Life

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   
Former Lehman Brothers New York City Headquarters,
an investment banking worldwide firm.
Now owned by Barclays

Bernie Sanders, Independent Party, Senator from Vermont though born in Brooklyn, New York City, NY, has been knocking Wall Street as if it is the worst place that has happened to the USA. "Wall Street is a 0.7-mile-long (1.1 km) street running eight blocks, roughly northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in the Financial District of Lower ManhattanNew York City.  Donald Trump is from Manhattan.  On Wall Street one can also find "other major exchanges in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange."
September 15, 2008, day of Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy
Chapter 11

ProductsFinancial Services
Investment Banking
Investment management
Number of employees
26,200 (2008)
SubsidiariesLehman Brothers Inc.,Neuberger Berman Inc., Aurora Loan Services, LLC, SIB Mortgage Corporation,Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB, Eagle Energy Partners, and the Crossroads Group
                                                                               
Socialist Bernie Sanders: Most of his big contributors were the Unions.

On his website is an article that says: "
Less than a year before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. plunged the global economy into a terrifying free fall, the Wall Street firm awarded nearly $700 million to 50 of its highest-paid employees, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times."  Ahh yes, I remember when the stock market collapsed in 2007 and my Oppenheimer A account-made mostly of bonds and just a few stock, collapsed and I lost my savings I was just beginning to live on being I had recently retired from teaching.  I found out later that my bonds were worthless bonds showing loans to people for homes they could not afford.  That was not supposed to happen!  It's a wonder I didn't have a heart attack right then, but waited till 2009 for open heart surgery.  Meanwhile, the Lehman elite of 50 people were due to get $700 million.  Evenly divided, that would be $14 million per person. On September 15, 2008, they declared bankruptcy. 

 However, "
 documents, which were among the millions of pages submitted in Lehman's bankruptcy, show the list of top earners each were pledged $8 million to $51 million in cash, stock and other compensation. How much, if any, of the stock was cashed in before the bankruptcy wiped out its value couldn't be determined.

The Lehman documents provide a rare peek into Wall Street compensation practices, because federal regulations require salary disclosure of only the five highest-paid officers of a corporation. The documents reveal, to the dollar, the pay packages promised to individual traders and investment bankers at Lehman - a well-kept secret up to now.

                                                                                   
 I think he's just jealous.  On September 11, 2001 (9/11), Lehman occupied 3 floors of the World Trade Center.  One employee was killed in the terrorist attacks of that day.  Its global headquarters was in Three World Financial Center which were severely damaged and rendered unusable by falling debris.  This displaced over 6,500 employees.  The bank recovered quickly and rebuilt its presence.

Trading operations moved across the Hudson River to its New Jersey facilities where an impromptu trading floor was built in a hotel and was brought online less than 48 hours AFTER the attacks.  When stock markets reopened on September 17, 2001, Lehman's sales and trading capabilities were restored.
                                                                   
Wall Street in Manhattan, New York City, NY
Lehman Brothers is an investment bank.  They did not move back to its former headquarters in lower Manhattan.  Only Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, of the major firms, remained in the downtown area.  Lehman, though committed to stay in New York City, decided that the new headquarters represented an ideal circumstance where the firm was desperate to buy and Morgan Stanley was desperate to sell, and that when the new building was purchased, the structural integrity of Three World Financial Center had not yet been given a clean bill of health, and that they would have had to wait until May 2002 for repairs to end.

After the attacks, the management placed more emphasis on business continuity planning.  Unlike its rivals, the company was unusually concentrated for a bulge-bracket investment bank.
                                                                         
Henry and Emanuel Lehman
Who was Lehman Brothers?  It was started  in 1844 by a 23 year old immigrant from Bavaria, which is part of what we call Germany today.  His name was Henry Lehman and he was the son of a Jewish cattle merchant.  He didn't stay in New York City where he must have landed but lived in Montgomery, Alabama where he opened a dry-goods store called H. Lehman.  By 1847, his brother, Emanuel Lehman,  had joined him and the firm became H. Lehman and Bro.  Then their youngest brother, Mayer Lehman, arrived in 1850 and the firm changed its name again and Lehman Brothers was founded.

The 3 brothers began to accept raw cotton from customers as payment for merchandise during the 1850s. They started a 2nd business trading in cotton.  This grew within a few years to become the most significant part of their operation.   Henry died from Yellow Fever in 1855, but the other 2 brothers continued to focus on their commodities-trading/brokerage operations.  By 1858, the center of cotton trading shifted from the South to New York City.  Factors and commission houses were based here.  Lehman opened their first branch office at 119 Liberty Street.  Emanuel, now 32 years old, moved here to run the office.

The Civil War started on April 12, 1861.  As a result, they ran into difficulties.  The firm teamed up with a cotton merchant named John Durr and formed Lehman, Durr & Co.  The war ended on June 2, 1865 and the company helped finance Alabama's reconstruction.  They finally moved their headquarters to New York City, where they helped to found the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870.    Emanuel sat on the Board of Governors until 1884.  The firm also dealt in emerging the  market for railroad bonds and entered the financial-advisory business.  Herbert H. Lehman, US Senator,  is descended from Emanuel's  brother, Mayer Lehman.   

Lehman became a member of the Coffee Exchange as earl as 1883 and then the New York Stock Exchange in 1887.  In 1899 it underwrote its 1st public offering, the preferred and common stock of the International Steam Pump Company. 

 Their real shift from being a commodities house to a house of issue began in 1906.  Under Emanuel's son, Philip Lehman, the firm partnered with Goldman, Sachs & Co to bring the General Cigar Co. to market.  They were followed by Sears, Roebuck and Co.  The next 20 years almost 100 new issues were underwrittenby Lehman, often in conjunction with Goldman, Sachs.  Among those were F.W. Woolworth Co, May Dept. Stores Co., Gimbel Brothers, Inc., RH Macy & Co, The Studebaker Corp, the BF Goodrich Co, and Endicott Johnson Corp.  These are all famous companies that have been able to put thousands of people to work.  Such enterprises are businesses that made America a great place to live. Without such enterprising brothers, perhaps more people would just be busy baling cotton today for a living. In business, one thing can lead to another.  One rule of thumb is, according to my father, that a business has to keep growing.  Lehman Brothers must have heard that rule, too.  Their father in Bavaria was a cattle merchant, and mine founded a wholesale meat Co.  with my father being the cattle buyer.  

I wonder if Behrend Lehmann was an ancestor of the Lehman Brothers.  Also known as Issachar Bermann (1661-1730), he was a German financier.  He supplied Frederick august I of Saxony with money needed to be elected as king of Poland in 1697.  This sounds like something Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump  disapproves of today, so it has a long long history.   Behrend was granted the title of Royal Commissioner and used his influence to improve the legal position of the Jews who were something like 2nd-3rd citizens.  In 1696, he was responsible for reprinting the Babylonian Talmud and distributed over 5,000 copies to students.  Later, he lost all his wealth.  

Another ancestor of the family could have been Rabbi Marcus "Meyer"  Lehmann (1831-1890) of Germany.  From 1854, he officiated at Mainz, a famous Rabbinical and Jewish learning center in the Rhineland.  In 1860, he founded Der Israelit which he published attacks against the Reform movement and Jewish historical romances with  a religious moral content.  The Lehman Brothers could have come from his family as Bavaria  was a southern German state and Jews lived there from the 10th century on.  This is the state where Nuremberg and Munich is.  It was in the first half of the 19th century where unfavorable conditions in Bavaria led to a particularly large Jewish emigration to the USA.  
                                                                       
Herbert Henry Lehman (1878-1963)Herbert H. Lehman was born to a Reform Jewish family in New York City, the son of Babetta (née Newgass) and German-born immigrant Mayer Lehman.  He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the United States Senate from 1950 until 1957.

As for today's Lehman Brothers, they were in business employing many people for a long period of time.  One descendant was Herbert Henry Lehman  who was a US Statesman.  
                                                                                   
1929 Stock Market Crash on Wall Street

He had been a partner in the banking and investment firm of Lehman Bros, and became the Democratic lieutenant-governor from 1928 to 1932, yes, throughout the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  Then he was the governor from 1932 to 1942 of New York State, and that wasn't the end to his service to this country.  He served as 1st director-general of the UN relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) from 1943 to 1946.  He was the US senator from New York from 1949 to 1957.  His political career was marked by backing the New Deal philosophy of Roosevelt.  

As governor of New York, he furthered social security, unemployment insurance, and public regulation.  He must have been well-liked as he was re-elected 3 times.  During his Senate days, he was noted for his efforts in civil rights and FREER IMMIGRATION.  He opposed political hysteria of the day.  In his later years, he worked in supporting Israel (born May 14, 1948).  

Another Lehman descendant was Irving Lehman (1876-1945) who was Herbert's brother.  He was a US jurist being justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1908 to 1923, and then of the State Court of Appeals (chief judge from 1939.  He was a judicial liberal who believed that the scope of the law must expand in keeping with the social necessities of the time.  He was active in Jewish affairs as well.  

I suppose that if the Socialists take over, there will be no one to help new businesses get started.  The days of birth and growth of business will be over in the USA.  No one will create another Wall Street again.  It looks dismal.  "Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world."  

Bernie, the Lehman Bros. is part and parcel of what made America great.  They erred at a very old age, having been born in 1844 and died in 2008.  That's  164 years of prosperity for a lot of people employed by them as well as themselves.  That's why people came here; for better prospects.  

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman_Brothers
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-civil-war-ends
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/lehman-elite-stood-to-get-700-million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_H._Lehman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street


Jews of New York City, NY

Nadene Goldfoot                                                    
Chassidic tour of New York City
Crown Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn
             
Jews make up  2% of the USA population but make up much less than 1% of the world population..  How many live in New York City?  10% of the population are Jewish with 8.5 million people living in this state.  That means there are 1.2 million Jews living in New York City.  Brooklyn, which was the most popular borough, of King County, has a population of 2,621,793.

The history of New York City's Jews dates back to their boat arrival in 1654 when 23 refugees came from Recife, Brazil.  What had happened was that the Portuguese had conquered New Holland and brought the Spanish Inquisition with them.  Of the 23 in the boat,  while the tiny community did not thrive at first, one of its leaders, Asser Levy , by 1658 had real-estate holdings as far north as Albany, and in 1678 Jacob de Lucena was trading in Kingston, up the Hudson River.  Successful merchants, Luis Gomez and his sons built a trading post on the Hudson near Newburgh in 1717, and in 1732 the Hays family settled near New Rochelle in Westchester  .Their numbers grew most slowly. It wasn't until 1664 that the city's name changed to New York City.  In 1698 there were 4,937 people living in New York City.  .    By 1812, a war year, there were only about 400 Jews in the city.  Jews were denied certain civic rights and even permission to engage in crafts to make a living.
                                                                         
A major immigration of Jews to New York began in the 1880's because there was an increase of Anti-Semitic actions taking place in Central and Eastern Europe.  Remember the movie and stage play, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, with Tevia and his family and friends all being told they had to leave?  Many talked about going to the USA
                                                                     
Little Jewish girl, taken before 1910
Goldie Mabovitch b: May 3, 1898
Jewish peddlers of who many became department store owners
Bar Mitzva of Danny Eskow, 1951 in New York's Brooklyn; living on Avenue M.
His mother and father are on the right of his maternal grandmother, Sarah Greenstein Cohen,  who he is
standing with.  Behind him is his sister, aunt and cousins,
aunt and uncle behind his father.  His father and family escaped out of Russia, and he met his wife in Brooklyn, a German Jew.  They later moved to Florida.  
The number of Jews in New York City rose throughout the beginning of the 20th century and hit 2 million in the 1950s when Jews made up 1/4 of the city's population.  New York City's Jewish population then began to lessen as Jews moved out of Brooklyn and into the suburbs like other people were doing.  Some even moved to California and Florida.
                                                                             
Goldie Mabovitch b: Kiev, Russia-May 3, 1898
known as Golda Myerson Meir
4th Prime Minister of Israel
immigrated to NY as a child with parents Moshe and Bluma
after a pogrom in 1905-1906.  Her father had immigrated first.   
Moshe Mabovitch left to find work in New York City in 1903. None found, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Golda moved to Palestine in 1921
Gradually, Jews got these rights and were accepted only by 1715 with a naturalization law. At first they were not allowed to build a synagogue.  The first mention of one dates from 1693, 39 years after the 23 had arrived.  Since the first were from Brazil, the synagogue developed into the Sephardi congregation of Shearith Israel, which was unique until the Ashkenazi synagogue, B'nai Jeshurun was founded in 1825.

Immigration from Europe grew a lot in the 1820's and 1830's, and the Jewish population in 1846 had reached 10,000. 14 synagogues had been built by 1854.   By the late 1800s, there were in the city including Brooklyn, 250,000 Jews.

 Over 1,000 synagogues had been built by 1927, before the stock market crash of 1929.  By 1940, when WWII was about to start, there were over 2 million Jews in New York City.  Finally, it was home to 2.5 million Jews in the 1950's and had had the largest Jewish population in the world  before May 14, 1948, Israel's birth.  It went down to 1.54 million in 2011.  The proportion of liberal Jews was decreasing while the proportion of generally conservative Orthodox Jews and recent immigrants from Russia was increasing, taking place mostly in Brooklyn, which in 2012 was 23% Jewish  and where most of the Russian immigrants lived as well as nearly all of the ultra-orthodox.

The estimated Jewish population for Greater New York is 1,671,000.  There are fewer Jews under 45 and more over 45.  Occupations Jews become involved with in New York City are: liberal professions, managers, office workers, proprietors, salesmen, and less in handicrafts, manual labor and in the service industry.  Over 66% are in non-manual work while the general population shows a 50% involvement.

In 2013 there were 1,761,020 Jews in the state.  The 1,761,020 Jews of New York State represent around 9% of the total population of the state. New York City, long the most populous and influential of the American Jewish communities, had fewer than 1,000,000, with the Bronx being virtually without Jews except for Riverdale (45,000), Manhattan having 243,500 Jews, Brooklyn 456,000, Queens 186,000, and Staten Island 42,700.  

Famous New York Jews

  1. Woody Allen Movies
  2. Barbra Streisand, singer, movies
  3. Menachem Schneersohn, Chabad Rabbi
  4. Michael Bloomberg, is an American business magnate, politician, and philanthropist. Bloomberg served as the 108th Mayor of New York City, holding office for three consecutive terms, beginning with his first election in 2001. With a net worth of $43.7 billion, Bloomberg is the 6th-wealthiest person in the United States, and the 8th-wealthiest in the world. Bloomberg is the founder, CEO, and owner of Bloomberg L.P., the global financial data and media company that bears his name and is notable for its Bloomberg Terminal, which is widely used by investment professionals around the world. 
  5. Isaac M. Wise, Reform Rabbi
  6. Herbert H. Lehman-was a Democratic Party politician from New York. He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the United States Senate from 1950 until 1957. Son of Mayer Lehman of the 3 Lehman Brothers of NY history, Henry, Emanuel and Mayer.  .  
  7. Jacob K. Javits- was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from New York from 1957 to 1981. He was a liberal Republican who served in Congress for 30 years.
  8. Benjamin N. Cardozo-was an American jurist who served on the New York Court of Appeals and later as anAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court. Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his philosophy and vivid prose style. Cardozo served on the Supreme Court six years, from 1932 until his death in 1938.
  9. Bella Abzug-was an American lawyer, U.S. Representative, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus.
  10. Norman Lear-is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, ..
  11. Felix Rohatyn-US Ambassador to France;  is an American investment banker. He has spent most of his career with Lazard, where he brokered numerous large corporate mergers and acquisitions from the 1960s through the 1990s. In 1975 he played a central role in preventing the bankruptcy of New York City as chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corp. (MAC) and chief negotiator between the city, its labor unions and its creditors.
  12. Laurence Tisch-was an American businessmanWall Street investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of the Loews Corporation.
  13. Neil Simon, playwrite
  14. Carly Simon-singer-songwriter, musician and children's author
  15. Gloria Steinem, Women's Lib
  16. Ralph Lauren, clothing designer
  17. Susan Sontag-was an American writer, filmmaker, teacher and political activist. She published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964.
  18. Joey Ramone-Musician
  19. Aaron Copland, music
  20. Beverly Sills, opera singer
  21. Sandy Koufax, baseball player
  22. Meir Kahane, Rabbi, moved to Jerusalem
  23. Senator Barbara Boxer
  24. Alan Dershowitz, writer
  25. Jay Sekulow- American attorney and Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice. He also hosts a talk show, which airs on radio and television.
  26. Ed Koch, Mayor of NYC-American lawyer, politician, political commentator, movie critic and reality television arbitrator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City, which he led from fiscal insolvency to economic boom, from 1978 to 1989.
  27. Joseph Stein- Americanplaywright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.
  28. Bernie Sanders, born Sept 8, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York USA Independent Senator from Vermont, running for President 2016 on Democratic ticket, Socialist.  
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, New York City
http://www.nycgo.com/articles/take-a-tour-cultural-tours-of-chassidic-new-york
http://www.biography.com/people/golda-meir-9404859
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_H._Lehman

The ONLY REAL Solution to America's Current Race Problems

First there was Michael Brown.

          Then there was Eric Garner.

                    Now there are two dead police officers in New York City.

My heart grieves at the horrible incidents that have taken place in our Nation in recent months.  I sincerely feel for the affected innocent in these avoidable tragedies.

While each of these situations possessed individually unique variables, all three are signals of recently declining race relations in the United States.  Race relations in the U.S, which seemed to be gradually improving for 150 years, have seemingly come to an unnecessary, yet screeching, halt at this, the close of the year 2014.

Did it really have to come to this?  Will the madness ever stop?  Is it our destiny as Americans to keep reliving the horrors of the past indefinitely into the future?  Wasn't the election of an African American President supposed to improve race relations in America?  Why do statistics consistently suggest they have, in fact, gotten significantly worse since Barack Obama took office in 2009.

If the TRUTH be known, there is a way to end the chaos and terminate the terror, but the answer does not lie in finger-pointing, partisan politics, or the ceaseless bluster of a pettifogging punditry.  Nor do solutions lie in easily spoken words or rush-to-judgment rhetoric.  The answers lie in old-fashioned, common-sense action aimed at the very roots of the problem.

Where are the ROOTS of the problem?  They lie deeply veiled within the minds, hearts, and souls of individuals.

The solution to reaching, and then rooting out, these fetid tubers are THREE-fold.

SOLUTION 1: Develop and promote REAL role models in the African American Community and all other Communities.   


I am where I am today in large part because I grew up surrounded by good role models.  Without responsible parents, teachers, and mentors, individuals are like ships without a rudder--they will, in most cases, run predictably afoul of responsible behavior, ethical social mores, and sometimes even the law.  Good role models are needed everywhere: in business, education, politics, law enforcement, and throughout all communities, including the White community, the Asian and Hispanic community, and the Black community. This article focuses on the need for role models in the latter.

I was a part-time substitute teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, and a full-time teacher in Houston, TX for a combined five years.  I have worked with a lot of young African Americans from mid-lower class demographics over the years.  After these experiences in education, what message would I share with America about this particular student population?

I would say that a vast storehouse of talent, intelligence, and creativity exists among these bright and capable young people.  I would add to this that some of this creativity, intelligence, and talent is untapped due to serious issues at home, at school, or both. In the last analysis, I have concluded that when given the opportunity to be properly taught and mentored at home and school, most young African Americans will choose to exercise the self-leadership required to rise to the full measures of their extraordinary potential.

Examples of extraordinary ROLE MODELS already exist in the African American community--as many people well know.  For anyone unfamiliar with such persons, I am deeply honored to introduce to you two good friends of mine: Felicia Cockrell & Dr. Nathaniel J. Williams.

Felicia was raised in Chicago on the infamous South Side of that famous city.  She faced many of the same challenges that others confront growing up in difficult and dangerous neighborhoods throughout urban America.  Through self-leadership, Felicia is now a college graduate and successful mother and business professional.  

Nat is from the Bronx.  He was orphaned at age five.  Like Felicia, he faced enormous challenges amidst a peer group that often embraced alcohol and drugs, sexual permissiveness, violence, and other socially detrimental behaviors over habits of self-discipline and respect.  Through the dedicated exercise of self-leadership, Nat now has FOUR advanced degrees, is a husband and father of eight children, and serves as the executive director of a multi-million dollar not-for-profit organization.

Through the exercise of extraordinary self-leadership, Nat and Felicia were able to transcend difficult circumstances and overcome great odds to become highly educated, professionally successful, sterling examples of the greatness that countless other African Americans are capable.



Click HERE to read Felicia Cockrell's Story (From South Side to Six Figures)

Click HERE to read Dr. Nat William's Story (From Orphan to Executive Suite)


SOLUTION 2: Acknowledge and build upon the inherent goodness of the USA



The idea that the United States is inherently a bad country that seeks to keep some of her citizens down has been allowed to unfortunately proliferate into many corners of our society.  The result has been to infect the minds of many individuals with the mistaken notion that our nation is somehow fundamentally flawed--or even worse--evil.  

Let's start by facing the facts of our Nation's imperfections.  No honest or educated person denies the horrors of slavery, the disenfranchisement and mistreatment of African Americans throughout the U.S.A's spotted history of race relations, and the occasional aberration from decent and just behavior exhibited by evil individuals--including persons in positions of formal power and authority (i.e. law enforcement personnel).  Moreover, the cold, hard, truth is that speaking collectively and not individually, African Americans do have it harder than any other racial group in America.

However, no honest and educated person can rightfully deny that the United States of America has made remarkable progress in its collective, cultural treatment of African Americans.  Today, there is perhaps no other nation on Earth that offers more opportunity to Blacks than the United States.  Aside from the countless African American success stories in American business, government, education, entertainment, and athletics, how many other nations in the Western World can claim to have freely elected a Black President, and not once, but twice?

Aside from being the epicenter of opportunity for African Americans around the Globe, America is also the most magnanimous nation in the world--by far.  When it comes to generous giving and service, no other major nation comes even close to the U.S.--individually or collectively.

Isolated incidents of evil will always occur among a free populace of over 300 million people.  But isolated incidents do not define an entire nation.  The implicit or explicit bashing of America is therefore a huge part of the problem.  Until we can unite in acceding our nation's innate goodness--while never ceasing from striving to perfect her lingering shortcomings--things will only get worse.  It is time for all of us as U.S. Citizens to stop being fault focused, and start being Freedom Focused.

I have always been inspired by Barack Obama's vision of there not being a "Black America" or "White America," but a "United States of America."  I agree with and support his vision as stated in his famous 2004 Democratic National Convention Speech.  In some ways, I think this address ranks among the greatest American political speeches of the past generation.  It is my hope that President Obama's vision may yet be realized through the power of education and role models.

READ: Admitting America's Shortcomings While Ever Building on the Unprecedented Strength of her Great Foundation.


SOLUTION 3: Widely Proliferate Education in Self-Action Leadership


Real problems never begin in institutions.  They always begin inside individual persons, who in turn, can then infect institutions.  Likewise, real solutions to serious, collective problems are always rooted inside the minds, hearts, and spirits of individual men and women, boys and girls.

The single greatest solution to issues of race facing the United States of America in the twenty-first century is EDUCATION.  But education in what?  Your truth?  My truth?  His truth?  Her truth?  The Democrat's truth?  The Republican's truth?  The Libertarian's truth?

The answer is: Education in the TRUTH.

As naive, arrogant, or simplistic as this might sound, it is, in fact, reasonably rooted in nothing other than basic common sense--a science and art that have become increasingly uncommon throughout the United States in recent years.

Moreover, discovering, isolating, and proliferating the truth does not require us to embrace a single political party, religious dogma, or philosophical ideology.  It merely requires the consultation of conscience and the search for facts in an effort to expose the countless fictions presently permeating our troubled culture.

The truth is that all black men in low income neighborhoods are not criminals. The truth is that all white cops are not hunting down black men. The truth is that credible statistics dramatically debunk both myths.

The TRUTH we illuminate at Freedom Focused comes originally packaged and freshly delivered as a timeless message of personal integrity and common sense.

The message is called: SELF-ACTION LEADERSHIP.

  • Self-Action Leadership is a morally informed version of self-leadership.  It takes the key elements of self-leadership and adds a moral imperative to weed out any evil posers who are hard working and self-disciplined, but have no conscience. [1]  
  • Self-Action Leadership seeks to bring about an end to postmodernism and replace it with a new era: The AGE OF AUTHENTICISM.
  • Self-Action Leadership seeks to inspire parents, schoolchildren, teachers, business professionals, and human beings everywhere to dedicate their lives to self-reliance, self-awareness, self-discipline, and self-restraint in the never-ending pursuit of personal freedom.   
  • Self-Action Leadership is seeking to redefine EDUCATION in the twenty-first century by replacing a foundation of character education that is woefully lacking in today's public schools and beyond.  
  • Self-Action Leadership is a first step in refining, and ultimately to redefining, race relations and interpersonal relations of all kinds in the United States and throughout the world.  

Self-Action Leadership seeks to unite all Americans in an individual and collective embrace of True Principles that every honest and educated person can agree with.  This includes the great truth that, "warts and all," America is the greatest country the world has ever known.

With proper education, commitment, and character, the United States can continue to serve as a role model of conscience, character, and the commitment to collective liberty and personal freedom to the rest of the world.  For the sake of the rest of the world, we must do so!

We are all in this together.  It's not only about you and your family.  What are you doing to serve as a force for good throughout your communities, states, and our Nation?  Whatever your plan, remember that it all begins with Personal Change.  It all begins with the one.  It all starts with you and me.  You can make a difference, simply by striving to be a better person than you were yesterday or last month or last year.

If you would like to follow this movement; if you would like to make a positive difference in your homes, schools, communities, state, and Nation; if you would like to stop asking what your Country can do for you, and start asking what you can do for you Country, please share this message with your personal network, and sign up to receive future blog posts from Freedom Focused.

Join me, Dr. Jordan R. Jensen, and my colleagues at Freedom Focused LLC, today by adding your voice to the choir that will once again make the United States of America the Last Best Hope of Earth.

Follow me on Twitter @JordanRJensen 

Visit us online at: www.freedomfocused.com

Next Blog Post: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 ~ SAL Chapter 16: The Power of Personal Experience

Notes:

1. Covey, S.R. (2004). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. New York, NY: Free Press.