Saturday Morning Thoughts

Hello All:

I was just sitting here reading the morning paper, such as it is in northern New Jersey. It not a very good morning paper if you are accustomed to good morning papers, but if it’s all you have, you finally get used to mediocrity. The point is not much is either presented or if it is, it’s not much presented in a very complete way. But I digress.

The New Jersey Daily Wipe, aka The Star Ledger, publishes mostly main stream media bureau pieces such as AP, Bloomberg, Politico, etc. One of the stories is “Palin goes after the Tea Party Crown”. Disgusting!

Now I can tell you from firsthand experience. I have been to several Tea Parties, including the “big one” in DC in September. I have been to the Morristown semi monthly organizational meetings. From the hundreds of thousands at Washington to the sixty or so in the local monthly meetings the focus and intentions are amazingly the same and parallel. I can tell you that the messages are eerily the same.

Everyone wants less federal government. Everyone wants control of government spending and things like that but there is a more important message that all want a return to a constitutional driven government and less of it.

I have seen NO, I mean absolutely zero clamoring for power or leadership roles in any Tea Party movement anywhere. We must not let the mainstream media hijack our excellent efforts and paint us as something that we are not.

What I have seen is a few people stepping up to the occasion to provide organization and communication skills. Some people are better able to articulate things verbally and orally and others are better with the written word. The ones that are better speakers are not just presenting original thoughts, they rightfully quoting their fellow Tea Party goers as well. Again, the point is that those that are speaking may appear to be the leaders and while I am sure that there are many egos involved in every endeavor, I have never seen anything that would hint of a power grab.

In fact that would be at odds with what I think the fundamental basis for the Tea Party formulation is. At this point the Tea Party is a platform for expressing the requirement for our elected officials to follow the constitution, as written, and not selectively ignore parts and pieces for political expedience.

As the movement grows I do think that ultimately some form of organizational leadership and skill will be required. It must for our efforts to be effective. The Democratic and Republican machines are massive. There is no way to compete with that head on. Even if we could, that is not the point.

I really have not used the word “conservative” yet. I suppose that I was busy mentioning the real underpinnings of what we believe and why. Certainly the foundation of our gatherings is a conservative mindset. There are probably many more conservatives in the Republican Party then the Democratic Party but there are conservative in both. Also there are members of both parties that do not represent either conservative values or the core values of either organization.

Again I think our focus to maintain the momentum that the Tea Party folks have generated. It is an amazing, almost unbelievable movement that has sprung up very spontaneously all across the country and all at once. From California to Florida to New Jersey, Texas and in the Midwest, we all believe the same thing, feel the same thing, and have taken approximately the same actions without any real outside organizational push. It is unbelievable. It is inspirational and it is awesome. It is also that which we must maintain.

There are the Glen Beck’s, which finally got me off my duff but before him there was Rush, Mark Levin and a whole host of other conservative talk show hosts that beat the drum daily. They beat it loud and often. It finally “sunk in” and suddenly there was “critical mass” and the silent majority became known among other things as the Tea Party groups. We owe so much to these dedicated radio folks. Bill O’Reily and Sean Hannity have contributed heavily and others are certain owed a debt of gratitude.

The message here is: (to quote an unnamed Army general): “the main thing, is to make sure that the main, thing remains the main thing!” We do not want to divert any of our energy to become a political third party or to expend the energy and resources it requires to become the monster political machine that being a political party requires. We have to and we must be able to harness the unbelievable power and energy of the people who gather so spontaneously and enthusiastically. We often gather, even on very short notice, to express the same gut level feelings for the constitutional guidance our founding father created that now inspires our beliefs.

We must find a way to perpetuate all of this. I do not think that for a minute Sarah Palin is trying to become the Tea Party Prom Queen. Certainly she exemplifies the heartbeat of what we are all trying to accomplish. Ultimately someone will emerge as a spokesman and therefore a “leader” of the Tea Party movement. In my heart of hearts, I honestly believe that he or she will still feel like they are merely and simply a spokesperson for the rest of us. Yes, we will need some leaders. We will need some people with organizational and communicational skills. Don’t we have those folks at the most fundamental levels of the local county precinct phone banks and party gatherings? Sure we do. They provide the backbone and underpinning of our government. Most of these people serve silently, effectively and are the very spiritual power of strength for our country.

Let us all remain vigilant and strong. Let us all continue to do that which we are already doing. Let us make sure to bring along friends when we attend the various functions. I must say one more thing along this line. Many, most of my friends are not as “politically active” as I am and find my Tea Party interests at a very minimum, intriguing. A lot of them are very interested and curious about the activities and meetings that I attend and frankly seem to be very proud of my interest and actions.

While that part is encouraging, I must say that most of them share our fundamental thoughts and beliefs, but are simply leaving the heavy lifting to others. Those others are the heart beat of the Tea Parties.

Remember the quote by Edmund Burke, an Irish statesman and political theorist: “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing”. I truly and honestly believe that which is going on in Washington today under the leadership of Barak Hussein Obama and his advisors, is evil. It is evil to the core. I believe that he and his gang of Chicago thugs have an unstated agenda of “progressivism,” and that these progressive beliefs are dangerous to our republic. They must be stopped and this progressive tracking must be reversed.

It will not be possible to stop them dead in their tracks, primarily because they have been coming in and out of view for a very long time. The Tea Party ideals have also been around for a long time. No one really thought about formulating a movement similar to the Tea Party because, well, we thought that was what we were supposed to be doing anyway. I guess we miscalculated a bit. In 1887, Lord Acton expressed, “Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. We let things get away from us.

Under the Tea Party umbrella, we have it within our reach to get it back.

God bless our brilliant founding fathers and God Bless America.

Jan Hruska

The Time is NOW

The Time is Now !

The time is now to act. The time is always now. When would there be a time when we would not act to stop what is going on in Washington? We are talking about the health care issue at this moment. Just when we thought the Christmas break and the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts had slowed the White House initiative, they accelerated their efforts. They are putting it all on the line. We must put it all on the line as well. NOW!

What does that mean? In simple terms it means that the things that reinvigorated conservatives, Tea Party goers and other Tea Party types have been doing, are working. We must keep doing what we have been doing. That does not mean that we have done enough and we can just wait for our efforts to pay off. It means that we have to keep working. Believe me, the Rahm Emanuel’s and David Axelrod’s of the world are not going to relax until they have this rammed down our throat.

There is an old expression that suggests that if something (no matter how wrong or inaccurate) is repeated often enough, it becomes believable. The White House and other progressives/liberals are going to continue to repeat how good their health care proposal is until they lose their voice or pass it. We clearly understand how bad it is, but they will keep demanding that we believe them. We must keep up the rebuttals one for one until we lose our voice.

It is clear that the grass roots efforts by all of us, has been profoundly impactful, probably beyond our wildest dreams. We need to continue working and build upon this success. Again, how do we do this? Well, this has always been a challenge to me as well. I started by attending Tea Parties. Then I actually went to the local Republican phone bank and helped out making calls to help get Chris Christie elected. And now I attend monthly or bi-monthly local Tea Party meetings. This will help you remain informed and enthusiastic. Do we have time for this now? Maybe, but we need more action, sooner. This week.

There are probably web sites for your local Tea Parties. They will have many local suggestions and contract numbers for your Congressional representatives and Senators. This information will be very helpful as we are out of time for the moment. Call the contact numbers now….this week. Politely express your desires to your duly elected reps. Tell them that you do not support the current health care proposal and to please vote against it. If your representatives are Democrats and are on the fence, insist that they vote against it and that you will work with them to get something that we can all support in a non-hurried fashion or time frame. This entire health care process has had a contrived and false sense of urgency built into it. This is intentional. It is to get us to make hasty, thoughtless decisions to accommodate the Democratic majority. The good news is that we recognized this and reacted.

A more concrete recommendation is to view the “Tea Party Patriots” web site. They are the self proclaimed ‘official grassroots of the American movement’. I only say ‘self proclaimed’ because I am not sure that the Tea Party has become that fully organized yet. It probably ultimately needs to be that well organized, so that it can become more effective. For now I really like the organization and their web site. Their web address is www.teapartypatriots.org. One of the most recent messages that I received from them has some excellent local, right now suggestions. Here is a link to that specific message. It has comments about local targeted reps. and their most recent votes: https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/12759de684492f07.

Make some calls, talk to your friends. Become an active constitutional conservative. Be creative. Do things that you think will work. Share these ideas and actions with your friends and neighbors. Share them with that folks in your life that are undecided or still trying to make a decision. Do not waste your time trying to convince the hard core zealots that you may know who have been liberals for a long time. This will likely frustrate you and again, you can be spending you time more efficiently elsewhere.

I recently received an email from a friend of mine in Dallas who attended a morning networking meeting where their speaker was prominent Dallas attorney Barrett Richards and a health care expert. While am paraphrasing the story as related by my friend, Richards essentially said that if health care passes and even if the Conservatives were to retake Congress, and the Presidency in three years, once an “entitlement” is passed and begun, it is almost impossible to repeal it. WE MUST STOP IT NOW. Keep on keeping on Gang. We have done some awesome work and there is more to do….RIGHT NOW! Act, react today!

Let me hear from you.

Jan Hruska

Opening Contribution

Mary and I are finally getting it together and actually doing something besides talking about moving south. This is our third winter here and we can only enjoy the lake that we live across from for only six to seven months of the year and we are now dealing with the snow on a fairly steep driveway one more time.

As a little background, Mary (my wife of twenty years) and I moved to Sparta, New Jersey from Dallas, Texas three and a half years ago with the company that I worked for at the time. I was excited about helping to open a new division of the company and about being a part of a cutting edge technology product that would be a first in the aviation industry. Looking back, that part all went pretty well.

Fast forward to June 2009, I was laid off in the second major downsizing for the company. Man, this was huge. New Jersey is a very expensive place to live and we had to do something. I have tried desperately to get a job here in the north east, but there are many other unemployed aviators and aviation managers up here in the area. I will say that New Jersey has an outstanding unemployment support system.

The unemployment payments (euphemistically called "unemployment insurance") are among the highest in the nation and there is a group called Professional Services Group (PSG) that has exceptional volunteers and the reeducation value is fantastic. More on that later.

We have two sons. The youngest is more involved in the matters of the house and he is more aware of the discussions Mary and I have about our options. Our oldest works and has a serious girlfriend to whom he is very dedicated. I thought that I would tell my oldest about the likelihood of out move south, to make sure he had the information because he has also expressed an interest in going back to college. It caught him a little off guard. We will come back to this later as well.

A couple of months ago, I caught wind of a possible flying job in Pensacola, Florida on a Marine Corps job site. The listing described an ideal opportunity that seemed perfect. Having gone to Navy flight school in Pensacola as a Marine 2nd Lt. forty years ago, the thought of moving back to 'P'cola', as we often refer to it, was very appealing.

The only problem was that the job offer was really just a rumor that some one had posted very prematurely and on an unauthorized basis. The job was not to materialize for another year or so and the job posting was the result of a casual conversation and not an official notice.

Meanwhile my brain began to spin about how great it would be to live in Pensacola again. Mary and I have become boating enthusiasts, having owned four or five boats of various sizes. As mentioned earlier, we can only boat six months of the year and then we have to spend money to store the boat for the rest of the year while staring at a frozen lake.

Now that my head is spinning about the beautiful white sands of Pensacola beach, the non-job realization of the flying job could not shake the desire to move there. So now I am thinking that I just need a job in Pensacola, any job, so that we can go ahead and move there, and be ready for the flying job when it eventually does open up. It seems to me that it would be easier getting a job in Pensacola living there than in Sparta, New Jersey.

Mary, ever the travel agent, never saw a trip for us that she could not plan. So within a couple of days of the discussion of the necessary "road-trip" she had the itinerary all planned out and had me publishing it to all of our friends that we will need to stay with in order to save a little money. It is not easy living on unemployment and Social Security. (Did I say that I began collection Social Security two months after I got laid off...very handy). I have already talked to most everybody about the possible trip anyway, but now we have a plan.

Tomorrow, I will go into the plans for the trip and the plans for getting the house ready to sell.