We Don't Need False Heroes

In a mental health class the other day we were talking about a movie we had just watched that happened to star a famous Communist. (Bob Dylan's favorite occupation) One of the lessons we are supposed to have learned from the movie is the simple truth that Actions Speak Louder than Words. This is why silent movies were so big. People didn't talk, they "Acted". If a person says to you "Meet me at the pizza parlor at three PM today" and then never shows up each day he says he'll be there, his words will in time be worth very little. People want consistency between a man's words and actions. You know, they tell us that 75% of all communication is non verbal. A couple of very overrated phoney saviors come to mind- - Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. Abraham Lincoln has the rap as the one who "freed the Black man". But the Black man wasn't freed but continued to live in oppression for another hundred years. Indeed the KKK did not even exist before the Civil War. You don't free someone by issuing an edict, especially when it was issued for "political reasons" in helps of ending the Civil War. I just learned today that "Maryland, My Maryland" lyrics contain a number of references to Abraham Lincoln describing him as a tyrand and as the scourge of the North, or whatever. People would have you believe that Lincoln was a popular President when a lot of this is manufactured history. Indeed one could have diffused the whole Cecessionist thing if the economic problems facing the South were addressed squarely so that grievences were taken care of. The south was a poor economic step child of the North. Another individual, Jesus Christ- - if one stripps away what he said or claimed from what he "did" a whole different picture emerges. He looked on an oppressed, down-trodden race and discouraged any sense of racial pride or self sufficiency. He discouraged Nationalism and Patriotism. He discouraged fairness in paying wages if the parable of the Workers in the Vinyard is to be trusted. He encouraged an atnosphere of elitism and secrecy among his desciples after Easter making them feel "special" and somehow "more worthy than everyone else". Like Abraham Lincoln he was a virtual nobody except for the last few years of his life. If the truth be known and "by his own words" on KFI radio station, Jesus lived an ideal "Leave It To Beaver" or Ozzy and Harriet kind of life prior to his last three years whose life went virtually perfectly. This is what we are enjoined to assume. Jesus encouraged a quality psychologists distrust of "Waiting for everything to be different tomorrow". Jesus made it a habbit of dressing down people publicly who outranked him in status. This is something that modern day theologians enjoin us peons NOT to do. What Jesus did NOT do is deliver mankind from the power of Sin and give us Everlasting Life. This is what I mean by separating words from actions. In my dealings with Christians I have gotten "words - words -words". But if you want to compare our virtues contrast my Actions with their Actions. I don't really have time to do that now. A lot of otherwise good Americans regarded Abraham Lincoln as a tyrant. Republicans in their never ending love of War for War's sake, hold Lincoln up to be their Saviour. Every President from Nixon to Bush 41 to Bush 43 see themselves as somehow re-enacting Lincoln's Presidency saying that they don't care that nobody likes or trusts them, but somehow, some way, their Adminestrations will be exhonorated in the History Books.

And now we come to our current President. Remember when I said in a posting months ago that the stock market will probably bottom out in early February and that we should begin to see real economic activity by June? Actually that projection wasn't too far off. But Obama and the media of every stripe have led us all in this hand wringing orgy of how this is a necer ending recession and will go on for years. Sixty Minutes has done program after program on the subject and a person can't but help being affected by it all. Today the Republicans are doing sort of an info-mertial on just how bloated this new Budget is. Deficets will range about four times as high as the worst Bush deficet. For President Obama to say "My goal is to cut the deficet in half in four years" is pure Alice in Wonderland. Who is he trying to kid?? The facts are rather than cure an economic crisis- - this gargantuin Budget may end up Causing a whole massive new currency crisis a few years down the line as all these bills come do. This is why I've been saying it's so important not to have "optional" budget items as this time, that aren't directly tied to getting us out of this recession. There will be plenty of time for that later. According to that chart, President Clinton ran up four surplusses in a row. I didn't know that. Obama's own budget projections say that we will double the CURRENT National Debt- - in the next Five Years. That's even faster than Reagan ran it up. I've heard so many Republicans say that the cost of each job created by this budget "just isn't worth it" and that we'd do better just to write every American citizen a check.

I suppose some of you may be wondering "What accounts for your change of heart about President Obama?" Well in the first place it's not a complete change of heart. A lot of it is a matter of knowing all the facts before you decide. And also those charts the Republicans show can illustrate the point pretty graphically. But I'll be straight with you. I have to ask myself "Just what will Obama's proposals have on me personally?" This is the very same question every Black slave should have asked about Abraham Lincoln and that I and others should ask about Christianity. Platitudes are one thing but what about the bottom line, where the rubber meets the road? Well, cigarette taxes have exploded with multiple price increases over the past couple of months, like I've never seen. And my income rather than going up has undergone a net drop over the past couple of years. You know that. But now taxes are a new threat. Some people want a "consumption tax". Some want a Utility tax to somehow mandate alternative sources of energy. Then there is that carbon tax, or so called "Cap and Trade" or whatever it's called. There is one company that wanted to put a steel plant right here in the old U S of A in Missouri, but now they are saying "If we have to contend with that carbon tax we'll build our plant in Brazil instead". How smart will the environmentalists feel then when our pollution is exported to Brazil along with all the jobs? In Germany they say that since the carbon tax, that pollution has actually risen. Corporations would rather just pay the damn tax rather than take steps to eliminate CO2 from the atnosphere, and from their point of view, this might just make sense. They said that they have a technology where they "harvest" the CO2 from the air and pump it back into the ground as a means of increasing oil well production. Technology like this seems the sort of thing we should more encourage. These industrialists openly admit that due to changing market forces and as markets adjust, that alternative energy will appear attractive. But that day hasn't arrived yet. They also say "If you're really concerned about CO2 and the carbon footprint, then why not go nuclear, which produces no carbon dioxide? That is an excellent question and I'l like to hear the environmentalist's answer. We know that the perils of nuclear technology are way over-stated. My guess is that a lot more people lose their lives in coal mines every year than ever lost their lives in a nuclear plant.

President Obama has stated that it isn't fair that people who are wealthy who contribute a hundred dollars to a cause get a bigger percent tax deduction than a person of modist means. But as I have stated- - we want to encourage contributions FROM the wealthy. After all, they have the money to give. Apparently charities are really worried about this tax provision becomming reality. Actually there is one behavior that would improve the environment that we actually penalize people for doing- - not having children. Why not eliminate tax deductions for dependants? I don't think the environment profits from people having large families. I'm not trying to cramp anybody's style, I'm just saying that having children is one area in which our government is not "revenue neutral". While we're talking about neutrality, how about all of these "Politically Correct" regulations they have on college campuses? Sean Hannity has stated that to be "pragmatic" any Christian should styfle his personal beliefs in his philosophical dissertations. My theory is that any time you disallow Free and Open Debate on any topic, that you forfeit moral ground. While we're at it, speaking of ending wars, how about the war on open religious expression? Sometimes I think Athiests (whoever) are afraid that someone is "exposed" to beliefs other than their own they will somehow "be unable to resist the lure of the new belief". Perhaps the President could speak on this topic sometime. My belief about Christianity as you know, is that the more it is openly debated, the more foolish Christianity will look. But some of my Atheist friends appear to be afraid to put this to the test. Barry Goldwater once said "You can't legeslate morality". Well, can you legeslate against Homophobia? Parents, and rightly so, are deathly afraid that the homosexual way of life is being "Evangalized" in our schools. Who has the- - balls- - to go up against the gay lobby? Don't get me started on smoking. What is the enormous amount of money spent advertizing against tobacco were spent on something actually productive, like inventing a better hybred car? They say on the stock exchange floor "You can't fight the tape". And yet Democrats are still, alas, seen as a party of these out there looney special intrests. Now they don't want wind turbines in the desert because it might adversely affect some animal desert species nobody heard of. I think certain environmentalists better wake up and smell the coffee and realize that certain forms of energy like nuclear production is far more the Saviour than arch villain. (Selah)