Why Care?

I think I need to clarify something for my friends out there.  Why the Facebook photo...why do I dwell on my 1/16th Cherokee and not the 15/16 Western European?  

Fact is I know and embrace the 15/16 Western European.  That is mostly my mother's side, God Bless her soul, a person of dignity and love for all.  

I remember when we invited one of my 1st grade classmates, a little African American girl, to my birthday party, and some of my friend's parents kept their children home.  My mother called each one of them later and read them off for being the bigots they were. 

I found out years later of course, but that is what she did.  She married my Dad, a 1/8 Cherokee knowing full well his racial history.  She did so against the wishes of some in her large family (many supported her though).  

How does 1/16th influence me so?  It forces me to remember!

I tell you the truth it was hard.  At Stanford there was a fellow teammate who was African American and kept beating me out for first string.  It was hard.  He was better.  We competed as equals.  I resented it.  But never because he was black.  I had to live with it.  I had to live with the fact that he was a team mate.  He is gone now, an early heart attack took him.  I often wish I  could speak with him one more time.  

My mother has taught me better.  My father did too.  

Yesterday I visited him in the Dementia Assisted Facility.  He rambled on about how we were born poor and made due somehow.  In spite of the agony of Alzheimers he still, once in a while, makes me proud!

That is why I keep coming back again and again to this.  That is why I keep harping on white supremacy.  

I hate it!  I love my Mom and Dad.

There are many things that conflict in a man's life.  There is much to love about our country.  There is much to hate.

The one thing that keeps coming back, that lives each day in the hearts of us all, is White Supremacy.  

Fox News claims it is gone while all of us know it is not.  The United States has done some great things.  We stopped fascism and ended the most brutal war in human history.  It nicked us, because we had to be brutal too to end it; witness the atomic cloud.  

As we opened the death camps and saw the ultimate of man's brutality the world caught its breath, then went back to doing the same brutal things it always had done.  

And white supremacy forced us to wait until the late forties before we could allow inter-racial marriage or allow an African American to play major league baseball; wait another almost twenty years before segregation ended and Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed.  

Why so long.  Why must I remember and just not know?  Why do we all ignore the evil that is right next door?  

Because white supremacy conditions our every waking moment.  It is engrained in our culture to its very core.

The more I study history the more I am appalled.  Millions of Native Americans were exterminated, millions of wildlife killed, to steal land and create the "American Dream"..We ruined our environment so we could play a new video game, take a needless ride to the store, get more and more until we are so fat we waddle to the T.V. remote.  

Why must the American Dream be at the expense of someone else, always?  Why must there be "winners and losers" in our consciousness?  Why do we continue to pollute, to watch the doe die in the gutter after getting hit by the truck?

Trump speaks of that a lot.  And many of my fellow American listen.  Trump embodies the American nightmare.  

Hate sells in white supremacy.  Love does not.

But, again at the end of the long day, the reckoning is coming.  God is not sitting idly by during all of this.  The Great Mystery need not act,  It needs to just wait.

Let Us Not Fear to Negotiate

The Iran Anti Proliferation Agreement is a good thing and should be approved.  Predictably Republicans have rallied against it, remember the Senate Republicans actually sending a petition to Iran?  

This was one of the most blatant disloyal acts I can ever remember from the United States Senate.

This all reminds me of 1919 when the U.S. Senate, looking to the 1920 Presidential election, turned down the treaty President Wilson brought back from Versailles.

History has not been kind to Henry Cabot Lodge and other Senate Republicans, who killed America's participation in the League of Nations.

This led to Italy's rape of Ethiopia, the march to World War II, and directly aided the rise to power of fascism throughout the world.  

The United States was the only world power after WWI who had the strength to provide some kind of world order.  Instead of seizing this, as Wilson urged, we shrunk back into isolationism.  Japan, Germany and Italy saw their opportunity.  Without the United States in the League of Nations it was emasculated and ineffective.  FIFTY FIVE MILLION PEOPLE DIED because of this stupidity on the part of the Republican Party.

And, they won the Presidency for three terms, culminating in the disaster of Hoover and you know the rest.

We are looking at the same thing now.  Republicans are driven by politics, and a Israeli leader who is a hawk on everything, to opposed virtually anything the outgoing Democratic President proposes.  There is jockeying for position from over a dozen "viable" candidates, ALL who oppose the Iran Deal.

Fact:  The major world powers were at the table and participated in the negotiations from the outset.

Fact:  The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the settlement.

Fact:  The opposition has NO alternative to offer save attacking Iran.

Fact:  Iran, whether we like it or not, is an essential player in the politics of the Middle East.  They can either help or hinder virtually any efforts we make fighting terrorism in the area.   To isolate them further is stupid plain and simple.  

Fact:  History is not kind to the Republican Party and American Firsters (yes some Democrats participated in that stupidity).  They helped cause WWII!

Show some sense, read the agreement and support the President!  "Let us not negotiate in fear nor fear to negotiate", was the phrase President Kennedy used when he negotiated the end to the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Can you imagine if the Republicans would have blocked him?  We all would be dead!

Two babies running free in the heat

Yesterday I spent from 1:30 to 8:00 in the heat of the day.  I marshal a golf course in Redding.  The high was 112.  It hit that figure (or higher) at about 4:00 pm.  

We had about 10 people who teed off at 1:30; no kidding.  Some were tourists who had planned their round as part of their vacation, one was a fellow marshall, four were guys drinking beer who decided to do this on a dare.

We get that on hot days, people who risk their lives on a dare.

One of them, a young man of about 15, got heat exhaustion.  My training as a coach came into play, I demanded he drink lots of water (we have ice and water on our carts) and made an ice pack from a golf towel to put on the back of his neck.  Later, he was feeling better after not able to play several holes when I last saw them.  

At first his father thought it was funny, as his son got incoherent, he didn't think it was funny anymore.

Meanwhile, I saw animals in distress everywhere.  Squirrels out of the trees, lying flat in the grass, trying to cool off.  I saw deer in the middle of the day, at the stream  that runs pathetically through the course (it has mostly dried up).  The geese and ducks were out of the water, clustered under trees for shade...It was too hot in the water!

I saw a dog running loose.  I think it was crazed with thirst.  I tried to catch it, but couldn't.

I saw a falcon, on a green of all places, standing in the shade.  This was with golfers hitting balls at the green.  I drove up on it, and scared it away for its safety.  

No birds were flying, it was too hot.  

It was strangely silent everywhere except for the droaning of air conditioners in the houses, sucking the air in and expelling the hot, making the heat worse. 

And then there were the two little ones.

At about five, when the heat was the worse, my wife called me on her cell phone.  We live on the golf course, and she had been driving back from town, and saw two "babies" cross the street headed away from the creek.  She did not see  their mother.

I happened upon a beautiful doe a few minutes before, about a half mile from where my wife saw the two babies.  She told me they were very small, tiny almost, way too young to be separated from their mother.

The doe I saw was lying down next to the creek, probably suffering heat exhaustion.  The water in the creeks is rancid.

I quickly figured out I was witnessing a tragedy.  In 112 heat I sped off in my golf cart, looking for the fawns.  

The golfers has long since given up and quit, the heat drove them off.   They retreated to their cars turned on their car air conditioners and left.

The deer were not so fortunate.  I am afraid that the doe and her fawns were separated by too large a distance.   They were not weaned, they probably died in an hour or so, alone, without their mother.  I really tried to find them, not sure what I would do, but at least give them a chance.  

I failed. We all failed.

A predator didn't get them.  The predators do not move in heat like this, they stay in the shade and don't move.  The predator becomes the heat.  

The predator is the climate.  The predator is the Great Reckoning.  

WILD ANIMALS DO NOT HAVE AIR CONDITIONING.  

Air conditioning lulls us all into a false sense of security because we hide in it when it gets hot.  We shut up the house, burn more energy from a coal fired plant and watch T.V.  

Global warming cannot affect us directly anyway, when we hide in our houses.  Right?

Not so for those two little ones.  

Two more little victims of our utter and complete stupidity, of our lack of any common sense.  The victims of climate change are the weak, the young....

Two more victims of man made climate change on a hot summer afternoon in Redding California.  Two more reasons why the vultures are constantly circling over our land.  

And who will cry for them?

If Only We Were Christian

If only...If only I would not have been greeted by one of my golfing buddies yesterday who spat out, "Congratulations".  I asked him for what, and he answered the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage.  He then remarked with scarcasm about the White House lighted up in Gay Pride colors.  He spate out, "And YOUR President" ran their colors on the White House...I can't believe it".

I replied, "Have you seen the Imitation Game"?  He said he had.  He must have been asleep during the last part.

An expert on codes helps end WWII.  He is as he puts it, "a homosexual".  He is hounded after the war, arrested for sexual depravity and given hormones to "cure" his "illness".  This guy, by historians analysis, probably helped shorten the war by two years!  He winds up committing suicide.   He should have been given a medal, but like many gays, he is driven to suicide by the hate of the Bible Crazed Christians.  That's right, you drive people to sucide with your HATE.

But, now we hear the right proclaiming that they will elect a Republican President, restructure the Court and put back into place the hateful structure of religious backed bigotry we have endured for over 200 years.

That's right, religious Christian backed bigotry based on a few verses in the Bible, that have been used to discriminate against a small percentage of the population for centuries.  We are talking the Salem Witch Trials type stuff here, murder, beatings, and certainly the favorite of the "Scarlet Letter" , shunning.

Oh, yes, outcast them all.  Cluck and turn our heads away in our pathetic self righteousness.  Make sure we harm them.  Make sure we punish them.

And then, on Sunday, jump to our feet and sing Amazing Grace.  Worship  the son of man who preached exactly the opposite behavior we tell the world is demanded by the Bible.  Why would Jesus preach the way he did if he wanted his flock to act like vigilantes?

Then, act like this SCOTUS decision  will kill you.  A preachers in the midwest even threatened to set himself on fire if SCOTUS ruled the way it did.

  It will ruin Christianity right?  Another  example of the liberals trying to destroy our church.  Little children will be in danger by a 55 year old gay man who only wants legal protection for his union to another man.

There is no conncection between homosexuality and sexual predatory behavior...none.  In fact sexual predators are overwhelming heterosexual.

We have debated this for years, just like we debated racism for years.  We have fought a Civil War over it.

And you, my fellow Christians REFUSE to be Christian.  What is the matter with you?

May Jesus have mercy on your rotten souls!

In the Background He Stood Smiling

Many are talking about President Obama's Eulogy in South Carolilna.  It was a magnificant speech.

It also was very unusual, because for the first time the President really talked about race.

He dissected the past tragedy of slavery and its effect on the brutal killer who shot nine people to death during Bible study in a Church.  He spoke of Grace, a gift from God that we do not earn, but simply have God's love to do with what we can.  Most fail to even see it, because of our sins.

He described this eternal truth in a preacher's voice.

He told us the "conversation" that this tragedy should cause about race was not needed, because God only knows, we have discussed and fought over this endlessly.

It is Grace he said, Love for our fellow human, with no regard for racial characteristics, that is all we have to do.  We are blind and cannot see this simple truth.  

As the President spoke I focused on  another man on the podium.  He was in the back, fading in and out in time with the melody of the President's speech.  He smiled most of the time, with arms folded, surveying the crowd.

He was a very tall man, dressed a bit oddly  for the occassion, but his reactions to the President's message were unmistakable.  He shook his head in sadness as the President recited the names of the victims.  He smiled when the President spoke about taking the Confederate Flag down.  His eyes moistened when the President spoke of eternal grace, and being able to see that Grace and acting accordingly.

Then the President concluded his talk with Amazing Grace, which he remarkably  sung himself.  The old man on the podium was visibly shakened by this, and a tear flowed down his cheek.

And finally, in the most telling phrase in the speech, the President, as he always does, blessed the U-N-I-T-E-D States of America.  It was then that the old, tall man  applauded enthusiastically.  

The President read this slowly and for obvious effect, since  the Civil War started a few miles from where  the President stood.

As the crowd dispersed, and handshakes were all around, I saw the man, quietly walk to the back and merge into the curtains.

As he did so, he put on his  tall stove pipe shaped hat.  

The Vice President of the Confederacy Speaks

For all of you Republicans and Fox News Followers, who still believe slavery was not the cause of the Civil War, these are Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, words justifying the establishment of the Confederate States of America.

If anyone who can read English can read this and still believe the defense of slavery and racism was not the primary cause of the Civil War, then they are just living in a world of make believe!  

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails."

This and other arguments of the time have been used for over a century, since the Civil War, to justify the "lost cause" and supported Jim Crowe and still motivate racist lunatics like that demented soul who killed the innocents in South Carolina last week.

Alexander Stephens was Vice President of the Confederate States of America and is here supporting the racist explanation for the need to preserve slavery....

To be fair, to a racist, Mr. Stephens did not have access to the DNA and genetic scientific facts of the twentieth century, that prove conclusively that all of humankinds is 98% genetically the same....there simply  are no significant differences tied to racial make up....NONE!  

This is why the battle flag of the Confederacy needs to come down and off every state government vestige in this country.  And flying it should be a crime!!!!

Freedom?

I can't put this one down without another comment.  

Mr. Will, true to his aristocratic upbringing and extreme condescension, states that political free speech is somehow the same, in a coroporate context, to "discuss" fairly with individuals in the political arena.  He equates  the economic power of Apple to Greg Beale.  Both deserve the same protections for speech.  Really?  

This is the rub.  I will bet if you ask 100 Americans what free speech means to them, they will speak of an individual's right to express themselves without recriminiation.  The First Amendment does not speak of political free speech for groups, or representatives of groups,  it addresses protections for individual citizens.  

In fact, any beginning political science student will tell you that the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution as a condition of its ratification, as amendments to address concerns that INDIVIDUAL rights be protected.  Hence the right to be protected from searches and seizures, the right to be informed of charges against you; etc.  Note, how the word  individual  

comes up again and again as we study the Bill of Rights.  

There is no corporate there.  A corporation is an organization, a group endeavor, usually for profit, or also non-profit.  Corporation groups were simply not in America in 1789.  And, the Bill of Rights was never intended to protect groups, it was specifically to protect individual rights.  That was part of the grand compromise that got the Constituion ratified.  Americans remembered the repression the British had used against them in pre-revolution times, many colonists could still remember why they fled Europe to America: individualism and individual rights.  

What the Supreme Court did was to treat corporate interests like individuals.  This goes to the infamous ruling by a former court, that, as Mitt Romney famously said, "Corporations are individuals too, my friend".  

So, as individuals we would expect a level playing field when it comes to the Citizen United political, free speech, right?  As Will smugly states, "we need to not regulate politics".  

And that is simply wrong.  Politics has been regulated from its inception.  The Congress of the United States makes laws through the political process.  And from it comes regulations of all sizes and colors.   Men are indeed political animals, but if left unregulated, you get war and violence.  Even a cursory study of the French Revolution will prove that.  

So, the "regulators" as Will states, are always out there, regulating free political speech and then are shocked by how their rules backfire.    And what does he consider a backfire...like the election of a Black President???

Finally, we need to ponder what this is doing to our political process.  By equating Apple Computer Corporation for example to me, Citizens United assumes fatally that we are both individuals and therefore should be regulated little if at all.  So I take my paltry retirement income and the resources it can buy, up against Apple Computer with its Billions.  I can buy 10 seconds on the local T.V. station, Apple can buy through a Super Pac, hours on the national scale.  This is fair?  This is a fixed game!

In the United States we use T.V. advertisements (and the Internet) as part of a highly materialistic political campaign process.  The size of monetary support for a candidate is reported constantly, or at least guessed  at, thanks to Citizens United, and is used to predict winners and losers.  Dark money runs the show.  

And sure enough, the size of a political war chest directly affects the future of a candidate's chances to win.  At last check, the Koch Brothers' corporation has dedicated over a BILLION dollars to elect the President.  

The Koch Brothers have poured money into state legislative races and governors races from Maine to California.  And the results have been spectaculor, the majority of governors are conservative Republicans and same with the state legislatures.  And these "representative" bodies in no way reflect the citizenry they represent.    The book, "Whats the Matter with Kansas" springs to mind.  Currently Kansas has a zealot for a Governor, who has bankrupted the state, but politically is protected by a right wing legislature and a election process that no longer can hold him accountable.

And accountability is essential to good government.  

Citizens United ended accountability in the United States.  

This occurs because voter turnouts are deliberately suprressed, people are sick of advertisement politics, and simply do not vote, leaving exactlly what the Koch brothers and others want, a political playing field tilted heavily in their oil interest favor and not accountable to the people they do not represent; the corporations is who they really represent.  

And if I decide to speak out, what resources do I have against their billions?  This is the point that Will and the other plutocrats don't bother to tell you:  THE GAME IS FIXED FROM THE BEGINNING.  EQUATING FREE POLITICAL SPEECH BY EQUATING CORPORATIONS WITH INDIVIDUAL FREE EXPRESSON IS A FATAL CONTRADICTION.  

 How in the world can I compete in a political discussion equally with the billions of the Koch brothers, the legions of political consultants they hire, the PACS and SuperPacs they employ?

So we slide further into the fascism they are pushing for so diligently.  And George Will loves it, since unregulated is his mantra, his religion; and unregulated gets lots of Republicans elected.   

Unregulated is good, he preaches,  it will always produce a better result.  Tell 1932 that.  Tell 1939 that.  Tell WWII surviivors that.

Unregulated political speech leads to death of democracy, and ultimately war, since the political process is regarded as unable to solve economic problems and issues.  So, sooner or later, a leader comes along that says, "forget democracy" follow me...Hitler, Mussolini; etc.  Or the people finally rise up and kill them all; witness Syria and the Middle East.  

Ironically, the poltical system that the corporations work to control, in the end always leads to the destruction of the economic stability they need to continue to profit.  E

ver seen the ruins of Germany in 1945?  Consider that the Krupp Industries gave millions to support HItler and his political madness, then watched in horror as their factories were bombed into oblivion.  

Our political system from city councils to the Congress is poisoned by special interests.  The Republicans have pushed for years that this is somehow politically healthy, as one bribery case after another occurs.  Again, government regulation of political speech is seen as the enemy of democracy.  One thing it is the enemy of, bribery. 

In fact, leveling the playing field, so ordinary citizens can express their political opinions with equal volume as corporations is the ONLY way we can preserve freedom.  And, it is also the only way to continue to provide a stable and peaceful economy in which corporations prosper.  

And thanks to George Will, we are failing miserably...