While "liberal" media delights in the pathetic fall of a Republican senator, a mass of Mexican truck rigs have gathered at the souther border, prepared to invade America. While aggressive Democrat politicians revel in the in the resignation of a Republican--who did not actually commit a crime, our Republican President has arranged to open our borders to more Mexicans than ever before. But that's not crime either, right? The media doesn't see this as a newsworthy story. Why? All liberals support any development that will undermine American. A Republican senator losing his seat is more exciting than the presidentially approved non-violent invasion of a foreign country.
Well, timing is everything. It's Labor Day weekend. We're hearing from the Unions, but that's about it. The Teamsters certainly resent this free ride for the Mexican truckers. Some reports say it will begin Friday night, at midnight (tonight), which is effectively September 1. Teamsters leaders plan to seek an emergency injunction Wednesday from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. There's an irony. American labor, always Democrat, appealing to the most liberal Circuit Court in the country. Yet, I don't see them winning. The Ninth Circuit is always about undoing America, not protecting it. Another case where one liberal sector is going nationalistic against another liberal sector whose aim is to destory nationality.
Fact is, this Mexican truck parade has been planned for some time. Back in June, even the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Bush could push the truck parade through without a lengthy, preparatory environmental study. On June 8, 2004, CNN reported:
The high court ruled against labor and environmental organizations that have long fought expansion of Mexican trucking within the borders of the United States despite a guarantee this country made when it signed the North American Free Trade Agreement more than a decade ago.
The Labor Day weekend parade is like a dry run for the grand NAFTA show. There are American groups that have been opposing the idea since 1994, but in February of this year (2007), the truck invasion was focused, readied, and now it will happen. The opposition has failed, at least at this point.
But a Republican senator playing footsie in the bathroom is much bigger news.
Phyllis Shlafley bemoaned the Bush truck parade the next month (March). She wrote, "It is painful for me to note that the Bush Administration is less protective of U.S. interests than the late, unlamented Clinton Administration. To his credit, Clinton kept Mexican trucks off our highways except for a 25-mile commercial zone immediately north of the border."
The ultimate NAFTA super highway plan.
Of course this little Mexican truck demonstration is just a glimpse. Why, it's only a hundred trucks, from 37 different Mexican companies. And it's only in southern California. Right? Well, no. All the reports say it's free access to all of America. That little detail of just exactly where this is happening has been kept out of the news. Fancy that. I wonder of the Teamsters Union is still handy with its old tricks, the mobster ways. We already know what Democrats and liberal media can do to Republican senators, even very serious ones like Trent Lott, and Tom DeLay.
Never mind this silly Craig story.
What does the Mexican truck invasion mean? First of all, they are not invading. They are invited! Secondly, they have been invited against the will of the people and most of Congress. We just have accept this. There are no borders. That's a concept of the past. It's over. We're learning that every day. There will be no immigration reform--save that of amnesty. Fine. Let there be 100 million more people in America by 2060. Why are we concerned. There will be no "America" by then anyway. That's an antiquated concept.
I used to publicly accuse Bill Clinton of working diligently to make America a third world country. Lo, and behold, President Bush is succeeding--in the name of globalist capitalism. World economy. It is unthinkable. Yet, it is happening before our eyes. The one world government is on its way. Ready or not, here come the Mexicans. Here comes the world, in your face. Invited by our noble leaders.
It's all upside down. The liberals act nationalistic, in order to oppose Bush. Bush acts international, in order to make the world safer and more prosperous. One world economy. One world government. The Council of Foreign Relations provides the ideology and the blue prints. America brings it to pass. Liberals have indeed lost their hold. When the liberal talks nationalism, you know it's all over. This is beyond Democrat/Republican political rhetoric or party struggles. This is about world economy. This is about weakening all nations, making all nations subject to an international economy, with an international board of directors. National sovereignty is passe.
Time for the American Indians to rise up, and remind America how precious sovereingty is! Indians spilled blood for it, and we still have it, to an extent. It is law. If American sovereignty goes, Indian sovereignty will go, too. I think Indians should lead out against this internationalism, and not try to form bonds with all the other indigenous people of the western hemisphere. That's the wrong direction. This is our chance to lead America! This is our chance to fight again!--for our nations, and really, for America. America needs a powerful reminder at this point.
Remember, WWII started September 1, 1939. Labor Day. The war on America has started again, with this crazy truck invasion. I really hope American Indians can grasp this opportunity. I hope American Indians can see the role we have as the torch bearers of sovereignty--right here in America.
Fool Bull, Sioux.
After talking about the NAU and NAFTA, is seems a bit anti-climactic to talk about who's supporting HIllary Clinton for president. But, it's all part of the story. Today, two stories are in the headlines again. Two international businessmen, one with a warrent out for his arrest, the other having already fled the country under indictment, have been faithful financial supporters of the Clintons.
Norman Hsu and his gal Hillary.
Norman Hsu, a Hong Kong man in the 'rag' business (clothing), has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates since 2003. Yet, he has been considered a fugitive since 1991, when he was charged with defrauding investors. California recently issued a warrent for his arrest. So Hillary decided to make a gesture of righteousness, and would give to charity $23,000 it had received from the prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised. Well, that will certainly rectify all things, right? In the world of feigned propriety (i.e., politics), in an area of media fantasy and public images, such a noble gesture will cover a myriad of sins.
But Chinese connections are old news for the Clintons. There's a newer story.
Pakistani Abdul Rehman Jinnah ("Ray") has fled the country after being indicted (2006) for financial fraud. He claimed to be the Democratic National Committee in 2000, but fraud schemes have buried him in suspicion. He is a grand pretender, that's all. He no longer has a cover. Besides Hillary, Jinnah also raised money for Barbara Boxer. It is said that both Hillary and Boxer are returning suspected money to the Treasury, or to charity, naturally.
It would be easy to call this typical Democrat mud. It would be easy to point out the fraudulent, crooked characters that love to participate in the Democrat prolitical process. But I'm thinking that's really a low-level analysis. While it is obviously true, it is insignificant. The larger concern is the corruption and destruction of nationalism, the diminishing of nationhood.
No foreigner should ever be allowed to contribute anything, in any form to any American political campaign or any lobbying venture. No foreigner should have any part of Aemrican politics. Furthermore, American citizenship should be severely limited. A foreign-born person, who does become an American citizen, should not be allowed to use money from any foreign-based businesses to influence the American political process.
Now, the global capitalists would disagree with all this. They want the world to be one big, happy card table. Everyone and anyone can play--anyone who can afford to. They think free enterprise is the elixer for all ills. They think unbridled capitalism is the savior of the world. They think morality is work and money-making. They think righteousness is financial success.
World players buy property and real estate anywhere they want. Much of America, more than we could imagine, is owned by foreigners. Everything is just a table game. Buy this, own that. It makes no difference when you're a world player. Nationality is just part of the game, something you buy or bet on. Sovereignty? What's that? What a retarded notion. Come on, get in the game! It's all about money!
Well, we're back where we were before. Personally, I find no solace but in simply the thought that there is One higher than they. As a matter of fact, the final "indictment" of the world is directed the wealthy and the mighty. Whatever that great "Bablyon" represents in terms of a sociological entity on this earth, its "merchants" actually controlled "the great men of the earth." (Rev. 18:21-23.) By its "sorceries," it deceived the nations of the world.
And yet, it isn't wealth alone that is inherently evil. The identity of those forever lost, forever outside the Gates of Paradise, does not include financial status, per se. Instead, it is their 'ways and means' of making money that are indicted. They are salesmen of one kind or another: fearful (selling fear); unbelieving (selling denial of God); murderers (selling power); whoremongers (selling sex); sorcerers (selling supernatural power); idolaters (selling false gods); and liars (selling "truth"). (Rev. 21:8; 22:15). Empires of degradation. Domains of wrong doing.
I honestly don't know what else to think. As a very average person, I am powerless before the proceedings of the world. I can only watch, and comment, like any other small, helpless individual. If the big Democrats are anti-national, the big Republicans are globalist capitalists--which amounts to essentially the same thing. Maybe there's a common ground somewhere amongst the parties for simple people, American patriots. You know, the old-fashioned type. The Romantics. The heroes of another age.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864
We're supposed to have it in us to rise up and take charge of our governemnt when it gets out of hand. Nathaniel Hawthorne gave a great lesson of that in "The Old Gray Champion." (1837). The magical spirit of freedom, the noble sentiment of America, takes the allegorical form of an elderly warrior of yesteryear. He comes in time of great need.
His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come; for he is the type of New-England's hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, that New-England's sons will vindicate their ancestry.
Well, that may seem a little distant, and little misty for today's American generation. But that's our problem. And that was the problem even in Hawthorne's day. We're too far away from our roots. It isn't a matter of time, but of values! We've strayed from our values! That could happen the day after they were established! We've forgotten our history. Yea, it has been re-written. We may need more than the old Gray Champion.
John Negraponte, Bush's nomination for Deputy Secretary of State (January, 2007), has called anti-globalists terrorists, according to a grass roots level YouTube clip (taken from a Senate Intelligence Committee interview). What he said, actually, was that terrorists are anti-globalists. Perhaps that means the same thing.
And he isn't the only one saying such a thing. In a Jewish World article by David Arenson and Simon Grynberg, they're claiming that anti-globalization is the new anti-Semitism!
UN Conference on Racism in Durban in August 2001, which ended only 3 days before the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon...shifted the anti-globalization debate, and placed racism and xenophobia at the center of its campaign. The net result was that the conference raised the specter of anti-Semitism as a global force in the international community.
The international groups (NGO's) in attendance were receptive to the information provided claiming that Israel is an apartheid state engaged in oppression of the Palestinians. Included in the discourse was the infamous forgery "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Terms like "genocide", "fascism", "apartheid" and "holocaust" were bandied about at every opportunity to describe Israeli actions and the Jews. Nazi symbols next to stars of David were used in their protests.
Perhaps they should have said "anti-Zionism" instead of anti-Semitism. Nationhood is definitely anti-globalist. Israel is desperate to maintain nationhood, and gets accused of genocide against the phantom "Palestinians." In other words, if you believe in individual nationhood, you are anti-globalist, and you are a Nazi, or the equivalent of a Muslims terrorist!
George Soros and George Bush, two globalists. No wonder
Soros hates Bush with such a passion. Bush leads in power.
We've reach the point of meaninglessness in language. Maybe it was long ago achieved by media and Leftists, but, this is now an unmistakable sociological phenomenon. Leftists are anti-Israel. But Leftists (Marxists) are always anti-capitalist. They are against global/corporate capitalism. This makes them appear conservative in contrast, when really its only because of capitalism out-of-control, pushed beyond national boundaries, toward a one world government of some kind. Leftists may now come to appear as nationalists, or pro-nationhood, in order to fight against the global capitalist movement. (The only thing that keeps them from committing fully to the position of nationalism is in fact the state of Israel!) Of course, they're against any kind of capitalism. They are Communist, ideologically. Socialist. Of course, if Leftists were in control over the global movement, as in Communism of the past, they'd be perfectly happy. It's the fact that the globalists are conservative businessmen (albeit gone awry) that Leftists oppose globalization. It is the only reason.
But equating anti-globalists with anti-Semites, or worse, with terrorists, is over-stating the matter. So-called "conservative" globalists greatly error in this equation. They line themselves up with George Soros, who believes nationalism is tribalism, and a thing of the past--to be shunned. All high wealth people are globalists. That's where the biggest markets are. That's what they want. It has nothing to do with politics. They use political rhetoric to persuade people this way and that, when it comes to voting. But right now, the big deicisons about globalist capitalism are apparently being made without the people's vote. It's all high level social architecture. The populations have nothing to do with it. They are only being used.
It is at this point in political history than language has failed. Too long the Left has called evil good, and good evil. Too long the Right has failed to call evil evil. That's right. Evil involves a lot more than sexual immorality, or abortion. It involves the unbridled market, the blatant denial of the United States Constitution, and the careless abuse of public trust.
The American Constituion Party is openly anti-globaist, as well as anti-free trade, anti-deindustrialization, and anti-unchecked immigration. Has anyone decided to call the ACP a terrorist organization? It that what it's going to come down to? If you're against globalization, you're going to be labelled a terrorist?
No one is allowed to escape labels, thanks to the Leftist political tactics of the last 40 years. There is no place to hide. Whatever you think or do, you are sized up, classified, and marked.
Negraponte made another troubling statement on a different occasion, when he listed America's "diversity of threats and challenges." Near the end of this grass roots YouTube exposure, he names the "democratization of Latin America." What on earth does that mean? Aren't we trying to create democratization in the Middle East? What's wrong with democratization in Latin America? Maybe he misread his own notes. I don't know. But it sounds like any force that is counter to the American-led globalization is considered threatening.
This is neither Left nor Right. It has elements of both, but it is a quest for economic domination. The Leftists pout perpetually when they're not in charge, and they'll put on robes of nationality, individualty, and independence, to counter the globalist movement of the capitalists. And it's true, most of the major capitalists at least started out as "conservative" businessmen, then went for larger and larger markets--ultimately the world.
Leftists are anti-globalists, only because they're not in charge. To counter globalism, they'll sacrifice even their normal position of anti-nationhood, and act more conservative, even like nationalists. But, again, so-called conservative globalists are wrong to equate nationalists with terrorists. That is an overstatement. It is as though the last error of words is that of the so-called conservative globalists.
So, what of we little people? We're nothing. We have no say in this, and no power. It is not even possible to have power. It doesn't matter what we believe, what we value, or what we want to see. "The rich ruleth over the poor." Proverbs 22:7. I suppose the only cosolation we have is the thought that the Almighty rules the rich. He seems a bit slow in correction, to our sense of life's tempo. But, He says He is mindful. "The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all." Proverbs 22:2. And from Jeremiah 9:22,23:
Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
Personally, I can find no solace except in the wondrous elevations of scripture, the view of the Highest, as it were. Otherwise, one resigns, or indeed becomes a terrorist, a violent man, out for the only justice he can hope for--through his own gun. There is comfort in the thought that there is One even above the world, above the globalists. Though He seems rarely to appear, like the giant white whale, full of ancient scars and unspeakable experience--even a crooked jaw, He does appear. When He does, vanity is perished. Idols fall. Only the objective can hope to survive, like the orphan Ishamel.
Americans can't see it, and don't want it, but our leaders, and world businessmen, are about to create a North American Union, similar to the great regressive European Union. These leaders, including our beloved President George Bush, are painting a picture of security, progress, and prosperity through this union, while Americans see nothing but denigration of all American standards, and a free surrender of our national sovereignty. It is as if nationhood is now become some romantic notion of the past, some mere charming sentiment of another age.
Apparently, these modern wizards of world economy think to have the North American Union (NAU) and NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement (an economic treaty) fully operative by 2010. This means essentially that Canada, the United States, and Mexico, become essentially one 'super' country, only it's not a country, but a conglomerate. The people of America of course vehemently opposed this. But all the high level discussions and the decisions are all taking place behind closed doors. The people are not being consulted, nor their opinions regarded, nor the Constitution of the United States honored. This is a staggering prospect. Things will forever change, and suddenly.
In Jerome Cori's article, Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway, we're told that there are multiple foreign investors involved in the expense of building the super highway. For instance, Spain is building the Texas link of the highway, and will lease it out as a toll road. More recently, Corsi tells us that China is investing in the security of the super continental highway. In other words, China is part of the 'miltarization' of the operation. China will have tracking stations up and down the highway, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. has This is clearly a world project, and be sure, the world will have its say in American affairs--precisely the revenge they've all been waiting for. America is the most envied and hated country in the world--for the simple reason is has been the greatest country the world has ever seen.
The first decade of the 21st century will be known historically as "The Big Give-away." Liberals and globalists are trying every scheme possible toward building a world government, a world economy, a world power. To do this, they must give away America, the once greatest single nation history has ever witnessed. The global economists and the Leftist commies simply cannot abide such a phenomenon. America must be dissolved, in the name of the common world good. Oh, we'll still be allowed to wave our little flags, but, only as a wistful gesture of the past.
What's coming as a surprise to everyone is that globalist capitalists, whom we have been ignorantly pleased to regard as conservatives, or even "Republicans," are as anxious for the world unification as the Communists. World unification is the agenda of those in power, regardless of their sub-level differentiations, political or national. The Council on Foreign Relations is quite clear on all this. It's their united effort. Oh, sure, the remnants of nationhood will remain; there will still be different languages spoken; there will still be different ethnicities to mix up; there will still be some laws (--but who knows what courts will serve to enforce them?). And probably, a whole lot of people won't even care much. Mexico, of course, stands to benefit the most, as they do now. (What are they shipping out of their country in all those trucks--besides marijuana and illegals?)
And how on earth will the United States benefit from any of this? It's a big step down for America. A step down into the Third World. Off the 'proud' pedestal of international achievement and superiority, into the 'humble' mire of selfish poverty--misery caused by immorality and indifference--the hallmark of the Third World.
This is satanic. It is the work of the Evil One to bring down nations. When that monstrous misanthrope meets his final end, it is said of him (Isaiah 14:12, 16):
How are thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how ar thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof: that opened not the house of his prisoners?
A nation is a sacred thing. A true nation is ordained of God. A true nation is not something to toy with. Yes, it does seem that man has done exactly that. The countries of the Middle East, with the ancient exception of Israel, were all artificially created within the last century or so. The boundaries are very synthetic, as is the nationhood of each so-called country. That situation is so nebulous that they cry out of something as ephemeral as a "Palestinian" state, as if there is such a thing as a "Palestinian" ethnicity and nationhood.
But, that's all part of what it means to "weaken the nations." Man's efforts to manage nationhood according to economics, according to profit, according to money, are destined to follow a satanic order.
America should raise its own food, make its own products, and be self sufficient. And so should each nation, including the masses of ill-defined African nations. There should be crops growing on the vast game reservations--which only provide hunting for the rich. There is no practical function for fast heards of unusable beasts. (Not even their dung is put to practical use.) The earth is full of resources. Clearly, want is the result of mismanagement, nothing more, nothing other. Mismanagement is caused by selfishness, by wrong values, by wrong thinking.
Like all evil, the globalist vision is a cheat, a short cut, an attempt to solve a problem the easier way, instead of the true, lasting way. To say to the prosperous, "You must share everything you have with the poor," and to coerce such redistribution, is to rob--not the rich, but the poor--from their responsibility to improve themselves. Coercion of the rich, in the name of charity, is to enslave the poor masses in misery. It is to insure their indigence, forever. Suffering is caused for the most part by wrong doing. Doing more wrong, in the name of charity, is not going to relieve suffering, but actually create more of it, and coerced charity will secure the suffering for the future.
This is all terribly disappointing to Republican conservatives, to know their leaders are contributing to the globalist error. I must say, this is the kind of thing the John Birch Society has been warning against for a long time now. And this is why, I believe, I am now included on their speakers list. American patriotism--based on the Constitution, is their theme. It is also my theme.
So let's spell it out: it is not immoral to love one's country. It is not immoral to have a country, to be a country. It is not immoral to make efforts to preserve one's country, and to honor one's country. Alas, what kind of world are we in that such statements apparently need to be made at all? Leaders are simply blinded by the lust for power and wealth. Or, so it seems.
Finally, my recently and wrongly advertised book, Altered States: The State of the Dead, and The State of the Holy, is available on Amazon.com and associated internet outlets. No, it's not about American Indian beliefs. It's about what one American Indian thinks about everyone else's beliefs. This is a scholarly research project, examining the records of what man has thought about death, and the holy, from prehistoric times to modernity. It's not a commentary on American Indian religion, but an Indian commentary on all religion. It is the result of years of study, and four graduate degrees. It is about 200 pages in length, with 276 footnotes occurring at the bottom of the pages on which they occur.
The book attempts to meet the two greatest challenges of human consciousness: What happens when you die? and What is holy? These are the questions which reflect the deepest concerns of humanity, and the forces that evoke these questions are the forces that shape human experience. This is true throughout history, in all cultures, and in all personal experience. Yet, is there any world consensus on the subjects of Death and the Holy? The book reveals suprising aspects of human thinking and theory on the whole matter.
The style of the narrative is antiquated, perhaps a bit romantic, maybe even Gothic at times, but it's clear enough. The exotic nature of the material collected requires a slightly unconventional management and a necessarily unfamiliar ambience. The first sentence of the introduction to The State of the Dead is portentous: "How is it that the question should ever have been asked, What happens when you die?" Thus the narrative touches on philosophy, anthropology, archeology, sociology, psychology, literature, and of course, religion.
The new, available edition, as of August, 2007.
The manuscript, unfortunately, is plagued with layout imperfections. It was thus beset from the day the layout procedure was undertaken over a year ago. The main problem was my desire to have illustrative photography included, indeed imbeded, in the text. For the Death section, I had gathered a strange collection of NeimanMarcus clothing ads, all taken in some remote, decaying cemetery, using a cadaverous model draped in black. For the Holy section, I collected a series of enhancements of the eyes of Diane von Furstenberg. Just the eyes, not even the entire face. I thought to bring art and aesthetics, in raw form, into the ambience of the book. Not a scholarly procedure, for sure, but one which would have made the book as unique as is the research within. But, none of this aesthetic element was to be.
Alas, the original publishing company was unwilling to suffer the challenge of working with such an embedded text, and eventually decided to drop the project--but not without releasing advertisements on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Bookamillion, etc. That edition, advertised since January, 2007, was never printed, never available, and never will be. It is like a computer-generated bill or something. They will not remove it. (This is the edition that supposed to have the fashion photography in it, and did have an 'altered' picture of Diane von Furstenberg on the cover.) It was to have been printed in hardback, as well as paperback. I have expressed my exacerbated concerns repeatedly for this falsehood.
The original, never available edition, as of January 2007
I mention this phantom January edition, because it has a description of the contents of the book, whereas the new, actually available edition does not. This is also part of the reason I'm offering this blog on the book now, to let everyone know what the book is about.
"The State of the Dead" section is probably destined to be the more popular of the two sections. It examines mummies, vampires, souls, etc., in all ages, from all parts of the world. The second part of the book, "The State of the Holy," is about the concept of the holy--and that comes exclusively from the ancient Hebrew religion. There is no articulated concepted of the holy in any other religion. The religions of the world are all presumptive. Theirs is all about man making rules--for power and control. Man declares this holy or that holy, and has power over all things connected with it. This is heathenish. Now, the Hebrew story can be said to be a man-made thing, too, and it certainly does not lay out a doctrinal lesson defining holiness; however, it does offer spectacular phenomenological detail as to what holiness is, and a fair amount of descriptive material about how it is manifest. It is a least a unique story with unique concepts. In the Bible, the word 'holy' is first used in reference to the sabbath (Genesis 2:1); it is not used again until nearly two thousand years later, when the Lord said to Moses, "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (Exodus 3:5) The word is not used in reference to the Lord Himself until the time after He lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. Holiness is first associated with Time itself, then the person of God. This is an incredible and unique account in history. (Many Hebrew words are examined in the process of analyzing the Hebrew story.)
But not all things are complete. Unfortunately, the book contains no index. I prepared a large one, but the pagination became completely off, in the process of the transfer of the layout. Also, there is no bibliography. It is simply raw text. I can promise that there will be a second edition, or should I say third? The first was "dead." The second is "bare." Perhaps the third, one day, will have everything.
I felt it was important to have at least the text available, since it has been advertised since January, with nothing available. This was a rush job. The text is complete and fine, the footnotes are complete and fine. It's just that the index and bibiography are missing.
Just wanted everyone to know. I know everyone stands to learn from this text. The reference and subject matter are so very broad and the research is exotic. I'm not ashamed of the work at all. I'm simply embarrassed that this first real edition is less than perfect.
I've been telling everyone there is a problem. Indian identity is not up for grabs, I've said over and over. I didn't like it when Rudy No Blood went around telling everyone he was a member of every major tribe in North America. I protested when a girl from South America claimed she had the right to represent American Indians as a mascot. Of course I opposed Ward Churchill in all his fraudulent, pretentious claims of being Indian and making a living off it. I've warned against the infusion of non-Indian blood through increasing intermarriage--brought on by the lust for casino money. I've denounced the idea that government has the right to declare non-Indiani people to be "Indians"--for the sole purpose of obtaining casino rights.
And now this: Feds allege tribe's selling affiliations to immigrants There are two so-called American Indian tribes, non-federally recognized tribes, selling tribal membership to illegal immigrants. Prices ranges from $50 to $1,200 to join the Kaweah Indian Nation, Inc. of North Carolina. Or, was that the Kaweah Indian Nation of Kansas? Of Oklahoma? Of California, Texas, or Tennessee? Sounds like quite the interstate racket. And the Kaweah group isn't the only one practicing the scam. As a matter of fact, there are people who are not any kind of tribal member themselves, or living anywhere near the tribes they are impersonating, and selling tribal memberships to illegals. A Florida man sold some 2,000 memberships to the North Dakota-based Pembina Nationa Little Shalle tribe--through a web site, at $150 per membership.
Does this affect real Indian people?
Yes. It further cheapens our image, and obfuscates our identity. It demonstrates how Indian identity is becoming nothing before our eyes. Anyone can claim it, and operate on it. Casinos opened the floodgates, as politicians, developers, and the syndicate (mafia) moved in on the reservations. It all started in Connecticut, with the infamous Maschantucket-Pequot Negro club. Other non-Indian groups have followed. The California "tribes" have suffered the worst of it, where a single black woman (Maryann Martin) can start a reservation, get a casino, and roll in the millions. (TIME posted a picture of Maryann--who appears 100% black.)
And now people are using Indian identity to scam ignorant illegals, neither of whom care nothing about Indian identity.
Let this be a fine lesson to all American Indians on the matter of foreigners. They think they can buy Indian identity. A tribe is just a special, privileged club. Anyone can join.
I said again and again this is what it was coming to. Behold, we are there. This is the way it is now. I know most Indians don't respond to such alarms. Especially the full-bloods. They often couldn't care less? Well, someone has to care. Someone has to be concerned. I mean just how safe is Indian identity? Is it just a matter of legal record? Is it just a matter of knowing a certain dance, or song, or knowing how to put on a certain regalia?
I say blood. I say blood is at the bottom of Indian identity. Without this, an Indian tribe is truly only a social club, with a few customs, and the membership is open to anyone who wants to join, and to learn the customs. That's the current state of affairs.
And by the way, the Wichita (Kansas) Kaweah scammers have Mexican names! The leaders are already "non-Indian" con artists. Manuel Urbina is head at one of their two Wichita offices. And one of the illegal immgrants, Carmen Zamora, actually worked as secretary for the "tribe."
Carmen Zamora had worked for years to achieve permanent resident immigrant status before she went to work as a secretary at one of the Kaweah offices in Wichita. Now, she risks being deported if convicted of trying to use the tribal membership to get a Social Security card and a passport, said assistant U.S. attorney Brent Anderson.
So, it's Mexicans posing as American Indians, to get other Mexicans into the country.
Now, do American Indians still want to have that noble, generous, open heart toward Mexicans? We still want to extend our hand to all our distant "cousins" south of the border?
I say this is bad for Indians, as well as bad for America. I have always said, what's best for Indians is best for America, and what's best for America is best for Indians. I see an intimate, symbiotic relationship. If Indians do not repect the Indian identity, neither will anyone else. Thus, foreigners will try immediately to take advantage of it. Thus, American society suffers from the carelessness of Indians. We simply can't afford this kind of sloppy handling of our identity. This is gross disrespect for ourselves. Everyone tries to benefit from us, and we lose. And American people lose. This is a double-edged wrong.
Yes, there was once small Kaweah tribe, but it was part of the Yokuts, a people of the southern San Joaquin Valley in California. The scammer just pick a remote, or little known tribe, long since perished or absorbed into a larger group, and extract the tribal name from history records. Then they proceed to fabricate a genealogy. This is exactly what the Mashantucket-Pequote Negro club did in Connecticut. It is apparently a winning ticket. They got their federal recognition, eventually.
So, it looks like the ol' U.S. government still doesn't respect Indians, at heart. The only problem is, today, a lot of Indians don't seem to have much respect either. Many Indians play right into the hands of the scammers. It is the lack of patriotism, the lack of love for the larger group. It is based on selfish advantage, at the expense of the larger group. Nothing more, or other.
Documents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs say that Kaweah founder and "Grand Chief" Malcolm "Thunderbird" Webber could not document his own American Indian ancestry.
Why should he bother?
Leaders of the Kaweah defended the offer to The World-Herald, saying that the tribe's descendants extend into parts of Latin America and that American Indians predate the border that separates the United States from Mexico. Thus, by birthright, the leaders say, many immigrants can enroll as Indians.
There is an edict of Caesar that addresses somthing called "Violation of Sepulture," or the desecration of graves. The date of this edict is uncertain, but it is written in Greek, which puts it in the Eastern Empire, and some scholars believe it was issued in the first century, AD.
Tiberius AD 14-37
Ordinance of Caesar
It is my pleasure that graves and tombs prepared for the cult of ancestors or children or kinsmen shall remain undisturbed in perpetuity.
And if anyone brings information that someone has caused destruction, or has in any other manner cast out the buried dead, or has with malice aforethought removed them to other places to the detriment of the interred, or has removed tombstones or other stones,
I order that such a person be brought to trial for [violating] the cult of [dead] persons, just as is done in the case of gods. The buried dead must in the future be accorded much more respect. Absolutely no one shall be allowed to disturb them. If anyone does, I desire him to be sentenced to captial punishment for violation of sepulture.
See: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Vol. VIII, No.13. Also, Fontes luris Romani Antejustiniani, Vol I, No.69. The edict is included in: Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, Roman Civililzation: Sourcebook (rpt.1955; New York: Harper, 1966), I, pp.35,36.
Gaius (Caligula) AD 37-41
This is from Caesar, not a local governor in some distant province of the empire. What would give rise to such an occasion? Was there some mass grave robbing going on somewhere in the East? Some strange market for the dead in the first century?
Perhaps the narrative of St. Matthew suggests something pertinent. Matthew's account of Jesus appeared ca.60, according to scholarly consensus. This is within living memory of the life of Jesus, as we are given to understand. The author of Matthew declares him (Matthew) one of the twelve disciples (9:9). Toward the end of the story, 27:51-53, we read:
"...and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."
An incredible testimony, this passage is probably the most neglected in the New Testament. It is especially unbelievable. If it happened, then the possibility of unbelief in Jerusalem was nill. Even if you were not one of the privileged families or relatives of this community of resurrected human beings, the public event would constitute a communications network that would cause a media frenzy such that everyone in the region would know about the event, very soon. This event is practically unapproachable, even in the imagination. But it cannot be regarded as mass hysteria if all the graves were empty. And it was against Jewish law to handle the dead, particularly after they are buried.
Claudius AD 41-54
We know that vast numbers of people believed the story of Jesus, early on. By 64 AD, the immoral monster Nero was justifiable in his regard of Christians as a socially significant movement in the empire. His abuse of them testifies to their existence (though not the character he projects upon them). And there are some non-Jewish, non-Christian historical writings that certainly indicate that many people believed in one 'Jesus.' There are indications from Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus,Lucian, and even the Babylonian Talmud, as well as many others.
Nero AD 54-68
But what about earthquakes in 31 AD, as mentioned by Matthew? There was one the moment Jesus died, and another some 36 hours later, the moment he was resurrected. Is there any record of such quakes in Palestine at that date? There is apparently some evidence, of something, at 30 AD and 33 AD. This is an estimate, of course, but it is indicated as seismic record in the Israel Exploration Journal (1994). Is this enough for a case?
Why would an edict come from the Emperor, written in Greek, about grave desecration, unless there was some significant grave disturbance? What was that disturbance? Is there any record of such mass grave robbing or sacrilege of the dead occurring in the first century--of such magnitude that it called for the word of Caesar? Not being versed in antiquities, I cannot say. I know of none. It would be exceedingly unusual. The looting of Egyptian tombs has been going on since the creation of the tombs themselves, but this Imperial decree seems to address something else, something religious, for no mention is made of looting, or making off with buried family treasures. (Buring wealth with the dead wasn't a Palestinian custom anyway.)
I think this is a fascinating combination of literature and history. A massive number of graves are said to have been opened by an earthquake. The bodies therein are said to have risen to life, and, leaving the tombs empty, went into Jerusalem to see presumably their families, relatives, and friends. But by the time the stunning reports reach the Emperor, he responds with a practical vision: "There will be no more distrubing of graves!" The narrative of Matthew is an actual, historical text, and Caesar's edict is an actual, historical text. Now, everyone can argue about the dates of each text, but, we all know what Matthew's purports to testify. Unless someone can give evidence of what Caesar's edict is referring to, we have to assume it pertains to what Matthew is writing about, or at least some version of it which reached the Imperial court.
In any case, it doesn't look like people go anywhere when they die. They await the resurrection of their body. It wasn't departed spirits who returned to the holy city. It was recreated human beings, with specific personal, bodily identity--a continuation of who they were before.
Sound a bit fantastic? I want to know what prompted Caesar to issue such a strange edict.
Rush Limbaugh the other day was trying to sooth everyone's fears about China ("Chincoms," as he calls them), and the recent recalls of so many of their manufactured products. A caller ask, "Why do we trade with them?" Rush said trade was good. Trade is what demonstrates the free market, and leads countries out of their antedated Communist regimes. He used Russia as an example of how free trade succeeded in dissolving a huge Communist empire.
Nothing could have been more mistaken. Russia is now a giant mafia, a colossal, international and untrustworthy black market, from top to bottom. There is no control, no real government, and only strong men vying for power. Capitalism does not replace Communism. From: Russian Organized Crime
Crime groups emanating from the former Communist countries of eastern and central Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union pose a deadly threat internationally as the number of crime syndicates rises steadily.
(Russian crime in California burgeoned in the 1990's. And back in the mother country, the Russian "government" couldn't even afford to supply police uniforms. )
Why is this? Two reasons--two sides of the same coin: the American Constitution was written for a Christian population; Communist populations were bred in godless state idolatry which disdained Judeo-Christian morality and God. Take away Communism, and you have a completely hedonist population, unfamiliar with freedom or productive self-restraint. Communism trusted in the fantasy of innate, positive human initiative. (The difference between East Germany and West Germany displayed before the world the fallacy of that Communist fantasy. Communist East Germany became one of the most depressed places in Eastern Europe.) Therefore, American democracy, with which capitalism is affined, cannot work countries devoid of Christianity at any significant levels. Without Christian conscience, without the restraints of Christian values, capitalism is just another greed fest, and hardly different from organized crime itself. I mean, look at conditions brought about by capitalism with Christian restraints!
Far from being a shining example of democracy and capitalism brought about through trade and good will, Russia is rather a nasty failure of both. For Rush Limbaugh to think that China is headed from good things through mere capitalism is an idea without precedence, and one with in fact negative precedence.
What's developing here is the thought that freedom is the prize, not Christian faith or Christian values. The idea is evolving that Christianity and freedom are not related, or that there is something called "freedom" which is without social context or organization. This is a great error.
There are a lot of passages in scripture (Torah and New Testament) that seem to suggest socialistic ideas, like social accountability and care for the underprivileged (Deuteronomy 15:11; Acts 2:43-46), but this is in the context of closed communities. Perhaps each nation should then be thought of as a closed community, and not be held responsible for the impoverished peoples of other nations--whose conditions are generally brought about by the "un-Christian" or immoral values of their leaders, or by the fact that their national boundaries were superficially and wrongly created in the first place, by foreigners.
The founding fathers of America understood that their concepts of national government were based on Judeo-Christian concepts, and that they were applicable only to people with such values. George Washington was a life-long Christian, and held scriptural-based Judeo-Christian values, as apparently did Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and others. Their own writings and actions testify to their values. (I realize there has been for some time a cranky, contentious movement to demonstrate that none of the fathers were Christian, or believer, but, this is basically petty anti-Americanism, and unworthy of notice by sincere researchers.)
The Judeo-Christian values were what they were brought up with, and formed the milieu of their social ideology. These were the values of the social circumstances in which they conceived of their new "republican" form of democracy, or "freedom." It was to be the rule of Christian people. So then, it wasn't just about "freedom." It was about social, economic, and intellectual independence from England, from the Church of England, and from the Roman Church. But is was not about freedom from morality or social order. It was not about anarchy. (It was far different from the later French Revolution!)
And it wasn't about self-idolizing, or setting up the state above the God of all nations. It certainly wasn't about creating a government based on atheism. That is a whimsical notion of the politically desperate. America was about insurring the rights of people to be Christian, to follow their conscience, to be socially and economically more or less free, and to never be oppressed by their own government. Their own government was never to have such power. Indeed, the government was designed to forbid such power, and to protect the people from it.
So, it is wrong to think that capitalism, economic freedom, or free-enterprise, is a magic incentive that will cure the world of all ills. Unbridled capitalism creates vicious, bloody competition--mafia, in a word. There is always a need for order, and some authority, but the fathers saw that in the nature of a Christian people. They wouldn't need so much government, because they could govern themselves. The decline of Christian values therefore results in the corruption of capitalism, and the rise of oppression, if but through economic imbalances, to say nothing of out and out crime, organized at all levels.
I keep thinking of the words from America's hymn:
America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine!
Godless nations just aren't going to cut it. (That obviously includes Islamic nations.) But, God doesn't come through the government. He comes through the free will of the people, individually. The only thing the government can do is interfere with God. While it seems that all nations have basic social laws that appearly obviously based on ancient Hebrew morality, one cannot force morality. By nature and definition, morality is by choice. While government-ordered morality may indeed seem to result in a healthy order of things, it is most obvious that, when given the power to order morality, human government leaders set themselves up as divine, and brutally oppress the people. Islamic regimes today represent the very spirit of brutality. Europe saw it's own days of religious enforcement. That brought about something called Protestantism--another American specialty. Let's just make sure that the government doesn't interfere with those Protestant values.
Sounds Yiddish to me. Schemitzun. At least, the spelling. Like, schmutzik (dirty, soiled).
Well, Schemitzun is what they're calling the biggest pow-wow in the world, put on by the Foxwoods Casino, of Ledyard, Connecticut. You know, the largest resort casino in the world, conventiently located on the Mashuntucket-Pequot Negro Club "reservation."
But who cares about details. The "half-million dollar pow-wow," as it is billed, is called "Schemitzun: Feast of Green Corn and Dance." It's this month, August 23-26, 2007. It has an incredible schedule. In addition to the fantastic dance competition, it will have live Indian rock (Brule), and a full rodeo! Reeely big shew, indeed!
To top if off, my Comanche tribal chairman, Wallace Coffey, is the head emcee (along with Jason Goodstriker, of the song group, Blackfoot Confederacy). So what are all the plains Indians doing in Ledyard, CT? Making money, what else? What does it matter where you hold a pow-wow? There are going to be hundreds of "real" Indians at the Negro club. This all really has nothing to do with the Mashentucket-Pequot club. And the club just uses the Indian name. (Only 'neurotics' like myself object, apparently. I find such usurpation and idenity theft to be outrageous.) Real plains Indians are going there to have a pow-wow. That's the long and short of it. The money's good. Why shouldn't they go? Why does it matter who's offering the money and footing the bill. Maybe they're all trying to say, "Remember the real Mashantuckets, and the real Pequots." These people vanished long, long ago. No harm in remembering their name. Never mind that not a single "member" of the Negro club has ever lived as a community, never had any tradition whatsoever, and never met a single criteria of the BIA's standards for being a federally recognized tribe. That's all irrelevant.
Schemitzun, eh? Well, if you know what that means, you've got one on me. I know it's not a Comanche word. The word for corn is haniibi, and one who eats it, hanitaivo--corn whiteman, or, more like, he who eats corn is a white man. At some late point, there was apparently a band of Comanche, hanitaivo, who ate corn. The Green Corn Dance, however, was a late borrowing from the Caddos and Wichitas. It was a thanksgiving dance, and seldom used by Comanche, and the few known times Comanche held the dance, it was their own version, quite different from the Caddo-Wichita original. The whole idea of a "Great Spirit" came in to Comanche life, perhaps through this Green Corn Dance. This was around 1860. Comanche were known for individual medicine (po-ha-cut) quests, not community religion. Not much in the way of group ritual ever made a mark in the old days.
Schemitzun. Shmegegi (fool). Shemevdik (shy). Shmontses (trifles). Shmussen (plesant talk). I give up. Schemitzun--a perfectly German spelling, but no such German word. There is Schemen, a shadow or phantom; Schemel, a footstool; Schimmel, mould or mildew. And what about Schmitz--a cut, a blow or a lash? In the verb form, it is schmitzen, to whip or lash. That's as close as I can come to "schemitzun." So, I am prefectly humble and ignorant about this. I invite instruction. What is "schemitzen," and where did it come from? The Mashantucket-Pequot Negro Club has been holding the "Schemitzen" since 1993, starting in the Hartford Civic Center. But if the prize money then was $200,000, the "schemitzun" certainly hasn't grown much. "Half million dollar pow-wow" fifteen years later? I hope they're paying Wallace Coffey at least $100,000. He's one of the most beloved Emcees in the business. No one could validate the event more effectively. (And after all, that's all the Negro club wants--validation.)
Hey, I wonder if Rudy Youngblood will be there. The Mexican/black used to advertise himself as a champion stomp dancer, until his managers took down his confusing and misleading web site. But, there isn't any grass dancing announced at the "schemitzun" anyway. That's what Rudy claimed he was a champion at. Never named the year or the event, though, like he's never named his parents.
Of course, there is a real Comanche "champion" Southern Buckskin dancer, Jhane Myers. She was the 2002 "schemitzun" champion. Jhane has served the State of Oklahoma as the Director of American Indian Projects for the Oklahoma Centennial Commission and held the position of Account Executive for the New York based Ralph Lauren Fragrance Division. She is currently Editor-in-Chief (as it were) of Oklahoma Casinos & Entertainment Magazine.
Jhane Myers, Editor and Chief!
Jhane and one of her famous buckskin dresses, now in the Smithsonian National
Museum of the American Indian. The Smithsonian bought the dress from Jhane.
Robert Esposito, an arts and antiquities mover, helped Jhane prepare the dress for
shipping to the museum.
Well, finally, "schemitzun" (pro-nounced skemit-son) is put forth by the Negro club as some long-lost Mashantucket-Pequote word, like, someone found it in writing somewhere. It is amazing how much wonderful knowledge of the Mashantucket-Pequots has been discovered since the Negro club was established. According to Jeff Benedict, in Without Reservation (200), white man Skip Hayward incorporated the Mashantucket-Pequote business in 1984--with nearly a decade of plotting with the Maine Penobscots to bring gambling to Ledyard (p.180). Brett Fromson, in Hitting the Jackpot (2003), says the Mashantucket-Pequote enterprise was never about being a tribe. There wasn't any such group, for a century or more. The Hayward vision was about money, not about being Indian. How could it have been otherwise. There weren't any Indians involved.
Now they're paying a petty half-million to bring hordes of Plains Indians to dance at their "schemitzun"? For an operation that takes in annual revenue of billions, not millions, billions, I'd say half a million for an Indian pow-wow is less than chicken feed. It's more than Indians can hope to make at any other pow-wow, but, look at the over all perspective of this matter. Indians, real Plains Indians, are being used to validate a club of Negroes and other non-Indians, on the East Coast, under the guise of historical Indian names, Mashantucket and Pequot. Sure, it's a real Indian pow-wow, with real Indians, who are going to be handed out goodies, a little cash--from a syndicated non-Indian organization. Get that? This is a non-Indian syndicate-controlled gambling club, tempting Indians to come and show their wares for a little cash. It ought to be a lot of cash. A heap of cash.
I have to say, if I were Wallace Coffey, I wouldn't emcee for less that $100 grand. But, like I've said before, Wallace is a fatherly, warm-hearted, generous man. Lots of Indians are this way. They just have no disposition to address the issues--as I see them, anyway. I realize this very clearly. I mean no insult or denigration to any--except the Negro club and the politicians, the mafia, the developers, and whoever else it was that created this Mashantucket gaming club. They disdain Indian identity, obviously. It is nothing to them.
And real Indians love pow-wows. A party people, from way back! We all love that. What difference does it make who's throwing the party? The prizes are the biggest in the country. Why poo-poo the pow-wow?
I'm just concerned about the obfuscation, the corruption, the melting down of American Indian identity. That's why.
Look at these wonder shots from east coast pow-wows in recent years:
How "Indian" is this? How authentic? How Historical?
[Update: Since "schemitzun" is pronounced as "skemit-son," with the sch being pronounced like the English/American "school" or the usual "schedule" (skedjul) my reference to Yiddish and German words is amiss. I mistook the obvious German spelling for German pronunciation. I am simply curious as to who discovered this word, and how they determined to pronounce it, since no Pequot have been around speaking the language for two centuries. Unless some missionary made a lexicon, I think were into fantasy a bit here.]
Most people do not know the purpose behind Charles Darwin's famous book, The Origin of Species. In fact, they don't even know the full title of the book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, first published in 1859 (London). In the sociological context of the world in which Darwin lived, it is abundantly clear that that book's primary purpose was to justify the white European Christian dominance in the world. Never before had any "species" of humanity accomplished so much, so quickly, and so permanently. Darwin's book is a classic example of the political nature of science, and the perfectly biased purposes that underlie the most highly professed "objectivity." Science, like the arts, is a dependent enterprise, not for the free market. Sicence depends on grants, on funding, on the outside opinions and predilections of others.
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882
There are many such cases to cite. Remember the political context of the famous "Lucy" discovery? "Lucy" is the small collection of bones found in 1974 by Donald Johanson. It was in Afar, Ethiopia. Lucy was black. Three and a half million years old black. Johanson's preeminently politically correct book, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (1981) was sensational. It was marketed with scintillating sentiments. Lucy was "the oldest, most complete, best-preserved skeleton of any erect-walking human ancestor ever found." She was declared "a new species," and she would require a completely new assessment of the origins of the human race, etc. But, the real message was clear enough: Lucy validated the 1960's Civil Rights movement of the American Negro. Lucy was just another "beautiful" element designed to make black folks feel better about themselves. Lucy was presumed "black," because she was found in Ethiopia. She wasn't at all human, either, but, was presumed an ancestor of all humanity, because she was the oldest. (Oddly, not even Richard Poe, in his inimitable Black Spark White Fire [1997] even so much as mentions Lucy, or Johanson. Poe of course attempts to attribute all things civilized to the Negro race.)
Donald Johanson, with his beloved Negress, "Lucy."
Darwin (1809-1882) certainly lived at a time when the white race was exceedingly self-conscious of its whiteness. Success terrorized the white race. The coruscate of America had dazzled the Collective Conscious of humanity, and had to be accounted for in a way that exempted the white Christian civilization from both credit and responsibility, from honor and guilt. In a way, Darwin's Origin of Species declared that the white race was simply the "fittest," and therefore rose to the top, and "survived" most effectively.
Of course, the economic element was not included in Darwin's assessments. As Richard Hofstadter later pointed out in Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944), the opposite is actually true. The fittest don't survive among the human species at all. They only rise to a temporary dominance. (Pat Buchanan's The Death of the West [2001] tends to support the same idea.) The masses of poor only multiply the more, while the superiors intelligently leave off excessive reproduction to secure the best material advantage for their few offspring. The poor survive and dominate through mass numbers, and the economic burden they inevitably place on the guilt-ridden white European Christian culture.
Be that as it may, the Darwin theory of evolution is so untterly unscientific and disproven at this point it is mentioned only as an example of the bias and prejudice of science as an enterprise.
But then, science lives on. Global warming is probably the most politicized--that is, biased--form of "science" in our modern times. Nothing could be more unscientific in its concept, its historical track record, and in its obvious political influence. It is perhaps pure politics. Extracted from environmental concerns, which are legitimate, global warming is a fantasy employed strictly for political purposes.
Finally, on the matter of "Intellegent Design," the designated term for people who believe in the Biblical Creator but who are trying to market the belief in less than biased-sounding terms, I would say theirs is a bit redundant. "Design" means intelligence, by definition. There is no "design" without a designer. Nevertheless, creationists, if they indeed believe the account in Genesis, must be willing to believe that it all came about in 144 hours, not eons of time. That's what the Bible says, and means. And they must believe that the divinely appointed memorial for creation is the sabbath, the seventh day of the week. It isn't Sunday. This is not an irrelevant concern, at a time when Christians are fighting to protect religious freedom, freedom speech, and freedom from governmental interference. I would think the safest course to pursue is to fight to preserve the truth of the Biblical record--for just what it says, never mind whether one is allowed to teach it in public schools.
The Bible also makes declarations about the origin of race and nationhood. These must be accepted as well as the account of creation. Any other fight for religious freedom will inevitably include the rights of murderous Muslims. In other words, it isn't religious freedom that's the prize. It's truth. Truth is what should be fought for. "Religious freedom" is an abstraction that includes our enemies.
I hope I have made myself clear.
Here are a couple of interesting headlines--
From the Mohawk Nation News:
MOHAWKS TO ATTEND INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN VENEZUELA
From the Yakama Herald News:
Drug investigators seize 40,000 pot plants on Yakama reservation
The new Fidel Castro of Latin America, Hugo Chavez, is apparently feigning fatherhood, or at least leadership, of the international, indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, while Mexican drug cartels use American Indian reservations as marijuana farms. Is the matter clear enough?
Hugo Chavez and Fidel Casto
Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, apparently thinks he can scoop up the North American Indians in one grand gesture of inviting deligations to Caracas. He invited Canadian Mohawks, for instance, to make a formal appearance at his International Congress of Indigenous People, August 7-9. (Of course, this was right before the United Nations grand Indigenous Peoples Day, in New York, August 9. AIM was in on fundraising for that one.) Primarily for Venezuela's tribal peoples, the Congress nevertheless goes gobal, to validate its anti-European cause. I suppose the poor, ignorant natives of Venezuala are blissfully unaware of the fact that their wondrous European-based national leader, Mr. Chavez, represents the antithesis of everything he professes to honor in them. And the fact that North American Indians would accept any invitation to be honored in such an ironic, heinously false way, only shows how far (literally) they are willing to go to make a point, dull and abjectly dull as it is. Such conferences have been held before. It's all part of the anti-white, anti-European, anti-Christian sentiment fanned by white liberal communists, who can't gain power by strength, so they resort to racism--hoping to unite all the darkies against western history. Indeed, it all gives new meaning to the George Soros idea of anti-tribalism. Soros, of course, through Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, is promoting the idea that all non-white people are essentially 'native American.' That includes Africans and homosexuals.
In the mean time, the browns from Mexico are quietly using American Indian reservations as vantage points in their drug traffic enterprises in America. Now, that's real brotherhood. That's quintessential skin unity. The Yakima Reservation in Washington (state) has recently been found to be harvesting marijana. Forty thousand pot plants were just confiscated (Aug. 10), worth about $80 million. Last year, 11,000 plants were found by enforcement officials. "Mexican drug trafficking organizations growing out there and not members of the tribe." Tribal leaders officials "are working very hard to get this activity off of their lands," he said. Oh, yeah? North American Indian participation in the Chavez skin fest communicates that attitude with stellar clarity. The government of Mexico of course urges the US to provide all public services to illegal Mexican here, (while Juan Hernandez, director of the Presidential Office for Mexicans Abroad, claims President Vicente Fox "wants to make a difference for immigrants" by offering lower tuition for Americans who want to study in Mexico!).
Some things never change. Foreign governments try to act friendly to American Indians, in order to gain a foothold in America. They flatter Indians, they offer trinkets, gestural treaties (--Chavez even offered heating fuel), and anything that will appear to insult the American government. Anything to make it appear that they care about Indians.
This is inenarrably denigrating. Many American Indians don't see it, but they are being played like a fiddle. King George played Indians, too, when he "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers [i.e., that of the colonies] the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." Thus saith the United States Declaration of Independence. It's all about perception. Indians were always in the position of trying to manage imported European conflicts to their own best advantage. Indians never united to rid themselves of the Europeans, for circumstances did not allow that, and Indians were separate nations anyway, with their own conflicts. The point is, as a whole, the Indians, tribe by tribe, were not strong enought to deal with the Europeans alone, and instead had to try to play their hand with whatever European faction they thought would be to their own advantage.
I'm saying today, no other country outside America offers Indians any advantage. The Third World darkies just want to use the Indian to prick against white European Christian civilization in general. They offer nothing to American Indians. A barrel of oil? Are Indians going to made fools of again--for a barrel of oil? A piece of jerky? A bottle of whiskey? It was the high and mighty white European that worked such nonsense on us before. And now we're going to let a skin like Chavez do it again? A lowly dictator? A duplicitous, manipulative egotist? We're going to 'honor' him for a barrel of oil? --oil he would never have had if American companies did not develop his trash-hole country to begin with.
Oh, yes. Famous contemporary traitor Ramsey Clark thinks that liberal American media is actually against Chavez! That's the cherry on the cake.
The only thing for American Indians to be is American. Anything else, to indentify with any other country, is total naivete, very much like that innocence displayed by our fathers, when they seemed to kind, so willing to relate to the European immigrant. Indians want to bellyache about that forever, and yet cuddle up to Chavez because he's a skin? I'd call that racism. Racism is a terrible disadvantage Indians, as will be discovered when it's too late, no doubt, just like we discovered later, when the coaxer was white.
At least the whites fought us, when we were at our strongest--and they won. These other weaklings could never have fought us, and never have won. Why act open and friendly to them now? Why be a fool to a weakling, after being fooled by the strong?
Conservatives were late in the political arena of jargon jousting. Liberals had staked out all the claims of word power since the 1960's, and when the Reaganites evolved, there were certain popular litanies that ascended as triumphant banners in conservative talk. Among these was the accusation of "victimhood." The concept that complaining, bellyaching, and "whining" were ignoble, immature, and wrong, became a pervasive counter to the major liberal positions. I've come to think that this tactic, effective as it may have been in the passed, has become not only hackneyed and weak, but also a mistaken reading of what's really happening in liberals.
There is presently an appropriate occassion to examine this proposal. Yesterday, there was an AP wire (Aug.7-07) that read: Airlines Sue FBI, CIA Over Sept. 11. It read, in part,
NEW YORK (AP) -- Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday, asking a federal court to let them interview investigators who can tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or whether it had acted reasonably.
The separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asked a judge to order the government to let the aviation companies gather the information as part of their defense against lawsuits brought by victims or families of victims of the 2001 attacks.
U.S. President George W. Bush (2nd R) speaks to the media alongside (L-R) FBI
Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Dick
Cheney and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff at the FBI Head-
quarters in Washington, August 3, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Reed
The normal concervative reading would be, 'Victims! They are oppressed! They seek justice!' I myself might have called it the Communist approach, "You owe me!" If anything in life goes contrary to what I want, it's your fault. It isn't my fault. Especially is this Communist approach successful when the human element is camouflaged with fate, or with political enemies. In other words, human error or accident are not allowed in the liberal, "victim's approach" to reality. There must be a blame, a fault, and it must be identified, condemned, and punished.
But this is still not a correct reading of liberalism. Liberalism, socialism, Communism,--whatever, is not a reaction. It is an aggression. Liberalism is a sinister calling in life. It is not about justice at all. That is a smoke screen. That is a front. That is simply a verbal garment to cover the deeper deformity. Conservatives, in their attempts to respond verbally, get caught up in the word game, and simply try to out-word the usurpers. The conservative accusations of "whining," "victimhood," or "bellyaching" are on the same level as the liberal behavior. That is, juvenile. Adolescent.
Again, the liberal ethos is worse than this. Conservatives miss it. Liberalism is about greed and avarice, be it material, emotional, political, and any other kind of power grasping. Liberlism is about taking, not giving. It is raw, violent, and lethal. It isn't bellyaching. It isn't whining. And it isn't about victimhood. If conservatives think they can shame liberals into reformed behavior by calling them puerile names, they are greatly mistaken.
I'm wondering if this doesn't reveal a major conditioning in conservatives. Perhaps this needs to be looked into. Perhaps conservatives need to reexamine their position, at least their verbal tactics, if not their own place in material reality. To accuse the enemy of a superficial fault, faulty as that fault is, and to miss the deeper fault, may indicate some superficiality in conservatives.
Just a thought.
No need to condemn the American legal system, which is merely a business, like any other. No need to point out that truth, the court sport, is a bouncing ball. Truth is just a tool, like a lie. The truth and a lie are equal in a court. It's a set up of opposing teams, with an umpire. Spectators are given an important vote, sometimes. We call them juries.
Oh, they can say that, without people bringing suits, companies would run out of control completely. Why, the court sport is the only thing that keeps society in line. No one seems to know how to bring dignity back into the American legal system. It is abusive almost by nature, at this point. As long as it is made part of the free market, the free enterprise system, the denigration of true and all human values is inevitable, seems to me.
But, the thought that there is some kind of third party recourse (if you can afford it) when one person wrongs another--this is the redeeming factor. Just the thought of an intermediary is the essence of civilization. If left to ourselves, we would kill each other off very quickly. Court has become a sport, but it wasn't a game in the beginning. It was the noblest effort of man. How shall we ever return to that genuine, sincere process of achieving truth, justice, and the American way?
Well, to Hades with his oath, the famous medical code known as the Hippocratic Oath. Who would have ever thought that an ancient, pagan code of medical ideology would dominate the political structure of society in the modern world? Who would have thought that the oath of Hippocrates (ca. 4th century, BC) would serve as the foundation of modern socio-economic ideology?
Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), "the
father of medicine."
It's true, though. It does. It adjures the physician to treat all with indiscriminate care. The doctor must treat all as equally as possible. Each patient is equally important. The doctor must never be judgemental, and never refuse treatment to any patient because of race, religion, gender, moral condition, or legal status. The doctor must treat every criminal, every self-inflicted addict, every murderer, every terrorist, all the same. That's called universal health care, in spirit. Indiscriminate life-saving. Every teen-age pregnancy, every illegitimate birth, every abortion. Every illegal Mexican or other drunk driver who slaughters others, every maniac, every whatever. All must be saved, at any expense.
Looking over Edelstein's translation of the classical Greek oath, however, one might be a bit pressed to find such a principle. Perhaps it is from this line:
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
It is a solipsistic view, certainly, but the oath contains other principles that doctors today aren't so attached to. Though nearly 100% of medical schools in the world administer some form of the oath, notice these Hippocratic principles which apparently have been glossed over:
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I'm not sure what "purity and holiness" would mean to a Greek from the classical age, born and living on the Dodecanese Island of Cos (off the coast of Asia Minor, in the east Aegaean Sea), but clearly Hippocrates was religious. The oath names Asclepius, of the temple there, which was devoted to the healing arts. However, religion can never disconnect one from social effect. That is a lethal delusion. Whatever a man's beliefs, they affect other men. The hermit, who essentially murders the rest of the human race, has still injured those who have known him before he abandoned humanity. This is an insult.
The physician's decision contributes to the continuation of good, or of evil. He deludes himself into thinking he is not part of the greater social circumstance. The cost of his truly high and holy art is the cost of moral indiscretion. He only thinks he is not a part of it, but he is. Inevitably, just as anyone else is. There is no exemption. There is only purity of intent. Isolation of intent, we should say. The effect of the act is inevitably, inexorably moral.
In any case, the idea of indiscriminate medical care is what is breaking the economy of many state in America. That is truly immoral. Though 46.6 million Americans (15.9 %, 2005) are reportedly without health insurance, every criminal, drug addict, or terrorist will receive immediate emergency attention if shot, wrecked, bombed, or otherwise maimed. If the ambulance picks him up, he'll get the royal treatment--in the name of the Hippocratic oath. It's not for the medical personnel to judge whether the patient deserves treatment or not, whether the patient is a violent criminal, a trespasser (i.e., an illegal "immigrant"), or a murderer (i.e., a religious terrorist). All must be treated.
The costs bled out of emergencies rooms is astounding. Digger reports that in Los Angeles alone, $1.6 billion a year is lost as uncompensated medical expenses. This is chiefly due to illegal Mexicans using the emergency room as primary care, for all manner of medical needs, from pregnancy to alcohol problems, from gang-related injuries to smuggling straights. Nine Los Angeles emergency rooms have closed in the last five years--gone broke. New York, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and New Jersey lose about $3.5 billion a year, because of criminal trespassers (i.e., "illegal immigrants").
I say this is immoral. This is anti-American. This defecates upon American citizens. True American citizens. This is directly based on the idea of indiscriminate health care--which is based on an extracted medical ethnic from the Hippocratic oath--and which is the precise opposite of its profession. This nonsense is wholly discriminatory! This kind of abuse of American citizens who do not have medical insurance is cause for war. Nothing less than war. Our citizens are being robbed. Our American citizens are being buried alive by those in charge over us.
That's right: the congressmen, the state legislators, the governors--those that rule over us, whom we elected. Don't blame the pathetic Mexicans. Blame the white people in charge. The white liberals. It is their doing.
For a society to survive, it has discriminate. It has to decide who it's going to save and who it isn't. Any theory or ideology that ignores this obvious requirement is a specious poison, a most pestilential politic. It is completely contrary to nature, and a horrible price will come it.
Americans will one day revolt against this criminal abuse of the citizenry. We've done it before. Shall we not do it again?
It's all about fear now. Our worst nigthmares are reality, almost daily now. The worst things that could be imagined, are all taking place. All the destructive excitement cartoonists, video game programmers, and movie makers have delighted in for the past century--and for which the public has paid billions of dollars to enjoy, is cultural staple today. Imagination has become reality. Ah, life has always been a "reality" show. This is not a media illusion.
Rescue workers (bottom) search the waters of the Mississippi
River in Minneapolis, August 2, 2007 for victims of the I-35W
bridge which collapsed on August 1. (Scott Cohen/Reuters)
But there's a peculiar terror in this "reality" reality of today. That structures which have taken years to build could become rubble in moment is a stark, raving rupture of consciousness. That our most colossal efforts could become nothing in an instant, of course, is the 'climax' of technology in demolition and explosives. But that things should crumble on their own, by fate, this is more than the mind can live with. We can't just keep writing things off. There is a deeper and deeper mistrust, not only of government, corporation, and humanity, but of mistrust of fate itself. We can't rely on reality anymore.
When the twin towers of the World Trade Center vanished, we explained that it was obviously intentional, on the part of one source or another. Well, that covered the murderous plane crashings, but not really the utter collapse of the huge buildings. That was magical, or surreal, in the minds of most, and still is today. People are completely unsatisfied with the official explanations.
September 11, 2001, the WTC attack.
And now a huge bridge, falling for no apparent reason. This is nasty. This is maddening. Never mind the media fest, the feeding frenzy, and all the typical takes, the jargon, and the politicizing. That's all inevitable, and never a source of meaning. Meaning is something each person, if conscious at all, has to work out within himself.
Destruction, either in imagination or reality, seems almost as much a part of reality as creation itself. For the Bible believer, it certainly is part and parcel. "Sudden" creation calls for it's cognate, sudden destruction. The two themes are paramount in scripture. Destruction, whether by accident, evil intent, or divine retribution, is part of our world here. We're seeing more of it, on all sides, for all reasons, no doubt.
One thing is certain: the way in which we analyze a catastrophe always leaves something unsatisfying. Our most detailed descriptions of the event never give us a sense of security at all. They may bring a fabricated sense of closure, but never a feeling of safety. The reason? We instinctively know that description is not causation. Even though braggart professors and scientists love to present their chemical descriptions, their physics data, their scientific understanding of an event, our guts always tell us that their descriptions are not the answer. They really haven't told us "why," but only "what" happened. They don't tell us why it happened.
This is already evident in the Minneapolis bridge catastrophe. All they will give us is a fantastic, detailed description of what took place. This will not represent the causation. And they will not be accused of not knowing. They're paid to know. Therefore, they present descriptions as causation.
Our spiritual natures tell us that there will always be "scientific" descriptions, scientific explanations, scientific analysis, even when humanity cries out "to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne" (Revelation 6:17), and "for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth" (Isaiah 2:19). But their explanations will not effect the horrible events. Their words will fall on themselves, indeed.
In the meantime, our media and government officials idolize victimhood and mourning. That seems to be the only thing we can do. That is our antiphonal response to the chant of destruction, lamentation. That's always the big story. Who can lament the loudest, who can offer the most touching, emotional, appealling testimony, who can get that story out first and best, that's the prize winner.
We can all cry, and pray, all day, every day.
Church group friends, from left, Heather Mattson, of Edina, Minn.: Carrie Gill, of
Minneapolis; Kelly Hoadley, of Minnetonka, Minn.; Greta Tracey, of Minneapolis;
and Heather Trimble, of Chanhassen, Minn., pray together at Gold Medal Park,
near the collapsed Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis on Thursday evening,
Aug. 2, 2007. 'We don't understand it, but we still feel God is in control,' said
Hoadley. Mattson said she was southbound on the interstate, one exit away
from the bridge, when it collapsed. (AP Photo/St. Paul Pioneer Press, Richard
Marshall)
Liberl AP wires read, "Victims in Minneapolis bridge collapse," and already memorialize the dead. "5th body found in Minn. bridge debris" another AP wire reads. Of course, we could all cry, all day long. Many people are. But the point is, broadcasting this is a mere public service of the media, self-serving at that, serving to ingratiate the media with the people, to elicite trust. Maybe it's just a hopelessly distorted relationship, this media bit, trying to be the voice and hear of the people, but it certainly seems feigned at this point in history. And nearly six years have passed, and the World Trade Center towers are not restored. Among other reasons, some people are still demanding search for remains--even DNA--of victims. Just last month, NYC extended the search time, already over a year's duration.
Our lamentations over the dead seem the only sure psychological experience in all this. We know we feel sad and pained when loved ones are taken from us. But, explainations for why seem never to be satisfactory. The bereft get angry, people sue those in charge, and some make a living off grieving, writing books, making appearances, etc. Sorrow sells. That's just a fact in the midst of continued catastrophy.
Sure, we can expect more of the same. I'm afraid it's on the agenda. Indeed, the earth and the heavens "shall wax old as a garment," not just our crusty buildings and bridges. Psalm 102:25,26. I know, the voice of conventional wisdom says never to freak out. Someone has to keep his wits about him, when all seems falling apart. Rudy Giuliani kept his, during the Sept. 11 crisis. He is remembered for that, to this day. But, over all, I think we all need to learn to do that. For, crumblings are coming, with increased scope. We are seeing it before our eyes.
Now, something stupid like Global Warming mustn't so offend us that we fail to see the true reality before us. We are facing unprecedented disasters. We mustn't throw out the baby of concern with the bathwater of vain politics. To the old saying, "Trust in God and keep your power dry," we add, "and keep your batteries charged." Disaster was never so much a part of our lives as it is today. Whether by nature, by man, by the Devil, or by the hand of God, the day wrath is coming. The New Earth cannot be created until the old one has passed (Isaiah 66:22-24; Revelation 21:1). I don't know what frame of mind others will chose, but this is the only way I know to keep whatever wits I have about me. I expect the worst to be follwed by the best. I don't know what other chronological structures are suited to mental survival, but, I'll chose a place whose builder and maker is is not me (Hebrews 11:8-10). And surely, as a helpless, dependent animal, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:6.
Protestant American society has grown up with the concept that hard work is a divinely appointed remedy for innumerable ills. Hard work is the principle behind success of any kind. But, will hard work save the Mexicans? Will hard work make the criminal trespassers into sanctified citizens?
Protestant American society has also grown up with the theological tenet that 'works' are no substitute for faith. "Salvation by works" is one of the most damning anathemas there is to hurl at those seeking to gain Heaven by ritual, by financial gift, or by personal sacrifice. (See, I Corinthians 13:3.) Indeed, one of the most basic accusations the Protestants used to make of the Roman Catholic Church is that Romanism was a giant scheme of "salvation by works." Why, the grace of Christ was eclipsed by tedious, torturous self-afflictions enjoined upon all serious Romanists. Self-fagellation is deep in the heart of Roman Catholic religion, Islam, and tribal religions throughout the world. American Indians today still find meaning in the Sun Dance. The human mind is prone to it for the sense of elevation it creates. Traditionally, however, American Protestantism abhorred it.
Self-flagellation in the Philippines, during Holy Week
I wonder, does Protestant America today hold this same theological tenet for criminally trespassing Mexicans? Are Mexicans allowed to be saved by their works? Are we missing an application here? Because Mexicans are willing to work hard, does this make them worthy of something? Are they naturally like American Protestants, accepted as beloved brethren, because they seem to practice the Protestant work ethic? Are Mexicans to be forgiven by the American public because they work hard? It that their ticket to citizenship? Is that their exoneration for criminal trespassing?
There may be a psycho-sociological element in this Mexican situation that is not fully recognized and understood. (We continue to seek explanations for why the American public cannot muster the strength to oust traitorous congressmen, and to oust criminal trespassers.) Do we naturally pity the sweating poor? Are they worthy of all amnesty and reward--simply because they are poor and 'hard working?' Does that cover it all? Is that all you have to be and do to be forgiven all your sins?
An Apsaroke brave in the Sundance ritual. (Curtis)
It's true, also, that this 'hard-working' reputation is shared by other immigrants, legal and illegal, peaceful and murderous (as are many Muslims). They almost all work, extremely hard. The Hindu, the Chinese, the Arabs, they all work intensely. And, to this day, I have never met, or seen, or known a "lazy Mexican."
I think the misunderstanding comes with the historical context of the American Protestant ethic.
First of all, let me say that no religion believed more in hard work than the Catholic religion. However, the English monks and friars basically blew that image completely. Never was there a more irresponsible group of gluttons in the history of society. Nevertheless, in America, "hard work" is part of the Protestant milieu and is associated, ironically, not with the Romanistic "salvation by works," but with the responsibility of making something out of yourself in this world. Protestants were here in the "wilderness," as they called it. There was absolutely every oopportunity to make something out of themselves. To fail to do so, was to insult the opportunity God had given them. To fail to "work hard" was to insult Heaven, and to deny the faith. If you didn't make something of yourself, if you were not successful, it was your own fault, and you had no one to blame but yourself. The pressure on each man to take care of himself and his family was desperate.
In 1848, the talking traveller Tocqueville had much to say about the American of the early 19th century. The American had an austerity, a gravity, beyond even anything he'd seen in England. Of the Americans, Tocqueville says, "They show more attachment to their cares than aristocratic nations to their pleasures." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. II, p.234. (Vintage, 1945). Of course, the pleasurable Frenchman would take speical notice of the "astonishing gravity" in the hard-working American, since it contrasted with every fiber of his sensual soul.
But the points are well taken. American society was born in adversity, weaned on danger, and breeched in war. It was a strong, and mighty people. (Interestingly, Tocqueville noted of American Indians, "in the little which they have done, have unquestionably displayed as much natural genius as the people of Europe in their greatest undertakings." Tocqueville then notes that it would take the Indian nations much time to grow to the level of the European nations. [Vol.1, p.363].)
So Americans have a natural appreciation for desperate, hard work. The tendency is, yes, to forgive the criminally trespassing Mexican. The tendency is to over-look the economic disaster they are causing, the crime and the spirit of lawlessness they are bringing into the country. The mood is to not think harshly towards them.
Mexican girl working in a Chesapeake Bay
crab processing factory. Over 800 Mexicans
work there. A righteous situation?
I think it is time for Protestants America to reconsider it's own spiritual standing. By the way Americans are allowing this Mexican problem to burgeon, one might think Americans have lost their own religious ethic, their own spiritual understanding. It seems that Protestants have fulfilled their own anathema: salvation by works. It appears that Protestants have come to believe that salvation, at least in this world, is indeed achieved by hard work. Anyone willing to work hard, is forgiven the most heinous of crimes.
Looking nice helps increase the public forgiveness ratio.
America has become like the mafia. As long as the murderous thug is a good family man, a hard- working knave, why, he's a fine American citizen. All it takes is hard work.
Hard work may save the Mexican, but it will lose America.
Salvation--of any kind, is never in works, hard or otherwise. Earthly salvation is in right moral values, not physical activities, be they pleasurable or painful to the body. Salvation by works is always particularly hard on the body. That's why Mexicans make the perilous track from southern Mexico, through the desert, with smugglers, pimps, and other criminals, just to be able to "work." It's all a delusion. American Protestants need to re-assess their own values here.