The Daughter of Dawn is a silent movie made in 1920. It is the first full length movie of an American Indian story, and that uses all American Indian actors.
In December, 2007, I was commissioned (hired) to write a symphonic score for the sound track of this historical film. The Oklahoma Historical Society owns the film, which has remained in obscurity for nearly a century. It was never released, but fell into private hands soon after its making.
It was filmed in the Wichita Mountains of southwestern Oklahoma, and involves Comanche and Kiowa Indians. The story is part legand and part fiction, and includes all the major aspects of Indian life that form today's image of the old days. These aspects include a buffalo hunt (probably the first in a movie using real Indians!), dancing, a brawl (between Indians), and of course, a love story involving a test of courage. The only thing it doesn't have is the US Cavalry--thank the eagles for that one!
Being filmed in 1920, in black and white, there are living relatives of the actors among the Comanche today. In the film, there are elderly people, as well as younger people. The elderly, in 1920, are from the wild, free days. This is an awesome thing. A person of but fifty years, in the movie, was alive in 1870--before the last of the free Comanche surrendered at Ft. Sill. A person 60 years old, in the movie, would have been living during the last of the wars. This is incredible. There are several elderly people pictured in this movie. The film is still being researched.
You can see the Indians' way of dressing, their style of conversing (lots of sign language, and the use of incessant hand gestures--something Comanche were famous for), and above all, their style of horse riding. No saddles. No metal in the bridles. It is rather impressive, to say the least.
Now, one may ask, what kind of music am I writing for such a film? I'm not imitating pow-wow songs. I'm not using any historical, authentic songs still sung among elderly Comanche, either. I was asked to write a symphonic score. I was commissioned to write for full orchestra. This is a major, classical music effort. This is not a pop music score. This is not about sound effects or cartoon entertainment music. This is first rate symphonic music. That's why I was hired. That was the purpose I was hired for, I should say. There were others, I understand, who attempted to procure the commission long before I even knew the film existed. The simple truth is, I was contacted by the Oklahoma Historical Society in late November, 2008, and signed the contract December 12. I knew absolutely nothing before that. I have recently found out that some Indians have heard about the existence of this film for years. (Of course they have. There are living relatives of the actors among us!) So, the expectations are growing intense, now that the word is out.
I shall be finished with some 160 pages of the orchestral score in early June. After that point, we will look for a conductor and a first rate symphony to record the 80 minute score.
For people interested in my style of symphonic composing, all I can say is this: you may purchase CDs of my recordings in stores, or order them. I think my best work to date is "HaNitzol," for oboe solo and orchestra. This piece has been recorded twice, once by the Polish National Radio Symphony (Meir Kadichevsky, oboist), and once by the Kiev Philharmonic, (Volodymyr Koval, oboist). David Oberg conducted the Polish Symphony, and Robert Winstin the Kiev Philharmonic.
Now, I do a lot of different things in the Indian movie score, naturally. However, the palate of harmonic venues is my own devising, and that's really what's original. But, an 80 minute, non-stop orchestral score for a movie is also pretty unique, according to my printer. He's pulling what's left of his hair out trying to finish what I hand to him.
I must say, I thought I would be finished April. I forgot about the change of seasons, lawn work, house cleaning, etc. Right after I started writing, in December, 2007, we had a ice storm here in Oklahoma, and I was using candle light for a week! Then, more recently, I ran out of manuscript paper! The company that prints the paper suddenly stopped printing it. Luckly, after 135 pages, I still had two blank sheets, and I ran off to Kinko's to make more manuscript paper. (I think Kinko's should be listed in the credits of the movie.) A couple a car breakdowns, medical problems, and now my eyes are getting weak. I had to up the lense caliber. So, great projects are met with great obstacles, or so it always seems.
BadEagle.com will keep you informed as the film project progresses.
They were the most decorated battalion in WWII. The 100 Battalion was legendary in the European Theatre. Its 442nd Regional Combat Team had only 4,500 men at tops, but they earned 3,900 individual decorations. Almost everyone who served in the 442nd had at least one Purple Heart. So why aren't they famous in the public eye?
They were Japanese.
They were the sons of first generation Japanese immigrants. Thanks to "bleeding heart" liberals, the only American Japanese we know about during WWII are the ones who were placed in "internment" camps or "relocation centers" (justified or not.) That's all we're supposed to know. But that's a small story compared to the incredible courage of the Purple Heart brigade!
All that bloody horror image we have of the Japanese nationals during the war, the barbarity of Japanese rule in Asia--transfer all that energy to the American-born Japanese volunteers in the United States military. The Nisei (nee-say), the second generation, were a force to be reckoned with. Their motto: "go for broke."
The 442nd RCT included the 442d Infantry Regiment with three battalions, the 522d Field Artillery Battalion, and the 232d Engineer Company. After a year of individual and unit training at Camp Shelby, Missippi, the unit deployed to the Mediterranean in May 1944. The 442d RCT joined the 100th Infantry Battalion in Italy and entered combat on 26 June 1944, attached to the 34th Infantry Division. Over the next two months the newcomers fought as well as their predecessors, earning nine Distinguished Service Crosses (while the 100th earned three more).
These Japanese men deserve the very highest love and affection from American people. Yes, it's a hard sell, because the image of the Japanese national was, for half a century, one of loathing and detestation. When a national's courage is attacking you, or defending against you, that courage is odious and hateful. It is hard to think of a person of that nationality in any other way but condemnatory--with disgust. Yet, we have among our finest battle heroes of WWII a large group of Japanese-American men who fought with distinction. They made their choice. They were warriors, and they could not sit idle. They didn't waste their time protesting the treatment of their parents. They went for broke, indeed. They laid their lives on the line--for America. The 442d RCT helped drive the Germans from Northern Italy. On 5 April, the first day on the attack, Pfc. Sadao S. Munemori from Los Angeles gave his life to protect two buddies in Company A, 100th Battalion, and was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
This is an extraordinary story, one that every foreigner in America should consider earnestly. No people could have been considered more "foreign" to the United States, more "alien," more of an "enemy," than the Japanese-American. Different race, different religion, different language--and had just attacked the United States--that's what it meant to be Japanese in the 1940's. These mean did what they had to do. They did the honorable thing.
But anti-American, anti-nationalist, anti-human Left cannot endure honor. So unproductive, so viciously envious of accomplishment, the Left can only decry truth and courage, and work feverishly to cover it up, just like the media has covered up the great Nisei of WWII. These men have families, and grand children by now. Their stories have been buried by liberal, Leftist , racist prejudice in America's media.
Let that be a lesson to all.
And hats off to the second generation Japanese American soldiers of WWII, like like SSGt. Kasuo Masuda, 2nd Bat. who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on Hill 140. Crawling two hundred yards through enemy fire, he secured a 60mm mortar tube and ammunition, and dragged it back to his post. Missing a base plate for the mortar tube, he used his helmet. For the next 12 hours he single handedly fired the mortar without leaving his post, except to run for more ammunition. During that time, he repulsed two counter-attacks. Masuda was later killed on patrol along the Arno River when he deliberately sacrified himself so the men with him could deliver vital information to their headquarters.
But during that time, the prejudice against Japanese was so strong, at the end of the war the Masuda family was warned by vigilantes not to return from the Gila River Internment Camp to their farm in Talbert, California, near Santa Ana. But they did. It was there that a special ceremony was done with General Joseph Stillwell presenting to the family Kazuo Masuda's DSC award.
Amen.
Front runner for the Democrat presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton was recently campaigning in the heart of Indian Country--the Dakotas. She was in Sioux Falls last Friday. How did she fare? Well.
She has always understood the basic concept of Indian sovereignty. Back during her campaign for the US Senate (D-NY) seat in 2000, she faced Rick Lazio in a debate in which she made a simple off-the-cuff remark about the relationship of American Indians to the United States government: "As I understand it, it has always been nation to nation..." I remember hearing her make this statement.
Hillary: White Woman Savior?
Sometimes, off-the-cuff remarks reveal the truest state of mind. In this one remark, Hillary shows a great deal more affinity with American Indian sentiment than her opponent, Barack Hussein Obama, the fringe foriegner with the Marxist agenda for all.. Hillary is just a little bit more "American" than Barack Hussein Obama, as if their names did not make that obvious enough.
Certainly, everyone makes the grandest statements when campaigning, especially when in the heart of Indian Country, on Indian land. But, when she made the "nation to nation" statement during her senate campaign, she wasn't in an American Indian debate. She wasn't campaigning for Indian votes. She wasn't on Indian land. It was just a question put to her about the status of Indian people in the eyes of the US government. (I can't remember exactly the context, but it was published in the Syracuse Post Standard, November 2, 2000, currently inaccessible).
American Indian tribes are sovereign nations within the United States," said Hillary Clinton during the Lazio debates in the New York senate race. "The U.S. government maintains a nation to nation relationship with American Indian tribes."
That's a great starting point, in theory anyway. Though many Indians in the Dakotas are divided between Hillary and her opponent, the Republican Indians haven't made their position known completely, yet. They may end up doing the Ann Coulter thing--supporting Hillary out of protest against the Democrat opponent, and worse, out of resentment toward McCain and his utter corruption of Republican ideology.
Hillary announced an impressive plan, with impressive specifics, for Indian Country. She saw many things in South Dakota, indeed, (though the announcement of the plan was formally made to Indians when she campaigned in Montana.) She is a lot more aware of Indian problems than her opponent. She is also a lot more familiar with the process of taking action. I personally find it difficult how Indians could support Barack Hussein Obama, given his foreignness and lack of familiarity with basic America. He simply wasn't raised in this country, and his social experience was always from an objective "elitist" view. I would feel very uncomfortable with that. What is there to base any trust on? At least Hillary is an American--whatever her political views are. There is a visceral affinity in her that is wholly lacking in Barack Hussein Obama (may his name be changed, inshalah). Obama appeals to some strange superficial, emotional raced-based triumph that creates the illusion of transcendence. It is all a dream--which may lead to a terrible nightmare. A white woman savior at least has a "mother" factor that might be much better for Indians. And who knows, maybe Hillary is part Cherokee. She can be another white woman Indian.
I'm only pointing out that Barack Hussein Obama has absolutely no experience with or knowledge of American Indian people. Anyone can spiel out a Marxist social concept--made to order for any racial "minority." That's all he has done, basically. In fact, in Marxism, one size fits all.
And the other argument that nothing has changed for Indians under the Democrats (in the Dakotas), therefore Indians should try someone else, or some other party, or something, also has its limits. It presumes that anychange will necessarily be better--as if nothing could be made worse. This isn't exactly so. It can get a lot worse, and it is, even as we speak. (Note how the famed Indian "casino" business has not made one statistic of improvement when it comes to Indian life. Here is one issue I would jump at the chance to speak to Hillary about--the utter inutility of Indian casino "revenue.")
I understand Hillary met with many Sioux who do not support Barack Hussein Obama at all. Her opponent, who says he as been in 57 of the 58 states, and greeted the people of "Sioux City" when he was in Sioux Falls, is so far removed from American reality that he should be given a Rhodes Scholarship, and study America in a socialist school in England. He would get top honors. Hillary's already earned her awards. She might actually be ready to get to work now.
"The Last of the Mohicans" in Afghanistan are the tribe of the "Kalash," the "wearers of black." There are only about 3,500 of them yet living. They claim to be descendents of Alexander the Great. They are polytheistic, like the ancient Greeks, and they are of course considered 'pagan' by the Muslems. "They make their own wine, elevate animals to religious status and believe in mountaintop fairies," says blogger CitizenSugar.
CitizenSugar gets the scoop from Friends of Kalesh, a British site.
Kalash woman at a Spring festival dance, arm in arm, in circles of people.
This is a classic example of a liberalesque sentimentalism in which a "species" of human beings is regarded as a rare frog, owl, or insect. Ah, yes, the world must stop on its hinges, to preserve the 'endangered species.' This is unbearable inconsistency. These same types of liberals are the first to issue the Marxist marching orders to slaughter masses of human beings at once--as is happening currently in Myanmar, Ethiopia, and other parts of Africa and South Afrika. Slaughter by famine and disease. Makes no difference, machetes, bullets or nature.
So, the world knows about a beautiful, idyllic people now, living in the remote mountains of northwest Pakistan. I wonder if Al-queda knows about them?
"I'm so taken with the fact that real diversity still exists in our ever-shrinking world," says CitizenSugar. In other words, you find it offensive? You find it remarkable that some people love to be who they are, rather than be like someone else, like good Communists? You find it amazing that the social "boundaries" in Pakistan still stand, despite the Russian dominance in the 1980's?
Citizen Cane, rather, CitizenSugar, do you also find it offensive that American Indians do not wish to be associated with Polynesians, Asians, Negroes, or homorsexuals? Does that curdle your liberal milk? Does it trouble your very soul that all people who are not white just don't automatically fit into your racist "colored" category? It must be incredibly disappointing that one American Indian tribe, with its own religion, language, territory, and culture, doesn't identify with another American Indian tribe, in another part of the country, let alone with the Kalash of Pakistan.
The kindly, gentle affection for diversity found in the "liberal" species of political humanity is a most dangerous poison, dangerous because it disguises a lethal poison. It is a racist, elitist attitude which views human beings as rare animal species, as museum pieces, or as great political causes--easily made anti-conservative, and anti-American. "Diversity" preservation is a mask of mean Marxism--the most destructive political force in history. "Diversity" means superiority--not of the "rare species" but of them that use the label.
Is this all the "rare species" have in the world--the nominal, deceptive support of the liberal--who will use "diversity" to destroy America, but then design the elimination of millions of people? Is Marxism the only attention the tribes of the world will ever get?
I hope so. The tribes need to work out our own salvation. We need to become self-reliant if we aren't, and stay that way when we can. The Kalash seem to have maintained their identity independently. They appear to be self-sufficient. Maybe that's an illusion.
The "wearers of black" at the annual Spring Festival. Very colorful, indeed.
When I was in Iran, I was fascinated with group of colorful, gypsy-looking people in the northern regions, the Qashqai nomads. (They are believed to be Turkic, originally, not Persian.) I wanted to buy souvenirs or books about them from the stores in Tehran before I left. The Iranians were not at all proud of these people, and considered them historically fake. I never forgot that. They were just foreign isolationists, with no significant history at all. My guides refused to let me buy any tokens or pictures of these people. They disdained such pretense. (Curiously, there used to be an old Comanche word, che kas kai, which meant "bad heart," as in bad person. Kas kai--Qashqai, sound terribly similar. Just a side note.)
I wonder then about the Kalash. Who are they, really? Where do they come from? They are apparently Hindu in origin. That would put them in the gypsy class, indeed. There may have been some inter-breeding with whiter Greeks, or other non-Arabic people, otherwise the Kalash would not have any light eye coloring or skin coloring. Persians (Aryans) in fact did have a long cultural exchange with the Hindu. There are people in India with lighter colored eyes, which is not their genetic characteristic.
In a way, this Kalash craze is like a pop-up casino "tribe" claiming to be a historical American Indian tribe. Some group of people, white or black or mixed, in America, picks out a historical Indian name--especially of a tribe that is long extinct, and then claim they are the descendents. They get into some kind of regalia (usually a plains Indian stereotype), and start acting "Indian." If they're lucky, they'll get federal recogniztion and then a casino.
Maybe the Kalash need to apply to the UN for national recogniztion.
This is the liberal idea of diversity. It is a tool to disturb any established country. It is all about racial agitation, for purposes of overthrowing any present regime. It is a preoccupation with distruption. That is the cause. Disruption. Right out of the Marxist playbook.
Nearly 5 million people are now homeless in the Sichuan province of central China. It is a daunting prospect, essentially unfathomable. At times like this, privacy itself is absent. The overwhelming tragedy admits no personal preferences. Think of the logistics: no toilets, no power, no food, no water. MIllions of people without the basic necessities of civilized life. They were thrown into mass confusion and terror, overnight.
Survivors of an earthquake in Beichuan are put up at a coliseum
housing the homeless in Mianyang, Sichuan province, May 18,
2008. Thousands of soldiers and families looking for missing kin
streamed into one of the worst affected areas of China's massive
earthquake on Sunday, as a strong new aftershock hit and the
death toll neared 30,000. REUTERS/Aly Song (CHINA)
"Victims are living anywhere they can. Public spaces of towns in the disaster zone are filled with tents. The Sichuan Ministry of Civil Affairs says it has provided 30,000 tents, but most are living in homemade structures built out of the red, white and blue plastic used for shopping bags in China. In Chengdu, many people sleep under highway overpasses. On the way to Yanmen village, where 10,000 people were left homeless, people have pitched their tents in the road, more afraid of their damaged houses than being hit by cars in the night."
Ah, but it is a naturally communal people. They will adapt to the exigency better than most. They are quite accustomed to living in very close quarters, with little personal space. They are not averse to one another in a sociological sense, compared to Western conventions. Indeed, their common experience, as a culture, is partly the basis for the prolonged existence of Communism in China. It is not antithetical to their group thinking. The economic democartization of China has little effect on this profound, perhaps genetic disposition. I might add, there is no word for "democracy" in Chinese. The concept does not exist naturally, there.
Media will explore the agonies and abnormalities for weeks to come, certainly. So far, however, there has been no inhuman Marxist aversion to impede aid or mercy to the victims, as there has been from the beginning in Myanmar. The Chinese people can be grateful for that. All kinds of aid is coming from everywhere, and the Chinese leaders are more than happy to receive it. (What's more, the sociological results of such a catastrophy actually open the kinds of doors the Chinese government, repressive as it is, wants to see opened. The 2008 Olympics will bring the world to China, with or without toilets. The least China can do is hope for a positive image of human relations--which, without this horrible earthquake, China would be hard pressed to produce.)
But the interesting stories to surface in the future will be the personal experiences of Christians in China. These stories will obviously appear in mission magazines and on Christian web sites. Believers the world over are most anxious to hear of the difference the Lord makes in the lives of His own. I venture to say that there are Christians in Sichuan. Indeed, they have been persecuted--for being Christian! BadEagle.com has cited the issue of faith, justic, and mercy, in remarkable disasters as the cyclone in Myanmar and this present earthquake aftermath in Sichuan. God may not spare Christians the experience of general cataclysm, but, may Christians not expect notable blessing during such a time? Otherwise, why believe? What is the visceral, phenomenological cause to believe? What is the advantage, if any?
At the very least, the person who trusts in God has a confidence, a positive expectation. He is not as likely to panic, to dispair, or to become violent in his reactions. Surely, this is advantage enough in itself. But, such character, and its social value, is not ubiquitous to the point that governments notice. Rather, the name of Christ is despised. As noted, Chinese Christians in Sichuan are not spared persecution from the government. Interestingly, one of the greateset Christians of the 20th century China was Ni Tuosheng (1903-1972), better known as "Watchman Nee." A writer of intense spiritual works, Nee spent the last twenty years of his life in prison, as Christians were severely persecuted by the Communist government.
Seventh-day Adventists, with a practical faith unparalleled, still experience what the general population experiences. Indeed, there are Adventists in Sichuan. There are Chinese Adventists who are in the same crisis that five million other people are in. According the latest reports, there are Adventists who have died and are buried.
Several Adventist Church members have died and several are buried, said David Ng, a ministries director for the church's Chinese Union Mission.
And yet, with eight Adventist churches destroyed, there is faith. "Despite some congregations losing their churches in a May 12 earthquake, some Seventh-day Adventists in China are still planning to meet for worship this Sabbath, church leaders said."
This is an hard saying. Who can hear it? For Adventists, even in Sichuan, the point is to be loyal to God. If He bails you out, fine. "If not," your showed where your values are--in worship and obedience to Him. Sometimes, we have to wait a bit for Him to finally show us where His values are. The Christian, of course, counts the Cross as the answer to that. But, that's connected directly to eternity--and that doesn't begin until the end of this world.
Maybe the earthquake is sign of the end. Maybe it isn't. To the believer, it really doesn't matter.
Back to back catastrophies: the Myanmar (Burma) cyclone, and the China earthquake. (Added to the Myanmar natural disaster is the human intent to destroy by disease and starvation nearly two million lives). Nearly 30,000 are known dead in Burma, and the death toll in China is expected to reach 50,000, to say nothing of the tens of thousands injured. (Plus, a new plague is hitting children in Beijing.)
A woman faints after hearing that her daughter was killed when a school collapsed
in the earthquake-hit Hanwang town of Mianzhu, Sichuan province, May 15, 2008.
(Stringer/Reuters)
From the hand of God, or the heart of man, or the unbridled power of nature, evil comes. It is constant, and unrelenting.
This is hard to bear. This is difficult to understand and to respond to in a rational way. The curious element is the "mass" element. Mass destruction. Of course, this is generally due to the fact that masses of people live in close proximity. Nature, like modern Muslim murderers ("terrorists" they're called in the media), picks areas of concentration, to maximize the numbers of people destroyed, or so it seems. What good is a storm at sea? What good is a tornado on the prairie? Cities is what we're looking for. Large cities. The efforts of disaster must not be wasted. There must be adequate returns.
As one who has studied the Bible for a long time, I can't help but think of all the different scriptutes about these things. Famine, pestilence (epidemic), storm, earthquake, war, all are agents of mass destruction. Destruction, as a sudden event, is very much the converse of creation itself. The Hebrew teaching is that God created the world ex nihilo, from nothing. Catastrophic destruction, even explosive, is the inevitable suggestion. If something can come into being instantly, it can go out of existence equally as suddenly. That's the philosophical rationale.
But the association of destruction with evil, with sin, that is the Biblical take. That's what makes these things so profoundly serious--to anyone who wants to believe in God as Creator and Redeemer. How shall we regard these events of mass destruction, the way a child responds to a spanking?
Once King David, when facing divine retribution, was given a choice: famine, war, or disease (epidemic). David chose "the hand of the Lord" over man, for the Lord's "mercies are great." An epidemic immediately killed 70,000 people. As the angel of the Lord approached Jerusalem, David fell on his face and pleaded for God to spare His city. David owned his own sin before the Lord, and the plague was stayed. (2 Samuel 24.)
The prophet Micah (as well as many other prophets) dramatized events of mass destruction. Ultimately, all the prophecies have an application in the ultimate destruction--the end of the world.
Shall the end of the world then also be associated with a general condition of mass immorality? Is mass destruction the outcome of mass sin?
In a sense, yes, this is our only hope. That there is a reason for events of mass destruction comprises our occasion to think positively, otherwise our situation would be abject. If we can know some reason, some cause, we can at least think to alter the circumstances--especially of that cause is connected with our own behavior. Certainly, that is the religion of the Global Warming crowd--albeit theirs is no moral concern at all. Indeed, the absense of moral assessment is the primary clue that theirs is a false religion.
But, who can make moral judgements? Who can name sin?
If the Biblical account of reality is true, then the word of the Lord is the moral judgement--given to all, for the benefit of all. We can't just make up our own ideas of right and wrong. These will not suffice to stay the plague, or avert the storm. That kind of power is in God's hands, not ours. We can manipulate our own behavior, by politics, by law, or fear, but, if it is not connected to the Creator, such alterations are meaningless and ineffective. Self-righteousness cannot turn the wind. Idolatry of human ideas cannot shield us from evil.
I think we're getting to a point that we are generally recognizing that we do not have control over this planet. We do not have control over ourselves. Fear is running rampant. Looking to leaders, religious or political, may seem to assuage the fears of many, but, it is a pitiful thing to see masses of people as sheep being led to the slaughter.
Is there not a God? Can he not be appealed to? Events of mass destruction seem to be on the increase, and the destruction seems greater. Of course, population has increased, and the concentration of people has increased. But the inevitabilites are not reason to cancel concerns.
Perhaps we should spread out more. That's another lesson of the ancient Hebrews. When man concentrated himself at the tower of Babel, the Lord intervened. (Genesis 11). That's where different languages were born, the whole purpose being to coerce rebellious man into separate groups, to force him to spread out, and inhabit the earth, as was the original design of the Creator. The concentration of fallen, sinful man in one place, in one government, in one vision, leads to only one kind of unity: rebellion against God. The idea of a one world government itself is the seed of aversion, indicating the rebellious nature of man. There is no peace to be achieved in a one world government. Globalism is disastrous. It is possible that globalism itself is bringing on events of mass destruction. That would be the pattern, anyway, according the the ancient Hebrew take.
Interestingly, the ancient Israelites couldn't handle the idea of spreading out even within their own tribes. They got to the point that they had to have a king, a unified secular government. Even twelve tribes of the same ethnicity couldn't trust that the Lord God could rule them. It just isn't in human nature.
If all the countries of the world would be faithful to God, there would be no need of "trade," "international commerce," currency, or any such notion of globalism. Countries should be completely independent of one another, separate, and circumspect. Of course, this will never happen. As noted, Israel couldn't do it even within herself. Humanity just can't trust God. Humanity must work out it's own solutions, and suffer the consequences.
Individual believers can only hope for presonal surival. As Micah (7:7-9) they say,
7: Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
8: Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.
9: I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.
I'd say the best bet is on God. That should become more and more obvious. I wonder, if He were running for office, would we elect him?
"It would not be prudent for Obama to visit a reservation," said Russell Means.
According to reporter David Kranz, who offered a hasty, somewhat bobbled article for the Sioux Falls paper, The ArgusLeader, Monday, May 12, 2008. Obama is scheduled to make an appearance in South Dakota this Friday, May 17. The Kranz article was not initially posted on the ArgusLeader web site. A Sioux friend of mine called me from Sioux Falls, and read it to me over the phone. I searched diligently for the article, and ended up calling the media department of the paper the next morning, before 9:00 am. By late afternoon, the article finally appeared on the online edition. It was obviously posted somewhat carelessly, with a large section displaying incorrect margins.
I was most curious at this. I actually wondered whether the paper, or certain employees, were averse to Means' comments about Obama and the Democrat Party. I wondered whether or not they intentionally withheld the article from the online edition of the ArgusLeader.
Russell Means, uninhibited by political parties,
seeking the best for Indians in South Dakota.
Means has been "often critical of the Democratic Party's inability to bring meaningful change," said Kranz. According to Kranz, Means considers Obama a kind of "perfect candidate" who has been "placed on the fast track to the White House." The implication is clear: Obama is not the choice of the people, but of the high-up political manipulators.
Speaking of the Sioux in South Dakota, Means said "the ones who will vote in the national elections will always vote Democrat "because they are brainwashed,” he said. Put simply, Means calls it "colonized."
"They do it over and over again, and yet they expect different results. Year by year, things get worse for Indian people. Life expectancy dwindles, health becomes worse, the housing situation gets worse," Means said.
Nothing more discrediting (and true) could have been said about American Indian political voice. I have said it myself, more than once. Indians tend to vote Democrat, without understanding what the Democrat Party stands for. Indians have never invested in any political voice in thie country. This country's government has never been something Indians have been interested in, for obvious, historical reasons.
In recent years, Russell Means has supported the Republican effort in South Dakota. He directly supported John Thune, who of course ousted Tom Daschle in 2004 It was the first time a Senate party leader (Daschle was the Democrat leader in the U.S. Congress) was ousted since 1952. The Sioux of South Dakota definitely have a political influence these days.
Bruce Whalen, a Republican Sioux in South Dakota, also supports the effort to educate Indians about American politics. "Whalen supports Means' efforts to do what he can through the news media to educate people about Native American and racial issues," says Kranz. "It is an effort to produce change," Whalen said. Yes, change from failed Democrat ideology to something different.
A different kind of change than Obama touts. Indeed, there is nothing new in Obama's ideology whatsoever, as Rush Limbaugh daily points out. The only thing new about him is his skin--running for president. From the news we're getting out of South Dakota, it doesn't look like his skin is going to get him Indian votes. This is a good sign, a sign that Obama's racist presumptions--that all non-white people automatically support him because he is black--are erroneous. He will not be so welcomed in South Dakota as anticipated.
He will have to pay out much money to get people to line up to see him, and to act like they're crazy about him. I was told that offers of $1,000 to $5,000 dollars were made specifically for that purpose. Well, Indians have been paid with cigarettes and booz all along by Democrats. That's standard.
But the Hussein Campaign really doesn't prize the Indian endorsement at all. This is the truth that Indians need to understand. He doesn't care about Indians. He proved that in his infamous "race" speech, where he utterly ignored America's original invasion of Indian Country. Why, America's "original sin" was slavery of the poor Negroes. Forget the Indians. They're not part of the race story in America. Not according to the great American historican and social artchitect Barak Hussein Obama. The Hussein Campaign doesn't care about the Indian vote. Obama doesn't think he needs it at all. Indians are lower than that poor white workers in Pennsylvania--who bitterly cling to their guns and Bibles. In Obama's thinking, Indians bitterly cling to their traditions, their languages, and their lands. Elitists like Obama disdain Indian values, for they are the antithesis of liberalism.
The kind of change Obama wants is not the kind that will help Indians.
"It would not be prudent for Obama to visit a reservation." Russell Means
Maybe the Hussein Campaign can muster a few "homeless" alcoholic Indians from the inner city of Sioux Falls, and give them a bottle of whiskey to have their pictures taken with Obama. That would be typical.
The truth is, white women are the ones supporting Obama in Sious Falls--especially the white women who are with black Africans. There are goodly number of these. This is the change Obama brings: change of race. A darkening of the white race, a destruction of the Indian race. This he brings, whether he intends to or not. This is his influence: interracial marriage. These are the people that support him the most, in Sioux Falls.
This is not what Indians need. We are few. Whites and Blacks are many. They are not concerned about their races. Indians are concerned about ours. Whites and Blacks apparently do not love their race. Indians love ours. Whites and Blacks are willing to destroy race. Indians fought to the death to preserve ours.
So who's racist?
Since 1999, the policy of Marxist tyrants to rid their countries of masses of unwanted people has been in print. The evidence in Harvard's The Black Book of Communism is overwhelming. Marxist leaders have used a variety of means, from wholesale slaughter to mass 'resettlement' and arranged famines. They have taken advantage of war and natural disaster, regularly.
It was obvious to the world (or, to anyone paying any attention) when "We Are the World, We Are the Children" (the famous self-serving Rock charity effort in 1984-85 tried to save the starving people of Ethiopia. Much of the food sent actually rotted in the harbors. The Russian-backed Marxist Derg (Dergue) junta said they didn't have the means to transport the food from the harbor to the people. No trucks. The fact is, there was a civil war going on, as well as a drought, and the Marxists took advantage of the circumstances. They wanted to be rid of a large portion of the population--their US-backed opponents. There were forced 'resettlement' programs as well as starvation policies; between 50 and 100 thousand people were actually killed by slaughter. Over a million died of starvation.
Villagers rest on the outskirts of hard-hit Bogalay town in southern Myanmar. A Red
Cross boat carrying relief supplies sank, and aid groups warned that up to 1.5 million
people are in desperate need of clean water and sanitation. (Associated Press)
Today, we see exactly the same mind set in the Marxist junta in charge of Burma (Myanmar). Again, it is a group of genocidal Marxist leaders taking advantage of a natural disaster to kill millions of people by starvation. Foreign governments have sent seemingly unlimted amounts of medical supplies, water, and food--all in vain. The latest stats show that the death toll is over 34,000, with over 27,000 missing or unaccounted for. The UN thinks the death toll will reach 100,000. Hundreds of thousands of people are amassing in refugee camps. At this point, it has been estimated that nearly 2 million people are right now at risk for disease and starvation related to the lack of basic food.
Rice farmer U Maung Saw, 58, is rebuilding his own home
from scratch and trying to salvage hundreds of pounds of
unmilled rice soaked by the cyclone, before it rots. He says
his village, Kyaiktaw, has received no aid at all. "The govern-
ment never gives us anything," he says. "We're not angry.
We're not surprised. We don't expect anything else."
(Los Angeles Times / May 11, 2008)
Let this be a lesson to all about how Marxism really works--or doesn't work. People are dispensible. People are a commodity. They can be moved elsewhere, sold, or eliminated. They are merely an item--for the Marxist government to play with in its selfish, self-aggrandizing schemes. The manic regime of Kim Jong Il of North Korea is another fine example of the carelessness, the resentment, even the downright hatred for people that is the fundamental principle of Marxism.
Only in a prosperous, capitalist, free-enterprise, free society, like the Western countries have fostered, and particularly the United States, can Marxism be pawned off as some legitimiate ideological alternative, or some theoretical, academic "balance" of ideas. Marxism, which is Communism, or Socialism, or Leftistm, Liberalism, or Progressivism, is a killing machine. The record shows that this machine is directed at its own people. Therefore, Marxism is self-imposed genocide. It is deceptive, yes, but the record is abundantly clear and published--and currently demonstrable at this moment: Marxism is pleased to eliminate masses of people at once.
This is how governments gain tyrannical power over people, by creating chaos, threats, or by taking advantage of natural disaster. Marixm causes the problems it creates, professes to solve, but never does. The American Congress refuses to allow development in oil and oil production (refinement for fuel, etc.), and then blames the oil companies for the high prices of fuel and all related consequences. The liberals of America claim there is a shortage of oil, and therefore new fuels are needed. Then they claim that using corn for fuel is causing a food shortage and a rise in the price of food! Of course, it's all because the use of oil (and the flatulance of cattle) is causing global warming. This dog-chasing-its-tail technique keeps the uninformed population all frightened and willing to follow. Thus, tyranny waits in the wings.
Ah, but the liberal Rock stars will save the world. They're planning another "coup" for self-righteousness. Ah, but this time it's "Christian" rock stars. Well, that'll make a big difference in the world, right? On the other hand, ineffectiveness is no excuse for inactivity...
The stats showed that the large Negro population of North Carolina voted for Barak Hussein Obama. (The 2000 census put the black population at 22.1% of the state's total population.) The Hussein Campaign also garnered a great deal of the new, younger, first time voters, obviously youngsters who have experienced coerced integration from day-care days through high school and college. They feel voting for Obama validates their own otherwise uncomfortable experience.
So, how did this same state elect Bev Perdue as Lieutenant Governor in 2000? In 1987, she was one of the two Democrats who voted against a state bill ( HB 726) which allowed more rigorous investigation into hate crimes--without local request. Some of her opponents, particularly gubenatorial candidate Richard Moore, imply that Perdue therefore is supportive of the Ku Klux Klan.
Lt. Gov. of North Carolina, Bev Perdue
In other words, Bev Perdue (now running for governor of the state), a white women, a Democrat, can get elected Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, but, Hillary Clinton, also a white woman Democrat, cannot get the nomination for Democrat presidential candidate in the same state. This seems a bit of an anomaly. Did Hillary need to join then the KKK? Would that have helped? Is that what Hillary lacked?
Well, seriously, there is a something to say about association here. Republican Ron Paul has seemingly so many strange and marginal assocations (via supporters), including KKK members, that it is difficult to understand his campaign. Contributors, anxious to influence the election, can become liabilities to the candidate. (Bev Perdue just returned contributions from alcohol industries for that very reason. I wonder if the Klan ever contributed to her campaign.)
Now, patriotic state that North Carolina has been, how could they support someone like Barak Hussein Obama?--who has the most anti-American associations of all, including Muslims, Marxists, and manic baby killers. This is indeed a mystery. Perhaps it is the ignorance and emotionalism of youth, (a specialty of the Hussein Campaign), or the social self-purging of white liberals in North Carolina (many of whom are no doubt "immigrants" from New York, (or trespaasser from Mexico; the "hispanic" populations of North Carolina is by far the fastest growing minority there).
The media would certainly have us believe that the demographics of America have forever changed, drastically, in the last 20 years. The media would have us believe that it's all about diversity. Whites are passe. The cool thing is color. Hussein is in like flint, so to speak. Youth live in media. They obviously think like the media has trained them to think. The media is liberal, and set against anything traditional or "status quo" about America, and that includes the white race. America must become a dark race now. A colored race. A non-white race. That's the whole effort here.
I've said before, American Indians should be the first to dread such a move. The ascent of the darkie onto the great white throne of America will bring no blessing to the American Indian. Indeed, unless it is an Savage in the White House, Indians will be humilated beyond calculation. A marginal Negro like B. Hussein O. bespeaks a profound schizophrenia in the whole country. The associations of Obama are entirely averse to all American history and ethos. He could not bring himself to speak of American Indians in his infamous racist speech, (only mentioning "native American children" once, in one sentence, along with Asian and Hispanic children). To Obama, American Indians do not exist. Indians are not part of the fabric of American politics. He knows nothing, absolutely nothing about America Indians, or American Indian history.
The political behavior of North Carolina is therefore of great concern. BadEagle.com just finished a month of blogs on Confederate History (April, 2008). And now we observe the strange and unaccountable "voting" behavior of a Southern state--not the deep South, true, but one certainly a big part of the Confederacy. Can this behavior be an indicator of the future of the American public? Has the liberal media been this successful?
Rush Limbaugh, radio host.
And one more thing. Rush Limbaugh is being "accused" of influencing the election with his "Operation Chaos"--his effort to keep the Dems fighting over Obama and Hillary--through supporting Hillary. (By the way, that was Ann Coulter's idea.) This is a typical piece of liberal hypocrisy. The campaign efforts themselves are designed to influence the election! That's the whole point. Contributors are influencial, because they give money. However, the media can get a handle on the money issue. Why, that's unfair and undemocratic. Why, you can't buy an election. But the liberal media can't get a handle on Rush Limbaugh. Radio. Free speech. Mass communication. Accusing Limbaugh just isn't going to work, is it? It's okay for Obama's campaign to "influence" young, immature, inexperienced, and uninformed voters in North Carlina; but it's not okay for a radio talk show host to influence anyone. If he were a professional campaign worker, maybe. But just a free speaker. Can't have that.
For those who may not know, there is an entertainment magazine by and about Indians called Redskin Magazine. You'd think that would break all those little liberal hearts out there--especially the ones that campaigned so desperately against the Washington Redskins professional football time (like, heavy-weighted Suzan Harjo). Well, well. Sometime, liberal-trained protesters are just wrong. They don't stand for Indians at all. I certainly never believed they did myself, but, then, those same liberals were just so very sure I was the one "off the reservation." (Or, should I say, still on the reservation? That liberal jargon is so hard to make sense of.)
Yes, Redskin is all about rock music, rockified Indian bands, Indian comedians, "models," etc. It's strickly a "pop" version of Indians. Perfectly normal. Not to my personal taste, but, that is entirely irrelevant. The magazine shows Indians in the "popular" mode, not the refined traditional or artistic mode.
The magazine is currently advertising a woman named Ashley Kahsaklahwee and her soon to be launched web site. Of course, she already has one, AshleySkin.com. It's pornographic, and she sports her silicon (or what certainly appears to be surgical artiface) like jingles at a pow-wow. Quite repugnant in my view, but, again, opinion is irrelevant. (I've long ago offered my opinion of Indian women acting like white women in efforts to attract men--all men, to their bodies: Indian Women Mascots, Nov. 17, 2002, and Have Indians Become Media-dependent, Too? Dec. 20, 2002.) American Indian porno, that's what Ashley is about. Her decision--to be like white women. And, again, that's my opinion.
Let's look into the matter of who's putting this entertainment rag out, anyway. First, here's some choice info posted as a mission statement:'
RSM is the ultimate entertainment resource for not only First Nations people but for all cultures world wide. Our publication enlists a global scope that appeals to men and women of various adult ages. We represent a refreshing, innovative and informative presentation of models, culture, fashion, music and all forms of Arts and Entertainment.
The likes of "sexual relationships," "erotic and sexual advice," "adult sexuality and entertainment," and "questions on sexuality" all enhance, shall we say, the introductory paragraphs. So, we're clear on the main attraction here. Of course, the magazine professes a grand scope of interests, none of which would hold attention without the pornographic aspect. Or, so the magazine's tacit content would seem to indicate.
So be it. There is a large group of Indians, younger Indians, say, under 50 or under 40, who seem hungry for their own society, and are quite averse to the "elders" routine. They have been offended by their own parents and families, if such can be called that. This magazine will probably be a success, among Indians. And, with the rarety of American Indian porno, it will, for a while, probably be a big seller to non-Indians. (Get that? Rarety of Indian porno. That's because it has never had a place in Indian culture. This is foreign to our traditions.)
Jody Martin and Mathew Hill are the owners/operators ( hill@redskinmagazine.ca ). Hillary Chambers is the editor ( chambers@redskinmagazine.ca ). Strong Indian names there. And note, the thing is created in Canada. It isn't an American Indian thing after all.
Interestingly, Sheena Wassegijig ( wassegijig@redskinmagazine.ca ) in the Media Arts department of the magazine, had this to say to Rob Schmidt (a fairly insignificant white liberal who condescendingly seeks to train Indains on how to be Indian):
Call me a Redskin! I'm proud to wear the name...RE-INVENTION IS A GREAT THING. I would honestly NOT be offended. Call me a wagon-burner...
I mean...a stereotype is no money out of my pocket, takes no joy out of my life. its just dumb people who think they are being smart by labelling someone else.
My, that must sting those liberals! How crushing. How devastating. She said what needed to be said to the likes of the liberal trenchman Schmidt. His desperate comeback was to compare Wassegijig to me:
You sound like David Yeagley, the anti-Indian white supremacist who once wrote, "Call me savage!" Do you really want to be associated with the likes of him?
I'm afraid the liberals the racists. White liberals like Schmidt, who think they know how Indians should think, and try to tell Indians how to be Indian, are simply wrong, and have been all along. I'm just smiling at the fact that I never was impressed with them, and now, obviously, no one else is, either. That's the point.
As to the porno thing, or the lower levels of entertainment, that's a different issue. I say that Indians are truly creative and artistic people. This entertainment magazine, like any other popular magazine of it's nature, simply doest not bring out the best, or the highest levels of Indian creativity. I think that's a fair assessment. It is what it is.
Typically, Democrats have organized more Indians in Oklahoma, so that they make optimum use of the Indian voting population. Republicans have done nothing to my knowledge to seek or foster the Indian vote.
Kalyn Free, a superdelegate of the Democrat Party of Oklahoma has just endorsed Barak Hussein Obama, the foreign fringe candidate from...Hawaii? Wherever. Barak Hussein Obama, the surrogate Muslim candidate. True to the non-thinking race-based Democrat political tactic, Free's endorsement emphasizes the lack of information and lack of in-touch politics in Indian Country. The noisy liberal leaders of Indian country media, all steeped in the professional jargon of resentment and victimhood, think that a non-white man, especially a black man, is the magic forumla for America--representing sweet revenge against Whitey, and triumph for all persons of color.
Kalyn Free, of Red Oak, Oklahoma.
This is so over. Nothing could be further from the truth--especially in the case of Obama. Obama is turning out to be the archtypical fringe Democrat politician, full of questionable associations, obvious anti-American sentiments, and full of exigent deceit. Free is certainly fooled:
"As a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, I am proud of what it means to be an American Indian," Free said in her announcement of support for Obama. " I am proud Barack Obama is committed to our unique issues and willing to tackle our toughest problems, from historical inequities and injustices to contemporary issues, like protection of our right to tribal self-determination, access to health care for our elders, and education for our children.
"I support Sen. Obama because I believe the only way to rebuild America is to rebuild what makes us great — the hope and drive of the American people," she said.
There is traditionally a good deal of Negro intermarriage in the Choctaw tribe, of course, but that may or may not have been a factor in Free's choice of the Magic Negro.
People who are truly proud of being American Indian would never, ever support a Negro as in any way representing the interesets of America Indians. No people are more insensitive to Indian problems, more presumptuous of Indian association, and more careless with ethnic identity.
According to Obama's notorious "race" speech (March 18, 2008), Indians to not not even exist! That Free should overlook such an obvious attitude only shows the depths of Democrat blindness and naivete. All Hussein had to say was that the American Negro (which he is not) was mistreated and that slavery was America's original sin (in which he had no part).
This is sympathy for American Indians? To not even acknowlege our existence when speaking of race and America's "orignal" problems? (And he twice mentioned Hispanics--as if Spanish speaking people other than Mexicans ever had anything to do with America.)
Obama has a very crippled mind, undependable, slippery, and warped when it comes to politics. He says anything he has to say, at any point, to get by. He is I believe worse than Hillary Clinton. Hussein is incapable of uniting anything in this country. He has caused the most basic kind of division there is: ethnic division. An African Negro is going to instruct us on how to "move on" passed race? This shows how very, very far out of touch he actually is with the American public, American history, and the ethose of America society. The man is a foreigner, period.
This is abundantly clear.
I am particularly offended that any American Indian political representative, any Indian in official political office, should be so blind as to think the Obama has any understanding or appreciation or knowledge of American Indian people. This is pathetic. I am ashamed and abashed for Kalyn Free. Her endorsement is a catastrophy.
Any Indian that has been around the large reservations or large Indian populations knows how aggressively low class black males have attacked Indian women and impregnated more and more them. Everyone who knows what is happening knows how anxious the Negro male is to move in on Indian country. It is an easy take. And they come in numbers. Apparently they think the Indian woman is the easiest kill in the land.
This is what the American Negro male represent to American Indians: a sex offender. An intruder. One who destroys Indians. The American Negro male is attempting to destroy the Indian race. This is truly the rawest form of racism--to destory another race by sex. No, we're not talking about marriage. That is much to difficult for the Negro male. We're talking only about sex--animal sex. Useless, meaningless sex. That's what this is all about. Attack by sex, not by guns or politics. We're talking about diseased philanderers on the loose, who have no purpose but sex, and sex with any race outside their own. In this low life perspective, creating a Negro within another race is the same as conquering that race. This kind of thing is nothing less than genocide.
Barak Hussein Obama represents the worse kind of threat there is to American Indians. In the past, I have praised him for having the good sense to marry a strong black woman. I'm now beginning to see that as a front of some kind. It is functioning that way, even if it is not his design. It merely insulates him from racist accusation. It merely validates his bid for the black vote. And, obviously, by his appearance, he can't run as anything but black.
It is a tragedy that Indians should misunderstand what Barak Hussein Obama is all about. He's not about Indians, that's one thing we know. In his mind, in his formal. statements, Indians do not exist.
I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of an individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind--that he would be considered a madman, is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong.
In like manner, nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit--truly feeling what all merely profess--must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction--its motives misinterpreted. Just as extremeness of intelligence would be thought fatuity, so excess of chivalry could not fail of being looked upon as meanness in its last degree:--and so on with other virtues. This subject is a painful one indeed. That individuals have so soared above the plane of their race, is scarcely to be questioned; but, in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all biographies of "the good and the great," while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows.
Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849
Thoughts of Edgar Allan Poe, written in 1849. They were in a collection of comments on various topics. Poe called the collection "Marginalia," as if the varied thoughts were comments belonged in the margins of the world's news. The above marginal note is No. 83 in a collection of 226. They vary in length, from a couple of sentences to several paragraphs.
Poe is known for the macabre, the gothic, and the weird. A handful of his short stories dominate his public image today, partly because Hollywood picked up on the most horrid of his stories and made movies out of them, like "The Masque of the Red Death," "The House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," etc., all aggrandizing the fear of death.
Poe certainly may have earned his dark image. There isn't any doubt that he out-Germaned the Germans on the gothic, much to some critics' dismay. ("Mr. Poe is too fond of the wild — unnatural and horrible! Why will he not permit his fine genius to soar into purer, brighter, and happier regions? Why will he not disenthral himself from the spells of German enchantment and supernatural imagery? There is room enough for exercise of the highest powers, upon the multiform relations of human life, without descending into the dark, mysterious and unutterable creations of licentious fancy." From the Richmond Compiler, February 1836, commenting on Poe's tale "The Duc de L'Omelette.")
The truth is, Poe did in fact take a fanciful flight or two toward heaven, "Eleanora" being one of the most memorable--earthen though its base. "The Domain of Arnheim" is another, even more earthen. For Poe, the door to heaven was beauty. Nature was that door, if a woman was the key. (And we wouldn't want to neglect "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," "The Colloquy of Monos and Una," and "The Power of Words," three short stories about the post-apocalyptic time, sometimes known as the 'angelic conversations.'
The point here is that life is a bit beyond one's control. Self, the image of self, the consciousness itself, are all a bit more than the sum of circumstantial parts. There is a most definite limit to the control one can exert over life and image. This is somewhat maddening, since the mind lives in images. A hall of mirrors is our very consciousness. We live in a constant flow of imagination, projection, anticipation, and reflection. The present comprises the past and the future--both realms of the imagination. Memory and anticipation--some created projection based on pieces of memeory, are all that the mind has to offer.
Then there is the matter of public image, and the art of the sell. Right now, America is in a most interesting stage of public imaging in politics. We have an African .5 (point five), a mulatto, trying to manage one of the most curious image challenges in the history of American politics. Maintaining the foreign Muslim name, Barak Hussein Obama is his self-imposed Olympic feat. He's not American Negro, and never will be, but he has tried to use that image to his advantage, nonetheless. Other public images now are forming about him. Which one will abide? Which one is the truth?
Poe says that the greatest, the brightest, the purest, will inevitably be seen as the least, the darkest, and the vilest. This is about image, is it not? Why do we not see things as they are, or even as others may see them? Now Ralph Waldo Emerson tried to tell us to have confidence in our own view, in our own intuition, for that was the only true view, and in the end, we'll find that everyone else has the same view! In "Self-Reliance" (1841) he said,
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Without any undue idolization of human nature, let's simply accept the fact that perhaps we all want the same thing, good feeling, forever. We want to feel happy, joyous, and eternally. All our actions imply that. Yes, we have a most pestilential curse upon us called death, which distorts our every breath, but, we consistently protest death. That consistency is the implication of our soul. It clearly shows our aversion to death.
So, in the spirit of cordiality, we can understand each other in a compassionate way. Of course, when we realize we want the same thing, competition ensues, and thence much if not most of our problems. The only solution there seems to be a certain "spirituality," that is, non-material values--which are always available in abundance. No competition there. Yet, because of death and the ego, we strive rather for the mastery of the material. It is our lot.
Thus Christ is crucified, and the most brilliant are found among the insane, the grandest spirits in prison, and the most noble hung. Or so it seems, sometimes.
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