Summertime at the Creek

This is a photo of Black Creek in south Mississippi.  In the heat of summer we could find relief by wading and swimming in the cooling waters.  I wrote a poem while remembering those peaceful days of yesteryear.

The Catch

I used to take a short cane pole

and head out for the creek

where tannin colored water ran

like iced tea over white soft sand.

It pooled in bends or near felled

trees in deep black holes where

fishes hid.

With weight and hook

and wiggling worm

I’d drop my line and watch the

bobbing bobber disappear

when fish would bite

and take their flight to

wrap my line around some

hidden snag.

"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value."
       -- Theodore Roosevelt

Hauling Hay

I was working outside yesterday afternoon in the 100 degree heat and it reminded me of a summer when I hauled hay with my brother-in-law for a few extra coins.  Many years later I penned this poem to bring the experience to life with word pictures.  I hope you enjoy it.

Hauling Hay

I was a teacher

my salary was meager

I spent the summers

hauling hay.

The Texas sun

was searing at dawn

when I rose to see

if my hay truck

would start.

I climbed in the cab.

looked at the ground.

The truck had no floorboard

just blue smoke and sound.

The hay fields were strewn.

Square bales of alfalfa.

Heavy to lift,

tough to inhale.

We stacked them high

on the flatbed behind us.

One hundred and twenty

at twelve cents a bale.

We made for the barn.

A loft with no air flow.

Sweating and stacking

and swatting the wasps.

The scene was repeated

as long as the sun shone.

Then we, and the truck

coughed our way home.

Freedom in America - The Finale

I know, I know, you are saying that from the founding of this nation politics has been a dirty business and the rich have ruled.  In fact if you examine history, it is rife with political struggle, greed, fighting, poverty, and a whole host of nefarious characters.  Why then should we in the United States be concerned?  Because, we are the citizens of the United States, and if you recall the detached and objective analysis by an outsider (Tocqueville) who looked in on this rebellious bunch of upstarts you will remember that he opined that it was the goodness of America that made her great.  A goodness brought about by the Christian principles on which this great nation was founded.  There are many good people in this country who still are guided by these principles and who would defend them if called on to do so, but the tide is shifting and there are forces who do not have any interest in seeing this nation return to her original guiding principles.

How else can you explain the election of Barack Hussein Obama?  It is not politics as usual, it is a sinister force led by globalists who need the last remaining super-power to be brought to its knees so that a few super rich players can mass world leaders into lock step and herd the mindless sheep into their fold to be cared for by a one world government.  I could go on as my friend David did in his explanation and recount for you the process and the unmitigated gall of those in power as they trample on our U. S. Constitution.  I could site for you, as he did, the mounting evidence of substantive violations of law for which our president could be prosecuted and removed from office, but to what end?  He was not, and never will be, constitutionally qualified to hold the office in the first place.  The traditional watchdogs in the press and media have joined the coup and have dropped their torches for highlighting the truth to become hand fed sycophants.

There are brave and principled men in the political arena who are routinely maligned and pushed aside by those who would keep their own source of power and wealth intact.  The lines between the parties have been blurred by these keepers of the status quo, and we have lost the checks and balances of a two party system.  We have also lost the checks and balances designed by our founders in the three separate branches of government.  The Executive branch is now the sole dictator of policy and the Legislature and Courts have become rubber stamps for this illegal action.

In concluding his piece, my friend David says, "If something is not done, and if it is not done now, the United States of America we know and love is finished.   Our children and grandchildren will, at best, live under a quasi dictatorship which will govern every facet of their lives.  The standard of living, except for the ruling elite, will fall dramatically.  Nothing will be the same, and freedom as we have known it will be forever quashed."

Because of our principles, we must obey the law and work within the system to the best of our ability.  We must redouble our efforts to educate and inform our children and grandchildren.  David says it this way: "Nonetheless, I am hoping that there are enough of us left who retain the basic beliefs, strengths and intelligence of the Founders and the men who stood their ground at Concord, Lexington, Valley Forge, New Orleans in 1815, Belleau Wood, the beaches at Normandy, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Inchon, and the Tet Offensive to turn things around."

Freedom in America, Part II

Have you discerned the problem?  Look at the last quote by Tocqueville in yesterdays post.  Without the moral grounding that he observed and commented on, all free governments will eventually evolve into some form of Oligarchy.  Why do we have problems defining the political parties?  Because those who benefit most, the "politicrats", all look alike.  The career politicians whose coffers are full to overflowing do not want to upset their powerful gravy train.

Marxism: Total control of the population by the government.  What one earns is to be shared by all.  The government decides the distribution, and only those in power get rich.

Facism: A system of government marked by a centralized government under a dictator.  There are stringent socio-economic controls, forced suppression of opposition by force, and censorship.  There is usually a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

With these two simplified definitions, you can see the problem with arriving at a definition that fits exactly.

Let's return to David's comments.

Before Obama's first election, I stated that he was not a liberal, in the classic American sense, but he was fooling a lot of liberals into thinking he was one of them.  I opined that he was a Progressive, a dangerous, radical offshoot of traditional liberalism which has taken over the leadership of the Democratic Party.  Many Progressives are outright Marxists operating under the guise of a benign form of Socialism.  I think that saying they despise every single fundamental principle which made us the greatest, freest country in the history of the world is not too general a statement. 

I remember Obama's campaign statement where he stated that he was "going to fundamentally change the United States of America."

I also remember that his political career was kicked off in the home of two totally unrepentant domestic terrorists whose life goals are to overthrow the government of the United States and replace it with Marxism.

Furthermore, in a 2001 radio interview Obama said, "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in the society and to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution."

To Obama, and his handlers and minions, the Constitution is nothing more than a restraining influence which needs to be overcome or made inconsequential.

In 1805 Thomas Paine warned of such an attitude when he said, "A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal."

Well, the Progressives are doing it...and in record time.  After watching Obama, or to be more accurate his handlers, operate for a couple of years I decided that the political philosophy being forced upon us was a mix of fascism, without the nationalistic element, and socialism, without the takeover of all private enterprise.  Actually, when closely examined, it is more fascist than socialist.

One of the first things that a fascist government must do is centralize all power in the hands of, what in this country is referred to as, the executive branch of government.

Secondly, any former separation of power among the branches of government must be abolished or made irrelevant.

Thirdly, the Rule of Law must be replaced by a Rule of Men, and lying to the public must be  made an art form which is practiced by all parts of the government on a consistent basis.

Obama was somewhat cautious in his first term.  As he told the Russian president, failing to realize his microphone was off, “This is my last election.  After my election I will have more flexibility."

Although Obama didn't break too many laws in that term,  he did seize control of Chrysler and GM. When Harry Truman tried to do the same thing in 1952, the Supreme Court, FDR's handpicked court, ruled that he had no authority to seize private businesses.  Obama did cost the stockholders of those companies a fortune by ordering a reorganization which placed most of the stock in the hands of the unions and the government. Obama had no authority to take this action.  I think he did it to test the courts.  He wanted to see if he could get away with it, and he did. 

Simple bankruptcy by both of these companies would have left them solvent and operating so the government machinations were not required.  Of course, he also shoveled out billions of taxpayer dollars to these companies which has yet to be repaid, and probably never will be though he assured us it would be.

As a side note, Chrysler promptly opened a plant in China using those taxpayer dollars.

Freedom in America Part I

I received a well thought out piece from my friend David.  He has been featured on my blog before and I think most of you enjoyed his work.  David has been around and he has seen a lot of things most of us just read about in the papers.  I am parsing his text and giving it to you in small digestible pieces.

I will thank him in advance for his hard work and love for our great nation.  The Beginning:

In 1835, a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville published the first of a two volume study of "Democracy in America."  He was an ardent supporter of democracy but feared democratic excesses.  He presented his study of the democratic experiment in America as a detached social scientist.

Tocqueville was of noble French background, and was therefore not an enormous fan of one of the key elements in American society, individualism.  However, after observing it at work in the U. S., his opinion was altered.  As one author explains it when summing up Tocqueville's thoughts on individualism, " When individualism was a positive force and prompted people to work together for common purposes, and seen as self-interest properly understood, then it helped to counterbalance the danger of the tyranny of the majority, since people could take control over their own lives without government aid."

The author goes on to say, "de Tocqueville warned that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny, because radical equality could lead to the materialism of an expanding bourgeoisie and to the selfishness of individualism. In such conditions we lose interest in the future of our descendents...and meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one. Tocqueville worried that if despotism were to take root in a modern democracy, it would be a much more dangerous version than the oppression under the Roman emperors or tyrants of the past who could only exert a pernicious influence on a small group of people at a time. In contrast, a despotism under a democracy could see a multitude of men, uniformly alike, equal, constantly circling for petty pleasures, unaware of fellow citizens, and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an "immense protective power". 

Tocqueville compared a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep its citizens (children) as perpetual children, and which doesn't break men's wills but rather guides it, and presides over people in the same way as a shepherd looking after a flock of timid animals.

The man also had a specific, and now timely, warning for us:

“Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

References left off for brevity.

"The most perfidious (deceitful and untrustworthy) way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."
       -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Rain, south of the "Wild Horse" desert

We have been dry for several years now.  The rains we've had were always appreciated, but they were never more than a temporary relief to a larger problem.  Last night I rode my motorcycle in a light mist for 40 miles to attend a meeting of the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club in Port Isabel, Texas.  I enjoyed being slightly damp when I arrived.  After mid-night we had a good rain, and it is still raining.  I hope you enjoy this poem about rain.

God’s Symphony

The land is parched and dry

beneath the summer sun

and one might question,

why its been so long since rain

has spattered softly in the dust

until the droplets blend

in numbers large enough to

soak the crust and run in rivulets

steaming in the heat with

pitter, patter beat

backed up by lights

behind gray clouds

and roar of distant tympani?

First pianissimo, then forte

as the lightning cymbals crash

and drum roll thunder shakes

the core.

The howling wind joins in

for harmony and takes the

movement down to pianissimo

once more

then fades to blue.

False Premise = False Conclusion

"But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
--John Adams, To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 1798

I believe we were created to worship, commune, and show reverence to our creator, God.  We were created, not only to access our physical and mental assets in dealing with others, but also to include our regenerated spiritual resources.  Our relationship with God the Father can only be restored by the acceptance of the universal and eternal sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ who came to this earth as a man to show us how to live, and to give his life to pay for our selfish failures.

The United States of America was founded on these very principles by a majority of its citizens who believed this.  The early writings of our founding fathers confirmed this. Christian principles made the United States of America unique among all others who had attempted a representative republic.  The lead quote in this piece clearly spells out what will happen when the populace and its elected representatives ignore the keystone of our ability to survive.

If we bow to the loud protestations of those who refuse to believe this, we will fall.  Pray for wisdom.  Pray for those who are lost and blinded by human wisdom.  Their arguments fail when they are examined closely. Hold fast to the scriptures and give thanks to God for his mercy and kindness.  Jesus died for us all.  Pray that all will chose to accept His sacrifice.

Time for a little change

I guess you noticed some changes here.  I was recently reminded that I have not posted in several months. When asked why, I really didn't have a good answer.  I am weary of a lot that is going on around me, and weary of talking about it.  When I was thinking of what to do I decided to try a fresh approach.  So, the first thing I thought to do, in order to stimulate some change, was to change the appearance of the blog.  As you all know, change is a process.  So, I am going to have to experiment with some new things and see what works.

I hope you will contribute your thoughts as we go through the process so that I will know what you like and don't like.  I re-read the stated purpose of the blog and realized that in the beginning I wanted it to be eclectic and entertaining.  My hope is that it will be.

Twisting leaf in wind.

Green, it moves with limb and twig

youth has strength to spare.

Twisting leaf in wind.

Red, it leaves its lofty perch

color to be seen.

Twisting leaf in wind.

Brown, it’s blown from place to place

no one knows it’s there.