Stop *itchin'; Start a REVOLUTION in 2018!!!!!

The logic that caused government to federalize social programs in the 1930's has been turned on its head in late-2017. During the great depression the federal government was willing to run up the deficit in order to save the working class (including lower-income people, as opposed to just the middle class). Then came fiscal responsibility and cuts to social programs in the 1980's. Now Trump and the 115th Congress have passed a tax plan that runs the deficit up in order to greatly decrease corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. The stated goals and purpose of the federal government have completely flipped since my adoptive mother -- Joanne Elizabeth Sheptock (80) -- was born in 1937.

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As my last post indicated, I see a series of 15-year patterns in terms of what government has done over the past 30 years. I also see the recently-passed tax plan bidding terribly for the working poor of America who will soon have the rug pulled out from under them -- both through the cutting of social service funding and by reducing philanthropy. Let me also remind you of something I've mentioned in the past -- that 60% of the "affordable" housing that existed in 2010 was gone by the end of 2016, with the remainder on track to be eliminated by the end of 2020. Furthermore, the stand-off with North Korea which is occurring for the dumbest of reasons -- the U.S. not liking the North's weapons -- could burgeon into World War III. (Let's not forget that, after World War I, people erroneously assumed that no one would ever let things get that out of hand again.)

I spend much time lamenting the fact that most Americans just don't like to do the necessary level of critical thinking whereby they might avert tragedy. Worse yet, they voted with their impulsive feelings and emotions, resulting in 45 occupying the White House -- a ballot-box/ electoral college tragedy of apocalyptic proportions. Now we need to stage another American Revolution before the first shots are fired at North Korea which is wisely standing its ground and telling tRump how stupid it is to think that an enemy will care what weapons you want him to fight you with. Amidst my lamentations I also talk until I'm purple in the face (being as Blacks don't turn blue) and I do a lot of writing, in the hopes that some of the few "elites" who are allowed into the limited number of bomb shelters will read what I've written while they're in hiding and they'll come to their senses. Then at least, I will have helped to make the world a better place -- the world that left me to be taken out by a Korean, Russian or Chinese nuke, thereby sending me to an even better place. That's the hope I see, given the majority's aversion to critical thinking.

We can make 45 the scapegoat for all that's wrong with America; but, you should also dig into anyone and everyone whose thinking, voting or failure to vote contributed to his rise to power. The current White House resident just signed legislation that will bring us back to the days of the great depression in one fell swoop. The majority of Americans, though they might not foresee us going back to 1929 economically, would love to see tRump get impeached -- a move that would afford the world the damage control that the GOP denied us when they begged tRump not to leave the party in the fall of 2015. If Robert Mueller's investigation renders enough evidence to impeach 45 for collusion with the Russians, we can make 45 the fall guy for systemic failures that go back at least 30 years -- to Reagan's second term. If by mid-March 2018, Mr. Mueller only gathers enough evidence to indict Russia sans evidence of American collusion, then we can expect tRump to anger Putin with his very public indictment and to put the Russian president on the other side in what could become World War III.

However, as Americans play the blame game that they so abhor when Congress plays it, we need to remember that everything that's happening in terms of our national and international politics is a culmination of the many things that were wrong with the country well before tRump even declared its candidacy in June 2015. We're only beginning to see where hating the establishment but not knowing what to replace it with and where idiotically thinking that voting a "filthy" rich person [sic] into the White House has gotten us and promises to take us -- which is not a good place, by any means.

Many people hate to discuss religion, politics and anything else that they identify as a difficult or tense topic. That is, until America is attacked or thrust into a major war. Though I was negative 27 years old in 1942 (my birth mother -- as opposed to my adoptive mother -- having been born in 1943), I'm inclined to believe that most Americans were OK with FDR rounding up all Japanese-Americans and putting them into internment camps. Americans today disparage the actions of the only U.S. president to be elected four times, with his final election having occurred in November 1944 -- almost three years after he rounded up the Japanese which says a lot about America's willingness to stereotype. If the 2016 U.S. presidential election is any indication, about 46% of Americans are willing to categorically deride and ban whole religions and nationalities -- buying into 45's stereotypes about all Muslims and Mexicans. Forty-five the demagogue rode a wave of populism into the White House; but, American voters made the wave on which he surfed. People who refuse to have any meaningful level of political discussion are more than willing to vote for an idiot after hearing him sell them a pipe dream. They fail to critique his words for signs of fantasy, illusion or incomplete thought. They don't do any better when it comes to religion. As a matter of fact, they do worse -- much worse.

Many people who seek a bit of "good news" in this world of trouble often turn to the church. They find ways to summarily dismiss the entire Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. Oftentimes it's clergy and theologians who are "intellectualizing" and orchestrating this deliberate ignorance of the majority of God's Word. I'm humored any time that an atheist seems to know more about the Bible than a professing Christian. Atheists often like to point out the unattractive scriptures that so-called Christians either try to ignore or never learned in the first place -- especially scriptures about God's harshness  with which I, as a devout lover of God, offend people as I emphasize them.

I'm appalled by the absolutely ignorant ways in which people handle religion -- Christianity and otherwise. In late 2005 or early 2006 I was at a place in DC called Miriam's Kitchen. Several other men and I were at a table having a boisterous but friendly conversation about Scripture. A woman named Nakia was standing nearby. Sensing our energy, she said, "You all take the Bible too seriously -- too literally". I'm not sure if anyone else heard her. I didn't bother responding. To this day, I continue to wonder how anyone can be so stupid as Nakia seemed to be in that moment -- so as to imply that a person shouldn't take their religion seriously. Then there's Congress. I need not expound on how the GOP uses Scripture to support laws and policies that don't always align with God's Word. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the inter-faith peace lovers -- those who claim that people of different religions are actually worshiping the same god. While there is some truth to that assertion when it comes to Jews and Christians, I'm not certain that the god of any other religion is the God that I love and serve. Some people will say anything just to make peace -- whether or not their statements are true or that peace is a lasting peace.

I often find myself telling people things that I would hope they already knew -- people who fail to think critically and to tease out the implications and underpinnings of their own religion which is between 1,500 and 3,500 years old -- depending on which major religion they "practice" (without ever "perfecting" it). Such truths include the fact that religion, in it's truest and most logical form, is a search for truth or the belief that you've found it. It's not about making up some fairy tale that suits your fancy. It's not about subscribing to mutually exclusive beliefs as a way of making peace. After all, the atheists, monotheists and polytheists can't all be right. Either there is no god, one God or a group of multiple gods. Anyone who says that different people who have two or three of these mutually exclusive belief systems are right simultaneously looks like a peace-loving fool. I'd love to see an atheist laugh them to scorn while telling them the story of Elijah having 450 prophets of Baal killed or of Samson killing 10,000 worshipers of Dagon. Those Bible stories don't promote acceptance of different religions. As a matter of fact, they and other scriptures promoted the killing of idol worshipers during the Old Testament period and warn of eternal condemnation for those who refuse to serve Jesus Christ during the New Testament.  Most professing Christians couldn't tell you what John 3:18 says, though it comes off to me as being very similar to what Muslims say about killing infidels. John 3:18: "He that believeth is not condemned. But, he that believeth not is condemned already; because, he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God".

At any rate, there's no sense in God letting people decide not to believe in Him -- the Progenitor of Life. Nor is there any sense in someone who has correctly identified the truth of God suffering a false prophet and a preacher of lies to continue therein, lest we end up with another Jim Jones or with girls being sacrificed to the mythological god called Molech (that great Roy Moore in the sky). So many folk seem to lack the most basic logic that should always be established before deciding on a faith; and, they then navigate their religion in totally irrational ways -- thereby giving sensible non-believers occasion to ridicule God in the ways that caused Him to kill many during the Old Testament period. Even as a God-loving man, I can understand why an intelligent person would be turned off by religion. But, rather than foregoing religion myself, I often hope that the God of Necessary Evils will soon exercise His Old-Testament style wrath and harshness in ways that force people to think better. Then again, maybe God will just sit back and watch World War III play it self out. Maybe He'll take an active role in initiating World War III. Maybe the God of Necessary Evils gave us Donald Trump just so that 45 could lead us into World War III and thereby highlight the ignorance of both the 46% of American voters that elected him and the electoral college that handed him the presidency. (God told us to love the good and hate the evil -- with the obvious exception of Himself. You may therefore hate Donald Trump, as I do.)

That brings us full-circle back around to the issue of the All-American idiocy that has brought us to the brink of war yet again. Obviously, God has given humanity enough rope to hang ourselves and 12 of the 13 knots have been tied in the noose, though the bottom might not drop out of the platform of poverty until October 2018. [God's] people perish for lack of knowledge -- with the most educated ones creating the biggest problems and doing the most destruction. It's worth noting that in a democracy we have to blame voters almost as much as we blame politicians for the mess that is the present-day world society. I've already touched on political ignorance, religious ignorance and the acquiescent hope that having a billionaire as president will translate into greater wealth for everyone. Add to that list the dogmatic acceptance of capitalism as a monolithic and necessary system -- it being neither. Then factor in people's ignorance of history and/or inability to apply the lessons of history to the here and now. What you end up with is a colossal mess that's just bound to go up in flames -- soon after a volatile "element" ends up with the nuclear codes, which has happened at this juncture.

Now, let's consider a little more history and juxtapose things that I hope you already know but might not have juxtaposed in the past. Let's go back to October 29th, 1929. That was the day that the stock market crashed. It wouldn't fully recover until after World War II. (War helped to balance the economy.) During the great depression's worst years (1929-1939), FDR and Congress created the New Deal which, among other things, offered social services. One of the underpinnings of the New Deal was the fact that the federal government is the only government in the country that is allowed to run a deficit. All other governments at the state and local level must have balanced budgets. Social programs that state governments couldn't afford to maintain were therefore federalized. The federal government saved the working poor by using its right to run a deficit. They still needed as many people as possible to work. Technology hadn't taken over yet.

The federal government would continue to help Blacks who were counted among the working poor throughout the 1960's by playing a cat-and-mouse game with states that kept tweaking their Jim Crow laws to circumvent the latest iteration of federal laws that were designed to end Jim Crow. LBJ would also send federal troops to ensure that several Black children were allowed entry into a formerly all-White school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Even so, the feds couldn't put an end to all racist policies, for which reason Blacks in California took the law into their own hands by forming the Black Panthers in 1966 and taking a stand against police brutality. Even so, the federal government hadn't completely abandoned Blacks in particular of poor people in general the way that the tRump administration promises to.

All things considered, social services have been offered by the federal government for the past 80 years in order to assuage the working class and to make concessions to them -- while many workers were needed -- lest the workers rise up. Initially, such services were offered to tide people over until they went back to work. Somewhere along the way, the emphasis shifted away from connecting people to employment and toward sustaining people who weren't being connected to work for any number of reasons. Social service recipients began to be denigrated for being "lazy and shiftless". People began to be replaced by machines. Employers no longer felt threatened by the possibility of a strike; as, it gave them a reason to try out the new machinery, rather than make concessions to the workers. (I recall my father discussing news items about strikes that had turned violent, as those who crossed picket lines in order to purchase from the disputed business got "struck" by the picketers.) The working class lost its aggressive edge.  The working class now had no bargaining chips left -- having become less necessary and more docile. The politicians and media realized this and stopped talking about the "working class". The perception which lasted into the 80's that Democrats are for the working class (proletariat) while Republicans are for the wealthy (bourgeoisie) seems to have dissipated along with any acknowledgement by politicians or the media that there even IS a working class (of people that make well under $75,000/yr).

By the early 1980's Congress and Reagan decided to exercise fiscal responsibility. But, before doing so, Reagan figured he'd double the military to 2.4 million soldiers -- that decision having since been reversed. Then, with the U.S. having built its military to imperial proportions and having amassed a nuclear arsenal big enough to destroy the world 15 times over (based on what I was told in my teens), "fiscal responsibility" became the catch phrase for all government policies that would aim to take food out of the mouths of the poor without guaranteeing them living-wage jobs. Some 30 years later that catch phrase has been resurrected and continues to serve the same purpose -- but with greater fervor.

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[A QUICK ASIDE: I remember all classes being stopped at Bernardsville (NJ) Middle School (5th & 6th grade) on January 20th, 1981 and my sixth-grade teacher Louis Ferrante rolling a TV into the class room so that we could watch Reagan's first inauguration. Later that same school year, though he was my science and homeroom teacher, he had us read the Scholastic News (which had articles about Reaganomics). I still remember his explanation about how printing more money creates inflation and about supply and demand. 

Actually, by the time that I was in the fifth grade (still at Peapack-Gladstone, NJ Elementary which closed in the summer of 1980), my science teacher -- Mark Grebler -- made us cut out one newspaper article each week and do a minute-or-so current events speech to the class. News was a part of my life in those and other ways since I was 10 years old -- my father often discussing news at the dinner table. My sense is that education has gone downhill since I was in school. It would also seem that neither schools nor parents talk to children about current events these days. News remains my favorite show -- with me making it a point to watch Nightly News with Lester Holt (7 PM EDT, M-F) and leaving my church by 10 AM on Sunday so as to watch Meet the Press with Chuck Todd at 10:30.

Little did I realize in the fifth through the eighth grades how much of an impact the words of several of my teachers -- including my 8th-grade American history teacher, Carl Lampa (Bernardsville, Junior High) -- would have on me some 35 years later, as the new current events remind me of the all-but-forgotten sensibilities of old. Nor did I realize how adverse I'd grow to be toward Reagan's ideas -- or how closely-related they'd be to what I've done as a homeless advocate since mid-June 2006.]

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The war economy that was created during World War II had run its course. We'd fought in Korea. We'd fought in Vietnam. We'd out-nuked other nations. We'd essentially "won" the cold war, if that's even possible. The emperor didn't need so many ship builders anymore and went so far as to disparage the working poor (some of whom were unemployed at the time, though their ability to do lower-five-figure jobs still defined them as "working class"). Who can forget Emperor Reagan's remarks about the "Welfare Queen" (who turned out to be metaphorical only)??? Or his uninformed assertion that homeless people choose to live that way??? One of the ironies of Reagan's attitude toward the poor is that many of these poor and homeless people whom Reagan was denigrating were veterans who'd served in the military that he was so gung-ho about building up. Either his Alzheimer's syndrome had already kicked in or he was one to "use then abuse". I'd guess it was a little of each.

It would seem that the attitude of government has changed dramatically since Reagan -- and not for the better. Simply put, it changed from one that aims to "use [then] abuse" to one that aims to "abuse the [seemingly] useless". Ever-advancing technology continues to replace more and more workers, which shrinks the market (and leaves me to wonder if we should, in addition to putting hammers to the machines, also put them to the heads of the inventors). From the end of slavery in the 1860's until c. 1915 former slaves and their descendants migrated from the south and helped build various cities across the country. When the work was done, these Afro-Americans were unemployed in large numbers and remained in the inner cities where their neighborhoods devolved into (or remained) run-down ghettos. Government has since established social services that helped poor people of all races. Blacks continue to receive these social services in the inner city, while many poor Whites live in rural America (where they're less noticeable than their Black counterparts). There have been large federal projects like the building of the Hoover Dam in the 1930's and of the interstate highway system during the Eisenhower presidency. There have been upticks and drops in job creation. Whereas any man with a measure of good sense, a strong work ethic and a healthy body might have been able to do most of the jobs that were available through the 70's and into the 80's, there are now municipalities where upwards of 60% of jobs require an education beyond high school (Yours Truly having graduated HS in 1987).

What makes a person "marketable" has been redefined over the years and the race that used to be literally "sold" at market has become unmarketable. Blacks no longer need to worry about being used [THEN] abused by government. We now need to worry about being declared useless and expendable, then being abused by cops and having our sustenance taken away (without there being a path to living-wage employment for us).

The logic that caused government to federalize social programs in the 1930's has been turned on its head in late-2017. During the great depression the federal government was willing to run up the deficit in order to save the working class (including lower-income people, as opposed to just the middle class). Then came fiscal responsibility and cuts to social programs beginning in the 1980's. Now Trump and the 115th Congress have passed a tax plan that runs the deficit up in order to greatly decrease corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. The stated goals and purpose of the federal government have completely flipped since my adoptive mother -- Joanne Elizabeth Sheptock (80) -- was born in 1937.

As it turns out, the financial speculation and the loss of labor value in production that contributed to the stock market crash of 1929 have yet to recur in the magnitude that they did then. I'm guessing that the economic downturn of 2008 is the closest we've come since then. It's been quite some time since a full one-third of the work force has been out of work (with the U.S. population having grown exponentially from 144M in the 1940's to over 300M now). Social services still exist, though I'm guessing that a much higher proportion of them are geared toward supporting the disabled and less are for those who are merely waiting or looking for a chance at a job. Non-profits have sprung up all over the place -- especially since the 1980's -- and many of them spend much of their time demanding that government, at all levels, retain social service funding. The Hoover-villes (or tent cities) of the great depression are returning slowly but surely, but may increase exponentially in light of tRump-era policies -- especially the tax plan that promises to obliterate social services without ensuring that the former recipients have alternative means of sustenance. Hopefully one of those tent cities will be on the National Mall where supporters of MLK, Jr built Resurrection City in mid-1968, shortly after his assassination. It's "safe" to assume that the fall of 2018 (FY 19) will see a dramatic increase in unmet need -- pun intended. I don't have a crystal ball; but, I see a spike in crimes of survival and a resulting increase in investment in the prison-industrial complex that Nixon created as a replacement for Jim Crow and that Reagan expanded during his "War [of] Drugs".

Some might argue that I come off as being fatalistic and alarmist. I would argue that they need only to think back to the beginning of World War II in 1939 or even to December 7th, 1941. Those who assumed that there wouldn't be a second world war were proven wrong, as were those who thought that the U.S. would stay out of that one. I think that, politically, America is at the worst place that it's ever been and tRump is a powder keg just waiting to explode. He's picked fights with Venezuela, North Korea and the United Nations. He's angered Palestine. He's throwing his spaghetti of stupidity against the wall of war to see what will stick. The conflict with North Korea has all the makings of the Iraq War at best and World War III at worst. In the absence of a war economy, tRump's tax plan could create another great depression -- for which the GOP would see war as a solution. The biggest difference between the early 20th century and the present is that, whereas the great depression and U.S. involvement in World War II were the result of Wall Street activity and an attack by the Japanese, respectively, the next big war and depression will trace back to the White House and Capitol Hill. People can take heart now or hear me say, "I told you so", later on.

In this blog post I've made much mention of the frustration I feel with people who don't like to think critically -- the types who tell me that they don't watch the news because it's all bad news -- as if them not receiving the news will somehow prevent "Rocket Man" from putting one of his "rockets" in their backyard at 4,000 miles per hour. (I have much respect for "Rocket Man" for standing his ground.) Maybe it's my having been taught by baby boomers who were one generation removed from World War II that gives me the upper hand on those with whom I'm so terribly frustrated. Then again, I've theorized that, with 16-18M of 144M Americans at that time having fought in World War II, that raised the bar for everyone's thinking and did so in ways that only a world war can do. Everybody knew at least one person who was in the war. People couldn't choose not to think about the war or the reasons for it. With 1.2M of America's current 300M+ citizens being in today's military, we have about one-thirtieth of the mental investment in war now that we had in the 40's. It's easier for American's to say that they'll "leave the major decisions to the pros". I've said in the past, even as I joined efforts to retain social service funding, that losing that funding would force the poor to stand up for themselves -- demanding a living wage and affordable housing, among other things. In like manner, I believe that a third world war will force those who remain to think better. (Every dark cloud DOES have a silver lining -- even a mushroom cloud.) If it takes another major war to bring America to its senses, then fire away, tRump. Civilians, brace yourselves for impact.

Those who already see the trouble that's just over the fall-out-lit horizon can begin to plan the largest war protests this country has ever seen and to arrive during the current winter. They should plan to be here for a while; as, I'm almost certain that tRump won't learn quickly. With the impending Second Korean War being predicated on the same idiotic premise as the Iraq War -- that the U.S. should be allowed to determine what weapons its enemies are allowed to have -- we should make it a point to exercise so much EXTREME disobedience that the authorities don't have space enough to contain us in jail. We should show them that the tRump administration, as the dumb-mestic enemy of the American people, won't set the parameters of our stance against them. (Notice that I replaced the word "civil" with "EXTREME".) I've had many a conversation with protesters over the years about how stupid and counter-intuitive it is to request a protest permit from the very government against whom you plan to protest. I should add to that the fact that it doesn't make sense for those who will be starved by the government to ask if or how they may protest. You would think that a man [sic] who makes so many enemies would have a better understanding of the logic associated with emnity and war. F*** the government!!!!!

In closing, let me remind you that, in much the same way that non-believers won't be able to escape an angry God on Judgment Day, American citizens won't be able to escape the effects of the tRump presidency. Not caring to have the hard conversations doesn't mean that you'll avoid the repercussions of decisions that are made in realms which you try not to be bothered thinking about -- the spiritual, the political and otherwise. There's an interesting connection between the political and the spiritual insomuch as tRump's bad decisions could land a Korean, Russian or Chinese missile on your dinner table and cause you to see the God in whom you chose not to believe. The circumstances of life -- and death -- can force you to think critically after it's too late. Think now. Better yet....

Stop bitchin' and start a REVOLUTION in 2018!!!!!