WHEN I WAS A BOY

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/28/08)

When I was a boy, even before I struggled with the multiplication table, I had to learn numbers, my parents’ telephone number and our street number and name. Then, as a teenager, I had to learn my Social Security number, my savings account number, and my checking account number. Once in the army I had to learn my army serial identification number and my rifle number, simultaneously, a real feat for someone numerically dyslectic.

I thought I was all numbered up until I was hit by the cyber and identity theft age. I can’t keep all my pin numbers straight. I tried to standardize them but was advised against it because it might compromise my security and subsequent identity. Now, on a small lined, yellow pad next to my computer I have written all my secret passwords. Then I got phished and had to trot down to the bank to get a whole new set of numbers and secret passwords much to my chagrin and that polite contempt known only to bankers.

Then, other day while making a deposit at my bank, a well-mannered, pretty young woman cheerily asked me for my secret password. At first, I said that I didn’t have one. Then a kindly woman supervisor who knew me by face and name rescued me, telling me that I had one and must’ve forgotten it. What a relief! Somebody knew who I was. I hope next time they don’t ask me for my name or worse yet ask “Who are you?”

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

GEORGE BUSH AND THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/28/08)

A cranky Republican friend of mine wrote me that Barack Obama is a socialist. I replied that he was no more than an old-style liberal. Of course, amongst cranky Republicans that means that he is a quasi-socialist, if not a crypto-socialist camouflaged as a liberal.

Actually, the nasty truth is that Republicans have been the progenitors of any moves toward socialism, the latest being the rescue of Bear Stearns with a massive, unsecured, loan from the Federal Reserve. Ironically, it is the conservatives who are the crypto-socialists. As anyone in the educational field as long known, once the federal government hands out money, like an octopus, its tentacles reach out with the handout.

Henry M. Paulson, Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury, has made it plain that the investment banks receiving the governmental largess will also receive governmental supervision. As anyone knows, governmental supervision means governmental control.

The result would not be socialism in the old sense in which the government actually owns a public utility or an aircraft manufacturing company, but rather controls the utilities and companies under the guise of supervision. It might rather be called state capitalism as in Communist China.

The Bush Administration has consolidated power in the executive branch and with that aggrandizement it has extended its tentacles. After its economic policies have failed, it now offers more government as a remedy, revealing George W. Bush as a state capitalist camouflaged as pseudo-conservative.

OBAMA

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/24/08)

When I heard a television commentator, a member of the chattering class, say that he thought Barack Obama’s speech on race was too deep and philosophical for most Americans, it confirmed my conviction that most commentators and politicians view most Americans with contempt. As I listened more, it confirmed another conviction that most commentators and politicians are ignorant, if not outright stupid.

In the first place, surprise and indignation at expressions and outbursts of black rage from black preachers in black churches indicates a disengagement from the black experience, like they don’t “have a clue.” The sorry tale of the oppression of blacks by whites, especially white-run governments, is evident in nearly all aspects of the American experience. The surprising thing to me is the abiding patriotism and grace of the majority of the black community, just as I am startled at the patriotism of the American Indian. When I see a Navajo family pile into a pickup truck with huge USMC decal on the back windshield, I wonder why they are so patriotic, especially after Kit Carson’s destruction of the farms at Canyon de Chelly and the tragic, forced march, the Long Walk, from Ft. Defiance to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico which nearly destroyed the Navajo people.

I wonder how people, especially the chattering class and the corrupt class, cannot know these things. The black church has been the one place for blacks to express themselves, nearly every other venue having been closed off for them. As far as I am concerned, preachers like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright have been the whites’ best friend, and politicians and commentators had best listen to him and his kindred. He has something to say about contemporary America to which everyone should listen. Our problem is a lack of prophets speaking the truth. We’ve had far too many spin-meisters and mealy mouths.

Sen. Obama has been the first politician to speak to American’s great moral question, the race question, with understanding, without demagoguery, and with grace and truth. It is depressing how many of the alleged elite still don’t get it.

I tried to image either George Bush or Richard Cheney delivering such a speech, and I couldn’t. As a matter of fact, I felt like throwing up. Certainly not John McCain or Hillary Clinton. None of them have the grace, depth, or wit. They all represent the past class of second-class minds who have brought us to our current, sad pass. I’m weary of deceptions and cheap shots. Barack Obama has class and grace. It would be a refreshing change.

THE COST OF THE WAR

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/23/08)

Nearly every day in the newspaper, the cost of Bush’s Iraqi War is brought to mind, not just in abstract numbers, but in concrete realities. Funds for the Forest Service are being severely curtailed which means that the protection of our own land is being threatened, not only in wildfire protection, but in efforts of restore the forest’s health.

The Metro anti-narcotics task force might go out of business because of a two-thirds cut in federal funding. The Bush Administration can’t seem to abide a successful program in its efforts to fund Bush’s Iraqi War and preserve tax-welfare for the rich and sociopathic corporations.

Bush, McCain, and Cheney like to tell us that their Iraqi War is being fought to make us safe from terrorist’s attacks. They lie, and what’s worse, they probably believe their own lie. If they have their way with the federal budget, we will be more threatened by wildfires, our forests will be more prone to wildfires, and the drug traffickers will have more freedom to eat away at our society. They call this “Homeland Security” as they plow through purses at airports.

McCain is a Bush Wannabe and promises to be a Bush Redivivus. If I were a Republican, I would be ashamed of myself and my party and walk through the streets in sackcloth and ashes.

FINISHING THE JOB

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/22/08)

The current mantra concerning the end of the Iraqi War is “finishing the job,” but no one ever defines the meaning of “finishing the job.” A phrase from the construction trades, it means the completion of a job, as in building a house, concluding a project, finishing a highway, or closing up a surgery. It assumes a blueprint of some sort, even a drawing on a paper napkin, like people know where they’re going or know when they’ve arrived. As a phrase, it isn’t useful in rearing a child; however, a blueprint and a planned end-game are necessary if the phrase “finishing the job” has any meaning at all.

During World War I, George M. Cohan’s lyric said it best, “’till it’s over Over there.” Everyone knew what that meant, “Surrender of the Germans.” In Word War II, the official phrase was “Unconditional Surrender” which actually didn’t happen because there was a negotiated surrender with the Japanese. In the Korean War we were fighting the spread of communism as though we were fighting a plague, and we have found to our sorrow that we are still standing guard in Korea. In Vietnam, we were again stopping the spread of communism while we were looking for light at the end of the tunnel. We never found the light and left in disgrace. Now, we are stopping the spread of Islamic Extremism, a curious phrase for Republicans in light of Barry Goldwater’s famous phrase, “extremism is no vice.”

In World Wars I & II, we had a clear goal, surrender. In Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq we didn’t have clear goals, other than stopping an amorphous mass such as Islamic Extremism or Communism. We went in with no thought of getting out. We don’t even have a stalemate in view as in Korea. All we have is a meaningless phrase, “getting the job done” without a blueprint or end-game.

The fact is that we have a lot of damned fools running the country who are defending the indefensible and calling it patriotism.

A DEMOCRATIC OLIGARCHY

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/6/08)

The Democratic Party is misnamed, resembling more an Oligarchic Party with ordinary delegates and super-delegates than a democratic party. While the British have been slowly whittling away at the power of House of Lords, a residue of the late Middle Ages, the Democrats have created a House of Super-Delegates to hold in check the allegedly unpredictable power of the Ordinary Delegates.

Hatched by old-line regulars within the Democratic Party allegedly to stabilize the party from the destabilizing effects of its leftists and radicals, the concept of Super-Delegates is a policy of self-contempt as though they’re ashamed of themselves.

As Senator Obama is fond of pointing out, it is the old-line Democratic regulars playing politics as usual with the nut bag Republicans who’ve gotten us into our present mess.

Some say that the Super-Delegates would never countermand the decisions of the primary voters because it would be a suicide for the party. Don’t bet on it. Democratic leaders have always had a suicidal bent, choosing defeat on the cusp of victory.

Since they don’t trust the primary voters, they self-elected an elite group to manage the party. Anytime someone with a lust for power gives themselves special powers they’re not to be trusted as in President Bush.

Senator Obama is right. The political establishent has been wrong. We’re still at war in Iraq. The House and the Senate are still corrupt. Our borders are insecure. Nothing has gotten done. So what do the Democrats do? They create an oligarchy of privilege.