http://www.hamiltonproject.org/

A Violent Nation Under God

    After every mass murder in the United States, there is a Tsunami-sized wave of excited chatter about causes and necessary remedial strategies. The cycle of “ins” and “outs” follows, that is, introspection and outrage. The hullabaloo lasts for a couple months at best, and fades into the wind, usually overtaken by some outrageously trivial matter of “public interest” or some politically devised crisis.

America is a nation where powerful people determine, if not decide, the nature of the public discourse, and, more importantly, the corrective actions to be taken. In the case of violence, and the inevitable gun debate, the dialogue is driven by demoniacs of the infamous gun lobby, the National Rifle Ass-ociation. Presently a completely demented man is the head and mouth organ of that body, a certain Wayne LaPierre. “O Judgement, thou has fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason!” The utterances and perspectives of this man, in any truly sane society would justify a public hanging.

Au contraire, he has, we understand, the undying support of many of the so-called “Christian” right, who were once accused with much public uproar and opprobrium, of clinging to their guns, as though somehow this was an inaccurate statement.

Always, after each senseless killing spree, the pressing question demanding an urgent answer is: WHY? What caused it? What was the perpetrator motivated by?

Always the painful lament is: “this has never happened in this wonderful quiet neighbourhood and he was such a nice boy… quiet demeanour…offspring of a good, upstanding family,” and so on.

Although the question is asked, the real answer is deliberately ignored, seldom posited. It is too raw and painful to acknowledge.

Modern America was founded on violence, and violence is embedded in the psyche of the nation. The Wild West was not an accident or imaginary literary creation. The White man penetrated and overran the country killing every resisting and even passive Indian in sight and making the John Wayne archetype, the hero of the nation who could do no wrong. Every little boy grew up adoring and emulating that imaginary gunslinger, playing “cowboys and Indians”, the national sport. The merciless, indiscriminate slaughter of the Indians, the aboriginals, to clear the land for the white people left a trail of misery and hardship for the defenceless peoples, but most tragically, an indelible scar on the hearts of the vulnerable children of the nation.

Then follows, true to form, the unspeakable violence and brutality of Slavery and the Jim Crow era; the lynching of black men, the burden carriers of the nation, at a whim, while insensitive onlookers gazed on with glee and amusement. Little white boys grew up unconsciously thinking that this was a desirable norm, a pattern of behaviour to be emulated to achieve one’s sadistic, narcissistic  goals. Idiots dressed in sheets ranged the land like mad marauders, slaughtering blacks and destroying their property and livelihoods, with impunity, while their impressionable young sons and daughters witnessed the spectacle or even participated vicariously.

Then there follows the murderous era of the Mob and the era of unspeakable gang violence, the seeds of which are still germinating today, in the enlightened 2000s!

On a Sunday in September, 1963, when all good Christians should have been on their knees at church, a white man places a  bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, (a Church, Good Heavens!!) killing four little black girls Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14).

 The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Reportedly, twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast. The infamous Ku Klux Klansmen were held responsible.

 On the night of June 21, 1964 three Civil Rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are beaten, killed and buried in Mississippi by Klu Klux Klansmen.

During the various seasons of murder and mayhem in America, gunmen have taken the lives of the country’s national leaders, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John and Robert Kennedy, Medgar Wiley Evers and Martin Luther King, and attempted the assassination of many others.

 In the 1970s  a white preacher, James "Jim" Jones, persuaded over 900 mostly black church adherents to migrate to Guyana in search of an idyllic life he offered, and led them in 1978 in a mass suicide. Of the 914 members of the church who drank the cyanide coolaid Jones served them in Jonestown, over 200 were children.

A recent Mother Jones magazine investigation conducted by Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen and Deanna Pan documented over 60 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012. The combined toll (fatalities and injuries) was 1007, an average of roughly 17 innocent  souls per shooting spree.

Among the most notorious of these were: the 1984 McDonalds Restaurant massacre in California, where 41-year old James Oliver Huberty shot 41; the Stockton School shooting where in 1989  26-year old Patrick Purdy shot 35; the Luby’s massacre in Texas in 1991 where 35-year old George Hennard shot 44 people; the Long Island railroad massacre in New York in 1993 where 35-year old Colin Ferguson (alas, a black imitator) shot 25 people ; the 1994 shooting in Washington where 20-year old Dean Allen Mellberg shot 28; the 1998 Thurston High School shooting in Oregon  where an expelled student shot 29, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado where Eric Harris and Dylan lebold shot 39; the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 where Seung Hui Cho shot 56, the Fort Hood shooting in Texas in  2009 where Nidal Malik Hassan shot 43; the Aurora theatre shooting in 2012 where 24-year old James Holmes shot 70 people; and most recently the Newtown primary school shooting in Connecticut where Adam Lanza shot 30, mostly infants.

In 1995 a young idealist Timothy Mc Veigh was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people, including 19 children under 6 years old, in what was labelled “the worst terrorist attack on American soil” up to that time. More than 600 people were also injured in the attack.

We do not have the time to detail the endless stream of individual killings, official brutalities and merciless acts of violence that have cluttered the American landscape.

  But sadly it is not only physical violence that perpetuates the historical carnage and threatens the destruction of the country.

 Violent free speech has been just as pernicious as physical murder; no more was such freedom more manifest than in the campaigns that brought the first Black President, Black Barack Obama into the White House. During the last couple elections the waving of guns and demands for gun rights reached a feverish pitch. Not only did the show of guns take on new currency during that period, but in both elections the speech violence directed at the President was heavily accentuated. Republican spokesmen such as John Sununu, Louis Gohmert, Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan to name just a few of the most crazed and outlandish, excelled each other in the language of incitement and spewing violence in speech against the President.

This violent speech has led to attitudes and thoughts that virtually spelled war against those “not like me”. Added to that is the violence of exclusion and poverty; the violence of greed which creates great disparities and animosities between social groups, the violence of racial slur and innuendo, the violence of prejudice and inequity, the violence of fear mongering, the violence of partisanship gone mad, the violence of obstructionism against which people feel violated and helpless.

It’s like a poison flowing through the rivers of the land from which the impressionable youth drink, like coolaid, hungrily.

All this violent talk and mayhem causes the little boys to develop a desire to take up arms and destroy the neighbourhood; gripped by an incomprehensible fear and insecurity and the unresolved youth phobias that have never been healed.

When on the 14^th of December 2012, 20 year old Adam Lanza walked  into a school and mowed down 20 infants and their six teachers as though he were on the battlefields of Viet Nam, he was virtually fulfilling the history of his nation, or he perhaps would say, his destiny. Once again, for the umpteenth time, the nation went into outrage mode.

Missed in the hysteria and furor, is the irony of a woman, blinded by fear of unknown forces, who stocks up an armoury of lethal weapons in her home, to protect herself from the horrible invaders, only to have the weapons used to take her own life .

Lanza’s mother is persuaded, by people like LaPierre, that the authorities are coming to take away her guns, while her unsuspected adversary is in reality her own misguided son, the very son she nurtured within the walls of her home and who is living under her roof. It turned out that her fear was hopelessly, fatally misdirected. She really had nothing to fear but fear itself, and that fear snatched away her life and the life of her son and 20 beautiful babies and with them the hearts of their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, left to mourn for the rest of their lives.

Post Election Stress Trauma (PEST)

  Michael White

PEST is a serious ailment with far reaching deleterious effects. It is amazing how many American politicians contract it, and how strangely they behave after they do. Problem is that the antidotes are severely limited, or you have to take a plethora of equally harmful medicines to counteract the side effects. It’s like the drugs advertised on TV which are acknowledged to have many more harmful side effects than the disease they are intended to cure. It is difficult to believe that people still buy some of these drugs after the manufacturers’ disclaimers!

 

The most troublesome symptoms of PEST are:

 

• Prolonged incredulity at the thought of having been severely defeated;
• Horror that the less important elements of a decadent society could so easily dislodge your dreams and privileges;
• Merciless scape-goating;
• A sense of the slipping away of the benefits of entitlement
• Anger that a civilized society (so-called) no longer supports belief in the divine rights of kings;
• Completely irrational animosity directed at the victor and at every one who has denied you your place in History;
• A strong proclivity to conspiracy theories, the more outlandish the better;
• Wild, improbable and impetuous pronouncements about possible causes of failure;
• Pathological hatred of the incumbent barrier to ones progress in life, particularly if he is of a lower caste (sub-human even);
• Deep depression from losing the one and final chance to be the leader of the free world; this is particularly heart-wrenching to the aging super-ambitious and self- adulating individual, and could possibly lead to suicidal impulses;
• Jettisoning of all feelings of patriotism, matched by a paralyzing desire to secede;
• A renewed determination to destroy rather than perfect the “Union”;
• Unquenchable fear of a future not under one’s direct influence and control;
• Obsessive, immobilizing fear that a whole race may be lost forever;
• Rejection of any notion that God is not on your side;
• Delusional comfort in the promise of life in an alternate universe;
• An odd mix of chagrin and guilt for the ills imposed on others;
• Horror at the discovery that money cannot buy everything, even in the most materialistic of all generations;

   The terrible disorder of PEST can be severely compounded if the victim has already previously suffered from unresolved PTSD, a closely aligned twin disorder. The case of John McCain comes readily to mind. Dear John, a much vaunted war hero, shows such wild swings of fancy that listening to his outbursts makes the head spin; from “bomb, bomb. bomb Iran”, to the misguided or fake suspension of his campaign ostensibly to resolve a national crisis; to the utterly ludicrous and incredible selection of Sarah Palin to be a running (spelt ruining) mate for the presidency; to the desertion of a wife at her sickbed; to a totally devilish demonization of the wonderful Susan Rice- this gentleman has displayed the classic symptoms of PEST-PTSD. After being defeated in the election he has not ceased for four years, campaigning against the winner .
    The patient under PEST may have periodic lucid moments; but such episodes are rare; the lamentable fact is that the patient may never recover and may become so delusional that he thinks the next round will be better, as he grabs on to straws (in the human form of Adelson, the Kochs, and, of course, Carl the Rover).
  A dire situation becomes immeasurably worse when a large number of people suffering from PEST control an important arm of Government. They can bind themselves together in the resolve to destroy the nation’s and the world’s economy rather than lose their power and privilege and the admiration and largesse of the economic parasites who support them.

Maybe a Drug corporation on Wall Street will find a cure for some of the more mildly diseased before we fall into the abyss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When will America honour its high constitutional ideals, especially that “all are created equal”?

Michael White

 

We address the Christian right in America. They are described as the Evangelicals (Gospel-spreaders, one assumes). They are all proudly “born-again” (renewed, recreated, presumably in the image of Christ). They don’t miss church on Sunday; they talk of Christ incessantly. He is their point of reference and the basis of their ideals. They own Him. They attach themselves, in the main, to the  Republicans. Good, honest people, free from “every semblance of evil”.

The Tea Party claims to advocate their interests and values. They are in short, the elite, literally God’s kingdom here on earth. In the old days they might have been called Scribes and Pharisees, I think; or less charitably, “whitewashed”.

But here is my difficulty.

The last Presidential campaign was one of the most racist, divisive, if sometimes subtle, spectacles we have witnessed in America since the heyday of Jim Crow  and the cross burnings in the yards of “the blacks.”

The Tea Party and the Republicans did not even try to camouflage their true intent this time around. They were overtly racist. It was patently clear for anyone who has eyes to see or ears to hear.

Yet it seems their mission is to divide the American Christian church, by their words and so many of their actions. We must suppose then, that racism comports with the best precepts of the Good Book.

For context, the following is an extract from my book: “Christ Divided”.

“{A most}obnoxious spectacle is the divide between the black church and the white church! It has been cryptically and accurately observed that the most segregated time in America is Sunday morning when everyone is at Church!

Racism is at the core of the black-church/white-church phenomenon. We are comfortable in our people groups and all have an affinity to go where we are comfortable. In some ways the rationale is simple and easily understood; ethnic groups feel they have traditions and ways of expressing their faith that are respectable, and unique to their own history and traditions. But is comfort a legitimate basis for Christian unity? Racial inferiority/superiority is a tradition and like all traditions it dies hard.

Racism is the most persistent and prevalent sin in the world and in the church. For the most part it’s a subtle consciousness that reveals itself in a thousand ways, in attitudes, demeanours, responses, looks and statements. Racism is the last great frontier in human affairs to be overcome and the besetting sin for many. It is the most frightening of sins to the believer and we are required to strive hard to put it aside so that we can get on with the work of the Lord. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews12:1).

Have some risen above it? Undoubtedly, there are many who have become painfully aware of its poison and strive to lay it to rest in their hearts; many have succeeded. But the church as a body still has to exorcise this evil. God will not countenance it and He will not heed our prayers until we are clean of this stain. We are challenged to renew our minds with some brand new thinking. “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians10:5).”

Now that Obama and his supporters have overcome, can we perhaps anticipate some degree of sincerity and cordiality in the great American debate? Can we begin to see Christianity at work in at least the utterances of  McConnell, Limbaugh, Romney, Cantor, McCain,  Graham, and the rest? Can we hold our collective breaths in hopeful expectation that the winter of racial animus has passed?
I know. A pipedream.

 

An Act of God!

Michael White

I think the irony is lost to the Republican elite, as the Christians they claim to be, that they all derisively blame the disastrous loss of the election on Sandy – admitting that Sandy was an act of God!

If they are true believers, then “act of God” is not merely a term of art; it is a declaration that the Supreme One himself intervened at a critical juncture in human affairs and turned what others intended for bad into good.

That’s what happened when Joseph’s brothers tried to do away with him. God used the evil in their hearts for Joseph’s (and Israel’s) good.

This commentator has absolutely no difficulty accepting the Republican shame-saving excuse that Sandy caused them to lose the elections. Because it tells me that my prayers were answered by a God who is in the habit, still, of intervening in man’s affairs by opening any Red Sea, so that His people may pass through. (Doesn’t red symbolize the republicans?)

In their utter disbelief, they will continue the vain search for explanations and excuses, wilfully ignoring the Christian teaching that the God who sees and knows everything, is the One who sets up leaders and brings them down.

After all the gimmicks and subterfuges the Republican cohort have resorted to over the past four years to destroy Obama, you would think that after their decisive failure at the polls they would stop and take stock of where they now find themselves, and seek to turn over a new leaf. On the contrary they have become as obstinate as Pharoah in pursuing their ambitions. Has God perhaps hardened their hearts for good reason?

THE RISE OF ANTI CHRIST

It would be amusing if it were not so sickeningly hypocritical and pathetic to see so many so-called Christians (Evangelical and Catholic) in America, rationalizing the Mormon Sect as somehow equal to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, just for political gain. It was not long ago that they were eloquently preaching to anyone who would listen how much of a false and deceitful sect Mormons are.

The so-called "leaders" and strong advocates of the Christian faith, notably Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Franklyn Graham and Pat Robertson, are now doing all within their power and influence, to make a Mormon the "leader of the free world.” And you know why? It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian values or any principled position. Simply, they would rather support a decidedly anti-Christ candidate out of share, unadulterated hatred for a Black Christian who they have persistently vilified for over three years of his presidency. Even before that, who can forget the relentless attacks against this man for attending Reverend Wright’s Christian assembly? But, absolutely no problem with attending the Mormon assembly!Hypocrites!

Have no fear, Christ is still on the throne and He is not mocked; but equally, be watchful of the roaring lion…he is tricky and will even fool “the elect.”

Romney’s new mantra: “Let’s be strong, let’s beef up the Pentagon and expand the armed forces; let’s bomb Iran, let’s start a war, any war, let’s start a real conflagration in the world, while his five sons of fighting age, (one even willing to engage the President in fisticuffs), strut like peacocks all over the safe soil of America as the poor and the black, the true and the brave sons of the soil, are dying in Afghanistan to protect all the lofty sailboat privileges they sit  in their comfortable ivory towers and enjoy! Strong indeed!

Romney lies about everything, all the time; even for a politician he is an unadulterated, excessive liar. He is the "Father of Lies". Because of this deep character flaw, he is comfortable holding every position on any subject, and can change his argument, brazenly and unapologetically, to suit each new development, with total disregard for the facts or the consequences.  And he does, without flinching, causing one of his primary Republican opponents to call him “a highly lubricated weather vane.” His latest trick from his large bag of lying tricks is to take the lie label from his own chest and try to pin it on Obama, hoping this sleight of hand will go unnoticed, at least by the low information, unthinking bigots who are his “base”. (Actually, lest we forget, every one of Romney's Republican rivals in the primary debates, pointed out in clear terms or at least insinuated that he was an obsessive-compulsive liar. Where is the voice of these "principled ' mug-wumps now?)

Instead of encouraging Romney, Perkins et al should read him Psalm 101:7, “He who works deceit shall not dwell within my house; he who tells lies shall not continue in my presence.”

It is hard to understand Romney’s ways, unless you recognize the truth of Elvis Presley’s award winning prophetic song about him:

“You look like an angel,Walk like an angel,Talk like an angel But I got wise,You're the devil in disguise; Oh, yes, you are The devil in disguise”

I wrote the following as a poem years ago in anticipation of the emergence of just such a world leader as “this one”

WHEN HE COMES….

"When the man comes, He will be As swift and silent As a tiger; He will leap into the arena Like a phantom.When the man comes, He will stand tall among men Like a samaan tree In a field of acacia; Men will gape, amazed, When the man comes.It will appear as natural As the coming of night; Many will be sleeping And taken unawares When the man comes.When the man comes, Men will be blinded By the brilliance Of his success; He will be from The common man, But will himself be The most uncommon of men. When the man comes, The weary world Will groan in wonder At the marvellous works He can perform, And liken him Even unto the Christ. When the man comes, Races and nations Will one by one Fall at his feet, Bowing in admiration. There will be A breaking down Of barriers And man shall  Feel secure In a world Sliding towards peace. When the man comes, It is written, He will deceive Even the elect; He will clasp hands of friendship With those closest to The True One He stands poised to fight; He will stand in the Holy Place And will with sleight of hand Perform great miracles He (and his wife) will, with nimble tongue, Draw all men into his heart, And men in gratitude Will draw him into theirs, Placing a laurel crown Upon his head As he denies their God; So will it be Long, long from now, When the man comes.

"But just when The cry of peace sounds, There shall be The proclamation of war Which ears will not perceive; Yet the noise will sound Like thunder in a clear sky, Like the horrible hiss Of the hidden snake, When the man comes; They will look But will not see, They will listen But will not hear; He will spread his branches And birds will make Their nests in them, And fall into deepest sleep. When the sun is setting We say good weather Is at hand Because the sky is red; And in the morning We say the rain will come Because of a darkened sky, But we cannot discern The signs of the time. Stand alert For no one knows the time, The day or the hour, When the man comes."

 

Is he here? I ask you.

Oh, yes, truly, you are the devil in disguise!

Of course, Romney will not win, but we must be sensitive to the shadows of the anti- Christ.

HATRED!

                                            by Michael White

December 31, 2011. The end of the most tumultuous year in international politics and economics this generation has seen.

In the United States Congress went home. Thank God. It was a time of reflection, particularly for Republicans. They had a lot to reflect on. A clear and honest examination of conscience would have brought up all the shenanigans they engaged in throughout the year. They would have had to lay down at the altar all the things they did to bring America to its worst pass, close to the brink of destruction, all because of a single-minded determination to make their President fail.

As 2012 begins we can only hope that instead of perpetuating the culture of hate nurtured in 2011, the New Year’s Resolutions are based on Scriptures like these:

“Pray for all those who lead in all areas of life, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” 1Timothy2:2

 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself. Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives.” James 4:1-3

America elected a black man to the Presidency in a season of mature reflection on the ills of the past. Many welcomed the election as a sign of the raising of a post racial society, the maturing of America. They heralded it as a major victory for human rights and racial equality, or at least tolerance, at home and abroad.

All well and good.

But hidden underneath was a gruesome reality. Entrenched, institutional racism does not die in a society without a fight. And the death pangs can be long, painful and destructive. There still lingers the ghost of, to some, an idyllic past where blacks were restricted to one corner and whites to another.

It is not easy for a bigot to come to settle in his mind that it is not a national calamity for a black man to sit in the white house. In fact, it is as difficult as it is for the class bully to surrender his ways.

It should appear strange to all sane people that the America handed over to Obama to salvage was one racked with debt, an economy on the brink of collapse, a badly diminished  manufacturing base, a collapsed housing market, a decadent financial system, a declining middle class, a ruined educational system with far too many underachievers,

He immediately proceeded to the agenda to reverse these disastrous trends with the tools he had at hand.

Republicans have incessantly blocked and diminished President Obama’s agenda. They have concocted all kinds of outlandish and patently disingenuous counter attacks to anything he has put forward. They have invented all kinds of catch phrases to ridicule and diminish his policy prescriptions; they have created and promulgated a narrative designed to prove that nothing he has done has been in America’s best interests.

They have refused to concede that even his obvious triumphs in the foreign policy arena have been successful. Since they campaigned on the pretext that he would not be a strong Commander in Chief, it is impossible for them to acknowledge that his triumphs in this arena are credible. Even as he seeks to end the disastrous, ill-conceived war in Iraq that they started, they brazenly postulate that history will judge Obama as the worst American foreign policy leader. This is a new talking point of the Republican clan.

What could be the reason for this level of hatred of this excellent son of the soil? It is simple. President Carter and several other wise men tried very early to sound the warning bell. For a black man to succeed in pulling the country out of the morass in which they left it, it would mean that he has been a better President than his predecessors, white men, could be. It would be destroying all their age-old traditions and stereotypes; punching holes in the theories that they espouse of racial superiority and their divine right to rule.

Republicans and those swayed by their crusade, offer all sorts of excuses and justifications for the unabashed bigotry that still prevails. They make lame excuses for the sustained attacks on everything Obama does and says. We are in an era of gross rationalisation of the actions and statements of those who, simply, hate.

As we welcome 2012, amid all the idle chatter, let all America come to accept that there are those who not only want Obama to fail for political reasons, but for racial reasons. The black man has had his chance and now it is time for the people’s white house to be occupied by a legitimate tenant: a white man.

Obama, enough! Time to go.

The entire theme of many Republican leaders and spokespersons, for the years of Obama’s presidency, is that he should be a one-term president. From the very outset, everything has been tried to get him to fail. He is Kenyan, he is not American, he is too black, he is not black enough, he is not a leader, he is a liar, he does not understand America, he is weak on foreign policy, he apologises too much for America, and on and on....

Of all the absurdities we have witnessed in 2011, one of the most glaring is the pundits’ apparent “amazement” at the President’s inability to make the factions in Congress work cooperatively! After all, he is in charge so it is his responsibility to get Congress to act together! How absurd, when the decision and resolve of one side in Congress is not to cooperate on any terms. It is nothing but a game. For instance, when they hear the economy is getting better they pivot quickly to another line of criticism that Obama is the one responsible for the deadlock!

There is a real fear in the hearts of the bigots that Obama might really succeed as President; this would mean that at last, just perhaps, the black man is equal to the white man, at least in performing in the highest position in the land. To accept that fact is to admit that a whole chunk of US history has been wrong-headed, all the ills of the past that arise like ghosts in a cemetery to haunt the dreams of the bigoted class.

The only consolation one has, and it is a not insignificant one, is that there are so many millions of noble Americans who do not share the dark motivations of their overtly racist compatriots, and are genuinely striving for an America that is true to its highest declared values.

We thought we had a countdown last night. Wait till you see the countdown to the end of this year. Or, who knows, perhaps the Republican conscience and resolutions will kick in and we will all really have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

We are betting on a right thinking America. In the end it is likely that the just will prevail.