#1893 Fat Cats and the Hustle

#1893

Fat Cats and the Hustle

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  (Mark 8:36)

"Fanfare for the Common Man" - Styx

     Another new day takes up on you
     A fanfare wakes the land
     The naked lives just a shining down
     At the dawn of the common man

As our senses are bombarded each day with the unbelievable there is no better way to measure the signals-signs-symptoms of our moral decay than how one of the world's leaders-former president and pervert, Bill Clinton, has become a "fat cat" using his presidential candidate wife as a whore...by leaders of nations spending great sums to spend time with her or funneling funds from desperate Haitians to their own sordid foundation.  Even their own daughter Chelsea, said the actions of their Clinton Foundation sounds like a hustle.  Between the three Clintons, there is as much talent or integrity as that found in a block of wood. 

We may as well accept the fact, this day, 21st century, that there are those among us willing to burn down the country in order to rule the ashes.  Listen Democrats, so obvious JFK, RFK, and certainly Senator Teddy would have sold their "mamma" for just a little more power.  Listen Republicans, Bush 41 and Bush 43, like "grandpa" who traded with Hitler were willing to climb any tree-cross any ditch for more money and power.  Trouble like decay has a way of wearing off on other people.  In politics: Kennedy's-Clinton's-Bush's and other fat cats like them who will never have enough money, here comes nepotism, family horror show, political junkies, who could never succeed any where else to fill all the seats of the so-called civil servants.  They are not servants at all but wanna be masters.  Anyone, who has ever spent ten minutes at a city hall, courthouse, or veteran's facility, has seen these political appointees whose eyes are filled with such disgust and disdain toward you.  They are truly the ne'er-do-wells on whom our future revolves.

The first Jew, Abraham, grandson, Jacob, twelve sons who became the tribes of Israel.  Eleven brothers sold Joseph into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.  Just one of Jesus' twelve disciples sold him for thirty pieces of silver.  With politicians, pastors and their packages, administrators and their "anal kissing ability", to say nothing of "big shot" scions of commerce enough is never enough. 

This writer, world traveler, was once in the African country of Niger, early one morning, my walk, I saw a donkey being engorged by quicksand, the poor natives were attempting to get their valued beast loosened from this entrapment.  They could not afford to get into the quicksand themselves, were using poles to try to free the animal, and the animal was constantly jumping BUT as with the fat cats of our world-those who hustle for everything, the entrapment finally killed the animal and then the destitute natives just let their means of transportation sink on into the sand as his final burial place. 

Bureaucrats will fake or fawn anything to get near the tax-money pot. Politicians will prostitute self to gain that certain security of knowing that they are forever financially fixed with election.  When the voters no longer trust them there is always some lobbyist job or board of trustees that will absorb them.  You may have to sacrifice every iota of decency to which you adhere to become a fat cat.  After all, they truly believe that shrouds have pockets.  We farm boys knew that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.  I was slapped in the face with the lifestyles of the rich and famous when I left the farm and went to college, there I saw the costumes-vehicles (mostly expensive convertibles) of those whose families had inherited life's lottery.   No matter what town they always knew the rich people there.  They never had any knowledge of those who subsidize their rich friends' lives.  Those in higher education, those in legislative halls of justice, those chased by fraternal groups-civic and country clubs, those who buy things they don't need-eat from expensive menus have never known what life is like when not allowed to cross the drawbridge.  The moat of disability-unattractiveness-ancestral dependence will never allow most of us to get into the castle...never across the drawbridge.

The fairy dust and sideshows provided every person with eyes from the talking box has shown everyone with any intelligence at all. just how unequal-different the inhabitants of this world happen to be.  Those who patrol the parapets of the walls of success are fat cats, who got their mostly by the hustle.  In the shell game of subsidies and socialism, the entrepreneur, industrious human, "go-getter" thinks he has succeeded on his own, thinks he is above the "down and outer" who just did not have what it takes but, did he sell his birth right for a mess of pottage?  Lying is difficult when the other side knows they are being lied to.  Do we really fool ourselves when we know we got there by compromise?  "Attainers" of success become addicted to our own affirmations. 

We often do nothing because we cannot do everything.  Take some satisfaction in throwing a blanket over the largest challenge possible.  We are told to always give a robber your pocketbook.  The robber does not have time to hustle you but your friends and enemies will take the time.  I have never known a conman I did not like...a man on the fast track to becoming a fat cat.  Anyone can paint by numbers; any low life can tear down a beautiful architectural building.  It takes real artist to turn out an expensive canvas, a true carpenter to build a structure of beauty.  It is difficult in early years to be sure of anything.  First we must learn to differentiate between real gold and fake gold...real friends from fair-weather friends...that some believe that punishment is a part of sincere religion.  We mature, we grow up, and you never grow down...you face the winds of life knowing that no tree will grow without wind.  Most of all, you learn there is no conviction without charity.  The fat cat, through the hustle, has chosen his own destiny.  Discipleship and discipline has chosen your destination.