Motives Matter

#1754

“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.”

-Charles Darwin

In other articles this writer has talked about the years of work involved getting his eight years of professional university education… working at night, going to class during the day. Now an old man, I remember how I would run from job to class.

During my years in Memphis, one of my jobs, selling pre-need burial plots in the large Forest Hills Cemetery (this is a large cemetery near Graceland where Elvis was placed before moving him to his home.)

After church, every Sunday, when I went to the cemetery to show property, I would notice one woman, rain or shine sitting on a bench near one tombstone. She was always there in the rain holding an umbrella. I finally went over to her and asked her if I could help her in some way. I saw the tombstone, a man’s name, his military rank, and the day he was killed in World War II. She said, “I come out and spend every Sunday with him.” I said, in my student activities in the VA hospital in Millington, “Why don’t you go out to Millington VA and tell them you would like to visit with the veteran there.” So many of them do not get visitors there and they would be so happy to see you.” I notice that I did not see her at the cemetery the next Sunday. The next time I was at Millington, I ran into her. She told me that she had never been so busy, all of her time from her job, volunteering with the veterans from that hospital. Most of us spend our lives wishing we had pure motives in dealing with others. There’s not much we can do for the dead, only the living. I have spent far too much time in my life wondering if god is keeping an account with those who had impure motives towards me. The fact that I know almost without hesitation that everyone wants a piece of the blind man… just how far they can get their hands down his pockets. It would be so good to have contact with a few who have pure motives.

For many years I would go to the local YMCA every day, for a workout. I needed the exercise as well as the contact with other people. It got to the place to where the YMCA did everything possible to keep the disabled away from the facility… made everything just as difficult as possible. For instance, they put push button security systems on every door. A blind person cannot operate these systems just as much as a blind person cannot operate a cell phone (AT&T and other cell phone corporations do not care about the blind people either.) I would have to wait for someone to go in and out of a door or beat on a door with my cane. As a local restaurant owner told me one time, “we don’t want disabled people, they make normal people feel uncomfortable.” One of the very few times I reported this discrimination-bigotry-injustice to the U.s justice department, Americans with Disabilities Act, they actually took action. They sent a lawyer down for a hearing. Totally blind, I did not know who was in the room besides me and the lawyer, but I do know that the “Y” was well represented. I heard one of the trustees (a political appointment) say, “If Dr. Morris will not go to the media about this, and we will make changes of our treatment of the disabled.” Of course, nothing was changed and I lost my membership. 

What I should have done was fix me a sign about the “Y’s” treatment of the disabled and protested out in front of the building, so the news media and everyone else could find out about it. You see, those good people “do-gooders,” who had established the YMCA had good motives… helping people. Now, the YMCA, hospitals, civic clubs, tax exempt charitable groups and much to my sorrow, I must say, most churches have become just concerned-MOTIVATED by their bottom line. They are no longer motivated by a god given desire to do good, for the sake of goodness. Our world is filled with people who cannot know the joy, an internal “neurology” which gives smiles and pleasures… the knowledge that you have done something good for someone without expecting anything in return. In that same room in the VA hospital in Millington, where four WW2 veterans who had lost their arms and their legs… All four were on special beds, just trunks with a head. Now, they could not ever in their remaining life, do anything for anyone. They had given their arms and legs for their country. I don’t know of a family who would be able to care for someone in that condition. One can easily understand why in their despondency-helplessness, they did not live very long. It is much the same way with our friends and family members who spend their last months on this earth in a nursing home. Most do not live very long after going to a nursing home and their government and their families are so afraid that they will live and continue to take precious money. Most people I have known reared in foster homes or children’s homes (one time called orphanages,) the children called inmates, have had a far different outlook on life. They felt there was very little love or genuine motivation in their care and development.

“Motives Matter,” teachers at the school house, church members at the church house, doctors/nurses/lawyers or even volunteers anywhere. Even at your job, you do what you do, with purity so that you can enjoy the words of noble thinking. 

Veterans

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."

                                                                        -- George Washington

            This writer is a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected, medical officer veteran of the Korean War era. I have been honored to stand at the 25th anniversary celebration at Normandy, where thousands of our finest Americans died; honored to stand at the large cemetery in Manila, Philippines, where 18,000 are buried, to have visited Arlington many times, where thousands are buried. The recent disclosures regarding veteran's care is not news to many of us. I was honored to have served my country, and since, to have been fortunate enough to travel most of the world. I know the pride of saying, "I am American," with its warts, as well as its thrills.

            I was born in poverty on the parched earth of Easter North Carolina's tobacco fields. I know the sweat and hard work of parents and ancestors. I know what it was like to work an entire day to make one dollar. In the blight of the America in which I grew up, life was built around hard work, frugal living, the church-house, and the schoolhouse.

           

            I graduated from a small country school, with 13 in my graduating class. Concerned educators, seeing my possibilities, got me into the university at Chapel Hill. Back then there were no scholarships or grants. I still feel now, as I felt then, that I had died and gone to heaven-- all that knowledge. I worked at night so that I could go to school during the day, and worked my way through eight years of education, selling bibles door-to-door in the summer, covering every pig path in Eastern North Carolina. I matriculated through eight years living on one dollar per day. I graduated without owing any money, and since then, now at the age of 84, I have invested 50 cents of every dollar I have made. This has enabled me to live without help from anyone. Even the NC Commission For The Blind told me recently that they had never heard of me. I can say, with all honesty, that until recently, this blind veteran has never received anything from the V.A.-- not even a white cane, not one minute of rehabilitation.

            The greatest concerns of any blind person are robbery and fire. I still put cement blocks to the interior of my doors each night. Living alone, I take care of myself, totally.

            I jumped through every hoop to pass the boards, necessary to gain my commission as an Army officer. I had hoped that my diligence in life, hard work, hard studying, frugal living, would pay off in social and financial acceptance. I have brought the plight of the disabled veteran to the attention of many people in written letters, published articles, as well as speaking on radio talk shows. Speaking before a college group recently, I said, "The greatest sorrow involved in my disability has not been spending most of my life in blackness, the poverty I grew up in, the struggle to obtain my education, but the fact that I never received much encouragement." This blind veteran introduced Senator Jesse Helms at many meetings, yet he wrote me once and told me to apply for food stamps. I hear from many disabled veterans, "Bring their attention to power brokers, opinion molders." Rep. McIntyre (NC 7th), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, actually told me that I was not in his district. Sen. Burr, ranking member of the Senate Veterans Committee, and I am sorry to say, Rep. Walter Jones (NC 3rd) are unconcerned with my letters. I could give many examples of personal harsh treatment at VA facilities, mostly at the VA hospital in Durham, NC. I have this on tape: the chief of staff telling me, "We do not need your suggestions; we are just waiting for you to die." This is after I suggested that they have volunteers to help blind patients navigate the maze of clinics, such as they have at the Duke University Hospital - Eye Center, right across the street. At one time, I was physically able to travel the whole day. Able to pay someone $100 to drive me there, but the driver was completely lost, attempting to get me around. Durham opened a satellite clinic in Raleigh. The VA doctor there told me, "Your record is flagged. It says that you are a trouble maker," and he refused to do anything for me. At that time, and for about 40 years, I was using the fee-basis method of paying for treatment, whereby I could go to a private doctor, and the VA would pay the bill. Likewise, any meds prescribed by the private physician (Wilmington Health, etc.), were send directly to me from the VA's pharmacy in Salisbury, NC. All of this has been cut out. I am no longer in the program. The difficulty I encounter in getting meds from the VA's pharmacy in Fayetteville, NC, is a matter of record (blood pressure, eye problems, etc.)

            Through years of sick-care and struggles involving the VA, I have gone through ten eye surgeries at Duke, Massachusetts General, etc. Alone, with no family, trying to take care of myself (food, clothing, etc.), it has been my Christian faith, and nothing else, that has kept me from ending it all. I well understand why so many veterans commit suicide. One surgery, across from the VA in Durham, at Duke, Dr. Banks Anderson Jr.,  the best surgeon, was trying to save a shadow of vision. I was in the corner room on the second floor, right across from the VA hospital. Vietnam protestors were surrounding the VA facility. A black nurse came into my room, and, in great detail, told me how much she despised veterans. She punctuated her remarks by spitting in my face. No one at Duke, or at the VA hospital, did anything about the incident. Considering what I went through to be able to serve in Army hospitals, what I have lived through since, in a world of unconcerned people, perhaps I would have been better off if I had not been such a good student, if I had not worked so hard for my education, if I had not been such a good citizen.

Waves

Traveling the world, every continent, every ocean, the waves of the ocean have always been a source of stability for me. My beach home is located just a few feet from the Atlantic ocean. Even though it has been 50 years since I was able to see the ocean, I can still hear the waves crashing on the sands. I know that the tides, through the intricate manipulation of our Creator with the moon, can be accurately timed. Walking on the seashore, wherever in the world, you have that stability of knowing that although things on land are in constant change (usually for the worst), the great oceans of the world are a constant source of stability. He knew what He was doing.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, warfare has now achieved that expectation...that there should be no waves about anything. The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators. In Reader's Digest, Marine General Smedley D. Butler wrote, War is a Racket. Most veterans know the racketeering of war, the military. The ordinary American is used and abused by the manipulators on Wall Street and K Street. There was a time when wars were fought by the military, military men making decisions. We have not been able to win a war since WWII, mostly because it has become a political bounty hunt. Lyndon Johnson, manipulating the Vietnam War from the White House, said that he did not want an “outhouse” bombed in Vietnam without his permission.

The waves of indifference to the plight of the veterans is well known to the veteran, but of no concern to anyone else. This totally blind veteran, who gave his professional skills from many years of hard work and training, could not get even a white cane and talking watch from VA. You are just thrown away like so much depleted uranium (DR), poisoning the bodies of innocent children in Iraq. The waves of indifference, slave masters over the poor, is seen in the waves of unbelievable attitudes of Gaddafi towards his citizens of Libya, Mubarak toward his citizens of Egypt, the other dictators and tyrants of the world toward their citizens. The entire world is heading that way. Lenin said it best. “the masses are only worth something in relation to their benefit to the state.”

Much like the liberals' excitement for green energy, such as wind turbines. More energy is used in the production of wind turbine itself, than will ever be extracted from the turbine. It is only when the turbine is spinning so fast that you cannot see the blades, that any energy whatsoever is being produced, it takes so much energy just to start the turbine, and wind is so unpredictable. But, like the bell hanging around the cow's neck, it makes the liberals feel good to hear and know that they are there, productive or not.

We have a schizophrenia going on in the Arab world. Arabs, like American politicians trying to decide which benefits them most, the east or west. Wealth pursued biblical Abraham because he was a man of character and destiny. Charisma can only get someone so far, but it takes character to get most of the distance. When will a Sunni Muslim such as Obama understand (Obama, who was the first serving American president to shake the hand of Gaddafi on July 8^th, 2009, as well as his giving the Muslim bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia), surely American intelligence had revealed to Obama that Gaddafi was responsible for the shooting down of the American plane over Lackabee, Scotland and the killing of so many Americans. Are there no lines of demarcation in the waves of hypocrisy, not only in the treatment of Americans, but the beguiling of foreigners?

Was it not decided at the Guadalajara, Mexico summit between Obama, Calderon and Harper, that troops from each country would be used to enforce the policies of each other on their respective soils. You can be sure with the inflation of energy prices, food prices, the increased waves of knowledge by the “common folk”, that the world is in quagmire of global corruption. Waves of rebellion can happen here, just as in North Africa and the Middle East, like matches around dynamite, the human spirit is capable of explosion.

The waves of mind drift for many so-called concerned human beings has been a mystery to many of us. The fact that billions are in abject poverty and slavery in China and India and other police states. The fact that billions of babies have been destroyed in the abortion holocaust of the China “one child” policy, and even the Planned Parenthood eugenics of America...3,500 of the most innocent killed each day, 52% of all black babies. There is no doubt that in the mind of even the most liberal, that a person, of one cell or billions of cells, is still an individual in the eyes of almighty God. We will see what happens with the religious community, the academic community, the racial communities with the “personhood amendment”, first introduced in Colorado, now introduced in Mississippi, defining personhood as beginning with the fertilized egg, giving the fertilized eggs the same constitutional rights as any other person.

For those of us who remember the struggles of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the thwarting of civil rights simply because of the color of the skin by white, elitist democrats. It will be interesting to see how these blacks, integrated into the American promise, particularly black churches, will show compassion on the weakest of all individuals, the unborn.

This weekend, the last WWI veteran, died in Charleston, WV at the age of 110. We will see if the waves of indifference toward America's veterans, particularly the disabled veteran and the handicapped citizens changes. The greatest shame of this nation are the waves of indifference toward the disabled veteran and the handicapped citizens. These waves of indifference are almost as hypocritical and despicable as the waves of indifference from so-called Christians toward the real church, the bride of Jesus Christ. Like the grains of sand, God knows you, waves may move you around, but God knows you. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand... (Psalm 139:17-18)

Insanity

#509


I was reared on a farm in Eastern North Carolina. In Goldsboro, there was a public park called Herman Park. The park was given by the Herman Weil Family, a prosperous Jewish Family, generous to North Carolina. As a child, I well remember the bear cage; these two black bears would constantly walk along the bars of the cage. I often wondered what the bear would have done if, by chance, the keeper had left the door open and the bear could actually get out of the cage? Spending the entire day, walking back and forth by the same bars, doing the same thing, over and over, without any change in results, is the definition of insanity.

Almost everyday of my life, in speaking with someone, I will say in all sincerity, “the world has gone completely crazy and we are caught here in it”.

Yesterday, March 9, Speaker of the House, third in line to the President, speaking to the convention of the National Association of Counties, made the stupidest statement I have ever heard form the lips of a politician...and believe me, I have heard some stupid ones. She is reported to have said, about the pending Health Care Legislation in which the government will take over the largest percentage of National Spending, “we will know all about it once we have passed it”. Can you even imagine passing a measure involving trillions of dollars and everything pertaining to your life from birth to death without knowing what is being legislated? Think of what the government has legislated so far and how successful it has been?

1. The Postal Service Retirement Fund for Employees is 35 billion in debt...and you know the type of service you get at your local post office.

2. Social Security is 2.29 trillion in debt.

3. Civil Service Retirement and Disability is 738 billion in debt.

4. Military Retirement Department of Defense is 300 billion in debt.

5. Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is 300 billion in debt.

6. Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund is 205 billion in debt.

Anyone, having served in the Military, anyone who's family has served in the military, spent any time in a military hospital, or any experience whatsoever with a VA Facility, knows the incompetence and harassment involved. Every time I go to a VA Hospital, I am prepared for a combative, exasperating, procedure. It is a matter of going into a clinic, taking a number, taking a seat, and waiting. Almost without exception, the employees are callous, crude, and indifferent. Because of skin color, or knowing someone, they have a job and, like many of our first missiles, “won't work and can't be fired”. A friend of mine, good doctor, told me he had as soon have a job “digging ditches” as putting up with VA System. But, like most of us, he had a family, needed a job, burdened with an expensive medical education debt, and, as long as you keep breathing, you will have a job and eventual retirement.

Can you even imagine what your life will be like after your government takes over your health care system? The worlds largest employers are the Chinese Army, the Railroad System of India (in India most travel is by railroad...few cars because there are few highways and there is the same penalty for hitting a sacred cow as for hitting a human being), and third, there is the socialized health care system of England. Can you even imagine the increase in Federal Employees (Federal Employees make three times the pay of a civilian employee), it will take to run the American Socialized Health Care System?

From 1835-1890, as was foreseen by the Founding Fathers, there was little interference or control by the Federal Government into the lives of the people of the various states. Incrementally, Federal Government has jumped into housing, welfare, education, the highway system, and every conceivable form of taxation whereby “Uncle Sam” has become the most notorious pick pocket one could imagine. From 1799 to 1892, even the Supreme Court declared this a Christian Nation. Churches were held in high esteem. Christians not only could do the talk, but knew the walk. God only had to say it one time every thought and action of man has proved him right, “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1Ti 6:10).

Even the Baptists and Methodists out race one another to the voting booth to vote for liquor, the lottery, because it was so important, that if, “people were going to drink and gamble anyway we might as well get some tax out of them”. Those of us brave enough to fight against the state control of liquor and gambling were embarrassed and harassed even by the Preachers, “it is a secular matter and the church should not involve itself in secular things, after all, we don't want the secular world telling the spiritual world what to do”. So, we are experiencing the satanic “insanity” of the world, the flesh, the devil, taking over everything...including more or less...to a great extent, the church.

Because we have been insane enough, as a people, as a Christian Nation, to sit back and do nothing, we are building more and more prisons where the re-incarceration rate is 80%; a public school system which on any level of accurate evaluation is a failure. American Public Schools ranked 25^th on the International Scale in Science and Math. Tops scores in Science and Math are shared between Hong Kong, Finland, and South Korea.

My two grandsons, Andrew and Paul, were reared and educated as their parents (Dr. John and Grace Morris) served many years on the Mission Field. Returning for college in America, they were so far ahead of their American counterparts who had been educated here. It is insanity that Americans have paid such a tremendous price in taxes and strenuous living to see our Democratic Republic, its Governmental Agencies, sink first into undisciplined mediocrity and now into the insanity of self-destruction.

Confessions of a Loser

Omar Sharif, Egyptian movie star, you will remember from his portrayal of Doctor Zhivago in movie of the same title, said, “I love making movies but my first love is horse racing.  I have a large stable of race horses, the problem is, the losers eat as much as the winners.”

More and more, I feel I have lived a fool's life, particularly this week, when I learned that the mortgages would be paid by the government for those who have lived high and mighty in big houses they could not afford. And now in this depression, they will continue living high and mighty, the government “bailing” them out by paying their mortgage while those of us who lived as tight as possible in order to pay our mortgage, pay for their “bailout.”

I was raised in poverty, no inside plumbing, I believed that “honesty was the best policy,” and “character determines destiny, “ I was in Sunday school in church, and prayer meeting every time the church door opened. I studied hard in a small country school, always made top grades, never got into any kind of trouble in my life. From a high school graduating class of thirteen, I worked my way through 8 years of university education by going to class during the day and working at night, selling Bibles door to door down every “pig path” in eastern NC for 8 years in the summer, I received a direct commission as an Army Medical Officer, after internship on staff of army hospitals (during Korean War). 

I came out of the military disabled, and was still in military during the Vietnam War. The best way to show the public appreciation for my service: I was on the second floor of the Duke Eye Center, directly across the street from the VA hospital, during the student uprisings against the war. A black nurse in my room, (I was an eye patient confined to the bed) expressed her disdain for the military and proceeded to spit on me, which my mother cleaned up later when she arrived.

To show the difference in hospitals, the Army sent me to Massachusetts General, where I was treated much better and given some encouragement with my disability. I remember the first time I was fed, after micro surgery, the woman feeding me said, “ life is not over for the blind, I am totally blind and I work with the blind in the hospital.” I came back home, was decorated in Washington and went to work in real estate and the stock market. I started out at absolute zero, but I was fool enough to think I could work like everyone else. By the time I was 40, my net worth was over a million dollars, plus God had directed me to travel the world, because he wanted me to sense his creation.

I bought and sold much real estate, ten units on Wrightsville beach alone, which I cleaned, painted, and did all the things that a sighted person would do. Then, as now, I had someone to drive my car and do the things I cannot do for myself.  But, as in all those years of University education, I lived on almost nothing in order to meet my obligations of mortgage payments, utility payments, insurance, taxes, etc.

I am now 79, all my buildings have been paid for, but I still live as frugally as ever because it is my desire to give most of my estate for Christian awards and scholarships.  I like good food as much as anyone, but it has been many years since I ate in a first class restaurant, or had a real piece of meat.  I do not own one article of clothing that was not purchased in a thrift store.  It has been 25 years since I bought anything new, all my furniture is second hand.  But, I have not asked the government for a bailout and I resent the government “bailing out” bankers and executives, and even reckless citizens with credit cards. 

I have much experience with VA hospitals, both as a doctor and as a patient. When will Mr. Obama “bail out” our finest who are lined up in wheelchairs in those places. I have stood in Normandy where 9,700 are buried and in the Philippians where 17,200 are buried. They were buried just wrapped in a flag and all the bailout billions will do them no good at all.

At the VA Hospital in Millington TN, there were 4 WWII veterans who had lost both arms and both legs.  Many from Iraq and Afghanistan were subjected to even more injury.  Their bodies were returned for burial here, those who survived, but what will Mr. Obama’s “bailout billions” give-away finances, which will put all of our great grandchildren into desperate poverty, accomplish?

What I should have done as a young man was have a good time, drink lots of alcohol, use some high class illegal drugs, stay totally away from the military, never spend any precious time in study on any level, eat expensive food like everyone else, pay no attention to menu prices or price tags on anything, and just enjoy life like many losers who are in politics and popular in the clubs around town.

God forgive me because he forgave me, I tried to be a winner because he expected me to cross the finish line as a winner and my faith is the only thing that has helped me endure the darkness.

Betrayal Inc.

In Frank Loesser's Broadway musical Guys & Dolls the favorite tune was “Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat”. I was not born to be popular, politically correct, my stalwart convictions about Christianity, politics, economics, and morality has caused me to rock many boats. Christ, the perfect example, had very few real followers even of His own family. The one great fact of Christianity, never having been conceived in the minds of most, it is essential to believe God...not the well-worn phrase,“Believe in God”. Satan, the cults, many agnostics, believe in God. It was religious people who gave Judas the pieces of silver and I am convinced that betrayer Judas “believed in God”.

Blessed is the man or woman who has never been betrayed by family, friends and even country. Totally blind, I depend entirely on my other senses. My best method of learning is hearing. I can listen to several radios, several conversations at the same time. In a reception area, at the VA hospital in Durham NC, I overheard two WWII veterans talking. Like me, both were 100% disabled, one had spent his life in a wheel chair. The other, constantly ill from chemicals in Germany.

One said, “I was on the front lines in a fox hole with my friend. A bullet came in and killed him instantly. In back of me some other fellows said, you better come back here with us because they have you in their sights.” He said, “Half frozen, I started crawling towards them, was shot several times in the process but they put up enough fire power so the medics could get to me and get me out of the place”. Both talked about their betrayal by the government in not being provided with the care for which they were promised. One said, “If it were not for my wife working all the time we could never have made it.” One said, “23% of the people around us get food stamps, welfare checks, health care at the local hospital. They don't have to drive all this distance from Moorehead City to get care.”

I have heard such stories as these over and over in my lifetime of not only working in military hospitals but being a patient in a military hospital and in VA facilities. I have never known a veteran who did not feel that he had been betrayed by the country he had promised to serve. The tragedy, the country has broken it's promises to veterans. Ten million dollars goes to the nation of Israel every day. Millions of dollars go to colleges and universities every day as grants for college students. Only those who have gone through the trauma of a VA housing loan know the problems involved.

We watch with horror the destitute conditions in Haiti. Sources admit to the death of over 150,000 in this earthquake catastrophe. Until 2 days ago, 11 days after the event, people were still being pulled from under the debris, an 84 year old woman, a 21 year old man, a small baby. From all accounts, it seems there is little direction or organization in the disaster. We wonder how many were still alive...still waiting for help. It must have been an awful death...an awful sense of betrayal.

Ten percent of all unbelievers were once connected to a church. I always try to make the statement in every religious or political speech, “I have failed God many times but God has never failed me”. So many former believers have told me that they felt “betrayed by the church...that God did not seem to care.” I heard one black woman, say on the radio one day, “My life has been one great burden. The only God I know anything about is a white folks God”.

Learned early in life, early in your belief system, “don't depend on fair weather friends or members of your own family”. You will find, just as I have found, your siblings, your cousins, and most members of your family are the last people on whom you should depend. I have a niece and nephew who I do not know, cousins, who will walk up to me and say, “I have heard of you all my life but have never seen you before.” Most disabled people will tell you, your family more so than anyone else, “out of sight, out of mind”. As the manager of a large restaurant on Wrightsville Beach told me one time, “I do not encourage disabled people to eat here because it makes our normal customers uncomfortable.”

The first time Joseph Stalin met FDR at the Yalta conference, with all the Russian intelligence he did not know FDR was a cripple in a wheel chair. So obsessed was he over Roosevelt's condition he would just walk over to him and touch him on the shoulder. I thought of this recently while at my oldest uncles funeral, several family members, in the family area, after my driver had taken me into the room, were not brave enough to introduce themselves but would just walk over and touch me on my shoulder. I have thought many times, how would my sister, two brothers and other relatives had treated me if I had gone to prison?

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:34-46)

It can be no clearer than that, words from our blessed lord. I heard Dr. James Dobson say, “87% of people in nursing homes never have a visitor.” One of my long time friends, Eddy Jones, after he retired from government service, volunteered time in a nursing home, Florida, where most were paying $6,000 a month for care. He told me, that most of the people there never had a visitor. A wonderful lady, I sat with in Church for many years, she had been a member of the church for 70 years, went to the Catherine Kennedy nursing home. Molly, no longer able to give as much money to the church as previously, seldom had a visitor from the church...they forgot her even though she had been loyal her entire life. She would call me in her loneliness, having outlived her family, feeling betrayed by everyone. Even at this expensive place, the attendants were always giving her the wrong medication and I honestly believe, finally killed her. Terrible for veterans betrayal, terrible for innocent unborn betrayal, terrible for child molestation betrayal, terrible for marriage betrayal, but more terrible is the betrayal of the elderly and the disabled by their own family and friends.

I could not understand the betrayal of parents, the molestation of children by teachers, pedophile priests, until I learned of chemical abortion (A system of non-surgical abortion whereby chemicals are put into the womb of the mother to kill the baby and then the baby is expelled from the mother's body). Jews do not abort their young, Muslims do not abort their young. Only Christ-less authoritarian, human mothers will abort their young.

One mother was listening to her daughter in her prayers before bedtime. She said, and the mother never forgot the words, “God help my mother to be as nice at home as she is at Church”. Not just my in laws but others I knew well, always so pleasant and friendly in public...particularly at church...so nasty and hateful at home. When a child sees beer in the refrigerator his entire life, sees his parents with a cocktail shaker, sees his family members smoking or doping, don't be surprised when your child is arrested for drug addiction or drunk driving. When your children see you singing praises to God at the Church house but hear you swearing and “cussing” in your house, don't be surprised if your children leave home faithless.

When your children observe your action at the Lord's table during the Communion service but observes your gluttony and grouchiness at your dinner table don't be surprised with your child's infidelity, lack of integrity, lack of influence anywhere. It is estimated that only 5% of Church goers are real Christians, only 20% participate in any service. Who are we fooling! Certainly not God, He has the very hairs of your head numbered (Matthew 10:30).

In Bhutan, high in the Himalayas, I saw followers of Buddha crawling up steps on their knees, their obedience and worship of Buddha. In Hindu temples, followers were wrapped in nets to keep from killing even a gnat in their Hindu worship. Does the sovereign God, Creator of the Universe, feel betrayed?

Reason

On February 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983 as the Year of the Bible. The Proclamation is as follows:

Proclamation 5018 -- Year of the Bible, 1983

Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive Nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.

Deep religious beliefs stemming from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible inspired many of the early settlers of our country, providing them with the strength, character, convictions, and faith necessary to withstand great hardship and danger in this new and rugged land. These shared beliefs helped forge a sense of common purpose among the widely dispersed colonies -- a sense of community which laid the foundation for the spirit of nationhood that was to develop in later decades.

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

For centuries the Bible's emphasis on compassion and love for our neighbor has inspired institutional and governmental expressions of benevolent outreach such as private charity, the establishment of schools and hospitals, and the abolition of slavery.

Many of our greatest national leaders -- among them Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson -- have recognized the influence of the Bible on our country's development. The plainspoken Andrew Jackson referred to the Bible as no less than ``the rock on which our Republic rests.'' Today our beloved America and, indeed, the world, is facing a decade of enormous challenge. As a people we may well be tested as we have seldom, if ever, been tested before. We will need resources of spirit even more than resources of technology, education, and armaments. There could be no more fitting moment than now to reflect with gratitude, humility, and urgency upon the wisdom revealed to us in the writing that Abraham Lincoln called ``the best gift God has ever given to man . . . But for it we could not know right from wrong.''
The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the ``Year of the Bible.''

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, in recognition of the contributions and influence of the Bible on our Republic and our people, do hereby proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible in the United States. I encourage all citizens, each in his or her own way, to reexamine and rediscover its priceless and timeless message.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of February, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.

-Ronald Reagan

I remember that little was made of this Proclamation in 1983. Twenty-five years later, we find conditions worse than they were then. Any week, in any city, we just wonder how things can get any worse. Arrests made for illegal activities on the streets; killing, rape, illegal drug sales and this past weekend, a female public school teacher found on the street in her car with the seat down in sexual activity with a 15-year-old boy. Last month, a 45-year-old man was sentenced in the local court for the raping of a 95 year old black woman who had opened the front door of her house to get her newspaper off the front porch. One girl, was raped in the churchyard of a local church; a church that has served as a hospital during the Civil War and has been a bulwark of stability in this community.

This totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran of 40 years did enjoy getting out in the sunshine and walking around the block on which he lives. After all, I like some fresh air and sunshine, but, uniformed Sgt. Buster Yotes came to my house on orders from Police Chief Wadman and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was to stay in my house with the doors locked. In other words, those who have defended the country, those who pay the taxes for the support of the country, those who have behaved themselves, went to school, stay out of jail, worked hard, which at one time exemplified the American spirit, now stays in the house with the doors locked, while the criminals roam the streets.

Since I am totally blind and can not drive my car, if I were to send my driver, in my car, to one of my buildings on which I pay much tax, and at a traffic light a criminal got in the car, my driver would not be able to defend himself or my property. But the criminal, with a weapon, could do what he pleases; and if by chance, he got caught, my tax dollars would be used to defend him. Twice in one year, the telephone wires to my house were cut. Evidently, because someone trying to get into my house knew that the security system was connected to the telephone system, and I could not get the local police or sheriff's department to do anything about it. Both the Sheriff's Deputy and the local police officer said, “If someone gets into your house and kills or disables you further than you already are, then we will be able to do something about it.”

It took 30 years (I am known for being persistent) for me to get the Army to install the security system in my house; a system to which I'm entitled due to my rank and to my disability (total blindness). For 30 years, I put cement blocks at my exterior doors each night in an effort to keep an intruder out; at least until I could call for help. There is nothing more frightful, for a person in total darkness, than to hear someone in your house, or for you to think there is a fire in the house. Finally, the VA put a sophisticated security system in my house, but it has never worked, even though the company was paid a tremendous amount of money. (As in most installations these days, installed incorrectly) Since law enforcement would do nothing anyway, I have given up on the whole idea. Your government, is more interested in the torture of foreign criminals than the security of disabled US Veterans!
Young men are much more interested in their golf game than their country; and young women are much more interested in dish pan hands than their country. It has not occurred to them yet what has happened this year as the nudge was given in November towards the nationalism of every area of American life. Sixty million Russians died in the Russian Revolution, as the Communists took over, before those still living realized what was happening. The frog is in a pan of cold water, the heat is being turned up very slowly, and in a short time, the frog is being cooked without him realizing what has happened. Lee Iaccoca made the statement some years ago, “As GM goes, so goes the Nation.” General Motors has now disintegrated. Other areas of the American economy, automobile, banking, Wall Street, insurance, are either in transition to disintegration or have already imploded. When will the average American citizen awaken?
A dilemma in this country is the number of firearms available. A Methodist minister, here in this town, one of these 'sissy', 'do-gooder' pacifists, decided to pay $10 for each handgun turned in to him. I don't know how many law abiding citizens turned in their guns, (the criminals are going to keep theirs!) but one man told me, that he got his $10 to make payment on a more expensive, more powerful weapon. We often wonder how easily the communists took over in Russia, China, Cuba, etc. “One man with a gun can control 100 without one.” Vladimir Lenin You can be sure, in the future, you will need or wish you had a gun to defend yourself and your family. Al Capone said, “You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

The American people have stood very still, sat very quietly, have not raised one eyebrow, as the most raw pornography, hatched in the very pits of hell, have moved from the 'back streets' of Americana into their living rooms where, like the forbidden fruit in the garden, their most precious possessions, their children, are peeking at it and in many cases, males and females who know better, are spending much time with it. In a recent survey, 30% of all college students, both male and female, stated that they watch pornography. Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious pornographic and evil connoisseurs, known for his bludgeoning, strangulation and necrophilia, made the following statement: ...that, while pornography did not cause him to commit murder, the consumption of violent pornography helped "shape and mold" his violence into "behavior too terrible to describe." He alleged that he felt that violence in the media, "particularly sexualized violence," sent boys "down the road to being Ted Bundys.".

Each time I've been in Boston over the years, I made sure The Old North Church was still in its sanctum on the Charles River, where the lantern was hung April 18, 1775 telling Paul Revere and the defenders of our great republic, that the British and King George were anxious to erase this last and greatest refuge of freedom on earth. What do you think would have happened if these early colonials had not had their muskets, weapons, to defend themselves and their families? What do you think would have happened if these early colonials had not had the patriotism to defend this republic? Suppose they had been stuck in lethargy and apathy as today's young citizens.

I firmly believe, upon the authority of God's inerrant word, the history books I have been privileged to study, the observations that anyone with normal IQ can make in studying the spiritual, academic, commercial and governmental climate of this country; that the total loss of manhood in most American males has resulted in an attitude of pacifism, which leaves us in a state of the rapid expansion of collectivism. Our enemies, both foreign and domestic, know the nonchalance, the decadence with which our country seeks to compete on the world stage.


President Clinton and Janet Reno, did not call in foreign troops to massacre the 85 innocent women and children at the Davidian Compound in Waco, TX which began February 28, 1993. It was not a foreign power that almost assassinated President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. And even though the President of the United States is one of the most protected people in the world, like JFK, a few years earlier, was shot. Unlike JFK, Reagan survived. It still amazes me, that a man had time to take off his shoe to throw at President George W. Bush at a news conference. I was taught early, when advised about correct decorum around national leaders, that you would probably get shot by the Secret Service if you put your hands in your pockets.

If the head of state of a superpower can not be protected, what can the citizens and the children of citizens of this country expect? Particularly, when you have proponents of euthanasia, nation's highest ranking women (Clinton, Pelosi, Sebelius) in power. Just imagine, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, architect of the nation's health resources, proponent of the deaths of the most innocent of children; think of Catholics such as Biden, Pelosi, Kennedy (hero of Chappaquiddick), proponents of abortion and euthanasia... Does anyone suspect why young people have such little regard for the church and the hypocrisy emanating therefrom? There are many things today's young people do not recognize, such as the disappearance of the traditions and the integrity of their country. But they are specialists in the recognition of hypocrisies. Perhaps this is the reason 75% of all young people, even from religious homes, have nothing to do with religion after college. Perhaps this is the reason that 50% of young people believe that Socialism is the answer to our problems.

Blaise Pascal, famed French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, said, “All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.”

Farewell to Arms

I have taken the liberty of stealing from Ernest Hemingway, the title of his 1929 book, Farewell to Arms. Hemingway wrote about the Spanish Civil War, as well as other subjects involving man's battle with the realities of life.

Reared on a large farm in Eastern North Carolina where many centuries previously, Indians hunted for food, I had a large collection of arrowheads. I found an almost perfect Indian ax (since sold online). Early man first fought with stones and handmade axes, then tomahawks was made by extending the ax with a stick, then came swords (I recently sold my large collection of civil war swords) and then guns. Battles between men were much more neurological when they could look one another in the eye. Most of the casualties of WW1 were afflicted with bayonets.

In my lifetime, WW2 until the present, we have seen warfare change totally. First, it was artillery shelling from a great distance, then it was dropping bombs out of airplanes. We never knew the destruction befalling women and children, aged and infirmed, from such distances. Warfare has become impersonal. Then, as in Vietnam and now in the Middle East it is a matter of missiles, shells with depleted uranium, poisons of every description, which not only destroyed the enemy but the enemy's families, the enemy's children and the enemy's homeland making it almost impossible for life.

I have traveled through these Middle Eastern, mostly Muslim countries. Poverty stricken people, goat herds, men riding on donkeys with their wives and children walking behind. Even thirty years ago, at border crossings these people would have all their earthly belongings in large sacks which they carried on their backs...barefoot children walking on frozen ground. We actually have the audacity think these people will love us by making their lives even more miserable than it already is. The two Bushes, father and son, with wealth beyond imagination, brandishing a veneer of conservatism and Christianity, have never known the basics of life but would insult the very name of Jesus Christ by saying they are Christ-like.

Only those who have been involved in a war or seen the results of warfare can understand its horrors. Like the pew warmers, for one hour during the week, they just might hear about hell, but really don't believe anything about it. These same hypocrites may hear about war but don't believe anything about it. They may even see a disabled veteran, blind, wheelchair bound, forever tormented by the sights and sounds of war, further aggravated by an inability to get the health care promised when entering the military service. Only one who has seen the combative attitudes, the insolence of VA employees, will understand my evaluation of this most inept of all government agencies.

One would have thought that Senator Cleveland from Georgia when he was chief VA administrator would have straightened out the VA. The administrators who have followed him have been worse. I understand there is a waiting list now of nearly one million veterans. Nearly two million have been involved in the present warfare. Such disgusting spectacles as the situation at Walter Reed or the homicidal psychiatrist at Ft. Hood will bring into focus matters for which elected members of congress have been warned many times. I don't know which was worse, the black nurse who spat on me while a patient in the hospital or the chief of staff of the Army VA hospital who so objected to my suggestion about having a volunteer guide blind patients through the maze of a VA facility and who told me, “we are just waiting for you to die”.

I am still alive, still able to bring to your attention that there are as many well-paid civilian contractors involved in the present wars as volunteer patriotic service people, who are mostly there because they cannot find a job at home. (I understand that contracted CIA members are paid as much a $35,000 a month. Those of you who are WWII veteran, remember your $21 a month pay.) Mr. “Hope and Change”, global warming, bailout and sell out, ACORN organizing Obama, like his predecessor Mr. “Pervert” Clinton will probably just start shooting missiles at Yemen or some other place while at the same time handing out more millions. The reason the war in Iraq lasted so long and things are back where it all started, we were too busy handing out sandwiches with one hand while shooting at belligerents with the other. The number of vehicles grew in Iraq by 80% after our troops arrived. In my humble opinion, with all due respect, the cars already there, the people should have been put under curfew. How else could the IEDs be hauled around to kill our finest?

Mark Twain said once, “the prettiest site on foreign soil is the appearance of the American flag, on a ship, at an embassy etc.” When traveling the world, I always felt that my country would support me, come for me in case of problems. We have learned to our sorrow, and it cannot be disputed, that we left hundred of MIAs in Vietnam and Laos. Is it not strange that Senator McCain, a supposed war hero, as well as Senator Kerry have tried to block any efforts for rescue? It is reported that some families of MIAs have had, at their own expense, private investigators look into this worst of American shame.

The first president of our country said, “guard against the imposters of pretend patriotism”. Many politicians, poets, and even perverts talk causally about patriotism but when the terrorists, not abroad, not in Israel, here, start striking over and over we will know the privilege of patriotism.

In this Laodicean world, with compromised rules, whether on the employment ladder or getting re-elected, I have known a few real patriots: US Senator John East, US Senator Jesse Helms. I looked straight into the eyes of Senator Helms and said, “the next time there is a war, just catapult large bundles of money towards the enemy.” It seems we have laid down our arms everywhere, in favor of big bucks.