Oct 24, 2008

A Letter To A Friend Regarding Religion, The Canon & Closed-Beliefs Systems!





Dear “J”, I was speaking with a young woman, who was obviously Catholic, several years ago.

She explained that all that she really knew about ‘her religion’ was that members of her religious group were not permitted to eat fish on Friday, and she was a strict adherent to that church edict.

I am not trying to disparage the memory of this woman in any way. However, in my opinion she is a perfect example of the problem that plagues most religious people and religious groups today, including Christian ones. Is it any wonder then that secularists, who often study religion and religious sources more than religious people typically do, believe that religious individuals are misinformed?

The problem with religion in general is that what it typically leads to is the creation of groups of self-righteous, intolerant individuals who believe that they have a monopoly on truth and an exclusive access to God. In that regard, religious institutions have a lot in common with human families. How often have we heard an individual say that this is the way that we do things in my family?

Religious groups are essentially family prototypes. The members often refer to each other as sister and brother. And as is it is in families that are related by blood, there is also a symbolic blood relationship among members of religious groups. The members of religious groups will also tell you about what they believe, and how they do things in their religious families. And most religious family groups, claim the Father God as the head of their family.

Jesus warned the Pharisees,, a quasi religious group of his time, that they had shut up the Kingdom of Heaven. He also explained that in spite of their zeal, that they were not going into the Kingdom of Heaven and that they were preventing also keeping others from entering into the kingdom. .

Thinking back to the 17th, 18th century and before (even back to Aristotle), consider how long it took for religious groups, particularly, the Christian Church to accept the factual conclusion of Copernicus, Galileo and others! We are still experiencing the same problem in the post-modern age’ religions and religious people will not accept any other truth that is inconsistent with what ‘their closed-religious family’ believes!

I suspect that we have gone back to the future in terms of concluding what is and what is not true. Many insist on holding on to religious tradition, lore and myth; substantiated or not.

Simply consider how far religion has devolved including the ongoing internecine battles that are going on between extended religious families today. In America, where more religions of the world are represented than in any other nation of the world, the closed nature and intolerance of hundreds of religious groups living side by side is apparent.

Christianity has so many denominations in America, that it is impossible to keep up with them all!

Clearly with this kind of division in Christianity for example, it is apparent that something is very wrong when the members of one family with God as its head, cannot agree. And the Christian family, similar to the Pharisees of the common era claim that they are the ones who, exclusively, are going to heaven. And there are other religious groups that also make similar claims.

Now is that not the epitome of arrogance?

In the United States, many of our religious leaders and religious groups are a laughing-stock among members of the public. Churches are rife wife scandals, some sexual, some financial, and some criminal. Pastors and wives are murdering each other, the divorce rate is high and many members of the clergy are pimping Jesus in order to enrich themselves. And none of the above prevent religious people or group, from claiming that they represent the embodiment of God itself!

I find that the majority of religions have something in common; eventually they lead their adherents to the same cognitive place, which is closure around a set of ideas and beliefs, that are considered to be exclusive and unquestionable truth.

Christianity is not an exception by any means. I give the Apostle Paul credit for predicting before hand, that the leaders in Christianity would eventually seek to draw followers after themselves.

Another example of religious double-speak, of the kind where religious people say one thing and do another, has been exemplified in this year’s Presidential election campaign. We have witnessed a contradiction between Chrisitian belief and practice; something that is often common in American Christian society.

Senator John McCain claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ believed in social activism and insisted that the poor be taken care of, which is what is often refered to as ‘the social dimension of Christ’s ministry’!

On the other hand, Christian politicians by proclamation, like John McCains, believe that what Jesus believed in was socialism, something that they refuse to practice.

I heard a political Christian strategist say recently that Jesus would have been too liberal for his tastes, yet he claimed to be a follower of Christ. John McCain lashes out at Senator Obama and refers to him as a socialist, when Senator Obama’s economic policies are taken from the scriptures that John McCain claims to believe!

According to the Canon, the first person to die, Abel, who was murdered by his brother Cain, did so as a result of religious denominational/sectarianism. Cain had his manner of worship, and Abel had his. When Cain’s form of worship was not accepted, Cain killed Abel. Christian John Mc-Cain, pun intended, is trying to kill his brother Senator Obama for adhering to the principles of Jesus Christ.

If Canonical eschatology is correct; the last person to die will die for the same reason, religious denominationalism. In fact he or she will, along with millions of individuals be slaughtered due to their religious beliefs, forms of worship and a refusal to submit to the edicts of another dominant religious group. Simply consider what is currently taking place among the 3 major religious groups of the world in the Middle-East of late.

The 3 major religions of the world who all claim to have found God, cannot settle their differences, and in the manner that Cain killed his brother, these groups are killidng each other. It doesn’t sound to me as if any of them have found ‘a God’ to me’! Your reference to ‘just war’, which you obviously borrowed from St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic Church is specious at best. According to the Canon, the Apostle James wrote that wars came about as a result of unfulfilled lusts.

To say that the USA has been blessed by the Almighty to be one of the most destructive forces in the planet gives me pause, and I don’t believe it!

I try to be very careful when speaking to individuals, like you, who are sincere and diligent about serving God, and not just Christians but especially Christians, particularly those who sincerely believe that Constantine’s Canon is ‘the word of God’! The Canon is a limited text, and not the exclusive ‘word of God’ that you and other Christians claim.

The fact of the matter is that evolution and transformation are part and parcel of human existence. Times change, people change and our understanding increases with time and it changes with the addition of new information and different experiences. When you mention ‘theistic evolution’ to most religious people, they turn a deaf ear, and consider you to apostate.

Interestingly enough, if you think about it, the next stage in the divine evolutionary life-cycle, according to the Canon, is the transformation of human beings from their current carbon-based forms into the likeness of whatever the non-human form of Jesus will be at the time, a metamorphosis!

You have, as many individuals in the west have done been taught to believe that the Canon is the exclusive unadulterated and inerrant word of God! As a result the deep study that you have engaged in, by now you should know that the Canon was compiled from many unsubstantiated disparate sources.

I visited a ‘Bible Teaching’ church a month or so ago. Afterward, the person who invited me asked, well what did you feel about the minister? I responded, you are correct; the pastor is an excellent Canon teacher. He had profoundly mastered its teachings! Sadly, the Canon is not the exclusive harbinger of truth!

Frankly, the pastor needed to, in my opinion, consider other sources of information that are available. It is dangerous to lock yourself into one paradigm. Many of the terms, phrases and writings in the Canon were derived from other well-intentioned sources I'm certain; however, many of the same were not derived from God.

The Apostle Paul once wrote that all scripture is God-breathed...! I won't argue with that, however, the mistake that most Christians make is to believe that everything in the Canon is scripture, when frankly if what determines what is and what is not scripture depends on it being God-breathed, we already know that numerous texts came from disparate sources. At the time that the Apostle referred to what was scripture, he hadn’t considered, that the letters that he was writing to churches, were scriptural.

We must make juxtaposition between literative truth and what is actual and factual truth. Most of our beliefs today center around what was taught and passed on by individuals who lived thousands of years ago; many of these individuals were primitive and had not done any critical scholarly research. We have accepted ancient interpretations as if they represented exclusive and profound truth! The Apostle Paul said something very profound in 1 Thess 5:21, when he wrote, test or prove all things! If you want to get in trouble in religious circles, particularly, Christianity, make an attempt at testing the voracity of the different aspects of religious dogma!

Let’s consider the epic poem, the book of Job, for a moment. That Job existed appears to be well substantiated. But if you use common sense, one quickly understands that what much of what was written in the poetical book of job is simply literative truth, much of what was written was never spoken.

Simply consider each of the different essays. If you accept everything that is written in Job as being factual, ask yourself who stood there and wrote down verbatim the exchanges and the dialogue that went back and forth between Job and his friends? Someone must have been sitting there with a primitive tape recorder, correct? Either that, or they were a heck of a stenographer!

Also consider the Apostle Paul who admitted that he wrote by permission, having explained that some of what he wrote factually did not come from God. Consider what Jesus said about Moses’ having granted the right of a divorce decree? I use this last example to explain the errancy of the Canon in another context.

By that I mean that all of what is written in it is not inerrant, from the perspective of manuscript support, but according to what Jesus said, that God would have said. Jesus also pointed out that much of what had been later recorded in the Canon, words that were spoken by them of old times, apparently did not derive from God either! In other words, these were not ideas that were etched with the finger of God on stone!

Again Jesus said, Jesus said that in the beginning (apparently by God), divorce was not permitted. Moses, granted divorce on his own, proving that everything that he said or did, which was held as divine truth, did not derive from God.

My Point. Those who take the bible literally, in the context of it having derived from God, and is therefore to be believed to be inerrant are being misled. Moses just another one of its sources, did not get a lot of what was attributed to him from God. Do you truly believe that there were giants on Earth, who came from heaven, and were sleeping with human women?

My thrust is simply this, in all religions there are creeds, sacred texts, practices …., and as humans lock themselves in to a singular text or religion,, for the good that it does, there is also the bad that comes out of limiting oneself to a single text or religion!

People need to be set free, so that they can seek after what is 'actual'. Most denominations or religions will not permit or encourage its adherents to do that; the Catholic is notorious for doing just that, and most Christian religious fundamentalist churches and groups are equally as guilty.

Just as the name Jesus, Allah. Krishna …, were non-existent thousands of years ago, I suspect that in a century or so they will be obsolete all over again, and people will know what is real. Now before you call me a heretic, hear what I am saying.

The anthropomorphic creations of the past that were used to explain God were understandable given where those cultures were at that time. These folks knew little about the human genome, microbial organisms, space telemetry, the space-time continuum, thermodynamics, entropy, and quantum physics, particularly by comparison with what we know today.

Aside from religion, many individuals are simply seeking after what is real, and I applaud the ones who are doing so. And the way that things are going, it appears that what we refer to as God, the anthropomorphic God) will turn out to be something altogether different, what scientists refer to as a God equivalent, a unifying principle, and a singularity.

Factually, I believe that it is time for post-modern man to move beyond outdated religious paradigms that may include literary truth, and rather to seek after what is real, even if that means that outdated ideas will be refuted, debunked and placed in their proper historical context.

Early on, most humans were aware that there was something else beside human beings, the flora and the fauna. They were never able to define it, but out of respect for IT, they attempted to honor or worship IT, and occasionally a pantheon of other higher beings that they believed to exist. We cannot keep living in the past, it is time to live within our own paradigm, and to apply the knowledge and the evidence that we have today, replacing that which is outdated.

Change makes people uncomfortable, because it challenges them to come out of their comfort zones. Jesus was a perfect example of what happens when you try to elevate the thinking of religious people; he was beaten, physically tossed out of Synagogues, harassed, eventually arrested and murdered.

When he attempted to move his Hebrew brethren beyond their thousands of years old paradigms, they also mostly rejected him. Today, Christians and many other religious groups are stuck in their dogma and outdated paradigms – they won’t move beyond their version of The Law. Instead of standing on the shoulders of the ones who preceded the, in an attempt to grow or to evolve if you prefer, most religious people are stuck in the past. Some in the scientific community have acknowledged the discovery of what might be considered, the God particle.

If we could revive our predecessors and speak with them today, they would likely look to us for answers. They would be surprised to know that thousands of years later, their religious descendants haven’t progressed any further beyond what they once believed. In fact, some of our more backward religious people, would in turn ask them, tell them to tell them what is true?

Are most religious groups guilty of what I refer to as spiritual intellectual laziness? Most religious groups are essentially guilty. However, more and more individuals are freeing themselves from the shackles of religion and religious dogma, and they are simply seeking after what is real. Secularists have been doing this all the time. It is time for the majority of religious individuals to do the same thing, or perhaps they will simply be replaced with another generation of individuals who will do so!

Jesus’ thrust was I came to bring the truth, not religion! Close up the book sometimes “J”and think about what Jesus said, that if I go away I will send another paracletos, and that paracletos would guide you into all of the truth. His words weren’t intended to get us stuck in a non-invented at the time Canon. And if those were his intentions, wouldn’t he have instructed his followers to wait for the Canon. The Canon in my opinion is similar to a third-grade primer, and too many Christians are stuck in a 3-rd grade spiritual mindset!

Remember what Elihu said, when debating Job and Job’s elder friend? Elihu apparently said, and I hope he did if he existed, that there is a Spirit in a Man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives him wisdom. It is okay to research and compare the Hebrew, Sinaticus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuaginst, the Vulgate …., however true inspiration ought to come from the Almighty and science, for we are getting closer to determining ‘what it is’, not who some believed IT was!

You raised the subject of homosexuality, and Paul’s belief about it. I warn you, Paul also believed that he would be a part of what Christians refer to as the rapture; he expected to be alive when it occurred. Remember that he wrote, ‘we shall not all sleep…’ Paul has been sleep for years, he was in error then and I suspect like most of what has been written about homosexuality in the bible is probably in error. And if that turns out to be the case, we have been pretty mean to some individuals, who had nothing to do with the way that they were born!

Our endocrinologists are just about to speak to the real causes of the source(s) of intersex people and what we refer to as homosexuality. Granted, there are homosexuals who are more likely to be inclined socially to be homosexual, however, there are those who are genetically predisposed to homosexuality, and others who are born with both sexes being prominent.

I am afraid for religious groups and Christians for as more and more of their beliefs will be debunked, most religious groups are going to find it very difficult to get people to believe any of what they are teaching, and to justify their previous misinterpretations which they attributed to God. .

I was in a hot debate on the Capitol mall in DC several years ago regarding this same topic. When I raised the issue of inter-sex people, wherein their parents often selected their surgically imposed, sexual identity most in the Christian crowd became very quiet. Today I ask Christians to consider what was written in the Canon, just as I asked this large group to do, particularly the writings about eunuch. According to the Canon, some are born, others are forced and some choose to be eunuch! Does that sound familiar?.

We know that all fetuses or feti are originally female. Let me ask you this, why do males have nipples? The fact is that we all derive from a common source, and the changes begin to take place while we are in the womb. Having said that, everything doesn’t always develop as it should, and there are as a consequence mixed-gender people, there always have been apparently!

Now are you going to tell me that as a result of development that is out of the control of the feti, that God is going to send people to hell and burn them forever because of a developmental issue? Oh I know, from a Christian perspective I am getting into the doctrine of Universalism.

Actually, I am going beyond that to say that much of the conclusions that were drawn in the Canon and written in many religious texts, did not come from God in the first place. They were instead an outgrowth of tradition, fear and the processes of acculturation. Hell, and much of the rest are likely human inventions!

For my money, I suspect that the demise of religion will be a good thing, if in its place humans will get back to seeking what is real and maximizing their potential!

I encourage you to be diligent, but I caution you about the dangers of locking yourselves into one literative text which has many flaws in it, as you continue your quest of seeking what is real, and questioning what other people have considered other sources have to say! And if we must err, let us err on the side of grace!

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

Oct 20, 2008

The Black President of the USA: Also Head of the G7+1, United Nations, Allies & World-wide Military, Economic & Political Power!





In a sense one could argue that the majority of America’s previous presidents have served America well, in this one sense. They labored tirelessly to provide Americans an unprecedented advantage over all other nations and people of the world, as well as an unequal share of the world’s wealth (at least up and until recently).

The latest President, George Bush, in 2003 unabashedly and under a pretext, employed the use of the America military to strike a once sovereign nation in order to take what America could no longer inveigle from Iraq by force, control of Iraq’s oil fields!

What a President Obama will need to do, if he truly believes in justice for all people would put him on a collision course and in direct conflict with America’s me-first and scraps for everyone else’s consumer attitude.

Just think about it, if America had a President who believed in true justice for all people as opposed to an American only specious political excesses for us (its primary aim being to advantage Americans), there would be an evening out and a leveling of the world-wide playing. The latter would in fact mean the diminishing of America’s power, influence and ability to extrapolate more than its share from the rest of the world.

The American leader is considered by the majority of the world to be the leader of the most powerful economic and military nation on earth. And, his power extends internationally, where he is considered to be the leader of the Free World, the most influential if not defacto head of the G7+1 leading economic nations and the United Nations which is headquartered in America.

He will wield consider power over the 198 member nations in the United Nations, by using his worldwide influence and America’s veto power, as one of five of the permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to continue to force an American design upon the rest of the world. This may change if for example the Republic of China were to call in its chips, and throw America into yet another economic tailspin.

And as I alluded to before, a President Obama will be in control of the most powerful world-wide military spy network and weapons of destruction arsenal!

The power of the presidency of the United States can be used for good. On the other hand it can be used as it has often been used in the past, selfishly, and simply to further the interests of the United States, benefit its friends and to create and co-opt markets that are typically exploited in order to benefit Americans, particularly wealthy Americans.

Worldwide, the stakes have been raised since the time that America enjoyed 45% of the world’s goods that inured to the benefit and pleasure of 5% of the world’s population, the American population. Isn’t it interesting that we often refer exclusively to the United States, in deference to the other nations on this continent, as America!

As of late, the rest of the world has been demanding a share of the world’s goods and a rightful place in the world-wide market system which unfortunately, nearly collapsed a few weeks ago. The latter was due by most estimations, of the irresponsible financial actions that took place in the United States of America. Banks in other nations of the world foolishly purchased bad American paper!

President Bush’s actions in Iraq and his father’s actions in Kuwait demonstrate just how much the world has changed, while at the same time America has remained the same, hegemonistic. America began with confiscation of land, people and resources, and 232 years later, America is engaged in the same practices and with unchanged policies. Why? The answer is because America and Americans will never settle for having a fair or equitable share of the worlds goods and wealth.

Americans will criticize their leaders and at the same time demand that the money and goods train, continues to stop at their neighborhoods. And what the United States will not be able to produce or acquire by fair trade practices or hard work, it will do what it has always done to bolster and underwrite its economic advantages over the rest of the world, threaten other nations or directly involve its military in order to take what it wants.

The latter will take place in deference to what the majority of the other world's nations the World Trade Organization has to say. America has been cited more than any other nation on earth for its unfair trade practices, in deference to NAFTA, GATT, CATT and its denial of American protectionism!

With the emerging and burgeoning world-wide global economy, America has only a few choices. It can be satisfied with its share, produce more itself and for itself, or to simply confiscate what it wants, just as it did recently in Iraq. One out of every 4 barrels of oil that are sold in the world, presently come to the United States of America, leaving the rest of the world to share the remaining 3 barrels.

Why has America refused to exploit its own oil reserves? It has been the policy of the United States government to retain America’s oil reserves for national security purposes. For in the event that the USA was ever cut off from oil resources around the world, America would always have adequate oil to defend itself in its own reserves. In other words, America’s policy has been to ‘use there’s and save ours just in case!

I have tried to assure white Americans that a President Obama will not represent a threat to historical self-centered white values. In fact, I suspect that the individuals, who will be disappointed the most by an Obama Candidacy, will be the leaders and citizens of so-called 3rd world nations, and black Americans. Based on what I have heard so far, what the two group’s value the most are not represented in the Obama policy. Obama has made it a practice of chastising these two marginalized groups!

In the manner that ninety-five percent of the black citizens in South Africa believed that things were going to change over night for them, and that there would be a reversal of their previous course of disaffection and poverty, 95% of black Americans believe the same. However, black South Africans discovered that even under the leadership of an icon like Nelson Mandela, a true freedom fighter, and his predecessor, President Mbeki, not much has changed for black South Africans. And to boot Mbeki recently resigned from his presidential post!

That Senator Obama may soon become the most powerful man in the world is significant. But what will matter the most is what he will do if becomes that man, and better he than John McCain, I would argue, even though I am not voting for either one of them. However, and I will repeat what I said before, a President Obama will have to decide whether or not he will stand up for ‘true justice for all people’, as Dr. Martin Luther King and others did, which will take away from the United States but benefit all of people of the world, or risk his reputation and status in the West and support justice and freedom for all people of the world!

Love, peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: And some have asked, why aren't you voting for Senator Obama or John McCain. I have decided to vote my conscience, and for a qualified person of honor. And I will according to Eccl 5:8 and 9, continue to depend on the Sovereign to intervene in and to balance the affairs of man!

It reads as follows:
5:8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

9Moreover the profit of the earth is for all (socialism?): the king himself is served
by the field


The Black President of the USA: Also Head of the G7+1, United Nations, Allies & World-wide Military, Economic & Political Power!

Oct 19, 2008

Do Not Blame Mexicans and Blacks: Misdirected American Class Warfare & The American Market Place!



When the majority suffers, a minority is in trouble! author unknown

I had the good fortune of sitting and rapping with a couple of American citizens yesterday at the San Jose Flea Market located in San Jose California. Having said that, I am a man, I don't shop; I simply wanted to take a commemorative walk down memory lane, ergo I spent most of my time there talking.

My purchases, at America's largest Flea Market, amounted to 2 white nectarines, 1 white peach and a half-pound of peanuts that cost me a dollar.

Now speaking of white, I said to the two gentlemen that I met who joined me at a picnic table, one of them who had just excoriated 'Mexicans' for taking 'our jobs' , that he was playing right into the man's hands. I reminded them that Texas and other parts of America belonged to Mexico, and that they were simply returning to America and reclaiming what had been stolen from them centuries ago. I also added that just as America walked into and took over Hawaii, and other nations up to and including Iraq, God permitted 14 million Mexicans to simply walk into America and take over in many of the border states.

One of the gentleman asked, what do you mean? I said that the wealthy would like nothing more than to have most Americans distracted, and to the extent that they are engaging in a kind of internal class warfare against each other, as opposed to addressing the real source of the problem. Brother I said, you want to fight over scraps with someone who is in the same socio-economic class that you are in, when the majority of the wealth of this nation is being hoarded by approximately 5% of its population.

Many Americans are doing the same thing when it comes to actual military warfare. Too many Americans are willing to go overseas, and destroy the lives of individuals who are in the same economic predicament that they are in, just to keep a group of wealthy Americans rich. And if you ask some of them, why did you join the military? Many will tell you that they could not find a job, so they joined the military.

They are too obtuse to realize that they have become mercenaries for a closed wealthy American elite group, who use them and pay them a mere military pittance, in order to destroy their enemies or to co-opt their oil or land.

John McCain, actually voted against a sizable increase that would have benefited military mercenaries who represent the same individuals that he is so willing to have occupy another nation (for 100 years if necessary), while he decides which one of his homes he will stay at home in and enjoy.

John and others in his group, from the President right down to the Vice President ..., won’t share their combined wealth $200M and more with the mercenaries who are being sent to kill other people like them. The ones that they are being sent to kill are a part of struggling families with bills to pay, just like them. And too boot, many of these folks haven’t done a thing to the USA.

The wealthy simply crave resources, like oil from other nations, in order to enrich themselves. And they use other people to murder the nationals in order nations, in order to require their resources and in order to control and exploit their markets, not for the reasons that the mercenaries have been given!

Today, I enjoyed rapping with a brother on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley who had an interesting way of explaining things, let’s call it ‘straight talk’. He said, I am telling everyone that I can to vote for Senator Obama, because ‘the man’ is going to try, using my own words, to steal the election again! I was proud of this brother, a son of a black Naval Officer, who resides at the Alameda Naval Base who was 3 years my senior.

He went on to explain that Obama has to win the [perfectoral...]. I couldn’t understand what he was articulating at that point, so I asked, are you referring to the Electoral College? And in brother style he answered, "yes, that is the 'motherf@**//', that I am talking about"! Now brother man had his own way of expressing things, however, brotha man understood that the internal class war must cease between individuals of like kind and class, and that the real war has to be levied against a system, and the ones who manipulate the system in order to retain the majority of America's wealth.

Back to the flea market, I explained to what turned out to be a sizable group of listeners who joined in to listen to our discussion, that Senator McCain said one thing that was true in last week's debate to Senator McCain. He rightfully explained to Senator Obama that America's major corporations are not creating any new jobs, and that it is small businesses that are creating jobs for Americans.

If you think about it, large corporations as McCain pointed out have been down-sizing their American labor force. Just a few weeks ago, Hewlett-Packard laid off 24,000 employees worldwide. Yahoo will follow suit next week, and these and other corporations have been streamlining their forces,taking advantage of a cheaper labor force overseas. Now at the same time they are demanding more productivity from their already streamlined labor force domestically and abroad! Why are they doing this?

They are doing this so that they can increase their bottom line, which means that there will increased dividends for their shareholders, and for the corporate executive elite group! Well, I asked then, when is enough enough? The idea of America corporate owners is that the reason for the corporation is to maximize profits. However, to the rest of us Americans who have caused these corporations to be larger than life (some with account receivables) that are larger than the GDP of more than one or two nations of of the world, we believe that these corporations have an abiding duty, or should have one to be good corporate citizens and to share the wealth!

As I explained to these gentleman in particular, the other problem with these corporations is that Americans have subsidized these corporations for years by giving them considerable tax breaks. And their way of repaying Americans is to refuse to hire Americans or to share the wealth? There is also double indemnity here, given the same corporations who pay far less to have their products produced elsewhere, import the products back to America and sell them to Americas, like sports wear for example, at an exorbitant price.

And where does all of the extra money that is earned as a result of using cheap labor go, I asked? Answer, it goes into the pockets of greedy shareholders and corporate executives.

I also added that McCain was right, even though he didn't mean to say what I am going to write.
1). Senator Obama ought to rethink his position, and give tax breaks to the smaller corporations, S-Type and others, who will produce jobs for Americans, and tax the larger corporation to the max.
2). Americans ought to boycott America's large corporations who will not provide jobs for Americans, particularly those that pay executives 148 times what they pay their average employees. What happened to the defacto social contract with American citizens?
3). Americans ought to contract with multi-national corporations outside of America, agreeing to purchase their products that will be manufactured in the USA, and built for example by an American labor force.

One gentleman added, and then the American Corporations would simply move overseas. I explained that they are already doing that. Often, some large American corporations are maintain their headquarters in America, however, many multi-national American Corporations have already moved production overseas.

Some in my listening audience of a dozen or more were perplexed, I scared them. They did not seem to understand that the corporate American political elite have been at war with the American proletariat (working class) for some time now.

It has been their plan going back to the founders to control the wealth of this nation, and to retain a lion's share of the wealth of this nation for themselves, and there plan had been working, as long as there was enough low-hanging fruit leftover to satisfy the masses.

However, the pickings are becoming slimmer and slimmer. When one individual can earn three and four-hundred million dollars per annum, while another person is working hard but cannot earn a sufficiency or living wage, something has gone wrong. And the someone who is hoarding the wealth is in trouble, including those government officials who serve the will of the corporate elites and 300,000 registered lobbyists (who represent these corporations) instead of American citizens.

The latest economic/ financial crisis in America should help to wake the majority of American citizens up from their sleep, if nothing else does! Last week, a gentleman wrote me saying that African-Americans were responsible for the current financial collapse in America. In fact he named the College that he currently attends, where in his economics class, this kind of nonsense had purportedly being taught. Now who is stirring up class warfare I ruminated

I remind him and all of my readers that this precedent has been in place, and we have just witnessed its residual effects which were apparent going back to the collapse at Enron, and in the telecommunications less than a decade ago. Pure and simple uncensored greed destroyed those organizations, not black people, and the same thing recently took place in America's financial market.

Venal and sophisticated profiteers who have been in league with elected and appoint government officials, have persistently exploited the working poor in order to garner their ill-gotten gain. Any questionable loans by any bank should have been turned down, regardless of race. And many were turned down by reputable financial organizations. Others approved of questionable loans, in order to increase their bottom line, not caring because they were going to pass the ultimate risk on to someone else!

Greed, derivatives and Americans politicians were and are to blame for the current financial collapse in America, that taxpayers had to ante up for in order to rescue the greed barons. I believe that it is time for class warfare in America, for enough is enough. I believe that it is time to turn America's economic system into a democratic economic system. Americans admire Japan and how democratic socialism operates in Japan and other democratic nations. So what is wrong with having democratic socialism to operate in America?

There have to be controls implemented here, of the kind that are not in place with collusion and complicity from government officials, put there to benefit the wealthy.

As I repeated before, when first President George H.W. Bush, Lee Iacocca, and other American automobile corporate executives visited Japan nearly two decades ago, the Japanese executives who were involved in the meetings said something very telling about the American executives. The Japanese executives described the American executives as gangsters. And they were right then, and they are right now!

Wealthy oil barons, not black Americans, nearly destroyed the California economy just about a decade ago, when greed trumped morality, and now by using similar strategies, other greedy barons in disparate industries and doing the same thing to America! The sad part about members of the 'get rich or die trying groups', is that they never have enough, and they continuously work on new strategies, hoping to figure out how to get more from the lower working market classes of American citizens!

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: It is not axiomatic that the wealth of many of America's corporations is a result of earned wealth. The latter has more to do with government complicity, the manipulation of the laws on the books and lobbying, the use of the American military ... that provides many American corporations with the lions share of their undeserved wealth!

I spent part of my day again in People's Park in Berkeley California, among a mass group of America's homeless, trying to encourage them to hang on and to develop a system that works for them! The rest of us will have to devise a system within a system that works for us, as opposed to continuing to be exploited by a wealthy elite who view the rest of us as nothing more than 'the market'!

The Fourth Presidential Debate: God v. John McCain




The Social Dimension of God’s Ministry has been rejected by wealthy American Christians including Christian politicians.

In the midst of the non-televised debate between John and God, John said, God, I do not believe in wealth sharing. God repeated the following story to John and to the listening audience, mostly angels, in attendance. The story is taken from the 18th chapter of St. Luke.

[18] A certain ruler named John McCain, came to Jesus and him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
[19] "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good -- except God alone. [20] You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
[21] John McCain answered, "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
[22] When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have $100M dollars, 7 properties and a dozen vehicles, and give to the poor Joe the Plumber, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
[23] When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.
Heaven wouldn’t work for John. According to St. John Chapter 14, in heaven there are many mansions, but only one for every person.

The fact of the matter is that wealth should not have to be forcibly-shared. If the American capitalist economic system were democratized, all Americans would share in America's bounty earn a living wage, poverty would be eliminated, and their would be plenty leftover to care for the disabled and poor.

John purports not to believe in greed. Then John should explain why he and his family are worth $100M, and other hard-working poor Americans have nothing?

Here is a definition of greed, that John purports to be against taken form the American Heritage® Dictionary.

NOUN: An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: “Many . . . attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed” (Henry Fawcett).

Clearly John and many of his friends have far more than they need. Rather than attack the nascent Senator Obama, why won't John McCain help Joe 'the unlicensed non-taxing plumber', as opposed to exploiting him in in order to further his campaign?

Rush Limbaugh, about a decade ago said it best with respect to class warfare. Rush said boasting, you can increase our taxes if you care to, however, we will still have our limousines, our swimming pools ...! And my response to Rush Limbaugh was simply this, EXACTLY!

Society is not a bad word, social and socialism are not bad words, selfishness, greed, being self-absorbed and self-indulgent are bad words, but not of late to many Americans!

Socialism was employed by President George Bush and Congress in order to rectify the failures of reckless opportunism and a system that too many have learned to exploit. They would prefer to leave the loopholes in place that they have often taken advantage of in order to benefit themselves, and to disadvantage others.

America has created two classes, a wealthy elite, and the rest of us who are simply put 'a market', to be exploited by the wealthy. The American exploited market group, will be used as long as we allow it to be used in order to help the greedy elites to steal and retain exploitative wealth. Everyone else is struggling, including individuals who earn $250K per annum!

Instead of 'Unenjoyment checks', pun intended, the rest of us need to insist that our system be modified with a view on the needs of all American citizens. Again, democratizing the economic system in this nation is what the rest of us needs to happen!

God would approve of this message! We must do away with man's inhumanity to man as explained by the late philosopher Hagel: '... the ownership of property, and the pursuit of power through class struggle!

Love, Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Footnote: Jesus knew that the rich young ruler had a steady income. Had he given up everything that he had at that moment, by weeks end his coffers would have begun to be replenished. He would have lost nothing, and neither will John McCain and others who refuse to create opportunities that will benefit other Americans, particularly the ones who are part of America's working poor class!

Instead, they continue to tear down their barns in order to build or buy even larger ones!

And as of late, someone most have read my mind, because John McCain has decided to give Joe, the non-tax paying plumber, some work to do. Too little and much too late! People have died who could not afford surgery, while McCain and wife sat atop a $100 million dollar annuity and portfolio, while taking advantage of the health benefits that the taxpayers provided for them!

Oct 17, 2008

American Election 2008: God Awakes (From Rest) To Participate!




A Homily by the Rev.


God having tired of what had been transpiring in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Slave for 232 years, the USA, awoke from his rest, and decided to intervene in the 2008 Election!

God thought and thought why don't I raise up a half white black man to preside over a racist nation (the USA), that was built by black Africans, with white slave masters.

So God said, let us make a white black (part African) man 'in their image', and let him preside! So God made an African-white President, Senator Obama, and said, that's good!

Sadly all that most whites saw was a black President and they said, that's bad (that drop of blood thang)!

Some blacks saw only a half white (native Americans might say a mixed breed) and said, that's not good!

However, the inbred races continued to intermarry while living unhappily ever after, well until there weren't any more purely blacks or whites. Afterward. the angels in heaven gave each other winged high fives, God returned to Teman and Republicans nullified God's actions having discovered that God was an unregistered alien who had been assisted by Acorn!

And the more ‘thangs’ changed, the more they stayed the same!

Love, peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon!


Addenda:
Unless whites are planning another mass extermination of a
nation of people, I suspect that those who are the most resistant 'to change'
had better get used to having black Presidents, and black Americans
around for a long time! Someday we might change
the name of this nation, given Africa's
contribution to it to, The United
African-American States
(the UAAS)!

Oct 15, 2008

Up From Male Oppression in The American Presidential Election in 2008 and Hopefully Thereafter




Imagine how advanced the world and this nation would be, had it not been dominated by militaristic and authoritarian, Lord of the flies, retrograde male leadership, which resulted in war instead of cooperation between the sexes?

Frankly, I can only imagine what the world and the USA have missed out on given the historical suppression of the feminine principle? For perhaps 10,000 years or more, males have been suppressing females and to their credit they still try to love us, endure us, have our babies and our backs!

Besides producing societies through their wombs, consider the other contributions that females have made in politics, science, medicine and literature ..., not to mention our everyday lives, which have often been overlooked or taken from granted. Again, I can only imagine what the world would be like had it not been for the historical and venal suppression of the feminine principal for perhaps 10,000 years.

As a result of what has taken place historically, the world in spite of the progress that has been made with females playing a hampered role is out of balance as a consequence of imbalanced male leadership and domination. Most individuals know that I do not believe in the inerrancy of Constantine’s Canon. Jesus, having contradicted portions of it himself before it was written, proved that certain of its writing contradicted what God said!

Most Christians were born with a diaper, bottle and a copy of the Canon. They were taught from day one that it was absolute; and most Christians are afraid to question it, for to do so they believe would be to question God itself. The fact of the matter is that if most Christians were to consider where it originated and how it was composed and comprised, they might consider that while many parts of it may be accurate, there are certainly parts of it that deserve scrutiny and questioning.

I must take the time to add that there have been many additions, borrowing from other disparate sources, deletions, exclusions, chronological and numerological errors, tampering with it and poetic writings and suppositions from and before the Common Era spliced into it.

We read about giants that once walked the Earth and slept with women. Now does that sound like a fairy tale or what, and what is the source of that story, the typically unaccepted book of Enoch? And doesn't that sound like a male fantasy? However, not only is Christianity guilty, but most religions that have constructed their craft and their holy books based upon borrowing, codifying myths and suppositions have a similar basis in what they consider to be truth.

One thing for sure, in most societies that were male dominated, their holy books and traditions assure you that God intended for males to be the draconian leaders and dominate heads of household, cities and state that many have often turned out to be!

But just think about it, if men had been more balanced and would have shared or understood complimentary leadership, how much more advanced, and how much further along the world and individual societies throughout the history of human existence would have been. How dare anyone tell their counterparts to take care of me, have my babies, raise the babies and shut up? And that is what the God of most religions demanded?

I personally believe that females are even smarter than they are beautiful, and that as a result the world is in the process of a course correction. Males typically fantasize about, fondle and adore female beauty, but at the same time reject female wisdom, knowledge, intuition and powers of analysis, well up and until we get in trouble.

I find that typically when a human seeks to dominate another, male or female, it can be attributed to fear. There seems to be a need to control or conquer what you believe that may conquer or overcome you. Males have feared females and or looked down their noses at them for centuries. And therefore there has been a need for the subjugation of females. Factually, there is an inherent fear by males that females will do to males, what male have done historically to females.

Would a righteousness all knowing and loving God, insist that the number one preoccupation and occupation of males be to hold females in subjection to them? On so-called Judgment Day will God ask men, did you keep your woman in subjection to you, despite everything else that you failed to do? And if you did, then God would say enter into the Kingdom 'my man'! I doubt that what we refer to as God had anything to do with the historical female-subjugation by males.

And may I add that I foresee a time in the future when certain terms and phrases will be obsolete given increased human understanding in terms of what is real. Titles and ascriptions like God, the Unknown, Great Spirit, or divine ascriptions like Krishna, Vishnu, Allah, Yahweh and why not add Santa Claus … will be obsolete, after what is real comes to be understood. Back to the story.

In the USA, witness this year’s General Election, women are very close to achieving their goal of achieving the coveted leadership role that they have been kept away from for thousands of years. It wasn’t long along Janet Rankin and other females were granted the right to vote. Many white Americans once believed that if blacks were to be given freedom at one time, that the nation would be destroyed, which was another justification that was used to keep black people enslaved.

During each election cycle we are told of whites who work feverishly to take away the rights of blacks to vote, by vote tampering, nullification and disqualification. I do not believe that when females become leaders and take their rightful place in leadership roles, particularly in a female-majority society, that it will signal the end of the USA.

I expect that in time that the United States of America will get even better, that is if men don’t then become complete female obstructionists. Do I sound as if I believe that females are perfect and that some will not be as harsh as some males have been, nyat. History has proven that females can be as sinister than males. However, and on the upside there wisdom is needed and it should be brought to and given its place 'in the market square'!

Do all females, particularly the ones that we refer to as radical feminists embrace me? Of course they don’t and I understand why. For one thing, many females lump me in with males who have historically mistreated them. And two, what they are suspicious of is a fact. I am learning to unlearn, but I am not fully there yet.

I still don’t always know what to do with a woman, and I have been very abusive and unfair to women myself in the past. I spent most of my day yesterday at the University of California Berkeley Campus, particularly up top at the Lawrence Hall of Science near the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Before reaching the high elevations where these buildings are located I spent much of time on the lower positioned campus telling Satan to get thee behind me Satan.

Like most men I experience every male’s challenge (thank you Dr. Cloud and the New Live Crew), the challenge of not looking at females. I often feel that if God didn't intend for us to look at them, he wouldn't have made them so attractive!

Like most males we do to women what women do to flowers, we look at them, and desire to get a bouquet of them and take them home and put them in a base and well, you get my drift.

I suppose that most females do not mind being admired if it weren't simply for their outward appearance. I suspect that it s being treated like an object simply there for male utilitarian purposes is what females reject.

As beautiful as the women that I saw yesterday were, like the female-majorities on most American college campuses, these women are serious intellectuals who expect to be treated as such. I know that many of them are far smarter than me.

Yesterday, it took two women to get me to where I was trying to get to on campus. They may have thought dumb guy after I left, but they certainly didn’t treat me like a male would have treated a female when they provided me with directions.

Dudes, I initially went to the wrong science building, climbed 3 flights of stairs, walked down a long hall and looked for the Conference room only to be told that I was about a mile from the building where I needed to be, literally. Even though the building had a different name on it, I used my innate male cognitive powers to locate the wrong building, I never read the name on the building before entering, I simply knew intuitively where it was. Wrong!!!!

I heard a woman say about her husband, him ask for directions, this man won't even listen to the GPS that is installed in our car, he always knows a better way!

Sadly, Hillary Clinton was dispensed with and Sarah Palin is off to a rough start as she makes her first advent into national politics. However, in both scenarios whatever failures, miscues or shortcomings that have been - can be attributed to male domination and suppression, the misuse of them by males and the lack of experience by both of in the deadly male game of AMerican politics. Either of them might have fared better out in the jungle while being sought out by armed male hunters.

Clearly the McCain campaign is misusing Sarah Palin, although many Americans believe that she has been willingly misused. And the old boys network in the Democratic Party, not the Republicans, including its newcomer rose up and banded together in order to neutralize and eliminate Senator Clinton, despite her contributions to society and democrats.

It is sad that the ones who are closer to life and bear life, and who will attend to often over-looked societal needs will be ignored, misused or discarded by males. I hate to see other people use other people use people then discard them when they are no longer of use to them. I am guilty of having done that to someone in my younger life.

In either of the political scenarios that I just mentioned, males will end up still on top in spite of the manner in which two prominent women have been exploited. And I suspect that if McCain were to prevail, other than to be his cheerleader, then Vice President candidate also be relegated to the proverbial female scrap heap and used if McCain becomes President instead of Obama. But who knows, in time the Spirit of Vashti or Esther of the Hebrew scriptures might rise up along with a sense of pride in Sarah Palin?

What does religion have to do with any of this? If you accept the Canon I ask you to consider the text found in Joel 2:28 and 2:29, and ask yourselves. Why is it that a prophet has to announce that Heaven will be reintroducing the feminine principle and pouring out Spirit on all flesh including females?

Was that text saying that prior to that time that Heaven had not poured out its spirit on females, as males would have you to believe, you know a woman 'ain't suppose to preach'? And even if you take that position you must ask yourself if that were e the case and suddenly Heaven decided to pour out its spirit on all flesh, why haven’t most males accepted that pronouncement, many even until this day?

Or could Heaven have been saying that because males would not take the foot of oppression off of females, that Heaven itself made an announcement that Heaven supports females! I suspect that it was the latter. Again, what all have we as the human race missed, given the historical suppression of the female voice?

Since males by and large are responsible for most biblical and other religious writings, women typically had to write using synonyms, one has to consider that the male-slanted story explaining what happened in the Garden of Eden has male preference written all over it. Paul slipped up at one time and wrote in the book of Galatians that in Christ, there is neither male nor female…!

You ought to hear how male pastors and teachers try to explain that text which is contradicts what Paul om other Pauline letters and other male writers wrote!

Given that gender could only matter in a matter world, why would a God care about gender as we males care and stake our lives on? It seems to me that the one time that men will focus on the term ‘rule’, is when they apply it to a woman’s need to be ‘ruled’ by a male. Men see that as a divine right.

On the other hand there is something else in the Canon that is called, 'the Golden Rule’. And most men have overlooked the rule of treating others as you want to be treated. I do not know of any individual that wants another to rule over them one day of their lives much less everyday of their lives, particularly when that ruler is a cruel, self-absorbed dominating-type ruler.

I have looked into the faces of women who love their spouses, and believe that they he loved them, and they have been so sorely disappointed. Why? They have discovered that female-domination means far more to their counterpart than love does!And the poor males, they cannot understand what is wrong with her, and why has she shut down. Do unto others men.

If God, the literative male-God, did establish a rule that males should dominate as we have been taught then we have to ask this question, have males abandoned their birthright given their cruelty and lack of skill and ability to lead without demanding subservience? Clearly there has been a paucity of skilled leadership among males.

I would think that if God intended for males to lead, then they would have been equipped to lead, and clearly most of us know that it is not the case. The average female often appears to know more about leadership by the time that she has reached pubescence, than many males figure out by the time they are septuagenarians or ready for the grave.

Why this big pitch for females, and have I overlooked the fact that misandry or radical feminism exist, folks females although required to be, are not perfect. The fact of the matter is that I simply recognize that the nuclear family, societies and the world appear to be out of balance. And I attribute much of it not to the devil, but our having missed out on the female ingredient, component and contribution, due to dominate male leadership.

Males have set out since the beginning to destroy the female ingredient, and we are still behaving in the same manner today. Imagine a cake or pie or any other recipe that has been prepared when an essential ingredient has been left out.

You might respond that even in the animal Kingdom males are often dominate. In many instances that appears to be true, particularly when the male animal engages in physical male dominance. And unless we are no more than animals, it would be befitting for human males to behave in the same manner as their lower-male counterparts. Oftentimes, just as it is taking place in the human kingdom, female animals drive the males away.

We need to embrace, support, encourage and draw on female, wisdom and courage, something that we have ignored for millennia! In a home, oftentimes the female will shut down after repeated male-dominance, suppression and subjugation. However, it appears that in the market square, the females have agreed to fight back. I suspect that all of us and our future will be better because they have! Just imagine a whole new world!

Love Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon

A Diminished Obama Presidency in 2009 and A McCain Presidency Won't Fair Much Better!




In 2009, having won the Office of President might not be enough for the real power of the nation will reside elsewhere and behind the scenes.

If Obama were to prevail and become the President of the United States, one has to ask, where will actual power reside?

What I believe will happen if Senator Obama were to become President, is that he will be a figure-head president, and the de-facto power of the Presidency will reside elsewhere. And I guarantee that you in the backrooms of some of our powerful mostly Republican think tanks and secretive organizations, those discussions are already taking place.

I can already envision what will take place take when a leader of a foreign nation visits America. In typical and historical fashion President Obama will be the host and there will be a welcoming show of State and the typical State Dinner, particularly for Presidents of African nations and the United Kingdom.

However, when the show is all over, the red carpet has been removed and it comes down to binding strategic talks about power, money or military help, the real power that will decide what will happen will reside somewhere else, oblivious to most of the American people and even to a President Obama.

President Obama will be surprised I suspect when his decisions or Executive Orders will be neutralized, vetoed or overruled by sources outside of the Democratic Congress or even a republican majority Supreme Court. We will all witness a new and invigorated form of Republican obstructionism, something that the late conservative Senator warned Republicans about at the beginning of the Clinton Presidency.

The heads of State of other non-African nations might make a symbolic appearance or two at the White House; however, the real work decision-making will take place behind the scenes between tampering Republican obstructionists and henchmen for foreign world leaders. When the President of France looks President Obama in the eye and extends him the common courtesies, he will do so knowing that the real power to decide lies somewhere else. He and other world leaders may even place calls to former American Presidents.

Factually, a President Obama or President McCain will preside over a heavily-indebted nations where the consuming role of the President will be to pay the bills left over by yet another Republican President. The Clintons had to pay off the bills left over by the Reagan and Bush 41 presidencies.

The attitude of some world leaders will be, why waste time with President Obama when true American power resides elsewhere, they might show a President McCain a little more respect, because he is white, and by that time we will have swung fully to the white, I mean the right. I believe that the American President and Presidency over the next few years will become a national and world-wide spectacle, and that it will be run by an unseen oligarchy.

Former Secretary of State and the State Department Colin Powell, often found his and their authority and departmental mission being supplanted and undermined in this manner by deposed Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney and others! Dr. Rice, a former colleague at Stanford, did not fair any better when she was in charge the NSA and the State Department.

She would have to send other white members of her staff to go to to Donald Rumsfeld run Defense Department in order to garner information in order help to protect the nation. Isn't it interesting that Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, failed to defend the nation on 9/11 and his own command post, the Pentagon on that dreadful day?

Perhaps he spent too much time trying to run the State Department, a defacto Intelligence Department and the NSA, as opposed to performing his own job and supplanting other Cabinet members? His venal and obsequious meddling and obstructionist behavior, resulted in the loss of lives of 2000 Americans, some of which he helped to carry from the burning Pentagon.

I can see the President asking, how come I was not invited to the meeting, or why won't my Cabinet members like Don or holdovers from the Bush Administration return my call. Or better yet, what happens when Obama meets Ahmadinajab, current President of Iran. Both leaders will say, I will get back to you. The latter will have to speak with the Ayatollah, and President Obama will have to speak with the American Ayatollahs of state.

Both black Presidents in the purportedly post-Apartheid nation of South Africa discovered that just being the President of the nation does not mean that the resident President will have any real power, and that the real power in the nation resides elsewhere. I explained this to some readers before who fired back at me that the United States is not South Africa. I agreed with them, explaining that South Africa was and is 95% black, and America is roughly 10% black!

And despite the overwhelming number of black south Africans who were and are the numerical majority in South Africa, even with a black majority and two black Presidents, black South Africans were forced to come to grips with what they really knew beforehand that the power resided resided elsewhere and no longer in the office of a black President, neither among the ANC or a black majority! And what is the status of the majority of black South Africans in 2008, not much different than it was before these two black leaders held office.

I believe that we are going to soon experience the same in America, and we are going to witness the frustration of a President Obama. Like Ronald Reagan and George Bush did initially, President Obama when flustered and in spite of the control of a Democratic Congress, will attempt to appeal directly to the American people, particularly his supporters.

He will then realize that those who control and wield America's power will have more confidence in, accede to and take their marching orders from some defacto power group, other than from a President Obama or the office of a black President.

And what will be the composition of that defacto obstructionist group and who will compromise its makeup? In addition to Republicans on the political and religious right, its composition will include bankers, retired Presidents and military officers, a wealthy political power and monetary elite, left-over segregationists, Bill Kristol (one of the most dangerous men in America), the Klan and members of white separatist militia groups.

This treasonous conspiratorial group, will also be composed of individuals who are embarrassed at the very prospect of having a national leader, a mongrel, who is the product of a miscegenous black and white union between a now-deceased black nationalist Kenyan, and a white woman! A mongrel President, why that is uncivilized they would say? Well, at least the President has more than one ounce of white blood in him!

Black Americans are going to be disappointed when they realize that their neutered hero will be as powerless as President’s Mandela, and Mbeki (who recently resigned) have been in a majority black nation.

I witnessed a pageant a few years ago at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland. It was a religious pageant that was put on by a church that used the college to hold its services. During one scene in the play, a parishioner who had petitioned God for an answer to her query was disappointed with the reply that she received from God. She then verbally dismissed God and told him, that’s alright; I will go and speak to Pastor Dan about my query.

We are going to witness a similar scenario in the American Presidential drama, when not only American interest groups but foreigners approach a would-be President Obama White House, or others who would even venture there in the first place. I expect that many individuals and foreign heads of state will simply do an end around and go to the real sources of power in America away from and apart from the White House!

I can hear a President Obama proclaiming soon, but I am the President! It will take him time to understand that the power of the Presidency will reside elsewhere and not in the control of a black President! Let's hope that I will be proved to be wrong!

Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon


Post: Rev, some will say you are really against Senator Obama aren't you. Factually, I am not supporting Senator Obama, however, I am simply pointing out what I believe what will have happen to him if be were to become President. White Senator McCain might fair just a bit bitter, particularly as he shifts more to the Right. But let us not forget that America is still a majority white nation, and that is where the money and the power reides, on the white [pun intended]! Join me in the REAL WORLD/United States!

Oct 12, 2008

The Financial Crisis In America: It's A Black Thang?






A black comedian quipped in jest, on TV ONE last evening, that [Annie Mae] recently repossessed his house!

Can you believe that some Americans want to scapegoat the worldwide financial crisis, and blame it on black people? Some Americans explained a while back that it was because of the evil ways of black folks that God sent Hurricane Katrina to the Gulf Coast 3 years ago (in particular to wipe out the lower black inhabited wards in the City of New Orleans)! If that were true, God must be a white American! Can you believe it? If not, believe it anyway.

Blacks have been blamed for seemingly every calamity that has befallen America. Or, as some whites have often been known to say America would be even greater if as the leader of Japan once said, America didn't have any blacks in it. It is kind of like what took place in that other former republic, Rome, where Jews were blamed for burning down the city of Rome. And who destroyed the City of Rome, it wasn't Jews?

Conversely, blacks are rarely given any credit, except an occasional token plaudit for their innumerable contributions to America. For example, the remaining Tuskegee Airmen are finally being honored in some American venues today, sadly only a few of them are left to appreciate it.

If the sun were to fail to shine one day, in America blacks would likely be blamed for 'the darkness', pun intended. I can see some whites going down to the already darkened hood and with their burning crosses, demanding to know, what did you folks do to the sun to cause it not to shine? We have powers apparently that we don't know anything about. But has anyone asked the bigger question such as, what is the real reason for America’s current financial crisis? I believe that it has to do with ‘American Values’, and not just American corporate values.

Someone needs to ask this question, what is really wrong? Folks, if black Americans were to take all of their money out of the stock market, from banks and CDs, money-markets and 401Ks, and default on all of our mortgages trust me the American financial system would survive, except for those individuals, entities and indices that earn wealth from the marginal and the impoverished. Why? Given the history of blacks in America, and in spite of our labor we were never paid very much, and neither were our ancestors.

One thing that you can rest assure that we blacks will never be held responsible for is, America's success!

There has seldom been anything left to invest after black Americans paid their bills. Oh I know what you are going to say, well how about Oprah and Bob Johnson, they are billionaires?

Well, that's two black billionaires. But everyday you hear about a Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Wal-Mart Waltons, Mayor Bloomberg, Donald Trump... and millions of non-black millionaires, shall I go on?

Another comedian, John Witherspoon, previously bragged on the David Letterman show that he had become a 'thousandaire'! Dave looked at him quizzically, Dave being one of millions of white millionaires who reside in this country. How come it took 380 predominately black people to take care of first president George Washington's small family? In that scenario one individual George Washington kept the wealth, and the combined wealth of 380 humans beings who did the work was net zero! American values?

Today, we often witness the first president, George's Washington's mindset and his idea of American values in many of America's corporate executives, particularly the ones who earn 3 to 400 times what their struggling plantation employees earn.

It was reported on the 'This Week Show' this past Sunday, that half of the houses that are for sale in the Los Angeles housing market are repossessed houses. I live in northern California, and occasionally I get down to Los Angeles. And I can tell you that even though there are a lot of blacks in the Los Angeles basin, just like in any other American city, the majority of blacks there are not homeowners. So what groups are there that are being foreclosed on and dispossessed from their homes?

And isn't it ironic that blacks in Los Angeles struggle, given that portions of the LA basin were founded by blacks, to include Beverly Hills and parts of the San Fernando Valley.

Half of the chartered founders in the area were apparently black Spaniards (they had a drop or more of black blood in them). Interestingly enough only a few blacks reside in Beverly Hills and Bel Air California, most cannot afford it to, Shug Knight was one an exception! What is my point? In the same manner that blacks are not the majority of homeowners in Los Angeles or anywhere else in this nation, blacks did not procure the majority of the defaulted and are not to blame for America's current economic tsunami. My God, Ed McMahon defaulted, however, the Donald rescued him. Does Ed have an ounce of black blood in him?

The majority of the questionable loans that were made given the deregulation crisis, were made to hard working non-black people, just as some of the loans were made to hard-working black Americans. The question that needs to be answered is how come hard-working Americans with two and three incomes cannot afford to comfortably own a home without mortgaging his or her soul to the company store?

Yes blacks used to found cities in America, but oftentimes neither the cities nor its residents flourished in them. Why? Because you know who would either come in and destroy the cities, or they would strangulate each one economically. Have you ever heard of Allentown California, a city that was founded by a retired black military officer? Historic Allentown is located in Tulare County near Bakersfield California on highway 5, roughly 100 miles north of Los Angeles.

Captain Allen had the right idea and there are many more stories just like this one in American history. A celebration was recently held in the Bay Area, in order to celebrate Captain Allen and Allentwon, his son is still with us and he headed the project. One of the problems that the people of Allentown ran into was securing a steady stream of trade without interference from whites, and just as many black businesses experience today, they could not acquire credit! I am certain that racism, given our post racial society, had nothing to do with it. Tee hee hee!

Incidentally, California itself is rumored to have been named after a black Amazonian female named Califa! Apparently when the explorers met the actual Califa, Pizarro, Cortez or one of them (who had never seen anyone as beautiful) apparently named the region that is now known as Calif-ornia after Califa.

Someone once said that if Califa had remained a black and Spanish state, someone would have opened a restaurant and named it, Nacho Mama! Tee hee hee!

If you were to visit Mt. Vernon Virginia, and Washington's massive estate, now owned apparently by the DAR, you will discover that the only land that blacks inherited, in spite of their life-long labor there, was the plot out back where 96 of them are buried! And for all intents and purposes Washington's Mt. Vernon Virginia, was a chocolate city like New Orleans. The white Washington family, were the minorities on the estate, however, they kept all of the wealth to include Mt. Vernon's massive acreage (now shrunken), the mill, the cattle and the moolah! American values?

I want to talk about that more in the future, but think about this for now. This nation was built, initially, on the backs of unpaid black laborer. And 232 years later, the nation a so-called ‘post racial society’ is in trouble financially. And who has is being blamed, and at the same time who has to save the day?

The sistah's and brotha's are being blamed for the current calamity by some, and a half-black male will have to save the fledgling American financial system if not the world’s financial system! At least this slave will be paid for his work. I am not voting for him, however, if he succeeds I wish him success!

If Obama becomes President of the USA, George Washington will be turning over in his grave. It would be the same as if someone would have come to tell him that his favorite sidekick slave Billie's son, a descendant of Africans too, had become President of the United States in the 18th century! And if Obama becomes President of the land of the free and the home of the slave, all of the faces on Mt. Rushmore would likely take on an appearance of shock and dismay. Even Abe's face might have the appearance of shock on it.

However, it might happen and if so what an ironic twist that a black will have to save this nation that blacks built, all over again!

As opposed to blaming blacks for America's current economic crisis, has anyone considered that perhaps God permitted all of the investments of mostly selfish white Americans to be tapped? Why? Because the latter have been hoarding and storing wealth for centuries while many other Americans have been and are homeless, without health care, retirement funds, jobs ...!

Have whites and all of the other foreigners who have come to America's shores over the years in order to procure freedom, fame and fortune at the expense of blacks (who never got a share or a stake in America's success); the individuals who were 'the products' of the American enterprise system; realized yet that if it were not for blacks America would not be the nation that it is today?

The next question is, do they care? And to wit, everyone else except blacks who benefit from this system would not be beneficiaries without the lifelong blood, sweat and tears of blacks and their ancestors. America's white founders were too lazy to work in many in many instances, they did not build this nation and to wit they are not building it now! In a sense they are doing what their ancestors did, they are moving production overseas in order to exploit almost free labor by American standards, unlike their foreparents who brought their slaves here to America!

Without blacks, America today would likely be a third world nation, if not still subject to the Crown of England 232 later! Black history month? Folks everyday ought to be 'celebrate black Americans' in the United States of Amerigo, if not throughout the Caribbean, the Americas and much of the world!

In summary and conclusion readers, there is some symmetry here given the ongoing financial problem that America is experiencing today, it is as if America has gone back to the future. Blacks worked to create America’s wealth that they do not share in, and it would appear that a black will have to save America’s shaky financial system all over again (the one that they are responsible for creating, not destroying).

Blacks have something in common with American veterans (many of whom are black)they are the ones who fight for this nation so others can enrich themselves, that on the other hand receive little in return for their service.

Even Senator John McCain, he and his wife's annuitized worth is reportedly $100 million. He and his wife reportedly own 7 homes, and 12 or 13 vehicles ..., and the same John McCain recently voted down an increase in pay and benefits for veterans recently. He also voted against a bill that finally passed in the House last year that would have permitted 600,000 mostly black citizens in the District of Columbia (not to forget his hold out on ratification of the Dr. MLK Holiday), to finally have one Congressional Representative.

Yet, John Mcain would send both groups blacks and other soldiers to fight and stay on a warzone plantation for 100 years ..., however, without adequate pay or benefits, while he can live at will on any of his plantations of choice! Hmm!! American values?

Each time that blacks have asked to be compensated for the service that was rendered to this nation, they have been summarily rebuffed. Has anyone considered why the ones who have fought (often over represented by blacks in comparison with the number of blacks in the population), and the ones who helped to build this nation and its largess that everyone else enjoys, often are the lowest of the low on the economic totem pole?

The fact of the matter is that there were black soldiers who were never fully compensated for their service in the Revolutionary War. Why not? The nation and its leaders, didn't believe that blacks should be commensurately compensated, or receive compensation at for their service to this nation. American Values?

Is God poking fun at America or something? Can it be coincidental that a black man may have to lead this nation and save it financially over the next 4 to 8 years, given what whites have done to it. Well, when you think about it, whose money is it anyway? And, given that blacks are the ones who did the work to establish America, along with the natives, whose country is this anyway? Oh I know what you are thinking, what about those blacks who are a part of America's permanent underclass who appear to be doing in America's ghettos and inner cities?

Perhaps, unlike some of us, they have been conditioned to depend upon their current slave masters to give them a job. They do not realize that the masters have discovered new slave-pools overseas where they can enrich themselves by exploiting them! Today's American black slave, and now some of the white indentured servants are too cost prohibitive!

Now isn't everyone sad given the tax breaks that we allowed American corporations, and they are moving production and research in many instances overseas so that they can benefit from cheap overseas labor, having abandoned the ones who worked to make them and what their corporations are today. How does it feel to be treated as if you were a discarded black slave? Black Americas have experienced that feeling for approximately 4 centuries now!

Are your civil rights workers, historically the office of the President, the Congress and the Judiciary helping you. Let me teach you one of our favorite songs and you can sing along with us, those who have historically believed that you were better than us: We shall overcome! Tee hee!! Are you ready to join us as we have been asking you to do for years, and to set this nation on a proper heading yet?

White American Christians, according to John the 14th chapter, in Heaven everyone gets one mansion. John McCain and many others are going to be very disappointed, if they get there! They will be thinking, I had 7 homes on earth and here I get can only have one just like everyone else, and I can't have any slaves? When is the last time do you suppose that John McCain, George Bush and many like them have done an honest days work, and just consider how much they receive in compensation for doing nothing? American values!

The crisis in the American financial system cannot rightfully be blamed on black Americans, however, as with most problems in America that need solving this one may become a black thang to solve! For America to thrive and in order for all of its people to be blessed, the American value system has to change, or another crisis is right around the corner and you cannot keep blaming blacks.

Peace, love & grace,
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: Anyone who is looking for a success formula to start a nation that will eventually enrich them and all of their friends and relatives should follow America's example, here is what you do. Visit a territory in some remote location, kill the majority of its inhabitants or place them in reserves, confiscate and then occupy the land and call it your own; and don't forget to name it Freedom Land.

Afterward, construct ships and go and acquire people-laborers by force from thousands of miles away, bring them and make them work for free for centuries (or build multi-national corporations in that distant land where you can exploit their slave pools), and then set up a government with rules that cannot be amended, that will permit a select group to keep the majority of the nation's wealth for the elites and their descendants!

And don't forget to build religious houses where you can go each week and thank God for blessing you and your family and friends! It worked for those colonists and explorers who came to America. Er herm!!!

This has been an unpaid political announcement by the committee to re-elect Mayor Marion Barry to yet another term as Mayor of 'Home Rule' Washington DC. Now doesn't 'Home Rule' sound like a master to slave relationship. Will the masters of the the majority black District of Columbia, ever permit those on the plantation to have elected representatives? The people of the Republic of China told Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, when he visited Beijing that they ought to, instead of criticizing China!

Oct 10, 2008

America's Economic Crisis: Has Anyone Considered Comeuppance As A Explanation?




It is frightening to live in a nation whose future depends upon whether or not its citizens continue to shop, spend and use credit. Is the breath of life in America shopping, spending and using credit, is that what we breathe? Should we refer to what we are often asked to engage in as 'shopping slavery' in an economic Apartheid system, a calculated system where 95% of the population is governed by an wealthy economic minority elite and the benefits more and more inure to the minority?

There has been plenty of evidence of late that will that seems to show that if America's citizens were to stop shopping, spending and borrowing that America's fragile economic-market system would collapse!

How many Americans have considered that America's two most recent crises during the past decade, the 9/11 terrorist attack and the cascading collapse of the 'American Idol's' economic-market complex could be consequential, and wielded by the hand of a higher source? Or, could it be that America is simply reaping what it has sown, which is another law of the Universe?

More and more the world is recognizing that what happens in the USA does not stay in the USA, it effects everyone! Other nations have suddenly realized that they must build world banks that are independent of the American system, and that they must find another economic standard to depend upon, in order to free themselves from the American dollar and its fragile system.

George Bush normally would instruct Americans not to worry about the conditions that have been occurring on his watch. He might say something like this, Americans should simply go shopping, as he once did during a recent crisis or to continue to borrow. Does George Bush know something that we don't know? Again, it is frightening to live in a nation where its future and the well-being of its citizens depends upon whether or not the people continue to shop, spend and borrow or not!

Most Americans are furious, they are ignoring Bush and at the same time questioning their representatives, for after all this is a representative democracy or is it really? More and more America appears to be headed back to where it began, a nation that was conceived for wealthy white men, who wanted others to work for little or nothing, and the wealthy would receive all of the profits in addition to tax relief.

Americans have begun to realize that by casting their bread (dollars) upon the waters that in many days they may not receive 'a return' after all, and that only a wealthy elite will be doing so, if exclusively in the form of an undeserved 'golden parachute'! Other Americans who can not gain access to the opportunity structures of this nation are also furious? Why?

They continue to look at the wealth of a minority elite who depend upon individual Americans borrowing, and purchasing their goods and services. But at the same time, the growing majority that borrow, and purchases goods and services that benefit the minority-elite causing them to flourish exponentially are not being benefited themselves. Hmm!! The majority are, to borrow a colloquialism being hosed! More and more of America's middle-class is being pushed into America's permanent underclass.

Being a part of the underclass is something that many Americans escaped from by borrowing just a generation or two ago, and they do not want to go back there!

It is even more disconcerting when one considers that the elite group that controls and wields America's wealth, the ones who have benefited the most, have shut out those who are the source of their exploitative wealth! And on top of everything else many in the corporate elite group are moving production and research overseas, leaving the American majority unemployed and unprotected.

The fact of the matter is that the wealthy are getting wealthier, and more and more the majority are being downsized and repositioned in deference to burgeoning corporate wealth that is being captiously divided up among a small corporate elite! Are we approaching a time of class warfare? I believe that we are very near to a time when the people are going to revolt. In fact some are already revolting! To those who are being returned to the permanent underclass, you ignored the warnings that were provided you when you looked down on other Americans!

Perhaps this is a time that Americans ought to consider what President Bush understands, that America's macroeconomic system depends on borrowers and spenders, and as long as they keep spending and borrowing you never have to pay off your bills. And that is how Bush conducted at our national economic affairs,you pay this month's installment which makes you eligible to borrow even more.

Unfortunately economic realities have caught up with President Bush too. He will leave America with a national debt that quadruples the GDP of many a group of nations in the world combined. In other words he spent, and he will like most American Corporate Executive, walk away with his Golden Parachute, and the American corporation that he will leave behind will be bankrupt.

Is it any wonder that when George H.W. Bush, Lee Iacocca and others once visited Japan to ask for concessions, that the Japanese executives referred to their American counterparts are 'gangsters', or the kids would say 'gangstas'?

Another question to ask is whether or not the current American system serves all Americans, or whether or not all Americans are simply slaves to America's credit based market-driven economic system, whose benefits inure to the benefit of an elite group, instead of to all hard-working Americans? The latter represents most Americans, including those who are willing to work hard if they just had the opportunity, despite all protestations to the contrary. I would ask that Americans consider this other explanation for America's present crisis.

We have all heard of cyberspace and the blogosphere. And where have Americans been living? I believe that we have been living inside of creditspace or a collapsible creditsphere?

Over the course of the past century, America has engaged in military terrorism (purchased on credit) as well as ecoterrorism against other nations in the world. And as a result, America has willfully and intentionally wrecked economies at one time or another in nations like Cuba, the DPRK, Iraq, Iran..., causing other individuals prolonged unfair, needless and undeserved suffering!

Perhaps this is comeuppance that we are experiencing as Americans for average averages Americans are being given the opportunity to feel what we have caused other people in other nations to experience because for decades, simply because we did not agree with their politics. The average American has looked the other way, and some have even stood by to justify the venal practices of our government, against other people and nations of the world. I am certain that God does not always agree with America's way of doing things. Tom Jefferson once said that God's justice won't sleep forever!

Isn't it the result of American greed, hegemony and arrogance that we are witnessing? Perhaps the Sovereign, the Universe or the Unifying Principle have had enough! Each of us ought to consider whether or not we have abandoned divine principles in exchange for the quest or pursuit of wealth, and corporations should consider the same in terms of their insatiable drive for the acquisition of corporate wealth and the maximization of profits.

We are a nation that is clearly out of sync we universal principles! Can we shop, spend and borrow or in other words buy ourselves out of this current crisis? Let us end where we began, has anyone considered comeuppance as an explanation for America's its two most recent crises, or that we are simply reaping what we have planted?

In conclusion, I suspect that it is time for a course correction in America. We must forget the lyrics of Bobby McFerrin, 'don't worry, be happy. Americans have lived that way for too long. The course correction must take place across all class lines, even at the rank and file level. At one time the majority of the world's goods and services benefited 6% of the world's population. How did that happen we must ask?

America's last two crises, the terrorist attack and its current economic crisis could have both been avoided. What's next? I suspect that the American people based upon what has been taking place of late, will have to decide that for themselves for there is plenty of blame to go around!

Peace & Grace,
Rev. C. Solomon


Addenda: Shop and borrow less, on the other hand think more!