the Middle Road

Back in time, springtime, Joe Biden rescued the Democratic party from leftism when when he entered the primaries and was eventually able to enter the mainstream main race for Presidency, between him and the former guy. 

In so doing, Joe Biden not only rescued our nation from trumpian quasi-fascist deterioration; he also, as it turns out, rescued the Democrats from their tendency toward self-inflicted leftist excess. 

Joe’s reasonably progressive approach to taxation is now being realized in his administration’s policies to confront the problems we now face. 

Now the word on the Web is that Joe’s tax proposal will skim from Corporate coffers instead of the, specifically, infamous “rich” or “1%”.

This makes sense. Most folks have a “sense” of what those corporate entities are; they’re the big names that seem to dominate everything that goes on; you know who they are.

Whereas, the “rich” are not so readily identifiable. They’ll always be there, but not in such high profile as everybody’s favorite scapegoat—the big corporations who run everything.

You know who those fatcat corporations are. . . AmGooFbWalMcBurgerBlahblah and so on. Let ‘em pay a little more for all that goes on, all that infrastructure out there that enables them to develop and transport all the goods and services that put $ in their coffers at the expense of Joe Public and Jane Doe.

The other reported source for Bidenic public fundraising is saving money by ending federal fossil fuel subsidies. This makes perfect sense. The dinosaur oil companies that draw their lifeblood from ancient dinosaur pools—they’re doing just fine, money wise. They don’t need .gov tax breaks. Not only that, but we got a legitimate societal strategy underway now for minimizing carbon emissions as much as possible.

Let We the Consumer People get the tax breaks!

And then there’s grapevine news that Joe wants to end offshore tax havens for corporations. Sounds like a winner to me. Keep the American money over here, Stateside, as much as possible. 

The bottom line is that Joe’s leadership is following the Moderate middle that he always did represent since he was elected to national leadership  and governance in 1972.

Joe was always a reasonable guy. He still is, right in the middle of American governance, constantly delivering Democrats from excessive leftism, and delivering Republicans from falling off the edge of fascist fallacy.

We told you that Joe was a middle-of-the-road guy, striving to keep us from crashing on those guardrails that line the Left and Right of our 21st-century Race toward  trouble.

And Joe is living up to that Middle path, which has always defined true American progress.

Keep up the good work, Joe!

Glass half-Full 

A Functional President

 I am a Republican, and yet,  and yet . . .

I recommend that every American listen to President Biden’s news conference this afternoon. 

To see Joe addressing our national problems and policies is to witness an attentive, competent President.

The man is obviously an experienced lawmaker, a well-seasoned leader.

I will not get into the details of what he said. The man speaks well enough for himself, his administration, and this nation. Give it a listen.

What you see there is called leadership; it is an attribute that put Joe where he is today, and will propel his administration, with a little help from our friends,  along paths of purposeful achievement.

He speaks, as Harry Truman did, with common sense. He identifies our challenges, as Kennedy did, with confidence. He addresses our problems, as Carter did, with analytical preparedness. He conducts himself, as Obama did, with dignity.

And yet he is Joe, his own man, and he is most assuredly not sleepy. Joe is wide awake and ready to get to work, and to put Americans to work, unless you'd rather shoot craps with stock market bets.

Oh and speaking of stock, how about all you investors out there. . . buy some stock in the real America--the one with wheels and gears and storefronts, startups and services and platforms , instead of lollygagging in buying the dips and selling the fluff. 

Joe's response to the question about infrastructure is an indicator of where this nation will go under his leadership. There are glints of Rooseveltian innovation in his presentation. Just get with the program; there are people out there who need work now. 

If you’re a Republican, hey, don't freak out. Give the man a chance. To get through this time of trouble is more important than sulking in a corner.

We all need a little help now and then. If you don't need it, how about chipping in a little effort or support for those who do.

If you’re a Democrat, be aware of the fact that Joe is what this country needs now, moreso than Elizabeth or Bernie, zealous as they are. God bless 'em. They'll do just fine where they are. 

Oh, and btw, God bless America, land that I love. Do you?

Glass half-Full

End of Empire

’T’was so many years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play; they been going in and outa style, but they’re guaranteed to leave in style.

The end of the British Empire, reportedly brought about by the withering of windsor importance, is now underway.

CCB recently enhanced the news in netfixed nuance. Now we morph to the virtual making of modern myth: the virtue part gets vexed, laid low by a slow killing of kamelot in the low-glow of virtual video. 

In the earliest known episode, Death by a thousand cigarettes drives nails into the coffin of the king. His stilted speech is presented as mythic tragedy, soon to be followed by an unexpectedly long  Elizabethan rerun reign: sixty-plus years! which is now being pseudo-documented in entertainment history. 

Netfixed fiction delivers thereby virtual vereality into millions of couch-potato hearts and  minds, a history lesson like no other.

By’n by in the ‘flix, along comes Diana, mythic goddess of the moon; she eclipses royal brilliance with her camelot-like innocence, only to be echoed decades later by Meg the magnificent, bearing poor little rich color boy  as the world snoops to conquer a once and future kingdom.

So we watch, spellbound, while monarchic mystery melts away, by virtual videolity, conducted with opratic virtuosity and myth-making mastery, accompanied by great leaps and bounds of tweeting terpitude.

In the long run, royal ruin makes fodder for modern myth, brought forth in faux-factual netfixed fiction. The vid-queen and her future heir apparent kings bequeath faux-royal amusement to the masses, who have nothing better to do at night than to dutifully lap up netfixed nuance so it will leap past amazonic vastness and hulu vudu . . . all made possible by the amazing longevity of the spinster of Westminster. 

Not far away, we find citizen-queen in her own dreams Eleanor Videobe. She's at home in her humble flat; she puts on the facebuk  she keeps in a phone by the door. Who is it for? Ah, look at all the lonely people, where do they all belong?Eleanor Videobe.

Meanwhile, back at the blanche, the sun sets on the Empire and on their American red-headed stepchild. We can see plainly now that, as Sir Ringo once alluded, this is, forsooth,  not your father’s Oldsmobile! It has morphed to something else entirely. 

You never really know how things will turn out in this bloomin' life. Obladee obladah life goes on, blah, lala how the life goes on. Maybe now we’ll learn of who the Walrus really was. We do know this much: As Sir John intimated long ago, dead men wear no shoes, but demising empires do put on video series-es, (as Gollum might say.) Furthermore, as Sir Paulonce sang: the undertaker breathed a heavy sigh. Now we know the sun is indeed setting on the Empire. Wave goodbye. She's leaving home, bye bye!

Wave byebye to the king and queen. Methinks mean Mr. Mustard hath done them in. It was, however, an incredibly long run! Cheerio! Keep your chins up and the stiff upper lip. The king is dead; long live the king!

Smoke 

Winds of Change down South

 By ’n by, way down South

that sleepy ole antebellum way

of honky life got laid low—

had to kowtow to a new master

whose color was darker

with features more Africana.

A newfound integrity

has ultimately laid low

the ole mint julep on the front porch days

of white

privilege

 cuz the good ole boys

and gals got laid on them

by the sands of time

a rectified blend of African charm

and a revolutionary new testament of grace.

But the racist honkies

took a long damn time to 

figure that part out.

So they were in for a long hard

lesson, but

they didn’t know it yet.

Black folks knew the lesson would be 

hard

‘cuz they’d been livin’ it for over 400

years

though it took them a while to figure out 

just how stubborn and contrary the whites

could be

when they got that deer-in-the-lights look

in their eyes.

Things got serious

after Brother Medgar was assassinated

in his own front yard

after speakin at the New Jerusalem

Church

And then

the ancient soulful cry of Rachel

weeping for her children was heard

all along the magnolia boulevards

and carefully-tended camellia pathways of white

privilege . . .

here, there and yonder

throughout the black community

and beyond.

Brother Medgar had caught a glimpse

of the Promised Land,

but he never got there

like Brother Martin never got there.

Nevertheless

there was a burning bush down south

h’yeah

where they lived and breathed

and had their being

and worked tirelessly among their people.

Sister Anne, during her last week

at Tougaloo College 

accompanied a small group

of intrepid black folk to order luncheon

at a downtown dime-store lunch counter,

following the example of them bruthas

in Greensboro 

a few years earlier.

Brother Medgar’s call,

Brother Martin’s call

for voter registration

and just plain-ole freedom

and dignity and justice

was ringin’ out!

It reverberated

from the red clay hills of Georgia

among the magnolias and

carefully-tended camellias

of the Deep South,

formerly thought to be the Solid

South

before it got fracked with a fresh

delirium tremens of

falling-apart white

privilege

and got run outa town

by the great grandsons and daughter

of former slaves.

As the dews of Dixie used to drop on us

so are the pages of  that history long-gone

droppin’ down on us 

as a decadent dust 

cast on us:

Ole mint julep on the front porch white

privilege been sho’nuff proven wrong,

laid down low

in the dust heap of history

 

Yessir, that Ole South system is now long gone;

but for it I wouldn’t give you a damn dime

‘cause the weight of that abuse could not go on 

as it broke the back of American liberty

liberty just tryin’

tryin’ to be free!

The weight of our abuse came all tumblin’ down on us

with Rosa’s resolve—her courageous dignity.

She refused  to go to the back of the bus,

and so sparked the long-slow death

of segregation integration

in this nation

land of the free

home of the brave:

Brave Rosa!

Rosa’s refusal changed the course history.

But in some ways

we still be traipsin’ along

on that Edmund Pettis bridge

with Abraham, Martin, and John Lewis

Anybody here

seen the long hard-won legacy of Sister Rosa?

King of Soul 

EvanGelations chapter 3etc

 Oh, ye foolish Evangelatians! who has bewitched you? 

In our own churches and gatherings, Jesus Christ has for so long been declared as Crucified and Risen!

And yet, we need to get this one current confusion cleared up. 

Did we obtain the armor of God from any strong man of this world? Or did we come under our Lord’s protection by receiving and believing the Faith in His Gospel?

Are we so foolish? Having been guided by the Holy Spirit, are we now herded into dependence on the powers of this world to assure our so-called religious freedom?

Let us not forget, y’all, what Christ himself taught:

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”

Glass half-Full