to be a Demublican

I was raised down in Louisiana, way back in the 1960’s. At that time in the Bayou state it seemed like everybody and their brother was a Democrat.
In 1969, I was Student Council President at our high school, and my buddy Doug Lambert was President of the Key Club.
When I moved across town to LSU, Doug and I were roomies for awhile and there was a lot going on on at LSU at the time.
There were, in fact some deep changes taking place on campuses all across the nation; students were getting more and more involved with politics.

I recently wrote a novel, King of Soul, about all of what was going on during those turbulent times. Take a look at it  my website below, or on Amazon.

In 1972, George McGovern was organizing his campaign to challenge Nixon’s presidency. Doug suggested that he and I stand for election in a precinct caucus to represent McGovern as delegates at a state convention, leading up to the the Democrats’ national convention.
Well there wasn’t much of nothin' that I can remember about that, except that McGovern did later get the nomination, but I wasn’t there.  He ran against Nixon and lost big-time
. . . which was kinda odd because a couple years later the American people ran Nixon out of the White House because of his shady dealings pertaining to the Watergate break-in and other quasi-illegal activities.
The groundswell of opposition to Nixon that resulted in his exit from office was a little bit like what’s happening to Trump now. However, a lot of the bad feeling about Nixon was probably directly related to his procrastination in getting us out of the war after he promised during the campaign to get us out of it.

Well somewhere in all that hullabaloo I got registered as a Democrat.
I stayed that way for more than a few years, although I was not into politics and voting during the period of my spousal search and subsequent raising of a young family.
Somewhere in the ’80’s, Ronald Reagan went over to Berlin and told Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. It was a great follow-up to Kennedy’s Ich bin Ein Berliner  stroke of genius, so I registered as a Republican, and I stuck with that affiliation for a quite a while.

We used to have a Republican party in this country; it stood for Constitutional law, free enterprise, freedom of religion, low taxes, and a respect for the right of every person and every family to make the best (s)he can out of what (s)he can get without a lot of interference from the government.
But nowadays I get the feeling that the Republican party has disappeared; it has been superceded by a bunch of yessir this and yessir that yes-men who form all their strategies around what the Donald says and what he approves of or does not approve of.

But hey. True leadership requires speaking to all the people all the time, invoking the traditions of this already great nation to inspire citizens to work actively in cross-the-aisle cooperation to solve our problems.
Leadership is not about evaluating policy decisions based upon whether the advisor, inquisitor or reporter is for you or against you based on some vague theory of fake news.
The only good thing that sticks in my mind about this current president is that he ordered our embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem. I have always wanted a President to do that. Good move, there, Mr. President.
Nevertheless . . .
What we need now is a President who will not be distracted by useless judgements re: who is for him or who is against him.
In this present time of covid-crisis, we need a President who can truthfully say, as Gerald Ford did in 1975:

“Our long national nightmare is over.” 

Oh! if our current President could only manage to  make such a declaration legitimately, after actually inspiring us and  leading us into paths of healing instead of quibbling over who’s on his side or who’s on Nancy’s side.
We need a President who can say, as Roosevelt did in 1933:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

So I am declaring my affiliation now as a Demublican.
Maybe I’ll vote for a third-party candidate, as I did last time, or maybe I’’ll find a reason to support the Donald if he’ll straighten up and fly right, or maybe I’ll vote for Joe.
I don’t know.
Donald, see if you can get yourself settled down to actually lead this nation out of the Covid threat, instead of fretting over whether you’ll be re-elected or not, because your paranoid pugnacious politicism is screwing up everybody’s confidence that we can actually defeat this iinvisible monster.
Get your act together.
You too Joe! You might find yourself in the hot seat, come next January.
As Uncle Walter would say, if he were here:

“And that’s the way it is, May 10, 2020.” 

King of Soul 

Dr. King remembered

I was a white boy growing up in the deep south.
In my life, 1951 . . .  a vivid memory stands out: the remembrance of this brave man:


. . . his life, his work, his service to mankind, his leadership in the perilous project of fulfilling our Creator's call to 

. . . bring good news to the afflicted, . . . to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners . . . (Isaiah 61:1)

In my lifetime, I can think of no other American who demonstrated greater courage than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He persisted tirelessly in the sacred call to blaze a trail of opportunity for oppressed people. He persevered in the face of certain death, as he fully understood the vengeful opposition of other men--white and black--who  ultimately took him down.

The name assigned to him at birth, King, was appropriate, as he went on to conduct the life of a true leader, a born leader, an orator, an organizer who truly fulfilled  the declaration of our nation's founding principles:

We find these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,  that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In my lifetime, I can recall no other person who more deserves annual remembrance during a national holiday. Although he had his faults, his own sins as we all do,  he was a man of whom this world was not worthy.  In this world, he helped God and fellowman to "make a way where there is no way." He blazed a trail toward that "equal" status mentioned by Mr. Jefferson and the Continental Congress when they composed our Declaration back in 1776.

I am looking forward to meeting Dr. King in heaven, or whatever you call it. Many years ago, I wrote this song about him and an ancient leader named Moses:

Mountaintop

#WhateverTrump

So okay all you Republican floozies, if Trump is going to be the man with the plan then we need to get a few principles clarified upfront from the get-go.

#1. The man needs to be humbled and kept in his place, if he is going to be a truly effective leader. His ego is too big. This should be our strategy in dealing with the strong leader that he is.

#2. Other Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Mitt Romney and both former Presidents Bush will need to ride him hard to keep the buckaroo in line with Republican principles.

#3. A very important principle of the GOP is the one spoken by our founder, Abraham Lincoln; he exhorted the folks at Gettysburg . . . "government of the people, for the people, and by the people shall not perish from the earth."

And government by the people means teamwork, not one guy calling all the shots.

#4. Evangelical leaders who are smitten with Trump's authoritative leadership style need a reality check. Remember the words of our Lord, the One who is faithful and true, who said,

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave"

#5. #WhateverTrump does not mean that whatever Trump wants should be done. It means whatever Trump wants must be harnessed by the Republican party, the party that put him where he is today, the party that will keep his initiatives in line with Republican principles, the party that will diligently and compulsively advise him in matters critical to the preservation and extension of this great American Republic and also the free world at large.

#6. #WhateverTrump does not mean that whatever Trump decides to do should be done. It means whatever Trump decides should be done must be legislatively advised and consented to by the Congress of the United States; and limited, if necessary, but the Supreme Court of the United States, so that we will remain a representative Republic, a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

#7. For my fellow-Christians, the most important principle of all: In God We Trust, not in the power of any one man, nor any .gov to fix everything. For those who do not choose to trust God, #good luck, and may the farce be with you.



Glass half-Full

Mandela

Every now and then in history, a man comes along who finds a way where there was, until he found it, no way. Such a man was Nelson Mandela.

Like David of old, who declined to put on Saul's heavy armor, Mandela refused to take on the stultifying bondage of conventional 20th-century political role-playing. His joyfully legitimate leadership defied ideological stereotypes; in the end, he was as close to being beyond reproach as any great man can be. There will never be another like Nelson Mandela.

He traveled, successfully, on a difficult, rutted road of unprecedented grassroots authority. That self-imposed path was a trail of great suffering, but he also wrangled it into a way of boundless joy, which was often reflected in his smiling face. Blazing a precarious trail between the exploitive institutions of established human power, and the revolutionary demands of people rendered powerless by racism and colonialism, he managed to emerge in history as a man of peace, not a man of war. This is no small accomplishment for any man whose role will be perpetually recorded in history as "liberator."

Today, the day after his death, the worldwide web is filled with praise and accolades for this unusual man, so I will mention but a few of his accomplishments that have favorably impressed this Christian (me.)

These four milestones of Mandela's life inspire me with hope. Hope that it's possible, in the dismally tragic trail of human history, for a man born into casted injustice and ruthless apartheid, to divert history itself into paths of, not violence and bloody revolution, but Reconciliation and Forgiveness:

~ He patiently endured 27 years of political imprisonment, emerging with forgiveness instead of vengeance, wisdom instead of bitterness.

~ He guided strife-torn South Africa to elections, with voting, in 1994, instead of violent revolution.

~ After his 27-year prison ordeal, Mandela worked constructively with his Presidential predecessor, Frederick W. De Klerk, in a peaceful transition toward a fully representative democratic government, rather than permitting violent groups to wreak vengeance against the purveyors of apartheid.

~ Like our American founder George Washington, Nelson Mandela refused a king-like role among his grateful people. Instead of aggrandizing his own unique position of merited strength, he stepped down from Presidency after one term, thus facilitating a transferral of South African governmental authority to a leadership base broader than himself. Also like George Washington, he forged a decently pragmatic path between military and political revolutionary impulses among his own people.

In a century of polarizing ideologies, this was a man neither a communist nor a capitalist, although one of those simplistic terms was erroneously attached to his name for awhile. Rather, he was a President, elected by his people. In light of what he endured to achieve that role, he is worthy of the the world's respect. There will never be another like Nelson Mandela.

CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress