New Deal or Bad deal?

I would like to discuss why social programs are not the answer to poverty. They are rarely successful in improving poverty, but good liberals continue to support these failing programs. Whether or not they work is secondary to liberals, the main thing is it makes them feel good by giving to the poor. While alleviating their own guilt, they are actually removing the motivation to succeed from the very people that they are trying to help. Programs offered by liberals are not based on spiritual principles and the hard truths of life. Poverty in America is caused by spiritual poverty. There is opportunity in America for those who are sufficiently motivated to work hard for it.

The crux of the problem is the broken family. Today's popular culture does everything that it can to encourage children not being brought up by their mother and father. An average of 25 percent of children today are born out of wedlock, 70 percent in the black community. Encouraging marriage, and stigmatizing single parents or blended families, will do more for reducing poverty and crime than any social program can. But altruists would consider that mean and judgmental. For them it is out of the question, even though there is a direct relationship between poverty, crime, drug abuse and non-intact families. Unfortunately popular culture celebrates and embraces the single mom, divorce, the blended family and homosexual marriage and casual sex. In an effort to raise the self esteem of children growing up in broken homes, we are encouraging more broken homes by removing the stigma. In this case, by not being judgmental, we feel good about ourselves, while we are encouraging behavior that exacerbates the problem.

It's a lot easier, and it feels a lot better, to give money to the poor and offer heart felt sympathy, rather than to tell them the hard truth and show tough love. The truth is, that money is not the answer and hand outs will only exacerbate the problem. The message should be don't to get pregnant until you're married and can support a family. If you get pregnant before they are married, now is the time to get married, stay married and take responsibility. Families must do whatever it takes to stick it out in the marriage and raise their children together honorably and don't look for handouts. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and take responsibility. The only one who I know that tours the country, going to poor neighborhoods to spread this message, is the black comedian and actor Bill Cosby. Cosby has written a book and makes many speeches in poor black neighborhoods preaching personal responsibility. Click here for one of Bill Cosby's inspiring speeches. He is often criticized by the civil rights activists, and black leaders, and many liberals for being mean, uncaring and unsympathetic. Yet Cosby's principles are undeniably successful when applied.

Civil rights activists are always lobbying for more government money, but the ugly truth is that just perpetuates the problem. By removing the economic dependence that the mother and father share with each other, we are increasing the chances of the family splitting up and leaving the children without a father in their home.. Throwing money at the problem of poverty in America just diminishes the ambition of people to reach down into their souls and rise to the challenge, by pulling themselves up.

Of course it wouldn't make a person with an altruistic philosophy feel very good by lecturing poor children on the virtues of work, responsibility, and family. They don't want to here it, they just to give some money and heart felt sympathy. It is human nature to take the easy way out. But the easy way, is not always the best way. Talk of white racism is also bound to get applause, by giving them a scapegoat for the mess that they find themselves in. But anger only distracts them from the solution of hard work, discipline and personal responsibility. But, by giving them handouts to live on, they are deprived of the motivation of doing what it takes to provide for themselves and their families. Worse than that, they lose their honor. Honor can't be bought or sold, it must be earned.

Tough love and altruism are two philosophies that don't work well together. Honor and nobility trumps self esteem every time. There is no honor in doing what you think is right just to feel good, so you can say, "at least I did something". True happiness and honor comes from living right, and making the tough decisions. Often liberals are misled, manipulated and deceived in their search for sense of value, self worth self esteem, popularity, acceptance and happiness. If you remain true to unwavering spiritual principles, it's harder to be fooled, but it is also harder row to hoe. Spiritual progress is usually found in that harder row, in this man's humble opinion.

Party Like a Rock Star

This article will unfortunately stir up lots of negative emotion in the typical inhabitants of this upside down society. I am going to attack and discredit a thing that you value highly. As a matter of fact this may very well be America's current number one value. Have you guessed it by now? I'm talking about music, or at least what you call music. No, I'm not going to talk about hip-hop or gangster rap in this article. I'm talking about what is considered mainstream in the upside down society that I've been living in for the last 52 years. I'm talking about rock-and-roll.

I remember as a child, tuning to various radio stations randomly, sometimes stopping to listen to the latest rock and roll hit. If someone would come near I would feel embarrassed of what I was listening to and quickly turn it off or change the station. These were by today's standards innocent songs like "Stuck on a Feeling", "Baby come on Light my Fy-er", "I shot the Sheriff,( but I didn't shoot the deputy too"), "Ground Control to Major Tom" and "Muskrat Love" are a few that come to mind. Silly but harmless songs. These "top 40" hits could be found on AM radio stations.

FM radio and hard rock was beginning to become popular. I found it ironic that the very stations that had the most vile, noisy, and angry rock and roll music had the quietest most soft spoken DJs. Looking back on it, this was no accident. This irony was used to legitimize this new media that would hypnotically lead many of our youth on a path of drugs, godlessness and amoral behavior. Sex, drugs and rock and roll was the new motto. These new "hard rock" stations could only be found on the FM band , which up until then was not widely listened to. Most all radios at the time only covered the AM band. Many youngsters bought new-fangled stereophonic FM tuners with external speakers and turntables, just to hear FM radio and play albums. If you were hip to all the latest transistorized stereo equipment, you were known as an "audiofile". Before the invasion of rock and roll music, the FM band was reserved for public radio broadcasts and classical music. Things that the average Joe wasn't interested in. Like I said the, the soft spoken DJ was no accident. Rock and roll was introduced discretely. This was meant to deceive or confuse the occasional FM listener of the time when accidentally came across one of these new vile, angry hostile and noisy rock and roll stations.

A new instrument had to be introduced for this offensive media that disguised itself as music, it was the electric guitar. Have you ever seen the waveform of an electric guitar on an oscilloscope? I have. It's not like any other instrument. Most instruments have a waveform that displays a sine wave with some roughness along the curves. That roughness is what gives each instrument it's individual character, a pure sine wave without this roughness would sound like a whistle or a flute. On an oscilloscope an electric guitar is almost all roughness which practically covers up the sine wave. In other words, the sound that an electric guitar produces is almost pure distortion. In live performances the sound is intentionally turned up so loud that it hurts the ears physically, and in some cases causes permanent damage. Most Rock and roll musicians suffer some form of ear injury.

Now let's look at the musicians. For the most part they are amoral people, many addicted to hard drugs like heroine and cocaine. When they are on the road, most bands have a "roadie" that specializes in of finding and purchasing drugs, usually heroine and cocaine, and bringing it back to the band members. They don't like traveling with drugs because of the fear of getting busted. I learned of this when I lived in L.A. and I had a close friend who was an ex rock and roll musician that traveled on tour with famous bands. They are known to destroy hotel rooms, break furniture and windows, start things on fire, burn and stain the carpets, damage the walls, etc. Although they usually pay for the damages, most hotels don't want these wealthy but reckless, careless, narcissistic, contemptuous human beings. Of course they are most all womanizers, with many groupies to choose from each night. Where is the outrage from the women's rights groups, and the fathers with young daughters? Oh, that's right, ironically they are in the audience themselves applauding these users of women, and narcotics. Yet when you see them on a TV or radio talk show, amazingly, they are usually soft spoken just like the DJs of the early FM days.

A popular term these days is " party like a rock star", the fore mentioned behavior is exactly what that term is referring to. Also some other mainstream terms are: "that rocks", "rock-on", "rockin' the house","let's rock and roll" . These terms have become so mainstream yet they refer the the extremely negative, destructive, and narcissistic behavior that I mentioned above. Am I the only one who sees the truth? I cringe when I hear these terms, and I hear them often. These terms not only condone very negative behavior, they elevate it and celebrate it, some even worship it. How have we gotten to the point where it is commonplace to celebrate bad behavior? These terms are being used by teachers and professional people who are trying to be cool. Why has bad behavior become cool? And why is being cool our number one value? Just look at the names of some of these rock bands, "The Grateful Dead", "Guns and Roses","Cheap Trick"(a trick is what a prostitute does), "AC/DC (this means bi-sexual) just to name a few. The song titles are also offensive like: "Riding my Train, High on Cocaine", Highway to hell. Whenever I see a bumper sticker on a car with a negative slogan I can be sure it is the name of some new band like "Lost" or"Abused".

The number one top hit TV show is American Idle, which is all about glorifying music and the people who sing it. People idolize rock stars and would almost give their lives to become one. That is the premise for this show. Just the word "idol" in the title seems blasphemous to me, it's a negative word, it means false God. And that is exactly what these contestants are so very much hoping to become, an idol, a false God, a celebrity with fans, with people to worship them. Why am I the only one who sees it. THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

Another phenomenon that is happening in today's society is the pervasiveness of music into all areas of our lives, day and night, working and playing. Due to modern technology, many people walk down the street with a gadget in their ear, pumping this filth directly into their brain. This type of music is commonplace in grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, malls and in almost every workplace. It is just about everywhere and impossible to escape from. I was surprised when I saw pillow speakers for sale. These are speakers built directly into pillows so your mind can be polluted twenty four hours a day, even while you are sleeping. I don't even like to call it music, because music should be beautiful, uplifting and soothing, as in the expression "music soothes the savage beast". Today's music(hip-hop, rap) is nothing of the sort. It is angry, it is hateful, it is intentionally racist and promoting of violence, crime and the use of drugs. It is not disguised or subtle, it is in your face.

A very common hand gesture of today's youth is: holding up the forefinger and pinkie, while folding over the other three fingers. This symbol was made popular by heavy metal bands. This is meant to represent the devil. The theme of heavy metal music is Satanism. The main purpose of Satanism is to mock Christianity. Heavy metal is an off-shoot of rock and roll. There are also many rock and roll songs with Satanic themes. The Rolling Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil" being one of the more popular ones.

Of course, rock and roll was just testing the water to see how low popular music could go. Next came heavy metal which popularized Satanism, then punk rock and grunge which was for misfits without a cause, then hip-hop and gangster rap which is the most racist, sexist, violent, music genre to date. Not surprisingly, Hip-Hop and gangster rap are the most popular among today's youth. There is no doubt in my mind, that the rock and roll music of the sixties, paved the way for the rap music of today. There, I did it. I discredited the one thing that today's society holds so dear to its heart, the rock-star and popular music.

The Case of Anderson Tate Jr.

I researched that story of the man who died in police custody after swallowing a bag of cocaine. Judging from the information that I could find, this seems like a case of media bias. The press seems to be predisposed to take the side of a black criminal, rather than being impartial or, God-forbid, take the side of the police. I could not find a copy of the video, but I did get a description of it from several news articles. I will reprint one of those articles below which was written when the man's mother filed a lawsuit against the City of Fort Pierce, FL.

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A federal civil rights lawsuit recently was filed by the mother of a Black man who swallowed crack cocaine when he was arrested and died in police custody because his pleas for help were ignored by officers.

Anderson Tate Jr., 22, was pulled over by a state trooper in Fort Pierce, FL, in December 1996 for not having a license plate, attorney Guy Rubin said. He swallowed the crack cocaine he was carrying, according to Rubin. When taken to jail, Tate's pleas for help reportedly were ignored, and he was taunted in a three-hour ordeal captured on video by a surveillance camera. He went into convulsions and died later at a hospital.

"It was a tragic death," Tate's mother, Virginia Barrett, said. "You can see what they do to young Blacks who go to jail."

Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from the officers involved, the sheriffs office, the city of Fort Pierce and the Florida Highway Patrol.

The St. Lucie County Jail surveillance videotape shows one officer dancing a jig as Tate, strapped in a chair, begged for help.

Two officers were fired, one was demoted and four were suspended, attorney Stuart M. Address said. Six of the officers are White; the other is Hispanic.

Prosecutors are investigating whether to bring criminal charges against them.
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I could not find any articles indicating that the police involved were charged with a crime, nor could I find any evidence that the mother had won the lawsuit. Unless you know otherwise, I assume that the police were not charged with a crime and that the mother did not win her lawsuit. Don't you find it odd that the allegations were reported repeatedly, but I can not find mention of the outcome?

First I would like to say that the articles that I read about this case all tried to infer “racism”. The mainstream media jumps at any opportunity to try and prove that racism is the cause of many of societies problems. I saw no evidence of that in what I read, besides the fact that the victim was black and the police were mostly white and the mother alleges racism.

Second, if no charges were brought against the cops and the mother's civil suit did not prevail, I must assume that the cops had a good reason for what they did that day. I could find no such explanations in any of the articles that I found. To the contrary, I found several related articles written by college professors, the ACLU and Amnesty International who all wrote about racism and police brutality.

Third, although I didn't see the video, I can imagine what went on judging by the articles that I read. I'm sure that the mainstream media were only too happy to repeatedly play that video as an example of racism and police brutality in our country.

Now, you may ask me how I could come to any other conclusion after reading about a video of a black man tied up and thrashing about and saying that he was dying and needed help, while mostly white police officers laughed at him and mocked him until he died. I am hoping to shed some light on how society, particularly the youth, is being deceived and manipulated by the mainstream media, universities, public schools, and the arts. In this case they were repeatedly playing a seemingly damning video of police brutality, without offering any explanation of the police's behavior. It's quite convincing, but then; How come no charges were brought against the police despite charges from the ACLU and Amnesty International, who were calling for investigations? How come a celebrated attorney, Ellis Rubin, did not prevail in his civil suit against the town of Fort Pierce, FL? And how come there were no articles that I could find about the subsequent investigation that apparently cleared the police. How come I could find no articles on the outcome of the lawsuit? How come the only thing that YOU remember seeing, is a video of a black man tied up and begging for help while he was being mocked by the white police?

Well, I will relate a few personal experiences of mine to offer the “other side” of this story that I was unable to find in the press reports. Of course this doesn't have anything to do with the actual case, only my personal experience in similar situations that offer possible explanations.

I have been arrested and locked up about ten times in my life, in various States across the country. Usually, they hold you overnight in a cell in the local police station. On average there are about four to six cells and on a busy night they can put as many as 4 people in each cell. One of the first things that they do when you are being booked, is to ask you if you have any medical problems that require immediate attention or require special medication. If you answer yes, you are immediately seen by a nurse who decides if you need to go to the hospital or need special medication. I have to assume that Anderson Tate Jr. did not request medical attention at this time.

On at least two occasions when I was in jail, there was a prisoner in one of the cells who was raising quite a ruckus. They would scream for hours, thrash about, bang on the walls floor and bars and jump up and down. They would constantly call out to the police who would largely ignore them. They would say that they were sick, that they needed a doctor, they would say that they were dying and needed help. If they became so violent that the cops thought that they might hurt themselves or the other prisoners, they were taken out of the cell and hog-tied and chained to a bench until they calmed down. I assume that they were either very drunk or very high on drugs, the cops seemed to be used to this type of behavior. They eventually calmed down, but sometimes they ranted and raved for hours before they tired out. I believe that this kind of behavior is very common in jail when people are first arrested. If I had a video camera, I could have made a similar video that night and perhaps two or three nights out of every week.

Another possible explanation for why the cops ignored Anderson, was because they thought that he might want to be taken to the hospital, where he knows that he will be more comfortable than jail and he is sure to be given drugs(medication) to calm him down. He may be withdrawing from heroin and his only chance of getting drugs, would be to fool the cops into thinking that he is sick, so that they would send him to the hospital. Heroin addicts will do anything, if they are withdrawing and they think that there is a chance of getting heroine or morphine or codeine or oxycotin. By the way, California now allows heroin addicts to be detoxed in a hospital after being arrested. This came about after someone died during his heroin withdrawal in jail. As a result, police are now more reluctant to arrest heroin addicts in CA, because of the extra time and expense required to care for them. The county Jail in L.A. has a floor that is a hospital ward. My friend Jay-Jay in California, had a virtual “get-out-of-jail-free-card” after her kidneys failed and she required dialysis. Even if the cops caught her with heroine, which is a felony in CA, they would let her go because her medical condition presented too many problems for them, and they would rather let her go than deal with it. Don't feel to happy for her, she died from her heroine addiction. Maybe if she got locked up she would have gotten clean, gone to a rehab, got a kidney transplant, and had a second chance. Who knows, maybe not.

Once, when I was living in Mission Viejo, CA, I almost let a girl die in my apartment, because she told me that she was having an allergic reaction to “medication”, and I didn't believe her. I almost didn't take her to the hospital. Her name was Christine. She was a heroine addict but, off of heroin for six months, because she just got out of jail. She just got out of jail the day before, and was stranded in San Diego, after being imprisoned for about 6 months. She was supposed to come to my apartment in Mission Viejo when she got out. Instead, she decided to call the police and tell them that she wanted to commit suicide. This was a ploy to get admitted to the hospital (nut house) and to get medication. The cops took her to a hospital, just like she wanted, and they gave her lots of medication just like she planned. They released her the next day and gave her a bottle of pills to take with her.

The next day, when I got home from work, there she was, waiting outside my door. She said that she hitch hiked from San Diego. After about a half hour she started telling me that she was sick. She said that it was an allergic reaction to the medication that they gave her at the hospital. She said that she must have taken too much. She begged me to take her to the hospital. I did not believe her. I thought that she was “faking it”, in an effort to get more drugs at the hospital. I was already mad at her for “relapsing” and getting drugs at the hospital in San Diego. She started shaking and breathing heavy. I still thought that she was faking and I refused to take her to the hospital. I was very angry at her for putting on such a show. I told her to call 911 if she was really sick, but she did not. I was now really convinced that she was “faking it”. Then she started making this terrible noise, like her airway was restricted and she couldn't get enough air to breathe. I got scared and I rushed her to the hospital. By the time we got to the hospital she could barely walk and barely breathe. It turned out that she was having an allergic reaction to the medication, and her airway was closing up. They immediately gave her a shot of something, (I think it was called epinephrine), and soon she started to breath normally. It was a close call, a few more minutes and she could have died. She could have died because I didn't believe her at first. She was “the girl that cried wolf”. I understand how come the cops didn't believe Anderson Tate Jr. I might have done the same thing.

All I am trying to say is how eager the press is to portray the cops in a fashion that makes them seem brutal and racist. Apparently, after being exposed to this bias all of your life, you too are eager to believe it. I am trying to open your eyes to what is going on, after all, you do claim to be “open minded”. Please give it some thought.