Sunday Morning Thoughts: It’s Football Time in America!

As the days grow shorter and cooler, praise the Lord, American males from Little League to the NFL have been hitting the field to practice for the upcoming season.

Now is the time to see what they’ve learned.

Friday night, my wife and I attended a high school football game in DeSoto County, Mississippi.

Our grandson is a member of the band. He plays trumpet. Our family is very proud of him. While that is a big deal in itself, it is a bigger deal for our family and our grandson, especially because he is 80% hearing impaired.

While it may appear that I am digressing from the subject matter, why I brought this up will soon become clear.

Athletic participation while growing up by both genders remains a great way for kids to get used to winning and losing in this game called life.

It also helps them to reach their potential in their journey toward individual achievement.

I’ve always loved both Little League and high school football.

These are kids and teenagers out there working hard for no pay except the Love of the Game and the fun of participating in a sport.

While I did not participate in playing football because of my size of 5’4″ as a 17-yr old asthmatic Senior (I grew after I graduated), I was a gym rat who would climb the ladder of Halle Stadium in Memphis, TN with a camera and reel-to-reel video tape recorder in order to capture the home football games so that the coaches could review what went right and what went wrong in team meetings.

Sitting at that game Friday night and cheering for the team made me realize some things.

Even being inundated with all this technology that I believe can be a distraction for them, given the opportunity, teenagers are still social animals who enjoy the fun of  being with one another,

We were sitting on steel bleachers next to the Pep Squad, a bunch of young girls in matching outfits who would dance to the band and cheer with the cheerleaders while the Dance Team was behind the far end zone leading the raucous student section in cheers.

All these kids, including the ones running around the bleachers visiting with each other and joining in on all the festivities, and their parents, grandparents and friends, were having the time of their lives, cheering on these young boys giving their all for something that they believed in.

These individuals were not playing the game for money. They were playing it for the joy of the sport and to see if they could be the best they could be individually and as a team.

I guess that is why I enjoy these games so much. For the most part, especially in the small towns and suburbs outside of a big city like Memphis, high school football has not become corrupted like college football and the NFL have been.

There are no overpaid underperforming professional football players, nor are there male cheerleaders in tights prancing around like one of the girls in their dance routines.

These are high school students participating in an event that they will hold dear to their hearts for the rest of their lives.

Watching the fun that the girls in the Pep Squad were having as they went through their routines and cheers and listening to their giggles as they were next to my wife and me Friday night, made me realize that there are still young people being raised right in this country and that there were still kids that got out from behind their PlayStations and out of their mom’s basement to have fun with each other.

In other words, there are still kids being raised right and experiencing the joy of friendship, achievement, and growing up in this great country.

We need to celebrate and cherish these kids and the parents who have raised them more.

Their joy and their achievements give us  hope for the future.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Hundreds of Unattended Teens Riot Over a Refund at a Memphis Putt Putt Center…Gosh, I Wonder Where They Got the Idea to Do That?

golf-riot-1

FoxNews.com reports that

A Tennessee mini-golf center was the scene of mayhem on Saturday, after a reported 300 to 400 teenagers began destroying the establishment because management reportedly did not issue refunds.

According to a police report, parents had dropped off large groups of teens at the family play place without supervision, violating coronavirus orders banning mass gatherings.

Issues began at Golf and Games Family Park in Memphis, Tenn., Saturday evening when there were around 300 to 400 people at the business and an “unknown individual began throwing fireworks in the crowd causing a stampede.”

“When the stampede occurred complainant told patrons inside the business that they were closed and would not be issuing refunds,” according to the report.

The staff at the center was unable to offer refunds at the time, thus prompting all-out chaos, FOX 8 reported.

According to video shot at the center, teenagers, none of whom appear to be wearing masks, begin knocking items off counters and throwing items behind the counter. One of the girls involved is seen pulling the plastic screen, which is used as part of COVID-19 safety policy updates, from the counter and throwing it at staff.

In the same video, she picks up a metal stand and throws it. She also later spit on an employee, witnesses claimed.

Police were called to the scene. Witnesses reportedly told officers the girl seen in the video had become upset because staff would not issue her a refund when some of the machines ate her money.

The family park is working with authorities to identify those involved.

Due to the destructive incident, the center has updated its policy, banning all minors from visiting without parent supervision.

The general manager, Aaron Boss, issued a statement on the company’s Facebook page, calling the incident something he has “never experienced” before in the 57 years of its operations.

“Unfortunately, yesterday evening we had an incident that we have never experienced in 57 years of business,” he wrote. “Parents chose to leave large groups of teenagers at our facility without their supervision.  Some of those people chose to create a disturbance the likes of which we have never seen. We are very thankful that none of our Golf and Games family or customers were injured during this situation.  We are actively trying to identify those involved and hold them accountable for their actions.  Going forward, any minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Anyone that is left unattended will be asked to leave. We have been the Memphis area’s locally owned place for family entertainment for nearly six decades. We will always welcome those who choose to share their family experiences with us. Please understand this is not a reflection of us or our park. We look forward to serving you soon.”

The Fun Center reopened Sunday with the new rules in place.

Here’s an idea to prevent this from happening in the future:

How about raising children in the way in which they should go?

As a 61-year old product of the Former Memphis City Schools and Memphis State University (now The University of Memphis), I can remember a time when the majority of young Memphians, regardless of their race, were raised to be respectful of their elders, and to recognize the fact that there are absolutes in the concepts of right versus wrong, and that wrong behavior has consequences.

We were also raised knowing the concept of personal responsibility for our actions.

And, if we had a problem understanding those concepts, an adult, whether it be a parent, a friend’s parent, a teacher, a principal, a church leader, as policeman, or a judge, would explain those concepts to us in no uncertain terms.

And, you could bet your last Hot Wheels that, if you got in trouble in school or after school while hanging out in the neighborhood, that we would pay for our transgressions when we got home.

Nowadays, we are experiencing the results of LBJ’s “Great Society”and a couple of generation of “latchkey kids”, “raised by the village” in which the Almighty Federal Government has eliminated both the concept of moral absolutes and individual responsibility.

These “yutes” and their older “role models” who are acting like wild animals have been raised as such, literally abandoned by irresponsible parents to fend for themselves and to make up their own rules as they go along.

What we are witnessing, boys and girls, with these teenage flash mobs and the Marxist Anarchists who are tearing apart our major cities, is a Generation of Sociopaths, with no concept of morality, ethics, or personal responsibility.

They are doing what feels good to them…and what popular culture, which has become both their “god” and their “parental authority figure” has told them is cool.

Until Municipal, Community, and Civic leaders across the country show these young and older savages that they will face SEVERE consequences for their barbaric behavior, these violent attacks will continue…until several of these “useful idiots” wind up on the wrong end of a gun being held by one of their victims who just happens to have a Concealed Carry Permit.

And, then the parents and the community will have no one to blame, but themselves.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Martin Luther King’s Birthday, “The Great Society”, and the Trump Economic Boom…a Chance to Break the Cycle

MLK-Character-Matters

Today is a national holiday, celebrating the birthday of Civil Rights Pioneer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Somewhere, up in heaven, he is shaking his head in mournful embarrassment.

As a lifelong (59 years young) resident of the Memphis area, I continue to witness the dissolution of the once strong and proud Black American Family Unit.

I am also, as are most of you, bearing witness to Black and White Liberal Politicians making excuses for the out-of-control, self-inflicted genocide of 13% of America’s Population, as they blame it on “Racial Inequality”, and somehow being unable to succeed due to the actions of Americans who lived almost 200 years ago and whose statues are somehow still oppressing them to this day.

This “oppression” somehow continues, even though a black man held the most powerful political office in the Free World for 8 years and was given carte blanche by both the Main Stream Media and the Political Elite in Washington, DC, to do just about whatever he wanted to do.

America’s Far Left Political Activists, including this Former President of the United States, are still attempting, what is known in both sports and military strategy, as a “misdirection” play.

While these politicians and paid protesters shout about “equality” in front of every television camera that they can get in front of, at the same time, here in the real world, black children are being born into a situation which handicaps them from the start: the burden of an illegitimate birth and the reality of a fatherless home.

How many black children are being born out-of-wedlock?

Among non-Hispanic blacks, the figure is highest, at 72.2 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, it’s 66.9 percent; 53.5 percent for Hispanics; 29.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites; and a mere 17.1 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders.

These Americans, unlike the majority of us, are growing up without appropriate parental guidance, i.e., no one teaching them “the way in which they should go”

What are the consequences of growing up without a strong Father figure?

How did the once strong Black American Family Unit get torn asunder?

Back in the 60s, President Lyndon Johnson (whose big hand I once shook, at his ranch, as a little boy, after his presidential term) and the Democrats, brought forth a plan, called “the Great Society”. It was decided, in order to ensure that everyone would have an equal opportunity in America, that Uncle Sugar would step in to fill in the gaps.

Two seminal pieces of legislation were passed.

First, the Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised to sign, before his assassination, was passed into law. This Act banned discrimination based on race and gender in employment and ending segregation in all public facilities.

It also helped to cement in stone, minorities’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, which continues to this day.

The second bill that LBJ signed into law was the sweeping ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1964. It created the Office of Economic Opportunity whose stated purpose was to attack the roots of American poverty. A Job Corps was then established to provide vocational training.

A preschool program designed to help disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn, named HEADSTART, was then established. Then came VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE TO AMERICA (VISTA), which was set up as a domestic Peace Corps. Schools in impoverished American regions would now receive volunteer teaching attention. Federal funds were sent to struggling communities to attack unemployment and illiteracy.

What Johnson told Americans, as he campaigned in 1964, was that the establishment of this “Great Society” was going to eliminate the problems of America’s poor.

It had the opposite effect

The Great Society created a dependent class, which, instead of diminishing as it’s members joined the workforce, increased from generation to generation, relying on the federal government to provide their every need.

Uncle Sugar became Mother, Father, Preacher, and Doctor to generations of Americans. This “plantation mentality” continues to this day.

A few years ago, I worked at our county’s State Employment Center Office.

While at the Employment Office, I was able to observe Americans, both Black and White, down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of “unemployed ” who came to this particular office were Black.

I saw Black American Families whose existence living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats have hypnotized into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition. It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream. It makes you reliant on a politically motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy, so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”. Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

Instead of moving forward, by exercising the self-reliance that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached so well, these people I saw, were content on being “taken care of” by Uncle Sugar, as if being held down by their own poor, miserable circumstance, was a good thing.

During the Obama Administration, racial division in American became intentionally exacerbated for the purpose of political gain and the results of LBJ’s “Great Society” became the lead story in every television newscast, on every newspaper front page, and on every internet news/political website.

Dr. King, I am sorry to tell you that racism and injustice is still going on in America. Unfortunately, it will not end any time soon, There are too many race-baiters profiting off of it.

Including those who are dead set in somehow ending the time in office of our current President, Donald J. Trump.

Which is very strange to me, sir. You see, those who wish him to be gone have adopted the worn-out tactic of accusing Trump of racism, which is a very odd tactic to use.

The reason that I say that is because the National Black Unemployment Rate fell from 7.2 percent to 6.8 percent in the month of December, beating the previous low of 7 percent set in April 2000.

The other thing that puzzles me about the efforts by  self-proclaimed”Black Leaders” to label the President a racist is best explained by Stephen Moore, a writer for the Heritage Foundation, in a syndicated article which I have pulled an excerpt from  in The Chicago Tribune, which was posted on August 21st of last year…

No one cared more about the plight of black Americans than Barack Obama — our first African-American president — who won well more than 90 percent of the black vote. But the sad paradox of Obama’s presidency is that a president who was going to lift up black America economically didn’t deliver. From 2009 to 2015, the incomes of black Americans fell by more than $900 per family adjusted for inflation.

So far under Trump, median family incomes have risen by more than $1,000, according‎ to Sentier Research and based on Census Bureau numbers. These numbers are not broken down by race, but it’s a pretty good bet that black incomes have risen with those of other races under Trump.

What about other metrics of black economic progress under Trump? It’s early for sure, but we have some preliminary results since Election Day, when the stock market started its latest bull market run.

The black unemployment rate has fallen by a full percentage point in the last year, black labor force participation is up and the number of black Americans with a job has risen by 600,000 from last year. Preliminary data show black wages and incomes are up since the election.

The rate of job growth per month for blacks under Trump has so far been 40 percent higher than the monthly average under ‎Obama. Trump has averaged nearly 30,000 new black jobs per month. That’s especially remarkable because Obama was elected when employment was way down.

Another issue that is critically important to black and Hispanic economic progress is good schools. Trump is advancing the idea of school choice so that every child can attend a quality school, public or private. In cities such as Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee, the children who benefit from voucher and scholarship programs are predominantly black. Trump wants to increase by tenfold the number of black children who benefit from these vouchers and scholarships.

The goal here is to give every poor or minority child the same range of education choices that wealthy families have.

The same people who denounce Trump for being a racist hypocritically oppose Trump’s plan for better school options for black children. I have heard many liberal commentators compare Trump to George Wallace, the late Alabama governor who defended school segregation and stood in front of the white public schools with armed guards to keep the black children out.

Now we have liberals and teachers unions figuratively standing in front of the high-quality white private schools like modern-day George Wallaces trying to keep black children out.

Trump also wants more infrastructure spending, more energy jobs and more apprenticeship programs so our youth have access to better jobs and better training. Disproportionately, blacks and other minorities will benefit from these programs, because fewer have the financial capability to go to a four-year college.

So is Trump a racist who doesn’t care about the future of black Americans? Let’s face it. He’s no Jack Kemp when it comes to talking about race and healing wounds with his words. But Trump is creating more jobs and higher incomes for blacks and other minorities and is trying to give a better education to every disadvantaged black child in America. That is a pretty impressive civil rights record. ‎

Dr. King, the part of your magnificent speech about “the content of their character” has been purposefully ignored by the professional race-baiters and assorted politicians (but, I repeat myself), once again, in an effort to make them and their political cronies flush with power and money.

Sir, your call for self-reliance took a back seat to their self-serving agenda, a long time ago.

And, that resulted in the dissolution of the Black American Nuclear Family, a cycle of poverty, and an inability or unwillingness of some to take a risk and to break out of a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure perpetuated by self-serving politicians and “community leaders” who have made careers out of limiting the participation of Black Americans in the American Dream.

You had a dream, sir.

And, I am certain that each one of them has one, too.

And, none of them should be held back from working hard and succeeding simply because achieving the American Dream on their own does not fit into a political party’s self-serving agenda.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Today’s Pop Music and American Society: From “All You Need Is Love” to Keying Your Boyfriend’s Car

thBWVX9WHUMusic hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. – William Congreve (1670-1729)

Can music also bring out the evil in mankind, as well?

On Thanksgiving Day, as I was watching the Macy’s Parade with my family, I suddenly realized that I did not know any of the performers lip syncing their songs on the floats, except for Pat Benatar (bless her heart).

Additionally, I heard at least one song that was entirely inappropriate for that family-friendly, nationally-televised event.

What is going on with Pop Music?

John Stonestreet, writing for his website, breakpoint.org, posted the following article on November 12, 2015…

Good guys are out of style. If you’ve been to the movies any time in the last decade, you know that Hollywood has replaced the superheroes of yore with antiheroes—depressed, broody, supposedly “relatable” characters with a past. Whether it’s the angst-filled teenage protagonists of “Twilight” or a black-suited Spiderman doing Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever strut, it’s become almost cliché to bring our heroes down to our level rather than aspiring to theirs.

With a handful of exceptions like Marvel’s Captain America, the entertainment industry just doesn’t create uncomplicated, morally straight characters anymore. Even Superman recently got a makeover. Director Zack Snyder’s reboot offered us a troubled Clark Kent in a bleak, visually desaturated film where the Man of Steel doesn’t hesitate to kill. And the same holds true in pop music, where artists who once sang about falling in love now storm on stage and sing about wrecking their ex’s life.

A quick glance over YouTube’s top music videos reveals a wall of singers grimacing, glowering, and growling at us. Heavy eye-shadow, aggressive postures, black clothing, red smoke, sneering expressions make it look like these performers—many of them young women—want to mug us instead of entertain us. Writing at the Daily Mail, Jo Tweedy asks the obvious question: Why do all of these singers look so angry?

Whether it’s Beyonce’s now-infamous Super Bowl halftime performance or Miley Cyrus’ descent into “Wrecking Ball” wrath, these performers “prove that rage is very much all the rage for pop stars.”

But it’s probably Taylor Swift, the 25-year-old country singer who took the pop scene by storm a few years back, who best illustrates how angry modern music has actually become. Swift started out a few years ago writing songs about unrequited love and teardrops on guitars. But in more recent hits like “Blank Space,” “Shake it Off,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” the music icon tells haters and potential heartbreakers to back off. “Boys only want love if it’s torture,” she complains, and warns would-be suitors that she’s “got a blank space” on her “long list of ex-lovers,” and would be glad to write in their names.

And then there’s her biggest new hit, “Bad Blood,” a breakup number accompanied by an especially warlike music video that won the VMA’s top honor last year. It features guns, explosions, rocket-launchers, even mixed martial arts. I’m not kidding. Swift herself looks every bit as angry as the Amazon that she plays.

“So why does white hot anger seem to be such a big feature for today’s stars when they’re on stage?” asks Tweedy. One London pop choreographer answered: “…the anger is simply a way of getting noticed,” a way of “trying to stand out,” she said. “[It’s a way of] saying, ‘…you will book me for that next job.’”

So, no surprise, a lot of it comes back to marketing and publicity. We saw this with the release of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” that sexy has taken a sadomasochistic turn in order to sell more books and movies.

But what if there’s more to it than just marketing? In “The Screwtape Letters,” C.S. Lewis’ professorial devil offers advice on how to get humans, especially men, to confuse aggression for beauty.

“…the felt evil is what [the patient] wants,” he explains. “It is the visible animality or sulkiness, or craft, or cruelty which he likes,” and which “play[s] on the raw nerve of his private obsession.”

And I can’t help wondering if on another level all this bad blood is due to the sexual revolution itself. Could it be that some pop stars—especially women—really do resent the way the industry has objectified and turned them into sex symbols? Attempting to tether human dignity to sexual freedom leaves many feeling as if they must be sexually aggressive to be known, and others as if their value is secondary to other’s desires. Either way, it helps explain why pop culture seems to be popping a gasket lately.

I remember the summer after I graduated college in December 1980. I bought a brand new 1981 Mazda GLC, had a Pioneer Tape Deck installed to play in all four hidden door speakers (a big thing back then), bought a cassette tape of “The Beatles Love Songs”, and played it until the tape broke.

Music has always affected my life and played a major part. I sang in church choirs, leading services, singing in quartets, and solo, for over 30 years and have played acoustic rhythm guitar since the age of 19…a long time ago.

Music can indeed soothe us. It can inspire us…in both good ways and in bad.

It has the power to bring us to our knees in worship of the Living God…or make our hands “clinch in fisteous rage” (American Pie, Don Mclean)

It can advise us to “treat her like a lady” or find us hanging out, “down on Main Street”.

At this time in our country’s history, when morality has become relative and ethics situational, we find our souls crying out for soothing, but instead, we find Pop Music and “so-called” Country Music, actually manufactured in New York City (pronounced like they do in the Pace Salsa Commercials), advocating meaningless one-night stands and encouraging the debasement of the human soul, instead of its ability to rise above any obstacle in its path that might hinder individual achievement.

With all of today’s over-produced, under-written Pop and Country-Pop Music flooding the airwaves of both broadcast and satellite radio, Americans my age wonder where all the great songwriters have gone to?

Where are the “Good Vibrations” that the young people of this generation so desperately need?

Evidently, even though “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, we have left them “Sittin’ On The Dock of The Bay”.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

MLK, “The Great Society”, And The Vanishing Black Family Unit

AFBrancoBlackLeadereship12114Tomorrow is a national holiday, celebrating the birthday of Civil Rights Pioneer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Somewhere, up in heaven, he is shaking his head in mournful embarrassment.

As a lifelong (56 years young) resident of the Memphis area, I continue to witness the dissolution of the once strong and proud Black American Family Unit.

I am also, as are most of you, bearing witness to Black and White Liberal Politicians making excuses for the out-of-control, self-inflicted genocide of 13% of America’s Population, as they blame it on “Racial Inequality”, while a Black Man sits behind a desk in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, holding the most powerful leadership position in the Free World.

America’s Far Left Political Activists, including the President of the United States, are presently attempting, what is known in both sports and military strategy, as a “misdirection” play.

Whil these politicians and paid protesters shout about “equality” in front of every television camera that they can get in front of, at the same time, here in the real world, black children are being born into a situation which handicaps them from the start: the burden of an illegitimate birth and the reality of a fatherless home.

How many black children are being born out of wedlock?

Among non-Hispanic blacks, the figure is highest, at 72.2 percent; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, it’s 66.9 percent; 53.5 percent for Hispanics; 29.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites; and a mere 17.1 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders.

These Americans, unlike the majority of us, are growing up without appropriate parental guidance, i.e., no one teaching them “the way in which they should go”

What are the consequences of growing up without a strong Father figure?

The Memphis CBS Affiliate, WREG, has a story which provides an example.

A large fight broke out in the McDonald’s located at Bull Frog Corner in Horn Lake (Mississippi, a Memphis suburb) Tuesday night.

Staff at the restaurant say tensions between rival gangs sparked the fight. One adult and one juvenile are facing charges, but people who have seen the video tell WREG they think more than just two people should be in trouble for all of this.

Video taken inside the restaurant is shaky, but you can clearly see kids fighting, throwing fists, and screaming, and the onlookers not backing away.

Michael Little couldn’t believe what he saw as he watched the video. He lives in Horn Lake and goes to that McDonald’s restaurant all the time.

Horn Lake and Southaven High School faced off on the basketball court Tuesday night, and police knew to be on alert because people who go to the game are known to fight after.

Chief Darryl Whaley with Horn Lake Police said, “We had heard there was potentially going to be some problems after this game either at the school or the McDonald’s. We were covering both locations.”

Police say they offered to help McDonald’s managers clear out the crowd, but they said no. Moments later, the fight broke out. No injuries were reported.

McDonald’s employees tell WREG the fight was between two local gangs, and this isn’t the first time they caused problems at this restaurant. Police arrested Anthony Williams, also known as Twin, and a juvenile. They don’t expect to make any more arrests, but locals are questioning that call.

“Just from the video. It looked like there were a lot of people in there fighting,” Little said.

Folks in Horn Lake say this kind of behavior is not what they want their city to be known for.

“Everybody who lives here knows that doesn’t happen every day.” Little said.

He says he won’t forget what he saw in this video for quite some time.

WREG reached out to the McDonald’s managers, but didn’t hear back. Employees expect this fight will spark another one, possibly on Friday night.

Why is this happening? How did we get here?

Back in the 60s, President Lyndon Johnson (whose big hand I once shook, at his ranch, as a little boy, after his presidential term) and the Democrats, brought forth a plan, called “the Great Society”. It was decided, in order to ensure that everyone would have an equal opportunity in America, that Uncle Sugar would step in to fill in the gaps.

Two seminal pieces of legislation were passed.

First, the Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised to sign, before his assassination, was passed into law. This Act banned discrimination based on race and gender in employment and ending segregation in all public facilities.

It also helped to cement in stone, minorities’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, which continues to this day.

The second bill that LBJ signed into law was the sweeping ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1964. It created the Office of Economic Opportunity whose stated purpose was to attack the roots of American poverty. A Job Corps was then established to provide vocational training.

A preschool program designed to help disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn, named HEADSTART, was then established. Then came VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE TO AMERICA (VISTA), which was set up as a domestic Peace Corps. Schools in impoverished American regions would now receive volunteer teaching attention. Federal funds were sent to struggling communities to attack unemployment and illiteracy.

What Johnson told Americans, as he campaigned in 1964, was that the establishment of this “Great Society” was going to eliminate the problems of America’s poor.

It had the opposite effect

The Great Society created a dependent class, which, instead of diminishing as it’s members joined the workforce, increased from generation to generation, relying on the federal government to provide their every need.

Uncle Sugar became Mother, Father, Preacher, and Doctor to generations of Americans. This “plantation mentality” continues to this day.

A couple of years ago, I worked at our county’s State Employment Center Office.

While at the Employment Office, I was able to observe Americans, both Black and White, down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of “unemployed ” who came to this particular office were Black.

I saw Black American Families whose existence living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats have hypnotized into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition. It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream. It makes you reliant on a politically motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy, so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”. Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

Instead of moving forward, by exercising the self-reliance that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached so well, these people I saw, were content on being “taken care of” by Uncle Sugar, as if being held down by their own poor, miserable circumstance, was a good thing.

Since August, the results of LBJ’s “Great Society” have been the lead story in every television newscast, on every newspaper front page, and on every internet news/political website.

Dr. King, I am sorry to tell you that racism and injustice is still going on in America. Unfortunately, it will not end any time soon, There are too many race-baiters profiting off of it.

Including, the President of the United States.

The part of your magnificent speech about “the content of their character” has been purposefully ignored by the professional race-baiters and assorted politicians (but, I repeat myself), once again, in the aftermath of the death pf Career Criminal Eric Garner.

Dr. King, your call for self-reliance took a back seat to their self-serving agenda, a long time ago.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama’s Gun Control Initiative: Chicago Beats New York in Number of 2012 Homicides. Obama Ignores.

guncontrolThe Senate Dog and Pony Show concerning Gun Control got started yesterday, as those who wish to take away average American’s guns presented former Congressperson Gabby Giffords, shot in the head by a psychopath,  to testify on their behalf. Meanwhile, out in the Real World, back in President Barack Hussein Obama’s Hometown, Chicago is no longer “that toddlin’ town”. It is now a Demilitarized Zone..a No Man’s Land where innocent young people are being savagely murdered…caught in the crossfire of Thugs.

FoxNews.com reports that

A week after she performed at festivities during President Obama’s inauguration, a 15-year-old majorette was shot dead in Chicago.

Police say Hadiya Pendleton was shot in the back Tuesday in a South Side park and died at a city hospital.

Authorities say Hadiya was one of about 12 teenagers sheltering from heavy rain under a canopy when a man jumped a fence, ran toward the group and opened fire. The man fled the scene in a vehicle. No arrests have been made.

“As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose,” said Chicago Police Officer Damon Stewart, 36, Hadiya ‘s godfather. “I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

Police do not believe Hadiya was the intended target of the shooting. A teenage boy was shot in the leg. Police did not release his name.

Hadiya belonged to the King College Prep High School band, which performed at several inaugural events in Washington, D.C. She was remembered by friends as a lover of books.

Two other men died Tuesday and at least eight others wounded by gunfire, the report said.

A horrible murder is nothing new in Chicago. In fact, that city excels at it. The Windy City even beat the Big Apple in the number of murders committed last year.

In a sharp contrast between two of the nation’s largest cities, Chicago recorded its 499th murder of 2012 on Thursday night while New York reported 414 murders as of Friday even though it has more than three times the population, according to police.

Plagued by gang violence, Chicago surpassed last year’s murder total of 433 in October and is set for the highest rate of homicide since the third largest U.S. city recorded 512 in 2008. The number is likely to top 500 on the last weekend of the year.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Friday that the nation’s largest city could finish the year with the lowest number of murders and shootings since 1963, when it began keeping comparable data. The number of murders this year in New York is only about one-fifth the total of 2,245 homicides recorded in the peak year of 1990.

The rising murder rate has frustrated Chicago Police Commissioner Garry McCarthy and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who promised to make the city’s streets safer when he took office in May 2011.

“It’s unacceptable,” McCarthy said in an interview with Reuters on Friday.

New York’s Bloomberg trumpeted the news with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a police recruit graduation ceremony in the borough of Brooklyn.

Kelly attributed the decline to the increasing use of stop-and-frisk tactics, when police can stop and search people on the street they consider suspicious.

“We’re preventing crimes before someone is killed and before someone else has to go to prison for murder or other serious crimes,” Kelly said in a statement.

Civil rights groups and some local politicians have criticized stop-and-frisk tactics, saying that most people stopped turn out to be innocent, and they unfairly target black and Latino men. The practice is the subject of a federal court case over whether it is unconstitutional.

About that…The New York Times did some research, publishing a map of the locations of Chicago murders. The accompanying text reads

A New York Times analysis of homicides and census data in Chicago compared areas near murders to those that were not. Residents living near homicides in the last 12 years were much more likely to be black, earn less money and lack a college degree.

They also published a breakdown of the neighborhoods:

Austin – More than 450 homicides have happened in this neighborhood in Chicago’s West Side, one of the city’s deadliest places.

Lincoln Park – A predominantly white neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side had about 10 percent the murder rate of neighborhoods to the west.

Grand Crossing – A shooting broke out during the funeral for a victim of another shooting in December. Chicago’s South Side, in neighborhoods like Englewood, Auburn and Woodlawn, has some of the city’s highest concentrations of murders.

Hyde Park – Less than one homicide per year happened in this affluent neighborhood, which is also home to the University of Chicago.

When President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) started his Gun Confiscation Campaign, ( You Remember. The speech where he used the mass murder of children at Sandy Hook Elementary to jump-start a long-cherished Liberal goal that has been defeated every time self-serving Liberal politicians try to infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.) he said,

We won’t be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try.

2013 is shaping up to be even worse for Chicago, as far as homicides are concerned. RedeyeChicago.com reports that

Forty-four homicides have been logged so far this month. Forty homicides were recorded in January 2012, according to RedEye data.

Mr. President, I suggest you take care of your Hometown, first, where young black teenagers, full of potential, with their whole lives ahead of them, are being senselessly murdered by thugs in their own neighborhoods.

Get the guns away from the criminals.

And, leave law-abiding Americans alone.

Until He Comes,

KJ