On Police officers and the Hobbit.
I have been haunted by and have pondered two things today.
The first is the shootings of our police officers in NYC. I have been in the mountains so you would know better than I but, where was the presidents address on this? Has he said, they could have been my son? These were good men and justice must be served? More importantly, has the press made the same kind of hay and noise for these men as they did for those who's names were made famous by Al sharpton?
I remember saying on radio in 2006:
"there will come a time where everything will be upside down. What you thought you knew, you will not, liquid - solid and up will be down. You will not recognize your country."
Are we there yet? Is this the end or just another phase just as the dark days of the communist black lists in the fifties or the watts riots or la riots were?
Martin Luther King was right. If you put good and evil side by side and let the American people see them both, they will always choose good.
When a truck driver was beaten almost to death in LA in the 90s it was normal people that saw it on tv and went to help.
I still believe we are these people.
But the problem is that we are not allowed to call good by its name and the same with evil. We have been trained for so long not to judge that we have lost our ability to do so. All choices are NOT equal. All cultures are not the same.
If you really believe that take your daughter and your gay and Christian friends and move to Saudi Arabia. They are friends right? They are just as good as we are right?
If you want people who care about the planet as much as we do, take your Eco minded friends and move to china. Bath in their rivers, breath deeply the air and speak common sense and responsibility to their factory owners. Reason with their government about how to treat workers with fairness and dignity. It is an equal if not better system right?
You want great cops? Move 5 miles south of the American border. There is where you will find justice, protection of the innocent and fairness.
Freedom of speech? Move to putin's Russia. He is also great on no war for oil.
By the way, I for one am glad that we have opened Cuba up for travel. Now we can all see first hand just how great cubas health care really is. Now we can all go and experience first hand the beauty of the system proclaimed as better than ours for so long.
Who are you to judge? Who are you to say? What truth? Who's truth?
There is but one truth. It is universal and eternal. It is based on love, compassion and hard evidence. It is our job to seek it and hold fast to it. It requires us to question with boldness and to speak without fear.
If fear is given in lieu of answers, you know there is not much truth to be found. We must seek, ask and knock and in the end when our knock is answered we must be bold in declaring what we have found.
It is not just our right to judge - it is our duty!
When people march in the streets chanting "what do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" We have a duty to stand against them and call what they are doing by name: Evil.
The same needs to be said for anyone that prosecute, persecute or discriminate based on race, nationality or creed. What the heck, let's add in sex, weight, sexual preferences - VOTING HABITS, religious affiliation, or whether they believe in the constitution or not.
"I have a dream! That man will be judged by the content of his character".
Is that dream still alive?
The answer is YES! You see the problem is, not that people see evil, it is that no one is showing them good side by side.
Where are the rallies, preachers, school children, parents, business' and communities that will link arms and speak the truth without fear?
Where are the honest reporters, artists, film makers, musicians, radio hosts, writers and teachers?
They are here. They are just silent. We are silent.
Some are afraid. Some are just tired. Some just have stopped believing that they can make a difference. People have begun to believe that nothing they do makes a difference.
They are tired. Broke. Drunk, high, arrogant, foolish or Hungry. Some are Depressed. Lonely. Some don't know what to do. Some are living in self imposed ignorance.
Most are waiting for a leader. Where is the image of good juxtaposed against the image of evil?
Our cops are good people. They are just like you. They reflect our communities. If we are good, so are they. Generally speaking.
Are their bad cops? Yes. Let's work to root them out, not to condemn them all. The cops I know are good. I have however, met a few arrogant ones. We all have. People are people whether they are cops or 7.11 clerks.
*By the way, how is the gun control argument working out for those who think the cops are bad? It is funny how much history repeats itself. It was the democratic southern politician during reconstruction that took the guns from blacks. The rest of the story is infamous. Now the democrats AND republicans would take our guns from us should we let them "for our protection".
Let's begin to trust one another. Let's begin to be responsible and love one another.
Can we begin to expect the best from each other again? Can we not jump to conclusions and immediately say that the cops acted stupidly before all the facts are in?
When the cop is bad, let's name him and make sure justice is served. When the guy who was shot was bad, let's make sure we name him with the facts.
Common sense.
I am sorry ... This isn't what I really wanted to say. tonight.
The other thing that has haunted me is the story line of The Lord of the rings and the two towers. I love this story. I have never watched all of the movies back to back until this last week. I love it even more.
Maybe it is just me, but has anyone thought of the hobbits as us, the Americans? Maybe this has been written about and I am being obvious, but I see their innocence, belief that the world isn't bad, that things will be better, that the "shire" is a special place and it is isolated and protected from the outside evils and I wonder, did JRR T see them as us?
If you buy in to my observation at all, are we still those people? I do not think so. We are sliding into a world that I do not think makes us stronger. Have we lost the innocence and trust that has always set us apart?
Out of all of the characters in that book, ask yourself, who do you most admire? Who would you most want to be or be around?
For me it is Sam. Frodo's companion. He is loyal, kind, compassionate, trustworthy, humble and protective. I am sure there is some kind of test on who you are in the hobbit and what that says about you. I think if the world had more hobbits like Frodo's and Sam our "Shire" would always be nearing spring..
None of us want to face the things that we must, none want to be the one selected to bear the burden of the ring. But we must. It is our lot in life and if we fail all may be lost. But if we just do what is right, keep our mind on those things that are important we just might change the world and beat all of the odds.
Let us be innocent. Let us approach life not as fools or the blind, but like children. ... Or hobbits. With wonder, hope, faith, love, friendship and loyalty to the truth and the task at hand.
Who will you be? Who will you wait for? What will you tolerate? What, with your silence will you teach your children to embrace?
Our kids see our actions JUST AS MUCH AS THEY SEE OUR INACTION.
We see evil. Together, let's prepare ourselves to be the polar negative to all that we see. Let give the world a choice. Together let's choose love and let the chips fall where they may.
I love you and I trust you. We all have children. Even if we had a bad childhood, we all in the depths of our souls do not want others to suffer what we did. We want to believe in the shire. We want to believe in Disneys Main Street USA.
And just,like when we are there, we behave differently. Because we want to believe and make it work.
It does work, it will work. With God all things are possible and tomorrow will be a better day. People can and do change. Let's lead the way.
From the mountain top deep in the heart of the west, good night America.
