An Ox That Needs To Be Gored - Black Preachers

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

An Ox That Needs To Be Gored - Black Preachers
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Where are the Black Churches, and where are all of the millions of dollars in tithes they're collecting every Sunday going? Black preachers do a great job of giving inspirational speeches, and telling us to "forgive, forget, and put all of the atrocities committed against us in God's Hands," but we've been doing that for over 400 years, and the same kind of things keep happening to us. So it seems to me that, that constitutes a message from God - that he helps those who help themselves. So, Reverend, while quivering voices and inspirational speeches may be soothing, we can save those spoken word concerts for Sunday morning. The burning question that's begging to be asked is, what are you doing to help provide a better life for God's Children Monday thru Saturday when the collection plates are stacked in the corner?  That's the question the Lord would ask. 
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God did his part when he gave us common sense. Now it's our job to use it, and recognize that the very same people who are victimizing us are the ones who taught us to moan, quiver, and shout, while they had us tied up next to the mules. That's what kept us docile, easily manipulated, and compliant ("God told me to tell you this."), and many Black preachers are using the very same tactic against their own people, and for the same reason - to enrich themselves. Yet, if that's what we've become accustomed to, there's plenty of time for shouting and quivering oratory on Sunday. But reverend, the relevant question is this - what are you doing OTHER than quivering and shouting to help the community Monday thru Saturday? I think that's what the Lord would ask.
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The Black churches in every community should come together to form a consortium. Thereafter, they should pool the tithes they're collecting every Sunday to purchase businesses to provide jobs for our young people that pay a living wage, and purchase property to provide affordable housing in the community. The churches should be open 7 days a week to provide affordable childcare for working mothers. Then they could also hire unemployed mothers to help in the daycare centers. They could utilize the retired professionals in their congregations to help mentor and instruct the people in the community.  And of course, there should be a citizens committee to oversee the operation of the various businesses, and it should require multiple signatures to withdraw any funds from the bank for any reason. And finally, to ensure that the funds are being used most efficiently, preachers should be placed on salaries instead of being allowed to get rich at the expense of the community. Jesus was not a wealthy man, so why should any preacher be?
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That would go a long way toward relieving the suffering in the Black community. But I'm sure that most preachers would be totally against such a plan (especially the salary part), and the rest of the plan would be much too much trouble, because it would require them having to work more than one day a week.
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The Black community has spoiled its preachers. When the community needs something the preacher will tell them to take it to the Lord in prayer, but when the preacher needs something, he comes to us. So the community must start demanding more of these preachers. Just as it's the preacher's job to keep us on the path of righteousness, it's our job to do the same with them.

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"IF YE WERE ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, YE WOULD DO THE WORKS OF ABRAHAM"

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As I drive through the Black community and see the magnificent "houses of God" towering over the community in the midst of poverty, social need, and in some cases, squalor all around them, I can't help but wonder how many of them are really doing God's work.
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When I look at those resplendent edifices, it takes me back to a little storefront church on a 108th and Juniper in Watts, where my grandmother first sent me for religious instruction - she was ill at the time, so she couldn't take me to "the big church" in which she was a member. 
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I'll never forget that little storefront church. It stood down the street and in the shadow of a huge and elaborately appointed Catholic church, seemingly, almost as an afterthought. It was so small and had so few members that the thought of attracting a true "ordained man of God" was out of the question, so we had to settle for a little, unassuming man that we used to refer to as Elder Hampton. That little church was the closest thing to worshiping in someone's living room as you could get, but to this day, whenever I begin to lose faith in the basic goodness of my fellow man, or even remotely begin to contemplate God, I think of that little storefront church.
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If I'd remained at that church, I don't know what I would have been doing today. My young instincts led me to become so close to Elder Hampton that I might have even become a preacher. He used to take me with him to visit the old, the poor, and the sickly in the neighbor. Black, Mexican, young, old, Baptist or Catholic, he didn't care what a person was - if they were sick or in need, they were all a part of his flock.
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Looking back on it, I don't know where he found the resources. He certainly didn't get it from our little collection plate - we were so poor and so few in number he couldn't have gotten more than ten dollars a Sunday out of us, max. But in spite of that, he was no Sunday preacher. He was a full-time man of God - if you were sick or in need, you could count on him seven days a week. But after my grandmother had an operation and finally got over her illness, they took me to the "big church," and I never saw Elder Hampton again, but his influence has remained constant in my life to this day - in fact, though I must admit that I'm rarely found in church these days, it is his lingering influence that's led me to write this article, and everything else that I write.
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The first time I went to the big church I was completely overwhelmed with the opulence of it all. Shortly before I arrived, the church had just imported in a new fireball of an ordained minister, direct from Dallas, Texas. He was nothing like the quiet and humble Elder Hampton. He had a big booming voice, wore shinny Florsheim's, expensive suits, and a sense of importance just oozed from every pore of his body. When this man walked into a room it sucked all the oxygen out of the place - you just knew you were in the presence of someone significant.
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HOME OF REV. CREFLO DOLLAR

And God must have loved this magnificent church the minister headed - the choir alone in this ornate house of God was larger by a factor of three than the entire membership of the little church I'd grown accustomed to, and the choir pit was twice as large as the room where we held Sunday school. The parking lot of the church was filled with big, expensive cars, and a limousine was often parked next to the front entrance. In addition, City Councilmen and other politicians were counted among its membership, and a well known entertainer (Billy Preston) was the church organist. In a church like this you didn't have to wait to get to Heaven - every Sunday you were right there. The only problem was, after services you had to return to reality, which was more often than not, a life of pure hell.
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I've often wondered what Elder Hampton would have done with all of those resources. But I couldn't imagine Elder Hampton heading a magnificent place like this. Since he wasn't ordained, he never would have even been considered to head a place like this in the first place. I don't care how Godly you were, stature took precedence there - if Moses wanted to head the church, they'd want to inspect his credentials. But even if Elder Hampton would have been ordained, he was much too humble a man to be embraced by the high-powered people in this membership. With his quiet, unassuming demeanor, even as a member, he would have been a back-bencher  - politely tolerated, but scarcely noticed.

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And further, Elder Hampton wouldn't begin to know how to manage the resources of a huge church like that. While he was definitely a man of God, he wasn't a practical man. He probably would have squander all the church's resources on the no-account sinners in the surrounding community.
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He was just too impractical. He probably would have setup a soup kitchen and built a dormitory to house the homeless at night, and hired unemployed mothers to start a low-cost daycare center on the church grounds during the day. Then it wouldn't be no time at all before he'd dig up the church's beautiful grounds, trying to put up basketball courts and a recreation building to draw young people off the streets after school. And of course, between the kids during the day, the teenagers in the early evening, and the homeless at night, it would cost the church a fortune just to keep up the grounds and repair damages to the building.
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Much of the congregation would have been in an uproar over the chaos he'd create. And it would go far beyond simply chaos. He would have long since lost most of the influential politicians. Every Sunday he'd be hounding them at church, and calling them at home during the week, trying to get them to create Empowerment Zones, and Special Need Zones to establish low-cost loans to help the surrounding neighbors to purchase and fix-up the houses they were living in. It's no wonder he'd drive the politicians out of the church. How could he expect these busy men and women to worship God in peace with him buzzing around like a gadfly trying to get them to help the poor?
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No, Elder Hampton's heart was in the right place, but he'd have been much too impractical to run a big church like that. He was a God loving man, but he lacked common sense. He actually thought that when God said Love thy neighbor, he meant it. What a fool.
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Yeah, Elder Hampton would have definitely been a back-bencher at that church. He would have been the fool sitting way in the back - with Jesus.

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward . . ."

Matthew 6:1-34
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Elder Hampton, God knew of the good works that you did in secret . . . And unbeknownst to you, he sent a child to record them.
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Dedicated To Elder Hampton, A Man Of God.

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Eric L. Wattree 

http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com 
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA) 
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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U.S. Postal Service: Is the Budget More Important Than Employees Exposed to TB?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

U.S. Postal Service: Is the Budget More Important Than Employees Exposed to TB?

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On Tuesday, August 2, 2011, when the employees showed up for work at the United States Postal Service’s Los Angeles International Service Center (LAXISC), they were greeted by a note on the time clock instructing them to gather in the main conference room at 3:30 p.m. After all of the employees assembled, along with some military personnel and personnel from the Center for Disease Control, they were informed by the plant manager, a Mr. Holden, that they had been exposed to tuberculosis. They were told that an employee had contracted the disease about a year earlier and they had just been informed by the CDC.
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According to a rerliable source, Mr. Holden then went on to inform the employees that only "high risk" personnel would be tested. When asked why wasn’t everyone being tested, a repreesentative from the Los Angeles County Health Department indicated that the budget precluded them from testing everyone.  Manager Holden later went on to suggest that if the employees had any concerns they should contact their private physicians and arrange to be tested. Thereafter, they tested all of the managers and just a few of the employees that they considered high risk.
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The source also indicated that the APWU’s presence was all but nonexistent at the meeting. The source said:
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"The local president, John Driver, and none of the local officers bothered to come to the meeting. Instead, the treasurer, Darryl Brown, came and did not even ask any questions or voice any concerns about the situation. Is this what our president and local think of us whereas we are not even important enough for them to be present to see about our safety and welfare regarding an employee being diagnosed with TB that we all may have come in contact with and may even have exposed our families to?"
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Subsequently, it was found that the employee that caused the exposure died on July 8, 2011. Of twenty-six employees tested as of last week, thirteen tested positive. So here are a few questions just begging to be asked:
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1. If thirteen of the twenty-six employees that’s been tested so far tested positive (half), isn’t that cause for concern? Wouldn’t it be prudent to put budgetary concerns aside, if for no other reason than to protect the health of the employees, and their family, friends, and neighbors?
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2. Since all of the employees at that facility were potentially exposed to TB on the job, why do they have to incur the expense of going to their own physician? Isn’t that considered a job related hazard, and isn’t it the postal service’s responsibility to protect the job-related threat to the health and safety of it’s employees and their families? 3. Since all of the employees worked in one facility and the postal service has no idea how the employees came into contact with one another in commons areas, lunchrooms, restrooms, etc. How did they determine who was "high risk?"
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4. How does the postal service justify testing all of management and not the employees who are in much closer contact with one another?
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5. Where’s OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) in all of this? Don’t they have a role in seeing to it that the postal service doesn’t give their budget priority over the safety, health, and welfare of their employees?
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6. Why would the Health Department representative speak to budgetary issues?  It is the postal service's responsibility to protect both, its employees, and the public, from this deadly disease.  
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7. And where are the unions? Why aren’t they in there demanding that the postal service test every employee in that facility to ensure that they are free of a virulent disease that can kill not only them, but their children?
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This situation is a prime example of the fact that apathy on the part of the American people has allowed both the business community, and our government, to write the poor and middle-class off as expendable and secondary to profits. We see it everywhere, including on the battlefield, with the endless wars that use poor and middle-class troops as cannon fodder to promote the interests of war profiteers and oil companies. As we speak the oil companies are rushing into Lybia to divide up the spoils that poor and middle-class troops have died for while thinking they were defending the interests of our country.
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And the irony is, the children of the people who benefit most from the death of the poor and middle class troops, the rich, are no longer even expected to defend this country. Dying for this country is now considered the job of the “little people.” The job of the rich is to merely sit back and reap the benefits of our sacrifices.
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We saw the very same scenario in play when the 29 coal miners were killed in West Virginia on April 5, 2010. Hubpages.com reported:
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"29 COAL MINERS DIE in COAL MINING EXPLOSION
The Massey Energy Company of Montcoal, West Virginia ignored violations and warnings that the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine which they own, was not safe for coal miners to be working in."
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Then just weeks later, on April 20, 2010, eleven oil workers were killed in a horrific explosion on an oil rig run by British Petroleum. In the aftermath of the disaster The Daily Beast reported:
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"A document obtained by The Daily Beast shows that BP, in a previous fatal disaster, increased worker risk to save money."
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has known about the threat to public health of the job-related transmission of TB for some time:

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"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is proposing a health standard, to be promulgated under section 6(b) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, 29 U.S.C. 655, to control occupational exposure to tuberculosis (TB). TB is a communicable, potentially lethal disease that afflicts the most vulnerable members of our society: the poor, the sick, the aged, and the homeless. As many as 13 million U.S. adults are presently believed to be infected with TB; over time, more than 1 million of these individuals may develop active TB disease and transmit the infection to others. TB remains a major health problem with 22,813 active cases reported in the U.S. in 1995. A number of outbreaks of this disease have occurred among workers in health care settings, as well as other work settings, in recent years. To add to the seriousness of the problem, some of these outbreaks have involved the transmission of multidrug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which are often fatal. Although it is the responsibility of the U.S. Public Health Service to address the problem of tuberculosis in the general U.S. population, OSHA is solely responsible for protecting the health of workers exposed to TB as a result of their job.
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"OSHA estimates that more than 5 million U.S. workers are exposed to TB in the course of their work: in hospitals, homeless shelters, nursing homes, and other work settings. Because active TB is endemic in many U.S. populations, including groups in both urban and rural areas, workers who come into contact with diseased individuals are at risk of contracting the disease themselves. The risk confronting these workers as a result of their contact with TB-infected individuals may be as high as 10 times the risk to the general population. Although the number of reported cases of active TB has slowly begun to decline after a resurgence between 1985-1992, 16 states reported an increase in the number of TB cases in 1995, compared with 1994. Based on a review of the data, OSHA has preliminarily concluded that workers in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and certain other work settings are at significant risk of incurring TB infection while caring for their patients and clients or performing certain procedures. To reduce this occupational risk, OSHA is proposing a standard that would require employers to protect TB-exposed employees by means of infection prevention and control measures that have been demonstrated to be highly effective in reducing or eliminating job related TB infections. These measures include the use of respirators when performing certain high hazard procedures on infectious individuals, procedures for the early identification and treatment of TB infection, isolation of individuals with infectious TB in rooms designed to protect those in the vicinity of the room from contact with the microorganisms causing TB, and medical follow-up for occupationally exposed workers who become infected. OSHA has preliminarily determined that the engineering, work practice, and administrative controls, respiratory protection, training, medical surveillance, and other provisions of the proposed standard are technologically and economically feasible for facilities in all affected industries.

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"DATES: Written comments on the proposed standard must be postmarked on or before December 16, 1997 and notices of intention to appear at the informal rulemaking hearings must be postmarked on or before December 16, 1997."

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Now, in spite the stern warning of a sister agency regarding the importance of controlling the spread of this virulent disease in the workplace, we see the United States Postal Service all but ignoring the possibility that their employees could take a deadly, and possibly incurable, disease home to their families, neighbors, and friends just to save a dollar. And just as telling, the employee unions are simply standing by mute, watching this unconscionable, atrocious, and flagrant act of irresponsibility like it's business as usual. What more do we have to see to understand that it's time for American workers to stand up and retake control of their lives?
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It’s time for American workers to wake up and begin to realize that their apathy is allowing them to be written off as expendable. It's time for them to change that by using the political clout of their numbers to make themselves heard. It’s past time for them to realize that they're knee-deep in a class war that they’re losing badly.
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The idea that we can simply vote people into office and depend on them to protect our interests is a myth, and the institutions that are supposedly setup to protect our interests are actually designed to protect the status quo by giving us the illusion of justice - anyone who’s ever tried to sue a corporation for its misdeeds can attest to that. All of these institutions are myths designed to allow the few to control the many.
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History is clear. There is no example in the history of mankind where justice has simply been bestowed upon a people. The only way to obtain justice is to be strong enough to take it, and then steadfast enough in your vigilance to hold on to it. So the bottom line is, you cannot depend on politicians, union representatives, or anyone else to defend your rights without seeing to it that they have something to lose by failing to do so. Thus, the only defender of justice that we can truly depend upon is just us.
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The U.S. Postal Service is a United States government agency, so if this nation truly believed in justice, the U. S. postal service would be in the very forefront of the fight to protect employee rights. But instead, the United States Postal Service, one the few, if not the only, government agency actually mentioned in the United States Constitution, is more hostile to workers’ rights than any agency in any dictatorship anywhere in the world.
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We’ve got to bring this fact to President Obama’s attention, because as chief executive officer, he’s the head of that agency. How can we commit the lives of American troops to fight for the rights of people in other lands, while their parents are working on a plantation here at home?
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So it’s time for not only postal workers to wake up, but for poor and middle-class workers all across this country to come together and flex their political clout. If we are to survive as a nation, poor and middle-class workers must begin to understand that they will never again be secure in their jobs or their way of life until they come together to ensure that their politicians, union officials, and employers are insecure in theirs.
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Eric L. Wattree

http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)


Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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