BERNIE SANDERS IS SHOWING HIS TRUE COLORS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

.

BERNIE SANDERS IS SHOWING HIS TRUE COLORS

In spite of the fact that Bernie doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the nomination, instead of coming to help support the effort to get rid of Trump - a man who is so corrupt and delusional that he approached a German firm trying to buy the EXCLUSIVE rights to a cure to a world pandemic - Bernie is stomping his feet and complaining that he's the victim of voter suppression. How is that helping the people? That's fanaticism and an overwhelming interest in self.
.
I previously supported Bernie, but during this national emergency (Trump), Bernie needs to take his ass home and pout in private - THAT'S what's in the interest of the American people. If Bernie can't see that, everything else he's spewing is just political rhetoric designed to promote his own interests.
.
Our primary objective is to get Trump’s ass out of office, and Bernie staying in the race and promising “pie in the sky” and free unicorn rides is not going to accomplish that objective. If Bernie really cared about the American people and all of the rhetoric he’s spewing, he’d stop being so divisive and place the interest of the American people above his hurt feelings and wounded ego.
.
That’s why about a month ago I turned my back on decades of support for Bernie. I believe in following truth wherever it leads and regardless of who’s ox it gores. So after taking a fresh look at Bernie, I began to recognize that demagogues aren't new in American politics, and we've got to learn to spot them, regardless to how painful it is to accept. After all, I owe my greatest loyalty to myself.

.

BERNIE SANDERS VERSUS JOE BIDEN AS A CURE FOR THE DONALD TRUMP VIRUS

Now that Bernie Sanders is losing in the primaries he’s showing his true colors. We're beginning to see, just like with most politicians, that it's all about him, not the country. Let's be real. While we all want to believe that our latest object of political affection is different, it's not patriotism or the need to do us a favor that motivates most politicians, it's ambition and self-interest, and Bernie is revealing himself to be no different. So as a person who has admired Bernie for decades and supported him in 2016, I'm greatly disappointed with his behavior. And being a person who tends not to become fanatical over any politician, I have no problem in doing a complete reassessment of who he actually is based on the new evidence, and what I see, I'm not the least bit happy with.
.
I don't think Joe Biden would be throwing a tantrum like Bernie is if he were losing the primaries. If Biden lost, he'd simply walk away and then return to support the team, because that's his nature, and his ego is not involved. That alone speaks volumes about the relative character of the two candidates, and it perfectly explains something that I've wondered about quite a bit in the past - why does Bernie draw so many fanatics? Now I know - because Bernie is fanatical himself. 

.

It was some of his more fanatical supporters that caused me to recognize that fact about Bernie. Why does he draw such people, so many "Bernie bros"? Many of them are the flipside of a large number of Trump supporters - mindless zombies. So in spite of my previous support and continuing admiration of many of Bernie’s political ideals, I’ve always felt uneasy over being aligned with such fanatics, because I consider all manner of fanaticism based on mindless emotion rather than objective thought, and such people render themselves susceptible to being herded like cattle. That's why even though I'm very spiritual and a firm believer in God, I'm totally against ALL religions, because God gave us a mind, but it was man who gave us religion, in order make us easier to manipulate, and the same is true of political alignments. It's merely a secular form of religion, but just as fanatical. 

.

Bernie tends to believe that only his vision of reality counts, and whether or not he can be successful in promoting that vision is secondary. From Bernie’s perspective, it’s only fighting the good fight that counts, and the good fight is an end in itself. That's fanaticism. That's why he's been so isolated over the years in congress, and so ineffective. He’s a “pie in the sky” kind of guy. But life doesn’t work that way - it’s fighting the WINNING fight that counts. Life is not about all or nothing; life is about achieving your goals incrementally and gradually moving towards your ultimate objective. If Bernie hasn’t learned that simple lesson in life at his age, he’s not equipped to be president. So while he's the flipside of the political coin, and what motivates him may be different, his thinking is just like Trump's. And while, unlike Trump, Bernie's heart may be in the right place, his mind is lagging far behind.
.
As Sen. Elizabeth Warren pointed out, “This crisis demands more than a senator who has good ideas”, but Bernie’s “30-year track record shows he consistently calls for things he fails to get done and consistently opposes things he nevertheless fails to stop.” According to Congress.gov, in Bernie’s 30 years in congress he has been the lead sponsor in 422 bills, and only three of them have become law – and of them, two was to name post offices. So what is there to be so fanatical about? 

A primary example of the problem I have with some of Bernie's supporters is highlighted by those who say, “Bernie or Bust”. That alone is the height of hypocrisy and betrays the built-in bullshit of their philosophy. While they claim that they’re dedicated to moving society forward out of one side of their mouth, they’re also saying that if we don’t allow them to force their will down our throats, they're prepared to sit back and allow an aspiring dictator to win the election as punishment out of the other. That clearly demonstrates that their top priority is not the betterment of society, but to be dictators themselves – and Bernie obviously feels the same way, since he’s determined to stay in the race and continue to divide the Democratic effort in spite of the fact that he has next to no chance of winning the nomination. He's a professional foot-stomper and spoiler. That's why he has no fans in congress.
.
That should cause any thinking person to ask themselves whether Bernie is sincere in his pursuit of change, or is it just an attention-getting ploy to set himself apart?  It’s very important to look beyond what people say, and watch what they do, and it's equally important to maintain an objective state of mind and not allow yourself to become fanatical over any politician, regardless of who it is. It's a tendency to think like Bernie by many Black people that's served to hold the Black community down. We can only move forward through careful and efficient thinking, not through blind anger and raw emotion. That kind of behavior only serves to turn off potential allies. That's how Bernie lost me.

.
So I have  a simple response to Sanders supporters who claim that Joe Biden is a loser - if Biden is a loser, no Democrat can win. While until now, I've always admired Bernie (although, again, I’m currently rethinking that), I’m a realist, and his socialist tag means that I would have to place my bet on the fact that undereducated Americans - who have been brainwashed all of their lives by the corporate establishment to believe that socialism and communism are one - will have the intelligence to overcome that brainwashing, and I'm not willing to make that bet.
.
Anyone who has spent any time at all online have undoubtedly come across

people who consider the most scornful thing they can call you is not a murderer, or a rapist, but a Marxist. Many of these low-information people hate anyone tagged as a socialist with the passion of a religious conviction,  even though many of them don't even know what a Democratic socialist is. So my life experience has taught me to never bet on the intelligence of such people. If the American people were intelligent, we wouldn't currently have an idiot married to an illegal stripper and porn model living in the White House.
.
So this election is not about who's philosophy is most progressive, but who would be the best candidate to get Trump out of office. And in that regard, Hillary Clinton clearly demonstrated in 2016 that it doesn't matter how many enthusiastic fans you have in the big cities; what’s more significant is how many enemies you have in the boonies. The system was setup that way with the creation of the electoral college to protect the slave states. That's why in spite of the fact that Hillary won 3 million more votes, she still lost to Trump. The result of that election tells me one thing - Bernie is far too much of a gamble to bet on in an election that can determine whether or not America remains a democracy. He's even been a loser in congress for decades, and now he's a loser in the primaries. So the bottom line is, how badly do we want Trump out of office? If we fail to accomplish that, all of our other issues are meaningless, regardless of how high-falutin our ideals.
.
But in spite of the fact that Bernie doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the nomination, instead of coming to help support the effort to get rid of a man who is so corrupt and delusional that he approached a firm in Germany trying to buy the EXCLUSIVE rights to a cure for a world pandemic, Bernie is stomping his feet and complaining that he's the victim of voter suppression. How is that helping the people? That's fanaticism and an overwhelming interest in self. I previously supported Bernie, but during this national emergency (Trump), Bernie needs to take his ass home and pout in private - THAT'S what's in the interest of the American people. If Bernie can't see that, everything else he's spewing is just political rhetoric designed to promote his own interests. Demagogues aren't new in American politics, and we've got to learn to spot them.
.
Thus, while Joe Biden may not be as progressive as many of us would like to see in a candidate, for just that reason, he is undoubtedly the most acceptable candidate to the largest number of people – including disillusioned Trump voters who would never vote for a socialist. That’s why Trump is so afraid of him that he got himself impeached trying to smear him, and that alone speaks volumes. Trump knows the source of his biggest threat. That's why he's all but campaigning for Bernie. So no matter how tantalizing Bernie's vision of "pie in the sky" and free unicorn rides are to the imagination, if we want Trump out of office we’re going to have rely on clear thinking and common sense, not the pursuit of unfulfillable promises and emotional fanaticism. If we fail to recognize that simple fact, we might as well run Farrakhan. 

.

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
.
Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

Sphere: Related Content

HERE’S WHAT DONALD TRUMP REALLY THINKS ABOUT ISRAEL AND THE JEWS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EFFICIENT THOUGHT IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

.

HERE’S WHAT DONALD TRUMP REALLY THINKS ABOUT ISRAEL AND THE JEWS

In betrayal of his gross ignorance of simple 8th grade civics, Trump tweeted, "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!"
.
In response, the state of Israel - the United States' number one recipient of foreign aid - has denied two members of the United States Congress entry into the country as part of a congressional fact-finding delegation. The Democrats should cancel the trip entirely in response.
.
The only thing these two members of congress were guilty of was speaking out in accordance with American ideals, but Trump neither knows, nor care, anything about such "nonsense"; all he knows about is what's in the best interest of Donald Trump - and what's so ironic about it is, a large part of his most enthusiastic supporters have a passionate hatred of not only Zionists and Israel, but ALL Jews as a people. Yet, Trump says these bigots are "very good people".
.
Glaring evidence of both Trump's views, and the views of the base he reaches out to towards Jews was clearly demonstrated during his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, where he posted a picture of Hillary next to a Jewish symbol and a pile of money, suggesting that Hillary was in collusion with the Jews to takeover America. Thus, Trump cares absolutely nothing about either Israel, or Jews as a whole. All he cares about – as usual - is how they can benefit him personally.
.
Trump will turn on anything or anybody - even American democracy - to promote his short-term advantage. So the only reason he's currently supporting the Israeli Zionists is because they're at war with Muslims (or non-White people), and as far as he's concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But Trump tends to go whichever way the wind blows in his favor, so when his bigoted base runs out of foes of color, they'll begin to focus on the Jews, and Trump will be leading the charge. 
.
So Natanyahu is making a serious error in hitching his wagon to this self-serving demagogue. When Trump goes down - and he's definitely going down, and if he loses the next election, even to prison - America's not going to forget this unholy alliance. 
.
Israel's close connection with a fascist like Trump is causing it to be viewed in a much different light by many Americans. How could such an association be remotely possible considering Jewish history? The Zionists are betraying their own convictions, and based on the very same argument that Hitler used - "to insure the security of the nation". 
.
Thus, Netanyahu is causing the state of Israel to be irreversibly tarnished by its dance with the Devil - and ironically, a Devil who has absolutely no genuine respect for either the state of Israel, or the Jewish diaspora anywhere in the world. He's also allowing Israel to be used to satisfy Donald's short-term interest, and causing the state to take on the baggage of the world's passionate antipathy towards Trump in the process.

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
.
Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

Sphere: Related Content

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD AND RELIGION

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD AND RELIGION
.

GOD TAUGHT US TO LOVE.  RELIGION TEACHES US

TO HATE ANYONE WHO DOESN'T LOOK, THINK, AND

ACT LIKE OURSELVES - AND THEN LIE ABOUT IT. 

God created us to love. Then man came right behind him and gave us religion, which taught us to hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like ourselves. For that reason the very same man who is a devout Christian in Georgia would be a devout Jew if he'd been born in Israel, a devout Muslim if he’d been born in Iraq, or a Buddhist if he’d been born in China.
.
This is a very important fact to take into account, because it clearly demonstrates that in spite of what the many self-serving  preachers and theologians try to say, religion is not from God, it's merely a form of cultural indoctrination by man in order to control other men.  Clear evidence of that is the fact that 81% of White evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in spite of the fact that he's been married three times and bragged about grabbing women's genitals, all of which is diametrically opposed to their professed Christian values. Yet, for years I've heard these so-called “anointed men of God" recite the mantra that “I was called by God to spread his word.” But obviously, as these polls suggest, they consider "God's word" whatever is convenient for them at the time.
.
So I've always been suspect of such men, but unlike them, I've never considered myself to be a part of God's inner circle, so I never thought it my place to directly accuse them of lying - at least, out loud.  But I think the world is currently in such dire straits that it's time to seriously examine the contention of these men.  In that regard, every since I was a child I've always wanted to ask such people (generally men) two questions - first, what makes them think they're so special that God would choose them to speak on his behalf, and secondly, how did they know it was God calling and not simply their desire to make a dollar without having to go to work like everybody else? 
.
Thus, it has always been my view that most of these "men of God" share three things in common - they're arrogant, they're presumptuous, and they're less than trustworthy.  They're arrogant to assume they know what's on God's mind; presumptuous to think he needs their help to carry out his will; and they're less than trustworthy to even make such claims.  I mean, would God choose Pat Robertson to speak on his behalf?  Somehow, I don't think so.
.

WOULD GOD CHOOSE PAT ROBERTSON

TO SPEAK ON HIS BEHALF? 

God doesn't need man's help to either spread his word, or to express his will, any more than he needed to anoint a "holy pigeon" to teach other pigeons that it's his will for them to fly.  He incorporated both his will, and his word, into everything he created at the moment of creation just as he willed the Sun to shine and the billions of galaxies to hurl through space in search of the center of the universe.  So if God didn't need man's help to create the universe or to send our galaxy of over 200 billion stars hurling through the emptiness of outer space, he certainly doesn't need the help of a mentally challenged preacher to teach us how to live our lives.
.
The fact is, the so-called clergy is more of an impediment to living a Godly life than anything else.  Just imagine how much more Godly this world would be if we didn’t have Christians, Muslims, and Jews killing one another over their varying interpretations of "God's will."  When I was in the Marine Corps I found it completely ironic that we had military chaplains praying for God to help us kill more of "them" than they killed of us.  Thus, these people are so delusional that they think they can actually draft God to help them in their fight to steal oil from the Middle East.
.

BLESS YOU, MY CHILDREN

So what we often refer to as "the word of God" is nothing more than man's attempt to control the lives, votes, and bank accounts of other men.  Therefore, if we take the time to look closely enough, we'll find religion at the very root of all of the murder, hatred, bigotry, and destructive mayhem on the face of the Earth.  Think about it - virtually every war and act of terrorism throughout the world is based on religion, and there's a very good reason for that - because the very purpose of religion (ALL RELIGION) is to promote man's selfishness, greed, and false sense of superiority.  That's why the primary pitch of these so-called "anointed men of God" is that they're God's best friend, so unless we want God to do something horrible to us, we have to pay homage to them with our money, loyalty, and through our absolute and unwavering "faith" in every form of idiocy that spews from their mouth.
.
To the average person with common sense, the idiotic demands that these "men of God" make as a requirement for "everlasting life" is immediately recognized as complete lunacy, but what's so unbelievable about it is how effective preachers have been in convincing so many highly educated, and normally intelligent people, to embrace their nonsense.  Even my own brother, who I've always considered a pretty smart guy, told me, "You're gonna be sorry about what you said when you have to face God."  I couldn't believe it.  Since when do we have to be sorry about speaking the truth and not being a fool?  Do Christian values impose a moral obligation upon us to be absolute idiots?  Unfortunately, they do - that's what they're designed to do.  That's why Christians are often referred to as "sheep," and the Lord as their shepherd -  but since the Lord is not around, the preacher steps in to take his place.  There's a phrase to describe that technique - it's called "mind control," and that's why the word "faith" plays such an important role in Christianity.  Christians are required to have unwavering faith, not in God, but in what they're being told about God.
.
A perfect example of the hypocrisy inherent in this epidemic of backward-thinking can be seen in the fact that women are virtually NEVER allowed to lead any church or religious cult, because

"Will you get up off your knees and quit

beggin' - I did my part when I

gave you a brain, fool!"

as we all know, God doesn't speak to women - it's God's will that they just keep their mouths shut, stay in their place, and do what these "anointed" men tell them to do.  In fact, in many Muslim countries it's against the law for women to even drive a car or rent an apartment without being sponsored by a male - even if that male is their own son. They're treated like children, in spite of the fact that women gave birth to, and raise these young men and boys who are require to "sponsor" them.
.
But if you're a Christian, before you begin to smirk, you need to take a look at your own "faith." According to what we see in the Bible, the White man reigns supreme in the eyes of God.  In fact, he occupies a status just beneath that of God himself.  The Bible says, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.” - Ephesians 6:5.   In other words, when Black people allowed themselves to be freed from their "masters" after the Civil War, they committed a sin.  Just like the Confederacy, the Bible considers the emancipation of Black people in the South the theft of private "property."
.
Frederick Douglass had the following to say about Christianity and the jackleg preachers of his time:
.

"The church of this country is not only indifferent to the . . . [bad treatment of] the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors.  It has made itself the . . . [defender] of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters.  Many of its most eloquent . . . [preachers], who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system.  They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world . . . [as] Christianity."
.
In addition, the Catholic church - which was responsible for compiling the "Holy Bible" under Pope Damasus I - refuses to allow women to become priests.  That suggests that women are inferior to men.  So if the pope is truly suppose to be advancing the will of God, somebody must be a bigot, either the pope, or God himself.  So if we agree that God's not a bigot, that's prima facie evidence that the pope is lying about advancing God's will.  What he's actually doing is perpetuating man's bigotry toward women, and if that's true, we then have to ask ourselves where else is God and the truth slipping through the cracks?
.

IF IT WEREN'T SO SAD IT WOULD BE A JOKE

And yes, I referred to the world's greatest religions as cults, because anyone who believes in walkin' dead men and talkin' snakes is, by definition, a part of a cult.  After all, how is what Pat Robertson and T.D. Jakes preaching any more credible than Voodoo?  The fact is, it's not. They all believe in zombies, so they'll never be able to convince me that being stupid, ignorant, and superstitious is a part God's will - and, to my brother I'd like to say, I'm prepared and more than willing to argue my case before God himself in the hereafter.
.
So while I'm a firm believer in God, it's for intellectual reasons that I can defend, not because I believe in Voodoo, talkin' snakes, and walkin' dead men as a matter of blind faith - and I neither require, nor expect, God to do magic tricks for me in order to prove his existence.  In fact, why should God care whether or not man believes he exists?  If we don't believe in God after observing this wondrous universe around us, it simply means we're stupid.  So there's no reason for God to be fixated on us.  In terms of just this galaxy alone, man is about as significant as a germ under a toilet seat in Ozbekistan, so I doubt very seriously that God's walking around worried about whether or not we believe in him.  We're simply not that important, and the mere fact that we're under the delusion that we are clearly demonstrates that we're on the mother of all ego trips.
.
So whenever I hear these preachers, witch doctors, and soothsayers talking about God like he's their next-door-neighbor, I have to scratch my head and ask myself, "What kind of idiot is this?"  And what's even more amazing is how they can look you directly in the eye and spew the most outrageous kind of nonsense, and then act like you're crazy if you refuse to believe that Moses commanded the Red Sea to scoot over and get out of his way.  So no wonder man is suffering.  Many of us are just as backward and superstitious as we were when we were living in caves - yet, I'm suppose to have faith in these men as God's valued confidants!!!?  I don't think so.  Even if I was so "God fearing" that I tried, I'd be lying, and God would know it.
.

FIND EARTH
And we're just looking in one direction
of one galaxy in a universe that's filled with
hundreds of billions of them just like it. 

Our galaxy alone is over 100,000 light years across, and has over 200 billion stars that are light years apart - and there's over 10 TRILLION galaxies in the universe just like it.  If you go and look out at the night sky (as I do every night as part of my personal spirituality) some of the light you see, just from stars near by, left its respective stars traveling through time and space at 186,000 MILES PER SECOND (7 1/2 times around the Earth in one second), for over 100,000 years before Jesus was born just to hit your eyeball, and our galaxy is just a dust particle in the universe.  There are thousands of billions of galaxies just like it, and billions of times more distant - and the universe is still expanding in every direction at the speed of light. There are a billion times more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on every beach, desert, and particles of sand beneath the sea - and yet, man claims to know what's on God's mind!!!?  That's utterly ridiculous. So for me, "God" is simply whatever force that was responsible for creating what we refer to as "nature," "reality," and/or "the universe" - period, and case closed.  It's not my place to try to read God's mind, or define his nature, and I'm not arrogant enough to think I can.
.

THE “HOLY” BIBLE

THIS IS WHAT RELIGION IS ALL ABOUT,
BUT SINCE GOD TOOK THE TIME TO BLESS ME
WITH A BRAIN,  DOESN'T THAT SUGGEST THAT
IT WAS HIS WILL FOR ME TO USE IT,
AND NOT SIMPLY HAVE "FAITH" IN THE
WORDS OF OTHER MEN? 

The word "faith" simply means that you've chosen to believe in what some other MAN has told you instead of what God has done. Nobody can speak for God, so your so-called "faith" is an agreement that you've entered into with man to ignore the common sense that God gave you and intended you to use, and replace it with what another man tells you.  Thus, your "faith" is not in God, it's in man.
.
The Bible that Christians Worship today was compiled and “blessed” by the Catholic Church, not God.  At the time, any book that disagreed with the Catholic Church was banned.  What Christians call "The Holy Bible," and what preachers run around thumping, wasn’t even compiled until almost 400 years after the death of Jesus.  So everything in it is hearsay.  In terms of years, at the time the Bible was compiled they were twice as far away from the life and times of Jesus Christ as we are away from the life and times of George Washington today.  So in reality, they didn’t know fact from fiction any more than we know whether or not George Washington actually chopped down a cherry tree:
.
"For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today. Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose. The Catholic Church realized early on that it had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren't. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren't. In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides. One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father's writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions. When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSON’S PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL. There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome's position, or Augustine's position was the correct position, had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
.
"Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, "The Decree of Damasus," in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books"
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080928064041AATOZUD).
.
SO THE POPE HAD SPOKEN, AND THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED. THUS, WHAT CHRISTIANS REFER TO AS "THE HOLY BIBLE" IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD AT ALL, IT'S THE WORD OF POPE DAMASUS I.
.
So if you're waiting around for Jesus to come back and "save" you, you can forget it.  Dead men don’t come back. That’s why God blessed you with a mind, so you could handle your own problems. So believing in the Bible and believing in God are two different things. To believe in the Bible is to believe in the nonsense of man, where believing in God is to believe in the common sense that God bestowed upon you, which man claims is the Devil trying to mislead you.  Therefore, going around worshiping man’s nonsense is the source of our misery, not our salvation.  Just look around you!  If God blesses those he loves, based on the suffering that Black people have endured for the past 400 years, one would think he must hate our guts.  But that's not the case. We're suffering because we've been taught to fall on our knees instead of getting on our job.  God blessed us with the most powerful computer of any species on Earth, but instead of using it to move forward, we're wasting it analyzing football games, worshipping other men, and writing rhymes calling the very womb of our culture "bitches" and "hoes" - and then, we don't understand why we can't get any respect. We're the only group on Earth who denigrate our own mothers, sisters, and daughters worse than we would any dog.  That's the very definition of self-hatred, so why should anyone else respect us if we don't respect ourselves?  And here's how we got that way:
.

The Conversion

 "Come here nigga and let me teach yo crazy, animal ass about the Lord. The first thing you got to learn is to Love thy Neighbor . . . especially me."

.

"Yes sir, Massa. Why would anybody not love you, Sir? You so good to me, Massa. Anybody don't love you needs to have dey ass beat real good, Massa."

.
"Shut up, nigga. I'm talkin'."
.
"Listen, you been blessed already, and you don't even know the Lord. The Lord made it where you don't have to worry 'bout a thing. I feed you, I put clothes on yo nasty ass, and I give you a shed to sleep in, and all you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to. Do you know how blessed you are?"
.
"Oh, indeed I do, Massa. You take good care of me. I's so happy."
.
"Now, listen real good 'cause dis impotant. God said, thou shalt not steal from me, thou shalt not kill (unless I tell you to), thou shalt not stick another coon's wife (unless we tryin' to make some mo niggas), and nigga, whatever you do, thou shalt not even look like you want to stick a white woman, or we gon lynch yo black ass. You here me, nigga?"
.
"Oh yes, Massa. We know dat! But Massa, I thought you said thou shalt not kill?"
.
"Dat means people, fool - real people!  Dat don't go for niggas. God wants us to keep you in yo place."
.
"Dat's right, Massa. We sho gotta keep niggas in dey place. No tellin' what a happen if we let dese niggas git loose. God so smart."
.
"I said shut up, nigga, and listen to the word."
.
"The next thing you got to learn is, whatever happens on this plantation is God's will bein' done. And if you listen to me, you'll get to live like I do when you die and go to Heaven."
.
"Live like you, massa? A nigga ain't got no business livin' dat good. What a Po nigga like me gon do with all this? You know I ain't got sense enough to run nothin' like this."
.
"Just shut up, nigga!" When you dead you gon get some sense - the lord gon give it to you. The Lord can do anything, even give sense to a nigga. And he gon give you all the other niggas you gon need to help you in the fields, too."
.
"Massa, you so good to me! Thank you for tellin' me all dis. I'm gon be a good nigga - the best nigga you ever seened. Look, I'm gon pray for you right now, and thank the Lord for givin' me so good a massa."
.
"Shut up and get up off your knees, ya dumb nigga! The fields need tendin'! You pray to the Lord on your own time. God don't won't you talkin' to him when you s'pose to be workin'."
.
"A couse, Massa. What I been thinkin'? I's so dumb. I don't know why you put up with me, Sir."
.
"How many times I got to tell you to shut the hell up, nigga?"
.
"Yes Sir, I's a shuttin', Massa. I's a shuttin', right now."
.
"Now get yo ass out there in that field and let's get some work done around here . . . Oh, and Toby, have yo woman meet me in the barn. I need to tell her 'bout the Lord too."
.
"Yes sir, Massa."
.
"And another thing, Toby, if my momma come a lookin', tell her I'm playin' in my tree house."
.
"Why you gon go fibbin' to yo momma, Mr. Tommy? She knows you like to sit wit Lou Ann."
.
"Just shut up, nigga, and do what I said! And tell Lou Ann to wear that pretty dress I like, cause we gon be talkin' 'bout the Lord, so it's gon be like chuch."
.
"Yes Sir, Mr. Tommy." . . .
.
"Whaaaaaaat a friend we have in Jeeeeesus . . ."
.
So that's how Black people - and many poor White  people - got where we are today, and we're gonna stay there until we learn to get off our knees and start thinking.  God helps those who help themselves. That’s why your preacher has a much bigger house than you do - and he worked a whole lot less to get it.
.

.
Finally, there are only three commandments, and you don't have to read a "holy" user's manual to find them. You were born with this knowledge:
.
1). Live the best life you can.
2). Help others whenever you can.
And most importantly,
3). Mind your own damn business.
.
That came directly from God.  It’s called common sense.
.

AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. 
81% OF WHITE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS
VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP

.

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.

Sphere: Related Content

Is President Obama a Slave to Wall Street?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Is President Obama a Slave to Wall Street?

.

Whenever I hear a person claim that President Obama is a slave to the corporatist Wall Street culture, I know immediately that he’s one of three things - he’s either ignorant, blind to reality, or he’s promoting his own agenda. Of course Obama is a slave to Wall Street - we all are.
.
You can’t live in this society without being a slave to Wall Street. But there are two kinds of slaves. There are slaves who are subservient and content to simply do what they’re told, and then there are slaves who engage in a constant struggle to free themselves and their people. So, while I’m not always happy with some of the day-to-day decisions that President Obama makes to promote our cause, I’m convinced that Obama is one of the latter. If he wasn’t, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to get rid of him.

.

The fact is, if you’re a casual observer sitting at home and keeping score based purely on your attitudes, prejudices, and feelings, it’s easy to pass your uninformed judgment on every decision that any politician makes. But the reality is, anyone who decides to go into politics has to be practical, and a huge part of that practicality entails recognizing the fact that you’re going to have to dance to the music that’s being played, and it’s Wall Street that leads the band. So regardless to who we elect, they’re going to have to have, at the very least, a working relationship with the corporate establishment - and ironically, it’s our own fault.

.

The primary reason that every politician in this country is forced to play footsy with the corporate establishment is because we, the people, are so lazy, undereducated, and disengaged from our own political well being that we allow the corporations to use money to control our minds. So the only way that a politician like Obama can even get through to us is by way of the corporate establishment.

.

The reason that money has such a large influence on our political system is because it’s used to tell us what, and how, to think. From the time that most of us get up in the morning until the time we go to bed at night, we spend most of our free time with corporate voices whispering in our ear. It could be the radio, television, or even the billboards that we don’t think we’re noticing as we’re driving in to work, but the fact is, they are all having a profound subliminal effect on our thinking and attitudes. They’re conditioning us to think, and to do, what they tell us to. Corporations spend billions of dollars a year to convince wimps with severe cases of acne and horrendous body odors that if they buy a certain kind of car, the beautiful model that’s sensuously stroking its hood, or someone just like her, is going to fall in love with them - and they influence out vote in exactly the same way. Thus, every politician must remain cogizant of that fact. 

.

My personal favorite is the National Rent-A-Car commercial. They have a businessman walking through the air port in slow motion with dramatic music playing in the background. Then when he gets to the counter, they have the lady behind the counter making goo-goo eyes at him like she can barely restrain herself from jumping over the counter and attacking him. Then the clincher is, at the end of the commercial they have a deep, authoritative voice saying, "YOU DESERVE THIS!"

.

That commercial servers two purposes. First, it entices the traveling businessman to believe that using National Rent-A-Car makes him seem more important. But it also sends a message to the public - that big business is powerful, and that’s a good thing, so the concept of big business should be seen in a positive light because, "THEY DESERVE THIS!"

.

Since the public is manipulated like this 24 hours a day, any politician who doesn’t have a working relationship with corporations can’t survive. The reason for that is simple. The very same corporation that runs commercials on Monday that convinces an unthinking electorate that "Obama is a big-government socialist who’s trying to put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor," can turn around on Tuesday and convince that very same unthinking electorate that it’s appropriate to create a government small enough to crawl up a woman’s uterus. That explains why we have people walking around saying things like, "Obama is un-American - he’s engaged in a socialist plot to insure my family’s healthcare and send my kids to college." It sounds like hyperbole, but as we see on a daily basis, people are actually that brainwashed.

.

Thus, the problem in this country is not the amount of money flowing through the system, that’s only secondary; the primary problem is the apathy, selfishness, and ignorance of the people. Money is merely a tool used to feed that apathy, selfishness, and ignorance to our severe disadvantage, and to make sure that we remain that way - both ignorant, and disadvantaged.

.

While the corporations can’t use their money to literally buy a political office, they can, and do, use it to convince us to GIVE it to them by repeatedly reelecting those politicians who are willing to promote corporate interests. Their primary method of doing that is by playing on our ignorance and selfishness through the use of conflation. That keeps the poor and middle class so angry and divided that we fail to come together to protect our mutual interest.

.

The corporate manipulators will conflate liberalism with socialism, communism, and un-Americanism, then tell everyone else who doesn’t subscribe to liberal philosophy that the liberals are trying to take away their way of life. Then they’ll target Blacks and initiate a campaign to convince everyone else that Blacks want to rob and steal from them, murder their sons and rape their daughters. Thereafter, they target every segment of the poor and middle class, one by one, and associate them with some threat to everyone else. That keeps the poor and middle class in turmoil. It causes them to be so angry, fearful, and divided among themselves that they fail to recognize that they’re being manipulated, while all their throats are being cut by a common foe - corporate greed.
.
But corporate greed is not the only foe. We must also add the misery leeches and poverty pimps who also have a vested interest in keeping the people angry and divided. These are the self-appointed "defenders of the poor and put-upon" who make a fortune by manipulating the people’s anger. Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West immediately come to mind in that regard. Every time Smiley has a book to promote, wants a boost in his television ratings, or has any other snake oil to promote, he tours the country stirring up the very division that keeps the people impoverished. And West, who has teamed up with Smiley - just as he did with Ralph Nader during the 2000 election that gave us George Bush - also has a vested interest in the peoples’ misery. He reportedly pulls in $10,000 a speech complaining about our misery, while at the same time promoting the division that keep us that way. Thus, if the people ever did "overcome," it would be economically devastating to both of these hustlers.

.

The only remedy for this situation is education, and through education, enlightenment. Because through a true education and its attendant enlightenment - as oppose to mere literacy - we’re more prone to become independent thinkers. As a result, we wouldn’t be nearly as susceptible to the unsubstantiated claims of snake oil salesmen. We would examine what we were being told, and we would consider the motives of those who were going out of their way to spread negative generalizations about others. Then, and only then, will we be able to defend our individual interests, and come together to defend the nation against the widespread and rampant corruption that’s currently dragging this country under the bus.

.

Thus, if we want to save this nation for the benefit of our children, and their children, it is incumbent upon the American people to wake up to reality - and in a hurry. The world is changing faster than it ever has before, so we may not have but one or two elections left before the damage to this country is irreversible.

.

We’ve got to start thinking of this country like it’s a business, we’re the owners, and the politicians are our employees. Only then will we begin to recognize the importance of our full engagement in running that business. Because the fact is, if the United States was a business, and as owners, we simply lounged around at home watching BET, MTV, and ESPN while allowing our employees (the politicians) to run it in the ground by giving themselves unwarranted raises in the middle of the night, and squandering and away our profits, it wouldn’t be the employees’ fault. It would be ours.

.

So again, is President Obama a slave to Wall Street? Of course he is. We all are, and it’s way past time to correct that situation. But any president, regardless to who we elect, is going to need our help in that regard.

.

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.

Sphere: Related Content