Death of a Senate Bill and the Ruling Class

Now that the Illegal Emigration bill has died a second natural death, a second post mortem would be in order.

First, it should be noted that the American People did not want the bill to be passed. They spoke in new ways, through emails and other electronic devices and made their wishes known. The ruling class heard the American People and enough of that class decided not to risk the inevitable result of defying the People. But, some of the ruling class still thinks, in its elitist way, that it knows what is best for us. They may flunk out of the ruling class, soon.

Second, it should be observed that American Unions did not want the bill to be passed. Thus, there were Democrat leaders who worked for the bill as they worked against it. This way they could be seen as pro-illegal emigrant and anti-cheap labor at the same time. Union bosses speak loudly.

Third, those of us who are against the bill will be called all sorts of names. We will be reviled as many kinds of –phobes. Tough! It is hard to get into a struggle without being called names. That is the way of Washington, DC. They will say that radio talk shows were responsible for the failure of the bill. Nevertheless, it was the People who made the decision based on the information they had. It has been a long time since we have had two sides presented on any issue. It was a refreshing experience.

Fourth, Washington Insiders are already saying that we can’t control the problem because the new law wasn’t passed. But we have plenty immigration laws on the books right now that we are not enforcing. Why not try them? It would be a novel adventure. After all, we were told some 21 years ago by Senator Teddy Kennedy what a good law the last one was. Let us try it out and see if it needs improving. So far no one has tried it.

What really bothers the Ruling Class is that the People may decide to stop some other legislation, such as raises for the inept in their class. I, for one, can hardly wait.


Senate Immigration Talk+Radio Teddy+Kennedy

Illegal Immigration & the Next Prez

What concerns me about the proposed Illegal Alien situation has nothing to do with President Bush. He is totally unimportant in the entire equation, because he will not be president for very long. What he says or does cannot tie the hands of another president. If Mr. Bush’s successor chooses not to enforce part or all of the proposed law, all that Mr. Bush and the Congress says is pure baloney. American citizens need to focus on the next president, not the present one. What will he or she actually do? If the next president wants to pander to people who came into this country illegally, just to buy votes, we citizens are royally screwed!

Illegal+immigration President+Bush Congress

Adding Something New

The best way to get over the agony of writing a book is to begin anther book. I just sent to a publisher my book General Morgan’s Legacy. It is a novel about a modern man who stumbled across information about the Confederate General John Hunt Morgan as he escaped from a Yankee prison in 1863. The book consists of two stories intertwined, but separated by about 140 years.

What sparked the book is information about General Morgan that suddenly emerged from an exchange of letters between me and a well-known poet/novelist. It seems this writer’s great-grandfather and my great-grandfather worked together to help Morgan get back to Tennessee so he could once more attack the Union Army.

With this book I will be presenting new information about the Civil War and one of its Generals in the South. Adding to the existing literature on a topic is always fun. Every book I have written (except the one on time travel—Time Out of Joint) has done just that.

I interrupted the writing of another book to finish the Morgan book. I was getting bogged down into too much detail in my newest book, Ploughshares into Swords. That book tells what civilians did to assist the WWII war effort, and in particular what the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) did both with artillery rockets and the atom bomb. In that book I will be adding to the literature about the Bomb and about rocketry. Perhaps Caltech as well.

In between chapters of Ploughshares I am writing about a curious turn of events that occurred during the Cold War. Armed with grudging information obtained from US intelligence agencies under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I will be able to put together a story that will upset several writers of CIA expose’ books of the past decades. What they said in part was not true, either because they did not know, or because they did know but were not allowed to tell.

It is always fun to add new facts to old, established history.

Caltech CIA Confederacy General+John+Hunt+Morgan Civil+War FOIA Wendell+Berry WWII Rockets

Moral Superiority

When I was a boy I was brought up in an Episcopal church in the South. I loved that church, its members and the priest. Many years later I still think of him. He was a successful minister of a rapidly growing church. He was rewarded by being made the evangelistic bishop of Wyoming—a place where there were few people and where he could do no damage, preaching to sheep and cattle. One thing about him—he was not political. Neither were the cattle he was left to minister to.

Now look at the Episcopal Church in America. Highly political, very politically correct, full of leaders with huge egos, and congregations that are diminishing in size. It seems its impending failure is unimportant as long as the egos get all the attention they need and as long as politics are the Church’s message to the world. I feel like weeping for the Episcopal Church which has become a testimony to the things that are temporal.

Episcopal leaders aren’t the only ones to seek what they understand—the political—and avoid the religious, which remains a mystery. I suspect the ministers of such churches are not confident in their calling or they wouldn’t have scrambled after each popular cause that came down the pike.

I recall the story of the leader of a Methodist church who was given a Viet Cong flag in the early 1970’s and conducted a march through the streets of his conservative town bravely flying the flag of Communists. A large portion of his membership fled to other churches in the area and never returned. So the minister wrecked his own church and no doubt feels morally superior to those who left, even thirty years later. After all, the “right thinking” people stayed, didn’t they? That feeling of moral superiority must be important to some.

One thing the Judeo-Christian ethic teaches us about moral superiority is that no one has a monopoly on it. The insignificant widow in the Bible who gave two small coins, gave all she had, which was far more than the significant wealthy people gave. And the widow wasn’t giving out of a desire moral superiority, she was giving out of a sense of love. I, for one, am not sure how love fits into the moral superiority scheme of things.


Moral+Superiority Episcopal Methodist Religion Politics

Bishops Lobby for Illegals

There is an interesting article in my local newspaper today by Norberto Santana, Jr. It is an opinion piece presented as news that tells how Catholic bishops are lobbying to keep families together. That is, to force the U.S. Government to keep Catholic kids with their parents in the U.S. In other words, to open the borders. It is the Moral thing to do.

Even though I have tremendous respect for the Catholic Church, I can see two things are wrong with this approach. One is the bishops’ moral high ground. They forget it is immoral to invade the borders of another country, break its laws, steal people’s identities and divide one’s own family. The bishops need to be talking to citizens of other countries in those countries, not in the U.S. Americans are hard-working, law-abiding, egalitarian and respectful, and they do not invade the borders of Latin-American countries.

The second thing I see wrong with this approach by bishops is that it focuses on Catholic families. There are other families that become divided. What happens to the families of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants? Don’t they also leave families behind? Surely those families need to be kept together as well. Their Moral issues are just as strong.

Perhaps the morality of keeping families together is the wrong method of attack. It is highly emotional but can’t stand scrutiny.

Having been a factory manager in North Hollywood, CA, Toronto, Canada and Albany, New York, I have some experience. All these sites had their share of Hispanic workers. Hispanic people were terrific but they had no monopoly on working hard or of leaving families behind.

Illegal+Immigration Catholic+Bishops U.S.+Borders Identity+Theft Morality