Not forgotten....don't be forlorn

May 18, 2007
While this, my very first, blog languised for over six months, I stole from it and dedicated myself to a newer blog effort. A mistake. I will rectify. I will take from the other to add here and add here new stuff that may or may not go there. I also have another blog account which I'll work on soon. This new blog promises to allow me more "freedom" to vent? We will see.

The "Why" of it

The "Why" of it

An email conversation caused me to do a bit of research on the political parties in America. I generally knew that the Deomocratic Party had ruled here in this country for about 100 years. With the losses only in l980,l982,1984, 1994, briefly in 2000 and, of course, nothing since. What I discovered, however, was that the Left or some like type had actually been in power in this country since before 1825! There were the Whigs, Free Soil, Know Nothings and Bull Moose Progressives to name a few. When the Republican and Democratic Parties become more mainstream, these different parties split with half to the Republican and half to the Democrats. What I found instructive was that those in favor of a more agrarian country and pro slavery generally migrated throughout this period towards the Left side of ideology. This is simplistic, but the post needs to be as concise as possible. Their true loss of power didn't really get achieved for any long period of time, until the current Bush Administration. Eight years out of power in 30 is difficult to say the least. My focus, however, was on a group that had operated separately until the early 20th century when they merged with the Democrats. They were called the Douglas Democrats. They were largely responsible for Roosevelt's social programs before the WWII and have continued to increase in power gradually until the 1960's when their agenda became part of the anti-war movement. The first time they could and did change the direction of this country. Their "good intentions" for the rest of us based on their ideology created the road paved with gold that has led America to the Hades we have experienced in every part of our country since the 1970's. They are not, in my opinion, so much Left as truly anti anything American. They believe that they are the leaders in an ideology that stresses the socialist meme of: we know what is best, we will make sure you follow what we say and you will pay with your taxes to make our wishes possible, and you can't do a thing about it! That is where the hate and vicious vitrol come from, they have not been able to take the reins of this country and until George W. Bush they were confident that their time had come! Bush halted them. In the past five years, they have gradually been exposed for what they are. They have aligned themselves with the existing Fifth Column, Communists and Anarchists and 'hate' became their operative raison d'etre. The middle of the road, reasonable, moderate side of the Left is almost gone. And, as Kos has learned, no one can control them now. This group has been part of the American landscape since before its inception and continues to this day. One question: do the supporters of these people understand what the goals are? Or, is the hatred too much to listen to reason. So, is it any wonder why "they" hate America so much. Will Americans make the mistake of voting them in this year in the congress and then let Hillary/Kerry/Gore or some other with their goals gain the presidency?

"Human" Persons, some history

A small essay for Afarensis Anthropology. Evolution Science/Blog

It is we, us, that is indeed different. I have never considered the word "special" as it applies to modern man. Therefore, for me, the question I believe is still out there is: where did Cro-Magnon, modern man come from? I am certain that somewhere on the planet another sub species developed that ultimately became modern man. The theory that the Neandertals were wiped out by the modern humans "feels" right to me based on the ultimate development of modern humans into what has existed on this planet over 7000 years: barbarism everywhere. The bloodlust and cruelty that has been well documented for over 5000 years to this day, tells me, at least, clearly that modern humans, while having traits of previous primate lineage to whatever degree evolved differently.

It would be highly interesting to see another view of history, using Neandertals to present, just to be able to see if they would be so blindly brillant, stupid, cruel and loving. In fact, I have often speculated that there is a nano percentage of modern man that descended with Neandertal genes which allowed for a higher evolutionary level than the rest.

But, what do I know, I'm just an old broad that loves the subject but never got a chance to go to college and "dig in" so to speak. I'm awaiting the time when I can bravely say: beam me up Scotty.

Posted by: Sue | September 3, 2006 05:22 PM

I will respond to my brother's response of September 1, 2006. He is, I believe, wrong. I have not yet responded to him, but if he is wrong I get one up. A great bonus for me. Let's move on to Samson....

Samson and the Lesson (August 21, 2006)

Another discussion with my brother.

He writes:

I hope all is well.

Regarding Judeo-Christian values, you probably should know about Samson. His story is in the book of Judges. What do you think of his suicide?

Cheers,

##

Then Samson called to the LORD, saying, “O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!” And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.

-- Judges chapter 16 verses 28-30

On Aug 6, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Sue Harris wrote:

Took writing course 25 years ago. Had to pass English and did. I have been printed many times, but in the Letters to the Editor section and a poem in college. My writing forays don't count in the bowling life I used to lead.

I never meant to write as much as I did last night. Didn't even consider looking at the length until I pasted it to my blog...that is when I realized I'd gone too far without my usual revision methods which generally get the piece down to a third of what you saw. But, heh, you are family and I rarely ever put anything in print anywhere else I haven't rewritten many times.

The name I would ascribe, if I were to do such a thing and I really don't, would be "traditionalists", i.e., those who hold the Judeo-Christian values to heart, having nothing to do with religion.

What I sent you was completely raw, straight out of my head. I will compare yours and mine. I'll let you know

See? I am already doing it again. 'Nuff said.

I respond further:

I need more context to answer your question fully. However, consider that there were Islamofascists whose death would end this cancer in our world, then I too would do what Samson did. I will get Debi's bible and read about Samson, I only have a recollection from decades ago.

My next response:

Context, history is context. It seems to me that the Jews had a very difficult time following their God's commandments choosing material things over piety. Samson was spoiled, selfish and obsessed with women (sex?). He choose badly in most cases and had to suffer the consequences. Samson was not what I would call a caring, intelligent human being. Samson's belief in his strength caused heartache and death. Could it have ended any other way but as it did? Even in the end, he choose death. Suicide? I feel it was more vengeance against what he perceived happened to him. Is he not, in many way, a personification of Jews and humans in general: whine and do bad when things have not gone your way. That's my take.

Love, Sue

He responds:

You have a good perspective.

As you know, the people of Israel have been oppressed over the millennia, over and over again. Yet they have continually been saved by super heros such as Samson, with his great strength to overcome oppressors. Moses is another prototypical super hero who overcomes the great Egyptian oppressors, including countless Egyptian civilians, woman and elderly included and especially children, with genocidal scale plagues. Another is King David, who as a young boy, single handedly defeated the greatest Philistine warrior of all, Goliath. The list goes on and on.

In fundamental ways, the tiny nation of Israel has not changed. You can see Samon's strength in Israel today. Today it is again a world superpower (certainly the regional superpower) since it possesses nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Today too it remains under assault by its modern day Philistine enemies--a legacy of the ancient revelry between Cain and Abel.

The question I asked about Samson's death, should have been framed more sharply: Do you see him as the first vengeful "suicide bomber" killing thousands of civilians, woman and children and the elderly included, wreaking the divine wrath of the Lord to save Israel?

Me: No. What more can I say? My take is that he didn't do with hate but with vengeance, but not for his People, but because of the shame and the loss of his sight.

American Political Party

A Query to my baby brother:

August 30, 2006

I would ask a favor. I have done the best I could but don't have resources
available to me.

Would you do a bit of research of "Douglas Democrats"? When I originally
read about this group several years ago, I found some information. Then,
when I tried to get the information again, I couldn't find what I had originally
seen.

As I understood the original information I read it was a group that merged
with the Democratic Party in the 1930's. They merged because they weren't
able to get themselves elected.

If you have the time, I would appreciate it.

# #

Response:

September 01, 2006

Douglas Democrat is a term for those politically aligned with Stephen
Arnold Douglas during the 1860 United States presidential election.
Douglas was a northern democrat. Douglas Democrats supported slavery
and after the civil war worked to oppose emancipation. Democrats
established the Jim Crow laws, and later in the 20th century worked
to oppose the civil rights movement. When the Democratic party
transformed itself into a party supporting the civil rights under
Johnson, the Southern Democrats (the present-day descendants of the
Douglas Democrats) moved to the Republican party. The Republican
Party was founded in 1854 as a coalition of former Whigs, Northern
Democrats, and Free-Soilers, all opposed to the expansion of
slavery. The Republican Party has undergone major realignments as
the Democratic Party has. The definition of either party is very
fluid of the long-term and apparently even interchangeable, as is
historically witnessed over and over again since the time of the
parties' respective inceptions.

More history about the Democratic and Republican Parties can be found
at

In 1858, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, debated
Republican Abraham Lincoln on the question of slavery. Said Douglas
during one of those debates: "For one, I am opposed to negro
citizenship in any and every form. I believe this government was made
on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the
benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor
of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and
descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other
inferior races."

So prevalent were these views in the Democratic Party that Douglas
was named its presidential candidate in 1860. Amazingly, Southerners
actually viewed Douglas as being too moderate on the slavery issue
and instead voted for Vice President John C. Breckinridge, a slave-
owner who also ran as a Democrat, thus splitting the pro-slavery vote
and allowing Lincoln to win.

The Democratic Party evolved from the political factions that opposed
Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policies in the early 1790s; these
factions are known variously as the Anti-Administration “Party” or
the Anti-Federalists. In the mid-1790s, Thomas Jefferson, and James
Madison organized these factions into a party and helped define its
ideology in favor of yeomen farmers, strict construction of the
Constitution, and a weaker federal government. They named it the
"Republican Party." Today the party is called the Democratic-
Republican Party (or simply the Democratic Party) to distinguish it
from the modern-day Republican Party. Following the civil war,
Douglas Democrats had constituted the southern block of the
Democratic party, and today are known as Conservative Republicans.
This is how the switch came about.

After the civil war, the Democratic Party held a lock on the South
for more than 100 years. All of the "Jim Crow" laws that prevented
blacks from voting and kept them down were enacted by Democratic
governors and Democratic legislatures. The Ku Klux Klan was virtually
an auxiliary arm of the Democratic Party, and any black (or white)
who threatened the party's domination was liable to be beaten or
lynched. Democrats enacted the first gun-control laws in order to
prevent blacks from defending themselves against Ku Klux Klan
violence. Chain gangs were developed by Democrats to bring back de
facto slave labor.



The New Deal Coalition established by Franklin Roosevelt began to
fracture as more Democratic leaders voiced support for civil rights,
upsetting the party's traditional base of conservative Southern
Democrats. After Harry Truman's platform showed support for civil
rights and anti-segregation laws during the 1948 Democratic National
Convention, many Southern Democratic delegates decided to split from
the Party and formed the "Dixiecrats", led by South Carolina governor
Strom Thurmond (who, as a Senator, would later join the Republican
Party). Over the next few years, many conservative Democrats in the
"Solid South" drifted away from the party. On the other hand, African
Americans, who had traditionally given strong support to the
Republican Party since its inception as the "anti-slavery party",
shifted to the Democratic Party due to its New Deal economic
opportunities and support for civil rights.

The party's dramatic reversal on civil rights issues culminated when
Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile, the Republicans were beginning their
infamous Southern strategy, which aimed to solidify the Republican
Party's electoral hold over conservative white Southerners. Southern
Democrats took notice of the fact that 1964 Republican Presidential
candidate Barry Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act, and
in the presidential election of 1964, Goldwater's only electoral
victories outside his home state of Arizona were in the states of the
Deep South.

The degree to which the Southern Democrats had abandoned the party
became evident in the 1968 Presidential election when every former
Confederate state except Texas voted for either Republican Richard
Nixon or independent George Wallace, the latter a former Southern
Democrat. Defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey's electoral votes came
mainly from the Northern states, marking a dramatic shift from the
1948 election 20 years earlier, when the losing Republican
candidate's electoral votes were mainly concentrated in the Northern
states.:

We continue...

As tribes grew larger, there became a time for us to choose an individual to help us make decisions that no longer could be by consensus. Jean Auel's descriptions in her first three books: Clan of the Cave Bear, The Mammoth Hunters, The Plains of Passage show just how these large tribes encompassing dozens of individuals probably functioned. You can clearly see the differentiation of types and better yet you can follow the tribe's thinking when one of their own becomes weak. Weak in the moral arena, not the physical one. You can begin to see the bias that develops but still, the tribes took care of its members. The tribe had not yet gone the two steps required to become what we are today.

The first step was greed. Greed for the unnecessary. Greed, our original sin. We have honed that particular emotion to the utmost. But, greed, nonetheless was not necessarily the bad thing it became. Greed allowed a higher level of curiosity and began the requirement of mind over the necessary to wanting. There is nothing that greed does not cover. Everything that can be achieved turns bad when greed is the prime motivator. The development of this emotion requires, in my belief, that unless the wanted "thing" is achieved, frustration over denial leads to hate against the who or what prevents its achievement. And still, the tribe system worked well overall to further advancement.

The second step was the discovery of how babies were actually made. No, this is not what you're thinking. In my philosophy, until mankind began to understand how babies were made, the sin of materialism wasn't of much use. Think about it: if you acquire "things" then you want to be assured that who get your "things" is related to you by blood. I mean, why give it over to friends or strangers if you have offspring that are yours. Offspring that also give you a "reason" to validate your acquisions. So they discovered how babies were made and then, guess what? Well, to insure that your seed was "your seed", women had to be prevented from allowing other seeds to take root. The millenium-old freedom which all members of the race had from the beginning to time to copulate by choice and at will had to be prevented. Sometime after we came together in large tribes, women began to be treated as chattel. And within just a few thousand years, we were by religion and power, legal chattel of the men in our lives. The freedoms enjoyed by all were then taken away from women but continued to be enjoyed by men. Now the concept of "kings" could begin and the consolidation of power within a group was completed. We are now sometime around the 10-15,000 years ago.

Now, to the GODs!