Guest Post fr.YouTube: "I Think, therefore I'm Trans" speech by Alycia Woods

"The number of people identifying as transgender has risen sharply over the past several years, especially among young girls. This rise has caught the attention of journalists, scientists, and the medical community, many of whom have come to conclude that something is very wrong. Are gender and sex actually linked? What about those that “detransition?” And what about the fact that culture seems to be shifting its view of transgenderism? In this talk, we will look at some of the data that is coming out from various cultural sources as well challenge Christians to think about how we can be Christ to a hurting people."
by Alycia Woods

Part 4: Pompei's Pillar on the Yellowstone River

Bulky Pompei’s Pillar
Towers over Yellowstone's River
Flowing;
That rugged brown bluff rears,
Engraved with historic graffiti

With Clark’s signatured
Declaration still writ large
Over 210 years later
Behind Plexiglas for us to gawk,
But Lewis ended it all;
Allegedly he balked;

Still the icy water courses on
Toward the Big Muddy
For all of us,
Finally down to the Gulf,
Each of us a brief tag
In this
Muddled flow of history,
Flashing specks
Sparks of consciousness,
Then ashed and gone--
Deep Time
Rushes
On



Dan Wilcox
First pub.
in Lunarosity,
then Dark Energy
Poetry Collection

Part #2: Finding Answers and Solutions to BLM

#1: Latent racism still exists and needs to be strongly opposed. And we need to remember that many of the problems in Black communities can be blamed on us as a nation, on our White ancestors in the past. President George Washington owned 317 slaves before, during, and after being president.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Philosopher George Santayana

However, the past is a double-edged sword.

Enslavement wasn't only done by Whites. Incredibly, fairly rich Blacks also owned slaves in the United States including Ana Kingsley in Florida.

In Charleston, South Carolina, 125 free Black men owned their own slaves!

The Black planter John Carruthers Stanly of North Carolina had 3 plantations and enslaved 163 Blacks.

Nicolas Augustin Metoyer a Louisiana Black owned 13 slaves in 1830. He and his 12 family members collectively owned 215 slaves.

Even worse, Blacks in Africa sold millions of Blacks captives to Whites, millions of men and women treated as things by their own race over several centuries.

Furthermore, Muslim slavery also accounts for a huge number of Blacks enslaved for centuries.

But that gigantic holocaust of suffering, abuse, enslavement, and killing was an important factor in the start,
twisting, and continuing misdirection of Black cultural dysfunctions which still cause injustice and suffering today in the United States.

So why hasn't more progress been attained by Blacks since the Civil Rights movement
led by Rustin, King and others over 50 years ago!?

In fact, in some areas, Black behavior and actions have worsened!


#2: Thinkers and activists need to figure out why severe dysfunctional patterns of Blacks are worsening.

For instance, why are so many Black children growing up without a father?

Born to young unwed mothers.

Currently it is more than 72%!

But back in 1965, Black illegitimacy was 24%.

Why has this severely dysfunctional way of living jumped to 72%?

"Children of unmarried mothers of any race are more likely to perform poorly in school, go to prison, use drugs, be poor as adults, and have their own children out of wedlock."

Rates are lower for other groups:
Asians: 17%,
Whites: 29%
Hispanics: 53%
Native Americans: 66%

The historically low rate of suicide among Black youth increased 114% in the 1980's and 90's.

WHY?!

Black young men account for most of the slaughter, so many murders, occurring in Black neighborhoods.

WHY?!

In one week, 99 people were shot in Chicago, 24 of them died. It was the worst day in 13 years.
"Among the wounded that day was a 10-year-old boy shot in the back as he played on his front porch in Lawndale."
Chicago Tribune

Last year at this time, 1, 725 people had been shot, none of them by police.
This year it's 2,514.

Why do so many Black young men choose a life of crime and gun-violence?

WHY?

#3 The Black Lives Matter Movement need to stop the propaganda.

They need to strongly condemn and prohibit violence, and commit to reconciliation.

Lastly, they need to stop blaming all of their problems on police and Whites, and others.

Look, again, at some of the delusionary claims made:
“#BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise

No one, certainly not law enforcement officers, are "systematically and intentionally" targeting Blacks for demise.

According to MBL, Black youths are "often pushed off of an academic track onto a track to prison."

This is simply not true.

In the various school districts I taught in for many years, often with at-risk students, this didn't happen.
On the contrary, we teachers worked extra diligently to help students who were disadvantaged.

We offered lunch-time and after-school-tutoring, sought to make our lessons user-friendly, even for the weakest students.

According to Georgia Sand, police regularly shoot, "unarmed people in the back, tasering children in the head, killing children, or beating pregnant women, among others."

This is also plainly propaganda, not factual information.
That doesn't mean that an unarmed person was never shot, or that a pregnant woman was never mistreated by a police officer.

But police in general do seek to serve and protect. They don't kill kids or abuse pregnant women.


#4: Police officers ought to reconsider the increased tendency to take out their guns in crime scenes, even though over 50 police officers have been gunned down recently.

In some other countries, police seldom use guns.

What can be done to stop violent criminals, without police immediately resorting to gun use?
(My best friend was a police officer for years in a dangerous city, yet he only had to pull his gun out of the holster several times in 20 years!
He and his fellow officers used alternative methods.)

#5 Blacks ought to quit making heroes of Black criminals.

Contrary to their claims, Federal investigators and Grand Jury conclusions are that the police officer who shot Michael Brown didn’t do so with racist intent.

Michael Brown wasn’t an innocent victim of prejudice and police brutality.

On the contrary, Brown was a criminal who attacked the officer, shortly after robbing a store!

The political chant "Hands up, don't shoot" is a distortion, or outright lie.

Brown earlier was caught on security camera roughing up a clerk at a store. And he
had committed other violations of the law.

#6 Work needs to be done on how to help Black young men to reject criminal gangs, drugs, and killings. How does everyone involved in their lives help them instead find meaningful employment.

Almost 40 percent of black males in Milwaukee between ages 24 and 54 are unemployed!

How do we help them get the skills, the diligence and will power, and the job openings to change that disheartening statistic?


#6 Stop blaming the past. Start working to change the present.

Charles E. Cobb, Black civil rights leader, former field secretary of the famous SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee):

“Black people are not faced with anything like the violence that confronted those seeking voting rights five decades ago.

Let’s end the excuses."


To be continued--


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

In Honor of Those Who Suffered in the Past, Work for Peace NOW!

by Shane Claiborne

"One of my favorite Veterans (other than my dad of course) is Charlie Liteky.

In 1968 Charlie Liteky was given the highest award in the US, the Medal of Honor by President Lyndon Johnson. In the movie, "Forrest Gump", they dub over Charlie to put Tom Hanks in as he is given the award.

What is not as well known is that in 1986 Charlie joined some of the most decorated veterans in the US as they returned their Medals of Honor and renounced all war.

Charlie and I got to be in Iraq together in 2003 with the Iraq Peace Team.

One of the things he taught me is that veterans often know the horrors of war better than anyone. We can see it in the suicide rate (one a day for soldiers, 22 a day for veterans) and in the rate of homelessness and addiction of vets (there are 50,000 homeless veterans).

When we fight for peace, we are fighting for them. We honor the men and women in uniform by trying to put an end to war. In Iraq, I remember Charlie holding a sign while we were there that said:
"I hate war as only a Veteran can."

It reminded me of the words of Ernest Hemingway: "Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead."

Let's commit ourselves today, as many folks celebrate "Veterans Day" -- to honor the infantry and the dead by committing to build a world without war.

In the name of the Prince of Peace. Amen."

by Shane Claiborne

--

My response:
May we all remember that the best honor we can do for those who suffered in wars of the past is to work for peace NOW. Vote for candidates who will stop funding Islamic rebels, stop supporting undemocratic governments, stop sending our young adults into quagmires where every side is doing wrong.

For instance, why are we supporting the Islamic government of Afghanistan which supports Sharia Law? Just this week, Afghans stoned a young woman to death again! Most government leaders there oppress women, support punishment of Afghans who reject Islam.

Let's start a new movement in support of Martin Luther King's ideals. Be a peacemaker, not a warmaker.

And give and help those veterans who are still suffering from the past.

http://civilianpublicservice.org/storycontinues/hotline

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox