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Black: 2017 — a year to forget

Baxter Black

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” – President John F. Kennedy, 1962.

The U.S. at that time has been remembered as a “royal” time. It was the age of Camelot. His wife a queen, he was the Golden Boy.

Change was coming. The first Catholic president, pictures of him and Lincoln on the wall, baby boomers in a flowery cloud singing songs of “Peace on Earth.”



Kennedy reduced income tax from 90 percent to 60 percent. The economy was responding. Congress had a common enemy … the Soviet Union.

“Fifty-plus years have passed. The last time we were civil to each other and united in our Americanism, was 9/11.”

Martin Luther King was calling for integration without violence. Granted, it was soon to blow up in his face, but people respected the right to disagree. Even if we held different views we didn’t hate each other because we had another opinion.



Fifty-plus years have passed. The last time we were civil to each other and united in our Americanism, was 9/11.

Since then we have become a country full of hate and ugliness. It’s so PERSONAL. Martin Luther King’s dream of diversity has become so twisted by the government that we are more segregated than ever. Our “leaders;” the politicians, media and the entertainment puppets swamp us in an ocean of hatred and malice, of blame and blatant lies … like a band of backstabbers whose intent is to vilify and slander.

Imagine having a job that required getting up every day and digging through the scum of the bucket you live in, looking for something that will hurt someone. It’s no wonder our country is warped.

We are in the process of starting a new year. Mind you, the sludge mongers, muckrakers and mud slingers are dragging their scum buckets across the line, too. If you are so perverted by your own propaganda that you are incapable of listening to another idea, you’re blind in one eye.

Words hurt. They hurt even deeper when they are said to deliberately hurt someone. But the poison goes two ways, because the vitriolic accuser blackens his own soul.

Once again, this riot of hate is PERSONAL. No TV commentator, Washington, D.C., or New York City manipulator or tainted politician will tell the truth or apologize for their lies. All you can do is feel sorry for them.

So what can ONE person do? Since it is PERSONAL, start there. Eighty percent of Americans are Christians. Many wear a cross around their neck. The second greatest Commandment is, “You shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” If it means anything to you, give it a try. Give it a hand, offer help, call a loner, forgive an old grudge and make it a habit to thank God you live in America.

In my later life I have become a practitioner of the verse, “Forgiveness and mercy to all who offend.” The more it sinks in, the better I sleep. ❖


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