Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 14, 2013

B3

 

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday. December 14, 2013 


STUART Tolchin........On LIFE

OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

Mountain 
Views

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CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Lori Koop

Rev. James Snyder

Tina Paul

Mary Carney

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Greg Welborn

Renee Quenell

Ben Show

Sean Kayden

Jasmine Kelsey Williams

DON’T BE SO SURE

MY CHRISTMAS CHEER DRAMA

 In this month’s 
Atlantic Monthly 
(December 2013) 
there appears the 
following very short 
book extract:

 “ All the way back to primary school, John 
Lennon is remembered as a garden-variety 
delinquent----the type of kid who would 
pocket the change he was instructed to deposit 
in the church collection box, and pilfer from 
his aunt’s handbag. He would hitch free rides 
on the bumper of tramcars, steal cigarettes and 
then sell them, pull down girls’ underpants, 
vandalize phone booths, set stuff on fire, act 
the clown in class, skip detention, gamble, pick 
fights, and arouse fear in others as he and his 
friends tooled around on their bicycles. His 
best childhood friend, Pete Shotton, explained 
that Lennon “… came to be regarded, by all 
but his small circle of friends, as thoroughly 
bad news. Even I sometimes worried that he 
seemed destined for Skid Row.” 

--From Beatles vs. Stones by John McMIllan

 I include this entire paragraph to begin 
my article in recognition of the fact that 
no public-figure during my lifetime has 
had the profound influence upon me as 
did John Lennon. His music, on those first 
Beatles albums, was contemporaneous 
with my college entrance. It went from 
the most basic beginnings of I Want to 
Hold Your Hand through the experiences 
with the Maharishi and psychedelic 
drugs, through his concerns with world 
politics. He evolved to become an 
activist, profoundly interested in equality 
and justice and completely dedicated to 
his role of father and nurturer. His choice 
of Yoko Ono as a spouse, someone whom 
he uniquely supported and appreciated, 
gave a kind of recognition to the special 
qualities of a type of person not usually 
appreciated by our celebrity-driven main 
stream culture. His assassination by a 
person who claimed that the murder was 
motivated by Lennon’s half-serious claim 
that he was more popular than Jesus 
Chris, was a devastating illustration of 
the conflicting passions and beliefs that 
exist simultaneously within our complex 
world.

 It was absolutely amazing for me to 
read that this larger-than-life being was 
initially viewed as some commonplace 
typical jerk who would leave nothing 
behind him other than the unpleasant 
memories of those who had encountered 
him. I knew that Lennon had a difficult 
childhood, during which he had lost both 
parents and received minimal nurturance 
from his aunt. Typically young 
delinquents, like John Lennon ,would 
grow up with criminal records and a 
history of detentions. Normally these 
experiences would mark a person for 
life. Their criminal backgrounds would 
prevent them from obtaining jobs. What 
friends they had were usually involved in 
new crimes, which generally meant more 
trouble for the juveniles as they became 
adults. Advanced education was hardly 
an option, as such people rarely had the 
skills, interest, or discipline necessary to 
stop themselves from sinking further into 
decline.

 How fortunate the world is that John 
Lennon somehow escaped these forces 
and lived long enough to create songs like 
Imagine, that still resonate within our 
brains in these unharmonious times and 
inspire many of us to believe that there 
is still a reasons to optimistically cherish 
hope. I wonder how many other young 
men and women are so stigmatized by 
the experiences of youth such that their 
true talents never are allowed to emerge. 
The life-history of John Lennon also tells 
another story. How can someone like the 
young John Lennon acquire and maintain 
the belief that he has something special to 
offer the world. Why was he not brought 
down to believe in his own ordinariness, 
much like the rest of us?

 This past weekend I watched part of 
a College Football game with a young 
friend who is a new father. The mother 
was out running errands and I had the 
opportunity to spend a little time with the 
father and a five-month old baby. It has 
been a long time since I spent much time 
with a baby and this time I was actually 
allowed to be alone with him while his 
Dad prepared lunch. How exciting it 
was for me to see how this young miracle 
enjoyed his existence. How he laughed 
and moved and examined everything 
around him, even including placing his 
foot in his mouth.

 Shouldn’t we be able to maintain this 
contagious appreciation of ourselves, not 
as a contest against others but as simple 
self-appreciation? Instead we learn to 
compare ourselves against others, to 
inevitably experience jealousy, envy, 
and regret. Often we crave outside 
validation as we cannot alone believe 
in our individual self-worth. I’m afraid 
that’s just the way it is, which is why it 
is so amazing to realize that some few 
individuals like John Lennon or Nelson 
Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi or Martin 
Luther King or Jesus Christ manage to go 
through life staying in touch with their 
best selves and inspiring the rest of us.

 Let us do the same. If Mike Tyson can 
be a Broadway Star and Muhammad Ali 
still has the power to inspire us, it should 
not be too difficult to appreciate what a 
wonderful, unique miracle lies beneath 
each of our often fatigued, troubled outer 
disguises.

I enjoy being cheerful 
and Christmas 
time is a special 
time to be cheerful 
and I try my best to 
live up to it. Occasionally, the Gracious 
Mistress of the Parsonage will suggest I 
am going a little too far.

During the rest of the year I stay out of 
shopping malls as much as possible. During 
the Christmas season, I want to go to 
the shopping mall and walk around without 
any purchases to make. I like watching 
people spend their money on things 
they do not need and for people they may 
not like.

I like to give cheer more than anything 
else. Actually, it is the only thing I can afford. 
And so I will send my cheerfulness 
into cheer bankruptcy. Whatever that 
may be.

The Christmas season has never been a 
time for me to spend excessive amounts 
of money. I leave all that to my wife. She 
knows how to shop and she begins her 
Christmas shopping right around February. 
I could never figure that out. When I 
buy a gift for someone, I want to hand it 
to them right then. She has the discipline 
to buy Christmas gifts months ahead of 
time.

Something happened this past week 
that brought all of my cheerfulness to an 
abrupt halt.

I had just come from the mall where 
I was making fun of people scurrying 
around trying to find the latest bargain. 
It is a little strange to me that when people 
get a gift for somebody they look for 
a bargain.

When I got home, I sat down in my recliner 
reminiscing about the day and 
then I did something I do not normally 
do. I took out my wallet to clean it. This is 
something I do at least once a year.

Sometimes I get cards in my wallet that 
have expired or are no longer valid. No 
sense in having things in your wallet that 
you do not need or cannot use. Several 
cards had expired and so into the trashcan 
they went.

You can tell a lot about a person by the 
things in his wallet. My wife, on the other 
hand, carries a purse. I will not be caught 
dead looking in that purse. In fact, I 
would be dead if caught looking. I am 
not sure what she has in her purse and 
I do not want to know what she has in 
there. I love living.

A man's wallet is a little different. He 
has things in there that are rather practical. 
There will be a driver's license, a 
Social Security card, insurance card, not 
to mention credit cards. Everything he 
needs to get through a week with plenty 
of cheerfulness on the side.

Going through my wallet this time I 
found something that shocked me to the 
core of my being. There in my wallet, 
folded up rather neatly and tucked in a 
corner, was a $50 bill. I cannot tell you 
the last time I saw a $50 bill. How it got 
there, I will never know.

My father always had a folded $50 bill in 
his wallet for emergencies. I am not my 
father.

Ordinarily, you would think finding $50 
in your wallet would be a moment of rejoicing. 
Not so here.

It is towards the end of the year, all gifts 
are purchased for Christmas and all bills 
are paid. I like to pay ahead of time just 
to make sure the bills are being paid. And 
so there was nothing that needed to be 
paid at that time.

Life has taught me several lessons and 
one in particular. If you find extra money 
it means some disaster is about to befall. 
Usually the catastrophe that happens 
costs more than the money you find. I 
found $50 and so it is reasonable to believe 
that the catastrophe facing me will 
cost $100.

I did not know if I should mention this 
to my wife. It is not that we are superstitious, 
we have just live life long enough 
to know what comes around goes around 
and what goes up usually comes down.

What is going to happen now? What is 
going to go wrong? What in the house is 
going to fall apart?

Then my dilemma was solved.

My wife came into the room and said, 
"I was wondering," and she was stammering 
a little bit as she said it. "I was 
wondering if perhaps we could take the 
grandchildren out for Christmas lunch 
tomorrow. I know it costs a lot, but I 
think they would enjoy it."

I smiled and she looked at me a little 
quizzically and asked, "What are you 
smiling about?"

It was then I pulled out of my wallet the 
neatly folded $50 bill and waved it in her 
direction and said, "I think Christmas 
lunch with the grandchildren tomorrow 
would be a fantastic idea."

Some people worry about what they do 
not have. I worry about what I have to 
make sure I am using it in the best possible 
manner. "It is a good thing to give 
thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises 
unto thy name, O most High" (Psalms 92:1). I 
am thankful for what I have but I am also 
thankful for what I do not have. Nothing 
takes the place of a contented heart and 
my contentment rests in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. I need nothing more.

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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN


IN PRAISE OF NELSON 
MANDELA

HOWARD Hays As I See It

GREG Welborn

 
To start off, I had to 
check on Greg Welborn’s 
statement in his column 
last week that President 
Obama “contributed 
to (our) debt burden 
more than any other 
president”. As far as the 
numbers go, tracking 
how they’ve changed 
during Obama’s presidency, Greg has a 
point. To what extent the president himself 
“contributed”, though, is another matter. 

 The Associated Press pegged major 
responsibility for our debt on the Bush tax 
cuts of 2001 and 2003. This was the first time 
in history taxes were cut in a time of war. 
These cuts were financed by debt and, a couple 
years ago, were estimated to have already cost 
us some $1.6 trillion. For the most part, they 
remain in place – and continue to add to the 
red ink.

 A second major cause of the debt was 
healthcare entitlements – with $1 trillion 
added to our debt over the past few years 
solely from the extent healthcare cost 
increasingly exceeding the overall rate 
of inflation. Despite the best efforts of 
Congressional Republicans and conservative 
money-launderers, the prospect of these 
increases becoming “basically 100%” of our 
debt problem was averted by enactment of 
the Affordable Care Act. 

 Medicare Part D (enacted 2003, effective 
2006) has added nearly a half-trillion in red 
ink. This was the prescription drug plan 
where taxpayers subsidize participants opting 
for high-price (and high-profit) brand name 
drugs rather than lower-price generics. It 
also prohibited Medicare from negotiating 
with drug manufacturers for lower prices 
(like the V.A. does). This program was not 
paid for, and was financed by debt. Again, 
many of its problems will be alleviated by the 
Affordable Care Act.

 The Watson Institute at Brown University 
estimates the cost of the Iraq War at $1.7 
trillion. Adding the wars in Afghanistan 
and Pakistan, along with commitments to 
returning vets and their families, brings it up 
to $4 trillion. It’s estimated we’ll be paying an 
additional $4 trillion in interest on that debt 
over the next forty years.

 President Obama did take an action 
which significantly added to the record of 
our budget deficits and debt. In the Bush 
years expenditures, such as for the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan and Medicare Part D, 
were dealt with off-budget as “emergency” 
and “supplemental appropriations” – another 
way of saying they were kept off the books. 
The incoming president directed such 
expenditures be put back on the books, so 
we could get a clearer picture of our nation’s 
financial situation. It wasn’t pretty, but it was 
honest.

 Still, the budget deficit is now lower as a 
percentage of GDP than before the Great 
Recession, after spiking when Obama first 
took office. The first eleven months of this 
fiscal year, it’s shrunk $400 billion from a year 
ago.

 The subject of Greg’s column, though, 
was Detroit’s heading for bankruptcy - with 
the focus on public employee pensions and 
“lavish” benefits.

 The average Detroit city worker retires on 
$19,000 a year. For police or firefighters, it’s 
about $30,000 – with no Social Security. Greg 
devoted maybe 90% of his column to public 
employee pension obligations, though it only 
comprises 20% of Detroit’s debt.

 Whatever the problem might be, it’s not the 
pensions. Our economy was strongest, the 
middle-class most prosperous, retirements 
most secure when pensions were most 
prevalent. In 1980, 40% of our workforce, 
public and private, were covered by pensions. 
Now it’s less than 20%.

 When 401(k)s came out in the late-1970s, 
they were seen as a supplement to pensions. 
When employers realized a 401(k) would 
cost the company only half what a pension 
would, they became not a supplement but a 
substitute. Best of all, whatever risk there was 
would shift from the employer to Wall Street.

 The problem was that retirees would end 
up with only 10-33% of the income as they 
would from a pension. And, there was 
shifting of that risk from employers who 
may have some connection of loyalty to their 
employees to those who simply loved playing 
with other people’s money.

 In 2009, 50 million workers lost over $1 
trillion in 401(k) investments. The Wall 
Streeters who gambled and lost got bailed 
out by the taxpayers. Nobody bailed out the 
taxpayers whose retirement accounts were 
gambled away by the Wall Streeters.

 The primary cause of Detroit’s problems 
is the decimated tax base caused by 
unemployment and de-population. As 
stated by the Economic Policy Institute, “It’s 
unrealistic to expect Detroit’s remaining 
700,000 residents, more than one-third of 
whom have incomes below the poverty level 
and whose per capita income is only $14,000, 
to support a city and an infrastructure built 
for 1.8 million.”

 The other problem is the billions of dollars 
tied up in municipal bonds and other Wall 
Street creations. As Demos reported last 
month, “Detroit’s bankruptcy was primarily 
caused by a severe decline in revenue and 
exacerbated by complicated Wall Street deals 
that put its ability to pay its expenses at greater 
risk. To address the city’s cash flow shortfall 
and get it out of bankruptcy, the emergency 
manager should focus on increasing revenue 
and extricating the city from these toxic 
financial deals.”

 Municipal bonds are investments, often 
insured against loss. Pensions are contracts, 
promises made between a government and its 
workers. Those holding bonds own powerful 
voices in Lansing and Washington to make 
sure they’re first in line to be paid, and paid 
in full. Those same voices have worked over 
the years to weaken unions and the collective 
voice of public employees, so if those workers 
want promises made them to be kept, they’ll 
have to wait much further back in that line - 
and wait to see if there’s anything left.

 I usually open my column with a quote, 
but this time I’ll close with one – one that 
made me feel a certain kinship with Nelson 
Mandela. Someone referred to him in his 
presence as a “saint”, and he replied that he 
wasn’t any saint, “unless by a saint you mean a 
sinner who keeps trying.”

Nelson Mandela’s passing marks the death of a truly amazing 
and honorable man. While I still find myself in conflict with 
many of his policy prescriptions for his beloved South Africa, 
I nonetheless admire the man, his strength and his integrity. 
Given his early Marxist leanings, this may seem odd for a 
conservative to write, but Nelson Mandela showed he was 
capable of growth and change, and he gifted to Africa and 
to the world at large something remarkable which very few 
before him have ever been able to provide.

For the vast majority of his adult life, Mandela was cut from the same Marxist 
revolutionary cloth that has produced one failed African leader after the other. 
The pursuit of the collective at the expense of the individual and the concomitant 
abuses of power and position that are the unavoidable fellow travelers have kept 
Africa one of the poorest continents on earth despite its rich natural resources.

Into that history, Mandela was born and trained as a lawyer. He joined the 
African National Congress. As he rose in party ranks, he moved solidly toward 
Marxism and admiration of the Soviet model. Above his desk at home, he kept 
portraits of Stalin and Lenin. As his embrace of their revolutionary prescriptions 
increased, so too did his frustration with the ANC’s peaceful resistance to 
apartheid. He came to believe that only armed revolt would free his country of 
the scourge that was apartheid. 

Perhaps frustration and embrace of armed resistance can be excused. It always 
depends on the circumstances. Our own country was formed as a result of an 
armed rebellion, but only after all peaceful efforts had been exhausted and a full 
articulation of the grievances presented to the ruling authorities. Something 
similar had occurred in South Africa, and the ruling elites were just as 
intransigent as were King George’s governors. 

Mandela was arrested for plotting violent sabotage, convicted and sentenced to 
life imprisonment on Robben Island, near Cape Town. He then began what 
would become a 25-year incarceration. Despite his revolutionary leanings and 
violent advocacy, his trial gave us insights into someone who would be different 
than the typical radical revolutionary. In his own closing arguments, Mandela 
said, “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black 
domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which 
all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” 

Unlike too many leftists who promise equality only to practice the Orwellian 
version of all are equal, but some are more equal than others, we would learn 
that Mandela meant what he said. He disappeared for 25 years, but he was freed 
in February 1990 at the age of 71. He was the de facto leader of the ANC, and 
all presumed – correctly it turned out – that he would soon rule the country that 
had imprisoned him.

In the country’s first free presidential elections, Nelson Mandela was elected 
president. He showed no bitterness, nor sought revenge. Enough to earn 
him praise in all quarters. Be he seared his integrity into the consciousness of 
his countrymen and millions around the world by actively working to unite 
an anxious nation. He worked with his former enemies to establish a robust 
constitution with protections for all and an independent judiciary. 

Then, he did something no other African strong man has done. He willingly 
gave up power at what can only be described as the pinnacle of his popularity. 
Thus, like Washington in an earlier century on a different continent, he can 
truly lay claim to the title of father of his country. We should all pray that his 
successors live up to his standards.

Mountain Views News

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