World Views

A Memorial Day Poem

                                                                                          Watering the Tree

We've spilled our blood on Flanders Field, the Belleau Wood and the muddy trenches in France.                                                               On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

The beaches of Normandy we stormed, and little known islands in the Pacific. We fought through jungles, swamps, hedge groves, forrest and fields and deserts. We braved the ice, snow, we were cold and wet and fought when wounded.  On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

Over the Chosin Reservoir and the barren mountains of Korea we battled and fought. It was called the forgotten war, how can this be when we still left behind our precious blood and treasure?                                                                                                                     On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

In the steaming jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam , Khe Sahn, A Shau Valley,  Hamburger Hill, we were called once again to protect and defend, 58,220 were laid to rest, their names all, etched on a black granite wall.                                                       On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

We fought house to house from Baghdad to Fallujah in the forsaken towns all across Iran. We have stained the desert sands red with patriot's blood, all too to eager for more.                                                                                                                                                     On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and   gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

For 18 years we fought this country's longest war in the god forsaken land of Afghanistan. From the caves of Tora Bora through mountains with no names , valleys and villages and cities like Kabul, we've paid the price in spades.                              On a quiet night when the stars shine bright and you can hear the crickets sing, those who have fallen join the chorus:             "Please don't forget the sacrifice we made, we've fallen here with our brothers. Patriots all we answered the call and gave our all, to water the tree of liberty."

 NEVER FORGET!

"But We Have Forgotten God" (Abraham Lincoln 1863)

                                                                                                 Today is the National of Prayer. Abraham Lincoln 160 years ago wrote the following proclamation, calling for a day of fasting and prayer.  His words ring true today. In 1863 we were engaged in a great civil war that divided our country. Today we are divided in a "civil war," fought not with guns but with ideas. One set of ideas will lead to the destruction of our great republic the other side seeks to preserve it. Why is this happening today? I think Lincoln summed it up quite succinctly, "But we gave forgotten God."Lincoln's reasons calling for this day of prayer are still relevant for today. So read Lincoln's great proclamation and get down on your knees, humbling yourself before the Lord, confess your sins, and pray for our great country. May God bless you and this great nation.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Wake Up to Woke Corporations They Are Costing You Money

A coordinated movement by Planned Parenthood, ACLU, The Center for Reproductive Rights, and similar organizations, have successfully conducted a campaign to pressure corporations into using shareholder money to promote abortion. While social liberals have failed to implement their agendas through the democratic process, they have traditionally used, for the last 50 years, the liberal courts for rulings in their favor. Now that the Supreme Court has swung to the conservative side and Roe and Casey are in jeopardy of being overturned, the left has gone to plan B. Plan B is not new, similar tactics were used quite successfully by the "Reverends"Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to shake down large corporations into opening up their purse strings to do their bidding or else.

Citigroup was the first to offer a "reproductive healthcare policy" to help circumvent the Texas Heartbeat Bill. The policy provides transportation and lodging to anyone that needs to cross state lines to have an abortion. The latest to succumb to this abortion scam is Yelp. Both Yelp and Citigroup are publically traded on the NYSE and are using shareholders money to implement a social agenda. Yelp now adds its' name to 50 other companies lobbying against the Texas law along with,  Citigroup, Lyft, Ben and Jerry's and Reddit. In 2019, more than 200 corporate giants, Zoom. Go Fund Me and Square signed a statement advocating for "reproductive healthcare", asserting that restrictions on abortion are bad for the economy and "bad for business." Planned Parenthood claims that companies who remain neutral on abortion are hurting their female employees and all women in general.

Woke corporations such as Coca Cola have bullied MLB into moving the All Star game from Atlanta to Denver, because of a voting law they didn't like, and now Disney announced recently that it was going to fight to repeal The Parents Right Act that was signed into Florida Law. Big asset managers like BlackRock use their economic sway with companies to force them to comply with woke agendas. In Larry Fink's ( Fink is the fearless leader of BlackRock) 2022  Annual Letter to CEO's he wrote, "Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics. It is not social or ideological agenda. It is not 'woke.' It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper. This is the power of capitalism." Sure, he harnesses the power of capitalism to do exactly what he thinks you should be doing, just like Coca Cola, Google, The Ford Foundation, Starbucks, Pfizer, Eli Lilly , Johnson and Johnson and of course BlackRock, did to protest the Georgia Voting Rights Law and pressured MLB to take away the All Star Game from Atlanta,. The city and it's businesses lost millions in taxes and revenue. That's Stakeholder capitalism? Not for Atlanta it wasn't.

As maddening as this is, we need to  wake up to the "woke" and fight back like Florida has done with Disney. We are consumers, investors and we are the majority, we vote and we can be more vocal than the left. We need to be wise where we invest our dollars, whose services we use, and what we purchase.  Just a reminder to Yelp, CitiCorp, Ben and Jerry's and all their friends, Abortion is not health care. You are aiding and abetting the extermination of your future customer base. How smart is that?