New Mexico Adventure – Arrival Santa Fe

We’re here. Arrived noon December 20. Drove up from Lufkin to Amarillo on the 19th. We’re at the Camel Rock Suites. They’re nice. Not big budget nor really fancy but clean and neat with enough room for us. Continental Breakfast was good. Coffee was great.

Soon we’re off to the mall to shop for Christmas gifts and I’m headed over to the Richardson Campaign HQ to say HI and talk them out of some stickers or stuff.

More to come…

One Million Reasons

There are at least one million reasons I have not made a donation to any candidate for President, including the one I really, really do want to win. Since I can’t list them all here (and it would take a bit of time to remember them all) I’ll limit myself to a few main reasons. Here they are:

1. If money is the only way an election can be won these days then why not get all the candidates to donate all their fund raising to a worthy cause, say, feeding the hungry, rather than blow it on advertising. When November gets here just add up who has the biggest pile of greenbacks and appoint them the winner. Get that in writing and I’ll donate.

2. Money can’t by me love. The overwhelming majority might be so shallow as to be won over by fancy advertisements but I am not. A piece of paper worth a penny that has the viewpoint of a candidate is far more valuable to me than a ten thousand dollar TV ad that I’m not likely to see anyway and that says nothing of what the candidate stands for.

3. Giving money is an easy out. People blow their incomes on all kinds of frivolous toys, iPods, game-boys, and drop a few quarters in the red bucket on the way out of the store and think they’ve done their bit for charity. Likewise, people send in a few bucks to a campaign but lack the guts to really get out and do something productive, leaving that to the zealots and saving themselves the “disgrace” of being involved in a political campaign.

4. If what people spend money on indicates their priorities then it probably doesn’t matter who gets elected next year anyway. We’re already sunk. The nation spends its money and continues to go into debt so it can go on killing people while severely neglecting children, the poor, and even the veterans who shoot the guns do without. American citizens waste money on movies, toys, TV’s, and junk while foster care programs, poverty programs and poor folks scramble for a few bucks. The guy in the Whitehouse will not matter if our own priorities are so screwed up.

5. I do not believe the candidate I support can ever out-spend the top candidates. Since colonial days the worst candidates have always had their pockets filled with special interest cash. The “little guy” will not ever be able to come up with more than a fraction of the amount corporations have. They just don’t have it.

6. A willingness to send in a few bucks does not prove support for a candidate. Lots of people and lots of organizations give money to more than one candidate.

7. Trying to manipulate Americans through fancy advertising is a disgraceful way to win votes. It’s playing on the P. T. Barnum school of campaigning: there’s a sucker born every minute and with luck we can sucker enough people with our spending to win an election.

8. If money, rather than the needs of the people, is what a campaign focuses on wouldn’t money, rather than the needs of the people, be the focus once the election is won?

9. Our nation has been corrupted by people with money. The love of money has corrupted the nation. If a candidate wants my vote he’s going to have to prove to me that people, not money, is the priority.

10. Campaigns want money so they can buy advertising. Every dollar of TV advertising and radio advertising and billboard advertising puts a load of cash into the pockets of people I do not want to get paid. The media, news, popular and advertising, are controlled by the same corporations whom I want out of power.

11. I would have no say or control over the money I gave to a campaign. Would my $25 bucks buy a box of bumper stickers or would it pay for a steak for some paid staffer or would it go to line the pockets of the networks?

12. Obviously a candidate in the primaries and the general election must win a majority of states. But I do not live in fifty states, I live on one: Texas. I do not want to send money to Iowa or Florida or Arizona when our state is receiving no attention by our candidate or his campaign. If I am going to give money to pay for an advertisement I want it to run here, not there.

13. Our family budget is tight. We’re not living in poverty but we are, like most Americans, living close to the edge. Our kids are our priority, not the advertising budget of TV stations in Iowa. We could part with $25 and not feel the pinch too bad but before I do I want to know where it’s going and what for and I want to see more going on in our state than a few dozen people standing around with their hands out.

14. Maybe a lot of people do spend $25 bucks on a few cups of coffee they could do without. I could but I don’t. I love espresso but when we go out it’s to the Wendy’s next door to Starbucks and that $25 feeds the whole family. I have regular coffee. At home I drink cheap coffee from the Dollar Store. Again, my priority is not what I want but what my kids need. What my kids need is not to be inundated by TV ads or someone who just throws money at a problem but a person in office who cares about their future and who they are more than how much money they have. The way a campaign is run is a pretty good indication of how an administration will be run.

15. All my life I’ve faced problems that would have easily been solved with a few bucks… money I didn’t have. I solve them another way, by doing everything myself. There are always things that can be done without big bucks in the bank. A campaign that learns how to win an election without wasting millions on TV ads will lead to an administration that knows how to get something done without wrecking the federal budget.

16. The backbone of this country is the millions of folks who have far less than I, who stand behind counters at McDonalds or sweep floors at Wal*Mart or cut up chickens for Pilgrim’s Pride. Without them the nice world so many Americans live in would come to a screeching halt. Five bucks would hurt their budget, much less twenty-five. When they see how much money candidates are spending they are not impressed, they are disgusted. They figure, rightly so, that they do not matter either to a campaign or to those who win. So they just don’t vote and the big bucks are wasted.

17. If a campaign is not willing to reach the poor folks by actually showing them they are important rather than just asking for their money and then wasting it on advertisements making promises they don’t believe then the candidate does not deserve their vote.

18. If a candidate is only interested in my money and not the least interested in my willingness to do what I can do then I’m not interested in that candidate. I am a person, not a pocket book.

19. If there are so few people in a campaign willing to get their feet dirty or wear out a pair of shoes handing out information and talking to people that I can’t find a partner to get out in the streets then I won’t waste my money on a fruitless effort.

20. I have not had much faith in the electoral process for a very long time. Rotten people have taken office time after time. Our state and our national government are corrupt. Corporate interests, not the will nor the needs of the people, dictate policy. All of this has happened not because this or that candidate didn’t raise quite enough money but because not nearly enough people had the guts to actually get take a stand for what is right.

…and now in the interest of time…

Reason 1,000,000: “On Dec. 10, the 2008 presidential campaign hit a significant milestone: the first $1 million dollar day in TV spending. What makes this day so extraordinary is the majority of this spending is not from groups, but from the candidates. The spending is largely aimed at voters in just two states and the ads are, for the most part, positive. Further, this amount takes into account only broadcast TV.” (Source: “Campaigns Spend $1 Million on TV Ads in One Day,” Advertising Age, December 15, 2007, published on the web)

If this doesn’t make you sick then you have too much money. Not one single candidate mentioned as the top spenders is anyone I could ever support. If this doesn’t show that throwing money into campaign TV advertising is throwing it down a rat hole nothing does. The top candidates are, of course, the top spenders. And other headlines show that they’re not getting very far for all their financial effort.

No, I won’t throw away money our family needs. I won’t subsidize TV stations in Iowa or wherever. What I would be delighted to do is join up with a few people ready to walk streets and talk to voters and reach the unreached. Even two or three willing to do that would be great. Want some free advertising? Put together a community rally and call the local media. Want to win an election? Spend $25 for gas, a comfy pair of shoes, and a box of brochures. Turn off that PC, get off your rear and walk out in the street, hand those brochures out and tell people how the candidate will not make the world a better place but how the candidate will make the person you’re talking to live a better life.

Now, who am I to write these audacious words? Who am I to second guess decades of campaign experience? Who am I to question the wisdom of those who have “done it all before?”

I’m nobody. I’m just a VOTER! I’m just an American CITIZEN! I’m just a guy who has watched bullies, jerks, ner’do wells, and greedy men take over every single office that I can vote for from our local Congressman to our Governor to our President, while people who claim to want change sit on their duff and let it happen. I’m just a father of three kids who face incredible difficulties if this country does not make an about face in the next few years. I’m just a guy who has taken a stand for truth and justice before and caught hell for it. I’m just a guy who really does care about this country and even more for the folks—especially the children—who I have been able to do so little for because so few have the courage to make a difference. I’m just a guy perfectly willing to lay my life on the line where it will truly make a difference but I won’t drop a dime on a crusade led by gutless people unwilling to sully themselves or take a risk by walking the Barrio or Ghetto to get out the word themselves. That’s all. Don’t mind me. I don’t matter.

H.J. Ted Gresham

December 15, 2007

Onward and Forward… update…

December.  Christmas.  Time to celebrate the Christ Child and try to overlook the long-bemoaned commercialism and the pathetic usurpation of the holiday by selfish people and greedy corporations.  But forget them.  And never mind that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25.  These are not the point.  The point is that Jesus WAS born and that the light of God our Father came to us in a unique and glorious way through the Son.  Whether you believe or not, whether  you accept or not, the arrival of Jesus the Christ was the beginning of a new era of freedom for humanity, an era of freedom which affects you.

I am glad he came.  I am glad he lived, he spoke, and he was willing to give himself for us.  I cannot begin to understand the full purpose of his death, I merely accept what he said, that it was necessary.  I accept his words by faith.  I have no doubt that he returned a few days after he was crucified in body and spirit.  That, too, I accept by faith.

Finally, I accept the reality of the Spirit of God’s presence upon this earth by faith.  The Spirit, which is the manifestation of the Father upon our planet and within my life, provides guidance, assistance and enlightenment in ways we cannot fathom when we truly desire to follow and serve God.  I know this.  I cannot prove it.  You can accept it by faith… or not.

There’s so many things I could cover that I’m just not going to cover any of them in depth.  I don’t have the time.  I’ll only mention them and give a bit of background.  Write me if you need me to fill in the details.

First, I realize how different my personal “theology” is.  I came to certain conclusions that are absolutely contrary to mainstream or even most non-mainstream Christian churches.  I have tried to find where my beliefs fit.  Finally, I have.  I have become, without even realizing it, an American Unitarian.  I do not speak of the modern Unitarian Universalist church but of the traditional movement which flourished in colonial America.  Unitarianism was very popular and many founding fathers and prominent leaders of the time were Unitarians or most sympathetic to Unitarian beliefs.  Unfortunately the movement died out partly because the Unitarian message becamed watered down when so many who rejected the Truth of Jesus were accepted into the association but mostly because the organized church continued to persecute those who were Unitarian to the point that many gave up and entered mainstream churches even though they did not agree with the beliefs.

Unitarian isn’t entirely dead, however, there are a few Unitarian congregations and many who hold the beliefs scattered among assorted, mostly liberal, denominations.  There’s also a small group within the Unitarian Universalist church who follow traditional Unitarian beliefs.

Unable to justify joining Unitarian Universalism because of its too-open viewpoint, its political activism and its purported suppression of Christian beliefs, and unable to join with a denomination that follows a theology so different from my own and one that would be far less accepting of me than I would of it and would teach my children things I do not believe is true I am now left with a dillema.  Do I continue to stand totally alone or seek out others in hopes of forming a fellowship?  Um… I’m going to give the latter a shot.

If you read this and are curious, let me know and I’ll point you to information on American Unitarian beliefs.  Website is in the works.  Who knows, you must might find the answers to all those nagging questions you’ve had all these years!

School.  Public School.  Pain.  Teaches who won’t cooperate.  Classes where nobody learns anything.  Children teaching my children all kinds of bad habbits.  Teachers who pay no attention to what’s going on in their class.  A district and a state system that has tossed the Three “R”’s in favor of the Big “T:” TEST.  And a paranoid system that locks children in and runs background checks on parents before they are allowed into the school.  Horrible. Soon our children and we are going to embark on a Great Adventure: Home School.  Eeek.  More to come.

Politics.  Sad.  The best candidate is getting so little support in Texas.  Rediculous.  Would that God would send my way a half dozen people willing to sacrifice a bit of their lives and selves to the cause of America’s future.  Just let them have the wherewithall to meet and discuss how Richardson might get votes here.  Alas, no takers.  Shame on you!

New Mexico.  My favorite place.  I do not contradict myself by saying New Mexico is a great place to be and that I am a proud Texan.  Remember all the land east of the Rio Grande all the way up into Colorado was part of the original Republic.  Take the land out of Texas, you can’t take Texas out of the land!  In four days we’re off to visit there.  Super!

Finally, God is love.  Figure it out, friend.  Look to Jesus, not as the person mainstream Christianity has made him out to be but who he really was (and is).  Read the Gospels and leave the commentaries on the shelf.  American Unitarianism, of which I am an adherent, is the faith OF Jesus, the one he followed, not a religion ABOUT Jesus, like modern Trinitarian Christianity.

Merry Christmas!  Peace!

Ted Gresham… December 14, 2007