Beltway Insider: Charleston; Race Wars; 2016 Smoking Gun; The Duggars; Christianity's Misconception

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Category: Beltway Insider

Published on Sunday, 21 June 2015 18:59

Written by Janet Walker

President Obama delivered remarks this week, as he contemplated the difficulties of freedom and civilized societies and spoke once again of anger, of violence and of forgiveness to a nation who wanted to hear Gun Control, enforcement and change.

According to Gallup, President Obama's job approval, over the past week, decreased one percentage point to 44% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President remained at 50%.

Shooter Kills Nine in Charleston, S.C., Church

The headline could have read like every other when mass shootings are reported but this time the circumstances were different.

After sitting with the leadership prayer team, Dylann Roof who had been given a privilege that few receive, stood up, pulled a gun he hid behind a fanny pack and repaid the one person who showed him kindness with a bullet, then another, until after many bullets, nine were dead.

Even the opportunity to sit with the leadership and be privileged to the intimacy of prayer, the communion of ones soul with Christ, the power of Satan, his driver, was greater.

He didn't dress in fatigues and prepare for war; he didn't he cover his face. He didn't believe his actions were wrong. He felt compelled by a manifesto larger than himself.

Charleston, South Carolina, before the news of another mass shooting, would have been considered a small town filled with southern warmth and hospitality.

"I'm necessarily constrained in terms of talking about the details of the case.  But I don't need to be constrained about the emotions that tragedies like this raise.  I've had to make statements like this too many times.  Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times.  We don't have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.  Now is the time for mourning and for healing," the President said.

The historic AME church an extension of that southern appeal, with a touch of Jesus added. Charleston was not without problems, or the encroachments of bigger cities but still southern quaintness and charm made it home.

The congregation gathered for the mid-week service, just an hour before, yes, people still attend church during the week. For the stalwart and faithful, the exaltation of Christ, prayers, hymns and worship echoed throughout, the service was winding down.

A lone white man, nervous, as most are when they enter the presence of genuine faith, walked in and possibly for the first time in his life, felt welcome. He could have made a home here, he was welcome.

For an hour, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, sat with other leaders in the leadership prayer meeting. A weekly faith building, Christ seeking time, where those burdened with leadership could find nourishment and rest for their soul.

An unusual move, to bring a stranger, not a white stranger, simply a stranger whose relationship and loyalties were still unknown, into the inner circle. A move liken to inviting an unknown stranger into the President's daily briefing.

Gentleness interlaced with the Kingdom message, and the man, who would unleash hell upon this welcoming parish, sat, and even later said he almost changed his mind because they were so nice.

Nice people, in a house of worship, believing the message of hope, the message of sermons past, the message of love thy neighbor, reached out and bridged the aisle in the 21^st century, with a belief that segregation, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights violence was over.

They were wrong.

Race in America

Several facts separate this case from just another name added to The List of over 70 Mass Shootings. Sandy Hook, Aurora, Tucson, Oak Creek, Isla Vista, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Fort Hood are only a few.

Mass Shootings are predominately perpetrated by members of the Caucasian race. Single handgun violence, race-on-race, predominately occur within the African or minority community. In the case of Charleston, a Caucasian entered into a predominately black church and in addition to the senseless murder, shouted racial epithets and phrases which create the foundation for federal inquiry.

Families and a nation remember all too well the morning of December 14, 2012 when the news filtered of a school shooting in Connecticut. First reports limited the carnage. By day's end, the numbers were staggering at 20 five and six year olds, and five brave educators lie dead in their classrooms, Children just dropped off, just escaped the hugs of their parents for a normal day. And no federal inquiry.

No federal hate crime inquiry at Virginia Tech or Columbine or Sandy Hook or Aurora or Fort Hood. The law is clear, and seems to contribute to a national concern of segregation.

Segregation that causes a white female to impersonate a African American female for a position she could not have attained if she had maintained her birth image and identification. No matter her motivation or dedication to the cause of equality. She would have remained excluded had she not chose to assimilate to the desired criteria.

Our national debate has moved us far from Plessy v. Ferguson, we nationally are more than separate but equal. Inequality and injustice, perceived or actual, in employment, in government response, in violence, in mass casualty shootings.

Gun Violence, Control and Change

January 13, 2013, haunted by Sandy Hook and the horrific violence brought on by a demented gun obsessed boy with an inferiority complex, Vice President Biden on the order of President Obama presented a comprehensive overview of how to repair a broken gun control system in order to stop these types of tragedies from occurring again.

As diligently those who can work toward building greater controls and tightening the system to stop, slow or stall the purchase and sale of weapons, the mentality becomes the issue and the need reeducate even those who are educated with a new modernized core belief system becomes the task.

"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.  It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency.  And it is in our power to do something about it.  I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now.  But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it.  And at some point it's going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively," the President said.

President Obama has said Sandy Hook was probably the most difficult day in his presidency, not only for the mass casualty gun violence that has occurred at least once per year for each year of his two term presidency, not to mentioned all those single and double murders happening before the prepared gunman had a chance to unleash his masterplan.

As we wait for the next as someone somewhere is chasing numbers we go about our daily lives in our homes, theaters, stadiums, schools, colleges and university campuses, political rallies, churches and for now Charleston joins Sandy Hook, Aurora, Tucson, Oak Creek, Isla Vista, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Fort Hood.

Election 2016: The Smoking Gun

Politicians, especially those declared candidates for the 2016 Presidential election, on both side of the aisle are using the Charleston tragedy to present their plan for the African American community to pick up the baton and move the community forward.

Hillary's Camp sent out a e-blast using the senseless violence to present her agenda to the disenfranchised African American community spending more time discussing the plight of America's inner cities, those who have suffer in them, then the issue at hand.

Gun Control, Gun violence whatever title used to describe the need for reform will never be discussed on the campaign trail in specifics.

Bulleted points will be presented, sharped, to resounding sound bites, memorable one liners. On the democratic side candidates will refer to the executive orders signed after Sandy Hook.

Republicans may have a different approach, doubtful they will refer to any action from Obama as working or positive although as gun control is such a fine line, the may have the designated Vice presidential hopefuls on both sides absorb the potential backlash and state the party position.

The public, by now, must be as aware as the politicians hoping to divert attention away from gun control and the impossibility of change, Gun Control laws will never change.

The sight of twenty five and six year old, being carried out of an allegedly secure facility wasn't horrific enough to budge those who stand on the Constitution's very strong words, and Freedoms, that many have fought and died for and the National Rifle Association, to gather the votes to bring a bill to the floor of the senate for vote.

Try as they may, gun control, in the senate travels like a cement block flies. The few attempts to move the belief in change, to simply gathering the percentage of votes needed to a have the full senate vote, failed.

As the senator who proposes the bill lobbies with others needed for its passage, who want support of a fishery farm in Death Valley or some other obscure place, the trade off 'you vote for mine, I'll vote for yours,' pork begins to fill the guts of what once was a solid piece of legislation.

Suddenly the bill becomes an vote exchange on Gun Control for your vote on fisher hatcheries in Death Valley or the infamous bridge to nowhere, which received an absorbent amount of federal funding as it was a nice empty piece of legislation pork to offer in the lobby exchange for votes.

So Gun Control will never be talked about or debated on the campaign trail, politicians will empathize, as every person does, and it may just become the smoking gun of destruction as political candidates stump for votes.

Religion, Anger and The Misconception of Christianity

Religion in America, always a hot button issue, is once again in the headlines with the shooting of a beloved preacher and leadership team in Charleston to the fallout of The Duggar family, who before scandal, had attempted to redefine family values.

Any religion who subscribes to the Judeo-Christian Bible, either only Old Testament or Old and New testament, understand the story of Job, God's very wealthy servant who in a single day loses all.

The sifting comes only by permission, as God asks Satan according to scripture and paraphrased what are you doing and Satan replies wondering about to and fro looking for whom I may devour, and God says, "Have you considered my servant Job."

With that simple phrase the entire life Job once knew was taken, sons, daughters, everything he held dear, all he loved save his wife who told him to curse the God that brought this on him and the three friends who looked upon his suffering as retribution for wrong actions and demanded he repent.

As the story goes God returns to Job more than his loss to which even the daughters of Job received an inheritance. Unheard of in biblical times that women, the daughters of suffering, would be financially independent.

Satan is often masked or disguised, a wolf in sheep's clothing, as the world has seen this week, the monster an emissary of Satan, murdering without provocation simply due the color of the skin. A peace loving family, sitting ducks, ripped apart and a nation again enraged in Gun Control debate.

The Misconception of Christianity

The misconception of Christianity seems to be the so intrinsically tied to this newest member added to the list of mass shootings and the other extremely vocal religious group in America, The Duggar Family, of 19 Kids and Counting are also facing a meltdown.

Margaret Sanger, a nurse, an Irish advocate at the turn of the 20^th Century,  when family planning was not available for women and proper medical treatment, hospitals, pre-natal care and post pregnancy options were impossible to receive, fought for family planning options. She endured scorn, violence and jail time for her views that women were more than a receptacle for a Saturday night special.

19 Kids and Counting, a long running former reality show based on the lives of the Duggar Family and their religious views essentially counter the philosophy that women are no more than baby producing machines.

'Judge Not,' the Duggar Family may collectively say. And in truth and reality it is not a judgement against them as much as society for elevating them as they have unfortunately become the face of Christianity and for the rest of the evolved population who don't subscribe to the extremist or orthodox views proffered retain the title of heathen.

Christ came to set the captive free not to enslave him to skewed doctrine, false interpretation or another person's power trip

It is impossible for those who believe in the precepts and principals of Christianity, practiced or not, to believe that God who according to scripture sent his only Son to die for the sins of all of mankind to believe that after all that, and according to both the depiction in the Mel Gibson film, The Passion of Christ, and scripture, it was beyond what a mere mortal could withstand, that those now freed would be mentally enslaved to any person, place or thing.

Satan's battlefield is the mind and once it is controlled actions, which we have witnessed again, result.

For more information on President Barack Obama: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.org, Wikipedia.com