My book recommendation: "The Witness" by Whitaker Chambers

I want to thank Jim Kindli (“Look for signs of communism”) for his recommending the Cleon Skousen book, “Naked Communist.” I have been unable to locate the Schwartz book but I wanted to add one more book to your list:   Whittaker Chambers’ 1952 anti-communist memoir, “The Witness.” 

Chambers joined the communist party in 1925, went underground in 1932 and became a member of the Ware group, a communist cell that included government officials and journalists. It was there among other promising New Deal civil servants that Chambers encountered Alger Hiss, and he and their spouses became close friends before Chambers renounced Communism. 

The Stalinist purges and the forced starvation of Ukrainian peasants made him rethink his enthusiasm for communism, and when he realized that the secrets he was passing on to the communists would end up in Nazi hands as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Chambers started collecting copies of materials as evidence which he turned over to the head of security at the state department.

 The usual ad hominem attacks of the Left made him a pariah throughout the rest of his life despite the irrefutable evidence he offered, much of it in the handwriting of the individuals he was exposing.  Although he was completely vindicated with the irrefragable documentation from the captured Soviet Venona cables which the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency released in 1995 and 1996, most Americans still scoff at the “witch hunts” of the 50’s. Historians have yet to come to terms with the truth.

Conservatives need to be vigilant.  We need to remember the mistakes of the past.  We cannot let ad hominem attacks silence us.

Government can't create jobs that spur the economy.

Why is it, Anthony Alberta, (“Government not a creator of jobs?” Yuma Sun September23) that those who are so in love with our burgeoning federal government feel obliged, in the course of their arguments, to resort to character assignation:  If we disagree with you, we are of course Neanderthals who belong to the Flat Earth Society.   When your argument is weak, you attempt to buttress it by slinging a little mud.

Anthony scorns Tea Partiers for saying the government can’t create jobs and then lists a number of government jobs that serve us well, collecting our garbage, protecting our borders and our homes from fire and crime, building roads.  Even the most conservative of us like cruising our interstate highways and fully support our border patrol and our military..   

The federal government has been assigned several specific duties, those among them.  They would probably do a better job if they would focus like a laser beam on those jobs enumerated in the constitution and quit trying to manipulate the economy.

What the government does not do is create jobs that create prosperity.  According to a 2011 Gallup poll about 25 per cent of Americans work for the government in some capacity.  According to The Wall Street Journal, 47 percent of people in this country, both citizens and non-citizens, are receiving one or more federal benefits payments. If I figure correctly, that means that 25 per cent of the people are supporting the other 75 per cent. 

Here’s a secret that you don’t seem to understand.  In order to provide the tax money so that the government can get their constitutionally enumerated jobs done, we need a vibrant private sector.  When the feds get involved in the private sector, we bear the burden.  The Solyndra debacle is the most recent example, but let’s name a few more, just local ones:  The millions they spent on that solar system off interstate 8 for drying hay bales.  I don’t think the place ever dried one bale.  The millions they spent on jojoba fields all along interstate 8.  Not one crop was harvested. 

According to Silicon.com, seven out of 10 of the government’s Information Technology projects fail. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack "public-private partnerships" incurred an estimated $400 billion in losses and brought the whole country to its knees, social security is broke, the war on poverty created more poverty, Amtrak….the postal sevice….

Congress is spending other people’s money, so they don’t look at the bottom line.  They just salivate over the number of voters who are lapping at the trail of freebies they drop on their way. 

The Tea Party Says Yes

Gary Knox’s lengthy football analogy (“Leader’s attitude plays critical role” Yuma Sun October16, 2011) does little to elucidate his rhetoric.  A better analogy would be if football teams were relegated to standing on the side lines.  His ad hominem  rhetoric swings both ways, impugning the Tea Party and doting on the president. 

First of all, Gary says the Tea Party is all about “no.”  Check it out, (http://www.teaparty-platform.com), the Tea Party is all about yes. We say yes to a fiscally responsible government that allows its citizens the right to the fruits of their labor.  Our government has exceeded its necessary size and scope and reaches too far into the lives of its citizens.

Limiting the size of government will go a long way toward our achieving our next goat.  We say yes to eliminating the national debt by implementing fiscally conservative policies at all levels of government.  The National Debt creates a huge burden for the next generation of Americans, thus imperiling the country’s short-term and long-term economic health and prosperity.

We say yes to free markets.  America’s  free enterprise system is crippled by government regulation and crony capitalism.

We say yes to abiding by the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land and the Bill of Rights. We are especially concerned about Tenth Amendment issues. In the case of THESE united states, each state is to a great extent a sovereign entity except in those powers the states specifically granted to the federal government. 

Getting the federal government to quit interfering in the business of the states will go a long way toward another of the Tea Party goals.  We say yes to promoting civic responsibility.  For too long our citizens have quietly complained, but felt powerless to act.  The American people need to raise their voices and direct the political behaviors of our representatives at both the local and national level so they can be effective in working to preserve the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of this country’s citizens.

We believe in the American people, that given their guaranteed freedoms and accepting their responsibilities, the American people, will thrive in a democratic, capitalist environment which allows individuals to strive toward ever greater achievements, innovations and the efficient production of goods and services

What we say no to are any and all extreme and fringe elements that bring discredit to the Tea Party Movement.  Those who spew political venom or hate speech or indulge in smear campaigns are quickly dealt with, and we disavow any violence, even the insinuation of violence.  We are a peaceful movement and respect other's opinions, although we will no longer refrain from expressing our views.

You have obviously never been to a Tea Party meeting.  We are happy to be once again involved in civic affairs, we are energized.  You’ll actually hear no outrage, simply reasoned argument.  And we are all about governance.

On certain issues with regard to President Obama we agree with you. He is indeed professorial and scholarly.  We agree that he is a great campaigner.  What we question is his governance. He did not lead on the health care.  He allowed house and senate democrats (remember his bi-partisan assurance?) to work behind closed doors and patch together a conglomeration that represents every health care pipe dream that’s been floating about liberal corners over the past 30 years.  I doubt the president even read it. No one else did.

He did not lead with the stimulus package.  Even his early publicity about the package admits that it “tracks closely with the ideas and proposals advanced last year by the Apollo Alliance in The New Apollo Program and the Apollo Economic Recovery Act.”  And the author of that was probably Van Jones, co-founder of the alliance and a self-avowed communist. 

Now if you disagree, do me the honor of not calling this “hate speech” or “racist vitriol,” but challenge me based on reason, evidence, facts.

  Lynne’s Spiritual Journey taken from a July 14, 2000 email

He, Mom, remember that time when we all went camping in Oak Creek Canyon.  We girls were horsing around in a little lake and a crazy man stood on a little hill above the lake  hollerin' at us to "Git outta mah watern' hole"? He had a stick in his hand that looked like a gun that he thrust in in the air with every word.  “Git outta mah watern’ hole!”  I'm including that in my timeline where I mark out memorable events in my life when I felt Divine Presence had lifted up, when I was REALLY in the palms of Jesus, my plethora of angels, God and the power of the Spirit. The timeline ends with an arrow because I'm still living my life. And I have many more blessings to add.  Here is what I’ve written so far.

My time line begins with my birth, September 26, 1963.  Both my mother and I were lifted up.  It was a hard labor because I came out butt first and my mother tells me that at one point in the birthing process she died.  She floated painless through a screen of light that flashed peaceful images like flash cards in space, and then she felt herself thrust reluctantly back to reality, screaming, “Noooooooo!” And in that final push I was born with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck three times. After they untangled me, I let out a scream that she can still hear.  I was further blessed to have been born intoa wonderfully fun and spirit filled family, seven uncles and aunts and what became a couple hundred, well, maybe a hundred cousins, a big fun family that laughed a lot..

In about 1965, I drank Drano.  I don’t remember doing it, but for a long time I had the scars on my tongue to prove it.  Mom was cleaning the bathroom while I was napping.  Because the drain was slow she took out the Drano, and then went to the kitchen to get a spoon.  She heard me scream and ran back to the bathroom.  I had awakened, gone to the bathroom, and decided that Drano might make a good snack.  God was with me because my mother calmly and coolly carried me to the kitchen and poured a glass of vinegar down my throat, followed by a glass of salad oil, gave me a glass of milk and called the doctor.  When she told the doctor what she had done, he said, “Exactly right. A little overboard, but good.  A couple of tablespoons would have done the trick.”  My mother always wondered how she knew what to do. 

Between 1965 and 1968 I got lost many times.  We lived in Metaline, Washington in a housing area called the sheep sheds, old WWII barracks moved into town to provide housing for the dam builders.  Once I wandered to a little lake all the way across town.  All the residents of the sheep sheds were out combing the town for me.  An old fisherman brought me to the grocery store and sat with me until a neighbor found me and took me home.

February 22, 1968, my sister Laura was born.  We were racing down the freeway to the hospital.  Mom was in the back seat, screaming at the top of her lungs and I was SO WORRIED, MY MAMMA'S GONNA DIE!!!!! Turns out, my sister was hankerin' to get out, but she'd given mom so many false alarms, Mom didn't feel ready for the real one,  and now was afraid she'd give birth right there in the car

In April of 1969, I told my Mom, “Can You, Me and Laura go move away somewhere and leave daddy here?”  My father was a schizophrenic and he had been in one of his many tirades.  The next thing I knew my mom, my sister Laura and I were on a Greyhound bus headed for Flagstaff, Arizona. For many years, I felt guilty because I thought the divorce was my fault.    I don't remember that trip too well, but I do remember the dive in down town Los Angeles where we ate burgers while waiting for a bus transfer. It was a pretty scary place, and I got sick and puked all over my Mom. 

The next two years were golden.  We lived in a four generation household, my great-grandmother, my grandparents, my Uncle Layne and Aunt Monica.  Oh, how I loved her. She was 16, a tiny little girl filled with the Holy Spirit. She played a guitar and sang songs of praise all the time.  We had empty lots behind and just north of our house.  I constantly played outside, communing with God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, in the flowers, the trees, the bugs, the bees, the wind and the trees.  I and my friends left home at dawn and came home for meals. We built forts and played games.  It was golden.

In November of 1973, my mother remarried.  Richard had five children.  First the older two, Brenda and Dean, lived with us, but before long the younger ones came as well: Michelle, Jeanette, and Wayne, and then in 1976 Roark was born.  A gift from God because he became the glue that held us all together.  We all loved him so.  We sometimes called ourselves the Flagstaff Brady Bunch. 

God was also with me one day in 1977. I had just gotten off from work and gone to my Grandma's to pick up my little brother Roark. In those days, believe it or not, we didn’t use car seats and often held a small child on our laps.  I was cruising over Cedar Hill kissing Roark on the top of his precious little head.  All of a sudden, I felt like the surface I was on gave way and realized I'd veered off the road.  We were headed off the shoulder toward the trees. For some reason, I didn't panic, I felt very calm, and before I knew it, we were back on the road.  We both got home safe and sound. I know that if it was just me behind that wheel, neither of us would be here today

During the summer of 1978, my junior year of high school, I felt a deep, spiritual connection with God and the universe while working In the Grand Canyon with the Youth Conservation Corps. We cleared hiking trails, picked up garbage, floated down the Colorado to stop after stop.  It was glorious.  How I wish I'd done that again the NEXT year.  They even ASKED me to be a camp counselor, but pay wasn’t much and I was so bent on making money, that I took a job at A. J. Bayless. It was a depressing summer for me.

It was during that time that I lost my way with the Holy Spirit.  I went to college and then married Marty, a very witty, highly intelligent charmer, but an agnostic.  We moved to Tucson where he began working on his Doctorate in English and I entered the nursing program at the University of Arizona.

In 1988 I was the unfortunate pedestrian in a pedestrian/motor-vehicular collision: I was brought Dead On Arrival (DOA) to the University Medical Center. I spent the next three months in a deep coma, the following six months in a variety of hospitals and nursing homes. The doctors predicted that IF I lived, I would surely be a vegetable on life support.  Well I did live, and after 9 months in hospitals and nursing homes and 3 more months in rehab, and group homes, I finally went home to my loving husband who quickly decided her didn’t want to live with me anymore.

It was a painful experience, but I can now see that it, too, was a blessing.  The condo my mother eventually bought for me abuts a church parking lot, and across that lot at St. Marks Presbyterian I have made many new friends and joined a beautiful church family.  I sing in the choir and play in the bell choir. It is a spirit filled church and they help me to feel whole againl..  They also inspired me to create this time line.

I know there are other events in my life I can and should add because I am blessed each and every day. There has been more than one occasion when I've returned home in the afternoon only to find a skillet left on a burner after having seasoned it that morning. I attribute to Divine Grace the fact that I avoided the many potential dangers that living alone provides and that I survived as well some of my ill-considered intimate relationships.  I praise God that I am STILL the ever-hopeful optimist! I've turned the paper over and extended the line to three more rows on that side of the paper and I will keep Jesus forever in my heart and not fail to record all my blessings.

“God, who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6