The Makings of a Despot

I guess the thought may have occurred to you that if Donald Trump has become so despotic that he thinks of himself as God, that - - just how much do “God” and Donald Trump have in common.   We hear it said of both that they are “mysterious” and “have a wonderful plan for our lives” and that they are secretive.  Judy says that Trump is like a poker player and doesn’t reveal his will ahead ot time but does all things just at the right time.  The same is said of God.  Great wisdom is imputed to both God and Trump that “Their ways are nigher than our ways and we cannot begin to understand”.  We are told that when God or Trump appears to make a mistake it isn’t really a mistake.  Because both God and Trump don’t make mistakes.  God never “forgets” a promise he has made and it’s universally said that in thousands of years not one promise of God has failed.  We are of course instructed to offer both God and Donald Trump our unqualified trust.  Of course we hear endlessly of “Out faith being tested”.   The people who supported Donald Trump never failed him.  They kept the faith and were rewarded.  Now FOX news is more popular than ever because those on FOX such as Christie and Giuliani and Gingrich kept the faith and FOX has higher ratings than anybody else now.   Of course nobody points out that this is the Fascist appeal.  It’s one of the oldest appeals in history (which to me isn’t appealing at all) of appeal to a power authority.  It’s the old adage that it’s better to be “strong and wrong” rather than “right” but “weak” as Jimmy Carter was.

But then we have the problem, as long as we’re discussing promises, just what constitutes an actual promise.  In the law- - - promises are carefully worded and legally binding with a penalty to be exact should they fail.  Most promises in law aren’t binding unless they are made with “consideration” or quid pro quo.  I learned this as a senior in high school while in “Business Law”.   It would be a wonderful thing to receive an unconditional promise, but they don’t expect these.  Normally swearing an oath or something involved putting a part of ourselves on the line.  Thus it was said in Jesus’ time that if you swore by the Temple the oath was not binding.  But is you swore by the Gold in the Temple then your oath was binding.  The theory here is that gold is a human attribute and demotes human worth and ability to pay.   It’s “worth”.    It is aid that your word isn’t “worth” anything unless it’s backed up by something.  In this way we know that people, such as an employer, will keep their promises to pay us or whatever.  But with God we don’t have any of these constraints.    This guy who was on television went through the Bible and enumerated scads of promises of God.   The trouble is I’ve talked to two pastors (both from St Paul’s church) and both said to me that it’s not that they say that counts so much as what the hearer chooses to hear?  We all translate the words of either God or a pastor therefore into our own words and understanding.  Thus there is a vital human link of understanding missing from so many promises in the Bible.  We are promised “Eternal Life” in the Bible, but what does that mean?  How does that promise translate to our daily life?   Some would ask me “Are you accusing God of lying?”  My answer is “Not yet”.   So God can talk about peace and joy and all that stuff.  But often a pastor has to put his own spin on the Bible.  Last night on that computer show on KTLA there was the problem of “What happens when the goals of the PROGRAM itself become adverse or at odds with those of the programmer?”  Logic would dictate that such a thing could never happen.  The only way it could would be if some enemy introduced a VIRUS into the program that made it do strange things contrary to the will of the programmer.  But when Pastors get to talking they invariably speak of “Free Will” in a human being as tantamount to sin.  It’s a “mistake” that God seems to have made by “trusting” mankind with Free Will, and as these pastors speak they speak of the regret often expresses in giving man free will.  My view of a Calvinistic, determinist view of God doesn’t allow for this sort of reasoning.  But when I think of my own life I have to ask- - “Did God promise me personally a happy life BY MY OWN DEFINITION OF HAPPINESS or is just my life supposed to be a part of some “Plan”that I don’t know about?   Did God promise me personally a good paying, fulfilling job and carrier?  Did God promise me a happy marriage and children and grandchildren to look after me in my old age.  A quick glance of scripture would say “No, I don’t see your name in scripture”.  Well then is there ONE promise of God that has actually “failed”.   Logic tells us that computer programs never “fail” to work as they were written.  (Selah)   No, the reason why they act as they do is indeed BECAUSE they were written that way, like it or not.  Well I’ve come up with one scripture where it looks as though God’s word failed.  This is “I have never seen the righteous begging bread”.  Yet my family put me on welfare, SSI a couple of decades back.   Pastors will immediately jump in and say “Well GOD has a plan for your life but due to CIRCUMStANCES beyond God’s control God was unable to fulfill his promises for you because of certain human intervention.   I’m not even going to get into the area of “God speaking directly to us” but am confining my remarks to what scripture says.

Let’s now return to Donald Trump.  We hear him say words like “Huge” and “Wonderful” and “Tremendous” and one I like “Very quickly we’ll see action”.   And so we look over the promises of Trump.  He personally guarantees that he doesn't blindly trust Vladimir Putin just beecause he and his secretary of State are best buds with Putin.  We have the promise that Trump will work with Russia to end the Syria crisis and fight ISIS forces together, which is something we couldn't expect from Hillary if she got in.  He promised us he would go after Wall Street because only the rich can truly understand the machinations of Wall Street and how to control them and reign in the special interests and lobbyists.  It sounds good.  Trump said he would not cut Social Security or Medicare.  He says “We’ll be bringing in so much money we won’t have to cut these”.    Judy says that trump is a poker player and doesn’t show his cards.   Thom Hartman salves us with such phrases of “He’s playing chess while those around him are playing checkers”.  How well did that one work out for you, Tom?  We hear that Trump will get after Iran and not give them any of the money we promised.  “Iran will never get that money back” and then Trump would make a lot of pre demands on Iran before he’d negotiate Nukes with them.  I heard these remarks on 4.2 in the afternoon because I missed them in the morning.   And we hear that Donald Trump will tear up the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements and not sign the Trans Pacific Partnership.  This all sounds good.  We are told that ghetto Blacks “Can’t lose” with Trump and that the economy is going to take off in amazing ways we can’t imagine.  Chuck Smith made fantastic promises too.  He said that God would make transformations in our lives that would be truly amazing and bring us happiness and fulfillment beyond our wildest dreams.    But if you are found to be a liar- - aren’t you committing the greater deception the bigger the promise that is unfulfilled.   You’ve heard of “The Big Lie” and Donald Trump is giving us “The Big Promise”.  Tell a lie or promise that is so big, so fantastic that it MUST be true.  This is the adage.  But Trump is like a romance gone bad and suddenly all of the good things you thought you saw in him have all gone sour.  

FREE BONUS ALBUM (official release version)

She’s A Woman (six minute demo jam recording)  Nov 1964

Use Your Imagination (Guess Who) *

Evil Hearted You (Yardbirds)

Cut Me Hair Once A Year (TV live show Austrialian guy) **

I’ll Be Back (early June 1964 recording three-four time portion)

No Reply (early June 1964 recording with Jimmy Nichol on drums)

What You’re Doing (fall 1964 demo recording)

Blue Christmas (The Fab Four) (done to “Revolution I”)

Obama Press Conference (December 16, 2016) edited down to 43:21

This album and the “Radar Screen 3” one were never officially released till Saturday December 24th at ten to six, in this case in the AM on Sirius A. This hour was John Lennon's suggestion based on the song.  I think most people will like the song line up better than the original draft. There are three big substitutions. This album was cleared with Mal Evans because the “overlap police” were on our tail. We don’t have the overlaps we had with the preliminary line-up. The editing on the Obama Press Conference remains identical to what it was when we originally listed this album. The song line-up on the other CD released with this one is also identical to what we told you. *In 1969 there was a “Not for Sale” album released of old Guess Who songs from 1965 and this track was on that album. “Evil Hearted You” was on the album “Have a Rev-up” or something. “The Fab Four” is a Beatle sound alike group and not the actual Beatles, in case you were wondering.