The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore–

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door–

Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;–vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow–sorrow for the lost Lenore–

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore–

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me–filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“‘Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door–

Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;

This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”–here I opened wide the door–

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”–

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my sour within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore–

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;–

‘Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door–

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door–

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore–

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning–little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door–

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour

Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered–

Till I scarcely more than muttered: “Other friends have flown before–

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore–

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never–nevermore.’”

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore–

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, me thought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee–by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite–respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!–

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted–

On this home by Horror haunted–tell me truly, I implore–

Is there–is there balm in Gilead?–tell me–tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us–by that God we both adore–

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore–

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting–

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!–quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted–nevermore!

My regular readers, no doubt, still pondering my recent call for a force of one million soldiers to be deployed to Afghanistan, might think a second military action in the region over reaching—it’s not. Iran will require a massive air assault aimed at destroying all of its nuclear facilities and a ground invasion that should first secure Iranian oil assets and second destroy the Islamist government infrastructure that aids and abets global terrorism. As a punitive action for flagrantly disregarding international law the Iranian naval fleet should be additionally targeted and destroyed completely. This is the only course of action that can be taken, given Iran’s outright treachery.

Previously I’ve described the scene America will awake to when a nuclear weapon is detonated in one or more of our cities –Washington and New York are the targets. The weapons, which will be delivered through a terrorist network will come from one of the following: North Korea, Pakistan, the former Soviet Union, or if it is allowed to continue, Iran. But make no mistake; Iran is exponentially more likely to supply such a weapon, because Iran’s leaders are compelled by ideology and the other’s are not. Literally, Iran’s leaders are not afraid to bring about the destruction of their own country as long as they have destroyed America in the process.

So it can be thus be surmised that Iran is a greater threat to America than it is to Israel, but this is an issue of extreme complexity. Mahmoud Ahmajinedad continually baits Israel by denying the Holocaust and making provocative statements to the effect that Israel should be wiped off of the map. This is an intentional deception to mislead the United States and the other Western powers into thinking that they are not the primary targets of Iranian nuclear ambition. Iranians are not Arabs and have no substantial quarrel with the Jewish state. It was in fact the Persian Emperor Cyrus who ended the first exile of the Jewish people and it should be noted that Zoroastrianism was practiced during the time of Cyrus who was heavily influenced by Jewish thought and lineage. Mahmoud Ahmajinedad describes himself as an academic—he is well versed in history and it can be assumed that all of the aforementioned and much more reside well within his intellectual grasp.

Because Iranian history is both long and intricate much has to be considered when understanding what type of leadership guides the country, the most dangerous of which is a leadership that traces itself to the pure Aryan roots of Iranian history—this is the case with Mr. Ahmajinedad. The most recent leader in modern history to identify with Aryan lineage was of course Germany’s Adolf Hitler—fifteen million human lives were lost by the time his ambitions were ended. Mahmoud Ahmajinedad knows that it was America that stood between Hitler and his vision for the world and it is still America that stands against such a vision—he will act accordingly, against America first.

And it should be America with England and France at its side that stands against the tyrannical ambitions of the enemies of freedom. It is a disgrace to the three traditional Western allies to rely on Israel to fight their fight. What country can stand against the military might of America and its allies, with a combined population of almost half a billion citizens? It is the greatest military alliance in the history of mankind that it is incumbent upon to put an end to the Iranian threat—not Israel, a nation of less than seven and half million people occupying a geographical area one fiftieth the size of the state of Texas.

Every lie that now emanates from the Iranian regime compounds the affront to America. Iran is a country that for too many years has been allowed to fight its wars via cowardly proxies given to terrorist groups. Thousands of American lives have been lost not to Iranian soldiers who have the courage to meet on the battlefield, but to improvised explosive devices that they make within the safety of their own borders and give to their surrogates who draw American blood by way of cell phone. Our most current government offered an olive branch and dialogue; the Iranians answered that they would cut off the hands of their enemies and demanded that we engage in a dialogue to prove our respect for their country.

Dear Mr. President, destroy this threat to our country and the world—the American people stand resolutely behind you and implore you to act. The portraits of Presidents, who had to bear this responsibility before you, surround you. To what lengths was our founding father George Washington willing to go to pry the yoke of a king from the neck of our people? To what enemy would Andrew Jackson yield a single inch? What compromise would have been acceptable to Lincoln? President Roosevelt knew what the end of fascism in Germany, Japan, and Italy must be. And President Truman did not falter in executing his predecessor’s plans. A young President Kennedy rejected Soviet missiles in Cuba. Old and wise President Reagan brought an end to the Evil Empire once known as the Soviet Union…All of this costs American lives and money, yet I know of no American that wishes to undo these deeds.

We can all look to our founding fathers and the great leaders of generations past for strength and guidance. They would not tolerate the insults, the lies, the treachery, the murders and ultimately the destruction of America, which the leadership of Iran has so completely dedicated itself to. The time for talking and diplomacy has past—it only gives our enemy a greater opportunity to pursue their plans.

Now is the time…

Subsequent to the September 11^th 2001 terrorist attack on the United States there was great need for building, but most Americans understood that the attack itself revealed tremendous flaws in the foundation of our country. Now, eight years later, the President and his top advisors are trying to decide what the objective and course of action of the United States should be with respect to the war in Afghanistan. So much of what afflicts this great country can be directly traced to this particular disrepair of its foundation, that it is incumbent on all Americans to achieve clarity as to what our national course of action must be.

In recent history Afghanistan has been known to the United States as a failed state. During the 1990’s an Islamic fundamentalist government, the Taliban, was allowed to gain power. This government once in power gave refuge to the terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda—headed by Osama bin Laden. This history is well known to most and it should be easily concluded that this threat to our country would have, best, been dealt with at its inception. But because it was allowed to crest into what became known as 9/11 an entirely different course of compulsory action became required—and remains so until this very day. 

The removal of the Taliban and the disruption / destruction of Al-Qaeda, the stated goals of the Bush administration and the restated goals of the Obama administration, was not, is not, and never will be the solution to the threat the United States and other liberal democracy’s face from Islamic terrorism. The only way to end the threat is to UTTERLY DESTROY not only the enemy combatant of today, but their entire way of life, so that there will not be an enemy combatant of tomorrow. And make no mistake about it; we have done this before. President Lincoln ordered General Sherman not just to destroy the Southern Army, he ordered the destruction of the South and the Southern way of life—Sherman literally burnt the South to the ground. President Roosevelt and his successor President Truman gave neither Germany nor Japan the opportunity for anything other than UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. And this was only achieved in both cases after the entire force of American military power was brought to bear on these heinous enemies of humanity.

The reason that President Obama suffers the quandary of Afghanistan is not of any kind of mystery to even the most slightly informed—eight years have passed and the enemies of the United States have yet to feel anything close to the full force of American military power. A few days after the attack of September 11^th several people inquired as to my thoughts on an appropriate response. I shared my belief, then, that the size of the United States military would at a minimum need to be doubled and realistically should be thrice its peacetime size. I was definitive that the force, which needed to be sent to completely eliminate the threat in Afghanistan, was a force numbering one million soldiers with no less than three hundred thousand combat troops. I was also definitive that once the leadership of Al-Qaeda was tracked to a small enough geographical region the use of tactical nuclear weapons should be an option. ONE MILLION SOLDIERS AND EVERY WEAPON IN THE ARSENAL, I said this then and I repeat this now.

When our enemy comes into the possession of a nuclear devise they will bring it to Washington DC and detonate it. If they come to possess two nuclear devices they will bring a bomb to New York and detonate it as well. If left alive, they will achieve their goals and American’s will wake up one morning, as we did on September 11^th and we will get the news that one or more of our cities has been destroyed and millions of our fellow brothers and sister have been annihilated—THIS WILL HAPPEN if we fail to act.

There will be those who might question my prescription. “The Russians tried to occupy Afghanistan and couldn’t bring the country under their control,” they will say. Whether it is agenda or ignorance that drives this thought I do not profess to know, but the fact is this: the Soviet Union with a badly equipped force of one hundred thousand soldiers took almost complete control of Afghanistan and would have gained complete control if it had not been for an enormous effort by the United States. The effort, for those who are not well versed in this chapter of American history, was the supplying of billions of dollars worth of sophisticated weapons to the anti Soviet forces—all of this orchestrated by President Carter and his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. And it should be noted that it is this same anti Soviet force created by President Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, which now threatens the existence of the United States—strangely both men continue to weigh in on national affairs and foreign policy.

The job of the President and the government of the United States is, above all other matters, to protect the people of the United States of America—THAT’S IT. There is no point of building an economy as a nation or life as a citizen in a place, which at the choosing of an enemy a world away can be obliterated. Everything we would like to achieve as a nation and as individuals is both reliant and contingent on a foundation of peaceful unmolested existence—and the expected continuum thereof. The roots of insidious doubt, intentionally planted by our enemies on 9/11, are the same roots that touch so much of the shortsighted, greedy, self-absorption that has caused more damage to the United States than the attack itself. Post September 11^th the United States transformed into a country akin to a man who has been told he has a 50 / 50 chance of dying every minute of the day—not figuratively, literally. And so the soul of this country is plagued, rather than spirited by talk of the future.

The only cure for what ails the soul of America is the overwhelming defeat of its enemies. And the rebuilding of what they have destroyed—bigger and better. This should have been accomplished many years ago, but the failures of the past must not be the excuse for failure in the future—the mission not accomplished must be still be accomplished. Economic prosperity, healthcare and education are all very worthwhile concerns, but there is unfinished, and far more serious, business that needs to be brought to a final and definitive conclusion—FIRST. And upon this conclusion, as it has in the past, this country will return to its greatness. THEN AND ONLY THEN.

Kanye West (black) taking the microphone out of Taylor (white) Swift’s hands and proclaiming that Beyonce (black) had made one of the best video’s ever was not just rude as the media portrayed it—it was racism, black racism.

Serena Williams (black) outburst over a fault called by a line judge cost her a point on her serve and the match. Her outburst went something to the effect, “You don’t know me, I’ll take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat.” She had already had one warning for unsportsmanlike conduct in the first set for smashing her racket—there was nothing subjective about what took place. She clearly violated the rules of tennis and she was treated as any player white, black or purple would have been. Yet, I sat at Starbucks 15^th and Montana (SM) and listened to a woman (black) emphatically explain that, “they took the points away from Serena because they were afraid she was going to come back and kick that white girls ass.” For the record this was not a crazy woman—she works and lives in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. Apparently the fact that Serena had lost the first set and was down match point meant nothing—because she was black she would at will rise to the occasion and vanquish the white girl. Even Serena didn’t suggest this when she didn’t exactly apologize at her press conference, this woman’s statement—black racism.

When The Factor came on and Bill O’Reilly and guests watched as the all white crowd, seventy-five thousand strong, protested the Obama agenda in Washington DC, they concluded that they weren’t racist, but that it made sense as whites do make up the majority of the population. I stared on in wonder thinking, “is there really not a single black person in America that doesn’t agree with the Obama agenda”. And then I thought of every black person I know, and I know a lot, and I couldn’t think of a single one of them that didn’t vote for Barak Obama. Then I thought about Colin Powell (black), a Republican, a military man, who didn’t vote for his friend, fellow Republican, and military man John McCain. Forty-five million black people, if they voted, all voted for the President? Forty-five million black people, apparently, all agree with his agenda—black racism?

Racism (1) a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

(2) racial prejudice or discrimination.

According to Miriam Webster’s Definition of racism (1) or (2) it’s both fair and appropriate for anyone of color to ask if they themselves are racist. Did you vote for the President because he is black? Do you agree with the President on issues because he is black? I think if answered truthfully, millions of my fellow Americans have some deep soul searching to do. The fact that the media has chosen to ignore what is obviously racism, now bordering on lunacy, will if continued go on to be the final death nail in the public’s trust of media.

In fairness to the President, he himself has been very clear that the people protesting his policies are not racist. But he has never addressed his black constituency and said, “Don’t vote for me because I am black. Vote for me because…” If the President said words to this affect he could indeed be considered a leader of remarkable virtue—but for now we wait.

And what about Gospel Brunch? Kim (black) has been like a brother to me (white) for close to thirty years. At the time of our first meeting we were both drug dealers, from the very meanest of streets, and we both used limousine companies as our legitimate fronts. When the occasion arose and Kim needed to borrow a limousine (black) I leant it to him.

“You’re just going to hand a black guy, you barely know, the keys to your limo?” he asked.

“I think of you as green—like a Martian,” I replied.

“What?” he asked, a tone of confusion in his voice.

“I don’t care what color you are as long as you plan on giving me some money—GREEN. And you do plan on giving me some money for me letting you use my car, right?”

He smiled. “Of course I’ll give you some money.”

A couple of years later Kim saved my life by informing me of a hit that was to take place on me by two rival drug dealers (black). They, the people that planned my murder, had never considered that Kim’s loyalty could be with someone white. Good for me, bad for them. I’m alive today because my friend Kim is not a racist. And to give myself some credit I’m alive because I am not a racist. But I know racism when I see it.

My advice to people of color including the President: treat people as you want to be treated—maybe even treat them better. Remember what it was like to be discriminated against and root out any inclination to return the favor and do this to others.

It is imperative to understand:

For every force there is an opposing force, for every action a reaction. President Obama represents people of color and he represents that, in America, a person of color can rise to the highest position in the land…And if his policies are successful for all Americans he will have accomplished much. But if people of color and or the President are deemed of as practicing racism there will be an opposing force, a reaction, and because it will constitute a majority of the population it will be a crushing force that will make it impossible to govern.

Racism is ugly in all of its incarnations. It should not be ignored because it is being practiced by a minority—a powerful minority. With great power comes great responsibility. Much of white America doesn’t like what its seeing…This fact, under no circumstance, should be taken lightly or dismissed…I urge the media, the President, and all Americans to have this discussion with civility amongst each other—it needs to take place.