Today I stopped myself from sending three emails.
I’d been mulling each missive – all responses to messages I’d previously received – and am pleased I made the right decision not to reply.
The first concerned the Friends Committee on National Legislation newsletter forwarded to me by Cornwall Monthly Meeting. The main topic was Quakers' response (as discerned by the FCNL) to President Obama’s 2014 budget proposal.
Unfortunately, it was utterly predictable, i.e., Yes (Yes!!) to overdrive rebuilding of the welfare state and unmodulated, flat-line, quietist No to everything related to national defense. Tiresome Quaker crocodile-tears handwringing over ferocious war- waging by Democrat presidents, something that added a little context to indefatigable one-party support during the Clinton-Bosnia days, and reflected a minutest expression of Christian concern, is now a thing of the past entirely, replaced by the sound of silence.
So, unfortunately. is any remnant of Friends' historical emphasis on self-reliance, self-improvement and achieving spiritual and social progress through hard work, not to mention any residual, even murmured acknowledgement of Jesus Christ himself as a component in their reasoning and conclusions.
Quakerism, it is clear, has now devolved into a semi-spiritual subdivision of the Democratic party, an Obama-Biden bumper sticker, one of those contemptuous placards with the fish illustration emended and replaced by the legend "Darwin."
The preceding sentence formed the gravamen of my second discarded message. The FCNL newsletter also included a form of tribute flattering the disreputable Philadelphia congressman Chaka Fatta, who was pictured smiling among a group of very young Haverford Friends School students engaged presumably in first-stage brainwashing on the subject of climate change. Fatta and his equally disreputable son are simply local facts of life around these parts. It isn’t enough merely to keep your arms and legs in the vehicle; it is essential to keep your hands in your pockets firmly around your wallets when the Fattas come to visit. When they’ve exhausted the public fisc, count on them coming after your personal fortune. They Will Survive.
I wanted to bring this to the attention of the Peace and Social Action committee of Cornwall Monthly Meeting, but really it’s too parochial a matter. If they want, they can always worry about the similarly lustrous Al Sharpton, the vile body and Fatta doppelgรคnger who made his bones just north of Cornwall in scenic Wappinger Falls about 25 years ago in Tawana Brawley's company.
The final discarded email is just too personal to interest you. But as I’ve told so many other people over the years, Don’t Hit Send. Take A Walk instead.
Moody Blues: Stop (Link)
