Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves Preparing to Occupy Atlanta After Christmas

Annual Georgia General Assembly Kicks off Another Year of Lies, Scams and Hidden Agendas

Have you noticed, practically everything is a scam these days? The “Bedford Falls America” of my early childhood has now become a true-to-life Pottersville. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s because you are living in Pottersville. You’re not supposed to know anything about Bedford Falls. Bedford Falls—bad. Orange Man—bad. And good people old enough to know what I’m talking about seemingly have no escape. Pottersville is building all around them. There is no going back, or it feels that way.

Bedford Falls, America, Where I Grew Up

Of course, things have never been perfect in America, and I’m not saying they were. Things were never perfect in Bedford Falls. Yes, there were bad people in Bedford Falls. But, in Bedford Falls bad people did not win. They did not run the place. They did not use governmental institutions for private gain, designing each program as a new innovation in grifting, swindling dollars from those who earned them to place them into the hands of private interests, or even the hands of politicians directly. Unfortunately, this nation, and the State of Georgia, all the way down to our local government, has been overrun by gypsies, tramps and thieves. We now live in Potterville, friends, Pottersville, USA.

Pottersville, Where I Live Now

Government, at all levels, is a fountainhead of riches for any shyster, any grifter, any artful dodger who can fool the voters to believe that he (or she), is working for their interests. He’s not. Virtually, every one of those individuals, politicians we’ll call them, even those you consider the “good” ones, have personal, hidden agendas. Every one of your elected officials has a self-serving reason for seeking office in the first place, and once engrossed in the job, will go to great lengths to maintain control over that office after elected. The desire to be popular, and well-liked by people among the general population, whether good people, or bad, or people in-between, is a trait unique to the politician. If you are like me, you do not care if bad people like you. Bad people have nothing you want or need. The politician, who relishes the office he seeks, or holds, practically above all else, cannot say that. The politician is an opportunist by trade. He must seek favor among the entire voting population, during every opportunity, contemplating during each sleepless night, how to better cultivate additional political favor, cursing himself relentlessly for failing to summon the best words as he relives the conversations of the preceding day, had with each potential supporter, in an attempt to engender the maximum support out of each opportunity.

Beware the politician who says he, “just wants to serve,” or that he has a “servant’s heart.” Walk away. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. You are being had by a narcissist. Being a narcissist politician is not easy. Rest assured, anyone who would endure all he must to become elected, and do so over and over, suffering the slings and arrows of political campaigning, is a special breed of cat. He’s not enduring all that for you. Even Donald Trump does not endure all that he does, simply for you. Rest assured, Trump derives meaningful benefits, intrinsic in nature, to undertake the purposes he does, a special breed of cat for sure.

So, forget the smile. Forget the handshake. Forget the politician who can name your kids and ask how old they are now, or whether they are in this grade or that, or what their plans for the future might be. It’s an act. Narcissists do not care about your kids. They are actors in a streaming life drama in which they have become the protagonist, and everyone they meet is a supporting actor or a bit player. These actors live on a public stage. The spotlight they crave is on them. They are vulnerable on that stage and they know it. They must always be “on.” Even though they rarely, if ever, call you, or solicit your opinion or best thoughts on a political question, they must always appear glad to see you, effectively blowing up the balloon which is your latest superficial impression of their worth to you as a representative in the government.

Commonly these days, you will meet public-minded individuals who “are new to politics,” but who have recently reached a point in life at which they say they now “want to give back.” At that stage of the development of a perennial politician, I do not discount the possibility that what they tell you may derive from some location in or around the heart, such as maybe the aorta. But understand, the aorta is not the heart. The aorta is not the essence of who an individual is. The aorta is that vessel enabling the body to continue living in a world of limited resources. Without the aorta delivering those resources, such as oxygen, to all areas of the body, the body dies. And so, the aorta is that vessel which represents an individual’s stream of life. The aorta represents the pursuit of life’s purposes, whatever they may be. Everyone must have a purpose or they die. Everyone must have an aorta or they die. The contents of the aorta derive from the heart but are not of the heart. As soon as oxygenated, life-sustaining contents of the aorta leave the heart and enter the body, that which makes the stream of life possible begins to deplete. What was once the essence of life, the contents of the heart, full to capacity with all that God gives anyone, upon leaving the heart and entering the world of the body, soon becomes corrupted. Red blood cells, representing the life purposes God has for every individual, continually pumped away from the essence of life which is the heart of God, streaming from that heart to all areas of the body empowered to fulfill God’s intentions, begin, steadily, turning blue, perhaps fittingly I suppose. Red corpuscles only hold so much oxygen once beyond the heart. By the time the aorta’s contents deliver life-sustaining ingredients to the body’s furthest extremities, it’s diluted contents must return to the lungs to receive more of what God provides, life-giving oxygen brimming with more of God’s purposes, entering the heart to once again be pumped into the body.

Once a well-meaning, elected office holder, brimming with the purposes instilled by those who empower him, leaves the heart of his district, streaming via the state’s main arteries to the bowels of the Georgia General Assembly, those purposes, oxygenated into the mind of the politician, rapidly deplete. Devoid of the means to renew those worthy purposes outside of the heart of his district, time after time other purposes enter the politician’s blood stream, corrupting the life-force of true representative government. And when an overwhelming number of formerly well-meaning, formerly civic-minded politicians come together to exchange purposes during the first month of the new year, each member of that august body, the Georgia General Assembly, working to incentify others to act against the purposes originally giving rise to their respective political lives, those original life-giving purposes soon deplete beyond a functioning level. Soon, your local politician becomes better acquainted with those he meets in the bowels of the General Assembly than in the heart of his district, and the result is…well, the result is what we continually experience, a government unresponsive to the purposes of the people, composed of stage actors whose days and nights throughout the year become consumed with the scheduling of feigned activities and the rendering of disingenuous public pronouncements designed to suspend disbelief in the minds of local supporters.

And all that I express is why I pity the politician. Politicians have built-in, exaggerated personality defects. Anyone who desires to become a politician ventures that he can suppress his own personal weaknesses, baked into the human cake by God our Creator, to the extent that he cannot, and will not, find himself corrupted after an extended experience in office, dealing from a vantage point within the political system I describe. My experience, watching the corrupting of originally well-meaning politicians, time after time, leads me to expect that most will become corrupted given time. Given time, each well-meaning politician will become that which he originally sought to change. As the process of corrupting the originally well-meaning politician matures, it will matter not that good citizens reach out to engage respectful conversations with their representatives. It will matter not the issues of their genuine concern. All that will matter is that the politician’s show must go on. Elections must be won. Meetings with private interests must occur. Funds must be raised. Votes must be compromised. Puppeteers must be satisfied. Sleepless nights must continue. The shame of abandoning republican ideals of America’s founding must be borne, with a smile, and a handshake, to everyone with whom the politician meets during the day.

Just know that, once corrupting influences in the bowels of government take hold, the only way good citizens can begin to affect the manner their representatives behave in such a rancid, foreign environment, is to instill their minds with political fear. Once the process of corrupting the politician takes root, perhaps with the first vote influenced by the granting of favors or campaign contributions, the only tool remaining at the patriot’s disposal, is to occupy the politician’s relentless, sleepless nights with thoughts resulting in manifestations of perfecting, discomforting anxiety.

Jefferson wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” That is likely because, in keeping with my message today, blood naturally oxygenates once exposed to the atmosphere and light of day, restoring the life purposes of God. This may not have been the Christmas message you expected from me today. But realize, we are dealing with naturally-corrupting influences in our government, which can easily affect the manner in which your interests are regarded during the Georgia General Assembly. Individuals within that body are obviously cooperating, consciously and unconsciously, with interests whose fondest intentions would be for Monday to become America’s last Christmas.

Whether it be this Monday, or whether Christian influences might endure in diminishing effect for a few more years in America, just know that every one of us has a responsibility to ensure the survival of our nation and what it means. I encourage you, therefore, to make 2024 a year of unquenchable effort to energetically activate a revived sense and purpose during this Georgia General Assembly and beyond, to hold your elected officials accountable to serve your best interests, an activity which includes standing up for the survival of America. If we can accomplish that together, I will look forward to writing many more uplifting Christmas messages in the future, concentrating more on peace, and good will toward men.

I want to thank all of my subscribers for their support and encouragement throughout the year, and pledge to you my continued diligence in spreading the truth in the new year. I wish for each of you a heartfelt Merry Christmas, and a Wonderful Life as we work together to prevail in the coming days.