Dear Spike Lee

Dear Spike Lee,

I live in Baltimore. I heard your commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University on C-Span this Saturday evening. Now it is Sunday afternoon. I have been to worship this morning and have now a need to preface what I wrote by saying I do not hate you. I disagree with your views, but do not condemn you for them. We all have views and the freedom that our nation has extended all for the expression of personal views is a gift and liberty other nations do not enjoy.  Because of that I want to respond to your views. I will not always be as gentle as I might be; sometimes the need to confront requires a severity which almost bruises the one confronted. SOME ONE has to be correct in order that we be corrected. I have sought to be corrected by God in the Messiah Jesus. What I have become for that seeking you must discern.

In your address you appealed to the graduates, those you called smarter and better educated than your self, to educate you. And you quoted “Prince.” I will begin by quoting two of Baltimore’s finest:

“Only God can judge me.” ~ TuPac

“Drop out of school, go to the library and educate yourself.” ~ Frank Zappa

I spent a year and a half in college in 1969 and 70. I dropped out after President Nixon bombed Cambodia to shut down the flow of war material coming from Communist China. After that it took me around 30 years to get to the library and begin my education. I have been at it now for around 16 years, or four presidencies, four times what it takes for the average student to earn a college bachelor’s degree… unless one gets Honoraries…

Among your comments you referenced nuclear war and weapons. It is in the news as our President soon visits Japan and our gummint (government) has infamously ratified a nuclear treaty with Iran, the number one sponsor of anti Western, anti Christian and anti Israeli terrorism.

In the late 1950’s we were taken from our school room desks into the hallway lined up on our knees, and told to put our heads down to the floor. Why? Because in those days the cold war was raging and the possibility of a nuclear war was considered with great seriousness. To be in the hall with head to the floor was the best we could do if the air raid sirens sounded. Later in my youth John Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis, Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles, and even George Wallace in Maryland.

Spike, angst is not unique to you or to the college grads you excited in your audience. Our fear of nuclear war fails to take into account that we are all going to die with or without a nuclear holocaust. What “patriot” was it who said “Give me liberty or give me death?” He too failed to see it, we are ALL going to die; free, oppressed or tyrannized, all mankind dies. The one who dies with the most Oscars is… DEAD.  Those being the smartest, or the most foolish, or the wisest, or the drunkest, or the most immoral or the most saintly who die are …DEAD. So much for angst…

Twenty five percent of American conceived… are DEAD before they leave their mothers’ wombs. For THAT we should have angst as it is homicide which now is nearly 10 times the magnitude of the genocide of the Jews in the 2^nd world war.

You also mentioned the canard of the one percenters. Canard is one of those bruising words if one is on the receiving end BUT I MUST I ask you:  What is your net worth? PLEASE! Anyone earning $40,000 a year in this nation is VERY rich, easily in the top 5% of the world’s income earners. My annual income (retired) with a very small SSA check and a smaller SSI check, plus Medicare A and B and also some gummint subsidies for rent and phone put me in the top 25%. My calculations show that by my two small gummint checks alone I am around 25 times richer than those “third world” people living on two dollars a day. Go to GLOBALRICHLIST.com and find out where you stand in comparison to the rest of humanity. I think you must SURELY be a one percenter yourself! Is it not so?

Liberal JHU grads in Baltimore warmly received your racial views. JHU is known for its brilliant students. How it is that those smart grads are unaware that there is only one race, the human race? It is beyond me, but what we call “racism” is a view which deceives many. I like to say we all pay GREEN and BLEED red. ALL. ALL!!!

We do not choose our color. No one should be treated evilly. Skin color is irrelevant to who and what a person is, yet sinners have mocked, oppressed and murdered others because of their skin color. Martin Luther King had it right, we need to discern persons by the content of their character and NOT EVER by the color of their skin. Why does this wise statement goes unheeded by so many people? Because rich loud mouthed media, political and Hollywood persons with access to radio, and television shout down the truth. It has been to their advantage to manipulate the masses by exciting bigotry. Those who enjoy the limelight ought to use their influence to heal humanity, not to profit by making an industry by inspiring reactionary prejudgment in weak persons whom they deceive.

While white Caucasians have indeed despised other ethnicities and Amercian whites did enslave and oppress black Africans, we dare not and ought not to do anything but forgive them. If we do, we may then live above their wrong headed behavior amongst all people and respect all as human, without regard to their ethnic origin or skin shade. If we do not forgive we will condemn, we will become the judge, jury and high executioner of others including those who simply want to live in peace with all men. Jesus forgave the Roman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross. Why can’t you and I forgive those who deride and defame and defile others believing them lesser humans than themselves on account of their skin shade? Why? They are human just like we are (I am) even if they are deceived as we are (I am) not. Our condemnation of them may show that we judge ourselves as better humans than they are. All have done wrong.

I don’t condemn you Spike. Unlike some whites, some conservatives, some rich folks and even some Christians might want to see you dead, I forgive you. Yet anyone forgiven should not EVER presume to offend the one who forgives! Being forgiven cannot and does not permit us do any evil or believe any evil thought or follow any evil ideology. Astonishingly God entered our space in time and forgave sin taking away the sin of the world! Let us not at death be taken away with our sins, but let us by faith receive God’s forgiveness now which forgiveness does take away NOW all our sins with their guilt and shame.

Frighteningly those who have become bitter by judging and condemning others often rise up against those others and murder them. That is why 6 million Jews were murdered in Nazi Germany. That is why Christians, Muslims, Jews and others are murdered TODAY. Those who murder them cannot forgive them.

We as humans do not trust others easily because others do actually offend us! Yet instead of forgiving those who offend us we TOO OFTEN swiftly condemn him or her in the courtroom of our heart to life in prison or worse! We should not be blind to the truth: WE TOO ALSO OFFEND OTHERS! This is NOT a BLACK, WHITE, BROWN, YELLOW or RED THING, AND WE ALL NEED TO UNDERSTAND IT ! IT is a human thing. It is the universal plight of man and has been since our first parents disobeyed God.

Baltimore’s former mayor and Maryland’s former governor Martin O’Malley said the truth: “All lives matter.” For being so truthful and yet so “politically incorrect” he was hounded by “progressives” until he made a public apology and retraction! Long before the “black live matter” cabals were fomented, funded, and formed to enrich their propagandists, the children of Israel were persecuted for their ethnic distinctions. At least this fact has a lesson to teach as they were PURPOSELY made distinct by God from all other ethnicities. Why? Read your Bible, Old and New “Testaments.” In my humble(?) opinion this was the only ethnic distinction that ever mattered. One could have said that then to God at least “Israeli lives mattered.” It was God’s plan that in the Messiah Jesus men and women of the Jews and of all other nations would be joined together in faith. The church was the vehicle by which He accomplished and accomplishes this.

Although black lives were treated cruelly by white lives when I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, they had been treated worse in the past. After the civil rights era black lives were given great favor in the late 60’s, 70’s and even until this day. But the favor was tainted with one grievous error. The “welfare” monies given to poor black AND WHITE lives, particularly to those women who bore children they were unable to afford, those monies as should have been anticipated, caused the recipients to lose the normal and previously universal motive to labor for their bread. Christians read in their book, “If a man shall not work, he shall not eat.” No one likes a mooch. But the federal government’s social monetary policies of the 1960’s unwittingly(?) created a whole class of fiscal dependents and their progeny who now feel entitled to an income without laboring for it. This is not civil rights. It is economic suicide. The money was taken from the social security payments that the employed were promised would fund their retirement. After the social security money was exhausted these welfare programs became unfunded liabilities. To put the promised funds in the hands of the people promised it the government has had to BORROW and PRINT much money. This has contributed much to the National DEBT today of twenty trillion dollars.

20,000,000,000,000.00 is a big number. It may be that not even the fiscal giant Donald Trump can defray that sum and save the nation from defaulting on this debt. Some say American is addicted to oil. Washington D.C. is addicted to money.

You mentioned that the USA will soon be more BROWN Hispanic and BLACK AfAm than WHITE Caucasian. So what! We are all human. What will be very uncomfortable is whatever calamity may result when our GREENbacks become worth half, a third, a tenth or even a twentieth of what they are worth today. Nero fiddled while Rome burned and blamed it on the Jews; THAT is historical fact. Washington D.C. fiddles while its currency is burned up by unfunded liabilities, and pork which cause increasing debt every year! People who go too deep in debt eventually declare themselves bankrupt. The Fed has been bankrupt for perhaps 20 years. Why does the nation survive? THAT is a topic for another discussion, but basically there are still enough persons content to work for a living so that even the unjust and burdensome socialist monetary policy of the federal gummint has not YET resulted in an economic collapse. But many see that the national economic house is on fire. So Washington fiddles while “progressives” blame every social evil on “WHITES,” “STRAIGHTS,” THE RICH AND CHRISTIANS and even JEWS. “Conservatives” blame everything on liberals and progressives, media and Hollywood personalities, not a few of whom really are one percenters! The poor and the middle class choose sides. It seems almost every heart burns with discontent, angst, and mistrust toward the officials they elect.

John Adams was right in saying that this national experiment could only succeed if governed by and for moral, religious and faithful people. Truly it is Jesus who has the answers which will make us free, free to walk with Him into everlasting life. 

Sincerely, David

P.S. On the same day I heard your speech on C-Span, Clarence Thomas’ speech to Hillsdale College was broadcast. I hope you will take the time to read it and ask, “Is my desire for justice worth casting mercy aside?” Almost without exception the same standard (of justice) we hold up for other to measure up to does also condemn us as not measuring up. Look honestly for that. It is in refusing to believe that we fall short that we become the definition of hypocrisy.

To become smart, and to be educated, start by taking the advice of the book of Proverbs:

Proverbs 29:18  Without a Vision is a people made naked, And whoso is keeping the law, O his happiness!

Proverbs 29:18  Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Proverbs 29:18  Without a prophetic vision, the people throw off all restraint; but he who keeps Torah is happy.

H2377

חזון

châzôn

khaw-zone'

From H2372; a sight (mentally), that is, a dream, revelation, or oracle: - vision.

People are uninhibited and lawless if they have no châzôn.

Proverbs 1:1-33

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, are for learning about wisdom and discipline; for understanding words expressing deep insight; for gaining an intelligently disciplined life, doing what is right, just and fair; for endowing with caution those who don't think and the young person with knowledge and discretion. Someone who is already wise will hear and learn still more; someone who already understands will gain the ability to counsel well; he will understand proverbs, obscure expressions, the sayings and riddles of the wise. The reverence and awe of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. My son, heed the discipline of your father, and do not abandon the teaching of your mother; they will be a garland to grace your head, a medal of honor for your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, don't go along with them. Suppose they say, "Come with us: we'll ambush somebody and kill him, we'll waylay some harmless soul, just for fun; we'll swallow him alive, like the grave, whole, like those who descend to the pit; we'll find everything he has of value, we'll fill our homes with loot! Throw in your lot with us; we'll share a common purse" —my son, don't go along with them, don't set foot on their path; their feet run to evil, they rush to shed blood. For in vain is the net baited if any bird can see it; rather, they are ambushing themselves to shed their own blood, waylaying themselves. So are the ways of all greedy for gain — it takes the lives of those who get it. Wisdom calls aloud in the open air and raises her voice in the public places; she calls out at streetcorners and speaks out at entrances to city gates: "How long, you whose lives have no purpose, will you love thoughtless living? How long will scorners find pleasure in mocking? How long will fools hate knowledge? Repent when I reprove — I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make my words known to you. Because you refused when I called, and no one paid attention when I put out my hand, but instead you neglected my counsel and would not accept my reproof; I, in turn, will laugh at your distress, and mock when terror comes over you —yes, when terror overtakes you like a storm and your disaster approaches like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble assail you. Then they will call me, but I won't answer; they will seek me earnestly, but they won't find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, they refused my counsel and despised my reproof. So they will bear the consequences of their own way and be overfilled with their own schemes. For the aimless wandering of the thoughtless will kill them, and the smug overconfidence of fools will destroy them; but those who pay attention to me will live securely, untroubled by fear of misfortune."

Proverbs 4:23

(AMP)  Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.

(CEV)  Carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of true life.

(CJB)  Above everything else, guard your heart; for it is the source of life's consequences.

(Geneva)  Keepe thine heart with all diligence: for thereout commeth life.

(JPS)  Above all that thou guardest keep thy heart; for out of it are the issues of life.

(KJV+)  Keep^H5341 thy heart^H3820 with all^{H4480 H3605} diligence;^H4929 for^H3588 out of^H4480 it are the issues^H8444 of life.^H2416

(KJVR)  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

(YLT)  Above every charge keep thy heart, For out of it are the outgoings of life.