Julius Caesar

      

Savonarola

Oliver Crowell

Plus ca change, 

plus ca la meme chose

Karl Marx

Sigmund Freud

Adolf Hitler

A good blogging friend of longstanding, much given to quoting perplexing, egocentric, usually atheistic or highly skeptical  philosophers both ancient and modern presented yet-another copious dose of the Marxist, philosopher  Slavoj Zizek, which I admit annoys me –– especially when presented in conjunction with one of our beloved Christian holidays.  So wrote to him:

 Didn’t you "get the message" 
in my THANKSGIVING SONNET 
this year?

So i quoted it again, because I doubt many voter to read verse with either curiosity or comprehension.

________ On Thanksgiving ________

Of all events parading through the year

Not one can to this humble feast compare.

To feel or offer thanks today is rare 

However well our lives remain in gear.

As ease became the norm, we soon forgot 

None of Plymouth’s Pilgrims felt regret. 

Knowing death and cruel privation’s threat

Spoiled not their faith, or made them curse their lot.

Given much yet now we seem to crave

Immeasurable bounty we don’t need 

Voluptuous excess revealing Greed 

Indifference to the noble, fine and brave.

No pilgrim, pioneer or great tycoon

Grew up as a self-indulgent goon.

~ FreeThinke

I believe those thoughts apply very aptly to the observations expressed, complaints issued and the charges made in Zizek's customarily verbose, maddeningly obfuscatory style.

Josef  Stalin

I went on, “Your philsopher friends have it all bassackwards as far as I can see. They continually strive to dsguise the essential meaning of simple, basic home truths in abstruse, recondite, esoteric, pseudo-erudite terminology that works to make simple things SEEM a great deal more complex, mysterious and inaccessible than they really are.

“This, of course, lends the PHILOSOPHER an aura of near-godly superiority to us mere mortals.

Mao tse Dung

“It's virtually the same methodology applied by the Mediaeval Church of Rome where priests read biblical texts in LATIN, which the largely illiterate parishoners were ill-equipped to comprehend. This of course gave spurious credence to the then-prevalent notion that parishioners could not reach God DIRECTLY, but ONLY through the intermediary of the PRIESTHOOD.

“These self-serving methodlogies are ILLEGITIMATE in my never-humble opinion, and have led untold millions for many centuries to live lives intimidated and artificially circumscribed by presumptuous authoritarian forces interested primarily in maintaining a deathgrip on the reins of POWER.

Barack Hussein Obama

Despotism wears many masks, parades under many banners, and appears in many guises –– almost ALWAYS pretending to be the polar OPPOSITE of what it truly is.”

Our Narrow Escape!

"The Squad"

We Know All Too Well What Rough Beasts are Slouching Towards the Corridors of Power and the Oval Office, Don’t We?

Could Anyone Tell Us What the 
Figures Depicted Might 
Have in Common?

On Thanksgiving

Of all events parading through the year

Not one can to this humble feast compare.

To feel or offer thanks today is rare 

However well our lives remain in gear.

As ease became the norm, we soon forgot 

None of Plymouth’s Pilgrims felt regret. 

Knowing death and cruel privation’s threat

Spoiled not their faith, or made them curse their lot.

Given much yet now we seem to crave

Immeasurable bounty we don’t need 

Voluptuous excess revealing Greed 

Indifference to the noble, fine and brave.

No pilgrim, pioneer or great tycoon*

Grew up as a self-indulgent goon.

~ FreeThinke - 11/24/11

The First Thanksgiving - John Leon Jerome Ferris (1863-1930)

________________________

*Tycoon

1. A wealthy and powerful businessperson or industrialist; a magnate.

2. Used formerly as a title for a Japanese shogun.

ETYMOLOGY: 

Japanese taikun, title of a shogun, of Chinese origin

WORD HISTORY:

Claims have been made in today's global economy that some business leaders have more power than heads of states. It is etymologically fitting that such leaders are sometimes called tycoons. Tycoon came into English from Japanese, which had borrowed the title, meaning "great prince," from Chinese. Use of the word was intended to make the shogun, the commander in chief of the Japanese army, more impressive to foreigners (his official title shogun merely meant "general"). It worked with Matthew C. Perry, who opened Japan to the West in 1854; Perry carried out his negotiations with the shogun, thinking him to be the emperor. In fact, the shogun did rule Japan, although he was supposedly acting for the emperor. The shogun's title, taikun, was brought back to the United States after Perry's visit. Abraham Lincoln's cabinet members used tycoon as an affectionate nickname for the President. The word soon came to be used for business and industry leaders at times being applied to figures like J. P. Morgan, who may indeed have wielded more power than many princes and presidents.

~ Merriam Webster, 11th edition. online text

Prelude to Thanksgiving

THANKS BE TO GOD (ELIJAH!)

Felix Mendelssohn (189-1847)

Tom Trenney, conductor

https://youtu.be/vHChl0aXSmQ

Thanks be to God! 

He reviveth the thirsty land! 

The waters gather, they rush along; 

They are lifting their voices! 

The stormy billows are high,

Their fury is mighty. 

But the Lord is above them, 

and Almighty!

(Jeremiah 14:22; II 

Chronicles 6:19, 26, 27; 

Deuteronomy 28:23; 

Psalms 28:1, 106:1; 

I Kings 18:43-5; 

Psalm 93:3-4)

Loony Lizzie in a tizzy

A CRACK-BRAINED SENATRIX

Elizabeth Warren has ideas so foreign

Her candidacy is a joke.

Elizabeth Warren harbors thinking so barren

The woman must be snorting coke.

Her gestures spasmodic, unseemly, chaotic

Seem Parkinson-like, Watch her prance!

Both grotesque and tasteless, abysmally graceless

Could she have Saint Vitus Dance?

Aiming a hatchet at your financial future

The sight of her twitching while she is bitching

Is more than sane people should stand

As she disses enriching, this virago needs hitching

To a post far removed from our land!

~ Anne Animus

Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald

Everyone is dead now, but Caroline, 62

FIFTY-SIX YEARS AGO TODAY

The Deviltry That Led To

November 22, 1963

Joseph P. once had a Master Plan.

Oh, what dreams of Glory he possessed!

His lust for Conquest never let him rest.

Naught but vain Ambition drove the clan

Kennedy had sired to fulfill

Ego-driven fantasies of ruling

Nations. Wealth, ill-gotten, had us drooling.

Nothing seemed to thwart Old Joseph’s will.

Enter World War Two: It killed young Joe,

Destined to be President one day. 

Even so, despite this transient woe,

Ambition took the lead again, so Jack

Took his brother’s place. That was Joe’s way.

His will was thwarted by a rifle’s crack.

~ FreeThinke

The Poison Patriarch, himself

The famous Book Depository in Dallas where Oswald took his aim

On Giving Thanks

Once upon a time, we knew that life

Never guarantees us anything,

Given that, why not just plunge a knife

Into your heart? No form of nannying

Vitiates vicissitude, and yet

Imagination hopes to set aside

Natural Law which says w’re all in debt.

God, the Source of Life, can just provide

The chance to be whatever we can be.

Happiness is found along the way ~

Achieving what we can with Charity.

No panacea can this truth gainsay.

Kings and Vassals ~ equal in God’s sight ~

Should each give thanks as they fight the good fight. 

FreeThinke 

~ The Sandpiper ~ Autumn 1996

NOTICE:

WE DO NOT ACCEPT BOILERPLATE, PARTISAN DIATRIBES, PERSONAL CRITICISMS, SCOLDINGS, BLOG GOSSIP or REMARKS THAT MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO RELATE TO THE SUBSTANCE OF THE MATERIAL POSTED. 

NO EXCEPTIONS. PERIOD!

Look to the Rainbow

Barbara Cook and Barry Manilow

On the day I was born, 

said my father, said he,

I've an elegant legacy 

waiting for ye.

Tis a rhyme for your lips 

and a song for your heart,

To sing whenever the world falls apart.

Look, look, look to the rainbow.

Follow it over the hill and stream.

Look, look, look to the rainbow.

Follow the fellow who follows a dream.

Follow the fellow, follow the fellow,

Follow the fellow who follows a dream …

Finian’s Rainbow (1947) 

Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

Music by Burton Lane

NOTICE:

WE DO NOT ACCEPT BOILERPLATE, PARTISAN DIATRIBES, PERSONAL CRITICISMS, SCOLDINGS, BLOG GOSSIP or REMARKS THAT MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO RELATE TO THE SUBSTANCE OF THE MATERIAL POSTED. 

NO EXCEPTIONS. PERIOD!

TThere's Nothing Like 

the Sedulous Application of 

DOUBLE STANDARDS and

SELECTIVE MEMORIES, is There?

NOTICE:

WE DO NOT ACCEPT BOILERPLATE, PARTISAN DIATRIBES, PERSONAL CRITICISMS, SCOLDINGS, BLOG GOSSIP or REMARKS THAT MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO RELATE TO THE SUBSTANCE OF THE MATERIAL POSTED. 

NO EXCEPTIONS. PERIOD!