Folding Like Cheap Cameras
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Although he was horrifically anti-clerical and a firm supporter of the slaughter of innocent preborn babies in their mothers' wombs under cover of law, longtime talk radio host Robert Gigante (whose stage name is "Bob Grant") had a number of predictable phrases that his listeners came to expect as they listened to his naturalist blatherings. Grant would tell callers who made statements he found outrageous or who otherwise bothered him, "Get off my phone, you jerk!" Grant was also prone to use the following phrase to describe a caller or a politician with whom he disagreed, "Fake, phony, fraud." Born in 1929, Grant grew up with the old "folding" cameras, an experience that prompted him to remark about a politician who surrendered to public opinion or other pressures, "He folded like a cheap camera."
Behold the "cheap cameras" folding one after another in the Democrat Party caucus in the United States Senate. Fifty of these "cheap cameras" vowed in a letter sent to Illinois Governor Rod "
Meet George Jetson" Blagojevich on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, not to seat anyone he sought to appoint to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the resignation of President-elect Barack Hussein Obama (who was officially declared to be the President-elect yesterday after the Vice President of the United States of America, Richard N. Cheney, counted the electoral votes before a joint session of the United States Congress).
Blagojevich, not that anyone needs reminding, was arrested on Tuesday, December 9, 2009, by Federal authorities on charges that he was trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. Expletive-filled conversations of the northern-style Lyndon Baines Johnson scheming to extract money or favors in exchange for his appointed happened to be recorded under a court order obtained by the United States Attorney for Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. It appeared from those tape recordings that an emissary for "Candidate 5," who was identified as United States Representative Jesse Louis Jackson, Jr., was willing to make a $500,000 campaign donation to Blagojevich for the Obama seat. The emissary was none other than the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Representative Jackson's father. Some have speculated that Fitzgerald arrested Blagojevich, an unreconstructed pro-abort, before the cash could pass between the parties so as to avoid an embarrassment to the Jacksons, who are said to be cooperating with the investigation and are not a target of it.
Democrat Party members of the 110th United States Senate stood firm on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, in stating that no appointee made by Blagojevich would be seated:
Dear Governor Blagojevich:
We write to insist that you step down as Governor of Illinois and under no circumstance make an appointment to fill the vacant Illinois Senate seat. In light of your arrest yesterday on alleged federal corruption charges related to that Senate seat, any appointment by you would raise serious questions.
It is within the authority of the Illinois legislature to remove your power to make this appointment by providing for a special election. But a decision by you to resign or to step aside under Article V of the Illinois Constitution would be the most expeditious way for a new Senator to be chosen and seated in a manner that would earn the confidence of the people of Illinois and all Americans. We consider it imperative that a new senator be seated as soon as possible so that Illinois is fully represented in the Senate as the important work of the 111th Congress moves forward.
Please understand that should you decide to ignore the request of the Senate Democratic Caucus and make an appointment we would be forced to exercise our Constitutional authority under Article I, Section 5, to determine whether such a person should be seated.
We do not prejudge the outcome of the criminal charges against you or question your constitutional right to contest those charges. But for the good of the Senate and our nation, we implore you refrain from making an appointment to the Senate.
Blagojevich, aping the example set by then President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton when he admitted on August 17, 1998, giving "inaccurate" testimony in a deposition before United States District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright on January 17, 1998, in the Paula Corbin Jones harassment case, decided to "tough" things out, playing the sort of hardball politics for which politicians from Cook County, Illinois, are notorious. Blagojevich's natural air of defiance was emboldened when Democrat Party members of the Illinois State Legislature, fearful that a Republican might win a special election to fill Obama's seat, dithered and dathered before Christmas, deciding not to enact legislation to take the appointing power away from Blagojevich and proceeding, albeit slowly, with impeachment proceedings, which resulted yesterday, Thursday, January 8, 2009, in a recommendation by a legislative panel that Blagojevich be impeached.
Thus emboldened by the weakness of the members of his own party, many of whom have loathed Blagojevich's arrogance for years, the Illinois Governor crafted a brilliantly cynical strategy of exercising his constitutional authority as the sitting--and as yet unindicted--chief executive of Illinois to outfox Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and the rest of the Democrat Party caucus by seeking a willing black office-holder to appoint, a move that he, Blagojevich, knew would make it appear as though Democrats in the United States Senate did not want to seat a black man to fill a seat that had been held by a black man. This cynical use of the race card is what has forced the members of the Democrat Party caucus in the United States Senate to fold like cheap cameras at the present time.
Truth be told, of course, Blagojevich is the sitting Governor of the State of Illinois. He has been arrest but not indicted. He has not been convicted of any crime. His conversations, though unseemly and filled with the profanities that one would expect from a naturalist committed to baby-killing under cover of law, might not necessarily get him convicted, which is why U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has asked for a ninety day extension before placing Blagojevich's case before a Federal grand jury (there are other corruption charges for which Blagojevich had been under investigation at the time that the "pay-for-play" Senate seat scam was uncovered). Blagojevich was certainly within his constitutional authority to make an appointment to fill Barack Hussein Obama's seat in the United States Senate. His use of the race card was a means to provide himself with cover in order to tweak the noses of the Senators he believed had "dissed" him in the letter cited above and a way of showing defiance to the Illinois State Legislature as they debated what to do with him.
According to United States Representative Danny K. Davis, D-Illinois, Blagojevich offered him the Obama seat before offering it to former Illinois State Comptroller and Attorney General, Roland W. Burris. Representative Davis, who is also a member of the "Democratic Socialists of America," rejected Blagojevich's offer, recommending that the disgraced George Jetson of Illinois consider appointing Roland Burris, who, though the first black statewide office-holder in the State of Illinois when he was elected as state comptroller in 1978 (I lived in Illinois at that time and did not vote for him, not because he was black but because he was a naturalist of the "leftist" bent; I believe that I wrote in candidates for statewide office that year at the polling place in Normal, Illinois, where I voted), had long lost the respect of the Illinois "governing class" as he ran for one office after another (thrice for Governor and once for Mayor of the City of Chicago) without success.
Burris, as we know, proved up to the Blagojevich strategy of playing the race card. Aided by a co-founder of the Black Panthers, United States Representative Bobby Rush (when was the last time you saw Rush identified by anyone in the "mainstream media" with the organization he co-founded, the militant Black Panthers), Burris played the race card openly and ceaselessly. Some naturalists of the "conservative" bent evidently had some fun with this, accusing Majority Leader Reid of not wanting to seat a black man. Burris played offense as Blagojevich sat back and watched, political "don" that he is, as those in the United States Senate who dared to defy his authority found themselves accused of racism as Burris struck a most defiant pose in his own right.
The decision to seat or refuse to seat Roland W. Burris in the United States Senate has, of course, nothing to do with race. It is, however, most interesting to watch the naturalists of the "left" dance the jitterbug whenever the race card is played. Blagojevich, taking full advantage of the delays in the Illinois State Legislature and wanting to have some fun at the expense of Senate Democrats who tried to defy him, outsmarted Harry Reid and his whip, the egregious Catholic pro-abort named United States Senator Richard Durbin, D-Illinois. Naturalists are concerned principally about their own career interests and generally "fold" like one of Bob Grant's figurative "cheap cameras" in the face of the false accusations such as those being leveled by Roland Burris and Bobby Rush.
Although the Senate Democrats had vowed to block any asserting the Senate's authority, found in Section 5 of Article I of the Constitution, to be the final judge of the qualifications of its members, it is doubtful that they could have found any legitimate foundation to have blocked any Blagojevich appointment, including of himself if he had been that bold (!), as long as he, Blagojevich, remained the the sitting (and unindicted) Governor of Illinois. Despite the constitutional difficulties, however, it is probably the case that the Senate Democrats would have persisted in their refusal to seat a Blagojevich appointee if he had been a male Caucasian, testing the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Powell v. McCormack, June 16, 1969.
A writer for the Chicago Tribune, John Kass, has an interesting analysis of the role played by President-elect Barack Hussein Obama in this intrigue of corruption and race wrought by the falsehoods of Modernity's rejection of the Catholic Faith as the one and only foundation for personal and social order:
So the Chicago Way hauled off and slapped the U.S. Senate in the face—one of those backhands with the knuckles to unsuspecting lips—and guess who blinked?
It wasn't Chicago.
It was the Senate.
Get used to it, America. And it won't be the last time either.
Roland "Tombstone" Burris, the amiable Illinois Democratic political hack who is being called eminently qualified by the national Democrats—perhaps because he's from Illinois and he hasn't been indicted—has almost reached his goal of being addressed as "Yes, sir, Senator."
Now Tombstone has President-elect Barack Obama behind him, muscling Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid in a phone call earlier in the week. So much for transcending the old politics.
Only a week ago, Obama, Reid and other Democratic leaders were adamant that they'd block any Senate appointment made by tainted Illinois Gov. Rod "Dead Meat" Blagojevich, who has been charged with trying to sell Obama's seat to the highest bidder.
Their statements back then were stern and inflexible, invoking the honor of the Senate and how they'd never let an allegedly corrupt governor put his greasy paws on their august dignity. Those statements weren't bland. They were so tough they had hair on them. More hair than Blagojevich, even.
But today's news is that Obama, often treated by the national media as the gentle Mr. Tumnus of American politics, got privately hardball with Reid over the Tombstone issue.
According a story in the Tribune by Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning, Obama didn't want the Chicago Way on parade in Washington, less than two weeks before his inauguration, when he formally becomes the agent of the change we can believe in.
Obama is perfectly within his rights to try to wriggle out of an embarrassing political situation, and what could be more embarrassing for him than to have Illinois political corruption constantly on the news in Washington?
People might start asking questions, wondering how Obama could come out of a city run by the wrought-iron fists of the Daley machine but smell like the neck of a baby after a bath.
I'm still wondering.
Yet Obama was tricky, not mentioning his phone call to Reid when talking to reporters Wednesday. He said Tombstone was the Senate's business, not his business.
"This is a Senate matter. But I know Roland Burris, obviously; he's from my home state. I think he's a fine public servant," Obama said, pulling a 180 on his earlier no-Burris position. "If he gets seated, then I'm going to work with Roland Burris, just like I work with all the other senators."
At least Obama had the good grace not to wag his index finger at reporters and bite his lower lip before announcing, "I did not have phone contact with that senator, Harry Reid, never, ever."
That's because he wasn't asked about Reid.
Obama almost wasn't asked anything about Burris on Wednesday. One reporter barely tossed it up at the end, after others asked him about the war in the Gaza Strip (Obama still can't comment about Gaza because he's not yet president) and the economy (though he's not president, you can't stop the guy from commenting on that one).
What Obama forgot to mention is that he ordered the Tombstone issue settled because it became his problem. So he told Reid to cave.
In political terms, Reid rolled up his sleeves, put on his favorite "Kiss the Chef" apron, got his fingers dusty with flour and baked himself a big humble pie. He scarfed it down in front of reporters Wednesday, without a fork, all but licking his fingers, that pie was so sweet and tasty. Mmm-mmm.
"For me, who had never met the man, it was very enlightening," oozed Reid, heaping praise on Burris after meeting him for the first time. "He is very engaging, an extremely nice man and he presents himself very well."
Reid was joined by another oozer, perhaps the most accomplished public oozer in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois.
"I've known Roland Burris for 36 years in Illinois politics. We have always been friends," said Durbin, who a few days ago was calling the Burris appointment "an act of political defiance" that "will lead nowhere."
Then they agreed that Tombstone would probably get to join their club, and they also agreed that race had nothing to do with it, even though they are Democrats and Blagojevich played the race card as adroitly as Al Sharpton eating soul food with Caroline Kennedy in Harlem.
Sure, they're white guys and Burris is African-American, but race had nothing to do with it. It was just procedure and technicalities, they said.
"People ask a lot of times why we have to do various things procedurally here in the Senate," Reid told reporters. "It's because we're the Senate: That's how we operate."
Correction. That's how you used to operate. You're from Nevada, but Obama comes from Chicago.
It's sure got to be difficult to eat a big hunk of humble pie when your lips are stinging, but here's some advice, Senators.
Have another slice. There's plenty more.
As Catholics, my friends, we know that God does not judge us on the basis of the race or ethnicity. Our immortal souls is made unto His own very image and likeness in that we have a rational soul with an intellect to know Him and a will to choose with which to love and to serve Him. Human beings do not love God as "blacks" or as "whites" or as "Latinos or Latinas" or as "Orientals" or as "Native Americans" or as "Italians" or as "Croatians" or as "French" or as "Americans" but as creatures whose immortal souls have been redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Human beings are called upon to love God as He has revealed Himself to them through His true Church, the Catholic Church, and to love their own immortal souls as they have been redeemed at so great a cost. Our principal identity as human beings is as members of the Catholic Church. Everything else about us (race, ethnicity, nationality, gender), although occurring certainly within the Providence of God, is secondary.
As I tried to explain to students during my days as a college professor, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ embraced all of the legitimate joys and sorrows of this passing, mortal vale of tears as He underwent His fearful Passion and Death. We suffer or experience joy as human beings, as redeemed creatures, not as mere animals identifiable by external characteristics. There are no such things as "black" tears or "white" tears or "Indian" tears. There is no such thing as "white" joy or "black" joy" or "Latino" joy. The use of the "race" or "ethnicity" or "gender" card is the refuge of cowardly scoundrels who seek privilege and/or to indemnify slothful or corrupt behavior.
We are to see in each person the very impress of the Divine Redeemer and to treat Him accordingly, rendering unto each person that which is his due. We are to discriminate unjustly (we must discriminate justly in many circumstances of our lives as we choose which merchant to patronize, which person to employ, who to admit to a seat in a college or a professional school, to deny employment or privileges to those steeped in public scandal, etc.) against no one nor must we use the external characteristics of a human being to extend privileges that are undeserving and/or would result in an injustice to someone else.
Pope Pius XI, writing in Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937, condemned the racialism of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler:
Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.
This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators' right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.
None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).
It is precisely racialism (the belief in the superiority of one race over others) that is at the foundation of so much of the race-baiting extant in the naturalistic farce that is American politics. Indeed, Roland Burris dismissive his opponents in a 1998 primary as "nonqualified white boys." Hmm. Seems like a bit old-fashioned racialism to me. "None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national god, of a national religion, or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before Whose immensity they 'are as a drop of a bucket.'" Superficial minds possessed by supercilious men whose immortal souls have been deformed by the after-effects of the Protestant Revolt and the entire ethos of naturalism fostered by Judeo-Masonry attempt to exploit the external characteristics of men to their own advantage, especially by taking irresponsible refuge in the "race card."
Such a refuge will be to no avail to anyone at the moment of his Particular Judgment after his death. Race or ethnicity or nationality gender is not an excuse to be use before Christ the King, Our Divine Judge, at that moment. Race or ethnicity or nationality or gender entitles no one to automatic entry to Heaven or is used by God as a means to exclude anyone Therefrom. There is no "affirmative action" program in Heaven. There is no segregation program of races or ethnicities in Heaven. Human beings are judged at the moment of their Particular Judgments as to whether their immortal souls are in states of Sanctifying Grace as members in good standing of the Catholic Church.
Human beings such as Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., or Roland W. Burris or Bobby Rush or Danny K. Davis or Jesse Jackson, Sr., or Jesse Jackson, Sr., or Rod Blagojevich will not be judged by Christ the King on the basis of their race or ethnicity or even their political party affiliation. They will not be judged on the basis of their "good intentions" to "solve" social and economic problems by means of massive government expenditures and the creation of huge bureaucracies. They will be judged on the basis of whether they are members of the Catholic Church in states of Sanctifying Grace. And as each of these individuals, among so many in public life, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, support the mystical dismemberment of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the persons of innocent preborn children by chemical and surgical means under cover of law, each, as it stands now, is likely to hear Christ the King say to them:
"I was in the womb and you killed Me. I was in the womb and you used the civil law to justify killing Me. I was in the womb and you prevented any efforts to save Me. You rejected My Catholic Faith, the only means of human salvation, presenting yourselves as possessing the means to save men and improve social conditions. How can you expect to enter into My Kingdom in Heaven when you have rejected It on earth? Depart from me, you accursed ones."
As we make reparation each and every day for our own many sins, we must make sure to pray--and by name--for the conversion of those who in public life who use the "race card" so shamelessly as they support one objective moral evil after another under cover of law, oblivious to the fact that social and economic conditions must worsen in any nation where such evils are protected under cover of law and promoted in every aspect of its popular culture. To this end, of course, we must pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, entrusting all to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Neros and Diocletians and Trajans of Modernity will pass from the scene upon the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They--and their conciliar enablers--will be but footnotes in history. We may not live to see this day. Not to worry. The Apostles did not see the glory of the first Christendom with their own bodily eyes. They were content to plant the seeds for its glories. We can do no less in our own day as the totally consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, asking for all of the graces we need each day so that we will not fold like cheap cameras when it comes to our defense of the Catholic Faith, including our defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King.
May Our Lady help us to be led out of the prison of our own sins and selfishness and the lies of Modernity and Modernism as we are enlightened at all times by the Light Who is her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, King of men and their nations. May the day come soon when He is recognized by the Constitution of the United States of America as the King of this nation as He is of all nations.
Vivat Christus Rex!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
