America
Find Order in the Chaos
J
ust for this month, or maybe for a few other months, I would like to respectfully off er you some miscellaneous thoughts about life. These range from the political to the highly personal.
First, about President Obama. I know this is heresy, but
I don’t think he is anywhere near as bad a president as I feared he would be. He has not gutted national defense, yet. His Obamacare is a mess (more about that later) and its passage was a disgrace. Eric Holder is bewilderingly aloof. But Obama is nowhere near as incompetent as I expected. His Columbia training (my undergrad alma mater) and his Harvard Law School work have done him plenty of good. That being said, there are several mysteries about
him. Why is he allowed to still get away with not telling us voters about his young years? Why is he allowed to not release his college and law school grades? Aren’t they relevant to who he is? As far as I can tell, he has never submitted a normal
budget to the Congress. His Obamacare bill — a life- changing piece of legislation — was largely blank, and as Nancy Pelosi famously said, in paraphrase, “We have to pass it to see what’s in it.” What kind of government is that? Next, as far as I can tell, President Obama does not
make use of his economic advisers. I am sure they are great people, but why don’t we ever hear from them? He has a fi ne chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, professor Alan Krueger, and even Timothy Geithner has some experience at Treasury. But they have vanished from public view. Who is he listening to? It would be good if we knew who was advising him besides Valerie Jarrett. And then there is the matter of how the fi rst partly
black president is addressing the crisis of young black America. Vastly more young black men are unemployed than young white men. Where is Obama on this issue? Far too many black men are incarcerated relative to white men. Why? What can be done to change this in a big way? Just for me, the crisis of the black community is the
crisis of America. I do not hear much from Obama about this. And while I truly love the Hollywood stars that Obama likes to hang out with, why cannot he spend more time cheerleading and inspiring the young black men who
26 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2012 T
STEIN DREEMZ
need his example of success so badly? This is a terribly serious matter. Now, to change gears for a moment . . .
hese have been diffi cult days for me, your servant. I have had a close family member who has been
extremely ill, even at times life-threateningly ill. This has been devastating. And, the recession has shown me how many mistakes I can make. I know that some people think commentators and columnists make no mistakes, but this one, at least, makes plenty of mistakes. I often think I will just lose my mind from all of these
cares and worries. But when I do, I try to remember some good cheer that came from meetings of a 12-step group that saved my life 24 years ago and saves my life, day by day: Stay well-rested and well-fed. Rest is as essential as oxygen. So is being well-fed. Thoughts we have when we are rested and well-fed are totally diff erent from thoughts we have when we are exhausted and hungry. You cannot lose if you surrender to God and ask in humility for him to guide your life. Or, to put it another way, the strongest defensive position is in prayer and surrender. Once you have sincerely surrendered your life to God, you cannot lose. As often as possible, say to yourself, “I am one of roughly 7.5 billion people on this earth. What happens to me is not terribly important.” We humans make mistakes. I often think that the real defi nition of a human is “a mistake-making biped.” You will make mistakes. The whole meaning of God is that he loves us and forgives us for being what he made us — human and fallible. Even when things are bleakest, I still have the strength to surrender to God. So what if our backs are against the wall? God is our wall. To think that I can manage or control the world is pure delusion. I can barely manage myself. And the single smartest words anyone has ever said to me: “Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are not facts.” God bless us, every one of us.
BEN
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