mopaul
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:31 PM
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Carl Sandburg on Jerry Falwell |
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Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 01:32 PM by mopaul
TO A CONTEMPORARY BUNKSHOOTER You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about Jesus. Where do you get that stuff? What do you know about Jesus? Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem everybody liked to have this Jesus around because he never made any fake passes and everything he said went and he helped the sick and gave the people hope.
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I know how much you know about Jesus. He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running.
I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men now lined up with you paying your way.
This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands wherever he passed along. You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who lived a clean life in Galilee.
When are you going to quit making the carpenters build emergency hospitals for women and girls driven crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get that stuff; what do you know about Jesus?
Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare the women and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors. I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great original performance, but you--you're only a bug- house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in the skies after they're dead and the worms have eaten 'em. You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross and he'll be all right. You tell poor people they don't need any more money on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job, Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say. I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you're handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with the big thieves.
I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion. I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar.
I ask you to come through and show me where you're pouring out the blood of your life.
I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is straight it was real blood ran from His hands and the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth
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Walt Starr
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:34 PM
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Swamp Rat
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:37 PM
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Inland
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:37 PM
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2. Is that really Sandburg? That's excellent. |
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Every five years or so I read a poem I like.
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Jeff in Cincinnati
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:41 PM
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5. Now read (or re-read) "Elmer Gantry" |
mopaul
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:42 PM
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Jeff in Cincinnati
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Tue Mar-29-05 02:25 PM
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A case where the original text and the movie are equally good. I mean, hell's bells, it's Spencer Tracy!
----
Drummond: How do you know that God didn't spake to Charles Darwin?
Brady: I know because God tells me to oppose the evil teachings of that man!
Drummond: Oh, God speaks to you?
Brady: Yes!
Drummond: He tells you what is right and wrong?
Brady: Yes!
Drummond: And you act accordingly?!
Brady: Yes!!
Drummond: So, you, Mathew Harrison Brady, through oratory or legislature of whatever, you pass on God's orders to the rest of the world! Well, meet the prophet from Nebraska! Is that the way of things?! Is that the way of things?! God tells Brady what is good! To be against Brady is to be against God!
Brady: NO!!! Each man is a free agent!
Drummond: Then what is Bertram Cates doing in a Hillsborough jail?! Supposing Mr. Cates had the influence and the lung power to railroad through the state legislature a law saying that only Darwin could be taught in the schools!
----
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mopaul
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:53 PM
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9. 'chicago poems'....they're all excellent |
Inland
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:56 PM
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10. I'm almost afraid to. |
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Frankly, I don't like poetry, and I might be disappointed if I read more.
I picked up a Sylvia Plath collection once. Opened at random, read somthing great. Second random pick, eh. Third random, put it down and didn't read it again.
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Jeff in Cincinnati
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Tue Mar-29-05 02:28 PM
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but a good one:
Grass
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work -
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this? Where are we now?
I am the grass. Let me work.
Carl Sandburg -- who never met George W. Bush.
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DemoTex
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:40 PM
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4. Could have been written yesterday! |
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How apropos. Thanks MoPaul. GOP moral bankruptcy Bill
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terrya
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:44 PM
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7. Another vote for the Greatest Page. |
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Excellent, mopaul. Thank you for posting Carl Sandburg's wise words about evil men like Jerry Falwell.
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ktowntennesseedem
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Tue Mar-29-05 01:50 PM
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"You come along squirting words at us..."
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oasis
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Tue Mar-29-05 02:09 PM
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11. Falwell the "bunkshooter". Live Jerry, and wear your new title. |
Batgirl
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Tue Mar-29-05 02:45 PM
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14. The Jesus in this poem clearly would have |
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been fighting against the reich-wingers of today. How did the party that currently passes for "conservative" -- who equate material wealth with moral superiority -- co-opt this Jesus in order to falsely claim him as their own?
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arendt
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Tue Mar-29-05 02:57 PM
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15. A fabulous quotation. Thanks for your historical awareness. |
battlebob1
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:08 PM
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LastDemocratInSC
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Tue Mar-29-05 03:29 PM
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16. Sandburg's farm, Connemara, is just north of where I live |
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Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 03:47 PM by LastDemocratInSC
Connemara, the Sandburg family's farm, is now a national historic site, preserved by the National Park Service. They moved from Michigan to Flat Rock, NC because his wife raised prize-winning goats and they wanted a different climate. For me it has always been an island of peace in a sea of madness. I've spent many days lying on my back in the lush green fields of that farm looking at the sky and thinking.
The goat farm still operates with the original goat lineage - one can walk around, pet the goats, see cheese being made, tour Sandburg's home as it was in his time, see his book collections, sit on the huge granite slope behind his home where he did so much of his writing in a big wooden chair. It is an absolutely sublime place.
If you're anywhere near Asheville, you owe it to yourself to visit his home. It is a remarkable experience. Lots of good hiking trails, too.
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arendt
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Tue Mar-29-05 04:23 PM
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DemoTex
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Tue Mar-29-05 05:52 PM
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18. A kick for the erudite evening DU crew! |
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Great Sandburg poem. I too love the Chicago Poems. BTW: I live about 30 miles southwest of the Carl Sandburg home in Flat Rock, NC. http://www.nps.gov/carl/http://data2.itc.nps.gov/parkphotos/webreadysumhsefield%2Ejpg
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0007
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:00 PM
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19. Fits like a glove. I'll nominate it. |
TrustingDog
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:12 PM
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21. that is just so dead on. good ole Carl. |
stevedeshazer
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:31 PM
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AWorkerBee
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:35 PM
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I just posted that
It is evocative, certainly.
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Carni
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:42 PM
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24. God damn! I just nominated this thread and... |
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I'm not exactly a believer.
That is one awesome poem thanks for posting it!
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AWorkerBee
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Tue Mar-29-05 09:54 PM
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25. It was written about Billy Sunday |
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Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 09:54 PM by AWorkerBee
If you want to be creeped out, just google that dude
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Carni
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Tue Mar-29-05 10:15 PM
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27. I have zero idea about who that is |
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Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 10:17 PM by Carni
But say hi to *rimjob* for me!
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AWorkerBee
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Tue Mar-29-05 10:26 PM
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28. who? It's easily googable |
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It was a "Falwell type" bunkshooter from Sandburgs time.
Strangely echos our own
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Red State Rebel
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Tue Mar-29-05 10:14 PM
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26. Hey, I've posted this here before :) |
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It is so honest. I won my first trophy reading this poem in a competition.
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