So how do we make this holiday more tolerable?

Do you remember in elementary school or in high school when there were mean and unruly kids who were constantly bullying students into submission because they did not go along with them and their rebellious ways? Everyone knew that these bullies were wrong, and yet, within themselves, they were always anticipating when that bully was going to get his (Psalm 94:16).  Of course, for some reason or another, that bully getting his was not going to be from their hands.

We see these same bullies in government and media today.

I have a question for you, where did Diane Feinstein and friends in government who are now quietly introducing a major gun bill derive their delegated authorities?  We know it is not coming from the American people that they are to receive their delegations (1 Kings 13:33)?

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” -Declaration of Independence

Her co-conspirator in subversive and lawless activity, Nancy Pelosi, also said recently that they “will act boldly and decisively” on guns.  I ask, where did she derive delegated authority from “We the people” to enact that which is unlawful? She didn’t! And neither did Diane Feinstein or any other anti-gunner.  Then to whom are they working for?

Today, the American people are being terrorized and are clearly being assailed by a power that is foreign to America and the US Constitution through feigned representation and feigned policy disguised as law.

Attack after attack, coming from those who are there to “ensure your God-given rights.”

In countering these criminals, let’s go to the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights where it states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Our forefathers made clear the very purpose of the 2nd Amendment and the militia.

“Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. … [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” – TencheCoxe, Delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

John Adams:

“Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense.”

Thomas Jefferson:

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

George Mason:

“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…

“The people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well Regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free State. …”

He goes on,

“I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people. …”

Friends, our forefathers did not arm the American people for the purpose of hunting, but rather to protect themselves from those who were doing the hunting: namely in their time, the tyrant King George.

Look to the present and how these outlaws are attacking your God-given rights to bear arms through their purposed, misconstrued misinterpretations and policies.

They are attempting to strip away your ability to protect you and your family from people such as themselves (Luke 11:21), and if you dare refuse to submit to their tyrannical ways, they then label you as an enemy of the state, when in fact, they are the ones guilty of transgressing constitutional law (1 Kings 18:18).

When pursuing the Declaration of Independence this last week, I recollected that it was our forefathers who were throwing off tyrants that would not be ruled by God. As a matter of fact, three-fourths of that documentation is our forefathers highlighting the usurpations and injuries committed against them by one that was attempting to further enslave them.

"To disarm the people...was the best & most effectual way to enslave them." -George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights

Look at some of the sentences found in our Declaration:

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

How foreign this is to the average American today, which of course, helps explain why Americans tolerate tyrants in government capacity in all forms (John 8:44).

Doing that which is right and lawful when it comes to today’s politicians is as foreign to them as it was the tyrant King George and his subordinates (Psalm 94:20, Romans 12:21). As a matter of fact, our founding documents fly in the face of (Expose-Luke 12:21), stand in direct contrast in much of what has and is taking place in American government today.

In short, these criminals mean to steal away what your forefathers and veterans have fought bled and died to give Americans on the behalf of their sacrifices (2 Corinthians 5:15).

Our forefathers set forth an example for their posterity to learn from, and their example was clear in exhibition tolerance for tyranny nowhere at no time (Hebrews 13:7). Do you remember friends that during the writing and establishing of our foundations as a nation that there was a revolutionary war going on, so they understood the price being paid for their freedoms.

The US Constitution preamble states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice (Jeremiah 9:24), insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Note: A message to those who act on the behalf of those who are violating Americans and their God-given rights need to understand that when they do so, they are no longer law enforcement, but have now become agents of the state. Remember, tyrants cannot do what tyrants do without someone doing it for them. Don’t play the fool.

Remember, America's God-given rights must be fought for because if not, it merely means that they have been forfeited (1 Timothy 6:12). 

“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” – Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

Either the American people are going to throw off tyranny within, or the tyrants will throw off their rights.

One must remember as well that these are the same criminal politicians attempting to disarm you that are in fact alluring illegals into this country while Americans suffer their abuse. Government is an extension and a reflection of "We the People" and this is a reflection that does not look American in any sense of the word. They are pushing Americans and their backs to the wall friends, and in the end, inciting a response. Americans must connect with each other and begin to look out for each other against them that have set themselves against the United States Constitution. It is for the American people to draw the line in the sand and resist tyranny at every step, for it is clear as that we once again are dealing with, tyrants here in our homeland.

In closing…

Back to the time when bullies finally figured out that the people were no longer going to take their authoritative rebellious and oppressive methods... No, wait a second, I will let Flick give you a powerful lesson from a movie back in 1998 called “A Bug's Life” (Matthew 18:3).

Bradlee Dean is a guest contributor to GCN news. His views and opinions are his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of the Genesis Communication Network. Bradlee's radio program, The Sons of Liberty, broadcasts live M - Sat here at GCN. This op-ed was originally published by Sons of Liberty Media at www.sonsoflibertyradio.com. Reprinted with permission. 

Wow. Gillette sure hit the viral jackpot with their new We Believe: The Best Men Can Be, commercial (this is the same video link that is on the front page). And by viral, I don’t only mean “good” because there seems to be about twice as much pushback and rage than positivity. I mean, Piers Morgan really hated it (which, probably means it can't be all bad, right?)

That being said it’s generally drawing overwhelming critical praise from social media, lots of news sites and … well, critics. But that was day one. By day two, pushback began and now it appears to be drawing a lot of negative feedback from a- (I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and say … ) predominantly male crowd of internet folks.

You should take two minutes to watch the video.

So, what’s the big deal?

Well, for starters, Gillette’s short film, “We Believe...,” focuses heavily on three hot button topics - toxic masculinity, sexual harassment and the #metoo movement. Of course, they probably shouldn’t be hot button topics but, they are. More on that in a bit.

Anyway, like millions of other folks, I watched the video. And it’s fine. I don’t think it’s great, but it’s a fine commercial with a fine message about life. It’s a bit heavy handed. Okay, it’s a lot heavy handed as it shows overwhelmingly negative situations as men stand by ignoring or actively participating in - confronting bullying (or not), stepping in when women are harassed (or not), actively reinforcing sexist stereotypes and actually noticing that women are not objects.

These are all fair and fine points. In general.   

I mean, the video basically has a "controversial" view that asks men to notice more and behave better-in some situations. I literally, can’t think of anything controversial about that.

BUT - before you rage clench and say, “This article is a Libtard Safe Zone Hit Piece against men, ain’t it? I am so OUT of here!”

Hold up! Slow down!

I am not saying the commercial is - genuine! Far from it! I am saying it’s a fine commercial that, in a slightly heavy handed way, does a nice job of communicating a message about life. And, perhaps, there are some men who could learn a thing or two within said message.

That being said.

Gillette is a company. A huge company. And it wants to make money. And, as someone who worked freelance film, TV and video, on and off, for twenty years, I can guarantee you that this is how said video was produced:

First. Gillette hired a marketing company. Then, said marketing company did test research on how best to market the Gillette brand and explored controversial and non-controversial topics.

Then: Multiple scripts were written. Some about gender equality. Some about ZZ Top using Gillette’s to shave their beards on TV. Some comedy. Some drama. Some with monkeys. Some with dogs. Etc, etc.  

Then: Gillette narrowed the scripts down to a handful but “needed more research.” And so their marketing company took all the approved scripts and produced them, shot them, cut them together and ... showed them to test groups!

And test groups freaked out over the gender equality commercials - “Too political!” (They said).

And test groups loved the commercials with the dogs. And the monkeys! “Dogs and monkeys are cute!” (They said).

And test groups were indifferent to a whole bunch of other commercials. "Meh!" (They said). 

Then: The marketing company went back to Gillette and said, “Look, people love the dogs and the monkeys (who doesn’t). BUT … controversy equals huge hits. And huge hits on the internet always, always, always turn into dollar signs. And the most controversial commercial we have for you is this, kind of, #metoo commercial about toxic masculinity.

Then: Gillette, decides to go with the “controversial” commercial. Not because they necessarily believe in the message (although, they might) but because it gives them the most chance to generate the most hits, the most viral awareness, the most likes and the most internet rage (which turns into more hits). Which is all an artificial way a marketing company can force a Trend Up and manipulate folks into watching a video therefore giving it a high percentage chance of going viral.

Which brings fist fulls of $$ to their client, in this case - Gillette.

And so far it’s worked.  

Now, to be honest - what I’ve just described is nothing new. It’s, generally, the same principle of how ad men worked in the 50’s, the 60’s, the 70’s and so on and so forth. It’s advertising. As quoted in Fight Club:

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. ”

Except, too many people have not learned "that fact." Too many people believe that altruism begins at the top of the company and works its way down, thus producing the “We Believe…” short film for the common good of all humankind!

But it doesn’t work that way. It’s all about the $$.  

Finally, as the general principle of the video goes, I agree with it all. Maybe you don’t. That’s fine. But I believe that many men should be more aware of a lot of things they are doing and saying. It doesn’t matter if you think “not all men need such a lesson!”

Yes, it’s obviously true that not all men need all lessons about all things in relation to gender equality & toxic masculinity. We all know that. Stop saying something as statistically obvious as #notallmen. You know why? Because too many of them - do need these very lessons.

So, despite the growing internet rage, Gillette's "We Believe…” commercial is a very effective, very poignant short film about (potentially) valuable life lessons.

And, sure, maybe it’s all a marketing scam, maybe we shouldn’t trust every single thing we agree with on the internet. Maybe, by the way, I’m wrong and maybe the top brass at Gillette is 100% behind this campaign for only socially aware and altruistic reasons.

Well … maybe.

But, I doubt it.

It’s the end of the college football season with Clemson taking a resounding victory over favored Alabama.  The year also produced a financial bonanza for top tier football schools all over the country. ESPN has paid some 7 billion dollars for the rights to telecast just seven games a year over the next 12 years. Television revenue has doubled for major college football programs over last year. Stadiums are expanding and ticket sales are at an all-time high. So let’s ask this question-is it all about the money?

Initially, college football and other athletic programs were supposed to be extracurricular activities; a break from the rigors of taking classes and qualifying for a degree. No more. Just absorb the words of Cardale Jones, a recent quarterback for national championship powerhouse Ohio State. His message on Twitter complained: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”

Maybe Cardale has a point. For many colleges, it’s all about the dollars and winning football games. My old friend and University of North Carolina football coach Mack Brown summed it up this way: “When you hear college presidents and athletic directors talk about character and academics and integrity, none of that really matters. College football is growing closer and closer of being like the NFL.”

When it comes to priorities, my home state’s football powerhouse is a case in point. Louisiana colleges are in a financial free-fall, with new budget cuts being imposed yearly. LSU has seen its state-funding cut by over 40% in recent years. The endowment of the state’s flagship university is one of the lowest of any major colleges in the country. In the most recent edition of U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings, LSU weighed in at a lowly 129th in the nation.

But when it comes to football financial rankings, the Fighting Tigers are high on the list. In the recent Forbes rankings of the most valuable football teams, LSU comes in at number 4, with a current value of just under $100 million, and a football profit last year of $47 million. Coach Ed Orgeron is paid $3.5 million plus performance bonuses and endorsement fees. One of his assistants is paid $ 2.5 million. To compare athletics and academics, the University’s top remunerated professors receive an annual salary of $78,000.

Most Wall Street hedge funds would love to see blue chip stocks increase at the rate of college football revenue. Schools like LSU are paid over $12 million by companies like Nike, just to wear the company’s logo. But to make that kind of money, the football team has to be a winner. And to win, even the top academic schools often cut corners.

My alma mater, The University of North Carolina, consistently ranks as one of the top academic universities in the U.S. But the alums want a football winner. In recent months, press reports documented that for the past 18 years, thousands of athletes, primarily football players, have taken fake “paper classes’ with no attendance and no work performed.

And just what do these athletes receive? Only enough to cover the basic college expenses — room, food, tuition and books. No pocket money to go to the movies, no gas money, no extras whatsoever. So we have college athletic programs raking in millions on the backs of talented, disciplined, hardworking athletes, without sharing the revenue with those responsible for generating it.  Such a system is ill-defined at best and hypocritical at worst.

Fifty-six years ago, I was lucky enough to attend the University of North Carolina on an athletic scholarship. I was given a housing and food allowance that exceeded my costs, as well as “laundry money” that allowed for weekend dates, gas, and a few frills above the basic scholarship outlays. What I received then was equivalent to some $300 in pocket money if the same were allowed today. But the NCAA tightened up the rules, and college athletes get less today than athletes like me received some years back.

The system in place brings in millions of dollars for those that run the football program, but allows our young college athletes to be exploited, and the exploitation is being committed by their adult mentors.  What a deal-your body in exchange for a pittance of basic expenses.

Something is definitely wrong with the way college football is run. But with all the money coming in, don’t expect much to change. After all, we only care about winning.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

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Jim Brown is a guest contributor to GCN news. His views and opinions, if expressed, are his own. His column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show, Common Sense, each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Communication Network.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I always do.  A New Year always brings with it promise and uncertainty, but this coming year brings with it a greater foreboding than we have experienced in the past.  The Chinese have a saying: “May you live in interesting times.” But their definition means dangerous or turbulent. We in Louisiana and throughout America certainly live in “interesting” times today.

One resolution I make each year is to maintain my curiosity.  It doesn’t matter how limited your perspective or how narrow the scope of your surroundings, there is (or should be) something to whet your interest and strike your fancy.  I discovered early on that there are two kinds of people — those who are curious about the world around them, and those whose shallow attentions are generally limited to those things that pertain to their own personal well-being.  I just hope all those I care about fall into the former category.

Another resolution is to continue to hope.  I hope for successful and fulfilling endeavors for my children, happiness and contentment for family and friends, and for the fortitude to handle both the highs and lows of daily living with dignity.

Each year, I ask my children to give me two gifts for Christmas.  First, I ask them to make a donation to a charity that will help needy families in their community. And second, I ask them to re-read Night, the unforgettable holocaust novel by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace laureate who survived the Nazi death camps. I have a Wiesel quote framed on my office desk:

 “To defeat injustice and misfortune, if only for one instant, for a single victim, is to invent a new reason to hope.”

Like many of you, our family welcomes in the New Year with “Auld Lang Syne.”  It’s an old Scotch tune, with words passed down orally, and recorded by my favorite historical poet, Robert Burns, back in the 1700s.  (I’m Scottish, so there’s a bond here.) “Auld Lang Syne,” literally means “old long ago,” or simply, “the good old days.”  Did you know this song is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year?

I can look back over many years of memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations.  In recent years, my wife and I have joined a gathering of family and friends in New Orleans at a French Quarter restaurant.  After dinner, we make a stop at St. Louis Cathedral for a blessing of the New Year. Then it’s off to join the masses for the New Year’s countdown to midnight in Jackson Square.

When my daughters were quite young, we spent a number of New Year holidays at a family camp on Davis Island, in the middle of the Mississippi River some 30 miles below Vicksburg.  On several occasions, the only people there were my family and Bishop Charles P. Greco, who was the Catholic Bishop for central and north Louisiana. Bishop Greco had baptized all three of my daughters, and had been a family friend for years.

On many a cold and rainy morning, the handful of us at the camp would rise before dawn for the Bishop to conduct a New Year’s Mass.  After the service, most of the family went back to bed.  I would crank up my old jeep and take the Bishop out in the worst weather with hopes of putting him on a stand where a large buck would pass.  No matter what the weather, he would stay all morning with his shotgun and thermos of coffee.  He rarely got a deer, but oh how he loved to be there in the woods.  Now, I’m not a Catholic, but he treated me as one of his own.

New Year’s Day means lots of football, but I also put on my chef’s apron.  I’m well regarded in the kitchen around my household, if I say so myself, for cooking up black-eyed peas as well as cabbage and corn bread. And don’t bet I won’t find the dime in the peas. After all, I’m going to put it there.

I’ll be back next week with my customary views that are cantankerous, opinionated, inflammatory, slanted, and always full of vim and vigor.  Sometimes, to a few, even a bit fun to read.  In the meantime, Happy New Year to you, your friends and all of your family.   See you next year.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

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Jim Brown is a guest contributor to GCN news. His views and opinions, if expressed, are his own. His column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. You can also hear Jim’s nationally syndicated radio show, Common Sense, each Sunday morning from 9:00 am till 11:00 am Central Time on the Genesis Communication Network.