Thoughts of an Old Man: Reflections on Politics and Religion

By Harry L. Tabony

Most readers will not like many of the historical and religious facts revealed herein, but that is the authors intention. He believes that our sorry state of affairs, particularly American peoples’ frustrating unhappiness emanates from false histories and beliefs. He says to you, if you do not agree good. You search for truth. But, for your own sake, and your own happiness, go find it. Just please stop living in a “hazy-bubble” created by other people. You are the sole owner of You. Your thoughts may be closer to truth than many great thinkers that you now admire. Stop swallowing opinions without verifying them. You may be Aristotle, if you force your own mind to think.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532085956

Harry L. Tabony

Harry l. Tabony born in New Orleans in 1927. Catholic elementry & High School, US Navy WW II, Electual Engineering Tulane University. Owned Corporations. Inventor, SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Managed Assets Pension Plans, Unions, Municipal State and Corporate Clients. Hobbies and Interests, Fitness, Avid Reader, History of Religions and Nations, Author Christianity’s Impossible Theology.

Book preview

THOUGHTS

OF AN OLD MAN

REFLECTIONS ON POLITICS AND RELIGION

HARRY L. TABONY

40029.png

THOUGHTS OF AN OLD MAN

REFLECTIONS ON POLITICS AND RELIGION

Copyright © 2019 Harry L. Tabony.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8057-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8596-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8595-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019916873

iUniverse rev. date:   10/25/2019

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1    American Style Democracy

Chapter 2    U.S. Senate Violates Constitution

Chapter 3    We Are Extinct

Chapter 4    White American Pathology

Chapter 5    America The Great

Chapter 6    Imperial America

Chapter 7    USA Invasions and Interventions

Chapter 8    American Democracy Died Yesterday

Chapter 9    Socialism & Capitalism In America

Chapter 10    World Terriorism

Chapter 11    The Right To Lobby

Chapter 12    How It Happened

Chapter 13    Right To Bear Arms Myth

Chapter 14    America’s Homeless Community

Chapter 15    Perception

Chapter 16    Religion Restricts Thinking

Chapter 17    A Substitute For Religions

Chapter 18    Jesus’ Big Homecoming

Chapter 19    Araboushim

Chapter 20    It Was God’s Will

Chapter 21    Rock Piles

Chapter 22    Never Alone

A Few References

Introduction

I was born January 4, 1927 in New Orleans Louisiana. My mother was a college graduate and my father, a near-genius with numbers, from a poor family had dropped out of school after ninth grade. He was Minor-League baseball pitcher before marring mother in 1924. He then had a nice job as manager of New Orleans’ first Auto-Rental company, U-Drive-it Cars. He earned $375 monthly until 1930 when he took the job as night clerk at $75. Thus, we moved in with my grandparents big rented house with a large extended family. They were all poor, like most people in the Great Depression that lasted a decade.

Mama and Papa were very Catholic, Very French, and Papa was very attuned to Politics, as were all American men in 1930. Papa, Mama, and my seven aunts and uncle had just moved to New Orleans in 1926, because times were harder in St. Martinville, Louisiana. Papa had been wealthy earlier but had lost a fortune making rice. (in southwest Louisiana French country), you make rice, you don’t grow it. He made a huge bumper crop on his own farm and hundreds more leased acreage. However, in early 1900s there was no Farm-Support and the price of rice when harvested was less than the price of seeds that Papa had planted. This was one of the many stories Papa told me before I was school age. Each tale had a message that Papa explained to me. He was a man of few words but when he was serious; you always knew lt. At those times when he looked at you, you could feel him looking at your soul.

In 1954 when Papa was dying he sent for me. He was sitting in a big chair because he could not breath lying down. I got that old familiar look from him and after what seemed like forever only three words came. Harry I’m dying, I said just three too, I know Papa, Then the eternity of silence started with that look, finally he said, Do not forget what I told you, No Papa", I said. With a faint smile and wave of his hand, Go. That was all he said and the last I saw him until a few days later in his coffin, I never forgot what he told me.

My family spoke only English to us children, and used French to talk about what we should not know. Their goal was for us to become more American. Thus, my formative years were dominated by Catholic religion and politics. We had one small radio that was turned on when President Roosevelt gave his "fireside talks. Almost the entire country listened every time the President was on. We got the morning Picayune and afternoon States Item newspapers daily and there were lots of political discussions by the men every night. We sat down to dinner with no less than fifteen, but mostly with eighteen or twenty because we usually had visitors from St. Martinsville. When there was no more room inside we had two rooms over the old carriage house. Mr. Flores, a frail old carpenter friend of Papa’s lived there. Those were gloriously happy years for me, the youngest in the clan. I was then, and for many years thereafter, very Patriotic and very Catholic". I loved America and God, Mary and Jesus; never cared much for the "Holy-Spirit". I volunteered into the US Navy at age 17 for World-War II, but served only 2-years because the war ended.

Catholic elementary and high schools had enhanced my Catholic leanings, augmented by daily family rosaries at home. Rosaries, the best sleeping-pill ever invented. Thus, I entered adulthood with little classical education, a scant knowledge of anything and a wholly distorted view of mankind’s history. In 1946 I entered Tulane University in the Electrical Engineering school; a poor choice for a young man with so little classical education.

My sister, Lorraine, came to my rescue. A gift of four volumes The World’s Great Thinkers. From Random House New York. Wow! There they were: Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Confucius, De Montaigne, Emerson, Dewey, and more. Those were just in one volume, "Man and Man", followed by "Man and the Spirit, Man and the Universe", and "Man and Science". A good start for sure. Over the next four years studying engineering, I spent more hours studying philosophy, history and seeking real knowledge, than I did studying engineering. Luckily, I graduated with a 3.5 grade point average. At Tulane our curriculum included scant classics. I have re-read those four volumes many times since, but never once cracked any engineering books. My first job after graduation as an engineer lasted 9-months, when I resigned to take a job in another field, with no salary, only commissions.

I remained a devout Catholic and lover of America for several more decades. However, both lost lots of ground in the 1970s. Our support of the Bay of Pigs, was in my eyes, unjustifiable. Batista, the Cuban Dictator, was a tyrant who oppressed the people, as were other southern Dictators, that America had supported. Then in Vietnam it was obvious to all that we had no rights to invade. We did invade Vietnam simply because "we thought Capitalism was better than Communism. Our National fears of the 1960s, that Communism would take over the world, was, in my opinion, now as it was then, madness, irrigational, and baseless. Vietnam may have been taken over by the Communists, so what? That did not justify America’s killing about 4-millions of our human Brothers and Sisters. What audacity, because we thought" capitalism was better than Communism. We killed millions including civilians. Then, to cap it off we employed massive amounts of "chemical warfare", that would have lasting effects after we were gone.

I remember saying that I was glad that my sons were too young to be drafted. I strongly opposed that war and admired those who refused to serve, like Muhammad Ali. Why should I go kill those people, they never called me Nigger. He chose going prison and lost 5-years of his prime, plus millions of dollars. He is an American hero. That is how I wished my sons would act. The country was madly hysterical about Communism in those years. I frequently stirred the pot at social functions, simply saying that I thought some people were far better off under Communism than Capitalism. I cited China because although the peasants had less freedom and could not vote, they had more food, health care, and education. Actually, China’s new required education systems is why they became a world economic power, soon to become the world’s singularly largest economy. In 2019 the Chinese have more PhDs than the whole of North America has college graduates. My peers all thought I was one of those evil communists, or just stupid.

By the 1980s I still loved God, the American people, and all people. I remained Patriotic and I still loved America the Nation, but I found less and less about our 400-years of cruelty and mistreatment of other Nations and other People, to make me proud. As the years went on and I learned more true history, I found less to be proud of.

My real education began in the late 1980s when I met and became close friend with Dr. Rudy Lombard, a "Truly Great" man. Rudy was a Civil Rights Leader starting at age 17 until he died, December 2014