Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: During the course of our discussion on how the rich people expect the poor to support them – and how for some reason many poor feel compelled to defend the rich, the topic turned to the TV preachers. I asked Doc if he ever sent money to the TV preachers. I know he and Marilyn and some of their friends go to church. I have never seen them watching any TV preachers, but I wondered if they sent money to them. Many of the American TV preachers promise that God will make you wealthy if you send them money. And many of the poorest of people do send them money. I have read that the richest ministries in America are supported primarily by the poor and the elderly. People who can least afford it. That is where this conversation begins.

“So, Doc, why is it that poor people feel compelled to send money to these obviously rich TV preachers? These TV preachers, both men and women boast about their wealth and their luxury cars, and their mansions and private jet planes. Yet, these things and that lifestyle came from the gifts of their donors, many of whom are poor and elderly. How is it that people give to them? I don’t get it.”

Doc: You’re right. You’re right, Tondy. But you gotta understand this. You ain’t never been poor. I ain’t never been nothing but poor.

When you’re poor, you know you can’t do nothing to ever have much money. Ain’t nobody want to pay a poor person more than minimum wage. They know you’re hurtin’ and they know you’ll take it. And they know that ain’t nobody else gonna pay you more than that, so you GOTTA take it.
So all you got left is two things.Either play the numbers [buy lottery tickets] or give to the TV preachers and hope that they is tellin’ the truth, that God’ll give you a hundredfold return. That means if I send them ten dollars, somehow God will let me get a hold of… of… of… uh.. ummm…

Doc reaches for a pencil and an envelope to add it up… 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10. I don’t want to wait for him to add it a hundred times.

Tondeleo: A hundredfold means you would get a hundred times ten dollars, Doc. That would be a thousand dollars for every ten dollars you send in.

Doc: Yeah, I was gettin' there. The TV preacher tell you the truth in one part. That is that if you plant a seed into good soil, it will grow and multiply. That is true, anyone knows that. If I plant a tomato seed and it grows, it will produce more than a hundred seeds from the tomatoes what grows on the plant. Maybe a thousand seeds. No argument there. That is the truth and you don’t even need to believe the Bible to know that.

But then they tell you that THEY is the good soil! That is like a rat tellin’ you if you plant your corn in good soil you will be eatin’ corn on the cob an’ then have a lot of seed left to plant more corn, which is true, but then that rat tells you that HE is the good soil! 

If you give your corn to the rat, Tondy, it ain’t gonna multiply! You ain’t gonna have corn on the cob! All you gonna have is rat turds.That rat so’t want you to plant your seed in good soil, he wants you to plant it in him so he can eat it! If you give your seed to the rat, you ain’t getting’ nothin’ back but turds.

God don’t nowhere in the Bible tell you to give your money to rich folks. He says to give your money to poor folks and needy folks. But not all needy folks is good soil neither. He ain’t tell you to give your money to crackheads and drug dealers an’ folks that is doin’ wrong or folks what hates God.

He says to give to the poor folks what you know. An’ widows an’ orphans – what is kids who ain’t got they parent lookin’ out for ‘em. Their parent may be alive but maybe their daddy is in jail and they mama is a crack head. Somebody got to look out for those kids.

He tells you to look out for the immigrants too, Tondy. He says help them. He don’t tell you nowhere to hate the immigrants.  

My preacher down at the church says if you give to help a person who is needy and can’t help themselves, the Lord will bless you for it. The good book says that. He says that the person what gives to the poor lends to the Lord and the Lord will repay you. You got to give to poor folks and help out those what needs helping. I marked it in my Bible right here so I could find it again. Got a piece of paper stuck in it. 

[Reading slowly and deliberately] “He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the LORD; and that which he has given the Lord will pay him back.” That is real clear. The good Lord wants us to give to the poor, not to the rich. And that is when God will bless you for helpin’ someone. When you give to the poor.

Tondeleo: And where is that in the Bible, Doc?

Doc: Let me find it again… that’s Proverbs chapter 19 and verse 17.
But God don’t bless you for givin’ to the rich. He said and I got it marked in my Bible… it’s right here. It is Proverbs chapter 22 and verse16. “He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that gives to the rich, shall certainly come to poverty.”
 
Now guess who that first part is about? It is about the rich people, including those rich preachers who take money from the poor so they can get richer. Those TV preachers tell the poor people that they will get a hundredfold return if the poor people send money to them.
But God says if you give to rich people, whether it is rich preachers or rich politicians, you’re definitely gonna stay poor.
 
You can’t be on TV every day unless you’re rich. It costs millions! And you can’t get to be a politician on any kind of level unless you’re rich. All them people runnin’ for President is multi-millionaires. Every one of them. And God says if you give them money, you’ll end up goin’ broke. 

My mama use to send 10 dollars a month to her favorite tv preacher for more than 30 years. And she ain’t never got not even a one fold return, let alone no hundredfold return. That’s because she was givin’ to the rich. You ain’t supposed to give to the rich. You’re supposed to give to the poor. That’s what Jesus said. She shoulda been givin’ that money to help ohter folks that was havin’ money problems. 

These TV preachers mostly is livin’ like kings on the money what poor folks send in. They is livin’ in mansions and flyin’ around in their jet airplanes. They ain’t givin’ money, they are spendin’ money on themselves. When is the last time you heard of a rich preacher or politician givin’ to the poor? I mean giving their own money to help the poor? It ain’t happenin’ Tondy.
If you’re givin’ to them, you’re not plantin’ your seed in good soil, you’re feedin’ a rat or a pig. If you feed your seed to a pig, you don’t get a return. Well, what you DO get ain’t nothin’ you want to eat. 

An’ Jesus said don’t cast your pearls before swine. That means don’t give your money to pigs. He said they will turn on you trample you. After you helped them, they will not help you, and you will end up worse than if you gave them nothing. 

If you read that Bible, it’ll keep you from sendin’ the money to the rich an’ it will get you to helpin’ the poor, no matter where they come from. That’s what me an’ Marilyn tries to do. Help people.

Posted in America, church, economy, immigration, mexicans, politics, poverty, racism, religion, success, televangelists

Tondeleo: Whilst talking with Doc about the Occupy movement and the world’s economy, we got on the topic of the poor and how they for some reason feel compelled to support the rich, and those who are making their millions off of poor people.

I was surprised at some of Doc’s opinions on this. Even after knowing him for years I tend to think of him and his friends as socially naïve and uninformed. And, even though they do tend to be uninformed and naïve in some things, they still are able to come up with some basic wisdom and clear thinking on a lot of the current issues.

Here are some excerpts from one of our conversations about this:

Doc: OK, Tondy, here is what don’t make sense first of all. You got these rich politicians and the rich bankers and heads of the big companies who is all billionaires, an’ they also own the newspapers and TV and radio. They ain’t want to be taxed like the rest of us. So they tell us how we are communists if we ain’t want to pay more taxes than them. 

Well, guess what? I ain’t no communist. But if I gotta pay 30% taxes on what little money I make, and then try to live on the rest, why shouldn’t  a billionaire pay the same thing and live on the rest? This is America where we is all supposed to be equal. Aint supposed to be nobody better than the rest.

And then you got all these old people an’ poor people what believes everything these billionaire vultures tells ‘em and they start sayin’ the same thing! That s jacked up, Tondy! Jacked up.
Like a hound dog goin’ around supportin’ blood ticks. Even my dog, Dale Junior will pull off a tick if he can. He is smarter than a lot of these people what is livin’ on social security and sayin’ we need to give the billionaires a tax break.

Them billionaires and their litle brothers the millionaires has been blessed. More blessed than we’ll ever be. They ought to count it as part of their thanks to the good Lord what blessed them to give to the poor and the old folks. I mean ain’t that why the Lord blesses a person for? So that person can help those in need? God ain’t blessed no one so they can hoard it for themselves. I ain’t that smart, but I can read the Bible.

I know that the Lord’ll bless them even more if they help the poor folks and the immigrants. But these folks hate immigrants! That ain’t right neither, Tondy. The Lord tells you to look out for the strangers and the aliens – not space aliens from outer space, but aliens and strangers is what they was called in Bible days. The Lord says be good to them an’ he will bless you. 

But these folks says you should hate the aliens and immigrants an’ send them back where they came from. Well guess what? Most of these folks what is sayin’ it ain’t exactly American Indians! They all  came from immigrants themselves! Maybe they need to go back to where they came from too! 

What is it all about? I can tell you. It is about the love of money and greed, like the Lord said. He said it was really bad when you love money more than you love people.

Posted in America, economy, immigrants, mexicans, money, Occupy, politics, poverty, racism

Tondeleo: I have been experimenting with Doc and his friends by exposing them to the American national news and then listening to their opinions of what I “made” them watch. 

They would not watch the news on their own initiative, and would rather be playing music or cards, or working in the garage. But, during this visit to the US, I have been staying at Doc’s and having him and whomever else is visiting to watch the news with me, and then we talk about it. 

I have been surprised at some of their insights and opinions. Part of it is because they are outsiders and have been outsiders all of their lives. They see themselves as separate from the “system” and they want no part of the system at all. They just want to live their lives and be left alone. 

However, after having them watch CNN, Fox, BBC, Russia Today and Al Jazeera news on the telly for the  last month, I am amazed at their comprehension. I will try to capture some of it for you.

Doc: OK, Tondy, I can tell you this much. Aint neither the Democrats or the Republicans care that much about America and the people what lives here. They care about America as a place for them to get rich. I mean they don’t want it to collapse ‘cause then where would they go where they could take advantage of so many people so easy, and make so much money.

They care more about hatin’ the other side. The other side is competin’ for the votes and the chance to make big money, so they hate the other side. At least when they is on TV they hate the other side. I think they is all cut out of the same piece of cloth an’ down deep they all have they own fellowship – which is the fellowship of power an’ money.

They ain’t pullin’ together to make this a better place to live. If one of ‘em has a good idea, the other ones is against it, just because of who’s idea it is.

Listen, it don’t matter WHO has an idea, if it is a good one, it’s a good one and we need to do it for the good of our country. And if it’s a bad one, then it is bad no matter who came up with it.

Also, both of them makes the other ones out to be the boogeyman. They try to scare you in how this country would be it you voted for the other guy. Ain’t none of them tellin’ the real truth. It ain’t like all the good people is one side and all the bad people are the other side. That’s just stupid. You can be an American and have a different opinion than someone else.

But both sides tryin’ to work the American people. And they both is actin’ – puttin’ on a show. They pretend that they are gonna be different from the other guy, because he is so bad. But really, they is all the same. They are lookin’ out for themselves and whoever it is that is given them money for all that travellin’ and advertisin’. It’s about greed, Tondy. You can’t run for President in this country without bein’ a millionaire. Even I know that. Greed ain’t a good thing in nobody. Especially not in someone who is able to spend all the peoples’ money what is paid in taxes.

Both sides try to get us scared, And that ain’t right. I ain’t believe in bein’ scared as a good way to think straight. It’s a good way to NOT think straight. And they know it, Tondy, and they USE that to get people to pick someone who is not right and vote for him. Bein’ scared ain’t nothin’ but fear, an’ my preacher says fear is not of God. God ain’t gonna make you scared, so when a man tries to make you scared, he ain’t of God, I don’t care what side he’s on.

These people try to divide the American people. We have a name, the United States, and that means that we are to pull together. Poor people know that. We pull together so we can eat, so we can keep the lights on and so we can keep that tags on the car and all that. But these guys try to make us hate each other and not trusts each other. That ain’t right in nobody’s mind. The good book says that if people can agree an’ work together ain’t nothin’ impossible. TO me, if a man tries to get to the top by makin’ folks scared of each other and hate each other, he ain’t much.

And look what they do, Tondy! They want whites to hate blacks and Mexicans, and for north to hate south, and people what ain’t religious to hate religious folk, and then to hate all the towel heads – and they ain’t all bad. I know some an’ they is just like you an’ me.

What I’m sayin’ Tondy is that if you is Republican or Democrat, you both want the same thing. You want to control the American people and keep ‘em divided so they keep votin’ for you. You want to get rich off the people was is the workin’ poor. You want people to hate other Americans and even some what is not Americans, and to keep ‘em scared of towel heads, Mexicans, blacks, whites, an’ religious people, and if that is what you are about, you are a piece of trash.

And worser than that, if you decide to go out there and make it known, they try to make people scared of YOU! That is what they is doin’ to the Occupiers that we see on TV! I watch the news and I see that it is old people, young people, white people, black people, Mexican people, Chinese people, and then the rich folk say that it is just spoiled college kids that want money for nothin’. That is so plain Ray Charles could see it.

Occupiers look like America to me. They ain’t some [predator] freaks what consume they own kind. They just want things to be fair. So the rich guys send fake Occupiers in to pee on the streets and steal things and make the Occupiers look bad. That ain’t right neither. All of it is tryin’ to make people scared all the time, and I ain’t buyin’ into it. Not for a minute. I gotta get back to work.

Posted in America, attitude, Constitution, economy, government, homelessness, immigrants, Occupy, politics