WHO I AM - I AM YOU
My name is Stephen Kirsch.
I will protect the one who is different. I will protect the one who creates. I will stand with my brother.
Together we confront our struggle, ignorance. Together we confront the darkness. Where you go, I go. Together blaze a way.
I am an American citizen born in Baltimore. My heritage is German. My parents were Republican admirers of General Eisenhower. I was raised Lutheran.
My grandfather, Christian Kirsch, born in 1859, a Lutheran and laborer, left Germany alone in 1879 for New York City speaking German. He is buried near my home here in Jacksonville, Maryland. I pass his grave each day.
My mother taught me not to lie, not to steal, to cherish family, friends, strangers, to be a Christian. There are no strangers to the Christian.
I believe in God, family and my country. I believe in the teachings of my family. I believe in the right to participate in that which we built.
Early in life I was taught the story of the elephant.
To understand this enormous creature requires an effort to journey around it. Once done, the elephant is understood.
Life is no different. This I was taught by a public-school teacher.
My journey as a grandson of a man from Germany saw me loved among many of means but for reasons a mystery, I lived alone sitting, watching, listening to family living the good life from the hard work of the son, my father, of a man from Germany.
I believe in the American Deam.
No man is to have a master. Each is to be treated as an end, not as a means. Each is to be his own priest.
Pursuit of this Dream leads to legislation consistent with the laws giving rise to this Dream, that is laws universal, unchanging and binding on all equally.
We struggle for individuality, but a spirit is common giving us the universal.
St. Paul wrote of the world, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit."
We share the same fears and dream. It is this dream upon we build drawing wisdom from the world making us brothers.
Freedom, free will, is deciding to be either a slave or a free man embracing the one law common to all.
MY JOURNEY
As a child in my father's restaurant were those working in the kitchen, the back room.
Difficult to understand why I, a child, called a man in the back room, Willie, while the man in the front room, I called, Mr. Ed.
I saw old people, people of disease, people dying, of poverty and happiness experiencing ignorance, greed, and ego centered lives.
I saw fathers and mothers with no sleep caring for their children working endless hours with the singular purpose to make a better world for their children.
I saw parents with love in their hearts speak in anger at school meetings making sense to them while people with noses turned upward ridiculed them.
I saw people committing acts of evil out of intentions of goodness.
I met a man given the name Roosevelt Marshall by his father, a black man killed in Korea, believing a child with such a regal name will have a good future.
I saw lawyers from the best schools, facing big dollars, the finest life has to offer, pass up this life to help the poor, immigrant, working man, and veteran.
I saw men behind the bars of the jail struggling to survive, not giving up their dreams.
I saw dreams of heritages trampled upon. People working hard, living honestly, ridiculed by the Washington DC elite falsely claiming to be better.
I saw the pain of a son lifting a father of greatness from the blood of the floor upon he fell in drunken stupendous, of fathers and mothers holding their children dying from the gun, the drug, the dark side.
Saw a world consisting of opposites for everything existing has an opposite.
Happiness and sadness, bravery and cowardice, devotion and selfishness, knowledge and ignorance, good health and disease, wealth and poverty.
Saw unity and division. Saw hope beaten down by despair but not defeated.
Within these opposites is conflict and tension giving rise to a unity in differences meaning something is holding all together.
Existence cannot be without the differences, the conflict, the opposites.
I saw in life birth, growth, decay and death, an endless cycle. Things come into being, pass away, giving us a constant state of transition but predictable and rational indicating a designing mind giving us a world well governed by law.
Saw we live in a world of sense and reason, more opposites, with our attention focused on the senses, the illusions, ignoring reason. Reason found in the intellect when used takes us beyond the senses to the real.
I saw people rich and poor fearing death before their dreams were realized while struggling with a capacity common to each to be a bright star.
These things I saw in my journey around a world making the enormous look small.
CORRUPTION
GIVING US TWO AMERICAS
Saw a world lacking leadership, and a life appearing impersonal. Saw a world unsettled right down to its roots.
Saw a world of much law with little civility. Saw a world with little, if any, questioning.
Saw a world with little reverence to God with much to man.
Saw a country placing confidence in a business class caring little of you, a business class pretending to care.
Saw little leadership, where the measure of man is profit fostering a shallow perspective.
Saw that much that happens in life is outside conscious choice.
Characteristic of this age is little discussion and concern for the poor, the weak, the orphan.
Saw government, local and national, becoming a single interest government. That is to attend to the few, the rich.
Saw a nation using words of sniping., a country where the poor, the worker has no organized voice. Saw a country once speaking of the other now talking about the me.
Emptiness and sterility silences the human will giving life little meaning, and a death not understood.
I saw a society blocking intellectual freedom, unbridled commercialism denying life. All is measured in money, lack of ideals. materialism, corruption, and cultural vulgarity.
Giving us a world where little is sacred meaning no glory.
Religion has become dull. The young live with no fire in their belly, no imagination with artistic and intellectual pursuit.
Saw many living a life whose destination is not a result of free will or choice, to a destination not of choice. People live and die not caring breathing death not life.
Saw for our people, culture is deteriorating, being more interested in the spectacles of life.
Saw where the new temple, the new church is the business place, where pursuit of money is the new way to salvation, where material pursuit is no longer seen as a means to an end but is the end itself.
Saw all of this paves the way for the many to lose control of their lives with the few controlling their lives. The oligarch takes the place of the entrepreneur.
Saw a fear of the stranger, of the immigrant, the one living differently.
Saw education is not valued.
Saw a preoccupation with issues not related to reality.
In the 1920s the number one issue discussed was prohibition while people lived in poverty suffering a life in miserable working conditions. Today the focus is on cultural issues continuing the ignoring of the poor and weak among us.
Saw a history of poor policies designed for the few working to the death of the worker while the worker was told he is king.
Saw a country of ignorance. How can you argue with a man who believes in space Jews?
The wealthy live on the labor of the workers.
I saw leaders of politics and industry containing little illuminating goodness.
I saw a world of classes, one dominating, one subdued. Saw government not as an instrument of the many but the few, the rich having the singular purpose to grow their wealth ending free enterprise purchasing government to support their way.
I saw government leaders become the same as their purchasers, men of greed, self-seeking, indulgent, corrupt.
I saw two cities come into being, the city of the rich and the city of the poor, the city of the poor divided by the city of the rich.
Giving us a ruling class corrupted and dedicated to greed, and a system doomed to failure and instability.
These things I saw in my journey.
The American Dream
Need to organize to bring about a system where the worker defines his destiny. The worker creates. Economic theory demands this. Historical necessity is at work here.
Fulfill the American Dream beginning with respect for the worker. And laws acknowledging the worker as the origin of wealth. Let the worker has his due. Let's get started and move forward.
WAY FORWARD
We are facing the foulest of our times conspiring to destroy that which is good and decent about our country, and this we cannot allow to happen.
The dreams of the old, the poor, the worker, the weak are in jeopardy of dying No one is there to stand for them. They have no voice.
These dreams uniquely American are dying. We are to go forward with the courage uniquely American to provide the voice to silence the voice of the tyrants.
We are to go forward carrying on the fight against poverty, disease, and ignorance possessing a purpose common to all. It is this purpose we serve.
The way forward is to stand with the old, the poor, the worker, the weak understanding their dreams are common and shared.
For too long we have talked about the glory and the rights of the working man. It is time to make this glory real.
Time to free this country from the suffocating bigotry of the past. To fight for the idea, we each possess, value meaning we fight for ourselves by fighting for each other.
We must go forward not for profit and conquest but liberation doing so with faith in ourselves and in each other.
Focus on a peace in which freedom and justice lives in all.
The few are people of greed and ignorance originating in racism and bigotry. They are to be conquered.
Need policies and laws advancing the working man, the creators of our nation's wealth, recognizing the ability of the working man to competently direct his life.
We have the ability and capacity to stand up for the weak against the wicked giving life to these dreams.
In doing so poverty, disease and ignorance flees. The glory of the worker is made real. Bigotry and the chains of the past are let go.
We have a choice. We can engage in a life for money, fame, land, power, money, importance.
Or
Seek truth requiring a mind and heart open and caring for all.
For a world where no man bows to another, where no man has his future determined by his birth, his happenstance.
Doubt and fear can no longer be an excuse.
Focus on a peace in which freedom lives, and all know justice.
Greet and conquer the enemy of our country, people of greed and arrogance grounded in racism, religion and country.
Seek policies advancing the working man not the rich.
Believe in your ability to act. Go forward caring for our neighbor,
Hate, evil, the violence are there placed by the few to divide the many, you and me.
Reason implies thought and thought implies choice. Choice requires mental activity free of the cravings of passion and desires.
"All men are created equal", a man wrote.
But is the man in the carriage, the big car, equal to the worker in the mine, the mill, the man seeking to clean my windshield for pennies, the man who made the carriage, the car?
One has a marker upon death. One does not.
We can fight for ourselves or for each other, fight to be someone or for another to be someone, or the idea each possesses value.
Our road will be as it has always been long and hard. The greed of the few is strong.
You and I have the same fears and dreams. It is the dreams upon we need to build. Each of us has souls tried.
We each have a choice. Choice being another word for free will. Be a fighter or be a coward.
Let us fight to end conquest. To liberate all from the ashes. To be a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Let us not allow the temporal to keep us from this quest. Let us fight greed, racism, ignorance, to find a peace free of the schemings of unworthy men. Where all reap the fruits of their toil.
I am you. You are I. I will not turn on you whom I love and honor. I will not turn on the people of this country no more than my father, mother, brother, and sisters.
The conflict and tension between good and evil is not possible in the absence of free will. Ethics cannot be without free will making free will and moral responsibility of the same with justice not possible without free will.
And this free will is unique to man.
Reason implies thought and thought implies choice. Choice requires mental activity free of the cravings of passion and desires.
The freeing of the will, being of the evolution of man, is man's struggle to self-realization, either achieved based on conditioned thinking or thinking conditioned to be free. Will the Will to be free.
Let us pick up each and go forward knowing our ability to help each other defines us. Understanding there is no greater glory than a life and a death of one’s choosing. And this free will is unique to man.
PEOPLE DID NOT LEAVE RELIGION, RELIGION LEFT THE PEOPLE
I saw dreams in the ashes of life.
I saw religions, Islamic, Christian, Hebrew, and Hindu, are of the One with the One being in all religions. The Koran and the Sermon on the Mount equally inspire.
I saw people of many religions speak of the existence and realization of purpose in a God centered life, each bowing before an over-riding authority. Each believed their God is almighty. I saw among all a harmony commanded by their God.
I saw people lose the candor of youth, of virtue, becoming engrossed in the vulgarity of narrow egotism keeping the man, the woman, toiling from childhood late into life captivated in the cages of religion and patriotism.
I saw people no different than I born into this world with no choice of where we are born, of whom we are born not understanding life is overwhelmingly decided for us. But each possesses the capacity to choose how to live and die.
I saw religion competing with an economy appealing to the wickedness of the soul. Saw in religion what I saw in the world, constant conflict between good and evil, the secular and the spiritual.
In place of religion a new god became alcohol and drugs, replacing the minister, the priest, the rabbi with the therapists and alcohol counselor.
I saw people did not leave religion rather religion left the people.
I saw men of the Holy Clothe, the Church, uttering words destitute of wisdom wondering with stupid looks why people stay away from the church.
I saw in men and women, of seemingly impeccable honor and bigotry, lapses of judgment embodying a damaging dissension.
I saw all religions have an afterlife, whether it be reincarnation, hell, heaven. or something else. Common to each, this afterlife depends on how life is lived.
I saw religious dogmatism silencing dialogue, festering intolerance and contempt. Nonetheless, I saw a path fostering inner life.
Each of us has as his goal peace and harmony, but this is done far too often through taking the spirit of your brother and making it your spirit without losing your spirit.
The forgotten and lowly contribute to the whole.
The whole is of the Divine Law defining human law, making human law subordinate to the Divine, the whole. Religion out of line with the four laws, eternal law, natural law, divine law, human law, fails.
SAW THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD IN ITS PEOPLE
I saw that you like me have been taught not to steal, care for family, friends, and those beyond. I saw you celebrating the 4th of July with fireworks and hotdogs.
I experience life as you. We are not enemies. Saw our timeless inheritance is Virtue.
I saw people worshipping the real behind the shadows of life. The truth behind the fragments and shadows of the real. But many worship shadows as real.
Saw truth and morality are inseparable each being one and universal. Brotherhood follows the grasping of the universal. Truth is not restricted to one book, one temple, one church, one ritual. It is in all as all is in the one.
All seen and experienced is not possible without an Absolute. It is this Absolute that is the beauty in this world.
I saw division but also a commonality making each man an equal. I saw an element of discrimination, human in nature, not divine, giving us evil.
Free Will
Born not free, we are. But once born, free we are to decide how to live and die.
I saw free will being unique to man. Good and evil are not possible in the absence of free will. Ethics cannot be without free will making free will and moral responsibility the same making justice not possible without free will.
All is part of a whole, the universe, an evolutionary process. As the universe unfolds so do the parts thereof reaching self-realization. Like a flower, we grow. Unlike a flower, we have a choice how we grow.
I saw a world of opposites. To everything that is there is an opposite. Hot-Cold. Dry-Wet. Limited-Unlimited. Odd- Even. Right-Left. One-Plurality. Male-Female. Resting-Moving. Straight-Crooked, Light-Darkness. Good-Evil.
Within these opposites implicit is the conclusion one cannot be without an opposite necessitating endless struggle. Life cannot be without death, nor death without life.
Truth is found in the creation sustaining all. Saw religion is of our being. Mental and spiritual fellowship, balance and harmony, rest upon this truth.
MORE DIE IN US FACTORIES
THAN FOR THEIR COUNTRY
By 1900, deaths in US factories amounted to 35,000 a year with injuries affecting 500,000.
In 1913, the Bureau of Labor statistics documented approximately 23,000 industrial deaths.
In 1970, an estimated 14,000 workers were killed on the job.
In 2021, there were 5,190 fatal work injuries in the United States.
By 2021 there were 2,448 US military personnel killed in combat in Afghanistan and 3,846 US contractors facing the same end.