{"id":1398,"date":"2021-05-13T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T18:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=1398"},"modified":"2021-05-13T18:11:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T18:11:00","slug":"here-we-go-again-the-stop-the-gun-violence-boondoggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/13\/here-we-go-again-the-stop-the-gun-violence-boondoggle\/","title":{"rendered":"Here We Go Again \u2013 The Stop-The-Gun-Violence Boondoggle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pastor Benjamin Green<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Rev. Benjamin Green
\nGuest Column<\/p>\n

So here we go again, reinventing the wheel \u2013 the prevention of gun violence wheel \u2013 which was never invented in the first place. Okay, folks, this is not hard to anticipate. I\u2019m sure that there are some really concerned citizens in this city, including city council members, but sometimes we have more fluff than stuff, organized stuff that is!<\/p>\n

How do you kick a can down the road?<\/p>\n

Just like this! You bring the black community together around an unclear mission, celebrate the knocking down of a building, something we have been doing for years, and then you create a church-like experience, and Negroes fall for it every time. No disrespect, but I love Jesus too, but Jesus did more than preach to the choir.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the quintessential question? Whose lives will we be impacting, Certainly not the \u201cTrouble makers,\u201d for lack of a better term. And by the way, these \u201cTrouble makers,\u201d are valuable persons, and will be of more value, when we bring them to the table, my targeted goal.<\/p>\n

Murder has been going on since the beginning of time, but why? I\u2019m glad you asked.<\/p>\n

The characteristics of a troublemaker, begin developing at an early age. It starts with our young people and those same babies I lift up every day. The development of this unwanted behavior begins in the formative years.<\/p>\n

Everybody talks about \u201ctraining up a child,\u201d as well as \u201cit takes a village,\u201d but we don\u2019t do either. Well, as usual, we will be triaging out the youth who need the most attention and, like always, they will fall through the cracks!<\/p>\n

And if it \u201ctakes a village to raise a child,\u201d why hasn\u2019t anyone noticed that the village is missing? From where I sit, the village consists only of a handful of poor, concerned citizens who love Jesus – mostly women \u2013 \u00a0and whose only resources will have to come from government? Are we to only depend on monies that will soon be devoured by those who will ultimately be creating a workplace for themselves under the premise of doing something related to violence or whatever?<\/p>\n

Ok, I thought about taking a quieter and more diplomatic approach, but there is not enough time for that, not on my end, because my time is short! Whenever you want to do anything, NOW is always the time to begin planning.<\/p>\n

The cry of these few concerned citizens is, \u201cShow me the money!\u201d You can hear it in their voices, as they beat those church tambourines, and scream Hallelujahs, as the mayor preaches a well-oiled sermon, that Jesus is coming, and he will save \u201cHoly Toledo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, not quite, because when you listen closely, he\u2019ll tell you that he doesn\u2019t know a lot about religion. And quite frankly, mayor, that is perfectly all right, because a true village does not consist of just church folk. It consists of those who have no religion at all as well.<\/p>\n

And while the concern citizens whom I love, are crying, \u201dshow me the money,\u201d I\u2019m crying show me the plan.<\/p>\n

Speaking of money, this city has money, and it\u2019s not just in grants, but it\u2019s with big and small businesses. They will not unleash those mighty coffers that we need to make a significant difference, until someone can show them much more bang for their buck. Aren\u2019t we tired of asking people for peanuts that they will use as deductions for their taxes? We need investors, they are a part of the village as well..<\/p>\n

And please, before we spend another $80 to $100K bringing in outsiders to repeat what we already know, let\u2019s do our homework. And if I can offer you a bit of wisdom, they\u2019ve given these same evaluations in other cities and they didn\u2019t work there either.<\/p>\n

Pastor Benjamin Green of New Covenant Church is <\/em>the survivor of two big health scares: double lung transplant, COVID-19<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Benjamin Green Guest Column So here we go again, reinventing the wheel \u2013 the prevention of gun violence wheel \u2013 which was never invented in the first place. Okay, folks, this is not hard to anticipate. I\u2019m sure that there are some really concerned citizens in this city, including city council members, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,27],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[54],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1399,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}