A Quiet European

Lt. Col. Dr. Mark Obrtel is a 48 year old officer of the army of the Czech Republic who has served with distinction in his country’s missions under NATO command in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. We would never know of him were it not for the fact that on December 30 he returned all his medals awarded for this service, and justified his decision in a letter to the Czech minister of defense that could have been written by Paul Craig Roberts or Patrick Buchanan.

Had a senior officer of an army unsubservient to the Empire (of a major player, such as China or Russia, or a minor one, such as Venezuela, Belarus or Armenia) done something similar, the Western media would have noted it with gusto. Obrtel is a non-person, however, because what he has done and said is equally uncomfortable to Washington and to its European minions. Before considering the implications, here is the text of Lt. Col. Obrtel’s letter to the Minister:

Dear Mr. Minister,

“Due to the reasons I elaborate upon on the attached three-page letter which is an attachment to this document, I urge you to deprive me of the badges of honor from the military operations of the Army of the Czech Republic performed under the NATO umbrella.

I thank you for your understanding and assertively request your endorsement of my application.

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Marek Obrtel MD, with his own hand.

An open letter to the defense minister and the Czech government

I am returning the war decorations because I am deeply ashamed of having served a criminal organization which the U.S.-led NATO is, and to its malformed interests across the world.

By this gesture, I also want to unambiguously express my complete disagreement with the U.S. policies towards Russia, the EU member states, and all free and sovereign countries in the present as well as the past and especially with the consequences of these policies.??

I also want to demonstrate my disapproval of the attitude of the Czech government and other competent institutions when it comes to the misinformation campaigns and the intentional information embargo on key events that are relevant for the current geopolitical and military situation in the world. In this context, I also blame all the responsible organs for the total inactivity in their task to prevent a global conflict (especially) between the U.S. and Russia on the European territory.??

Last but not least, my act is meant as a sign of my support for the Czech president Miloš Zeman and his effort to objectively analyze crucial internal and international political questions and his struggle “against everybody” to protect the sovereignty and identity of the Czech nation and its global security.

I received a degree from the Military Medical Academy and I became a professional army physician with a diploma from the Charles University in Prague, I am a reserve lieutenant colonel of the Czech army, and during my tenure, I have spent years in some of the highest chairs of the army’s medical services, always in positions listed in tables with the track of becoming a colonel.

The most important occupations included my job as the commanding officer of the Czech Army Contingent in Afghanistan, the superintendent of the 11th field hospital of the Czech Army in Afghanistan, the vice-commander of the operational commandership of the armed forces’ medical service, or important positions within the Section of army’s healthcare of the Military headquarters of the Czech Army.

During my career within the military operations, I would get familiar with the Bosnian and Herzegovinian matters as well as issues of other successor states of former Yugoslavia, with Afghanistan, very shortly with the questions surrounding the Iraq conflict, and especially with Kosovo.

I have always fulfilled my duties as well as I could and as my strengths allowed me, in agreement with my opinion that similar activities can’t be done at a “50% capacity”…

But already at those places, and especially in Kosovo, I was growing suspicious that our path (actions in units of troops organized by NATO) isn’t right…

Whenever I concluded with the feeling that “something isn’t right”, I was trying to comfort myself by the idea that I was working as a doctor and my mission was to help to the sick and injured ones and those members of the local populations that were affected by the activity of our troops. This comfort has prevented me from seeing the problem in its entirety for several years and to understand that what NATO, and especially the U.S., is doing in numerous countries of the whole world must be ranked as the highest degree of perversity and intoxication by power. But even more importantly, all these conflicts were intentionally fabricated while the excuses to launch such conflicts and the American imperialist policy in these conflicts doesn’t seem to have any limits. Everyone who opposes the imperial ambitions of the U.S. in any way, even if he were defending the identity, economy, and sovereignty of his nation, must be “erased off the map of the world”.

I cannot identify myself with the international U.S. policies and once I began to be interested in the roots, essence, development, and consequences of the actions led by the organizations and structures of the U.S. after the war everywhere in the world, I turned into an unequivocal opponent of these policies. I must unambiguously classify it as ruthless, profit-seeking, and insatiable imperialism that won’t be stopped by anyone or anything. The consequences primarily include the “burned down lands” and millions of casualties in the whole world. The causes are the power interests of the world’s hegemony and – more recently – also the desperate attempt to prevent the ultimate collapse of the American empire.

Wherever I served around the world, I have never avoided the contact with the local populaces – both contacts related to my healthcare services, or simple conversations sparked by random encounters with the people or mutual visits. That is why I never depended exclusively on the NATO-related information sources, but I could also analyze and evaluate the situation from all conceivable perspectives. On the former Yugoslav territory, I had the extra advantage of having quickly mastered the local language at a level that has allowed me basic communication. All these events (and others) have allowed me to understand (and convince myself about) the meaninglessness and monstrosity of the NATO and especially U.S. actions in the context of many artificially ignited conflicts whose goal was to destabilize all the countries that did not want to be satisfied with the roles of obedient puppets and vassals of the U.S. Unfortunately, I was becoming a component in this machinery myself.

It has always been a problem for me to respect superiors who are incompetent, uneducated, inconsistent in their opinions, or incapable, if I had to use one word. On the contrary, I greatly respect the “bosses and commanders” who are the “right men on their places”. For the latter men, I would be able to work for them until being spent out, as Czechs figuratively say…

During my professional career as a military and later civilian physician, I have also met a large number of incompetent politicians and superiors who have exchanged their personal profit and careerism, mixed with hypocrisy, ignorance, and populism, with honor, education, and desire to honestly work for the society.

This replacement has always had important, and sometimes fatal, consequences at every level. Our top-tier politics is no exception – politicians hired as puppets of the global exponents have created a big debt, sold and stolen our country by parts, internally undermined it, and buried all the moral values and they threw us to the tentacles of power structures such as the U.S.-led NATO. The politicians are leading, or at least tolerating, a massive misinformation campaign, hide many critical facts that sometimes affect the future of our lives as well, kowtow to the American “bosses”, and silently tolerate their very strange bloody practices. In this way, they are bringing our country towards an abyss. They are also doing so by their inability to perceive the integrity of Europe including Russia as a counterbalance to the American efforts to enslave the world under its power influence in the times when the economic potential of the U.S. is eroding and it is a matter of when, not if, the whole American system collapses or the U.S. will provoke a fatal war conflict that will exploit Europe as the battleground (for the third time in the history).

How diametrically different is then the attitude and phrases of our president, Miloš Zeman, who – despite a massive wave of outrage in the U.S. and Brussels, and indignation by the pro-American sold “fifth column” – formulates the things as they are, uses the right names to call things, and localizes the genuine culprits and causal relationships and who isn’t afraid that Europe also includes Russia but not the U.S… and other facts. I respect Zeman for those reasons and I encourage all those who care about the fate of our country and ourselves to loudly express their lasting support against “the American practices of CIA realized not only by the U.S. Ambassador Andrew Schapiro”, against the red cards of the traitors from the Prague cafés, and against the policies of the “sycophants in Brussels”. He is a directly elected president of ours, so we shouldn’t let anyone take him away from us…

I am not brave enough to go to fight to the East of Ukraine in the new conflict created as a product of the desperate American imperialism – against the self-declared Ukrainian government. Not only do I lack the courage. Such a decision would be meaningless because this conflict is about something completely different than the search and application of the human rights and freedoms, i.e. the values “for which” the U.S. has already devastated so many countries in the world.

But I am able to find enough courage to unambiguously say that in the new cold war and related matters, I am on the side of the current president Russia, a man whom I deeply respect for the detached view, restraint, and balance with which he is responding to the provocations by the West, and for his matter-of-fact, transparent reactions to all the accusations and lies surrounding all the recent events.

One doesn’t have to be a great expert in political science, sociology, military matters, politics, or related issues to figure out who is the aggressor and why he is doing it and who is defending himself. Common sense, a modest amount of intelligence, and the ability to connect the dots is, along with hours of the research of available sources and materials from several sources, enough.

I have reached my own conclusion a long time ago and I insist it is the right conclusion.

And that is why I can’t and I don’t want to wear my medals from the NATO operations anymore because they have been given to me by a criminal organization led by the U.S. As long as the U.S. and similar countries will be leading NATO, there is no room for these medals on the left side of my uniform.

Dear Mr. Defense Minister, I urge you to remove all the awarded NATO medals from me, and I thank you for this act in advance.

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Marek Obrtel MD

IT IS SIGNIFICANT that, since the publication of this letter, nobody has accused Lt. Col. Obrtel of being a stooge of Putin. Had he been an FSB/GRU asset, it would have been insane to let him blow his cover for no visible benefit. Had he been deemed suspicious or unreliable, Western security services would have produced the goods by now. But because his was a genuine cri de coeur, measured and articulate, the decision was made to ignore it.

The Czechs are right to feel uneasy about Western geopolitical machinations. They were spectacularly stabbed in the back by their “allies” in Munich in September 1938, and they know that NATO security guarantees are not worth much if it comes to risking New York in order to save Prague.

American Exceptionalism and American Torture

In 1964, the Brazilian military, in a US-designed coup, overthrew a liberal (not more to the left than that) government and proceeded to rule with an iron fist for the next 21 years. In 1979 the military regime passed an amnesty law blocking the prosecution of its members for torture and other crimes. The amnesty still holds.

That’s how they handle such matters in what used to be called The Third World. In the First World, however, they have no need for such legal niceties. In the United States, military torturers and their political godfathers are granted amnesty automatically, simply for being American, solely for belonging to the “Good Guys Club”.

So now, with the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, we have further depressing revelations about US foreign policy. But do Americans and the world need yet another reminder that the United States is a leading practitioner of torture? Yes. The message can not be broadcast too often because the indoctrination of the American people and Americophiles all around the world is so deeply embedded that it takes repeated shocks to the system to dislodge it. No one does brainwashing like the good ol’ Yankee inventors of advertising and public relations. And there is always a new generation just coming of age with stars (and stripes) in their eyes.

The public also has to be reminded yet again that – contrary to what most of the media and Mr. Obama would have us all believe – the president has never actually banned torture per se, despite saying recently that he had “unequivocally banned torture” after taking office.

Shortly after Obama’s first inauguration, both he and Leon Panetta, the new Director of the CIA, explicitly stated that “rendition” was not being ended. As the Los Angeles Times reported at the time: “Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.”

The English translation of “cooperate” is “torture”. Rendition is simply outsourcing torture. There was no other reason to take prisoners to Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia, Kosovo, or the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, amongst other torture centers employed by the United States. Kosovo and Diego Garcia – both of which house large and very secretive American military bases – if not some of the other locations, may well still be open for torture business, as is the Guantánamo Base in Cuba.

Moreover, the key Executive Order referred to, number 13491, issued January 22, 2009, “Ensuring Lawful Interrogations”, leaves a major loophole. It states repeatedly that humane treatment, including the absence of torture, is applicable only to prisoners detained in an “armed conflict”. Thus, torture by Americans outside an environment of “armed conflict” is not explicitly prohibited. But what about torture within an environment of “counter-terrorism”?

The Executive Order required the CIA to use only the interrogation methods outlined in a revised Army Field Manual. However, using the Army Field Manual as a guide to prisoner treatment and interrogation still allows solitary confinement, perceptual or sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, the induction of fear and hopelessness, mind-altering drugs, environmental manipulation such as temperature and noise, and stress positions, amongst other charming examples of American Exceptionalism.

After Panetta was questioned by a Senate panel, the New York Times wrote that he had “left open the possibility that the agency could seek permission to use interrogation methods more aggressive than the limited menu that President Obama authorized under new rules … Mr. Panetta also said the agency would continue the Bush administration practice of ‘rendition’ … But he said the agency would refuse to deliver a suspect into the hands of a country known for torture or other actions ‘that violate our human values’.”

The last sentence is of course childishly absurd. The countries chosen to receive rendition prisoners were chosen precisely and solely because they were willing and able to torture them.

Four months after Obama and Panetta took office, the New York Times could report that renditions had reached new heights.

The present news reports indicate that Washington’s obsession with torture stems from 9/11, to prevent a repetition. The president speaks of “the fearful excesses of the post-9/11 era”. There’s something to that idea, but not a great deal. Torture in America is actually as old as the country. What government has been intimately involved with that horror more than the United States? Teaching it, supplying the manuals, supplying the equipment, creation of international torture centers, kidnaping people to these places, solitary confinement, forced feeding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Chicago … Lord forgive us!

In 2011, Brazil instituted a National Truth Commission to officially investigate the crimes of the military government, which came to an end in 1985. But Mr. Obama has in fact rejected calls for a truth commission concerning CIA torture. On June 17 of this year, however, when Vice President Joseph Biden was in Brazil, he gave the Truth Commission 43 State Department cables and reports concerning the Brazilian military regime, including one entitled “Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives.”

Thus it is that once again the United States of America will not be subjected to any accountability for having broken US laws, international laws, and the fundamental laws of human decency. Obama can expect the same kindness from his successor as he has extended to George W.

“One of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.” – Barack Obama, written statement issued moments after the Senate report was made public.

And if that pile of hypocrisy is not big enough or smelly enough, try adding to it Bidens’ remark re his visit to Brazil: “I hope that in taking steps to come to grips with our past we can find a way to focus on the immense promise of the future.”

If the torturers of the Bush and Obama administrations are not held accountable in the United States they must be pursued internationally under the principles of universal jurisdiction.

In 1984, an historic step was taken by the United Nations with the drafting of the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” (came into force in 1987, ratified by the United States in 1994). Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Such marvelously clear, unequivocal, and principled language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly difficult for one to feel proud of humanity. We cannot slide back. If today it’s deemed acceptable to torture the person who supposedly has the vital “ticking-bomb” information needed to save lives, tomorrow it will be acceptable to torture him to learn the identities of his alleged co-conspirators. Would we allow slavery to resume for just a short while to serve some “national emergency” or some other “higher purpose”?

If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room.

Cuba … at long, long last … maybe …

Hopefully, it’s what it appears to be. Cuba will now be treated by the United States as a country worthy of at least as much respect as Washington offers to its highly oppressive, murdering, torturing allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Honduras, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

It’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a country whose police force murders its own innocent civilians on almost a daily basis, and even more abroad, but Cuba needs to do it. Maybe the Cubans can civilize the Americans a bit.

Let’s hope that America’s terrible economic embargo against the island will go the way of the dinosaurs, and Cuba will be able to demonstrate more than ever what a rational, democratic, socialist society can create. But they must not open the economy for the Yankee blood-suckers to play with as they have all over the world.

And I’ll be able to go to Cuba not as a thief in the night covering my tracks and risking a huge fine.

But with the Republicans taking over Congress next month, all of this may be just a pipe dream.

Barack Obama could have done this six years ago when he took office; or five years ago when American Alan Gross was first arrested and imprisoned in Cuba. It would have been even easier back then, with Obama’s popularity at its height and Congress not as captured by the Know-Nothings as now.

So, Cuba outlasted all the punishment, all the lies, all the insults, all the deprivations, all the murderous sabotage, all the assassination attempts against Fidel, all the policies to isolate the country. But for many years now, it’s the United States that has been isolated in the Western Hemisphere.

Reason Number 13,336 why capitalism will be the death of us.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria – the “superbugs” – if left unchecked, could result in 10 million deaths a year by 2050. New drugs to fight the superbugs are desperately needed. But a panel advising President Obama warned in September that “there isn’t a sufficiently robust pipeline of new drugs to replace the ones rendered ineffective by antibiotic resistance.”

The problem, it appears, is that “Antibiotics generally provide low returns on investment, so they are not a highly attractive area for research and development.”

Aha! “Low returns on investment”! What could be simpler to understand? Is it not a concept worth killing and dying for? Just as millions of Americans died in the 20th century so corporations could optimize profits by not protecting the public from tobacco, lead, and asbestos.

Corporations are programmed to optimize profits without regard for the society in which they operate, in much the same way that cancer cells are programmed to proliferate without regard for the health of their host.

Happy New Year. Here’s what you have to look forward to in 2015.

• January 25: 467 people reported missing from a university in Mexico. US State Department blames Russia.
• February 1: Military junta overthrows President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Washington decries the loss of democracy.
• February 2: US recognizes the new Venezuelan military junta, offers it 50 jet fighters and tanks.
• February 3: Revolution breaks out in Venezuela endangering the military junta; 40,000 American marines land in Caracas to quell the uprising.
• February 16: White police officer in Chicago fatally shoots a 6-year old black boy holding a toy gun.
• March 6: Congress passes a new law which states that to become president of the United States a person must have the surname Bush or Clinton.
• April 30: The Department of Homeland Security announces plan to record the DNA at birth of every child born in the United States.
• May 19: The Supreme Court rules that police may search anyone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that the person has pockets.
• May 27: The Transportation Security Administration declares that all airline passengers must strip completely nude at check-in and remain thus until arriving at their destination.
• June 6: White police officer in Oklahoma City tasers a 7-month-old black child, claiming the child was holding a gun; the gun turns out to be a rattle.
• July 19: Two subway trains collide in Manhattan. The United States demands that Moscow explain why there was a Russian citizen in each of the trains.
• September 5: The Democratic Party changes its name to the Republican Lite Party, and announces the opening of a joint bank account with the Republican Party so that corporate lobbyists need make out only one check.
• September 12: White police officer in Alabama shoots black newborn, confusing the umbilical cord for a noose.
• November 16: President Obama announces that Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, North Korea, Sudan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba all possess weapons of mass destruction; have close ties to the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the Taliban; are aiding pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine; were involved in 9-11; played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attack on Pearl Harbor; are an imminent threat to the United States and all that is decent and holy; and are all “really bad guys”, who even (choke, gasp) use torture!
• November 21: The United States invades Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, North Korea, Sudan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba.
• December 10: Barack Obama is awarded his second Nobel Peace Prize
• December 11: To celebrate his new peace prize, Obama sends out drones to assassinate wrong-thinking individuals in Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen.
• December 13: Members of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi parties, which hold several high positions in the US-supported government, goose-step through the center of Kiev in full German Storm Trooper uniforms, carrying giant swastika flags, shouting “Heil Hitler”, and singing the Horst Wessel song. Not a word of this appears in any American mainstream media.
• December 15: US Secretary of State warns Russia to stop meddling in Ukraine, accusing Moscow of wanting to re-create the Soviet Union.
• December 16: White police officer shoots a black 98-year-old man sitting in a wheel chair, claiming the man pointed a rifle at him. The rifle turns out to be a cane.
• December 28: The Washington Redskins football team finish their season in last place. The White House blames Vladimir Putin.

Notes

1. Associated Press, December 11, 2014
2. New York Times, December 11, 2014
3. Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2009
4. New York Times, February 6, 2009
5. New York Times, May 24, 2009
6. Washington Post, December 11, 2014
7. National Security Archive’s Brazil Documentation Project
8. Washington Post, December 10, 2014
9. See note 7
10. Washington Post, December 13, 2014

African-Americans Self-Destructing In America: Here’s Why

Ferguson, Missouri with its race-riots; Chicago, Illinois with its 50 black on black shootings over the 4th of July weekend and New York City’s latest African-American death portend something deeper and much deadlier than a Grand Jury verdict that exonerated a white police officer.

Today in America, a sizeable population of Americans shoplift $25 million daily out of mercantile stores. Millions drive drunk in the face of strict and punishing laws for intoxicated driving. Tens of thousands text while driving at 70 mph, which kills 3,000 people annually. It matters not that it’s against the law and against common sense. Thousands of black on white and black on black murders accelerate into the national news. Black on black rapes, black on white rapes and violence toward children in the inner cities continues without causing riots or national concern.

In Detroit, Chicago, New York, Denver, LA, New Orleans and elsewhere across America, black schools suffer 50 to as high as 76 percent flunkout-dropout rates. Result: millions of teens hit the streets illiterate every June. Currently in America today, 42 million people cannot read or write—which equates to functional illiteracy. Note: we feed 48 million people on food stamps because they cannot earn money with a job.

A profoundly disturbing 73 percent of African-American children arrive out of wedlock to single mothers who subsist on welfare. One famous video of an African-American woman in Florida with 15 children living in a motel defies understanding. She screamed at the news reporter, “Somebody’s got to take responsibility for all these kids.”

A sense of personal responsibility and accountability never occurred to her. It’s everyone else’s fault that her illegitimate kids don’t enjoy a home or three meals a day or a father(s).

In Ferguson, 6’4”, 290 pound, 18 year old, African-American Michael Brown robbed a convenience store, and nearly choked the storeowner when the owner tried to stop Brown. A few minutes later, Officer Darren Wilson stopped the giant of a teenager who boasted a rap sheet history of robberies. The teen attacked the officer in his own squad car. Then, minutes later, after being shot in the hand, the teenager ran, but turned back to charge toward the police officer. After many shouts to halt, the officer, fearing for his life, shot the young man dead.

A Grand Jury, including six African-Americans, heard all the facts and all the witnesses to the case. They voted to not indict Officer Wilson because the behemoth of a man charged toward him with the ability to crush the officer, take his gun and kill the officer.

That decision, made by lawful citizens, morphed into the Ferguson riots and burnings. It caused race-baiter Al Sharpton to create the false flag of, “Hands up, don’t shoot” motto.

Also, when the 6’4”, 350 pound, 45-year-old Eric Garner, died because of an arrest chokehold that cut off his air, more demonstrations raged across the country.

While emotions ran high, Sharpton raced to the head of the crowd to claim his almighty righteousness. Burning buildings and cars costs millions, but settles nothing. Blaming everyone else for personal behavior solves nothing.

When a police officer stops me for a traffic infraction, I say, “Yes sir and yes ma’am.” I don’t argue. I don’t make excuses. I don’t attempt to fight them. I don’t try to pull their gun. I keep my hands on the wheel and look them in the eye. If I get a ticket, I sign for it and pay for it. Yes, it ruined my day, but I got caught speeding. I am responsible. When a police officer has you in his or her sights, you don’t argue because they command you for time being. If you don’t want a police officer to stop you, obey the law.

Both Brown and Garner broke the law and fought the police officers. If they chose to put their hands into cuffs and be led away to their day in court, both would be alive today. They didn’t so they died. If you break the law, you pay the consequences.

That’s why we engage laws to maintain a civil society.

Right now, the African-American community, black on black crime, suffers 6,000 murders annually. You never hear a word about it. With 73 percent of African-American children living with a single mother, the African-American “family” lives in shambles that create more anger, illiteracy, violence, poverty and killings. It’s the greatest tragedy since slavery. But in this case, African-Americans do it to themselves. No other ethnic group in America suffers so much death and poverty. Why? My bet: it started with Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and the “Great Society” that created endless welfare for those who enjoy doing nothing with their lives.

How about this idea? Why doesn’t the Congressional Black Caucus investigate the “whys” of black poverty, crime and killings? Then, pass laws to create jobs, fund schooling and vocational training. How about a national network to educate teen African-American girls on the dangers of early pregnancy. Intense-disciplined training and schooling must be introduced into the inner city ghettos. Separate male and female schools to cut down on the sexual intrigue that creates so many fatherless children.

How about the African-American educated leaders like Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Colin Powell and mega-rich black entertainers step up to the plate to solve the problems facing African-Americans in America—rather than ignore them as they have for the past 40 years?

Instead of sending foreign aid over to countries that hate us, why not spend it on our own citizens for their and our benefit? Instead of 10 to 13 year wars overseas that accomplish nothing, why not use the money for jobs and training for African-Americans? And all our poor citizens?

How about a Master Mind Group Think Tank that coordinates to discover the causes of black poverty and crime—then solve it, change it and turn it around?

We cannot endure high school kids marching down the streets of our cities yelling, “F*** the cops.”

I think Bill O’Reilly presented America with the best five-minute speech on the African-American predicament.

We need to teach young people personal accountability, personal responsibility and a sense of community. We need to teach respect for law. We need to teach all teens the ramifications of teen pregnancies and how to prevent them. We need to examine ourselves as a society, what means something to us, and how to regain the family unit.

If not, millions of Michael Brown’s and Eric Garners will kill each other, steal and cheat, and impregnate endless teen girls into motherhood without fathers. We need to get this done. If not, more Ferguson riots face all of them and all of us.

It’s Not Over

That America is spiraling on a collision course with calamity seems certain. We seem to be ignoring virtually all of the lessons of history, and, well, you know what one fellow said about the folly of doing that. I join the consensus of patriots and freedom-lovers throughout the country who believe America’s future is filled with all sorts of stormy weather. As a matter of fact, the storms are all around us already.

For one thing, most of the people who should be helping us in the freedom fight cannot see past the end of their ballot. They think, as long as they elect “conservatives” to public office, all is well with the world. And since the GOP now controls both houses of Congress in Washington, D.C., the vast majority of our good brothers and sisters are already all tucked in for extended hibernation. They will reemerge from under their blankets about three months before the general election in 2016 and start screaming their support for whomever the neocon candidate happens to be. Why, they are already ignoring the fact that the precious Republicans they just elected to the House and Senate a few weeks ago are already signaling that they will to do NOTHING to thwart Barack Obama’s executive amnesty, which was the single most defining issue that helped give the Congress to the GOP. Republicans on Capitol Hill are famous for doing NOTHING to fulfill the promises they made on the campaign trail to their constituents. And Republican voters are famous for reelecting them anyway. Good grief! Republicans in South Carolina can’t even get rid of Lindsey Graham; and Republicans in Arizona can’t even get rid of John McCain.

Even the great Republican “conservative,” Mitt Romney, is now on record saying that the GOP should “swallow hard” and pass a PERMANENT amnesty bill. And even though he says he is not running for President in two years, he continues to be the frontrunner in most of the GOP preference polls. What does that tell you?

See the report here:

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had the guts to tell the truth about what the GOP plans to do regarding Obama’s blatantly illegal executive amnesty decision. Bachmann told Breitbart.com that House Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership have “no intention” of resisting Obama’s executive amnesty. And she is right.

See the report here:

Staunch anti-amnesty senator, Jeff Sessions, said this past Tuesday that the GOP House was about to break their 2014 campaign promises to stop Obama’s executive amnesty. Also on Tuesday, Breitbart.com reported that House Speaker Boehner appears ready to deal with Democrats in order to cut a deal to SAVE amnesty. See the report here:

Oh, we can expect Boehner and Company to blow a lot of smoke and pass some frivolous and toothless legislation or resolutions that will be designed to placate a gullible and naïve Republican constituency, but that will do absolutely NOTHING to stop Obama’s amnesty. The only thing John Boehner and his ilk in Congress don’t like is Obama beat them to the punch by issuing executive amnesty to illegals. GOP leaders were hoping to pass legislative amnesty. So, now that Obama has beaten them to the punch, Boehner and his fellow establishment Republicans will quickly fall in line.

But what the U.S. House of Representatives ought to do (if they had any guts, which they don’t) is impeach this President for his executive amnesty.

Barack Obama’s executive amnesty is the worst kind of abuse of power and illegal conduct. The President of the United States is charged with “executing” the laws of our country. He has no lawful authority to set those laws aside with an Executive Order, which is exactly what he did. Compared to the crimes of Barack Obama, the impeachment charges against Bill Clinton look pale. Then again, compared to the Congress of 1994, this Congress looks pale.

The effect of our government’s refusal to respect our nation’s borders and laws over the next several years will be devastating consequences to the very fiber and fabric of this once great republic. The toll on State and local budgets, education quality, crime rates, employment opportunities, and quality of life will be incalculable. And this is just one menace that the miscreants in Washington, D.C., are inflicting upon us.

For much of the Twentieth Century (and now into the Twenty-First Century), Americans repeatedly choose to elect irresponsible, power-hungry, egotistical, self-centered sycophants (from both major parties) to public office. In addition, most of our churches are little more than glorified social clubs, entertainment centers, playgrounds, and government corporations. Our major media, in both the national and most local markets, are largely government propaganda outlets–as are most of our educational institutions. Furthermore, Christians and unbelievers, pastors of all stripes, Republicans and Democrats, and conservatives and liberals alike, are sitting back passively and indifferently as our country is being turned into a humongous Police State. Absent a significant shift in the hearts and minds of the American people, our liberties cannot long endure.

However, with all of the above said, I still refuse to join the ranks of Chicken Little.

For some reason, known only to God, we still have a semblance of freedom in this land. Granted, it’s only a semblance, but the curtain has not yet fully fallen on liberty. God knows we don’t deserve even the semblance of freedom that we still enjoy. Over the last sixty-plus years, we have been doing our best to throw America into the garbage heap of history. But, for some reason, the curtain has not yet fallen completely.

I would like to proffer five suggestions as to why the curtain has not yet fallen on liberty.

1. I believe God is still honoring the faith, courage, commitment, and sacrifice of America’s Founding Fathers. If God would bless Old Testament Israel for the sake of Abraham, Moses, and David, I believe He would bless the United States for the sake of George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams.

From the days of the Pilgrims through the days of the Patriots, several generations of men and women were willing to pay, many times, a horrific price for liberty. There is no doubt in my mind that these modern generations of Americans are still clipping the coupons from the extraordinary faith and courage of our forebears.

2. More than one hundred million American citizens possess over three hundred million firearms. And a good percentage of these people not only possess a gun; they possess the mental, emotional, and spiritual resolve to use those weapons against any government that would seek to take them. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the deeply-rooted heritage of the American people to keep and bear arms has been largely responsible for the preservation of whatever liberties we have left. Without a heavily-armed populace within this country, there is absolutely no doubt that America (and the rest of the “free world”) would have been totally enslaved decades ago.

3. The Internet. For all of the baloney, malarkey, and rubbish that can be found on the Internet, there is absolutely no question that the Internet has very successfully circumvented and shattered the monopoly of the government shills of the mainstream media. For all intents and purposes, the Internet is to America today what the “Committees of Correspondence” were to Colonial America.

Many are even predicting that the major television news networks will be out of business within the next couple or three decades–as will many of America’s newspapers. CNN was once a cable dynasty; now it is barely broadcasting. MSNBC’s ratings are so poor that its days are also numbered. And while FOX NEWS is currently enjoying the zenith of its existence, more people are getting their news and newsworthy information from the Internet than from all of the above combined. For all of its negatives, the Internet is a huge net positive for freedom.

4. There is still a host, and I mean a huge host, of liberty-loving people in this country who have not (and will never) accept the shackles of tyranny around their hearts. Big-Government toadies can impugn them all they want, but people such as Ron Paul, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senator Mike Lee, Congressman Justin Amash, and millions like them, are keeping the torch of liberty burning.

The media would have us believe that old-fashioned, red-blooded freedomists have gone the way of the Brontosaurus. Or, that if any do yet exist, their numbers are so small as to be placed on the list of endangered species. Don’t you believe it!

In every occupation and vocation–including in our U.S. military and federal police agencies–in virtually every village and hamlet dotted across the fruited plain, and in every age bracket, reside innumerable freedom-loving Americans in whose hearts the love of liberty reigns. Before the chains of tyranny can be placed around a person’s neck, they must first be placed around their hearts. And the people I’m talking about will NEVER allow those chains to be placed around their hearts.

5. I believe the curtain has not completely dropped on liberty in this country because of the grace and sovereignty of our Creator-God. Thomas Jefferson (himself an unbeliever in the traditional sense) was exactly right when he said that liberty is the gift of God. That we still enjoy a semblance of freedom in this land indicates that His divine protection still rests upon us.

Those of us who have a Christian perspective realize that Holy Writ tells us: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) This means that the deeply-seeded love of liberty in our hearts was planted there by our Creator. Our WILL for liberty is God-breathed. That fact, by itself, demonstrates that it’s not over.

There is a line from the 2012 version of the movie “Red Dawn” that I really love. A U.S. Marine fighting with the “Wolverines,” said, “I’m still breathing, so, it’s not over.” Indeed. You and are still breathing, folks, so, IT’S NOT OVER.

Russia’s Sergey Lavrov “Clash of Civilizations”

Since the Western Press has directed their wrath at Vladimir Putin as their latest villain, while his approval rate soars to 88% in Russia, most Americans are not familiar with Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov, much less know his public statements. Lavrov is a thoughtful contrast to the rigid and contemptuous foreign policy spokesmen’s from the Soviet era. It is well worth the time to investigate the actual sentiments that Lavrov has expressed throughout his diplomatic career. An insight of the mindset that underpins his thinking is revealed over two years ago, in the Voltaire Network, which published Sergey Lavrov’s account, On the Right Side of History and provided the following assessment.

“Western propaganda continues to distort Russia’s position in respect of the Syrian crisis. It accuses Moscow of supporting Damascus for profit motives, or even criminal solidarity. In this piece, Sergey Lavrov does not expound on his country’s strategic choices, but rather on the principles that underpin his diplomacy. He responds imperturbably to the inanities spouted by Western media, underscoring Moscow’s commitment to international law and its pledge to support people. Lavrov counterpoints the massive popular support enjoyed by President al-Assad and the illegitimacy of the sectarian armed opposition, sponsored from abroad.”

Quoting from the Lavrov test:

“Back in the 1990s in his book The Clash of Civilisations, Samuel Huntington outlined the trend of the increasing importance of identity based on civilisation and religion in the age of globalization; he also convincingly demonstrated the relative reduction in the abilities of the historic West to spread its influence. It would definitely be an overstatement if we tried to build a model of the modern international relations solely on the basis of such assumptions. However, today it is impossible to ignore such a trend. It is caused by an array of different factors, including more transparent national borders, the information revolution which has highlighted blatant socio-economic inequality, and the growing desire of people to preserve their identity in such circumstances and to avoid falling into the endangered species list of history.”

From the official site of THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, read the entire remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the latest Council on Foreign and Defense Policy meeting. The information contained in these annotations requires a serious evaluation.

Watch the video, that supplements the text account. Interrupting the significance of this presentation, the blog – The Vineyard of the Saker writes an account of the Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the XXII Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Moscow, 22 November 2014.

I have bolded out what I consider to be the most important statements made by Lavrov that day.  I would just like to add the following:

1)  Lavrov is considered very much a “moderate” and his language has always been strictly diplomatic.  So when you read Lavrov, just imagine what folks in other Russian ministries are thinking.

2) Lavrov makes no secret of his view of the USA and of his plans for the future of our planet.  When you read his words, try to imagine what a US Neocon feels and thinks and you will immediately see why the US elites both hate and fear Russia.

3) Finally, Lavrov openly admits that Russia and China have forged a long-term strategic alliance (proving all the nay-sayers who predicted that China would backtstab Russian wrong).  This is, I would argue, the single most important strategic development in the past decade.

4)  Finally, notice the clear contempt which Lavrov has for a pseudo-Christian “West” which dares not speak in defense of persecuted Christians, denies its own roots, and does not even respect its own traditions.

Complimenting this viewpoint is the YouTube, . If Lavrov is correct that the NeoCon American foreign policy after the collapse of the Soviet empire has positioned itself to become the single dominating armed force on the planet, what other results but an unending warfare environment can one expect? Longing for an enemy to keep the military machine in high gear certainly is perceived by the rest of the world as threatening.

Blogger Nick Freiling presents an assessment in, What the others are saying, of the following Lavrov quotation.

“In attempting to establish their pre-eminence at a time when new economic, financial and political power centres are emerging, the Americans provoke counteraction in keeping with Newton’s third law and contribute to the emergence of structures, mechanisms, and movements that seek alternatives to the American recipes for solving the pressing problems. I am not referring to anti-Americanism, still less about forming coalitions spearheaded against the United States, but only about the natural wish of a growing number of countries to secure their vital interests and do it the way they think right, and not what they are told “from across the pond.”

Mr. Freiling writes his own comments.

“It’s worth noting that perspectives like these aren’t totally absent from mainstream punditry in the U.S. Libertarians, for one, have long warned about the dangers of stretching American resources too thin in pursuit of foreign policy initiatives that don’t have immediate national security implications. Politicians like Rand Paul have even brought hints of such sentiments into the mainstream.

But this is still a far cry from what most Americans consider an “orthodox” perspective on U.S. foreign policy, even if most people agree we’re overextended in many world arenas.”

The fourth point that the Vineyard of the Saker makes, is expanded upon in the Radical Reactionary essay, Western Secularism vs. Russian Christian Revival where the background and recent direction in Russia is traced.

If you expand your analysis beyond mere political and economic context, the Lavrov foreign policy initiative has a component of emphasizing a traditional and historic cultural motivation. While a religious factor may not have anything to do with forging a new Russia and China alliance, dismissing a spiritual and inward revival in Russia would be a profound error.

Radio Free Europe in the article, Orthodox Churches Fight Back As Eastern Europe Pushes To Modernize, Secularize, makes the case and linkage in Tradition of Religious Nationalism parallels Lavrov’s cultural autonomy.

“Geraldine Fagan, a Moscow-based correspondent for the religion-focused news agency Forum 18 and author of the new book “Believing in Russia: Religious Policy After Communism,” says that religious nationalism, although condemned as heresy in the 19th century, is a profound tradition in Orthodox cultures.

“In many cases, Orthodox churches were ministering to a single ethnic group, and this gave rise to nation-states,” Fagan told RFE/RL in an e-mail. “And there is a lingering sense in places across the Orthodox world that national security depends in a profound — even mystical – way on the nation remaining Orthodox.”

The difference of a nation state from an empire is crucial for comprehending the nature of a legitimate government. The fall of the Soviet empire was inevitable. The notion that an American empire will avoid the same fate is absurd.

This “Clash of Civilizations” is understandable not because either empire rode the high moral road, but because both abandoned the fundamental principles that create a viable society and nation.

Civilization is fragile and requires a deep commitment to institutions that practice and administer legal justice, traditional social values and high moral standards. Maintaining governments that earn the rightful consent of its citizens is difficult and usually breaks down over time.

International affairs are even more delicate than internal equilibrium. Countries do not have permanent allies, they only have interests. Russia has a litany of problems and is no more a friend than any other regime that is exerting its own national self-interest.

The intrepid Brother Nathanael Kapner points the finger at THE ZIONIST HATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST RUSSIA, for an explanation why the pressitute media wants to suppress Russian nationalism. The orthodox cleric is echoing Sergey Lavrov when he cites “For it is NATO that Moscow is opposing owing to its creeping encroachment upon Russia’s borders.”

Americans need to oppose foreign policy adventures and certainly one that risks a global holocaust. Ready for World War III with China?, essay is just as valid when Russia is substituted. What effect would a Russian and Chinese strategic alliance have as the NWO juggernaut continues on it current path to destruction?

Transnational Opposition to Russian Sanctions illustrates why Western countries are playing a dangerous game.  Lavrov’s latest address provides a road map for what Russia is embarking on and what the international community should do to lower the tensions and restore constructive economic and political stability.

It is not too far fetch to imagine a current day, Western version for pounding of shoes, with the message “” reverberating from the halls of the UN. If this seems ridiculous, ask why pushing a Clash of Civilizations is any different?

There Are Four Sides To The Ferguson Mess

Press, Cops, Blacks, Whites…

FIRST, it is a difficult job to be a policeman in the USA.  The scourge of racial diversity has created tensions and patterns of behavior that can quickly become violent and the loss of a solid moral fiber has further tangled the job.

As the social structure of our nation deteriorates policemen are faced with a citizenry that often defies their authority and efforts to react to confrontations with conciliation no longer bring a peaceful solution. Youth gangs in Inner-city neighborhoods can quickly overpower individual policemen and in many cities there are areas that firefighters and policemen try to avoid.

This loss of social restraint made it impossible for officers to address lawless behavior without fear for their own safety.  Fear is not only from the offending individual but also from his social peers.  A result of this cultural deterioration is a tendency for policemen to shoot first and ask questions later.

Overreaction to pervasive fear has resulted in dictatorial policies that actually contribute to the problem.  From peacekeepers and guardians of social freedom policemen have become a defense group of belligerent individuals who are armed and often dangerous.  They arrogantly demand instant submission often from innocent citizens thereby destroying the freedom they are vested to support.

Surprise military style raids on homes and apartments that sometimes go terribly wrong are an abomination.  Handcuffing every suspect including women and children is a cowardly procedure that demeans citizens and tarnishes the reputation of law enforcement.  Police squad cars regularly endanger the public by needlessly chasing suspects when recording a license number and waiting would be much more appropriate.  Presenting the public with vigilante justice does not enhance their reputation.

Policemen are hired to be servants of the people but they have become a clannish group that seeks their own protection at the expense of those they are hired to protect. When a single policeman is killed in the line of duty the funeral is a public event with hundreds of “their own” coming from miles around.

Local policemen are the main deterrent to social anarchy and when their ability to create order is lost, the chaos of Ferguson, Missouri is a result.  With this critical understanding the courts support the police in spite of flagrant injustice.

George Zimmerman, not a policeman, was indicted; Darren Wilson, a member of the elite class, was not indicted!

Read an excellent article on police exceptionalism here.

SECOND, the social perspective of Black Americans has been consistently maligned creating a sense of oppression and entitlement that is both unrealistic and potential incendiary.  Freedom is not enough for many Black leaders.  They have made a profession of blaming society for Black problems fabricating a biased picture that fosters indolence, resentment and animosity.   Blacks have a crime rate that is seven or more times higher than White Americans.  This high crime rate makes them a target for suspicion.

Welfare neighborhoods with absent fathers and mothers supported by the government with checks proportional to the number of their illegitimate children are fertile beds for rebellion, disobedience, crime, drugs, and anarchy.

White policemen in Black neighborhoods face a complex problem; pervasive anger and resentment and excessively high crime rates.  The result is suspicion and harassment of all young Blacks.

There are encouraging signs in Black communities.  Some Black families are functioning properly with fathers heading the home and children being disciplined and growing in obedience and productivity.  Some Blacks are tiring of the demeaning effect of welfare and are urging their peers to make it on their own.

A realistic video .

THIRD, The Caucasian European culture that founded America has been incrementally disenfranchised and replaced by a polyglot of foreign elements that vie for power.  A slow theft of the fabric of our society has been accomplished with guile that exceeds the “Trojan Horse”.  Little insults here and there followed by major incursions now and again have resulted in a transfer of power from the hands of the original inhabitants to those of interlopers with devious intentions. This transfer is from top down and has been sustained by government officials elected by the citizens who incur the loss.

The majority of White Americans want to be left alone to work, provide for their families, and enjoy some recreation.  They are nominally religious and overtly law abiding.  As their neighborhoods have deteriorated into crime and degradation they have moved to other neighborhoods.  They have occasionally staged minor demonstrations but White riots are almost nonexistent.

FOURTH, The American press and Media consistently and with malice aforethought distorts the news.   Both the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin events would have been judged on a local level if the incidents had not been intentionally corrupted and nationalized.  Scarce as it is White on Black crime is highly publicized while much higher Black on White crime is regularly ignored.

The Trotskyite background that emanates from the lofty towers of the press and media covets the centralization of power that results from the animosity they create. Widespread rioting might bring Martial Law.   Fraudulent coverage of events like the police encounters with Martin and Brown designed to stir up violent, unbridled emotional reactions in the Black community is a criminal offense, and those that are responsible should be indicted and prosecuted.

Though both were found innocent, the press and media has destroyed the lives of both George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson.  Zimmerman has been divorced.  His reputation has been tainted and he is hopelessly in debt.  Now Darren Wilson has resigned from the Ferguson Police force.  Misrepresenting and censoring the news, which is a daily occurrence in America, creates severe social problems.

Pernicious efforts to create discord make the Black community needlessly angry and angry people regularly distort reality.  Blacks do not understand that they are being used as pawns in an effort to weaken the culture.  Lies are interwoven into our news.  When we began to forsake justice and replace it with human sentimentality we created a pit of confusion with walls that resist escape.

Infecting problems are so numerous in American society that solutions have become difficult.  Press and media management has consistently supported what we used to call sin and when the moral fiber of a society is lost problems fester.

1. J. Rushdoony puts the truth into one short paragraph: “For a man to be guilty requires that he be responsible to a higher being. For a law or justice to prevail over all men, there must again be a God over all.  Having rejected God – (we) –logically rejected both guilt and justice.  If we want justice, we must also accept God.   Our problem today is that our federal and state governments and courts have rejected God.  Therefore, they have rejected justice.  All that is left of the law are empty technicalities.”  (A name was removed and replace with “we”)

We have lost the ability to produce justice.  Our courts no longer seek justice, our policemen no longer understand the meaning of the word; our government has chosen power over justice, and our press and media have supported the whole mess.

God is just; humans are not!

Chinese And Japanese Deflationary Economies

The global economy has just hit the wall. Do not underestimate the significance of the Asian downturn. Japan saw a dramatic rebirth after WWII and China was transformed into an industrial powerhouse from the “Free Trade” debacle. Now that the Central Bankers of the world are turning to Japan and China to keep the financial bubble from blowing, the focus pivots to the East. Pushing on a string is no easy task. Nervously, all eyes have to wonder if more debt will prevent the expected crash.

When the British financial press warns about Spreading deflation across East Asia threatens fresh debt crisis, people should listen.

“Deflation is becoming lodged in all the economic strongholds of East Asia. It is happening faster and going deeper than almost anybody expected just months ago, and is likely to find its way to Europe through currency warfare in short order.

China is in effect strapped to the rocketing dollar through its quasi-peg, increasingly a torture machine. George Magnus from UBS says this cannot continue. “What is happening in the property market is the tip of the iceberg for the whole economy. China will have to resort to monetary reflation over the winter, and I think this will include a lower yuan. We are heading into a currency war,” he said.”

The Economist provides the establishment viewpoint of the latest strategy in Deflation, deflated.

“WHEN people think of a large Asian country on the brink of deflation, they probably have Japan in mind. But China, the biggest of them all, is now skirting close to outright falls in prices across a wide swathe of the economy. Producer prices have been declining for nearly three years and consumer price inflation is mired at its lowest level since 2010.

Deflation is rightly feared by central bankers around the world as a most destructive economic force, making debts more expensive in real terms and leading to a vicious cycle of contraction as consumers delay purchases and companies put off investments. Yet the Chinese central bank has been remarkably laid-back about the downward lilt in prices. The most obvious tool in its kit to arrest the slide would be to cut interest rates, but it has not done so since July 2012; the benchmark one-year lending rate remains lofty at 6%. What explains the central bank’s calm in the face of falling prices, and is it making a big mistake?”

This last assessment demonstrates that when the shift in direction was announced, the financial community jumped on the bandwagon to In Change of Strategy, China Cuts Interest Rate.

“China finally admitted it has a growth problem — and that is a big step to getting the global economy back on track.

In cutting rates, China joins the parade of global policy makers who are stepping up their stimulus efforts to support growth. They are filling a void left by the United States Federal Reserve, which just ended a six-year bond-buying campaign that has kept borrowing costs low and has encouraged spending worldwide.”

The admission that a massive infusion to recapitalize the international system requires a new source to finance the retracting economies is significant. It seems that a tag team effort between China and Japan will hit the banking houses from different directions.

Japan Fires Another Shot in Global Currency War is the analysis from the Wall Street Journal.

“The Bank of Japan 8301.TO -1.63%’s surprise move to increase its asset purchases has sent the yen plummeting, with the dollar passing through ¥110 Friday to trade at highs not seen in six years. This is the mechanism through which Japan will try to restore inflation to its perennially stagnating economy. The BOJ describes its actions in terms of boosting domestic growth and pricing power, but the real way it works is to export deflation to the rest of the world – it has been doing this ever since the yen began an 30% decline versus the dollar once “Abenomics” stimulus measures were first floated in the fall of 2012.”

Japan will play the role of the QE Federal Reserve policy and the Chinese will finally slash their interest rates. Such moves are not taken because the global economies are prospering. Looking for actual growth is like Waiting for Godot.

The mystery that faces all economies is when does deflation become impervious to further stimulus? How many more times can the deficits, imbalances and shortfalls be papered or rolled over before a depression ensues.

Japan is already the poster child for negative growth and with the irrational expenditures that China has spent on ghost cities, their reported growth rates are about as valid as a stock buy recommendation from a Wall Street firm that is shorting their own portfolio.

Looking to the orient to pull the world out of a lethargic corporatist spiral is problematic at best. China slowed growth now reported at 7.3 percent is seen as setting the stage that fuels debt and property bubbles. Yet the balance of trade surpluses that China continues to build up against American consumption from their exports has never benefited economic conditions in the United States.

The Dollar Collapse site asks: Most of the World Panics — Is the US Next?

• Will stepped-up debt monetization and interest rate reductions succeed where the past batch failed?
• Can the US remain aloof from the carnage taking place all around it?

As the Asian economies suffer their own version of contraction on the road to a meltdown, who believes that the transnational corporations that have plotted to off shore their production for decades, will ever reverse their strategy and start returning manufacturing back in the US?

Who will buy the ever increasing US Treasury debt if China unwinds? Of course the Federal Reserve will ratchet up and even bigger QE infusion that will result with more zeros to the national debt.

The most effective solution for America is establishing a tax reform that encourages a domestic renaissance and setting tariffs at levels that will reverse the systemic balance of payments deficits. The worldwide deflation has commenced, so start thinking local and not global.

How Christians And Conservatives Are Helping To Destroy America

What makes America America? What distinguishes this country from the nations of the world–or from world history, for that matter? Even casual historians must admit that there has never been a country like the United States of America ever to exist. This nation is unique to world history. There has never been a country like this–and probably will never be one like it again.

As hard as it is for the anti-God types to admit, America has a deeply-rooted Christian history and culture. However, when one says, “America is a Christian country,” (usually spoken by a Christian, of course), he or she may mean something that NEVER existed. So, let’s set the record straight: America was never founded as a theocracy. And even though there are some well-meaning, albeit naïve, Christian people today who pretend that America once had, and should have again, a theocratic-type government and society, the fact is, America was NEVER a theocracy.

The only theocracy in the history of the world was Old Testament Israel under Moses. After the death of Moses, God expected Israel to be governed by the principles established through Moses. Even the reign of Israel’s greatest king, King David, could not be classified as a theocracy. He, too, was expected to adhere to the tenets and principles of Moses. Only through Moses did God directly govern the people. And even within the government of Israel, God established the roots of what became known as republican (small “r”) government. But I will save that discussion for a later day.

So, if by “Christian nation” people mean that America was established as some sort of theocracy, they are gravely mistaken. It is also unfortunate that some well-meaning (at least, I think they are well-meaning) Christian people give the unchurched world the impression that they are trying to create some sort of theocracy in America today. Some even go so far as to teach that we don’t need a Constitution or State and municipal laws–and any such laws are themselves evil. This is an asinine philosophy, to say the least.

I, for one, would never want a so-called theocracy administered by the likes of the vast majority of Christian teachers and pastors today. Are you kidding? Most of them can’t even govern a small congregation of believers who are ostensibly assembled under the same ideology, same eschatology, same ecclesiology, etc. Have you been to a church business meeting lately? You really want those people dictating national laws? God forbid!

No! There is no Moses on the scene today with new revelation dictating God’s will for the nation. That being said, there is no mistaking the fact that America has a deeply-rooted, rich Christian tradition.

America’s founders, even those who were not professing Christians, as we understand the term today, acknowledged that fact.

Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet called, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.” It was intended to be a guide for Europeans who were thinking about relocating to this country. In it, he said, “Hence, bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced.”

Franklin continued, “Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel.”

Franklin went on: “And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects [Christian denominations] treat each other; by the remarkable prosperity with which he has been pleased to favor the whole country.”

Noah Webster (himself an outspoken Christian, of course), said, “The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free Constitutions of Government.”

Webster also said, “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.”

Notice, Webster did not say we should vote for “Christians.” He said we should vote for “just men who will rule in the fear of God.” That is the correct model set forth in both Natural and Revealed Law. Today, most Christians have never been taught this rudimentary truism.

Daniel Webster noted the following: “Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”

There is the correct understanding of America as a “Christian” nation. America’s founders never thought they were creating a theocracy, but they did have a “high veneration” for the Christian faith and “sought to incorporate its principles” into American government.

The principles of the Christian faith include both Natural and Revealed Law. The Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, especially, clearly illustrate the founder’s understanding and appreciation for these principles.

The Declaration begins, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATURE’S GOD [emphasis added] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the cause which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT [emphasis added], that all men are CREATED [emphasis added] equal, that they are endowed BY THEIR CREATOR [emphasis added] with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

As Thomas Jefferson quickly penned the Declaration (and he did write it rather quickly), he was borrowing heavily from John Locke and the commonly understood principles of Natural Law. Though the founders were dissimilar in regards to their understanding of Biblical teaching, to a man, they understood and agreed with the “self-evident” principles of Natural Law, or “the Laws of Nature.”

Furthermore, virtually every “right” enumerated in the Bill of Rights can be traced directly to commonly understood principles contained in Natural and Revealed Law. That fact is unassailable.

In addition to our common Christian heritage, America was united with a common language, along with a common culture and history. The loss of our Christian heritage, our common language, along with our common culture and history would certainly transform America into something other than America.

Unfortunately, however, there are those who share our common faith and history who are also contributing mightily to the destruction of America. I am talking about those who would identify themselves as Christians and/or conservatives. Of course, to hear these people talk, America’s problems are all caused by “liberals,” or Democrats. They would also single out drug-dealers (except they always seem to leave out certain politicians who are the true drug lords in America), pornographers, Hollywood entertainers (not all of whom are immoral reprobates, of course), and similar sorts, as being the cause of America’s destruction.

There is absolutely no question that a national breakdown of morality is seriously problematic to the survival of a free republic. No doubt about it! My only contention on this point is that the groups mentioned above are not the true problem; they are only symptomatic of the true problem. The real problem is the CHURCH. A soft, uncommitted, carnal, materialistic, lazy, self-righteous church is the root cause of ALL of America’s problems, including the ones mentioned above.

Too many of today’s churches are thoroughly consumed with self-righteousness and self-centeredness. They either try to mimic the world and by doing so become just like the world, or they think themselves better than the world and by doing so become worse than the world.

Phariseeism is a major problem today. Have you ever noticed that you seldom, if ever, hear a message about Christ and the Pharisees? Why is that? It’s because a study of the subject will reveal that too many church leaders are nothing more than modern-day Pharisees in practice. It’s a lesson that hits uncomfortably close to home.

Okay. Let me toot my own horn here. I have a DVD with three messages on the subject, “Christ And The Pharisees” available. And, seriously, when is the last time you ever heard the subject mentioned from anybody’s pulpit? I submit that one CANNOT possibly understand the ministry and teachings of Christ if one does not understand the contentious contest that took place between Christ and the Pharisees. If you would like to purchase this three-message series on ONE DVD, go here:

The spirit of Phariseeism is so prevalent among the Church today that is no wonder why so many unbelievers refuse to darken the doors of a church. Many of today’s Christians are as enslaved to the traditions and doctrines of men as any slave anywhere. How in the name of common sense can one expect Christians to fight for the political liberties of our country when they, themselves, are enslaved to the machinations of modern-day Pharisees?

Some of the most enslaved people on the planet are professing Christians. Many of our churches, Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, etc. are filled with the “servants of men.” The fact that our public education system fails to teach children to think critically is only matched by too many of today’s churches and Christian schools.

Not only do so many Christians have a slave mentality; they also have a war mentality. Who are the ones who are the first and loudest cheerleaders for perpetual wars of aggression in the Middle East? Christians and conservatives! But why should that surprise us? Look at our churches. What do you see? Perpetual war: infighting, gossip, slander, backbiting, name-calling, character assassination, etc. Some of the most mean-spirited, low-down, dishonest, conniving, and blood-thirsty people on the planet call themselves Christians. Believe me, if they could get away with it, there is no telling how many people in our country would be losing their heads at the hands of these pious-talking Christians. Hatred and bitterness is nothing more than murder of the heart; and millions of professing Christians are as guilty as can be.

Speaking of losing one’s head, the anti-Muslim bias and hysteria being evidenced in most churches today is absolutely alarming! In the mistaken notion that somehow it is God’s will that the American army be used as some sort of holy crusade against Islamic states, Christians are spearheading a perpetual war doctrine that has become the bane of freedom within our own country.

In the name of fighting a “war on terror,” America is being turned into a giant Police State–and Christians seem to be among its most ardent supporters. But Washington, D.C., is not fighting a “war on terror,” it is fighting a “war on liberty.” Our Bill of Rights is being decimated! We are living under an Orwellian surveillance society, the likes of which Hitler and Stalin could have only dreamed about. And, again, Christians and conservatives are among the loudest proponents.

Now that the GOP has control of both houses of Congress in Washington, D.C., and with a pro-war Democrat in the White House, we can expect an escalation of foreign wars during the next two years analogous to those of the G.W. Bush years. And, unfortunately, most of the Christian war fever seems to be predicated on the erroneous John Hagee theology that modern-Israel is Bible-Israel and, somehow, it is America’s responsibility to fight all of Israel’s wars.

The war fever demonstrated by too many Christians and conservatives is destroying our country. Endless wars abroad; hundreds of thousands of innocents killed–many of whom are our Christian brothers and sisters; trillions of dollars of deficit spending to fund these perpetual, unconstitutional wars of aggression; a burgeoning Police State at home under the rubric of “we are at war”; ad infinitum.

Worse still is the way Christian war fever has turned the nations of the world, not only against America, but against Christianity. How are our missionaries supposed to take the message of the Prince of Peace to a people whom we have just bombed into the Stone Age, killing their parents, children, brothers and sisters, etc.?

Since 1980, the United States has invaded, occupied, or bombed fourteen Islamic countries. Fourteen! But the pro-war politicians in D.C. keep telling the American people the reason that Muslims hate us is because of our freedom. What a crock! Some of us can remember when some of the best friends this country had were Islamic states in the Middle East. A meddling, intrusive, arrogant, war spirit in Washington, D.C., has turned people who were once friendly to the United States into some of our most fierce adversaries. And all Christians and conservatives can do is demand more and more war.

See this report:

And, as it appears right now, the only major prospective presidential candidate on the scene from either major party who is not marching in lock step with the war machine is Rand Paul. And you can bet that the military industrial complex, along with the military religious complex, will try to crucify Rand in the same way they crucified his dad, Ron Paul.

The assault against the United States is massive. We are fast losing our Christian heritage and culture–and Christians are as much to blame as anyone. They have tried to turn the Lord’s Church into a playground or entertainment center–or even worse, a corporation. Phariseeism is rampant. As a result, unbelievers have lost all respect for churches in general. I, for one, don’t blame them.

We have lost our understanding of, and appreciation for, Natural Law. Even most pastors cannot articulate the fundamental principles of Natural Law, even though this is the Law upon which America was founded. This means, we have lost the true meaning of America’s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

We cheer as our country has turned into a “Warfare State.” We applaud as our nation has turned into an Orwellian surveillance society. We are losing our common language, our common history and heritage, and our common faith. Christianity in 2014-15 is not even comparable to Christianity in 1775-76. We have traded Jonas Clark for Joel Osteen.

Yes, the very people who claim to love America the most and who claim to be interested in her blessing and prosperity are too often the very ones who are helping to destroy her.

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again. And Again. And Yet Again… Using Saddam’s WMD

“Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine’s military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.”

None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles.

“The Obama administration,” the story continued, “has asserted over the past week that the Russians had moved artillery, air-defense systems and armor to help the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. ‘These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway’, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said. At the department’s daily briefing in Washington, Ms. Psaki also criticized what she called the Russian government’s ‘unwillingness to tell the truth’ that its military had sent soldiers as deep as 30 miles inside Ukraine territory.”

Thirty miles inside Ukraine territory and not a single satellite photo, not a camera anywhere around, not even a one-minute video to show for it. “Ms. Psaki apparently [sic] was referring to videos of captured Russian soldiers, distributed by the Ukrainian government.” The Times apparently forgot to inform its readers where they could see these videos.

“The Russian aim, one Western official said, may possibly be to seize an outlet to the sea in the event that Russia tries to establish a separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine.”

This of course hasn’t taken place. So what happened to all these Russian soldiers 30 miles inside Ukraine? What happened to all the armored vehicles, weapons, and equipment?

“The United States has photographs that show the Russian artillery moved into Ukraine, American officials say. One photo dated last Thursday, shown to a New York Times reporter, shows Russian military units moving self-propelled artillery into Ukraine. Another photo, dated Saturday, shows the artillery in firing positions in Ukraine.”

Where are these photographs? And how will we know that these are Russian soldiers? And how will we know that the photos were taken in Ukraine? But most importantly, where are the fucking photographs?

Why am I so cynical? Because the Ukrainian and US governments have been feeding us these scare stories for eight months now, without clear visual or other evidence, often without even common sense. Here are a few of the many other examples, before and after the one above:

• The Wall Street Journal (March 28) reported: “Russian troops massing near Ukraine are actively concealing their positions and establishing supply lines that could be used in a prolonged deployment, ratcheting up concerns that Moscow is preparing for another [sic] major incursion and not conducting exercises as it claims, US officials said.”
• “The Ukrainian government charged that the Russian military was not only approaching but had actually crossed the border into rebel-held regions.” (Washington Post, November 7)
• “U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove told reporters in Bulgaria that NATO had observed Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops enter Ukraine across a completely wide-open border with Russia in the previous two days.” (Washington Post, November 13)
• “Ukraine accuses Russia of sending more soldiers and weapons to help rebels prepare for a new offensive. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied aiding the separatists.” (Reuters, November 16)

Since the February US-backed coup in Ukraine, the State Department has made one accusation after another about Russian military actions in Eastern Ukraine without presenting any kind of satellite imagery or other visual or documentary evidence; or they present something that’s very unclear and wholly inconclusive, such as unmarked vehicles, or unsourced reports, or citing “social media”; what we’re left with is often no more than just an accusation. The Ukrainian government has matched them.

On top of all this we should keep in mind that if Moscow decided to invade Ukraine they’d certainly provide air cover for their ground forces. There has been no mention of air cover.

This is all reminiscent of the numerous stories in the past three years of “Syrian planes bombing defenseless citizens”. Have you ever seen a photo or video of a Syrian government plane dropping bombs? Or of the bombs exploding? When the source of the story is mentioned, it’s almost invariably the rebels who are fighting against the Syrian government. Then there’s the “chemical weapon” attacks by the same evil Assad government. When a photo or video has accompanied the story I’ve never once seen grieving loved ones or media present; not one person can be seen wearing a gas mask. Is it only children killed or suffering? No rebels?

And then there’s the July 17 shootdown of Malaysia Flight MH17, over eastern Ukraine, taking 298 lives, which Washington would love to pin on Russia or the pro-Russian rebels. The US government – and therefore the US media, the EU, and NATO – want us all to believe it was the rebels and/or Russia behind it. The world is still waiting for any evidence. Or even a motivation. Anything at all. President Obama is not waiting. In a talk on November 15 in Australia, he spoke of “opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17”. Based on my reading, I’d guess that it was the Ukranian government behind the shootdown, mistaking it for Putin’s plane that reportedly was in the area.

Can it be said with certainty that all the above accusations were lies? No, but the burden of proof is on the accusers, and the world is still waiting. The accusers would like to create the impression that there are two sides to each question without actually having to supply one of them.

The United States punishing Cuba

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):

 
This year Washington’s policy may be subject to even more criticism than usual due to the widespread recognition of Cuba’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

Speaking before the General Assembly before last year’s vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.

However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:

The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.

So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest in 2011-12 ; that many of them were physically abused by the police; and that their encampments were violently destroyed.

Does Mr. Godard have access to any news media? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person.

As to “independent journalism” – What would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba has not changed since the revolution in 1959 – The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as many Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.

How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted its suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

The United States judging and punishing the rest of the world

In addition to Cuba, Washington currently is imposing economic and other sanctions against Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, China, North Korea, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, South Sudan, Sudan, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, India, and Zimbabwe. These are sanctions mainly against governments, but also against some private enterprises; there are also many other sanctions against individuals not included here.

Imbued with a sense of America’s moral superiority and “exceptionalism”, each year the State Department judges the world, issuing reports evaluating the behavior of all other nations, often accompanied by sanctions of one kind or another. There are different reports rating how each lesser nation has performed in the previous year in areas such as religious freedom, human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons, and sponsors of terrorism. The criteria used in these reports are often political. Cuba, for example, is always listed as a sponsor of terrorism whereas anti-Castro exile groups in Florida, which have committed literally hundreds of terrorist acts over the years, are not listed as terrorist groups or supporters of such.

Cuba, which has been on the sponsor-of-terrorism list longer (since 1982) than any other country, is one of the most glaring anomalies. The most recent State Department report on this matter, in 2012, states that there is “no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.” There are, however, some retirees of Spain’s Basque terrorist group ETA (which appears on the verge of disbanding) in Cuba, but the report notes that the Cuban government evidently is trying to distance itself from them by denying them services such as travel documents. Some members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been allowed into Cuba, but that was because Cuba was hosting peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government, which the report notes.

The US sanctions mechanism is so effective and formidable that it strikes fear (of huge fines) into the hearts of banks and other private-sector organizations that might otherwise consider dealing with a listed state.

Some selected thoughts on American elections and democracy

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from one side to the other, thinking they will be more comfortable.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

• 2012 presidential election:
  223,389,800 eligible to vote
  128,449,140 actually voted
  Obama got 65,443,674 votes
  Obama was thus supported by 29.3% of eligible voters
• There are 100 million adults in the United States who do not vote. This is a very large base from which an independent party can draw millions of new votes.
• If God had wanted more of us to vote in elections, he would give us better candidates.
• “The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything. At least they vote that way on election day.” – Eugene Debs, American socialist leader (1855-1926)
• “If persons over 60 are the only American age group voting at rates that begin to approximate European voting, it’s because they’re the only Americans who live in a welfare state – Medicare, Social Security, and earlier, GI loans, FHA loans.” – John Powers
• “The American political system is essentially a contract between the Republican and Democratic parties, enforced by federal and state two-party laws, all designed to guarantee the survival of both no matter how many people despise or ignore them.” – Richard Reeves (1936- )
• The American electoral system, once the object of much national and international pride, has slid inexorably from “one person, one vote”, to “one dollar, one vote”.
• Noam Chomsky: “It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars. Their professional concern in their regular vocation is not to provide information. Their goal, rather, is deceit.”
• If the Electoral College is such a good system, why don’t we have it for local and state elections?
• “All the props of a democracy remain intact – elections, legislatures, media – but they predominantly function at the service of the oligarchy.” – Richard Wolff
• The RepDem Party holds elections as if they were auctions; indeed, an outright auction for the presidency would be more efficient. To make the auction more interesting we need a second party, which must at a minimum be granted two privileges: getting on the ballot in all 50 states and taking part in television debates.
• The US does in fact have two parties: the Ins and the Outs … the evil of two lessers.
• Alexander Cockburn: “There was a time once when ‘lesser of two evils’ actually meant something momentous, like the choice between starving to death on a lifeboat, or eating the first mate.”
• Cornel West has suggested that it’s become difficult to even imagine what a free and democratic society, without great concentrations of corporate power, would look like, or how it would operate.
• The United States now resembles a police state punctuated by elections.
• How many voters does it take to change a light bulb? None. Because voters can’t change anything.
• H.L. Mencken (1880-1956): “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
• “All elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections.” – Joel Hirschhorn
• In 1941, one of the country’s more acerbic editors, a priest named Edward Dowling, commented: “The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”
• “Elections are a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient, condition for democracy. Political participation is not just a casting of votes. It is a way of life.” – UN Human Development Report, 1993
• “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!” I reply, “You have it backwards. If you DO vote, you can’t complain. You asked for it, and they’re going to give it to you, good and hard.”
• “How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It’s the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It’s been 200 years at it. It’s superb.” – Gore Vidal
• We can’t use our democracy/our vote to change the way the economy functions. This is very anti-democratic.
• What does a majority vote mean other than that the sales campaign was successful?
• Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
• We do have representative government. The question is: Who does our government represent?
• “On the day after the 2002 election I watched a crawl on the bottom of the CNN news screen. It said, ‘Proprietary software may make inspection of electronic voting systems impossible.’ It was the final and absolute coronation of corporate rights over democracy; of money over truth.” – Mike Ruppert, RIP
• “It’s not that voting is useless or stupid; rather, it’s the exaggeration of the power of voting that has drained the meaning from American politics.” – Michael Ventura
• After going through the recent national, state and local elections, I am now convinced that taxation without representation would have been a much better system.
• “Ever since the Constitution was illegally foisted on the American people we have lived in a blatant plutocracy. The Constitution was drafted in secret by a self-appointed elite committee, and it was designed to bring three kinds of power under control: Royalty, the Church, and the People. All were to be subjugated to the interests of a wealthy elite. That’s what republics were all about. And that’s how they have functioned ever since.” – Richard K. Moore
• “As demonstrated in Russia and numerous other countries, when faced with a choice between democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy, Western elites unhesitatingly embrace the latter.” – Michael Parenti
• “The fact that a supposedly sophisticated electorate had been stampeded by the cynical propaganda of the day threw serious doubt on the validity of the assumptions underlying parliamentary democracy as a whole.” – British Superspy for the Soviets Kim Philby (1912-1988), explaining his reasons for becoming a Communist instead of turning to the Labour Party
• US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941): “We may have democracy in this country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
• “We don’t need to run America like a business or like the military. We need to run America like a democracy.” – Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate 2012

Notes

1. Democracy Now!, October 30, 2013
2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012
3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba(1991), p.885 (online here)
4. For the complete detailed list, see U.S. Department of State, Nonproliferation Sanctions
5. U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2012, Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism,” May 20, 2013

Globalism Free Trade Immigration Connection

How is your life going under the Global Empire? If you answer honestly, for non billionaires, the response must reflect disappointment if not immense distress. Middle America stands on the precipice of oblivion. While the recent past decades have shown steep declines in financial security and net wealth, the future looks much more ominous. The link between the shift to an internationalist de-industrialization economy and open border immigration has hit the United States hard. This harsh reality is routinely denied in the financial press, but the social chaos that engulfs society is largely caused by this betrayal mindset. Corporatists are waging war against the American public.

Summing up the battle lines is the quintessential voice of an America First philosophy. Pat Buchanan on Free Trade is a collection of quotations and references that should be a must read for every displaced citizen. And that group includes virtually everyone.

“Good for global business” isn’t necessarily good for US

“Global capitalists have become acolytes of global governance. They wish to see national sovereignty diminished and sanctions abolished. Where yesterday American businesses suffered damage to their good name for selling scrap iron to Japan before Pearl Harbor, today [war materiel is routinely exported] to potentially hostile nations. Once it was true that what was good the Fortune 500 was good for America. That is no longer true, and what is good for America must take precedence.”

Source: “A Republic, Not an Empire,” p.349 , Oct 9, 1999

The most puzzling malady that penetrates the “PC” culture is a fear of confronting the direct consequences of encouraging an invasion of illegal’s into the country. The disconnect that sweeps across national borders is not isolated just to the United States. Western Europe is not only in decay but is on the verge of social and economic collapse.

Demetrios Papademetriou, PhD, Director of the Migration Policy Institute, wrote in his Sep. 2005 Migration Policy Institute essay “The Global Struggle with Illegal Migration: No End in Sight”: How Are Illegal Immigration and Globalization Related?

“For nearly two decades now, capital and the market for goods, services, and workers of many types have weaved an ever more intricate web of global economic and social interdependence… No aspect of this interdependence seems to be more visible to the public of advanced industrial societies than the movement of people. And no part of that movement is proving pricklier to manage effectively, or more difficult for publics to come to terms with, than irregular (also known as unauthorized, undocumented, or illegal) migration…”

Dr. Papademetriou’s assumption that interdependency is the new normal may be supported with the procession of the Trilateral Commission’s “New International Economic Order”. Nonetheless, the destruction of national sovereignty is a price that no country can afford to adopt, much less pay and remain a nation. Interdependency is the death knell of traditional values, autonomous commerce and individual civil liberties. With the ringing of the bell at the NY Stock exchange, the sound of prosperity goes deaf for the populist, while globalist elites extract the last pound of flesh from an intentionally designed consolidation of a Corporatocracy economy.

The fate of the world is at stake if the forces of globalization are left to complete their total domination of monetary and financial control. It is just as important to prevent the next bipartisan arrangement to grant effective amnesty to millions of illegal foreigners, who have shown little interest to assimilate or adopt the heritage and values of our founding principles.

Warren Mass wrote over a year ago in Permanent Amnesty, Temporary Border.

“An important part of regulating legal immigration, in addition to evaluating each prospective immigrant’s ability to become a productive, law-abiding citizen, is to determine how many immigrants the United States is capable of absorbing each year, taking into consideration the impact on our nation’s economy and culture.”

If this standard needs to apply to those who apply for citizenship, by what absurd twist of logic or sanity pertains to President Obama’s intentions of issuing executive orders that are clearly unconstitutional? How insulting it is to hard press citizens, relegated to enduring impoverishment from off shoring livable wage jobs, while awarding effective amnesty to illegals.

Columnist Glenn R. Jackson review of author Kenneth Buchdahl’s book, hits the mark.

“First and foremost it is good to see the recognition by Buchdahl of American culture as   critical to the building of the American Dream.  As Buchdahl writes the development of a culture is grounded in a unique American personality and intricate system of values and beliefs that is responsible for America’s enviable situation.  And it is that enviable situation that has contributed to creating the forces that are working rapidly, knowingly or not, to dismantle the American Dream.

Dismantling the American Dream chronicles the unintended impact of America’s pop culture belief in globalization as a force for good in our economy and the failure of leadership to recognize that belief gone awry.  America’s political leaders continued belief in free trade and give-away trade deals, in the face of the near deathblow of NAFTA to American manufacturing is but one of the delusions of globalization that Buchdahl lays bare.”

The interjection of cultural aspects may well be the missing link that escapes most chronicles on current events. Documenting the actual results from Free Trade Treaties, should in and of itself win the intellectual argument that economic destruction of Middle America has already happened. Add in the deliberate call for mass migration and social incentives to cross the border has created the latest flood in undocumented aliens.

When Democracy Now asks, Obama & McConnell Pledge Cooperation; Will Fast-Tracking Secretive TPP Trade Deal Top Their Agenda?, and presents Ralph Nader on TPP and the “Unstoppable” Left-Right Anti-Corporate Movement, one has hope that the Buchanan Brigades message is being heard.

With the celebrity coronation that the Democrats are showering on their new favorite daughter, the “Pocahontas Princess”, Elizabeth Warren’s Crusade Against Disastrous “Free Trade” Agreements, is welcomed.

An inquiry was made to NY Senator Charles E. Schumer on the TPA, Trade Priorities Act of 2014 (S.1900). His reply can be read on this link.

An alliance among anti-free trade factions from all ideological camps is necessary to stop the globalist juggernaut. Even if such a coalition could be grown, the likelihood that linkage to the need to stop illegal immigration and opposition to amnesty, would be frosty.

This brings up the opportunity to interject the appeal, , by Frosty Wooldridge. ““Why would any member of Congress who opposes executive amnesty provide President Obama the funds to carry it out? A Republican majority must force congressional Democrats to answer this question through their votes”.

Likewise, why would as covered in the New American essay, Republicans to Obama: We Will Give You Trade Promotion Authority, patriots want to grant “fast track” authority to a President, who is defiant to congressional constitutional separation of powers?

“Fast track authority eventually expired on April 16, 1994, and was not reauthorized by Congress until the passage of the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act (BPTAA) of 2002. BPTAA reinstated fast track authority renamed as “trade promotion authority” (TPA), which expired in 2007. In 2012, President Obama requested renewal of TPA/fast track authority to complete negotiations for the TPP and TTIP.”

The answer should be apparent that any support of “fast track” or for TPP is a vote bought with globalist control. If it is so obvious that such influence is at play in trade deals, why are so many confused activists not able to see through the “Open Border” fraud and act upon the best interests for American workers and families?

That taboo culture factor, covered in the Buchdahl book explains the blind spot from the Loony Left. A review of a pro immigration site, Open Borders will demonstrate a systemic disconnect from reality. Often Libertarian purists, also fall under the spell of a transcendental fantasy. To their credit, Open Borders presents the concept of CITIZENISM and provides the following its key features.

Citizenism places substantially greater weight on the rights and interests of citizens than non-citizens, though it operates within moral side-constraints.

Citizenism is about current citizens, not about the people who may become citizens as a result of immigration or deportation policy.

Citizenism, as conceived by its original proponent Sailer, is both about the individual ethics of voters and about the responsibilities of elected representatives.

Citizenism is about loyalty, not admiration, toward one’s fellow citizens.

If you understand the destructive nature of corporatist trade agreements that only benefit transnational conglomerates, while poisoning economic commerce for Middle Americans, why would you not oppose the lunacy of unrestrictive mass migration? The imperative moral directive is to protect and defend your own nation, its traditional culture and responsible citizens.

Saving the world is a concept that resides in the sick minds of the Save the Planet Kill Yourself mindset. If they are so devoted to a globalist utopia, the influx of trespassers must be leaving their own homeland in better shape. Just how well is life south of the border doing?

Murder Mystery: Who Really Runs The American Government?

This week I am going down to Long Beach, CA, in order to attend the world-renowned BoucherCon, a fabulous annual convention for mystery book writers and readers.  You just gotta love BoucherCon.

At last year’s convention in Albany, NY, I scored 50 free books — but still haven’t finished reading them yet.  However, it’s always reassuring to know that I’ll probably never run out of murder-mystery books to read ever again — especially since I’m about to score yet another 50 free books at this Long Beach convention.

But the biggest mystery of all these days seems to be “Who, exactly, is actually running the American government?”  Well, here’s a big clue:  “It ain’t you or me.”  The fact that we ourselves definitely do not run America was clearly demonstrated once again in this last election cycle — when a huge majority of Americans either voted against their own best self-interests or didn’t even vote at all.

Apparently we Americans can just barely manage to keep the kids dressed, the dog washed, the bathroom stocked with toilet paper, the mortgage paid, the 401K alive and our own lives up and running — let alone keep a democracy alive and well.  It’s definitely not like 1776 around here right now.

But not to worry.  I myself have already solved the mystery of who actually does run America while most Americans are all busy doing something else.

According to political analyst Peter Dale Scott, America is actually run by a select group of people that he calls the “American Deep State”.  And these guys are really bad-ass.  They even have their own internet system — and probably even their own FaceBook apps too.  And of course they also have their own bunkers, billionaire supporters, lobbyists and election fixers as well — and Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House all take orders from them.  That’s totally scary!  Makes those “October Surprise” Ebola and ISIS scares look like a walk in the park. 

So.  Why do I think that Peter Dale Scott is right?  There just has to be a shadow government here in America — because what else could possibly explain why America continuously and consistently acts so strongly against its own best interests? 

“But Jane,” you might ask, “just exactly who are these underworld shadowy cartoonish characters that you’ve just described — and exactly what are they up to?”  Well, from all my recent sleuthing around, I’ve discovered that this uber-shadow government, whoever it is composed of, obviously has a soft spot in its heart for starting wars, ruining economies, and disrupting countries, regions and even whole continents whenever they possibly can.  No American in his or her right mind would ever want to do that.

“But, Jane,” you might ask next, “how can you actually prove all this?  Sounds rather paranoid and conspiracy-theory-ish to me.”  Hey, I’m on this like Sherlock Holmes!

But even though I can’t exactly sneak into these guys’ bunkers or onto their yachts or secretly listen in on their phone conversations, I can still easily see all the footprints these hoodlums have left behind in the snow.  “Means, motive and opportunity,” as Holmes would say.  Just get out your magnifying glass and look at these clues:

Footprint # 1:  China and Korea.  Before we even knew what hit us after WWII, suddenly China had been torn up in rebellion against our corrupt man in Peking, Chaing Kai Shek.  And then the whole Korean peninsula blew up.  Was the loss of China and the destruction of Korea in the average American’s best interests?  Totally not.  So who had the motive, means and opportunity here?  You tell me.

Footprint # 2:  Vietnam.  The whole result of that “war” was to destabilize all of Southeast Asia.  Okay.  You got China, Korea and Southeast Asia destabilized now.  And did it benefit the average American to have Asia so broken and hateful against us?  It did not.  But who did it benefit?

Footprint # 3:  Mexico, Central America and South America.  Do Americans really benefit from having death squads and drug lords on the rampage down there?  What do you think?  I think not.  All we got out of this deal was a whole bunch of undocumented refugees coming up here in search of their lost treasures.  But then who does benefit?  Those shadowy guys behind the curtain who sell arms and own banks?  Yeah.

Footprint # 4:  Yugoslavia.  The American Deep State picked at Yugoslavia and picked at Yugoslavia until it too finally fell apart.  Balkanization.  How could that have possibly been good for America?  It wasn’t.  But who did benefit from its fall?  Wall Street and War Street.  Of course.

Footprint # 5:  The Middle East.  What a freaking mess!  And who made this mess?  It wasn’t the American people.  We had no dog in this fight.  But the American Deep State both did then and does now.  Libya, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Israel?  Means, motive and opportunity to make a real mess.  And, yes, Israel is a hot mess too.

Footprint # 6:  Africa.  Africa has been fried, poached and eaten whole by the American Deep State too.  From apartheid South Africa and the bloody attacks on democratic Angola to the Ebola and HIV disasters, blood diamonds, IMF loans with never-ending interest payments and rape in the Congo, Africa is now a hot mess.  And who exactly benefited from this scramble for Africa?  Not you and me — or our children or our dogs either.

Footprint # 7:  Ukraine:  You have no idea what a broken egg Ukraine has become recently as neo-Nazis kill innocent civilians right and left.  Their theme song seems to be, “Party like it’s Serbia in 1995!”  Plus a German company, Telefunken Racoms, is actually selling these Ukrainian neo-Nazis their weapons.  “Party like it’s Leningrad in 1942!” 

But have any of us average Americans actually benefited from all this world-wide chaos?  No, no, no and no.  So who did?  The American Deep State.

Footprint # 8:  America.  That’s us.  It should come as no surprise to anyone even semi-conscious right now that our economy has tanked, we’re at each others’ throats and Corporations are now People.  The propaganda machine that the Deep State now runs here would make Hitler proud!  Or happily match up with George Orwell’s prescient observation that “War is Peace.”  And this is all part of a plan to make Americans as dazed and confused as, say, Africans and the folks in the Middle East are now.  But who the freak benefits from all this?  Definitely not us. 

So then your next question should be, “How can we stop this, put an end to the American Deep State and return to being a democracy?”  How can you even try to stop a shadow?  It’s hard.  But we could start by regulating Wall Street, limiting weapons manufacturers’ profits, making sure that our election laws never let anyone anywhere for any reason contribute more than $200 to any election campaign, having fact-checkers sort out all those blatant lies in campaign broadcasts, and fiercely guarding against election violations.  Oh, and also get rid of all those Deep State bunkers, yachts and private internet rat-lines that we American taxpayers are paying for now.

Or perhaps we could just run a PowerBall lottery for every available position in Congress, on the Supreme Court and in the White House.  Surely any random lottery winner would do a better job of resisting the American Deep State than those sorry wimps that we now have kissing the DS’s booties and being their gollums.

But however we go about it, we have just got to stop the American Deep State from murdering our democracy — before it’s too late and the American dream’s corpse arrives DOA at the morgue.

PS:  See you at BoucherCon!  It would be a mystery to me why anyone would not want to attend that.

Obama Lame Duck In A NeoCon Congress

You just have to love the wit and precision of a political image. Pat Dollard’s title NY Post Destroys Obama With Brutal Cover, says it all. The arrogant despot was indeed STRIPPED! The belated question is why did it take so long? In order to answer the obvious, most political analysts’ will fall into the partisan trap of party politics. Hope and change finally was seen as dictatorial haughtiness. Most voters do not believe that they are deceived by skilled liars when they cast their ballot. Yet, that is a pattern that is uninterrupted in most elections. Only the style of administrations differs, while the establishment continues to pull the strings and policies to move the consolidation of the New World Order forward.

That Nefarious Warrior Organism is eager to accelerate the next stage of the master plan.  Under an openly NeoCon front, John McCain’s chairmanship of a Senate Armed Services Committee will get to pressure the public into believing that their national security requires vigorous interventionism. Before you think that the Democrats differ from this same post WWII strategy, it would be best to brush up on a necessary history lesson.

Obama never attempted to confront, much less reverse the foreign policy of defending an empire. At the core of American power is the use of force that threatens any regime, which will not capitulate to the dictates of the financial elites that put Obama in office. The same can be said for most of the presidencies from FDR onward. The mere attempt to buck this system got JFK killed and Reagan shot. Yet to even mention such vial thoughts earns the historiographer a place in the conspiracy hall of infamy.

The abandonment of truth is a primary requirement to be part of the system. The reverse also applies. To be a successful player in the corridors of power, the skills of deception and prevarication must be demonstrated. Obama excelled in this task. However, his usefulness is now over.

For the indoctrinated clones that only see politics through a progressive lens, dealing with defeat seems inconceivable. Conversely, the novice supporters of Republican candidates vote with the erroneous belief that the country will now get back on track. Both crowds operate in a mindset that does not work in the real world.

Winning a GOP majority in the Senate removes the crook Harry Reid and his Mafioso tactics but the added seats in the House just gives Boehner flexibility to ignore Tea Party representatives. When you hear of an atmosphere of collaboration between Obama and the new anticipated Senate leader Mitch McConnell, you should shudder.

Democracy Now provides a correct assessment on Obama & McConnell Pledge Cooperation; Will Fast-Tracking Secretive TPP Trade Deal Top Their Agenda?

“We get analysis from Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, who notes that while some analysts say GOP gains will accelerate the passage of fast-track legislation in Congress to enable an agreement on the TPP, “it is kind of hard for the Republicans to voluntarily delegate more authority to the guy they’ve been attacking as the imperial president who grabs power that’s not his.” The controversial so-called free trade deal involves 12 countries and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. Trade ministers from the 12 countries negotiating the trade deal are due to meet in Beijing ahead of the Asia-Pacific economic summit next week to continue negotiations.”

Oh if only such logic would be applied to the deal making sell out process. Here is a central point to most political arrangements. Forget about compromises, the deal boils down to serving the interests of the shady figures behind the officials. Corporatist Republicans want to continue the globalism sellout just as much as the Democrat partisans, who take the same contributions from the financial elites.

No honest observers of the nuclear fallout from the Reid run Senate can conclude that passing legislation through the conference process with the House was ever considered. Will the new GOP Senate leadership return to the 60 vote filibuster tradition? This test will determine if any optimism would return.

In a on Facebook, the always provocative Karen De Coster asks: “Why the F$%K – Does a Congress with a 10% approval rating has a 90% Re-election rate?” Reelection Rates Over the Years provides added evidence of this tragedy.

Maybe the immediate query should be why the newly elected Republican Senators would vote for a known deal maker betrayer of principles like McConnell as their leader? For a more detailed analysis of Expectations after the 2014 Elections, the Radical Reactionary essay is worthy of a read.

THE MEGALOMANICALITY OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA cites the Obama the Insane comes out with this… Delusional behavior occurs next out of a mad man.

• EXCERPT:  “The American people sent a message,’ he claimed, ‘one that they’ve sent for several elections now. They expect the people they elect to work as hard as they do. They expect us to focus on their ambitions, and not ours.”
• EXCERPT: “Our economy is outpacing most of the world. But we’ve just gotta keep at it. Much of that will take action from Congress. And I’m eager to work with the next Congress.”
• EXCERPT:  “He said he would only work with Republicans if they seek to ‘make responsible changes’ to the law. I’m going to be very receptive to hearing those ideas. Despite all the contention,” Obama claimed, “we now know that the law works.”
• EXCERPT:  “Executive orders,” he said, “will be replaced and supplanted by a bill from Congress. You send me a bill that I can sign and those executive actions go away. But what I’m not gonna do is just wait.”

For some unsolicited advice for any honorable Democrats left in their party, consider the following. Jeffrey Steinberg of Executive Intelligence Review floated this option back in October 2010, Invoke the 25th Amendment To Remove Obama. Undoubtedly the situation has worsened dramatically since then. “LaRouche demanded the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which provides for the orderly removal of a President, and his replacement by the Vice President, due to physical or mental impairment.”

The actual 25^th amendment says:

Section 4.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Barack Hussein Obama thinks he is an emperor but is actually a dysfunctional psychopath. His dictates need to be ignored and his irrelevancy demands his replacement. Since the Congress does not have the courage to impeach this unhinged traitor, the Democratic careerists need to step up, (for no better reason) than to save their own skins.

Even a two year term under Joe “wacko” Biden would be preferable to an insane sociopath with his finger on the nuclear button.

Discard any pure or noble reasons for adopting such a removal process. Bank on sheer self-interest to blame all the failures on the best fall guy since Richard Nixon. The establishment needs a cover-up to distract the public from the coming economic collapse. When a liar commander in chief no longer is believable, his clothes are STRIPPED from the throne.

Republicans must feel maximum heat NOT to save Obama. Those cowardly chicken hawks will bomb anyone on the globe to maintain the empire, but will not lift a finger to remove a modern day Emperor Justin II. Praetorian Prefect warns of a bi-partisan malady. Now it is time to act and dispatch Obama to a disgraceful internment.

Bethel Church’s “Apostle” Bill Johnson: A Comedy of Errors, Part 2

Before I report on Apostle Bill’s endeavor to involve his followers in his “grave sucking,” undertaking, I must tell you a brief story that involves an angel, a gift, and slaying a dragon.

May 2005

Wednesday night at half past 11, I was in bed reading when a white lightning bolt struck the floor and out stepped a dazzling creature with wings the length of a 747.  “Do not fear!” he said when he saw the alarmed expression on my face. “I am the angel Archibald!”  My husband was sacked out next to me with a pillow over his head so he announced in a quiet voice, “I have come with a message from the Lord of hosts.”

A flood of feathers floated around the room so I covered my nose and mouth with both hands.  But it was too late.  “Ah-choo!”

“God bless you!” said the angel.

Now I was certain that he was the Lord’s messenger.  I tapped my husband on the back and whispered, “Wake up.”  Dead to the world.  A poke in the ribs and, “Honey…you gotta see this.”

A muffled voice groaned, “Whuuut?”

“We have a visitor.”

The pillow came off his head and he sat bolt upright in bed.  Seconds later he spotted Archibald hovering in the corner.  “Holy cow!” he exclaimed.

“Cow?” said the angel, seeming a bit cross.  “Hardly!”  His eyes shifted from my stunned husband and settled on me.  In a strong clear voice he stated matter-of-factly: “The Spirit of God has bestowed upon you a new gift.  Forthwith you will become a blogger.”

He eyed me quizzically, waiting for my response.  When none was forthcoming, he said firmly, “You are to use your new gift to expose ravenous wolves that have slipped into the sheep pen under the cover of darkness.  These wolves are teaching doctrines of demons…”

I didn’t have to ask what he meant by doctrines of demons.  He had to be alluding to Word of Faith…New Apostolic Reformation…Purpose Driven…Emergent…Social Justice…New Age…New Thought and other false teaching that had made its way into churches and seminaries while our shepherds snoozed.  “I’ve tried telling people about false teaching, I said to myself, “but what I say goes in one ear and out the other.”

I heard the angel say: “There are counterfeits who call themselves new apostles and prophets.  These men and women are giving Him (he glanced up at the ceiling) a bad name. Expose them as false teachers!”  His wings ceased fluttering and he became as still as a stone.  “Are you ready to serve the King?

“Are you kidding me?”  I exclaimed in disbelief.  “First of all, I’m not gifted to write – or at least I wasn’t, until now.”  I searched for excuses.  “And…and I got a B in English by the skin of my teeth—“

The angel cut me off sharply.  “Certainly you do not think this is news to Him (he glanced up at the ceiling).”

True.  God knows all things, including my grades in college.  Perhaps He wanted to get me out of my comfort zone.  Writing a blog would definitely accomplish that.   One last try: “But…um… I’m nobody!  No one will listen to a word I say.”

“Some will listen,” Archibald assured me.  “And others will fall for lies. It is always that way with humans.”

I turned to my husband and said, “Tell him no one will take me seriously.”

My husband came out of his stupor and said in a serious tone, “God uses nobodies all the time.  But there’s a catch.  You’ve got to be willing.”  He looked me straight in the eye. “Are you?”

Am I willing, I wondered?   I needed but a moment to ponder his question.  Yes, I guess I am, I said to myself.  I’m more than willing.  Suddenly I felt as if I could go out and slay a dragon.  “OK, I’ll do it!” I glanced over at my husband.  “The two of us can do it together.”

We high-fived and he said with a grin, “We make a good team.”

I gave Archibald a thumbs up.  “We’re in.”

Poof!  The angel disappeared, feathers and all.

—–

The next morning I found a large silver feather on the floor where Archibald had appeared to us.  He had left his calling card.

Bentley’s Angels

In I covered ’s rock-star evangelist Todd Bentley and the shame he brought on the Name of our Lord and how “Super Apostles” Bill Johnson and Rick Joyner restored him to ministry despite his obvious character flaws. There were exaggerated healings and dangerous “healing” practices that included assaulting the sick with leg drops, high kicks and head punches which he claimed the Lord told him to do to people who came to him for help.  Moreover, Bentley drank excessively, committed adultery and soon thereafter left his wife and children and married the . There’s a whole lot more to report on the fraud evangelist, but space does not allow.  So – why bring him up again?  Because he says him.  It’s not uncommon for people who are into “signs and wonders” strange manifestations, and other esoteric experiences to boast of angel visitations.  Two angels who supposedly come to Bentley are and the Winds of Change.  Winds is supposedly “a high-ranking angel over all the ones assigned to healing, breakthrough and revival unto harvest.”

To the best of my knowledge Todd Bentley has never met the Angel Archibald.  But I have.  Or have I?

Do you see the problem? I made up a story and so can you.  Anyone with a vivid imagination can make up a story about angel visitations, trips to heaven, and whatnot.   But there’s no way to validate all the wild claims people make.  Sadly, NAR leaders pitch their stories to gullible sheeple who want desperately to believe that their heroes would never lie to them. This might explain why “Super Apostle” Rick Joyner’s followers hang on his every word as he looks straight into a video camera and testifies that he’s been to heaven.  During one of his many visits he claims the Lord handed him the key to eternal joy.  Watch the he made and you’ll see that I’m not making this up.  In it Apostle Rick crows that he’s had a number of encounters with , and he knows many others who’ve had Elijah encounters too!  He’s quick to point out that it’s not necromancy (communicating with the dead) because Elijah was taken up to heaven without dying.  At 9:20 minutes you’ll learn how he met Enoch.

But this is not about Rick Joyner’s spiritual gift of pulling the wool over the sheep’s eyes.  So I’ll move on.

Grave Sucking

It’s hard to imagine anything more ludicrous than “grave sucking” yet Apostle Bill endorses this macabre practice.  Grave sucking aka “mantle grabbing” occurs when the Holy Spirit draws powers from the bones of a deceased person who, while alive, was allegedly Spirit empowered.  Since God’s mission for the dead is thwarted when he dies, the Spirit passes on his powers to individuals who visit their graves.

According to Victory Ministries, Apostle Bill led a group to John Lake’s grave where the following ensued:

He was looking for Lake’s anointing to heal the sick by a supernatural power. The people seeking this new paranormal anointing prostrated themselves upon Lake’s grave weeping, worshipping and expecting that Lake’s ministry power would strike them and his spirit would infuse them with a sign and wonders ministry like he had when he was alive.  Thus, a new preternatural cult was formed that day that is now referred to as “grave sucking.”

 Mr. Johnson testified about this bazaar act of desecration and necromancy (the practice of attempting to communicate with the spirits of the dead in order to predict or influence the future) that he and his group committed on Sid Roth’s radio show, “It’s Supernatural”

Johnson spun a weird mystical/Occult experience tale to Sid Roth about meeting the Late John Lake’s angel in the building where Lake had previously ministered in his healing rooms. He testified that two ladies went to a back room and they met a giant angel there that healed one of the women. They called Johnson and when he came into the room, he claimed there was an angel about 10 feet tall. Sid asked him, did you see the angel? Johnson replied “No, but I knew he was there and the angel said to me, ‘What took you so long, I’ve been here for 80 years!’” ()

It should surprise no one that Bill Johnson claims that he had a tête-à-tête with an angel.

What does the Bible say about playing around in the spirit realm?:

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.  ()

Bethel School Of Sorcery

Apostle Bill runs the  in Redding CA.  According to its website:

(BSSM) is committed to the truth that God loves people, gave Himself for them and has given His Church supernatural power to bring individuals and nations into wholeness. The mission of BSSM is to equip and deploy revivalists who passionately pursue world-wide transformation in their God-given spheres of influence. Students are trained to continue in the ministry style of Jesus: to enjoy the presence of God, say what He is saying, and do what He is doing. (emphasis added)

Basically, BSSM trains people to heal the sick and raise the dead.  This raises the question: why do these folks not bring dead people back to life in America, Canada and western European countries?  Why only in the developing countries?  If the dearly departed are coming out of their graves in the developed countries, the media would surely report on it.

Insanity

The describes one man’s experience at Bethel Church (BC):

After a strange experience with an erratic Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry student who baby-sat his children, Bart McCurdy of Cottonwood decided to find out for himself what was going on at Bethel.

McCurdy said he attended a Friday night service at the church, during which he saw people painting on stage, dancing and flailing around on the ground. He found their worship music unconventional when one line of the same song was played for at least 11 minutes, he said.

McCurdy said the repetitive music, dancing, painting and excessive stimuli serve to get people worked up into an emotional frenzy where they’re expecting to see miraculous things.

“They come looking for that feel-good feeling, that high, for supposed miracles, supposed signs and wonders, speaking in tongues, gold dust, diamonds, feathers[floating down from the ceiling]. … It seems like they’re just ready for it,” he said.

Once, as she ran through her house frantically searching for her journals, the baby sitter told McCurdy the anti-Christ was in her house and Jesus was in hell saving people, he said. Shortly after that, she went into a trancelike state and said she felt 20 feet tall before losing consciousness…. The behavior made him believe she was demon-possessed, he said.

McCurdy said he regularly downloads podcasts of Bethel messages and hasn’t heard the Christian gospel message taught at Bethel. …

Then what gospel does Apostle Bill preach if not the taught in the Bible?  He teaches the (WoF) that saves no one.  What is the true gospel message?

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ()

See also

Despite the fact that Apostle Bill teaches a false gospel he’s hugely popular with many professing Christians.  His book sales are in the millions.  He’s become so popular that a large number of churches around the globe are affiliated with BC.  This speaks volumes as to the current state of evangelicalism.  Sadly, a growing number of believers have zero discernment, thus they accept every “wind of doctrine.”  Translation: Every sort of false teaching that blows their way.

A Challenge

Christians have been warned that , as some call it, represents a danger to millions of people around the globe, especially to (low information evangelicals) and the unsaved.  Because of self-professed apostles and prophets such as C. Peter Wagner, Rick Joyner (mentioned in part ), Bill Johnson and a , we’ve seen an unbridled abuse of the Holy Spirit.  After reading this series, I challenge you to do your own research (links below).  Before starting, pray that God will reveal truth to you.  What you’ll discover is that teaching isn’t remotely close to historic orthodox Christianity — and it certainly isn’t the Christianity for which the martyrs shed their blood!  Flee from it!

Part 1

Resources:

—Phil Johnson interviews John MacArthur

–By John Lanagan

1. –Around 54:00 minutes into the session, Wagner responds during the Q&A. He tells the audience that when the Holy Spirit stopped revealing things through the written Word, He kept on revealing new things to us through the “Rhema Word.” He claims that the Holy Spirit still speaks to us today by giving us information that you cannot find in the 66 books of the Bible; info that the Bible doesn’t address, but it’s not contradictory.

—Tony Miano, host of Cross Encounters radio, discusses, among other things, the music of BC’s music team Jesus Culture (more below). Listen to Tony tell of his Twitter chat with Beni Johnson, Bill’s pastorette wife.

…scroll down—Apologetics Index

—On Solid Rock resources

–On Solid Rock Resources

Bethel Church’s Music & Entertainment:

—Ken Silva

—Amy Spreeman

Watch And Weep:

—My Word Like Fire

Helpful Scripture:

,

,

,

Will Seif al Islam Lead the Expulsion of the ISIS Affiliate, Al Fajr Libya?

Time will tell…

With the Abu Baker al-Siddiq Brigade, Zintan, Libya…

A second interview by this observer with Seif al Islam Gadhafi, formerly the heir apparent to his father Moammar, was sought and finally arranged as a follow up to an earlier one focusing of my interest in the Imam Musa Sadr case. That case involves a great crime against a great man and conciliator and his historic cause, and exposes those who betrayed him in Lebanon and two other countries while swearing their personal devotion and shedding crocodile tears over the past 36 years. That research is nearing completion and publication awaits DNA results from body samples more credible than the ones offered by the Bosnia laboratory two years ago and immediately demonstrated to be fraudulent. The story of why that particular lab was chosen and by who goes to the essence of the current stonewalling campaign with respect to informing the public about what exactly happened to Imam Sadr and his partners on 8/3l/1978 in Tripoli, Libya. It also identifies who instructed Gadhafi to kill them over the strong objections from the PLO’s Yassir Arafat who spoke with Gadhafi and tried to save the trio of Lebanese Shia.

But our discussion soon turned to other subject as Seif’s jailers may have taken seriously my joke that if they extended the original 20 minutes I was granted to two hours, I would deliver to them 10 US Visas and they could fill in any names the might choose. Truth told, of course I could not even get myself a passport renewal as former US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman reportedly sneered at a US Embassy Christmas party a few years back, “Lamb will serve ten years hard time in the Feds for hobnobbing with terrorists (Hezbollah in those days…who knows today?) when we get him back home.” I admit that Jeff and I both have a problem with Hezbollah. His is because Hezbollah just may liberate Palestine and mine is that Hezbollah needs to do more in Lebanon and use 90 minutes of Parliament’s time, where it has the power, to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the right to work and to own a home.

Meanwhile, Da’ish (IS) is metastasizing fast in Libya through its main affiliate al Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) and plans to add Tripoli, to its Islamic Caliphate along with Baghdad, Damascus, Amman and Beirut during the coming months and if necessary, years. This, according to Seif al Islam and representatives of the Zintan brigades based southwest of Tripoli as well as two representatives of other tribes and militia moving toward supporting the still vital Gadhafi regime remnants.

Libya may be the lowest hanging ripe fruit within easy reach of Da’ish (IS) and its growing number of affiliates, according to US Ambassador Deborah Jones during a recent visit to the US Embassy in Malta, to discuss her own problems in Libya which include the 8/31/14 take-over by al Fajr Libya (FL) of the US embassy compound barely a month after it was evacuated and moved to Tunisia for the second time since February of 2011. Secretary of State John Kerry reassured the media in Washington recently that “the embassy was not really closed, but had moved out of Libya”. One Religion Professor at Tripoli University joked last week that “Kerry is correct, the US embassy is here but it’s in a state of occultation. We can’t see it but it’s around and watches us.” A Libyan photographer who was at the embassy compound when Al Fajr Libya (FL) arrived reported that the Da’ish (IS) affiliate had moved into buildings inside the embassy complex claiming that they would ‘protect it’ as they carted off boxes of documents for ‘safe keeping.’ FL is described by a former Dean at Tripoli U. as between al Nusra and Da’ish (IS) with a fragile partnership between the two and presenting to the public “A Good cop-Bad cop tag-team with differences to be worked out once all the infidels are vanquished.

Libya, as with the Arab Maghreb, is on the cusp of a new wave of Islamist groups, and is moving beyond al-Qaeda of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Abdelmalek Droukdel, to Baghdadi’s ISIS and its widely perceived logical offshoot ISIM being planted in North Africa and the Sahel. The threat of the Da’ish (Islamic State is already deeply anchored and expanding in the now lawless Libya, according to UN envoy Bernardino León. Several Libyan organizations recently announced their loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. This has confirmed a speculation that IS has penetrated Libyan public institutions. The Ansar al-Sharia group, affiliated with ISIS, has declared authority during the last several days over the coastal city of Darna which is located strategically between Benghazi and the Egyptian border – just 289 km (179 miles) and 333 km (206 miles), respectively.

Countless militia are forming, merging, changing names and lying low as perceived interests dictate. Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria was retitled, revitalized and repackaged to enhance its appeal on social media as has the Furqan Brigade of the AQIM in Tunisia. Ansar Al-Sharia is another one becoming very active.The Uqba bin Nafi Brigade, has just declared allegiance to ISIS as has the Islamic Caliphate in the Islamic Maghreb. al-Ummah Brigade, which operates out of Libyan coasts and airports, another is Al-Battar is attracting pro-ISIS elements. Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam (the Islamic Youth Shura Council), or MSSI. According to Libyan sources and journalist Adam al-Sabiri, writing in Al Akbar, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi asked these elements to deploy to the Libyan front to counter the attacks by the Libyan army led by Khalifa Haftar as part of Operation Dignity seeking to “purge Libya of terrorists.”

Libyan friends, some from three years ago, advise that more people have been killed in the past three years than during the 2011 revolution and they now fear a Somalia-like “failed state” given all the weapons, lawlessness, and growing number of Islamists. The South of Libya has not been spared the lawlessness, as tribal battles continue for control of a lucrative smuggling trade. Friends point out that the country no longer even bothers to celebrate the National Holiday commemorating the 10/23/2011 “total liberation of Libya.” “It’s a cruel joke” my friend Hinde advised as she explains that many Libyans yearn for the stability of the Gadhafi days. “Maybe wanting to turn the clock back is the same in Iraq and Egypt and Syria?” she wondered.

“The rampant regional, ideological and tribal conflicts are worse than the rule of the dictator,” said Salah Mahmud al-Akuri, a doctor in Benghazi. “Some Libyans are looking back to the old regime.”

Amidst all the chaos, Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni claimed last week that groups loyal to the IS, such as al Fajr Libya, are presently in control of the city of Derna and other Libyan towns and have begun summoning townspeople to public squares to witness declarations of fealty to Da’ish (IS), even beginning their signature public executions. Libya’s “government” claims that its “army” is preparing to expel Fajr Libya (FL) and retake the capital, as more militia rush to join FL. Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani’s said in a statement this week that he gave orders to the government forces to “advance toward Tripoli to liberate it and to free it from the grip of al Fajr Libya”. The Libyan embassy in Washington told a House Foreign Affairs committee staffer that they expect that residents in Tripoli will launch “a civil disobedience campaign until the arrival of the army.” Walking around the former “Green Square” this observer saw no signs of this rather he observed citizens stocking up on necessities or packing their cars. Later, Thani added, military forces in the strife-torn country “have absolutely united to also recapture Libya’s second city Benghazi from the local IS affiliate, al Fajr Liyba (FL). Leading one to wonder whether the Libyan “army” will fare better than Maliki’s did in Mosul and Anbar.

According to students and staff at Tripoli University, (known as Fatah University during the Gadhafi decades) a few of whom this observer first met in the summer of 2011, and who lived the political events in their country since while some of their friends and relatives, as in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, are preparing to leave and start a new life somewhere. Hasan, a Gadhafi supporter I was with nearly daily three years ago in Tripoli still curses what, “NATO did this to our country. The Gadhafi regime was changing as you know Franklin, but the reformers were prevented from making the changes that Seif al Islam and his associates got their father to agree to. Remember when Saif said “My father wants to live in a tent where he is most happy and write a history of the Jamahiriya (land of the masses). He will offer advice but have just a ceremonial role out of politics? You remember that? We believed Seif didn’t we?. Anyhow, khalas!, Libya is finished! NATO gave it to Da’ish just as they gave Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to Iran.”

Libya is now moving beyond al-Qaeda of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Abdelmalek Droukdel, to Baghdadi’s ISIS and its widely perceived logical offshoot Islamic State in the Islamic Maghreb (ISIM-Damis) now expanding in North Africa and the Sahel. Former rebels who fought against Gadhafi have formed powerful militias and seized control of large parts of Libya in the past three years. Back in mid-august of 2011, the late American journalist Marie Colvin and I stood on the balcony of the Corinthia Hotel opposites the still empty Marriott where some kid was practicing sniping from the roof, at my expense, as I pointed out to Marie a body floating just off the beach of the Mediterranean across the road. We walked over and examined it and decided while it was dressed in religious garb the man may have been an army deserter; there were increasing numbers in those days, because of his military style boots. We alerted some militia guys driving along the corniche who said they would report the body and before long an ambulance did arrive. Two of the militia waded out waist deep and pulled in the bloated body to shore, unlaced his tan leather boots while holding their noses from the stench. They then threw the new boots in the back of their pick-up and drove off with no more than a smiling ‘shukran habibis’ (thanks dears). Later that day Marie and I counted a column of 143 pickups with AK-47 jubilant fist waving rebels entering along the coastal road toward downtown Tripoli having come from battles in the east around Misrata. In the next few days we discussed how there seemed to be countless ‘free-cigarettes, $200 on the first of each month and your personal Kalasnikov’ militia popping up like mushrooms after a summer rain. Three years ago one of their battle cries was “Death to Gadafi—Yes to Freedom!” Today one hears around Tripoli another slogan from the lips of young men many of whom may be the same, chanting, “Death to the kafirs (disbelievers,” or infidels) Yes to Islam!Abas (that’s all!”

Seif el Islam still resides at his cell in Zintan which, even though jail is jail, has been upgraded from when he was captured in the Sahara making his way toward Niger and his finger was cut off as a warning.

Seif, has proposed talks and is ready to participate in bringing together Libya’s warring parties and aiding the transition to what he claims he was working on before the February 17, 2011 uprising in Benzhazi which quickly spread. Seif’s team would likely include his father’s cousin and confident Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam, former Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kane, long-time Libyan diplomat, the widely respected Omar el Hamdi now is Cairo, and Seif’s sister Aisha, now living with his mother and children in the Gulf.

Seif has no illusions of returning Libya to the past, but argues that elements of the former regime deserved to be heard. “We were in the process of making broad reforms and my father gave me the responsibly to see them through. Unfortunately the revolt happened and both sides made mistakes that are now allowing extreme Islamist group like Da’ish to pick up the pieces and turn Libya into an extreme fundamentalist entity in their regional plans.”

With respect to Seifs trials, whether ins the Tripoli courthouse or at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the odds of either happening anytime soon, ior at all, are fading as negotiations for an arrangement are reportedly progressing.

A solution is being sought, according to sources at the Justice Ministry in Tripoli because there are many problems with Seifs case which was supposed to begin earlier this year, and the case has been criticized by a number of international actors. Not least for which how Libya and the ICC have handled their cases. For example, Human Rights Watch has accused the Libyan government of failing to provide adequate legal representation and the ICC it has been unable to compel the Libyan government to allow it access — just one of many challenges to the ICC’s legitimacy in recent years. Meanwhile it is likely that Seif’s jailers, who increasing respects and admires him, may have other ideas that would enhance their own standing in Libya. In addition, certain NATO countries are said to be privately discussing with Washington, Paris London and Bonn the idea of finding a role for Seif and certain of his associates and family members in “the new Libya.”

According to Seif, and former regime officials, several NATO countries have sent messages claiming they did not intend for his father to be killed but were searching during the summer of 2011 for a refuge for his father in Africa. Seif does not believe them.

Seif al Islam still has substantial influence among tribes still loyal to Gaddafi as well as former regime officials in the army and government. The delegation Seif could assemble, including Ahmad Gadaff al-Dam, would benefit from the latter’s still strong connections with Arab governments, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well as some European countries.

More on this and other subjects related to Seif and the growing international recognition over the need for expulsion of Islamists from Libya, and a possible significant role for Seif, are expected to be discussed publicly soon.

“The Spirit of Party”

When I started my radio talk show back in 1994–and for the next six years hosting the show–I was considered a hero by conservatives everywhere. Between my leadership position with the Moral Majority back in the 1980s and my radio talk show in the 1990s, I walked shoulder-to-shoulder with practically every notable conservative leader, including Christian leaders, one could think of. I traveled the country speaking with, and for, the most visible conservative leaders in America. I became friends with a host of U.S. congressmen and senators, not to mention several State governors. I even sat at the “king’s table” with President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush. I was one of the “darlings” of conservatism. Just about anybody who was anybody was a guest on my show.

I only mention all of that so readers can understand my background–along with the “rest of the story” that brought me to where I am today.

Back in those days, I fell right in lock-step with the left-right paradigm: Republicans were good; Democrats were bad. And even if the Republican was downright bad, he wasn’t as bad as the Democrat. That doctrine was sacrosanct and unassailable. And I believed that malarkey as much as anyone.

I started smelling a rat in 1996 when the GOP anointed Bob Dole as the next “conservative” Republican who was going to lead us to the Promised Land. I knew Dole well enough: he was anything but a conservative. In fact, he joined the likes of Richard Nixon and now John Boehner who say that they have never read the Republican Party platform. Boehner has gone so far as to say that he doesn’t know anybody who has read it. He probably told the truth there. The vast majority of Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., have not read it, don’t care what it says, and give no heed to it. I knew in my heart that Bob Dole would be a horrible President, and that he would NOT give a hoot in hades about obeying the Constitution. Plus, I had developed a great respect for and friendship with Pat Buchanan, who was an ardent conservative constitutionalist. So, I was supporting Pat’s presidential candidacy.

There is so much I would love to tell you about the rest of that primary, but let me fast forward to the end of the season. Toward the end of that 1996 GOP primary season, the congressman that my radio talk show was largely responsible for helping get elected, Joe Scarborough, came to me and pleaded, saying, “Chuck, I’m the only Republican congressman to not have already endorsed Dole. I’ve held out for as long as I can. Pat can’t win the nomination. It’s over. Dole will be the candidate. We have to rally behind Dole in order to beat Bill Clinton. You have to help me.”

I caved. For the sake of “party unity” and “defeating Bill Clinton,” I totally capitulated. Remember the sacred doctrine: Republicans are always good guys, and Democrats are always bad guys. And if even if the Republican is a bad guy he is not as bad as the Democrat.

So, there I was, standing next to Senator Bob Dole and Congressman Joe Scarborough at a press conference at the General Aviation office at the Pensacola, Florida, regional airport publicly endorsing the Republican Bob Dole for President of the United States. Albeit, I was still wearing my Pat Buchanan lapel pin. My defiance wasn’t dead, only crippled.

As I walked to my car after the press conference, I felt sick. I mean, totally and thoroughly sick. I had betrayed my convictions and my conscience, and I knew it. I vowed then and there that I would never again support a candidate—any candidate, no matter what his or her party label–for any public office that I did not believe in my heart would at least be faithful to the essential principles of liberty upon which our country was built.

For the next four years I marched forward with my radio talk show extolling the principles of liberty as loudly as I knew how. Mind you, the bitter taste of my compromise stayed in my mouth. It never went away. Still hasn’t. In addition, the next four years afforded me great opportunity to awaken to a host of truths, including the truth that both major parties in Washington, D.C., were actually not all that different. I came to realize that what Pat Buchanan had said was really true: “There are not two political parties in Washington, D.C., just two wings of the same bird of prey.”

One of the highlights of that awakening came when I interviewed David Schippers, who was the lead counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings. He told me that as he pleaded with Republican leaders in the Senate (Trent Lott, Ted Stevens, etc.) to look at the evidence that his legal team had gathered, one of the “good guy” Republican senators said, “David, we don’t care if you have a video tape of the President raping a woman, then standing up and shooting her dead, we are not going to vote to remove this President from office.”

Schippers, a lifelong Democrat, was absolutely stunned. You can imagine. Schippers was a tough, no-nonsense, right-is-right, law-and-order kind of guy. He was the guy who took on the Chicago mafia–and won. He was an honest Democrat who was willing to unveil the criminality of a corrupt Democrat. Now he was watching a group of Republican senators in Washington, D.C., make the mafia look like good guys.

Schippers wrote a book of the whole sordid ordeal called, “Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton’s Impeachment.” It was published by Regnery Publishing. If you’ve never read it, you should do so immediately. The real story will shock you. And you will discover that, no, the Republicans are NOT always good guys–or even the “lesser of two evils.”

Enter the 2000 presidential elections. By now, my eyes were much wider open than they had been four years ago. But when G.W. Bush first ran for President, he said all of the right things. He said he was pro-life, pro-Constitution, pro-liberty, pro-less government, pro-Bill of Rights, etc. So in 2000, I supported G.W.

I’m still doing my radio talk show (and by now I was writing this column); I’m still a conservative hero; I’m still basking in the “success” of being a conservative Republican “darling.”

But that’s when the fun started! It didn’t take very long to realize that G.W. Bush was as phony as a three dollar bill. He was no “conservative.” He was not pro-liberty, pro-Bill of Rights or anything of the kind. G.W. Bush was Bill Clinton on steroids! Bill Clinton tried to pass what became known as the USA Patriot Act, but couldn’t get it done. Bush passed it with ease. He signed the Military Commissions Act into law; he gave America an unconstitutional national police force known as the Department of Homeland Security. Bill Clinton never attempted and could never have accomplished such things. G.W. Bush introduced the “preemptive war” doctrine to America. He invaded nations that had absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11. He signed a law authorizing U.S. federal agents–or even military troops–to seize American citizens on U.S. soil and incarcerate them indefinitely without a subpoena or court order of any kind, without habeas corpus, without legal counsel, or any other requirement of justice guaranteed in our Bill of Rights. In truth, everything that Barack Obama is using today to abuse the power of the presidency, he borrowed from G.W. Bush.

So, by 2002 and 2003, and with the bitter taste of Bob Dole still gagging me, I made a decision: I will no longer protect and support Republicans for the sake of “party unity” or for the sake of “he’s not as bad as the Democrat.” No! In truth, it dawned on me that many times Republicans were WORSE than Democrats. From now on I was going to be faithful to my convictions and to the truth as I understood it.

Many of these “pragmatic political scientists” view politics as nothing more than mathematical formulas, test tube experiments, and lab rats. They will support and endorse any formula, no matter how evil the immediate process might be, in order to obtain their supposed “greater good” objective. They recognize absolutely nothing moral or immoral as it relates to politics. It is just “science.” Nothing is right; nothing is wrong; it’s all about putting in the right formulas in order to obtain some lofty, utopian, long-term objective.

In theological terms, the above is called “moral relativism.” In philosophical terms, it is called, “the end justifies the means.” In military terms, it is called, “might makes right.” In business terms, it is called, “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.” And it’s all a bunch of horse manure!

Republican shills will accept practically any evil committed by Republicans under the rubric of the “lesser of two evils” mantra. Democrat apologists will do the same for their fellow Democrats. In truth, party loyalists from both the Republican and Democrat parties in Washington, D.C., are giving America the royal SHAFT.

Our first and greatest president, George Washington, tried to warn us about this danger in his masterful “Farewell Address.” Washington said that the “spirit of party” (meaning, the preoccupation with, and loyalty to, political parties) was our “worst enemy.”  He said it was “sharpened by the spirit of revenge,” and that it “perpetuated the most horrid enormities.” He said that the “spirit of party” led to “a more formal and permanent despotism.” He said the leaders of political parties would be elevated “on the ruins of public liberty.” He said it is “the interest and duty of wise people to discourage and restrain it.”

Washington went on to say that the “spirit of party” “agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms.” He said it “opens the door to foreign influence and corruption.” He said the “force of public opinion” must always “mitigate and assuage it.” Then, Washington ended this section of the address saying, “A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.”

Every warning George Washington gave us concerning the “spirit of party” has come true in modern America. Party hacks place more loyalty to doing what is good for their party than doing what is good for their country. In many respects, their preoccupation with party partisanship has become their own worst enemy, just as Washington warned. These party shills constantly demonstrate the “spirit of revenge.” In the name of fighting FUTURE despotism, party hacks constantly surrender to an IMMEDIATE and “more formal and permanent despotism.” Party members are “elevated [elected] on the ruins of public liberty.” Party shills are constantly agitating “the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms [especially about how bad the other party’s candidate is].” Party shills stand back and say nothing when their party opens the door to “foreign influence and corruption.” Again, to them, party is more important than country.

The fascination with “political science” demonstrated by party hacks reveals a complete lack of moral conscience. Remember, to party hacks, nothing is right or wrong, only better or worse. Their mantra is, “Our party is better; their party is worse.” And virtually every moral and constitutional malfeasance committed by the favored party member is justified under this mantra.

Thus, Bill Clinton’s repeated perjuries could take the Office of The President of The United States to the brink of disgrace and ruin and, yet, he could still be thought a hero by Democrats. And G.W. Bush’s unconstitutional wars and assaults against the Bill of Rights could take the American people to the brink of totalitarian government and, yet, he could still be thought a hero by Republicans.

Needless to say, when I started telling the truth about G.W. Bush on my radio talk show (just as I had done when Clinton was in office), the “darling” luster quickly vanished. Suddenly, where I was once a hero, now I was a villain. Where I was once a man with great conviction and honor, now I was considered extremist–or even evil. But I was standing for the exact same principles and ideals I had always stood for. But because I was no longer loyal to the “spirit of party,” I became a political outcast. George Washington was exactly right!

As most readers know, I went on to run for President of the United States after Ron Paul was defeated in the Republican primaries in 2008. There was no way in hades I was going to pull another Bob Dole poison pill out of the GOP Big Pharma pill box and vote for the Neocon John McCain. So, when hundreds of Pat Buchanan/Ron Paul conservatives asked me to help keep the voice of constitutional government alive in the 2008 presidential campaign by seeking the presidential nomination of the Constitution Party, I did just that. And as far as I know, I am the only candidate for President that Ron Paul publicly endorsed since Ronald Reagan.

And, no, I didn’t vote for the Neocon Mitt Romney in 2012. And I won’t vote for any Neocon candidate in 2014. And should the GOP nominate another Neocon for President in 2016, I won’t vote for him either.

The liberties of the American people protected in the Bill of Rights are not test tube rats to be scientifically dissected and analyzed by party hacks, who love to call themselves political scientists. Our liberties and freedoms are not subject to the pragmatic “lesser evil” agendas of party shills–be they Democrats or Republicans.

We have been trading Democrats for Republicans and vice versa for as long as any of us can remember. And where has it gotten us? I realize that compromise is necessary in many aspects of politics–but NOT when it comes to the fundamental tenets of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Compromise of those fundamental tenets is not compromise at all; it is appeasement and the worst kind of surrender. And to support those who commit such crimes in the name of party partisanship is the worst kind of patriotism.

Here is the problem. The political scientists and hacks among us do NOT recognize in any way, shape, manner or form, the SPIRITUAL warfare that we face. They do not recognize the spirit of darkness that governs in high places. They cannot recognize nor comprehend that the Evil One can just as easily accomplish his devilish purposes through a Republican office-holder as he can through a Democrat office-holder. Even many professing Christians seem to suffer from this myopia. It seems lost to them that there could be very powerful people who are masters at manipulating “conservative Republicans” and “liberal Democrats” alike for their own wicked and evil purposes. Well, there are; and they do. To single out one party as inherently “worse” and another party as inheritably “better” is the height of naiveté.

In fact, in many ways an “in the dark” Republican is MORE DANGEROUS than an “in the dark” Democrat, because the Republican is operating under the ruse of “light.” An enemy who wears the uniform of a friend is more dangerous than an enemy who wears the uniform of an enemy. That’s why G.W. Bush got away with a whole lot more than Bill Clinton did. And that’s why Mitt Romney would have gotten away with a whole lot more than Barack Obama has. And that’s why your local Neocon Republican congressional or senatorial candidate will get away with a whole lot more than your local Democrat candidate.

I made my decision as I walked away from a press conference with Bob Dole back in 1996. Somehow, in that short walk from the press room to my car, I came to agree with George Washington; and I traded the “spirit of party” for the “Spirit of ’76.” And I’ve never looked back.

Bethel Church’s “Apostle” Bill Johnson: A Comedy of Errors, Part 1

Bill Johnson is no stranger to controversy.  For one thing, he claims to be an apostle, as in the unique position held by the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.  He was given this high honor by C. Peter Wagner who holds many titles himself, including president of Global Harvest Ministries, chancellor of Wagner Leadership Institute, convening apostle of theNew Apostolic Roundtable, and my personal favorite: presiding apostle of (ICA).  So for the purpose of this article I’ll dub him Presiding Apostle Peter or PA Peter for short.   What’s important to know about him is that he’s sort of like the pope of the “new apostolic-prophetic movement.”

Following is ICA’s definition of modern day apostle:

An apostle is a Christian leader gifted, taught, commissioned, and sent by God with the authority to establish the foundational government of the church within an assigned sphere of ministry by hearing what the Spirit is saying to the churches and by setting things in order accordingly for the growth and maturity of the church.

What role do the so-called apostles play?  There are a couple of tasks, says PA Peter.  First, apostles are to “set things in order” and “they’re to assure that the body of Christ is operating on the basis of sound, biblical doctrine.”

Sound biblical doctrine my Aunt Fanny!

PA Peter and his self-proclaimed apostles and prophets are out-and-out false teachers!  These men and women (yes, there are women apostles) are well aware that accusations of heresy have been leveled against them by a large number of highly regarded orthodox Bible scholars and still they continue the pretense.

In this two part series you’ll discover the many twists and turns the new apostolic-prophetic movement has taken over the years and why those of us who are in an online discernment ministry believe it is a clear and present danger to the Body of Christ, thus we will continue warning the brethren.  ()

Now, keep in mind that the men and women involved in this heretical movement are sincere in their belief that they’re in the same league as the Old Testament prophets and the Lord’s hand-picked disciples who later became the Twelve Apostles.  The leaders have convinced their followers that the office of apostleship is not reserved for a select few, as the Bible teaches.  Moreover, they’ve led people to believe that Christ is once again choosing apostles and prophets to preside over His Church.  Listen to ’ dire warning:

Those claiming the office of apostle seek authority equal to, or at least rivaling, the authority of the original twelve apostles. There is absolutely no biblical evidence to support such an understanding of the role of apostle today. This would fit with the New Testament’s warning against false apostles ().

So – if it’s true that Christ is giving authority to a select few apostles and prophets why, pray tell, would our Lord give it to individuals who possess questionable character?  I’ll have more on this in a moment.

Suffice it to say C. Peter Wagner and Bill Johnson believe that the Lord has given them the authority to rule over the Church.  So – if it’s also true that the so-called apostles arecalled by Christ to form a government to control the Church and that they will hold Church leaders accountable then who, pray tell, is going to hold them accountable?

Itching Ears

Without getting too far afield, since the new apostolic-prophetic movement’s inception it has been referred to in a number of different ways, i.e. …Latter Rain……Manifest[ed] Sons of God…Kingdom Now…Charismatic Renewal…Positive Confession and a few others.  Its current handle, (NAR), was coined by Presiding Apostle Peter in the 1990s.  He “reinvigorated the Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God false prophecies about a great endtime revival accompanied by signs and wonders.”  As I said, NAR leaders teach that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance – and they are His chosen ones to bring it to fruition!

Do not be surprised:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,;and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths

In Paul’s final warning to the Church he never suggested that they embrace new movements.  On the contrary, he warned that they would not listen to the truth.  Commentator clarifies:

Having itching ears; for their ears itch, and they must have those that will scratch them. The disease of lust in their souls brings forth an itch in their ears, that they will have a mind to hear only such as will by scratching please them.

Shall they heap to themselves teachers, will be finding out teachers, not according to God’s, but to their own hearts; and there will be plenty of them to be found, they shall heap them up, choosing them without any judgment, regarding nothing but whether they will not be smart upon their lusts. (emphasis in original)

Paul’s message throughout his entire letter was that the church must “follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me” (1:13); “guard the good deposit entrusted to you (1:14); “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2:2).

Unity Over Doctrine

Now to Bill Johnson, head pastor of Bethel Church (BC).  BC’s leadership holds to the theology of the (WoF) movement.  WoF doctrine teaches the occult belief that:

He [God] framed the world with His words. You can’t build without substance. He took words — faith-Filled words were God’s substance. Here, essentially, is what God did. God filled His words with faith. He used His words as containers to hold His faith and contain that spiritual force and transport it out there into the vast darkness by saying ‘Light be!’ That’s the way God transported His faith causing creation and transformation. ()

One word: unscriptural!

BC also has its roots in the early1980s movement dubbed by C. Peter Wagner the (TW).

Following is an excerpt from Apologetics Index.  What they’ve laid out here should help prevent people from getting drawn into TW:

[D]istinctives of the Third Wave movement include — but are not limited to — the following:

• The baptism with the Holy Spirit is identified with conversion. This is unlike other Pentecostal movements, in which the baptism with the Spirit is either a separate and/or a recurring experience.
• the belief that the spiritual gifts are valid for today; that Christians can ask for, receive and learn how to use these spiritual gifts (and become better at using them with practice.
• the belief that the primary use of the is for ministry in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit – both to bless and heal those inside the church and to minister to those outside the church (“.”). This ministry includes , , , etcetera.
• active promotion of unity — sometimes at any cost (e.g. the ‘s acceptance of certain Word-Faith teachers. “ over “
• the belief that people, Christians included, can be possessed (or ‘demonized’ — or ‘oppressed,’ something seen as a lesser form of possession) by evil spirits with or without their consent
• the belief that objects or places can project evil influence and act as conduits for demonic oppression
• the belief that traumatic events, either in our lives or in our ancestral past, can make us particularly vulnerable to demonic influence, possession or oppression
• the belief that some Christians — using appropriate spiritual gifts — can identify and cast out demonic spirits
• a general acceptance of theology, which has led to the practice of so-called ‘‘ or SLSW — an unbiblical concept in which Christians identify (through ‘‘) and then target (with SLSW) ‘.’ (all links are AI’s)  ()

WoF and TW leaders are false teachers.  (You’ll find the names of these as well as many other false teachers on my .)   Over the years self-proclaimed apostles and prophets have managed to coax undiscerning individuals to involve themselves in some of the strangest physical manifestations imaginable.  Those who participate in church services where “signs and wonders” take place like to blame their crude behavior on the Holy Spirit.  Now, try to imagine giants of the faith such as John, Peter, James or even Paul “,” crawling on all fours barking like a dog, clucking like a chicken, jerking and twitching, rolling on the floor, themselves into a convulsive state.  People involved in NAR have done these things in the past and continue them to this day.  When I think about it, it really wouldn’t surprise me to witness Apostle Bill on all fours, nose in the air, howling like a wolf.  But I digress.

Two Super Apostles Restore A Fraud

During the alleged Lakeland Outpouring aka Lakeland Revival in Florida, a story hit the news that put NAR evangelist Todd Bentley in a bad light.  It was revealed that that the rock-star evangelist was in an adulterous relationship with a female intern – and suddenly all hell broke loose.  In my column “” I scrutinized the NAR’s leaders and pointed out that Apostle Bill,

calls those who exposed Todd Bentley as a false prophet “sharks.” He also says:

“I’ll never blame the opponents [sharks] of this outpouring for Todd’s choices [sin].  However, it had a greater effect on the outcome than any of his critics will likely own up to in this lifetime. History proves this.”

(More on the Bentley brouhaha , and .)

Apostle Bill and fellow apostate – oops! — apostle-prophet decided to involve themselves in Bentley’s “.”  Just so you know, Rick Joyner’s the founder and Executive Director of MorningStar Publications and Ministries and is a big promoter of the “new breed” of apostles and prophets.

Both Bill Johnson and Rick Joyner, who are seasoned apostle-prophets, claim to hold the title “Super-Apostle” and/or “Super-Prophet” which is comparable to holding the high office of cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church.  Chew on that for a moment.  As an aside I should mention that some “” have been accused of using cultic mind control techniques on those they prey upon.

Listen to Apostle Rick pontificate about how he sees himself:

Even though I have not been able to go to journalism school, or even Bible school, in many ways I would not trade my education for anyone’s. Like Paul, I can say that what I received I did not receive from men.

I mean, really, are we supposed to believe him?  And why would we?

Now, back to Bentley.  Bringing this man under submission took place following his divorce and after he married the woman, who, by the way, wasn’t the only woman he had an extra marital affair with.  Apostle Bill was well aware that the fraud-evangelist had had a .  Both “Super-Apostles” knew that he was drunk during his Lakeland stage act yet they chose to return him to ministry.  But, then, no one has ever accused NAR leaders of doing much of anything by .

Todd Bentley is no more qualified for ministry than is disgraced televangelist/prosperity preacher , who was incarcerated for fleecing the flock (fraud).  After his release from prison, what did Bakker do?  Still craving attention, he returned to .

So – how should churches handle a person in a leadership role when he/she brings shame on the Name of our Lord Jesus?  I’ve already addressed this topic in my column entitled   In a nutshell the biblical way to handle it is for the church hierarchy to apply an appropriate level of discipline necessary to bring the person to true repentance.  Church leaders who have a “moral failing” must publically repent of his/her sin against God.  They then must seek spiritual guidance and accountability and move out of the limelight altogether.  Once the person’s restored, he/she’s most often encouraged to serve the Lord behind the scenes.  Sadly, this hasn’t been the case with Todd Bentley.  And the reason for this is that the self-appointed Super Apostles Bill and Rick found it in their hearts—not in the Bible—to reinstate the man to public ministry.

I’ll close part 1 with a plea from a genuine apostle:

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. ()

Part 2 coming up!

Resources:

—Phil Johnson interviews John MacArthur

–By John Lanagan

1. –Around 54:00 into the session, Wagner responds to a question during the Q&A. He tells the audience that when the Holy Spirit stopped revealing things through the written Word, He kept on revealing new things to us through the “Rhema Word.” He claims that the Holy Spirit still speaks to us today by giving us information that you cannot find in the 66 books of the Bible, info that the Bible doesn’t address, but it’s not contradictory.

—Tony Miano, host of Cross Encounters radio, discusses, among other things, the music of BC’s music team Jesus Culture (more below). Listen to Tony tell of his Twitter chat with Beni Johnson, Bill’s pastorette wife.

…scroll down—Apologetics Index

–On Solid Rock Resources

Bethel Church’s Music & Entertainment:

—Ken Silva

—Amy Spreeman

Watch And Weep:

—My Word Like Fire

Next Page »