Piers Morgan Takes Aim At The Bible

You’ve got to hand it to bloviating Brit Piers Morgan. While he got most of the facts wrong in his recent targeting of the Second Amendment, it hasn’t stopped him from moving on to even more formidable targets.

Such as the Bible.

He says the book is “inherently flawed” — and needs to be amended.

Piers handed down his decree while interviewing SaddlebackChurch pastor Rick Warren on the December 24^th “Piers Morgan Tonight.” Yes, on Christmas Eve. When other hosts might be discussing love, brotherhood, salvation, and all things ethereal, Captain Morgan was giving us the world according to Piers. And how would he improve the Good Book? Said he, “Both the Bible and the Constitution were well intentioned, but they are basically, inherently flawed. Hence the need to amend it. My point to you [Warren] about gay rights, for example; it’s time for an amendment to the Bible.”

Well, Piers, we’re so blessed to have you to correct both America’s founding document and the most influential book in history. We had to suffer more than 200 years with one and more than 2000 with the other, but the right god-man has finally come along. Oh, and when you’re done with that, old boy, can you contact the Genome Project and rewrite the human genetic code for us? We’re flawed, too.

To Warren’s credit, he politely but firmly disagreed, responding to the amendment call by saying:

What I believe is flawed is human opinion because it constantly changes. […]What was hot is now not. […]My definition of Truth is: if it’s new, it’s not true. If it was true a thousand years ago, it’ll be true a thousand years from today; opinion changes, but Truth doesn’t.

To this Morgan quite predictably responded, “We’re going to agree to disagree on that.”

Warren then noted how pleasant their exchange had been, prompting Morgan to concur and say, “The debate should always be respectful. By the way, it applies to politics, too. The moment it becomes disrespectful, and discourteous, and then rude, and then poisonous, you never achieve anything.” Talk about amendment — without making amends. If that’s what Morgan now believes, he has definitely discovered a new “truth” since his recent with Larry Pratt.

This brings us to what lies at the very heart of modern liberalism and confuses the head of Piers Morgan. When Morgan disagreed on the unchanging nature of Truth, he was espousing moral relativism. This is the notion that what we call “morality” is determined by man and thus is relative to the time, place, and people. It is also something virtually every liberal believes.

And while Morgan’s relativistic statement was almost made in passing, and was allowed to pass — perhaps partially because of time constraints — it was actually the most significant comment of the exchange (relativistic sentiments always would be). Why? Because that was precisely when Morgan, completely and abjectly, lost the debate. And if you understand what I’m about to explain, you’ll be able to cut any liberal off at the knees — anytime.

While many will say, as Warren might have implied, that relativism reduces morality to opinion, even this is both too generous and a misunderstanding. “Opinion” often refers to a thesis about what may be the answer to a particular question, about what may be true. But this presupposes that there are answers to be found, that there is such a thing as “true.” In other words, Mars exists not because everyone believes it does, but because its existence is a physical truth. And the question is, does moral Truth exist in the same way, apart from man and his imagination? If not, then saying that something is morally “true” would make as much sense as saying that planet Vulcan exists simply because you felt it did. Delusion does not a truth make.

So relativism does not reduce morality to opinion. It implies something else.

That morality doesn’t exist.

After all, to say that society determines “morality” is to simply put lipstick on the pig of man’s preferences about behavior. To analogize the matter, if we learned that 90 percent of the world preferred vanilla to chocolate, would this somehow make chocolate “wrong” or “evil”? No, it would simply be an issue of taste. But then how does it make any sense to say that murder is “wrong” if the only reason we do so is that the majority of the world prefers that one not kill in a way the majority calls “unjust”? If this is all it is, then murder falls into the same category as flavor: taste. Again, delusion does not a truth make.

More intellectually nimble moral relativists have thought the above through and — although their ultimate conclusion is wrong — they don’t fool themselves the way Morgan, Richard Dawkins, and virtually every other leftist do. For example, I know of a fellow who has echoed the Protagorean mistake “Man is the measure of all things” and said, “Murder isn’t wrong; it’s just that society says it is.” He takes liberals’ cherished relativism to its logical conclusion (or at least close to it).

This brings us back to Morgan’s philosophical juvenility. He repeatedly stated in his Warren interview that the Bible was “flawed,” but such a concept is incomprehensible in a relativistic universe. For what yardstick is he using to judge the Bible?  He certainly cannot refer to any transcendent Truth (a redundancy). And the times, places, and people that extol(led) Scripture certainly don’t align with his judgment, and who is he to impose his values on them? “What you espouse is your ‘truth,’ Piers; theirs is different. Don’t be so judgmental.” That’s how easy it is to hoist liberals on their own petards.

The same applies to homosexual “rights.” If “morals” are values and values just reflect tastes, how can respecting homosexuals be morally superior to persecuting them? How can any behavior preference rightly be judged at all? I think here of how the robot in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day repeatedly asked the adolescent John Connor why he shouldn’t kill people. “Why? Why?” The machine was just being logical, unlike the liberal organic robots (atheism=no souls=man is merely chemicals and water) that entertain meaning-inducing illusions. In a relativistic universe, moral principles do not compute. This is why any relativism-buttressed point collapses upon itself.

Feelings can become fashions, but never morals. “The Bible isn’t flawed; it’s just that secular society says it is. Respecting homosexuals isn’t right; it’s just that secular society says it is. And what Adam Lanza did isn’t wrong; it’s just that all of society says it is.” Does that sound sociopathic, Piers? It is.

It is also what your relativism implies.

That is Philosophy 101. And if you can’t understand even that, Mr. Morgan, you’re going to start to seem, to use your own words, like an “unbelievably stupid man.”

Should Christians Hold Prayer Vigils With Apostates?

During the 2012 election, the New Religious Right (NRR) held prayer vigils all throughout the United States. Their rallying cry: “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

There is nothing wrong with Christians gathering together to pray for a common cause.  There is nothing wrong with asking God to return our country to biblical principles for the simple reason that those of us who profess Christ believe that there’s something diabolical going on, and our country is in the grip of evil.  The way we see it, spiritual forces of wickedness have invaded virtually every aspect of society.  And this reality is what drives us to our knees to plead with God to intervene on our behalf.  As the election drew close, we appealed to the Creator to spare us from an administration that aims to transform America into a socialist utopia.

Even though large groups of conservatives from many religious systems joined together and prayed their brains out, God did not spare America.

What struck me as odd is that many professing Christians met in large groups to pray with people that reject the God of the Bible even knowing that those from other religious faiths do not pray to the God of Christianity. So the purpose for praying with unbelievers is….?

Now consider this. The Bible teaches that anyone who is not born again is not indwelled by the Holy Spirit.  I tackled this subject in “Are you praying to the only true God”:

Scripture speaks of God the Holy Spirit residing within all who believe in the Son of God. The Spirit guides, instructs and empowers believers. (John 14:16-17) As well, the “Spirit of truth” confirms everything about Jesus. (John 15:26) The unregenerate (unsaved) person is not Spirit filled. God does not hear anyone’s prayer unless it is put into words by the Holy Spirit. So if we want our prayers to be heard and answered we must pray to the right God. (Source)

Paul drives home the point in 1 Timothy 2:5:

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

As mediator, Jesus Christ stands between God and men to reconcile man to God.  According to Scripture, God does not hear the prayers of the unrepentant sinner. “Sin had made a quarrel between us and God; Jesus Christ is the Mediator who makes peace.”

Returning to the election, Albert Mohler believes it was a “catastrophe” and a “disaster” for evangelicals. He said in a New York Times interview:

It’s not that our message—we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong—didn’t get out. It did get out.  It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed. An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.

Perhaps the NRR leaders should put their priorities in order and do what the Bible commands.  First and foremost followers of Jesus Christ must share the Good News of the Gospel with the lost.  (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Mark 16:15) We may defeat the evils of our day through political means and we may change laws. But unless man’s sinful heart is changed, evil will persist.

We must also oppose the evolutionary secularist worldview.  Many pro-family groups have been in the trenches for decades, fighting to “take back America for God.”  It has been an up-hill battle — and expensive to boot.  But let’s be honest; in spite of all our efforts and the money we’ve poured into winning the culture war, liberals are winning!

After months of pleading with God to oust Obama, we’re now asking, “Why did God allow his re-election?”

In a word: Judgment.

So with that in mind, the question we should be asking ourselves is, “Why is God judging America?”

Again, in a word: Sin.

When I was a child and disobeyed my parents I got a spanking.  But before the boom was lowered I’d cry out, “Don’t spank me! I’ll be good, I promise!” All the pleading in the world did not work with my parents. They’d give me a licking because I deserved one.

Well, America is getting a licking because we deserve one. It would seem that God has closed his ears to our pleas and stale promises. We the Peeps have not repented of our sins and turned from our wicked ways.  In fact, most Americans could care less what God thinks of their lascivious behavior.  So for now, at least, God will allow us to continue wallowing in filth.

I believe one of the reasons God has turned us over to a reprobate mind, to do what should not be done (Rom. 1:28) is that, like the world, the visible Church is awash in sin.  A whole host of self-professed Christians are deep in sin simply because they have no clear understanding of what God deems sinful — and they have no desire to find out!

Satan uses syncretism to separate God from His people.  Religious syncretism is the blending of differing systems of belief.  “Syncretism relies on the whim of man, not the standard of Scripture.”  Syncretism in Protestantism occurred when elements of other religious beliefs were integrated into mainstream denominations. So, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is blending historic Christianity with other philosophies!  Listen to Deuteronomy 12:29-31:

When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

The LORD was not kidding around.

Syncretism slithered into the Church through liberalism.  But well intended evangelical conservatives who make up a large part of pro-family groups are also responsible.  In their desperation to “bring America back to God” groups such as the American Family Association, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Americans for Working Families, Wall Builders, Traditional Values Coalition, Liberty Council and Concerned Women for America reached out to a slew of controversial Christians (false teachers), including men and women in theological cults!  And they’re routinely invited to participate in spiritual and political endeavors — even prayer rallies!

Over the years religious renegades have shared the platform with GOP candidates, congressmen, entertainers, heads of pro-family groups, and other conservative superstars.  Now, I’m not saying that people on stage with renegades share their beliefs; what I’m saying is that when highly regarded leaders unite with heretics and cultists, the public sees it as an endorsement!

“If the New Religious Right were truly committed first and foremost to sound biblical theology and doctrine,” says Brannon Howse, “they would not be involved in spiritual enterprises with those who participate in the New Age Movement, the New Apostolic Reformation, ecumenicalism, globalism, communitarianism, the Church of Rome, the Word of Faith movement, social justice, and the social gospel.”

As Brannon rightly pointed out, the Word of Faith movement is not committed to sound biblical doctrine. What they teach is heretical!

Here CRI exposes word-faith teaching:

God created man in “God’s class,” as “little gods,” with the potential to exercise what they refer to as the “God-kind of faith” in calling things into existence and living in prosperity and success as sovereign beings. Of course, we forfeited this opportunity by rebelling against God in the Garden and taking upon ourselves Satan’s nature. To correct this situation, Jesus Christ became a man, died spiritually (thus taking upon Himself Satan’s nature), went to hell, was “born again,” rose from the dead with God’s nature again, and then sent the Holy Spirit so that the incarnation could be duplicated in believers, thus fulfilling their calling to be what they call “little gods.” Since we’re called to experience this kind of life now, we should be successful in virtually every area of our lives. To be in debt, then, or be sick, or (as is even taught by the faith teachers) to be left by one’s spouse, simply means that you don’t have enough faith — or you have some secret sin in your life, because if you didn’t, you would be able to handle all of these problems.

Further…

In every instance, the “Word-Faith” teaching is guilty of presenting an inflated view of man and a deflated view of God, thereby compromising God’s message as revealed in the Bible. This fast-growing movement has disastrous implications and, in fact, reduces Jesus Christ to a means to an end — when in fact he is the end. If the New Age Movement is the greatest threat to the church from without, “positive confession” may well be its greatest threat from within. (Online source)

Another movement mentioned by Brannon Howse is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).  The NAR, aka dominionists, hold that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of Prophet and Apostle.  The leaders fancy themselves modern-day apostles and prophets and believe they have the same gifts as the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles.  In a piece I wrote entitled “Dominionists are on the move…and they mean business” I brought to light some of their unbiblical beliefs:

The NAR/dominionist’s goal is to transform society into the kingdom of God on earth. How? By controlling various aspects of society. The term they use is the “Seven Mountains,” or “Seven Spheres” of society. The Seven Mountains are: 1) Arts and Entertainment; 2) Business/Economy; 3) Education; 4) Family; 5) Government; 6) Media; 7) Religion. The NAR holds that as they accomplish ridding the world of evil, things will get better and better and then Jesus Christ will return to set up His kingdom.

The goals of the CR [Christian Right] and the NAR seem like a good idea, right? I mean, who could argue with wanting to influence the seven spheres of society that are dominated by secular humanists. Christians are not wrong in desiring to have a society based on Judeo-Christian principles. But here’s the problem. This “mandate” the NAR mob subscribes to did not come from the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 18:36 Jesus made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

However, dominionists never let a little thing like what Jesus said get in the way of their lofty goals. One of the most troubling aspects of their “theology” is the unbiblical teaching on spiritual warfare. They believe they have a kingdom mandate to do “strategic-level spiritual warfare” which is “a popular charismatic method of casting out demons from geographical locations or territories. It identifies three levels of demonic control on earth. Firstly, are “Ground-Level” demons, which possess people. Secondly, “Occult-Level” demons empower witches, shamans, magicians. Finally, “Strategic-Level” demons which are the most powerful of the three, are said to rule over certain regions or territories. Their main purpose is to hinder people from coming to Christ.”

Hence, dominionists go hither and yon to do strategic-level spiritual warfare to tear down demonic strongholds established by Satan and his demons. This is not local; it’s global. (Source)

The fact of the matter is that the word-faith/positive confession movement and the NAR have many of the same heretical beliefs.  In Matthew 7:15-17, Jesus warned:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. … Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.

In Ephesians 5:11 Paul tells us to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”  We are not only to expose them, we are to call them what they are – evil!  We have many examples in the Bible of name calling. For example, in Matthew 23 Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites and “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones.”  He called these same men serpents and a brood of vipers, looked them squarely in the face and said, “how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

But instead of exposing unfruitful works of darkness as we are commanded to do, New Religious Right leaders, many of whom profess Christ, organize prayer events with them!

So – did God hear those prayers?  Consider who He hears according to Scripture and draw your own conclusion.

Resources:

New Apostolic Reformation articles—On Solid Rock Resources
Televangelists & Word of Faith Movement—On Solid Rock Resources
Are you praying to the only true God? By Marsha West
Liberals created the culture of evil and death, part 2 By Marsha West
How the Religious Right Assisted in the Re-Election of President Obama And Are Hastening God’s Judgment of America By Brannon Howse

Climate Change, Economic Crisis And The Violence of War

“Nuclear, ecological, chemical, economic — our arsenal of Death by Stupidity is impressive for a species as smart as Homo sapiens” ¹

The hurricanes, the typhoons, the heat waves … the droughts, the heavy rains, the floods … ever more powerful, ever new records being set. Something must be done of course. Except if you don’t believe at all that it’s man-made. But if there’s even a small chance that the greenhouse effect is driving the changes, is it not plain that, at a minimum, we have to err on the side of caution? There’s too much at stake. Like civilization as we know it. Carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere must be greatly curtailed.

The three greatest problems facing the beleaguered, fragile inhabitants of this lonely planet are climate change, economic crisis, and the violence of war. It is my sad duty to report that the United States of America is the main culprit in each case. Is that not remarkable?

Why does Barack Obama not pursue the battle against climate change with the same intensity he pursues war? Why does he not seek to punish the American bankers and stockbrokers responsible for the financial calamity as much as he seeks to punish Julian Assange and Bradley Manning?

In both cases he’s putting the interests of the corporate world before anything else. No amount of fines or penalties will induce corporate leaders to modify their behavior. Only spending some hard time in a prison cellblock might cause the growth in them of their missing part, the part that’s shaped like a social conscience.

Only prosecuting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their partners in bombing and torture will discourage future American war lovers from following in their bloody footsteps.

The recent election result can only embolden Obama. He likely took it as an affirmation of his policies, although only 29.3% of those eligible to vote actually voted for him. And an unknown, but certainly significant, number of those who did so held their nose while voting for the supposed lesser of two evils. Hardly indicative of impassioned support for his policies.

Last week the United Nations Climate Summit was held in Doha, Qatar. The comments which came from many of the activists (as opposed to various government officials) were doomsdayish … “Time is running out … time has already run out … the climate has already changed … Hurricane Sandy, rising sea levels, the worst is yet to come.” The Kyoto protocol is still the only international treaty stipulating cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a touchstone for many environmentalists. But the United States has never ratified it. At the previous conferences in Copenhagen and Durban, the US blocked important global action and failed to honor vital pledges.

At the Doha conference the US was acutely criticized for failing to take the lead on planet protection, especially in light of its standing as the largest historic contributor to the current levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. (“The most obdurate bully in the room”, declared the Indian environmentalist, Sunita Narain. ²)

What motivates the American representatives, now as before, as ever, is concern about corporate profits. Cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions can hurt the bottom line. A suitable epitaph for the earth’s tombstone. Shamus Cooke, writing on ZSpace, sums it up well: “Thus, if renewable energy is not as profitable as oil — and it isn’t — then the majority of capitalist investing will continue to go towards destroying the planet. It really is that simple. Even the best-intentioned capitalists do not throw their money away on non-growth investments.”

A brief history of Superpowers

From the Congress of Vienna of 1815 to the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to the “Allies” invasion of Russia in 1918 to the formation of what became the European Union in the 1950s, the great powers of Europe and the world have gotten together in grand meeting halls and on the field of battle to set the ground rules for imperialist exploitation of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, to Christianize and ‘civilize’, to remake the maps, and to suppress revolutions and other threats to great-power hegemony. They have been deadly serious. In 1918, for example, some 13 nations, including France, Great Britain, Rumania, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Japan, and the United States, combined in a military invasion of Russia to “strangle at its birth” the nascent Bolshevik state, as Winston Churchill so charmingly put it.

And following World War 2, without any concern about who had fought and died to win that war, the Western powers, sans the Soviet Union, moved to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO, along with the European Union, then joined the United States in carrying out the Cold War and preventing the Communists and their allies from coming to power legally through elections in France and Italy. That partnership continued after the formal end of the Cold War. The United States, the European Union, and NATO are each superpowers, with extensive military, as well as foreign policy integration — almost all EU members are also members of NATO; almost all NATO members in Europe are in the EU; almost all NATO members have had a military contingent serving under NATO and/or the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere.

Together, this Holy Triumvirate has torn apart Yugoslavia, invaded and devastated Afghanistan and Iraq, crippled Iran, Cuba and others with sanctions, overthrown the Libyan government, and are on the verge now of the same in Syria. Much of what the Triumvirate has told the world to justify this wanton havoc has concerned Islamic terrorism, but it should be noted that prior to the interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria all three countries were secular and modern. Will the people of those sad lands ever see that life again?

In suppressing the left in France and Italy, and later in destabilizing the governments of Libya and Syria, the Holy Triumvirate has closely aligned itself with terrorists and terrorist methods to a remarkable extent. ³ In Syria alone, it would be difficult to name any Middle East terrorist group associated with al Qaeda — employing their standard car bombings and suicide bombers — that is not taking part in the war against President Assad with the support of the Triumvirate. Is there anything — legally or morally — the Triumvirate regards as outside its purview? Any place not within its geographical mandate? Britain and France have now joined Turkey and Arabian Peninsula states in recognizing a newly formed opposition bloc as the sole representative of the Syrian people. “From the point of view of international law, this is absolutely unacceptable,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared. “A desire to change the political regime of another state by recognizing a political force as the sole carrier of sovereignty seems to me to be not completely civilised.” France was the first Western state to recognize the newly-formed Syrian National Coalition and was swiftly joined by Britain, Italy and the European Union. ⁴ The neck irons tighten.

The European Union in recent years has been facing a financial crisis, where its overriding concern has been to save the banks, not its citizens, inspiring calls from the citizenry of some member states to leave the Union. I think the dissolution of the European Union would benefit world peace by depriving the US/NATO mob of a guaranteed partner in crime by returning to the Union’s members their individual discretion in foreign policy.

And then we can turn to getting rid of NATO, an organization that not only has a questionable raison d’être in the present, but never had any good reason-to-be in the past other than serving as Washington’s hit man. ⁵

The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo — 21 years in a row

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We don’t hear that any more. 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):

 

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.

How it 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.” ⁶ Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its eternally-declared enemy.

Placing American presidents in their proper context

“Once upon a time there was a radical president who tried to remake American society through government action. In his first term he created a vast network of federal grants to state and local governments for social programs that cost billions. He set up an imposing agency to regulate air and water emissions, and another to regulate workers’ health and safety. Had Congress not stood in his way he would have gone much further. He tried to establish a guaranteed minimum income for all working families and, to top it off, proposed a national health plan that would have provided government insurance for low-income families, required employers to cover all their workers and set standards for private insurance. Thankfully for the country, his second term was cut short and his collectivist dreams were never realize.
His name was Richard Nixon.” ⁷

Films on US foreign policy

The Power Principle is a series of three films by Scott Noble. Part one, “Empire”, is the only one I’ve seen completely so far and I can say that it’s great stuff. The three parts, with their times, are:

• Part 1: Empire (1h 35m)
• Part 2: Propaganda (1h 38m)
• Part 3: Apocalypse (1h 10m)

Featured in the films are Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, John Stockwell, Christopher Simpson, Ralph McGehee, Philip Agee, Nafeez Ahmed, John Perkins, James Petras, John Stauber, Russ Baker, Howard Zinn, William Blum, Nancy Snow, William I. Robinson, Morris Berman, Peter Phillips, Michael Albert, and others of the usual suspects.

To comment about these films or others by Scott Noble, write to him at .

Much more publicized is the new film and book by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. Entitled The Untold History of the United States, it is a 10-part series appearing on Showtime. Only Stone’s name could get this dark side of US history and foreign policy on mainstream television. It will be interesting to observe what the mass media has to say about this challenge to some of America’s most cherished beliefs about itself.

Notes

1. Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times, September 17, 2009 ^↩
2. Democracy Now!, December 7, 2012 ^↩
3. For France and Italy, see Operation Gladio Wikipedia; and Daniele Ganser, Operation Gladio: NATO’s Top Secret Stay-Behind Armies and Terrorism in Western Europe (2005) ^↩
4. Agence France Presse, November 26, 2012^↩
5. For the best coverage of the NATO monolith, sign up with StopNATO. To get on the mailing list write to Rick Rozoff at . To see back issues at  ^↩
6. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885 ^↩
7. From the review of the book: I am the change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism by Charles Kesler. Review by Mark Lilla, The New York Times Book Review, September 30, 2012, p.1 ^↩

The Cashless Society Is Almost Here – And With Some Very Sinister Implications

Among the long list of items bundled by consensus reality merchants under the banner of ‘conspiracy theory’, is a world without cash – where technocrats rule over the populace, and everything and anything is exchanged via plastic and RFID chips.

In this sterile and controlled Orwellian hi-tech society, the idea of cash being passed from hand to hand would be as archaic as the thought of carrying around a rucksack of tally sticks today.

Still, despite the incredible penetration of credit and debit card transactions into economic aggregate, and the boom in internet shopping, few will comfortably admit that a cashless society is nearly upon us. In part, it’s a natural denial by many fueled by the idea of our society is indeed on a collision course with the sort of dystopic impersonal future like that depicted in the 1970′s sci-fi film classic, ‘Logan’s Run’.

Cashless money is here, and growing rapidly.

Over the years, futurists and commentators alike seemed to agree that a cashless society would be a slow creep, and cash would automatically phase itself in simply by virtue of the sheer volume of electronic transactions that would gradually make paper less available and more costly to redeem and exchange. This is still true for the most part. What few counted on, however, was how the final push would take place, and why. Some will be surprised by these new emerging mechanisms, and the political and sinister implications they will ultimately lead to.

What’s the time frame on all this? Difficult to say, but what is certain is that the initial phases are already in motion…

Introduction of Parallel Currencies 

There has been a lot made about the ‘cashless society’ in media, but this cannot fully happen until there is a cashless currency.

Every revolution needs a good crisis in order to germinate its seed. The cashless revolution is no different. It should be abundantly clear by now that the global financial meltdown has been engineered at every juncture of its unfolding by the very private central banks who expand and contract the money supply. A dollar or euro collapse will trigger a global economic crisis, which is a prime opportunity to introduce the next phase.

In the summer of 2012, at the height of the European Central Bank (ECB) ritualistic raping of the Greek economy, financial expert Max Keiser, alongside Mexican billionaire Hugo Salinas Price, traveled to Athens to promote the idea of a silver Drachma as a parallel currency to the ever-failing euro. In theory and in practice, this parallel currency was ‘sound money’ for individual Greeks and would allow them to retain some say in their financial destiny, and also allow them to accumulate real wealth. It should have caught on.  But this great idea did not go down well with media moguls and technocratic elites loyal to their overlords in the ECB, Wall Street and the City of London. Still, too many people remain unaware of how money is created, entered into circulation and how their private central banks control inflation, and Greece is no different.

Watch this clip from Greek television:

The US dollar is pure fiat, but it does have a theoretical backer. It is an oil-backed currency – and for better of for worse, it’s on its way to losing its long-lived status as the world’s reserve currency. There are signals that China is moving towards a gold-backed currency and has already agreed to buy the majority of its oil supply from Russia off of the US dollar peg. This could mean two things: the US could be forced to fight a war to maintain dollar supremacy, or the dollar will begin to drop as the top dog. This shift will open up a window of opportunity for money masters to insert not only a brand new global currency, but also its universal cashless attributes as well.

Common sense and free market wisdom would expect to see a sound money option replace the current fiat disaster, but as we saw in Greece, a great solution was not taken up and straddled with the dysfunctional euro, that society will continue to pay the cost of that reality.

The euro crisis was a great opportunity to throw out the euro in favour of something that could create wealth, rather than debt. As the fiat currencies continue to slide downhill, globalist are preparing their solution behind closed doors.

Enter the Cashless Currency…

It’s arguable that we approaching the cusp of that US Dollar collapse, and perhaps a Euro implosion on the back end of it. Risks of hyper inflation are very real here, but if you control the money supply might already have a ready-made solution waiting in the wings, you will not be worrying about the rift, only waiting for the chaos to ensue so as to maximise your own booty from the crisis.

Many believed that the global currency would be the SDR unit, akaSpecial Drawing Rights, implemented in 2001 as a supplementary foreign exchange reserve asset maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SDRs were not considered a full-fledged currency, but rather a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged for dollars, euros, yen or other central bankers’ fiat notes.

With the SDR confined to the upper tier of the international money launderette, a new product is still needed to dovetail with designs of a  global cashless society.

Two new parallel currencies are currently being used exclusively within the electronic, or cashless domain – Bitcoin and Ven. 

Among the many worries Ben Bernanke listed in his speech at the New York Economic Club last week  was the emergence of Bitcoin. But don’t believe for a second that these digital parallel currencies are not being watched over and even steered by the money masters. Couple this latest trend with done deals by most of the world’s largest mobile networks this month to allow people to pay via a mobile ‘wallet’, and you now have the initial enabler for a new global electronic currency.

These new parallel cashless currencies could very quickly end up in pole position for supremacy when the old fiat notes fade away as a result of the next planned economic dollar and euro crisis.

Both Bitcoin and Ven appear on their surface to be independent parallel digital money systems, but the reality is much different. In April 2011, Ven announced the first commodity trade priced in Ven for gold production between Europe and South America. Both of these so-called ‘digital alternatives’ are being backed and promoted through some of the world’s biggest and most long-standing corporate dynasties, including Rothschild owned Reuters as an example, which should be of interest to any activist who believes that a digitally controlled global currency is a dangerous path to tread down.

The Electronic Deutsche Mark

Much is made of Germany’s prominent financial position within the EU, with a popular talking point being that, “Germany is carrying the majority of the load in ‘bailing out’ countries such as Greece in the south”. If the Euro is ‘heading south’ as many a financial commentator are claiming, then how would a country like Germany – or even the US Federal Reserve for that matter, hedge their bets with an impending currency collapse looming just over the horizon?

Economics professor Miles Kimball from the University of Michigan thinks he knows the answer:

“In short, for a smooth transition, a reintroduced mark needs to be an electronic mark. I recently made the case for the electronic dollar in a previous Quartz column, “E-Money: How paper currency is holding the US recovery back.” The trouble with paper money is that the rate of interest people earn on holding paper money puts a floor on the interest rate they are willing to accept in doing any other lending. For the US, I proposed making the electronic dollar the “unit of account” or economic yardstick for prices and other economic values, and having the Federal Reserve control the exchange rate between electronic dollars and paper dollars to make paper dollars gradually fall in value relative to electronic dollars during periods of time when the Fed wants room to make the interest rate negative.

In the case of Germany, there would be no need to reintroduce a paper mark along with the electronic mark, since the euro itself could continue in its current role as a “medium of exchange” for making purchases in Germany, alongside the electronic mark. A “crawling peg” exchange rate could be used to let the electronic mark gradually go up in value relative to the euro, without causing a huge rush into the mark, since with no paper mark other than the euro itself, interest rates in Germany could be close to zero when measured in euros, which would make them strongly negative in terms of marks.”

A dollar or euro crash could be the perfect storm for the introduction of a major global digital currencies, and this will do nothing but fast-track our entry into the new cashless society.

Contactless Payments

This past year’s Summer Olympic was a beta testing exercise for a number of new programs. We witnessed troops deployed en mass for the first time to marshal the international sporting event and new facial recognition technology tested to monitor its attendees. One of the chief sponsors of London 2012 Olympic was VISA, used the event as a springboard to launch its new ‘contactless payment’ technology, acclimatising the international public to making routine payments via smartphones. VISA now predicts that this new method will carry 50 per cent of its transaction volume by the year 2020.

Mastercard has also rolled out its own version called Paypass, andBarclaycard has already implemented its own mobile phone payment chip in 2011. It conceivable here, that a bank like Barclays could one day takeover a major mobile service provider in order to streamline the endless profits it could accrue from monopolising cashless payment facilities for its customers. A recent edition of Marketing Week further explains how this is program is being rolled out:

“Barclays launched Pingit this year, a mobile payment service that allows customers to send and receive money with a mobile phone number, which has sparked The Payments Council to work on a similar project. And the three leading mobile operators in the UK – EE, Vodafone and O2 – are working on a joint project under the name Weve, one of the aims of which is to develop standardised technology for ‘digital wallets’ on mobile.

These industry innovations reflect the changing attitude and behaviour by consumers to cashless payments. Barry Clark, account director at Future Foundation, which identified the trend towards a cashless society in its recent report into the changing face of payments, explains that this move towards digital is a “banking nirvana” for brands, since replacing cash with electronic payments takes high costs out of the system.”

These mobile enablers will effectively cover the small services and contractor’s market for the cashless society. In addition, digital payment terminals like iZettle and Square (created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey), have brought in most small traders, including taxi drivers, plumbers etc, and street side retailers – meaning that the barrier for entry into the new cashless society has been effectively dissolved.

The Socialist ‘Oyster’

The darker aspect of a cashless society, is one which few are debating or discussing, but is actually the most pivotal in terms of scial engineering and transforming communities and societies. In London, the electronic touch payment Oyster Cardwas introduced in 2003, initially for public transport, and since that time the card has been co-opted to be used for other functions, as the UK beta tests the idea of an all-in-one cashless lifestyle solution.

Ironically, and alongside biometric chipping now in India, it’s the United States, supposedly the birthplace of modern capitalism, who is beta testing its own socialist technocracy.  As the ranks of the poor and unemployed grow and dollar inflation rises in America, more and more people are dependent on traditional ‘Food Stamp’entitlements in order to feed their families. The US has now introduced its own socialist ‘Oyster’ to replace the old Food Stamp program. It’s called the ‘EBT’, which stands for “Electronic Benefit Transfer“, as a means of transferring money from the central government to people living below the poverty line. Advocate Mike Adams for Natural News describes it another way:

History Will Repeat Itself

Whenever the status quo is seen as a failure, the architects of society will rarely allow the whole show to come to a grinding halt, for fear that new and non-centrally controlled organic systems of organisation will emerge. The ruling establishment will spare no opportunity to tell society this, over and over, making people truly believe that it is in their best interest to adopt whatever alternative is handed down to them. This is why, when faced with a crisis, society will almost always seek to implement a parallel alternatives, rather than rethink the whole system.

In 2008, the public had an opportunity to collapse the predatory banking system that has been trading insolvent and gambling on thin air. But the very same ruling establishment who engineered the crisis to  begin with, masterfully presented their own solution as the remedy by establishing the precedent of the state bailing out any gambling losses incurred by the banking community.

In the end society relented, and with help of pro-banking political leadership on both sides of the Atlantic, they adopted the pre-packaged belief that a cluster of bloated and corrupt financial institutions were simply too big to fail. Aside from being a massive redistribution of wealth upwards into the hands of the speculative elite classes, this was merely a test by the establishment to see how far they could go in robbing the public, pushing up inflation, hoovering up real assets, robbing pension funds and enslaving taxpayers to generations of debt the bankers created – all in one swoop.

It has long been the dream of collectivists and technocratic elites to eliminate the semi-unregulated cash economy and black markets in order to maximise taxation and to fully control markets. If the cashless society is ushered in, they will have near complete control over the lives of individual people.

The financial collapse which began in 2007-2008 was merely the opening gambit of the elite criminal class, a mere warm-up for things to come. With the next collapse we may see a centrally controlled global digital currency gaining its final foothold.

The cashless society is already here. The question now is – how far will society allow it to penetrate and completely control each and every aspect of their day to day lives?

Source: Patrick Henningsen | 21stCenturyWire

Flooding Syria With Foreign Arms: A View From Damascus

Across Syria these days, one is able to examine massive evidence that this ancient civilization, the historic bastion of nationalist Arabism and since the 1948 Nabka, an essential pillar of the growing culture of Resistance to the Zionist occupation of Palestine, is becoming awash with foreign arms being funneled to “rebels” by countries advocating regime change.

This observer has been researching foreign arms transfers into certain Middle East countries since last summer in Libya, where to a lesser degree the identical foreign actors were involved in facilitating the transfer of arms and fighters to topple the then, “Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.”

During a recent stay in Syria, I was able to observe first hand, substantial demonstrative evidence supporting the thesis that American, Zionist and Gulf intelligence agencies as well as private arms dealers from these countries top the list of more than two dozen countries benefiting from the crisis in Syria by injecting arms. These countries gain politically and financially, via governmental and black market arms transfers.

Which countries are sending the most weapons into Syria to arm militia?

A list of the top 24  countries, among the more than three dozen that are currently involved in sending weapons to Syria to achieve regime change include: USA, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, UK, France, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Portugal, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, and Argentina.

Above:  one of the periodic lists complied of foreign weapons confiscated from foreign fighters in Syria. Aug.-late September, 2012

Nearly two-thirds of the above listed arms suppliers are members of NATO and constitute almost half of NATO’s 28 country membership.

Russia is not included in the above list because it is the main supplier of arms to the Syrian government.  Yet, one finds older USSR era weapons and even some more recent vintage Russian arms in rebel hands, the latter from the decade (12/79-2/89) of Soviet, occupation of Afghanistan. Also offering Russian weapons are a growing number of black market arms dealers of whom there is no shortage along the Turkey-Syrian border and elsewhere.  This recent visitor to Syria was offered near the Old City, AK 47’s (Russian Kalashnikovs) or Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) for $ 1,800 (in Lebanon today and before the Syrian crisis the price was around $800.  After some bargaining and starting to walk away a couple of times, the “special one-time only price for an American friend” dropped to $ 750 each. Russian made Dragunov sniper rifles are being offered at $ 6,500 but can be bought for around $ 5000.Buying arms these days in Syria is a caveat emptor proposition. Fake weapons and military rejects/defects are also being offered by hustlers from nearby countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey.

The involvement of numerous countries in the Syrian crisis as arms suppliers and political operatives was tangentially referenced by the recent UN Security Council Statement of 12/25/12 which admits the existence of foreign actors and implies their arms supplying activities by urging “all regional and international actors to use their influence on the parties concerned to facilitate the implementation of the (Eid al Adha) ceasefire and cessation of violence.”

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Bashar al-Jaafari observed last week: “This part of the [Security Council] press statement, mentioned for the first time, proves Syria’s view repeated since the beginning of the crisis on the existence of Arab, regional and international parties influencing the armed groups negatively or positively. Therefore, those parties need to be addressed.”

One of the key challenges for  the UN and Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi whose aides told this observer at the Dama Rose hotel on 10/22/12 where we were staying, is:  “We  need to persuade key countries in the Middle East, but also internationally,  not to support the rebels with arms.

The failed initiative of envoy El  Brahimi, was the third ceasefire attempt to date following the December 2011Arab League proposal and the April 2012 Kofi Annan initiative, both of which were endorsed by the Syrian government and most of the world community.  Some rebel militia, but not nearly enough, did endorse the Brahimi four day Eid al Adha ceasefire only to have it collapse this past weekend.  To his credit, Brahimi continues his work.

The same Brahimi sources suggested that the United States may also be supplying man-portable air-defense systems (Manpods) to rebels in Syria.   According to Russian Foregin Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich, speaking on 12/15/12: “At the same time, it is also well-known that Washington is aware of supplies of various types of arms to illegal armed groups operating in Syria. Moreover, the United States, judging by admissions by American officials that have also been published in American media, is conducting coordination and providing logistical support for such supplies.” NBC News, based in New York reported in July that Syrian insurgents had obtained two dozen US MANPADS, delivered from Turkey.

A month after the October 2011 death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in Tripoli that the U.S. was committing $40 million to help Libya “secure and recover its weapons stockpiles.”  Congressional sources report that the Obama administration is fully aware that quantities of these arms are current in Syria and more in transit.

With respect to arms moving from Libya to Syria, on the night of Sept. 11 Libya time, in what was his last public meeting, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens met with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and accompanied him to the consulate front gate just before the assault began. Although what was discussed has not yet been made public, Washington sources including the pro-Zionist Fox News speculate that Stevens may have been in Benghazi negotiating a weapons transfer, from Libya to Syria.

Earlier this year, Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro expressed concerns that the increasing flow of Libya arms was far from under control. Speaking to the Stimson Center in Washington D.C. on 2/10/12 Shapiro said: “This raises the question — how many weapons and missiles are still missing? The frank answer is we don’t know and probably never will.”

According to a 10/14/12 report by the Times of London, a vessel flying the Libyan flag named Al Entisar (Victory), loaded with more than 400 tons of cargo, docked in southern Turkey 35 miles from the Syrian northern border. While some of the undeclared cargo was likely humanitarian, staff accompanying UN envoy Brahimi during his recent Syrian trip report the Al Entisar also carried the largest consignment of foreign weapons to date, including surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPG’s and MANPADS destined for Syria.

Partly because of the jihadists and arms entering Syria from its northern border, southern Turkey is increasingly referred to here in Damascus as “New Afghanistan”, given its matrix of jihadists, salafists, wahabists, and battle-hardened panoply of arriving foreign would-be mujahedeen  and al Qaeda affiliates.

One teenage al Qaeda wannebe explained to the author that his specialty was making and using homemade specialized knives as shown in this photo.  He also delivered a mini-lecture he said was based on a Koranic Hadith explaining why severing heads of animals and adversaries is actually the most humane method. He gave earnest assurances that if allowed to perform a one-time demonstration, this observer would feel no pain and he would post the photo on Facebook!

Remarkably, as was witnessed in 2007, during the conflict at the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in north Lebanon, some of the arriving eager jihadists in “New Afghanistan”  actually believe that they are fighting against Zionist forces near occupied Palestine and not killing fellow Arabs in Syria.

Some, but not all of the  many types of small arms flowing into Syria in large numbers, and viewed by this observer include:

7.62mm Tabuk (Yugoslavia) rifles, Mass rifles (UK), 7.62 mm rifles (Poland), 12 mm rifles (Italy), 7.62 mm Kalashnikovs (several countries versions), 9 mm ‘fast gun’, (Austria), 7.62 mm Val (Belgium), G3 7.62 mm G3 rifles (Germany), 7.5mm model 36 rifles (France), M16 and a variety of sniper and other rifles (USA), 7.62 rifles (Bulgaria, 10.5 Uzi and other automatic machine guns, three types of hand grenades  (Israel), 9 mm guns (Canada), 7 mm guns (Czech Republic), 7 mm guns (Brazil).

Israeli weapons are among the most frequently found in Syria as was the case in Libya. Israeli arms dealers are claimed to have recently intensified links with Blackwater International and also are currently smuggling through the Golan Heights, the tri-border area of south Lebanon, occupied Palestine and Syria.

The observer also examined and was briefed on M72 LAW and AT-3 anti-tank missiles developed by the United States. But the extent of their use is difficult to verify. Most of the arms shown in accompanying photos are from the main urban centers and near the Turkish, Iraqi, Lebanese and Jordanian borders.

In tightly built up urban areas such as Homs, Idlib and Aleppo, door to door fighting includes a battle among snipers. According to one Syrian military intelligence source in whose Damascus office this observer discussed the subject, the most frequently confiscated sniper rifles currently being found in the hands of “rebels” include:

·  the  U.S. Army & USMC M1903-A4 (also: USMC M1903-A1/Unertl), the U.S. Army & USMC M1C & M1D and U.S. Army M21;

·  the Israeli M89SR Technical Equipment International 7.62x51mm NATO Semi-automatic, Galil Sniper Rifle and the T.C.I. M89-SR,
·  the British  .243 Winchester, 7.62x51mm NATO/.308 Winchester,.300 Winchester Magnum, and the 338 Lapua Magnum Bolt action sniper rifles.

A few Afghanistan era Russian Dragonov SVD and SV-98 sniper rifles have also been confiscated among an assortment of others.

Foreign jihadists have some access to Soviet-era DShK heavy machine guns or ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft cannons which are used for anti-aircraft and fire support. Both use fairly scarce high-explosive rounds and armor-piercing rounds, which are capable of penetrating the armor of the Syrian military’s BMP infantry fighting vehicles. The ZU-23-2 “Sergey”, also known as ZU-23, is a Soviet towed 23 mm anti-aircraft cannon. Vehicle mounted Zu-23-2’s are relatively easy to spot by government aircraft and artillery units are used to attack a target and quickly flee to avoid counter strikes.

On 10/25/12 Russia reiterated its claims that the US assists and coordinates arms deliveries to foreign-sponsored insurgents battling the Syrian government forces. Russia’s chief military officer said that Syrian armed groups have acquired US-made weapons, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. This observer saw many weapons from more than a dozen types of IED’s (improvised explosive device) to medium sized artillery pieces but no missiles.

Improvised Explosive Devices are a key rebel weapon with many arriving from Iraq and camps near Hataya, Turkey. Many DIY (do it yourself) improvisations have been uncovered across Syria in both urban and rural areas. This observer examined and was briefed on several types, including those shown above.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry issued statement of 10/25/12, “Washington is aware of the deliveries of various weapons to illegal armed groups active in Syria. Moreover, judging by the declarations of US officials published in US media, the US coordinates and provides logistical assistance in such deliveries.”

Some analysts in Damascus claim that Syria’s potential military strength has not been as effective as it could be in the current urban fights against rebels. The government appears very strong militarily if one studies the statistics regarding Syria’s large and disciplined army which continues its support and also given its sophisticated long range missiles, air defense systems that have deterred an airborne attack from Israel. One reason progress has at times appeared slow against the “rebels” according to some local analysts was a certain initial unpreparedness to confront highly motivated guerrilla militia in downtown densely populated areas. These kinds of battles, it is claimed, require a mobile infantry, armored flexibility and very effective use of light arms.  The Assad government’s “adapt, catch up and go on the offensive” paradigm is developing rapidly according to US Senate Armed Service Committee sources who assert that the Syria army has actually become battle hardened,  tougher, stronger and more disciplined over the past several months. But it has taken time and has incurred a significant cost.

Weapons examined by this observer in Syria during 10/12 include some of the more than 1,750 new American sniper rifles channeled from Iraq and NATO supply stores to rebel militia.

How foreign weapons are entering Syria

As widely speculated particularly in the regional media, foreign supplied weapons to “rebels” arrive by air, sea and mainly by land from Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and occupied Palestine.

Israel is reported, by some researchers in Damascus who have been covering the crisis for nearly 20 months, to be sending arms to Syria from Kurdistan, having had much experience in Africa, South America and Eastern Europe via Mossad and Israeli black market arms dealing. What Israel did in Libya in terms of a wide spread arms business it is also trying to do in Syria.  Israeli arms, according to Syrian and Lebanese sources are being transported into Syria from along the tri-border area of South Lebanon, near Shebaa Farms, close to Jabla al-Saddaneh, and Gadja. In addition, Israeli smugglers have increasingly, over the past five months, been seen by locals moving arms inside Syria via the Golan Heights. These violations of  Syrian and Lebanese sovereignty raise serious questions about the vigilance of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone (UNDO) based in the Golan Heights as well as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese Army as well as National Lebanese Resistance units near the ‘blue line’ to stop the illicit Israeli arms transfers.

The recent arrival in southern Turkey and along the northern Syrian border of Blackwater mercenaries is expected to increase the foreign arms flow.  Currently using the name Academi (previously known as Xena- Xe Services LLC, Blackwater USA and Blackwater Worldwide) Academi is currently, according to Jane’s Defense Weekly, the largest of the US governments “private security” contractors.  Details of its relationship with the US Defense Department and the CIA are classified.
Is there a coherent US policy toward the Syrian crisis?

Secretary of State Clinton has been announcing recently that the U.S. is increasing its “non-lethal support” (i.e. direct shipments as opposed to boots on the ground or ballistic weapons) according to her Congressional liaison office. She also confirmed that Washington is working with its friends and allies to promote more cohesion among the disparate Syrian opposition groups with the aim of producing a new leadership council following meetings scheduled for Doha in the coming weeks.

Examples of US, UK and NATO “non-lethal aid” equipment taken from militia in south and north Syria between 5/2011 and 10/2012.

However, to the consternation of the State Department, General David Petraeus the former US commander of NATO forces in Iraq, now director of the CIA acknowledged, during his senate confirmation hearings. “Non-lethal aid to combatants, including communication equipment, is sometimes more lethal and important than explosive devices due to the logistical advantages they provides on the battlefield.”

In tandem with the US, the UK and several European governments are supplying “non-lethal” aid to the Syrian opposition, including satellite communications equipment according to Syria security sources.

There is also plenty of anecdotal and demonstrative and probative evidence in Syria of human weapons patterned on the “Zarqawi model” which refers to the bloody al Qaeda in Mesopotamia campaign named for its leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi after U.S. troops occupied Iraq.

In a speech this week in Zagreb, Croatia, this week, Secretary of State Clinton insisted that any group seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad must reject attempts by extremists to “hijack” a legitimate revolution.  She added, “There are disturbing reports of heavily armed foreign extremists going into Syria and attempting to take over.” Clinton used her strongest words to date concerning risks that the uprising in Syria could be overtaken by militants who do not seek a democratic replacement or the reforms that the current government claims it is trying to implement. She told her conferees:  “We made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice. We also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution. There are disturbing reports of heavily armed extremists going into Syria and attempting to take over.” Clinton advised her colleagues that the US has become convinced that the SNC does not represent the interests of all ethnic and religious groups in Syria and that it has little legitimacy among on-the-ground activists and fighters, and has done little to stem the infiltration of Islamist extremists into the opposition forces.

Clinton’s language is being interpreted by some as evidence that a post-election Obama Whitehouse, she he win on November,  may move toward the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian position and away from, what one Congressional source  derisively  labeled,  “ the view from the Gulf gas stations”  i.e. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other despotic monarchies.
The intervention in Syria by more than three dozen countries supplying weapons must be stopped. Both sides of the Syrian crisis need to manifest by actions, not just words, a serious commitment to meaningful dialogue. The above noted arms supplying countries, and others off stage, have a solemn obligation to their citizens and to the world community to immediately halt the shipment of arms.

They should, and their people should demand that they do without further delay, honor the words of Isaiah 2:3-5….”and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Granted, perhaps a cliché and certainly far easier said than done.

Yet, as Oregon’s late great US Senator Wayne Morse used tell audiences around America during the Vietnam War, quoting General George Marshall, “The only way we human beings can win a war is to prevent it.”

It’s time for the international community to end the Syrian crisis diplomatically, stop funneling arms and cash fueling hoped for regime change elements. Instead, they must demand that all the involved parties immediately engage in serious dialogue and settle their differences.

Rick Warren And Joel Osteen Acquiesce To Oprah

Is there no end to the lack of spiritual discernment within the Christian community?  Even some of our Church leaders are showing a startling lack of discernment.  And if we can’t trust our leaders to help us stay on the straight and narrow path, who can we trust?

On October 5^th, Southern Baptist preacher Rick Warren sat down with New Age/New Thought high priestess Oprah Winfrey for an interview.  Although Oprah claims to be a Christian she most assuredly is not as I clearly demonstrate here and here.  Joel Osteen, who is said to be “one of America’s most influential spiritual leaders,” appeared on the show prior to Warren to promote his new book, “I Declare: 31 Promises To Speak Over Your Life.”  Around 45,000 people attend Lakewood Church each Sunday to hear Osteen preach the word-faith prosperity gospel “lite.” It’s really not surprising that he was invited to appear on “Oprah’s Life Class.”  The duo has become fast friends ever since she and Tyler Perry attended a Lakewood service some months back.  They soon discovered how like-minded they are.  In fact, Osteen has this Oprahesque declaration on his website:

The words we speak set the course for our life. If you want to know what you’re going to be like in five years, listen to the words you are saying about yourself today.

Egads!

Osteen not only teaches a false gospel, he apparently has scant knowledge of the scriptures which is the main reason the man who pastors the largest megachurch in America is unaware that the Lord has called His followers to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tm 2:15).

Rick Warren’s claim to fame is his books “The Purpose Driven Church” and “The Purpose Driven Life.” PDL is the best-selling hardback non-fiction book in American history and is translated into more than 50 languages.  By using modern marketing methods he helped lay the foundation for the Church Growth movement (CGM).  Largely due to the popularity of his purpose-driven books the CGM has spread through churches like a windstorm sweeping across the Great Plains, ushering in a “new paradigm” of transformational leadership to meet the challenge of the new century.   CGM “emphasizes mainly missionary work combined with sociological awareness of the target population.” In other words, it utilizes slick marketing techniques.  The object is to reach the “unchurched” using the age-old principle: You can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Hence, the “seeker-sensitive” label.

Over the years Pastor Warren has become controversial, and rightly so, for a multitude of reasons which I’ve tackled here and here.  For one reason or another controversy continually swirls around “America’s Pastor.”  Still, he is highly regarded by many in the Christian community and likewise the press.   What’s stunning is that he’s often invited to speak at events with New Calvinist luminaries like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald and Matt Chandler.  Before I move on, I must bring to light influential Reformed theologian John Piper’s recent endorsement of Rick Warren.  Many of us in the discernment ministries were both surprised and troubled by his endorsement.  Christine Pack observed:

[Piper] gave his “stamp of approval” by having Warren be a keynote speaker at Dr. Piper’s annual Desiring God conference. This was an event that caught many in evangelicalism off guard and resulted in a flurry of articles and blog posts over a number of months. The problem with Dr. Piper welcoming Rick Warren into the fold is that Dr. Piper has long been known as a champion and protector of the purity of the gospel message. (Source)

Pastor celebrity James MacDonald was once asked to comment on the “seeker movement” and he replied, “The seeker movement [should be] subtitled: How to Fill Your Church with Tares.”  Later he publically affirmed Rick Warren in a tweet even knowing that the seeker movement that filled churches with heathens was the brain child of “possibility thinker” Robert Schuller.  His most recognized disciples are Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. Excuse me, but a shepherd’s duty is to point out error and guard the flock from wolves in sheep’s clothing, not to invite them into the sheep pen!

Sorry to digress.

Another prominent pastor who shares the stage with Rick Warren is Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship, a Calvary Chapel in Riverside, CA.  Laurie is best known as the founder and featured speaker for Harvest Crusades.

So, what is going on in the visible Church?

Glad you asked.  In a word: syncretism. Syncretism occurs when elements of other religious beliefs are mashed into mainstream Protestant denominations. In a piece entitled Purpose Driven Dismantling of Christianity, I examined the effect syncretism has on the Church:

Satan uses syncretism to separate God from His people. God loathes syncretism:

“When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12:29-31)

Grievous wolves (Acts 20:29) masquerading as evangelicals introduced false religious beliefs (abominations) into mainline churches. Many of them are forthcoming about what they’re doing, others not so much. Their main goal is … change. The plan (yes, they have a plan) is to dismantle historic orthodox Christianity and usher in a “new paradigm,” a “new kind of Christianity.”

Wolves are skillful at drawing people in. They’ve learned how to use TV, radio, the Worldwide Web, human potential seminars, psycho-therapeutic counseling, so-called Christian entertainment that includes movies, DVDs, books and music. Some believers are drawn in through political groups. As you can see, a whole host of lures are used to bait the hook.

Many professing Christians have accepted the blending of religious beliefs with no questions asked. They sit in churches where they’re not taught the truth but are fed a steady diet of half truths and outright lies! Jesus wanted those who believe in Him to read and understand the Word. “Sanctify them through thy truth,” He prayed. “Thy Word is truth!” (John 17:17 ) (Source)

Now, let’s get to my questions: Why did Rick Warren agree to do an interview with Oprah? Moreover, why would he want to be associated with word-faith heretic Joel Osteen?  We discover after the fact that he did not use the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost, many of whom were tuned into the show.  No.  Instead he used his time with Oprah to pass on his sage advice to the audience, peppered with a few Bible quotes — taken out of context!

Former New Ager and astrologer Marcia Montenegro watched the 3 hours of live taping on Oprah’s Life class.  I think the following excerpt about what she observed clearly identifies the sort of pastor Rick Warren is:

Although Rick Warren has had New Age Dr. Oz at his church (along with a supposedly Christian doctor who also endorses some New Age practices), I was hoping he (RW) would somehow give the gospel in the midst of his motivational advice, but he never did. He used the imagery of a poker game to explain we are dealt certain cards, and then gave a teaching on this that sounded like moralistic self-help programs I’ve heard so many times, throwing in a few Bible quotes taken out of context or misquoted. It was something almost any New Ager could accept. God becomes a tool for self-improvement and success.

Warren referred to Jesus, but took scripture out of context and applied things said to believers to everyone. He also misused the Proverbs passage that says “as a man thinketh, so is he.” This passage is a famous passage misused by New Thought proponents and is used in “The Secret.”

What was really hard to watch is when a woman in Norway Skyped to say she realized she needed God but wanted to know who God is and she asked, “What should I do?” It was clear that she was ripe to hear the gospel and needed Jesus! It was a great opportunity to share the gospel with her, and at the same time, for Oprah to hear it. Instead of giving the gospel, Rick Warren seemed uncomfortable and finally just said something like, ‘Go to God and find your purpose.” It was a terrible moment! The woman looked surprised and sad, like she was expecting something else. I prayed for her later and am hoping that the many Christians who witnessed this will pray for her.

Not only that, but when Oprah referred to God, as she often did, Rick Warren agreed with her as though she was referring to the biblical God, which she was not. He even said a few times, “Oprah has a good point.” No, she never did! She was speaking totally out of her New Thought/New Age beliefs. I am grateful that RW recommended that people read the gospel of John. That was the best thing he said. (Read Marcia’s entire piece here)

Why do so many followers of Jesus Christ view Rick Warren as dangerous?  Evangelist Tony Miano’sindictment is blunt:

Plastic pastors transparent enough to see through, like Joel Osteen, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Modalistic moguls of the painfully-obvious-money-hungry prosperity movement, like T.D. Jakes, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Self-serving sorcerers of the false signs and wonders movement, like Todd Bentley, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. No. None of the before-mentioned personalities or groups are all that dangerous because what you see is what you get. They all lack the ability to change their appearance to accommodate a change in environment. They lack the chameleon-like ability, the self-serving ability, to say what needs to be said in order to keep people in every camp liking them. 

Now listen to former Catholic Priest Richard Bennett:

Warren teaches that God ‘created the church to meet your five deepest needs’ just as the Roman Catholic Church says, ‘The Church is the mother of all believers.’ Warren, like Rome, has switched from obedience to the Word and Person of the Living God to submission to a church to achieve one’s needs. It is the oldest and cleverest temptation known to man. 

I’ll close with warning from the Lord Jesus:

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous [ferocious] wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?  Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.(Mat. 5:15-20)

Recommended:

Word of Faith articles—On Solid Rock Resources
Creating Community – Part 1: Purpose-Driven Change through Transformational Leadership–By Berit Kjos
James Sundquist’s rebuke to Desiring God participants regarding Rick Warren

Joel Osteen:
Watch: 
Read: Joel Osteen and The Prosperity Gospel

Liberals Created the Culture of Evil and Death, Part 3

By far the biggest obstacle the Church faces is the infiltration of ubiquitous, aggressive liberals, many of whom are renowned pastors, authors, conference speakers, missionaries, televangelists, radio hosts, and CEOs of Christian organizations.  As of late, even some of our most beloved evangelical leaders appear to be morphing into theological liberals.  The extent of movement to liberal ideology varies with each individual, but in certain cases they have gone completely off the rails. False doctrine abounds in books, Bible studies and Bibles authored by notable Christians and promoted by so-called Christian publishers and book sellers.  We have been duly warned about this sort of thing happening:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1).

That, brothers and sisters, is a pretty severe warning!

MARXIST CHRISTIANITY

To give readers a sense of what kind of person to be on the lookout for let me introduce one of the most dangerous wolves in Christendom, the Rev. Jim Wallis.  This man wears many hats.  He is the founder of Sojourner’s Magazine, speaker, author and activist.  He’s also President Obama’s “spiritual advisor.”  This alone speaks volumes.  Rev. Wallis insists that he’s an evangelical Christian even though he has abandoned thebiblical gospel for the “social gospel.”  He believes he’s on a mission from God to assist the poor and oppressed to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth.

David Noebel sheds light on some of the good reverend’s activities:

Wallis’ Sojourners enterprise has been a radical, socialistic undertaking from the start. Frontpage Magazine (March 17, 2009) says, “As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking the U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American ‘imperialism,’ and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World.”(Source)

Jim Wallis is also a champion of unbiblical movements such as the Emergent Church, Spiritual Formation (contemplative prayer/mysticism) and what he refers to as “spirituality.”  Here is his view of prayer:

I pray, but there are many understandings about prayer. For many, prayer is talking to God, sometimes a great list of requests and needs—sort of like a child’s Christmas list mailed to Santa Claus. But at least for me, prayer is becoming a time of listening rather than talking. There is so much noise in our world and our lives (much of our own making); prayer becomes a quiet space that enables us to stop talking long enough to see what God might be trying to say to us.

The disciplines of prayer, silence, and contemplation as practiced by the monastics and mystics are precisely that—stopping the noise, slowing down, and becoming still so that God can break through all our activity and noise to speak to us. Prayer serves to put all parts of our lives in God’s presence, reminding us how holy our humanity really is. (The Great Awakening: Seven Ways To Change The World, 290) (Source)

Wallis is promoting unbiblical contemplative/centering prayer.

On homosexuality he believes:

[T]he major differences of theology and biblical interpretation in the church with regard to issues such as the nature of homosexuality, gay marriage, and ordination are not issues that should be allowed to divide the churches – that local churches should lead the way here, and that an honest, open, respectful, and, hopefully, loving dialogue should characterize the church on these very controversial questions.(Source)

Issues which are clearly unbiblical, such as the sin of homosexuality, should not be allowed to divide us? Really?

Are professing followers of Jesus Christ supposed to ignore the Bible’s explicit teaching on marriage, one man and one woman for life, so that men can marry men?  Should we really go against what God says in His Word regarding His plan for sexuality and marriage and adopt a “pro-gay” theology to accommodate a small group of gays and lesbians?  The answer is “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘That Thou mightiest be justified in Thy words, And mightiest prevail when Thou art judged.’” (Romans 3:4)

Going against God is folly!  (For the biblical view of homosexuality read Answering the Gay Christian Position)

Even though Wallis is a Red-Letter Christian and a Wild Goose chaser, he poses as an evangelical.  Sadly, he and his ilk have many starry-eyed, misguided followers who, like most liberals, wish to farm out their obligations to the tax payers.

Licenses And Morals

A Nation In Decline…

Stories of citizens being assaulted by TSA (Transportation Security Administration) employees are common internet fare. There are numerous groping complaints, little old ladies are forced to remove their diapers and nubile young women are patted down and ogled by X-ray, knives are confiscated, liquids are poured out, shoes are removed, and time is wasted; all without noticeable results.  TSA guru, Janet Napolitano, supports the TSA in the same way police chiefs support errant policemen. When governments write the law they often consider themselves immune to it.  Policemen are seldom held accountable for their actions.  Agents of the government regularly pillage private property, harass citizens, and even commit murder, all without retribution.

During the 1940s, when I was in high school, the older brother of one of my friends had established a dental practice in a small Northern Illinois town.  My friend described his brother’s work as a “Racket” and said he was making piles of money.  At that time I had a mouth full of fillings skillfully inserted by a neighbor who was also a relative.   My parents paid for the work which though relatively cheap was expensive in the depression days of the 1930s.  There was, however, more kindness during this era and service providers felt an obligation to provide care to everyone regardless of ability to pay.

When the government gets involved in licensing members of any profession several things eventually result.  1) License restrictions limit supply and costs go up.  2) Participants collude, and 3) become arrogant and self serving.  4) They devise methods of extracting the maximum amount of money from the public.  5) Their egos grow; they take on god-like qualities and look with disdain on customers whose urgent need of their services supports the inflated cost.

Many Americans travel to Costa Rica where they are able to pay for transportation and stay at a four star hotel with the money they save having their dental work done there.  Occasionally an unlicensed dentist learns the mechanics of the trade and establishes a lucrative practice.  Read about one here. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2196959/Fake-dentist-performed-root-canals-dental-surgeries-hundreds-illegal-immigrants-home-office.html

American dentists are very expensive.

With a mouthful of bad teeth and an unwillingness to be overcharged my experience with dentists has been dismal.  Several dentists maintained that fillings were not reliable and refused to put fillings in my teeth.  Reluctantly I allowed three teeth to be capped.  Because I complained about the cost of each procedure and was dubious about what I was being told dentists did not enjoy my presence.  Finally, I was shuffled off to a dentist who liked to do fillings.  His personality was as dismal as mine but he was a good mechanic.  Belying what several other dentist had told me he filled my mouth with mercury fillings.

During my last visit for a six month cleaning, I turned down an X-ray.  Past X-rays had added to the cost and had not produced anything of value.  I considered his request that I sign a release paper a form of intimidation and refused to sign it.  Though I had been a patient for several years and had contributed several thousand dollars to his coffers he dismissed me for refusing to sign.   It is my money and that of other patients that support this dentist but it is government created exclusivity and collusion that sustain blunt arrogance.

Collusion allows dentists to ration their services by presenting a universal wall that closes out the uncooperative patient.  Being ushered into a dental chair, opening the mouth and having an assistant begin a set of prescribed procedures without discussion is oppressive and leaves the patient without input.   It discourages talk about fees and allows them to avoid competition.

Following the rude dismissal by the mercury filling expert, I visited another dentist who advertised for new patients.  I was put through the regular expensive set of procedures that go before the appearance of the Mighty One.   His dental assistant took X-rays, measured gum loss, and cleaned and inspected my teeth.  These preliminaries often cost $200 or more.  When all this was finished the dentist inspected my teeth giving his assistant coded remarks about each tooth.

I explained to him that I was almost 83 years old and that I had one tooth that needed to be removed and that I wanted to keep the remainder of my teeth in workable condition for as long as I could. Following a brief examination the dentist disappeared and his assistant arrived with a computer generated treatment sheet recommending several thousand dollars worth of dental work.  I was referred to a dental surgeon for the bad, loose, single rooted tooth which he claimed might break.  It was obvious he paid no attention to my brief request and when the assistant asked that I sign a form indicating receipt of his recommendations I refused.  With predictable arrogance he sent his assistant to tell me I was dismissed.  Rejected patients receive a formal letter confirming the rejection.

It is difficult to break through the wall that screens out competition and uncooperative patients because dentists collude and all present the same competitive barriers.

Cutting a man’s hair and filling a tooth both take technical skills and similar amounts of time; the barber gets $10 to $15 while the Dentist gets $200 or more; educational status, the artificial leverage of government licensing, and collusive practices work together to support high fees.

If you have never experienced the God-like demeanor that allows doctors and dentists to dismiss a patient with a formal letter as if partaking of their service is a privilege rather than a high priced sale, you have probably never confronted one of these demigods.  Rather than seeking to provide a needed service to society at an affordable price the touchy plutocrats seek to be treated with divine deference.

Young people who begin working at $10.00 an hour (common here in Florida) will work a week and a half (sixty hours) for what a dentist earns in an hour or less.  Many young people cannot afford dentists and live with poor dental hygiene   Senior citizens whose life span is almost complete can spend several thousand dollars on dental work that death renders useless.

Patients have a vested interest in having their teeth cleaned but despite the heavy padding it is a nuisance to dentists.  They maintain their upper 1% status by gluing on crowns and doing root canals. A root canal takes about an hour of the dentist’s time and costs between $600 and $1000 (Sometimes more!).  When a crown is added fixing a single tooth might cost $2000.  My experience seems to indicate that when a dentist see $10,000 work in a person’s mouth he will take a little guff and might even negotiate but when only cleaning is involved he is quick to dismiss.

Altruism has been wrung out of medical and dental care.  The Hippocratic Oath may still be administered in some form but in practice it is as dead as Christianity in the church.   Today medical and dental professions are businesses conducted by individuals who have fulfilled educational requirements in order to harvest a bumper financial crop.  Ministering to patients is a means of making money and if there is no money to be made or if the patient cannot pay, the relationship is quickly severed.  For the patient who fails to pay, the credit rating is ruined and harassing bill collectors are marshaled.

Dentists and doctors have succumbed to the advancing brutality that has infected our culture.  It began with the Revolutionary War, advanced during the Civil War; was inflicted on the indigenous Indians, on the civilian population of the Philippines, on the Germans in WWII, on the Vietnamese, it is now ravishing the Arabs in the Middle East and is pervasive in our culture.

Brutality has driven out mercy and justice and fertilized the lawless avarice of pagan Capitalism.  John Adam said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  Injustice is rampant and mercy is scarce.  Our people are religious but immoral.  As a nation we have forsaken God’s Law and opted to live under a human standard of justice.

Morality is impossible without law and justice is impossible without God’s Law. Sinful men and women cannot write just law. Those that claim to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through the redemptive work of His Son, The Christ, have drifted so far away from their God that His Laws are repugnant.  Even some who should know better delight in the heresy of Dispensationalism  denying the efficacy of God’s Law favoring law devised by the evil minds o of men.  Death by stoning sounds like cruel and unusual punishment because death by losing the lower half of a human body to an explosive device is hidden and never pictured in our deluded minds.

We live in a sanitized society; hiding grotesque brutality so we can considering ourselves civilized.  Aborted babies are seldom seen.  Pictures of the slaughter of their tiny bodies are unpopular and in some cases banned.  War is advertised as altruistic and soldiers are urged to sign up and see the world.  The returning caskets and the maimed participants are not public fare.  An aberrant press and media fail to mention that for every soldier killed nine civilians die.  The pillage and wreckage of Iraq is kept from the public.  In spite of the brief publicity around Abu Grave torture continues as a weapon.

We have lost our fear of God.  When there is no fear of God there is no active religion.    If stoning did nothing else, it might renew our fear of God

In his lengthy indictment of the Jews Martin Luther wrote, “For every country, if it is to endure, must have these two things: power and law. The country— must have a lord, a head, a ruler. But it must also have a law by which the ruler is guided— For wherever sheer power prevails without the law— there is no government, but tyranny.” (Excerpted)

God admonishes us in Proverbs, “My son, keep my words, and treasure my commandments within you.   Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye.  Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”  Chapter 7; 1-3

As our government continues to impose tyrannical laws and procedures on the United States, patriots and Christians approach the coming election with the usual chronic insanity, repeatedly seeking the culprit as the remedy.  Though many of our older citizens have lived through many of these same charades they still participate with vigor. The human mind is easily distorted and often incapable of reaching sound conclusions.  Elections are rife with empty promises and mendacious accusations. Popularity is manufactured by the press and voting is often controlled by the counter rather than the voter.  When the wicked process is over the winner may initiate some minor social changes but the planned shrinkage of American wealth and power continues as it has now for several decades.

It is tragic that good men sell their souls in order to become marionettes on the stage of government. Ron Paul maintained his stance for many years and seemed to be mostly above the evil pragmatism. Nevertheless, he was summarily shoved aside and though he may have siphoned a few votes from the Mormon King he accomplished very little.  Powerful forces mute the policies that might remedy our downfall and the soulless empty suits we have elected value their jobs more than their character.

The transformation of our doctors and dentists from responsible contributors to the well being of our society to avaricious wealthy craftsmen is a small matter compared to the complete downfall of civilization.  It is, however, a symptom and without confrontation it continues its downward spin along with that of the nation.

Indian Christian intellectual Vishal Mangalwadi has used the clear vision of a Godly man in a newly published book entitled “The Book That Made Your World”.  He speaks to Americans in general and Christians in particular about the overweening influence of the Christian Bible on our culture.  In the Forward he writes, “It was above all, a civilization in which truth was understood to be real, where the collective pursuit of virtue shaped behavior, and the redemptive work of God in the person of Jesus Christ provided a radical and historically verifiable transforming response to the abyss of human selfishness, corruption , and sin.”  Pg.17

Unfortunately, he writes in the past tense.

Liberals Created the Culture of Evil and Death, Part 2

Liberals are responsible for much of the evil in America.  But in their zeal to “Reclaim America for Christ” some well-intentioned pro-family conservatives have been introducing evil into the Church.  I’m speaking of the “New Religious Right” (NRR) a term I borrowed from Brannon Howse.  Ironically, in order to bring society back to its Judeo-Christian values, groups such as the American Family Association and the Family Research Council have brought out-and-out heretics and cultists out of the darkness into the limelight.

The NRR evolved out of the Religious Right (RR) of days gone by.  Howse, who was acquainted with the founders of the movement, has gotten a lot of heat for voicing his concern over some of the people the NRR has chosen to unite with since the passing of the old guard.  “I do not believe,” he said, “that many of the now deceased leaders of the religious right from the 1970s and 1980s would agree with the theological and doctrinal compromise of many of the leaders of today’s ‘New Religious Right’.”

The leaders Howse is speaking of are D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, Adrian Rogers and Tim LaHaye.  LaHaye, author of the blockbuster Left Behind series, is still very much alive and supports the NRR. It seems he is willing to set aside theological and doctrinal differences to accomplish what he set out to do over 40 years ago.  Has Dr. LaHaye forgotten 2 John 9:11?:

Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (Bold mine)

I share Brannon Howse’s concern over the NRR.  In their zeal to defeat the far-left’s anti-God agenda, they’ve been partnering with those who do not abide in the doctrine of Christ.

The NRR has convinced a large number of evangelicals that if we can just change the system we will be able to influence human behavior and restore some moral sanity to this country.  In order to achieve this lofty goal, conservative people of faith must become engaged in the culture war. To this end, casting our vote is of primary importance.

So far so good.

The NRR urges conservatives to become involved in politics at state and local levels; participate in special interest groups; take an interest in government schools and our institutions of higher learning; take part in lawful demonstrations and publicly held events.  All of this must take place so that conservatives will play a larger role in influencing public policy.

I have no problem with any of this for the reason that we are told in Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Thus, “both the state and the church are under God,” says R.C. Sproul, “The state is not sovereign; the state never has the right to do wrong. The state is always under the authority of God. God institutes government, God ordains government, and God will judge government. He holds government and all other institutions in our society responsible for doing what is right.” Later Sproul says, “God tells me as a Christian to pay my bills on time. He tells me not to use false weights and balances in my business. I think that it’s perfectly appropriate to recommend that the state have sound currency and not destroy the weights and balances of our society, to have honorable contracts and to do what is right. In other words, in those spheres of ethics that are right for all people, I believe it is a Christian’s responsibility to remind the state to stand for what is right.” (Source)

In my view, God’s people, including pastors, should speak publicly through whatever means possible — to include the pulpit.  One reason for Christians being involved in politics and the culture war is to see that the state does what is right for all people. Another is to help the victims who are being enslaved by government and by wicked people.  Michael A. Milton believes that the clergy must speak out because they speak with “biblical authority to other Beast-like powers when there are souls at risk or the honor of Christ and His Church is under siege.” (Source)

WHEN THE DEVIL COMES A KNOCKIN’…

” … I can visualize times when the only way to make plain the seriousness of what is involved in regard to a service or an activity where the gospel is going to be preached is not to accept an official part if men whose doctrine is known to be an enemy are going to be invited to participate officially. In an age of relativity, the practice of truth when it is costly is the only way to cause the world to take seriously our protestations concerning truth.” –Francis A. Schaeffer

To help further their political agenda the NRR has thrust evangelicals into syncretism as we merge with Catholics, Jews, Muslims, New Agers as well as with Social Justice Christians (I’ll cover this in part 3), false teachers, and those who are caught up in cults.  So it’s no surprise to see NRR leaders sharing a stage with those in radical fringe groups such as the New Apostolic Reformation(NAR), International House of Prayer and Word-faith/prosperity preachers.  The NRR has been warned by discernment ministries and Christian apologists who study the cults, the occult and aberrant movements that these people are teaching rank heresy.  For instance, the aforementioned groups hold to “positive confession,” a belief that is firmly rooted in the metaphysical cults.  In spite of what the Bible says in  I Corinthians 10:20-21, NRR leaders have no problem uniting with modern day “apostles” and “prophets” who are in high positions in the NAR and with New Age Mormon Glenn Beck as they attempt to save America from the ravages of liberalism.  Which begs the question: Why is the NRR not making every effort to save the Church from liberals, false teachers, New Agers, and the cults?

Instead of doing what is right in God’s eyes, the NRR has helped a host of heretics and cultists gain credibility not only with evangelicals but with Catholics, the conservative media, politicians, entertainers and the Tea Party.  Partnering with the wicked is unacceptable for the reasons that: (1) God opposes the wicked; (2) The wicked should not be given a platform — especially when professing Christians provide that platform!

“Knowingly or unknowingly,” says Brannon Howse, “the New Religious Right is being used as “useful idiots” by which to implement the goals of the progressives. Please understand, I am not calling anyone a name. This is a historical term used to describe people that are knowingly or unknowingly used by socialists. (Source)

Therein lies the problem.

To “bring America back to God” the NRR has embraced the technique of pragmatism or “whatever works.”

“Some in the religious right,” says Phil Johnson, “seem to think the primary duty of the church in secular society is political lobbying. Evangelical politicians have displayed a frightening willingness to compromise spiritual principles, forge partnerships with unbelievers, and shift the focus of their message away from the gospel in favor of more broadly-appealing moral and political themes. Some seem willing to take whatever pragmatic means are necessary in order to influence the vote—as if the advancement of Christ’s kingdom depended on the American electoral process.” (Source)

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD, THE MEGA-CHURCH, AND THE DEVIL

Pragmatism is also popular among pastors.  Blogger Tim Challies warned that pragmatism “has reared its ugly head throughout the Christian world. It is found in statements about evangelistic techniques such as “if it only reaches one person it is worth it.” It is found in Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Church, a textbook for church growth, where he writes “Never criticize any method that God is blessing.” He also says “We must be willing to adjust our worship practices when unbelievers are present. God tells us to be sensitive to the hang-ups of unbelievers in our services.” These ideas are not Biblical; they are rooted in the perceived consequences. Pragmatism is found wherever Christians run to join programs and hurry to change their worship services because of what they expect to see happen because of the changes they make. In short, it is found anywhere the emphasis is removed from what Scripture says and where the emphasis is placed on the expected results.” (Source)

In Part 1, I suggested ways in which evangelicals can offer a way back to a time when Americans knew the difference between right and wrong, before our beloved country started down the road to socialism, before she took a nose dive into moral depravity.  The number one most important thing for the committed Christian to do is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost.  (Rom 1:15-7)  People are not going to change unless hearts and minds are changed. We love and forgive because we have been loved greatly and forgiven much.

Someone’s values are going to prevail in America.  Will it be godless secular humanist/moral relativistic values of the Left we’re seeing today?  Or the solid biblical values of yesteryear?

Presently, liberals are winning the culture war – and if they’re winning, conservatives are losing. Liberals are winning through the courts, when liberal judges rule in their favor; through elected officials who pass laws that line up with the Left’s agenda for society; and through bullying and fear mongering.  And as I pointed out in Part 1, the liberal agenda has the full support of the entertainment industry as well as the mainstream media.  They’re also winning because very few believers even know what a biblical worldview looks like anymore.  Sadly, the visible Church has adopted an unbiblical worldview.

How could this happen?

My finger is pointed directly at Church leadership for the reason that many of them have failed to equip the Body of Christ with a decidedly Christian worldview.   But what’s even worse is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is rarely preached in churches.  In our postmodern world many so-called ministers of God are hip, cool people pleasers, preferring to preach a culturally “relevant” sermon that makes the audience feel good about God – and themselves.

Tim Challies made the point that instead of sticking to biblical orthodoxy, church leadership has adopted pragmatic methods to appeal to the consumer.  Their main aim is to grow their church but in order to accomplish this, pastors must sell the benefits of Christianity to the consumer. So they have to come up with ways to entice “unchurched (unsaved) Harry and Mary” onto the church campus.  They hope that once Harry and Mary are inside the auditorium they’ll realize all the “fun” things the church has to offer.  Things like espresso bars…live bands that play contemporary worship music loud enough to blow the doors off the hinges…praise band singers whose voices could rival any America Idol winner…drama sketches with stage lighting and props – and I’ve just scratched the surface!  Harry and Mary love the trendy church.  Moreover, they love their non-judgmental pastor who sincerely believes his (or her) “calling” is to take care of people’s feelings.

In his piece, The Market-Driven Church, Gary Gilley underscores that, “fun has replaced holiness as the church’s goal. Having a good time has become the criterion of an excellent, growing church, since fun and entertainment is what church consumers want. Yet Scripture references encouraging churches to become havens of fun are, as one may suspect, sadly lacking.”  (Source)

Pragmatism ushered in the church growth “Purpose-Driven” movement.   Adopting a marketing strategy to grow the church has been hugely successful!  As a result many churches are well attended.  Problem is, pseudo Christians are the ones filling the pews…oops!  Auditoriums.

Paul’s dire warning to Church leaders has fallen on deaf ears:

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.  For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous [vicious] wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.  (Acts 20:28-31)

Part 1… part 3 coming soon!

Recommended:
No compromise ever, episode 1—Mike Abendroth’s discussion with James White, Carl Trueman and Phil Johnson on the Elephant Room 2 controversy
Worldview Weekend Training—Brannon Howse
Liberals changing word meanings with intent to deceive—By Marsha West
The Consumer-Driven Church—By Matt Slick

U.S. Commander: Ramadan Fasting Made Them Do It!

Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says one possible explanation for a spike in killings of American troops by their Afghan partners is the strain of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on August 18. He said that while the reasons for the killings are not fully understood, the effect of Ramadan fasting is “likely among the causes.” There have been at least 32 attacks so far this year, killing 40 coalition members—mostly Americans—ten of them in August.

“The idea that they will fast during the day places great strain on them,” Allen said, adding that the stress may have been compounded by Ramadan falling during the heat of summer and the height of the fighting season. He acknowledged that hunger and heat may not be the primary causes for the killings, but it is among many “different and complex reasons for why we think this may have increased” lately.

Welcome to the Ramadan-Induced Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Presumably next year, the U.S. Army is going to set up counseling centers and group therapy sessions for the Afghan soldiers and policemen who cease to be responsible for their actions due to the “great strain.”

As for the “different and complex reasons,” in Allen’s account the words “Islam” and “jihad” did not make an appearance. In addition to the mental “strain” of fasting, he also cited Taliban infiltration of Afghan security forces and unnamed “personal Afghan grievances” against U.S. troops. Back in Washington, Colonel Lapan, spokesman for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff commented, “we don’t know what’s causing [the attacks], and we’re looking at everything.” As for the experts, Mark Jacobsen, a defense specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and a former senior NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, said Allen’s theory about the role of Ramadan in the attacks is “very reasonable.” John Agoglia, an executive at IDS International, which provides cultural awareness training for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, said in an interview that the insider attacks were partly linked to a Taliban effort to “psychologically dislocate” Afghans from their American trainers and advisers.

While the Fasting Factor is a demented fantasy, the insistence on the “infiltration” by the Taliban and its “psychological dislocation” campaign is factually incorrect. As The New York Times reported on August 18, the military has analyzed the attacks and the results have been worrisome: “Only a handful of the 31 attacks this year have clearly been a result of Taliban activity like infiltration. That suggests a level of malaise or anger within the Afghan forces that could complicate NATO’s training program, which relies on trust and cooperation.”

“Could complicate” implies that this has not happened yet, which is ridiculous. In May 2011, a U.S. Army study established that killings of Americans and other NATO troops by Afghan soldiers and policemen were not “rare and isolated events.” In ten months (July 2010-May 2011) over thirty were murdered by Afghan national security forces. The problem escalated following the alleged burning of Qurans at an American military base last February, when two American officers were killed by their Afghan “colleagues” inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul. After that incident Gen. Allen withdrew his men from Afghan government facilities, while NATO personnel in the capital had to limit their contact with Afghan government institutions to cell phones and e-mail. Another crisis started on March 11, when an American sergeant killed 16 unarmed Afghan civilians in a village near Kandahar. The “insider killings” reached a new high after that incident, steadily escalating to two deaths a week in August.

The primary reason for the killings is the religiously inspired animosity most Afghans feel for the infidel in general, and Americans in particular. It is driven by the eminently orthodox dogma of jihad—supported by countless examples through history—that if a Muslim land is occupied by infidels, it is obligatory for the Muslims to resist the kufr—soldiers and civilians alike—and kill them, while pretending to be their friends if this facilitates the desired outcome.

A war waged by non-Muslims in a predominantly Muslim land is inevitably a religious war.  This explanation—which is at least worthy of serious consideration by the military authorities, for the sake of the dead and others who are in harm’s way—is not allowed into the discourse of top field commanders, their professional advisors and political masters. They act like oncologists who willfully won’t, or else are not allowed to, diagnose metastatic cancer. Their political masters prefer to stick to their politically correct dogmas than to accept an explanation that is at odds with their world view. As a result, American and allied soldiers die.

In Afghanistan, the hatred of the infidel occupier is combined with studied contempt of Afghans of all political hues for the rhetoric of “partnership,” with which the American political and military establishment remains infatuated. No partnership is possible. History tells us that Muslim soldiers can respect and obey non-Muslim masters, but not in this case. They will do so only when the “infidel” officer commands Muslims from a clear-cut position of indisputable authority.

During World War II, close to 400,000 Punjabi Muslims volunteered for the British Indian Army. From 1936 until the partition in 1947, Muslims from different parts of the Subcontinent accounted for about a third of the Indian Army personnel. Coming mainly from the traditionally martial communities in today’s Pakistan, they were hugely over-represented in the all-volunteer force. They were commanded mostly by British officers, invariably so above the rank of major. Before 1939, they were on station duty in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Aden, the Gulf, Burma, Malaya and Hong Kong—some of the hottest places on Earth. During the war they fought mostly in East Africa, North Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, and Italy—except for the last, lands and regions no less hot and often even less hospitable than Afghanistan itself. There is no record, however, of “insider attacks” presenting a problem—Ramadan or no Ramadan.

In the Russian Empire, following the conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Muslim territorial regiments—commanded by Russian officers—were established in those territories that were granted autonomous status, such as the Emirate of Bukhara or the Khanate of Khiva. Elsewhere, regiments of Muslims were incorporated into the regular army—e.g. the Muslim cavalry of Dagestan, the Crimean Tatar squadron—but they were also officered by Russians. They were reliable, loyal, fought well, and endured the Ramadan, it seems, with no great stress—or at least we have no such record.

In our own time, Muslims are significantly over-represented in the French Army—accounting for a fifth of the rank-and-file—but most of their officers are French. While the loyalty of these soldiers is considered uncertain if they were asked to restore law and order in the restive Muslim banlieus, insider attacks are not a problem and an assiduous Internet search has failed to find any link between their disciplinary or behavioral problems and Ramadan fasting.

Last but not least, their German officers were full of praise for some hundreds of thousands of Muslims who served as volunteers, mostly in the Waffen SS, between 1941 and 1945. They came from the Crimea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kosovo, Central Asia—an ethnically and racially diverse group—and yet there is no record of insider killings or the Ramadan Syndrome.

Poor General Allen. He is facing a new, altogether unprecedented phenomenon. And poor Afghan soldiers. They are under such strain…

Chicago Gangster – Obama the Tyrant

Chicago’s claim of infamy – their gangster culture – deeply embedded in their political style of ruthlessness is exemplified in Barack Obama. Violence, lies, sleaze, extortion and intimidation are the tools of the trade. Politics may appear to be more benign than the Valentine Massacre to the unsophisticated, but the reality is that the government arena is far more corrupt then any of the most egregious deeds of the Chicago Outfit. Brush up on your current events and Chicago history. The laundry list of crooked Ward and Aldermen fit the soldier model of the crime family. The latest Godfather, Rahm Emmanuel is the “Greasy Thumb” Guzik bagman for the Obama syndicate.

Denying the perverse nature of the Obama administration requires a total disconnect from facts and veracity. Yet if one places any credence in political polls, Barry Soetoro may well be voted into office for a second term. Explaining this possibility says more about the dependency culture than about old time morals and values of an independent nation.

Bring back to life, the reliable Cook County voting deceased block, on a national level is a very real prospect, when the gangster machine applies their strong-arm techniques to the ballot box. Not to place much reliance in the electoral process, which is controlled by two branches of the same establishment, the overt fixing of the presidential cycle by the lackeys in the mainstream media is reminiscent of the press coverage given to the Al Capone free soup kitchens.

The Democrat/Republican dialectic political party racket has proven that voters rarely if ever have a true choice on Election Day. The result of this travesty is that successive administrations become engrained in the art of expanding their outlaw enterprises. The crop of Obama confederates includes some well-known names.  provides some individual rap sheets on Valerie Jarrett, Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, David Axelrod, David Wilhelm, William Daley, Marty Nesbitt and Austan Goolsbee. The protection assigned to such offenders of the rule of law, demonstrates that they are part of the real untouchables.When government incorporates and perfects an underworld culture and consorts with such infamous associates as Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich, you get the Chicago style dish of political indigestion.

Katie Pavlich writes in Town Hall, Exposing Obama’s Criminal Friends:

“Team Obama has a habit of getting their money from people accused of fraud. Corzine is one, Shervin Neman is another. Neman has visited the White House at least 8 times.

Another Obama bundler, Abake Assongba, is accused of defrauding a businessman out of $657,000. At this point, Assongba has raked in $50,000 for Obama’s re-election campaign.”

Stalin’s Henchmen and key characters at the Court of the Red Tsar – Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Kirov, Yagoda, Molotov, Voroshilov, Sergo – shares the same traits of the enablers of the Soviet despotic regime with the Chicago mobsters. While in some circles, it is not popular to make such comparisons, the actual pattern of deceit and authoritarian brute force is consistent with their methods. The “Reds” loved to paint the American form of governance as a gangster government. Such claims condemned as blatant propaganda, seldom gained traction in the public consciousness. However, upon a detailed examination, the linkage of the “communist cousins” reveals a common birth.It is crucial to discard the canard that totalitarian governments are different because of an appearance of dissimilar rhetoric. Obama is an avowed Marxist, not only in class warfare, but especially in his seizure of the reins of undemocratic power by his actions. The inescapable abuse of executive privilege, favored exemptions and selective application of public policy, demonstrates his affinity with the teachings of his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.

Niall Kilkenny makes the astounding claim that Davis was not all he seemed to be.

“Sometime between 1927 and 1948, Frank Marshall Davis was recruited as a special agent or informer for the FBI—Federal Bureau of Inquisition. As a newspaperman, Davis had the perfect opportunity to know what was happening in Chicago. As a left wing or “Communist” sympathizer, no one would suspect him of association with the ultra right wing FBI.”

The Telegraph reports in, Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist, was early influence on Barack Obama.

“Although identified only as Frank in Mr Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father, it has now been established that he was Frank Marshall Davis, a radical activist and journalist who had been suspected of being a member of the Communist Party in the 1950s.”

How could such a dramatic seemingly contradiction be reconciled? Dreams from My Real Fatherprovides the following viewpoint.

“The FBI had Davis under investigation or surveillance for 19 years, compiling a 600-page FBI file. He was on the FBI’s ‘Security Index A’, meaning he would be arrested in the event of national emergency.

Frank Marshall Davis joined the Communist Party and began writing for The Chicago Star. He was a colleague of journalist Vernon Jarrett, father-in-law of Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett.

CPUSA assigned Frank Marshall Davis to Honolulu where he began writing for the Communist Newspaper, the Honolulu Record in 1948. In his columns, Davis flawlessly mirrored official Soviet propaganda – he blamed American capitalism for starting World War II, denounced the Marshall Plan, preached wealth redistribution, nationalization of industry and government healthcare, while bashing Wall Street. Davis also helped organize the Communist controlled ILWU (union) in a failed effort to take over the Hawaiian government in 1949. The Hawaii NAACP chapter complained to its national office, “Comrade Frank Marshall Davis suddenly appeared on the scene to propagandize the membership with the purpose of converting it into a front for the Stalinist line.” In 1956, Davis was subpoenaed by the Senate Subcommittee on Un-American Activities and pleaded the fifth.”

The point of Davis’ relationship with the FBI clouds the emphatic influence he had on the political leanings of the future POTUS. Obama has all the signs of being the “Manchurian Candidate” for the ultimate manipulators of the phony Hegelian differences that are at odds between the Communism and Capitalism systems. The literal reality is that both models have become puppets and are under the control of the globalist banksters. This certainty eludes most observers of the power politics charade.

The tyrannical practices of gangsters are common across the planet. The only difference is that the flair of repression shown in the “Windy City” is excused as being home- grown by the guardians of the establishment Wall Street oligarchy. The domestic pressitute media makes Pravda look like the bastion of investigative reporting.

Obama remains unfailing to his African roots. He operates under the Charles Taylor warlord manikin. He seeks to mirror the iron fist rule of Sekou Toure and employs the same oppressive tactics asMobutu Sese Seko. His goal is to turn Amerika into a Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe paradise.Marxists; whether African, Soviet, European or American spawn, all share the same fascist distain for their own citizens. The soaring platitudes of comrade ideology coupled with the brutal coercion of compliance, causes vast worldwide suffering. The Obama version of socialism is nothing but a diversion from the true objective, a complete integration into a global gulag.

The collectivists are essentially gangsters. The “Community Organizer” is fundamentally a tyrant. His mobster origins are on display with every unconstitutional action he takes. He is turning the land of the free into the territory of the damned. With all the ranting and phony rage against the rich, he continues to take his marching orders from the Wall Street crime syndicate commission. Much of the muscle utilized by the titans of finance, comes from the LaSalle branch; namely, the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

The American public is so deceived into accepting that State/Capitalism is equivalent with free enterprise that they falsely defend the crimes of international finance. Without intense outrage against the diabolical alliance of the street thugs and the suite robbers, the fate of the country will succumb to the demands of “boss politics”.

Remember that Chicago and Illinois are terminally broke. The kickbacks and bribes paid to grease the palms of the politicos is a framework that will be implemented with even greater intensity in a second Obama administration. Do not hold your breath for a modern day Elliot Ness to bring the bad guys to justice. The courts are all fixed, in the fine tradition of “Beirut by the Lake”. Chi-Town values now apply to the entire political process.

The frustration of voting public must galvanize into a national movement to restore self-respect. The bully campaign that the Obama surrogates spew is only topped with the congenial lies out of the mouth of the arrogant “tinhorn” dictator. Apologies to the “chairman of the board”, Sinatra – sing a different tune.

This is my kind of town, Chicago is

My kind of town, Chicago is

My kind of people, too

Even your “Second City” mob cronies have to have second thoughts about Barack Obama.

Israel, US Bent On Brewing Iran Crisis

A report published on Sunday in Ha’aretz reveals that US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon has presented Washington’s contingency plans for a possible attack on Iran to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once the nuclear negotiations reach an impasse.

However, the report was immediately denied by a top Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said, “Nothing in the article is correct. Donilon did not meet the prime minister for dinner, he did not meet him one-on-one, nor did he present operational plans to attack Iran.”

A quick justification for this denial could be that such a contingency plan was not supposed to be publicized and should have remained confidential for as long as necessary.

Still, there is no denial that Washington and Israel are the two sides of a coin and it is manifest that they have in their political wheeling and dealing formed a united front against Iran.

US GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has recently paid a visit to Israel to marshal up support of the Israelis on the one hand and express his unswervingly servile commitment to Israel (including his anti-Iran stance) on the other. Dan Senor, a top foreign policy adviser for the GOP presidential candidate, says that Romney would support “Israel’s decision to launch a military strike against Iran to keep that country from achieving nuclear capabilities, but hopes diplomatic and military measures will dissuade Tehran from pursuing its path toward nuclear acquisition.”

Furthermore, he told reporters ahead of the speech, planned for late Sunday near Jerusalem’s Old City, “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing the capability, the governor would respect that decision.”

With a more somber tone, however, Romney himself has repeatedly said that he has a “zero tolerance” policy toward Iran obtaining the capability to build a nuclear weapon.

In recent past, Washington has frequently threatened Iran with a military strike. The threats, which evidently run counter to all international laws, are generally uttered by a massive number of officials influenced by the powerful Zionist lobby in Washington. A brazen instance of these threats is that Washington may use the 14-ton bunker buster (20ft long, 1ft wide weapon) known as Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), the world’s largest conventional bomb against Iran nuclear sites. Michael Donley, the US Air Force Secretary, said the bomb would be available if necessary.

“We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing,” he said “We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”

In order to justify their illegal threats and sanctions, the US has apparently embarked on a systematic program of fomenting Iranophobia in the US and the rest of the world. In this pernicious Iranophobic campaign, a number of groups and parties including Tea Party, neocons and AIPAC are actively involved.

By this program, the US is hell bent on distorting the realities of the Islamic Republic as well as brainwashing public opinion in the world into believing that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, and that Iran poses a grave danger to the security of the world. In this smear campaign, Washington also makes use of its allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel in the region.

A politically bankrupt politician who does have but little respect in his own country, Romney follows the selfsame Iranophobic campaign, takes an aggressive stand on Iran in Israel where he is falsely emboldened and says Tehran’s leaders are giving the world “no reason to trust them with nuclear material.” He even voiced support for an Israeli decision for military action “to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capability”.

“Make no mistake: The ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way. My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country.”

These facts aside, the duo have recently started a string of false flag terrorist attacks taking place in different parts of the world. With Washington pointing the finger of blame at Iran, Israel feels more fallaciously entitled to tone up its war rhetoric against the Islamic Republic and make the best of the fabricated ops. In the same line, former UN Ambassador John Bolton has called on the Zionist entity to attack Iran in retaliation for the alleged killing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, saying “the time has come for the Jewish state to quit threatening and take action”.

“This is obviously a very dangerous period for Israel with the civil war in Syria, refugees reported going across the border into Lebanon, and Hezbollah well armed with rockets on Israel’s northern border,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday night. “So I think if there were ever a time to retaliate, and directly against Iran this time, this is it.”

In the final analysis, one can see that the real threat in the world is being posed and imposed by those warmongers in Washington who will turn the situation to the best of their own interests in the region as well as by the Zionist entity who will in the wake of a war against Iran reap the benefits of such aggression if of course they ever outlive such an act of belligerence.

Behind Obama’s Fake Recovery

The Plan To Gut Social Security…

Last week’s dismal “data dump” has ended all talk of a strong recovery in the US. Retail sales, factory output, jobless claims, consumer confidence, business investment and existing home sales are all down sharply indicating that the US economy is decelerating and may be headed for recession.

The Obama administration was warned repeatedly that activity would slow when the $800 billion fiscal stimulus (ARRA) ran out and net government spending became a drag on growth. But Obama’s chief economics advisor, Lawrence Summers, shrugged off these warnings in order to keep the economy sputtering along at half-speed. Summers figured that bigger deficits and slower growth would create the rationale for slashing entitlement spending and crushing organised labor (particularly, public unions) In other words, the economy is weak, because the policy was designed to make it weak. Mission accomplished.

Not everyone in the Obama administration played along with this scam. Economist Christina Romer, for example, wanted the stimulus to be $1 trillion more than was eventually approved by Summers. That’s what she figured it would take to kick-start the growth engine and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. Here’s the story from Huffington Post’s Sam Stein:

“…members of the president’s economic team felt that if they were to properly fill the hole caused by the recession, they would need a bill that priced at $1.8 trillion — $600 billion more than was previously believed to be the high-water mark for the White House.

The $1.8 trillion figure was included in a December 2008 memo authored by Christina Romer (the incoming head of the Council of Economic Advisers) and obtained by Scheiber in the course of researching his book.

“When Romer showed [Larry] Summers her $1.8 trillion figure late in the week before the memo was due, he dismissed it as impractical. So Romer spent the next few days coming up with a reasonable compromise: roughly $1.2 trillion,” Scheiber writes.”

The idea that Summers rejected Romer’s plan as “impractical” is pure public relations. Summers had a different agenda altogether. What he wanted was exactly what he got, a slow, underperforming economy with high unemployment and huge deficits. Does anyone really think that an economist with Summers’ impressive education and experience could be $1 trillion off in his calculations? (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was eventually whittled down to $787 billion) It’s ridiculous. Summers wanted a flagging economy so he could torpedo Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These were the targets from the very beginning.

As for Obama, well, he probably figured that the $800 billion fiscal package would be enough to carry him over the finish-line in the 2012 elections, but not so big that it would subvert the goals of his chief economics advisor who was beholden to Wall Street and big business. In truth, Obama wanted the same thing as Summers, a justification for attacking the meager programs that keep the elderly and vulnerable from destitution.

Neither Summers nor Obama anticipated the downturn in China or the severity of the crisis in Europe both of which have weighed heavily on growth in the US and around the world. Here’s how Nouriel Roubini summed it up in a recent article on Project Syndicate:

“…the first-half growth rate looks set to come in closer to 1.5% at best, even below 2011’s dismal 1.7%. And now, after getting the first half of 2012 wrong, many are repeating the fairy tale that a combination of lower oil prices, rising auto sales, recovering house prices, and a resurgence of US manufacturing will boost growth in the second half of the year and fuel above-potential growth by 2013.

The reality is the opposite: for several reasons, growth will slow further in the second half of 2012 and be even lower in 2013 – close to stall speed.”

Global growth is pretty much deteriorating everywhere; China, India, Japan, Brazil, emerging markets. The eurozone is particularly concerning as ongoing bank runs in the south accelerate increasing the likelihood of a full-blown banking system collapse. The uncertainty is reflected in 10-year US Treasuries which have seen yields drop to record-lows in the last week. The flight to safety has intensified as frightened investors try to get their money out of Europe to avoid the deepening crisis and possible breakup of the 17-member monetary union.

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal announced that the “Fed Moves Closer to Action”. The news ignited a short rally, but soon faded. Confidence in the Fed is at its nadir. Another round of bond buying (QE3) might give equities a temporary jolt, but no one believes it will change the overall direction of the market or lead to an economic rebound. Interest rates are already at historic lows, so stuffing the banks with more reserves will neither increase lending or reduce unemployment. It is an exercise in futility. The Fed is at the limits of its effectiveness.

The current slowdown could have been avoided or at least mitigated had the Obama team followed Romer’s recommendation and provided the fiscal stimulus that was needed. Now–due to political gridlock in congress–a second round of stimulus is out of the question which means the economy will continue its downward trend.

So, what should Obama do?

For starters, he should take a page out of FDR’s Depression handbook and hire more public workers. Here’s a clip from an article by economist Marshall Auerback who details some of the programs that Roosevelt implemented:

“[Roosevelt’s] government hired about 60 per cent of the unemployed in public works and conservation projects that planted a billion trees, saved the whooping crane, modernized rural America, and built such diverse projects as the Cathedral of Learning in Pittsburgh, the Montana state capitol, much of the Chicago lakefront, New York’s Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Yorktown. It also built or renovated 2,500 hospitals, 45,000 schools, 13,000 parks and playgrounds, 7,800 bridges, 700,000 miles of roads, and a thousand airfields. And it employed 50,000 teachers, rebuilt the country’s entire rural school system, and hired 3,000 writers, musicians, sculptors and painters, including Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.”

Or Obama could allocate $300 billion per year to rehire the 650,000 teachers and other state and local workers who’ve been laid off since the crash. That would be the easiest thing to do. Skip all the red-tape connected to infrastructure and gov job’s programs and just rehire the people who got their pink slip after the crash. The money spent on jobs would more than pay for itself by raising state revenues and boosting economic activity by many orders of magnitude.

Have you seen a graph of how many (state and local) jobs have been lost under Obama? It’s shocking! Take a look: http://streetlightblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/government-job-destruction.html

We need to get these people back to work so they can feed their families and pay the bills. If we can afford $11 trillion to bail out crooked bankers, we can certainly afford a measly $300 mil for hard-working middle class families. It’s just a matter of priorities.

Economist Dean Baker has posted an article on his blog that supports my general thesis that Obama is planning to cut Social Security etc following the election. Here’s an excerpt from the post:

“The plan is that we will get the rich folks’ deal regardless of who wins the election….The deal that this gang … is hatching will inevitably include some amount of tax increases and also large budget cuts. At the top of the list… are cuts to Social Security and Medicare. ….

Social Security amounts to 90 percent or more of the income for one-third of seniors. For this group, the proposed cut in benefits would be a considerably larger share of their income that the higher taxes faced by someone earning $300,000 a year as a result of the repeal of the Bush tax cuts on high income earners…

(“The One Percent Want Your Social Security and Medicare and Steven Pearlstein Is Trying to Help”, Dean Baker, CEPR)

There it is in black and white. Obama is just as committed to gutting Social Security as Romney. The only difference is that he’s a better pitchman. Much better.

The Careerists

The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality. They collect and read the personal data gathered on tens of millions of us by the security and surveillance state. They keep the accounts of ExxonMobil, BP and Goldman Sachs. They build or pilot aerial drones. They work in corporate advertising and public relations. They issue the forms. They process the papers. They deny food stamps to some and unemployment benefits or medical coverage to others. They enforce the laws and the regulations. And they do not ask questions.

Good. Evil. These words do not mean anything to them. They are beyond morality. They are there to make corporate systems function. If insurance companies abandon tens of millions of sick to suffer and die, so be it. If banks and sheriff departments toss families out of their homes, so be it. If financial firms rob citizens of their savings, so be it. If the government shuts down schools and libraries, so be it. If the military murders children in Pakistan or Afghanistan, so be it. If commodity speculators drive up the cost of rice and corn and wheat so that they are unaffordable for hundreds of millions of poor across the planet, so be it. If Congress and the courts strip citizens of basic civil liberties, so be it. If the fossil fuel industry turns the earth into a broiler of greenhouse gases that doom us, so be it. They serve the system. The god of profit and exploitation. The most dangerous force in the industrialized world does not come from those who wield radical creeds, whether Islamic radicalism or Christian fundamentalism, but from legions of faceless bureaucrats who claw their way up layered corporate and governmental machines. They serve any system that meets their pathetic quota of needs.

These systems managers believe nothing. They have no loyalty. They are rootless. They do not think beyond their tiny, insignificant roles. They are blind and deaf. They are, at least regarding the great ideas and patterns of human civilization and history, utterly illiterate. And we churn them out of universities. Lawyers. Technocrats. Business majors. Financial managers. IT specialists. Consultants. Petroleum engineers. “Positive psychologists.” Communications majors. Cadets. Sales representatives. Computer programmers. Men and women who know no history, know no ideas. They live and think in an intellectual vacuum, a world of stultifying minutia. They are T.S. Eliot’s “the hollow men,” “the stuffed men.” “Shape without form, shade without colour,” the poet wrote. “Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”

It was the careerists who made possible the genocides, from the extermination of Native Americans to the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians to the Nazi Holocaust to Stalin’s liquidations. They were the ones who kept the trains running. They filled out the forms and presided over the property confiscations. They rationed the food while children starved. They manufactured the guns. They ran the prisons. They enforced travel bans, confiscated passports, seized bank accounts and carried out segregation. They enforced the law. They did their jobs.

Political and military careerists, backed by war profiteers, have led us into useless wars, including World War I, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. And millions followed them. Duty. Honor. Country. Carnivals of death. They sacrifice us all. In the futile battles of Verdun and the Somme in World War I, 1.8 million on both sides were killed, wounded or never found. In July of 1917 British Field Marshal Douglas Haig, despite the seas of dead, doomed even more in the mud of Passchendaele. By November, when it was clear his promised breakthrough at Passchendaele had failed, he jettisoned the initial goal—as we did in Iraq when it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and in Afghanistan when al-Qaida left the country—and opted for a simple war of attrition. Haig “won” if more Germans than allied troops died. Death as score card. Passchendaele took 600,000 more lives on both sides of the line before it ended. It is not a new story. Generals are almost always buffoons. Soldiers followed John the Blind, who had lost his eyesight a decade earlier, to resounding defeat at the Battle of Crécy in 1337 during the Hundred Years War. We discover that leaders are mediocrities only when it is too late.

David Lloyd George, who was the British prime minister during the Passchendaele campaign, wrote in his memoirs: “[Before the battle of Passchendaele] the Tanks Corps Staff prepared maps to show how a bombardment which obliterated the drainage would inevitably lead to a series of pools, and they located the exact spots where the waters would gather. The only reply was a peremptory order that they were to ‘Send no more of these ridiculous maps.’ Maps must conform to plans and not plans to maps. Facts that interfered with plans were impertinencies.”

Here you have the explanation of why our ruling elites do nothing about climate change, refuse to respond rationally to economic meltdown and are incapable of coping with the collapse of globalization and empire. These are circumstances that interfere with the very viability and sustainability of the system. And bureaucrats know only how to serve the system. They know only the managerial skills they ingested at West Point or Harvard Business School. They cannot think on their own. They cannot challenge assumptions or structures. They cannot intellectually or emotionally recognize that the system might implode. And so they do what Napoleon warned was the worst mistake a general could make—paint an imaginary picture of a situation and accept it as real. But we blithely ignore reality along with them. The mania for a happy ending blinds us. We do not want to believe what we see. It is too depressing. So we all retreat into collective self-delusion.

In Claude Lanzmann’s monumental documentary film “Shoah,” on the Holocaust, he interviews Filip Müller, a Czech Jew who survived the liquidations in Auschwitz as a member of the “special detail.” Müller relates this story:

“One day in 1943 when I was already in Crematorium 5, a train from Bialystok arrived. A prisoner on the ‘special detail’ saw a woman in the ‘undressing room’ who was the wife of a friend of his. He came right out and told her: ‘You are going to be exterminated. In three hours you’ll be ashes.’ The woman believed him because she knew him. She ran all over and warned to the other women. ‘We’re going to be killed. We’re going to be gassed.’ Mothers carrying their children on their shoulders didn’t want to hear that. They decided the woman was crazy. They chased her away. So she went to the men. To no avail. Not that they didn’t believe her. They’d heard rumors in the Bialystok ghetto, or in Grodno, and elsewhere. But who wanted to hear that? When she saw that no one would listen, she scratched her whole face. Out of despair. In shock. And she started to scream.”

Blaise Pascal wrote in “Pensées,” “We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.”

Hannah Arendt, in writing “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” noted that Adolf Eichmann was primarily motivated by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.” He joined the Nazi Party because it was a good career move. “The trouble with Eichmann,” she wrote, “was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.”

“The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else,” Arendt wrote. “No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”

Gitta Sereny makes the same point in her book “Into That Darkness,” about Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka. The assignment to the SS was a promotion for the Austrian policeman. Stangl was not a sadist. He was soft-spoken and polite. He loved his wife and children very much. Unlike most Nazi camp officers, he did not take Jewish women as concubines. He was efficient and highly organized. He took pride in having received an official commendation as the “best camp commander in Poland.” Prisoners were simply objects. Goods. “That was my profession,” he said. “I enjoyed it. It fulfilled me. And yes, I was ambitious about that, I won’t deny it.” When Sereny asked Stangl how as a father he could kill children, he answered that he “rarely saw them as individuals. It was always a huge mass. … [T]hey were naked, packed together, running, being driven with whips. …” He later told Sereny that when he read about lemmings it reminded him of Treblinka.

Christopher Browning’s collection of essays, “The Path to Genocide,” notes that it was the “moderate,” “normal” bureaucrats, not the zealots, who made the Holocaust possible. Germaine Tillion pointed out “the tragic easiness [during the Holocaust] with which ‘decent’ people could become the most callous executioners without seeming to notice what was happening to them.” The Russian novelist Vasily Grossman in his book “Forever Flowing” observed that “the new state did not require holy apostles, fanatic, inspired builders, faithful, devout disciples. The new state did not even require servants—just clerks.”

“The most nauseating type of S.S. were to me personally the cynics who no longer genuinely believed in their cause, but went on collecting blood guilt for its own sake,” wrote Dr. Ella Lingens-Reiner in “Prisoners of Fear,” her searing memoir of Auschwitz. “Those cynics were not always brutal to the prisoners, their behavior changed with their mood. They took nothing seriously—neither themselves nor their cause, neither us nor our situation. One of the worst among them was Dr. Mengele, the Camp Doctor I have mentioned before. When a batch of newly arrived Jews was being classified into those fit for work and those fit for death, he would whistle a melody and rhythmically jerk his thumb over his right or his left shoulder—which meant ‘gas’ or ‘work.’ He thought conditions in the camp rotten, and even did a few things to improve them, but at the same time he committed murder callously, without any qualms.”

These armies of bureaucrats serve a corporate system that will quite literally kill us. They are as cold and disconnected as Mengele. They carry out minute tasks. They are docile. Compliant. They obey. They find their self-worth in the prestige and power of the corporation, in the status of their positions and in their career promotions. They assure themselves of their own goodness through their private acts as husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. They sit on school boards. They go to Rotary. They attend church. It is moral schizophrenia. They erect walls to create an isolated consciousness. They make the lethal goals of ExxonMobil or Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or insurance companies possible. They destroy the ecosystem, the economy and the body politic and turn workingmen and -women into impoverished serfs. They feel nothing. Metaphysical naiveté always ends in murder. It fragments the world. Little acts of kindness and charity mask the monstrous evil they abet. And the system rolls forward. The polar ice caps melt. The droughts rage over cropland. The drones deliver death from the sky. The state moves inexorably forward to place us in chains. The sick die. The poor starve. The prisons fill. And the careerist, plodding forward, does his or her job.

Source: Chris Hedges | Truthdig

Rick Warren Once Again Caught Up In Controversy, Part 2

Plastic pastors transparent enough to see through, like Joel Osteen, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Modalistic moguls of the painfully-obvious-money-hungry prosperity movement, like T.D. Jakes, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. Self-serving sorcerers of the false signs and wonders movement, like Todd Bentley, are not as dangerous as Rick Warren. No. None of the before-mentioned personalities or groups are all that dangerous because what you see is what you get. They all lack the ability to change their appearance to accommodate a change in environment. They lack the chameleon-like ability, the self-serving ability, to say what needs to be said in order to keep people in every camp liking them.—Tony Miano

In part 1 I brought you up to speed on what some “watchbloggers” refer to as “Kingsway-gate.”  I’m guessing we haven’t heard the end of this mess.  However, this matter and many others commented on in part 1 have helped to earn Rick Warren the title: Teflon Pastor.  So we shall see what happens with Kingsway-gate.

Common ground in the love of God…or god?

Most likely Saddleback Church congregants are unaware that their pastor signed a controversial document produced by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture titled Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You.  In July 2008 Christian and Muslim leaders gathered at Yale University for a conference to promote understanding and peace between Christians and Muslims. The letter urged the two faiths to find “common ground” in the love of God.   Since Christians and Muslims do not believe in the same God, one wonders which God we’re to find common ground with.

The Christian Post reported that Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “disagreed with key points raised in the letter because he felt they compromised the Christian faith [and] amid calls for love in a common God, the letter ‘failed to clearly define the Christian understanding of God as the trinity.’”

So why would any serious Christian sign a document that did not clearly define the Trinity?

Rick Warren claims he believes in the Trinity and we must take him at his word on this.  But to what extent does his belief in the Trinity come through in his ministry to Muslims?  Does he keep his Trinitarian belief close to the vest so as not to offend them?  Or is he forthcoming in his belief that there is one true God who exists in three co-equal, co-eternal, and co-existent Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  If his Muslim friends cannot understand his view of the Godhead, perhaps he’s not bothering to explain it to them.

The Christian Post report revealed some of the notable leaders at the conference:

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi of Sudan; Geoff Tunnicliffe, CEO and international director of World Evangelical Alliance; Leith Anderson, president of NAE; and Antonios Kireopoulos of the National Council of Churches. A handful of Jewish leaders will also attend the conference.

Scroll through the list of signatories and you’ll discover several other notable leaders (theological liberals) such as Emerging church proponents Brian McLaren, Tony Jones and Scot McKnight; prosperity evangelist David Yonggi Cho; one of the “seeker-sensitive” architects, Bill Hybles; Richard Mouw, President, Fuller Theological Seminary; David Neff, Editor in Chief, Christianity Today; gospel of self-esteem sageRobert Schuller; Marxist sympathizer Jim Wallis (mentioned in part 1); and of course Rick Warren.

Certainly biblical unity can be a good thing, but as Phil Johnson reminds us:

The concept of “unity”  commonly touted today has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘being in full accord and of one mind’ (Philippians 2:2). Instead, it is a broad, visible, ecumenical homogeneity without boundaries.  And that is nothing like the biblical concept of unity.

What did Jesus say regarding unity?  “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

Global peace, at last

April 17, 2005 speaking before 30,000 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Rick Warren breathlessly proclaimed his plan:

The bottom line is that we intend to reinvent mission strategy in the 21st century.  As I stated, this will be a new Reformation.  The First Reformation returned us to the message of the original church.  It was a reformation of doctrine – what the church BELIEVES.  This Second Reformation will return us to the mission of the original church.  It will be a reformation of PURPOSE – what the church DOES in the world.

Our goal will be to enlist one billion foot soldiers for the Kingdom of God, who will permanently change the face of international missions to take on these five ‘global giants’ for which the church can become the ultimate distribution and change agent to overcome Spiritual emptiness, Self-serving Leadership, Poverty, disease and ignorance . (Online source)

Warren put forth his program for global Christian dominion.  He also encouraged the crowd, the majority of them Christians, to adopt the same sort of dedication shown by followers of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.

The New Apostolic Purpose Driven Reformation

As Rick Warren reveals the details of his global agenda, more and more Christians are expressing concern over it.  And so are liberals.  In fact liberals are so uneasy over what he and other dominionists are doing that the New Apostolic Research Group was formed.  Far-left blogger Bruce Wilson is part of it.  In a 2009 column Wilson declared:

Both C. Peter Wagner and Rick Warren want to transform the world, and both [1,2] have proclaimed the advent of a second Reformation. Wagner calls it the New Apostolic Reformation, while for Rick Warren this is a “purpose driven” effort powered by Warren’s global P.E.A.C.E. Plan. In Uganda both visions for societal transformation appear to include the categorical elimination of homosexuality – by any means.

By any means?  Hyperbole, I presume. As a committed lefty, Bruce Wilson fully supports the radical homosexual agenda to normalize sodomy and other aberrant behavior.

Wilson continues:

Rick Warren wrote his 1993 dissertation for a Doctorate of Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminar, under Wagner’s supervision. It is titled New Churches For a New Generation: Church Planting to Reach Baby Boomers. In his 2008 book , C. Peter Wagner describes the process through which this brand of Christianity can take dominion over government and society, and Wagner claims that this can be done within a democratic framework. Wagner clearly states that Rick Warren’s global P.E.A.C.E. Plan is an example of “stage one”: 

Wagner is the Convening Apostle in a movement of charismatic “relational networks” which has extended its reach from the United States to Uganda, and worldwide. Under its umbrella of authority are virulently anti-gay apostles in the United States and Uganda including Lou Engle of TheCall, who led thousands of young people in a twelve hour November 1, 2008 stadium rally in support of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition Eight. The San Diego event closed with Engle, a member of Wagner’s inner circle of “prophets,” calling for Christian martyrs. Wagner’s plans include reorganizing charismatic Christianity under the authority of these apostles and prophets. (links in original) (Online source)  

Wilson has done his homework on the NAR.  Unbelievably, most Christians have not taken this movement seriously even though these false teachers have united with the Christian Right, politicians, rock-star pastors, entertainers, radio personalities, and a host of Christian leaders.  Likewise, New Age Mormon Glenn Beck has weaseled his way into these groups.  (Learn more about the NAR here.)

Growing a church

In Break Through These 3 Barriers to Growth “Coach” Warren outlines three essentials for breaking through the barriers to church growth. Following is barrier #2:

You must change the primary role of the pastor from minister to leader.

What’s the difference? In leadership, you take the initiative; in ministry, you respond to the needs of others. When someone calls and you pick up the phone, that’s ministry. When you pick up the phone and call someone, that’s leadership. Typically, you learn ministry skills in seminary, but you learn leadership skills in seminars. Pastoring is a balance. Here are five skills you must learn if your church is going to grow:

…Learn to communicate your vision.

…Learn the ability to motivate through messages.

…Learn how to equip for ministry. If you don’t learn how to coach, you will not be able to equip. And, if you do not equip, you will burn out in ministry.

…Learn how to raise money. Those who write the agenda must also be able to underwrite it.

…Learn the skill of managing your time and energy.

What about Rick Warren’s view of growing a church?  In Ordinary Pastors, part 2: A Biblical Definition of Ministry C. J. Mahaney defines pastoral ministry thusly:

Pastoral ministry that is pleasing to God is not ultimately about gifting, influence, or even fruitfulness. It is not about how many books you have written, which conferences invite you to speak, or how many of your sermons are downloaded on iTunes. It is not even about whether your church membership numbers grow or shrink. Pastoral ministry that is pleasing to God is about faithfulness to the charge of 2 Timothy 4. You and I are called to be faithful to this charge.

For the record, here’s what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

Peace + unity = universalism

In part 1, I pointed out that Rick Warren serves on the advisory board of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and that the foundation’s goal is to unify the world’s major religions.  Following is Warren’s explanation for serving:

The vision and values of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation are desperately needed today…. In any effort to help people learn to live and work together, we must engage the vast networks, resources, wisdom, and influence of the faith communities. My friends, [Roman Catholic] Tony Blair is uniquely prepared with the gifts of temperament, knowledge, experience, leadership, and global respect essential for a task this great. I honestly don’t know of anyone better suited for this challenge. It’s why I agreed to serve on the Advisory Board. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s potential for doing good is staggering.

What is staggering is that a Protestant pastor has no problem with a Catholic’s plan to unite all religious faiths.  In a piece I wrote titled Damnable heresies invading the church I touched on the push for unity:

What Warren is purporting is ecumenicism. Actually, we are moving beyond ecumenicism intointerspirituality (interfaith spirituality) or interdenominational cooperation.  “In the name of peace and unity,” says Ray Yungen, “the world’s religions are more and more joining together. And with that joining together will come a consensus that it is narrow minded and even hateful to say there is only one way to salvation.”

Peace and unity has a nice ring to it. But traditional, historic, evangelical Christianity holds that there is only one path to God, one door to enter through. Peter left no doubt when he said, “Salvation is found in no one else” (Acts 4:10). (Also see John 3:16, John 6:66-68, John 14:6, Acts 16:30-31, 1 Tim 2:3-6, 1 John 2:1)  The Bible clearly teaches that all paths do not lead to God.  Those who take a different path will spend eternity in hell.  So the loving thing for a committed Christian to do is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost.  In fact, Jesus commanded His followers to go out into the world and spread the good news.   Those who keep the good news to themselves fail to understand that God gives no second chances.  Jesus said, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat. 7:22).

My reason for this article (part 1&2) is to highlight some very concerning issues related to Rick Warren.  Each of the concerns that were identified could have been substantially expanded upon and if that is the readers’ desire there are links and references that will help one to do that.  My purpose has been to urge his followers and supporters to be like the Bereans who “were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

In these dark days ahead, God’s people must be watchful and discerning. We must “Prove [test] all things; hold fast that which is good” (1Thes 5:21).

Recommended articles and videos:

Read Part 1
Articles by Joseph Farah of Worldnet Daily:
The purpose-driven lie—11/16/06
Rick Warren on Syria: ‘A moderate country’–11/26/06
Listen to what Rick Warren said about Syria in an audio version of the video message his church pulled down from YouTube after it was exposed by Farah
There you go again, Rick Warren–12/26/06
Rick Warren’s distortions of reality—12/13/07
“One wonders if Pastor Warren’s discussions with President Assad about peace included a presentation of the Gospel of peace through Jesus Christ, as promoted in the author’s new P.E.A.C.E. Plan. The opportunity for an evangelical leader to meet with the head of a terror regime is rare.” –Lawrence E. Ford, Sr., Institute for Creation Research
Videos


Rick Warren’s SHAPE acronym is explained
Articles
Articles on the New Apostolic Reformation—On Solid Rock Resources

High Altitude Adventure – Skiing At 13,000 Feet

“We pushed forward about 30 yards at a clip.  Then caught our breath!  Hammered another 30 yards! Stopped to breathe!  Always, we looked up to the prize at 13,000 feet.   Don’t let me kid you; it takes guts, gumption and hard core determination to slog up a mountain peak—especially in winter.  Could we die?  Sure, we could meet our maker.   But heck, living full-out until we die is more fun.  Is it cold?  Sure, but we layer up.”  Journal entry, 3/22/12 FW

Under a rising sun and blue sky, we turned into the Crane parking lot at the head of the 10th Mountain Hut trailhead just down from 10,400 foot Tennessee Pass in the Colorado Rockies.  Around us, lodge pole pines grew thick to the west of us.  Eastward, aspirin white snows covered the valley, which featured a frozen river meandering southward.  Beyond it, enormous mountains pierced the sky.  A brisk wind greeted us upon opening the car doors.

“Yow! It’s a tad chilly,” said Al.

“No kidding,” I said. “It may be worth it to add some layers.”

“Looks like Steve and Eric started out on another trailhead,” Al said, talking about our friends that would meet us for this hut trip. “We’ll bump into them at the cabin.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said as I hauled my 45 pound pack out of the car.  “Let me get these skins slapped onto my skis and I’m ready to go.”

“I’ve got my snow shoes laced up,” Al said. “This pack seems to get heavier every year we take this hut trip.”

“You gotta stop bringing two pounds of cookies and five pounds of chips and salsa,” I said.

“Yeah, right!” Al said, smiling.  “Let’s get moving.”

We hiked up the road about a half mile to where an arrow pointed toward a mountain meadow filled with seven feet of snow.  Pines surrounded us and grew thicker as the mountain sloped upward.

“Let’s do it,” Al said. “Hey, look up above you.”

“I’ll be darned,” I said.  “A stellar jay looking for a handout.”

We stepped into our gear and headed up the mountain.  Not far into the woods, a squirrel jumped from branch to branch while he chattered at us like a repeating record.  He didn’t like us invading his territory.

My friend John Muir said, “How many hearts with warm red blood in them are beating under cover of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are shining?  A multitude of animal people, intimately related to us, but of whose lives we know almost nothing, are as busy about their own affairs as we are about ours.”

We pushed past the chattering squirrel with our eyes searching for the blue markers that denoted the trail.  While we carry compasses and topographical maps, it’s nice to see the blue diamonds showing us that we are on the right path.  Within a half mile, we reached a frozen lake.  We crossed it as the sun blazed overhead.

As Al pushed ahead, I noted the deep forest around us.  I reveled in the silence, the quiet of the snow and the slight breeze rustling through the evergreens. Something about that “sound” that calms my soul and uplifts my spirit.  I love leaving the car behind, the pavement and the cacophony of civilization.  It’s been said that the Great Spirit, as the Indians referred to Him, created snow to fall softly on the ground to give a blanket for all creatures to find solace from winter winds.  Above it, nature’s motions illustrate the circulation of life, of spirit and of energy pulsing throughout the wilderness.

As the slope pitched steeper, I noticed my breath quicken and my heart beat faster.  I felt the clean mountain air coursing through my lungs.  A mountaineering trip lets a man’s body know it’s alive. I think Thoreau said, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of humanity to elevate itself by conscious endeavor.”

As we drew deeper into the wilderness, we undoubtedly elevated ourselves as we climbed from 8,500 to 9,000 feet and upward still.
The trail led us through hard packed snow.  Soon, we reached a bridge over a frozen stream.  On the bridge, the snow rose over four feet deep. Other backcountry skiers had packed it down.

“Let’s take a picture,” Al said.

After the shot from the “Shutter bug of the Rockies”, we began climbing hard up a steep grade.  My breath drew deep drafts of life-giving oxygen into my heaving lungs.  It’s moments like this that I am grateful for my existence, for my body and for my ability to ambulate through this world.  I am thankful for the slowness and exertion.

We slogged upward until we hit a ridge that snaked through the trees.  Unexpectedly, it dropped down into a depression, but quickly regained itself.  We worked our way through an aspen grove with more squirrels chattering at us. Above, a hawk soared across the treetops on his morning breakfast patrol.

We stopped for a rest in a quiet glen.  Unshouldering the packs gave a sudden relief from the weight on our bodies. A long swig of water quenched our thirst and slicing up an apple gave us renewed energy.

Thoreau said, “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air; drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each. Let them be your only diet, drink and botanical medicines. Be blown on by all the winds. Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.”

“Let’s get this show on the road,” said Al.

“Let me hoist this torture chamber back onto my shoulders,” I said, “and let’s get going.  I figure we can reach the cabin before nightfall.”

Once again, the trail climbed steadily upward. We followed it through a tunnel of pine trees.  My skis swished over the ice crystals and Al’s snowshoes crunched down on the white carpet with every step.

As we climbed, high mountain peaks jumped up in front of us.  The pines thinned with the altitude as we crossed over 10,000 feet and on to 11, 000 feet.  Big open glades featured burned-out trunks from long ago.  Ahead, 13,209 foot Homestake Peak made its presence known.  It cut like a giant shark’s tooth into a cobalt sky.

Two more hours later brought us into wide open fields of glistening snow.

“Another mile should get us to the cabin,” Al said.

“We’re standing inside a huge mountain basin,” I said. “That big old 13er can’t wait to see us standing at the top tomorrow.”

“I’m ready for some hot chocolate and a nice fire,” said Al.

“Let’s do it, dude,” I said.

Late in the afternoon, the heavy packs took their toll on our bodies.  We felt the fatigue of pushing into the high country.
After rounding a stand of lodge pole pines, we saw the cabin set up against the mountains at 11,200 feet.   We punched over the snowy land until we reached the cabin.  Amazingly, it stood empty.  We pulled our gear off and unloaded the packs from our shoulders. We unlocked the door and entered.

The cabin featured a full kitchen with dishes, glassware and silverware on plentiful shelves.  A 100 year old cook stove stood in the middle of the kitchen. Two picnic tables made up the dining area.  At the far end, a black stove with plenty of wood awaited. Upstairs, sleeping area for 18 people in wooden bunks.  One could watch the stars while falling asleep as windows surrounded the entire upstairs.  On the walls downstairs, pictures of 10thMountain soldiers in full ski gear.  Around the entire cabin downstairs, huge 4’X 4’ windows.  A huge deck out front featured log benches for watching sunsets and stars.  Out back, two outhouses.

“Home for the next two days,” Al said.

“I’m cooking up some water for hot chocolate,” I said.  “It looks like Steve and Eric are still on their way.”

We lounged around the cabin.  Several gray jays perched on the railings around the deck expecting possible handouts.  West of us, out the big bay window, we saw Homestake Peak rising into the blue sky.

“It’s going to be a great climb tomorrow,” Al said.  “I hope the weather and temps are as good as today’s.”

Within an hour, we watched Steve and Eric emerge from the woods on the high side of the mountain.

“Dudes,” I said. “Glad to see you.”

“Great trip up,” Eric said. “Nice to finally get to this cabin. I’m tired of pulling this sled all day.”

“I like your idea of pulling a plastic sled rather than humping a heavy backpack,” Al said.

They unpacked and made themselves comfortable.  We fired up the main stove and warmed the place.  Eric, ever the baker, brought his own cheesecake protected in a plastic container.  Steve, a college instructor, fire fighter and engineer who had traveled to Antarctica, also enjoyed culinary talents of a top flight chef.

“I have never turned down a good dinner,” he said.  “Food is the foundation of happiness.”

“Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said that God made beer so men could be happy?” I said.  “Maybe you are the 21st century answer to Ben’s wisdom.”

“Why not?” said Steve.

That night, the fire burned brightly as we sat in a horseshoe circle around the fire place.  Outside, without any moon, the stars twinkled against an ink black sky.  A quick stepping out onto the deck allowed us to see major constellations such as Orion, the Big Dipper, Andromeda and Aries.  Saturn twinkled and we think we saw Jupiter taking its spot in the night sky.  Without any light pollution from cities, the night sky became very personal.

At the same time, it becomes so vast, it defies a person’s imagination.  As I stood on the deck looking, I felt a profound energy at being able to see the universe before my eyes.  Further, for this brief spark of time, I am a living entity in this vastness.  I am a part of the march of humanity.   I will continue to squeeze every drop of living from my time on this planet.

My friend Jack London said, “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor; every atom in magnificent glow—than a sleepy and permanent planet.  The proper function of man is to live, not merely exist. I shall use my time.”

Looking up at the dark outline of the great mountain before us, I knew that tomorrow would bring challenge and triumph of summiting a peak in the dead of winter.  We turned in early knowing that we needed our energies to climb the 13er before our eyes.
Morning breaks quietly in the high country. First, the night sky surrenders to a glowing horizon punctuated by mountain peaks. The first light of the sun brightens the snow peaks from the tips until it moves down the flanks.  Soon, the sun touches the tips of the trees and finally, the grand finale of light spreads its rays across the entire landscape.

“Good morning,” said Eric.

“Mornin’” Al and I said.

We ate breakfast.  Because of cutting a large blister in his heel on the way up, Steve decided the pain would be unbearable trying to climb Homestake Peak.

“I’ve got to opt out today,” he said. “I don’t need to make this blister worse.”

A half hour later, Eric, Al and I slapped on our skis and snow shoes along with our light day packs.  We cut northward toward the mountain range and veered west toward Slide Lake in a large basin that carried us toward the south end of the mountain.  The journey carried us for nearly two miles along the flanks of the mountain chain. At tree line, we pushed across 10 foot deep snow pack.

“There’s the starting point beyond that canyon,” I said. “Let’s keep high on the ridge so we don’t lose altitude.”

“Here, let me get a couple of shots of you guys,” Al said.

From that point, we made our way to the south side of the mountain where it began a slow and steep climb to the summit.  We cut switchbacks up the steep grade.  From there, the wind freshened to 20 miles per hour. Ahead, we saw nothing but white windblown snow and ice.

If I could describe what I saw before us, we stood at the bottom of a giant slide leading upward with a blue outline of the sky on the top and both sides.  But in this case, we couldn’t walk around and step up the ladder of the slide. We must climb up the slide to the very top which was probably two miles to the summit.  Along the way, all manner of winter obstacles faced us.  The wind strengthened.  As we climbed, we also faced less and less oxygen in the air at high altitude.

We pushed forward about 30 yards at a clip.  Then caught our breath!  Hammer another 30 yards! Stop to breathe!  Always, we looked up to the prize at 13,000 feet.   Don’t let me kid you, it takes guts, gumption and hard core determination to slog up a mountain peak—especially in winter.  Could we die?  Sure, we could meet our maker.   But heck, living full out until I die is more fun.  Is it cold?  Sure, but we layer up.
To my right, Eric pushed upward.  To my left, Al continued his quest.  I followed them.  Suddenly, I found Eric and Al to my left as we slogged ever higher onto the mountain.  But as they pushed forward, the canyon below dropped four to five thousand feet.  As that happened, another jagged monster snow-covered mountain rose up behind them on the other side of the canyon.

“Hey you guys,” I yelled. “Let me get a shot of you. That mountain back drop is incredible!”

They stood still for the shot.  Mind-bogglingly beautiful!  What I am seeing at this moment can only be seen on the nature channel.  I am seeing mountain majesty just like the folks who climb Mount Everest.  It doesn’t even seem like a smaller scale when a person climbs to these heights.  I am a mountaineer with no comparisons.

Onward we pushed up that colossal mountain.  The sun burned over head.  The sky dazzled with its brilliant blue.  The higher we skied, the more intense the mountains grew—like a line of sharks teeth ripping at the sky all around us.  I don’t know what Al and Eric were feeling, but I felt a sense of inner awe at what the universe provided me that moment.

At the same time, I sucked huge lung-fulls of air into my body.  I needed to keep every muscle oxygenated in order to keep pushing.  I skied up close to Eric.

“Man,” he said. “This is an enormous pile of amazing sights.”

“You got that right, dude,” I said.

As we drew nearer to the summit, more and more large rocks cut dark spots into the vast snowfields before us.  We continued our 30 yards of slogging, then resting for several minutes, then forward again with dogged determination.  After another hour, we reached a false summit.  Beyond it, the true summit awaited another 300 meters ahead.  Icy winds pulled at our bodies.

At 200 meters from the top, I encountered so much rock that I pulled my skis and stuck them into the snow.  Al pushed on with his snowshoes.  Eric cut further north along a ridge and found a path where he continued skiing.  I carried my poles and pushed further up the mountain as I hopped from rock to rock.  Within 100 meters of the summit, Eric pulled his skis and locked them to his backpack.
He intended to ski off the peak.

At mid day, Al reached the summit.  I followed.  Eric arrived several minutes later. We high fived and whooped it up for a few minutes.  Eric jumped into a handstand. Not bad at 13,209 feet on a freezing winter day at the top of an icy peak in the middle of the Colorado Rockies.  We took pictures of ourselves.  We spun around to see outrageous mountain ranges all around us.  The Gore Range, Mount Holy Cross, Never Summer Range, the Collegiate Range and Mount Elbert at 14,455 feet.

As we stood at the top, the wind blew, the sun smiled at us, but the cold started to creep into our bodies because we were no longer climbing.

“Time to get off this peak,” Al said.

“I hate coming down off a peak when it took so much to get up here,” I said.  “But, I don’t want to turn into an icicle, either.”

To reach the top of a mountain, my mind soars with bliss.  I can’t help my ear to ear grin.  The moment elevates me into such a joyous mental state. Sharing it with my friends makes it a celebration of life, of spirit and fellowship.

Moments later, Eric locked on his skis and jumped over the edge.  He made four quick cuts on the crusty, icy, hard packed snow.  To his left, a cliff dropped at least a thousand feet. One missed turn and he would become a tumbling tumble weed down an icy couloir.

Al stepped over the edge and made his way down. I plugged in my ski poles to brace myself for the descent from rock to rock, rock to snow, snow to rock and downward until I reached my skis.

Finally, I picked up my skis and slapped my boots into the bindings. I carefully worked my way over the hard pack.   Once again, I looked west to see the scenery change as I descended.  With each minute, I made my way from 13,000 to 12,500 to 12,000 and kept descending.  As I worked my way through the snow and rock, I saw where some of the tundra melted through to the surface of the snow. As the snow melted from the extreme sunshine, it formed an ice glaze that clung to the rocks and blanketed over the tundra like an icy spider web.
Exceedingly interesting and a visual delight as the sun played off the sheet ice.

Nearly to the bottom, we stopped to eat lunch.  Al caught up with me and we sat down on some big rocks to enjoy oranges, peanuts, energy bars and swig on some water.  After 20 minutes, we finished our lunch on that high altitude table with a view unlike any most folks could ever dream of from their own kitchen.

I jumped back onto my skis and made my way down a couloir.  At the bottom, I saw Eric making a run toward me. He made some great cuts and got caught up in his own powder blasts from the skis.  Finally, at the bottom, he crashed in front of me.  He fried his thighs!

Al left his perch and made his way slowly down the side of the mountain.  Later, we connected for the trek back to the cabin.
While I chose to circle back the way we came, Eric and Al dropped into the valley.  Later, they climbed back up.

About an hour later, we reached base camp at 11,200 where Steve greeted us.  We pulled off our gear and stepped in front of the fire place.  Al curled up in the corner and Eric dozed near a window.  I wrote about our high altitude adventure.  As you read these paragraphs, I hope I got it right. I hope you felt the climb and the triumph at the top.  I hope you enjoyed the journey with us.

In the evening, Steve cooked up some fabulous chicken steaks with rice and vegetables.  We sat at the table with wide grins and all sorts of stories. After stuffing ourselves, Eric brought out the “piece de resistance” with his homemade cheese cake.  Steve offered a bowl of hot blue berries for a topping.  Each of us enjoyed two pieces of cheese cake.

Let me tell you, I savored every single delicious, scrumptious, mouth-watering bite.  I let each fork full melt on my tongue and allowed the blue berries to soothe my taste buds and run down the back of my throat like a summer stream full of enchanting sensations.

“Bless you for this incredible cheese cake Baker Eric,” I said.

“Same for me,” said Al.

That night, we washed a lot of dishes. Ironically, no other back country skiers arrived, which left the entire cabin to just four men.  We read books about 10th Mountain soldiers, shared stories and stoked the fire.  Outside, the sun set and the night sky once again featured majestic constellations.

We hit the bunks early with tired bodies ready for some recuperation at high altitude.  Before I fell asleep near the window, a shooting star ripped across the night sky. It seemed to place a dramatic exclamation point to a most amazing day.

Next morning, we awoke with the sunrise. It lit up the high peaks and spread its glowing charms across the high country.  After breakfast, we washed more dishes, cleaned up the bunk room and brought in more wood.  We filled the water pot with more snow and loaded our backpacks.  Steve and Eric decided to stay for a few more hours.

“Dudes!” I said.  “Thanks for a great time.  Heal that heel, Steve.
Thanks for the cheese cake Eric.  Let’s do this again.”

“You can count on it,” said Steve.  “We loved every minute of it.”

We stepped outside into a brisk morning.  With the sun shining, it felt like a day at the beach.  “Snow beach!”

We shouldered our packs, just like the 10th Mountain soldiers. We buckled into our skis and snow shoes, just like the 10th Mountain soldiers.  We headed into a world of white at high altitude, just like the 10 Mountain soldiers.  We thanked them for their service to America.

As we headed down from the high altitude on our way back to civilization, we smiled at each other.  My friend Al and I enjoyed an exceptional adventure.

I am reminded of sage words by Henry David Thoreau, “We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.”

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