The World Loves Its Own

Hoping for the Apocalypse

2012-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

I came across Melanie Phillips column in the Daily Mail explaining why the West must take serious Iran's obtaining a nuclear weapon even if it means catastrophic war. The alternative as Ms. Phillips explains is a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran in the near future that could escalate into a world war with millions incinerated and many more millions suffering the effects of radiation poisoning. Her logic makes sense to a point but the thought of hundreds of thousands of casualties (if not millions) in another Asian land war that could easily spin out of control is also unnerving. Ms. Philips says that Iran will not come to its senses because it desires the fulfillment of messianic prophesy of the return of the messiah. She quotes an inside source of the Iranian regime:

‘Khamenei has been heard to say that the coming of the last Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, is near and that specific actions need to be taken to protect the Islamic regime for upcoming events. Mahdi, according to Shiite belief, will reappear at the time of Armageddon... Many in the Guards and Basij have been told that the 12th Imam is on earth, facilitated the victory of Hezbollah over Israel in the 2006 war and soon will announce publicly his presence after the needed environment is created.

'... Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, an influential cleric and a radical Twelver, previously had stated that Khamenei ascends to the sky every year to take direction from Imam Mahdi, and sources close to the cleric have disclosed that Khamenei has been ordered by Imam Mahdi to continue with the nuclear program despite worldwide objection as it will facilitate his coming.’

I take it as true that this statement expresses the sentiment of the Islamic regime. However, not everything you read is true and this could be just a crafty piece of misinformation. On the other side of the equation you have the American Christian Zionists who 100% support for equally eschatological reasons. From Wikipedia is the explanation of Christian Zionism:

Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land, which had both religiously and politically motivated supporters. The term Christian Zionism was popularized in the mid-twentieth century. Prior to that time the common term was Restorationism.^[1]

Some Christian Zionists believe that the "ingathering" of Jews in Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. This belief is primarily, though not exclusively, associated with Christian Dispensationalism. The idea that Christians should actively support a Jewish return to the Land of Israel, along with the parallel idea that the Jews ought to be encouraged to become Christian, as a means fulfilling a Biblical prophecy has been common in Protestant circles since the Reformation.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Many Christian Zionists believe that the people of Israel remain part of the chosen people of God, along with the “ingrafted” Gentile Christians^{[Romans 11:17-24]} (dual-covenant theology). This has the added effect of turning Christian Zionists into supporters of Jewish Zionism.

We have three different but parallel religious views of the end of the world fueling the politics in Iran and the USA.

The Jews in the USA understandingly want to avoid the destruction of Israel at all costs even if it means a preventive war between the United States and Iran. The threat of nuclear blackmail from Iran is simply untenable and from a Jewish point of view, Iran is another Nazi state in a different guise. If any lessons can be gleamed from WWII from the Jewish perspective is that preventive war in the 1930's would have stymied Hitler's objectives and have prevented the Holocaust. However, this is a hypothesis and far from a consensus view.

The evangelical community which supports Israel 100% and is an integral part of GOP politics as seen in the Republican presidential nominees tripping over one another in their desire for war with Iran. I find it ironic that the GOP is so pro-Israel when 90%+ of American Jews vote democratic. A major factor in making the GOP so pro-Israeli is the takeover of the party by the neoconservatives and their dedicated support to the Israeli cause. Additionally over the past two generations there is a cross party political consensus (due to strong Israeli lobbying) that a candidate for major office in either party cannot be considered as a major party member for office if his views on Israeli support deviate from being 100% supportive of the state of Israel. To be not pro-Israeli is to be considered an anti-Semite. Ironically, there is more disparate views about Israeli politics within Israel than there is in the USA. Without the strong evangelical support of Israel in the GOP, there would be a significant weakening of Israeli support since some groups like blacks, Latinos and recent immigrants from Asia have no affinity to the Jewish state.

It is ironic and tragic the increasingly secular country (for many wrong reasons) of the United States is being pushed into a non-winnable war with potentially casualties in the millions due to the theological beliefs of three disparate religious groups. The Christian evangelicals as I have written have a more Old Testament mentality with regard to peace and war; the Iranian Muslims are devout believers in Jihad against the infidel; and the Israeli's are fighting to avoid an Armageddon battle with Iran in the near future once it obtains the means of delivering a lethal strike against Israel.

I have to say from my own analysis that history is repeating itself. In 1914 the world entered a war that made absolutely no sense to anyone except imperialists. It looks like a repeat.........

Obama Jives and Slaps His Foes

2012-01-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

President Obama looks and acts like a man who knows he will be serving a second term. With the presumptive nominee Mitt Romney slipping like a man walking on banana peels, the weakness in the GOP field would make anyone giddy. The question on this Monday in late January is whether the GOP establishment will do something to derail a potential Gingrich nomination by injecting a new candidate into the mix if Romney appears to be terminally flawed. You can imagine Christie or Jeb Bush (another Bush!!!!) saying they are entering to save the party. If Gingrich wins Florida keep your eyes out for new 'establishment' candidates entering the race. My money if I was a betting man would be on Jeb Bush.....long live the plutocracy!

On another front, Obama has given the 'middle finger' to the Catholic Church with his praise of abortion rights and Roe v. Wade in particular. This pro-death President said, “And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” This is as nonsensical a statement that you will ever hear uttered by this banal person and it equates infanticide with (I guess) the pursuit of happiness as written in the Declaration of Independence. Our Lord said, "you will know them by their fruits".....I hope the voters realize what kind of moral reptilian this president is...........he makes the GOP presidential field, for all their bizarre positions, look like the communion of saints.....except Romney who believes in Joseph Smith, the polygamist prophet and a god somewhere in the cosmos.

Not content with just one middle finger at the church, Obama gave a two middle finger salute to Church by demanding that religious institutions to provide contraception and sterilization services as part of their health plans. As a result, Archbishop Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging Catholics to “let your elected leaders know that you want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and that you want the administration’s contraceptive mandate rescinded.”

Criticizing the Obama administration’s “incredibly narrow interpretation” of religious liberty, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York said in a web video that “never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

Archbishop Dolan Video

You would think by these actions that Obama has written off the Catholic vote. Unfortunately there is no such thing as the Catholic vote anymore. We are as fragmented as any other religious group except the Jews and Blacks who vote 90% democratic no matter the candidate. Frankly, you have the blame the Church for this state of affairs due to the American hierarchy emphasizing social justice issues over moral issues in the past 50 years. Some of these social issues such as illegal immigration and civil rights divided the Catholic population. Further divisions were fostered by the clerical abuse scandal, the weakening of Catholic identity at colleges and universities and the neglect of proper religious education and instruction.

Unsurprisingly, the traditional party of the working man, the Democrats, is as corrupt and morally bankrupt (probably more so) than the GOP but the bishops and their bureaucracies have been marching at the hip with democratic politicians for over a hundred years due to the perception of having a common cause. The party of the working man is now the party that supports a pro-death agenda not only abroad but also at home with its promotion of abortion, euthanasia as well as morally destructive policies such as homosexual marriage, extreme feminism, etc.

Obama obviously feels that he can solidify his left flank by taking positions against the Catholic Church which is the greatest opponent of the pro death and gay agendas. With his collection of special interest groups, the media and various other freaky types like extreme environmentalists he can cruise to reelection by jiving the middle class and blue collar voters that he really is one of them and has their best interests at heart.

Obama's laughing now..........who will have the last laugh?

Crony Capitalism

2012-01-22T22:05:00.000-08:00

The following Bill Moyers video is an excellent overview of the problem of crony capitalism. The focus of the piece is an interview with David Stockman, former Director of OMB (Office of Management and Budget) under President Reagan. Moyers, a Democrat and Stockman, a Republican both see the problem through the same objective lens and agree on the significant rise in corruption and decline of democracy. Please leave your ideologies to the side for about 45 minutes and hear the truth of the biggest problem facing the country - the rise of fascism which is defined as the combination of Big Business and Big Government working together in collusion against the interests of the common people.

Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Newt Rising and Mitt Slipping

2012-01-21T22:38:00.000-08:00

The longer the GOP campaign continues, Mitt Romney looks worse and worse. He lost tonight in South Carolina not because he was a Mormon but rather a rich Yankee Wall Street financier. Y'all see, the folk in the birthplace of the Confederacy have long memories and remember the Reconstruction with hundreds of Massachusetts types streaming into the war ravaged state to take advantage of cheap real estate and other assets for pennies on the dollar.....exactly the current business of Bain Capital.

Romney is a descendant of a type of capitalist who provides a service for people in 'need'. His LBO (leveraged buyout) and VC (venture capitalist) deals with Bain were not entrepreneurial endeavors creating jobs based upon delivering a needed product or service but rather a series of financial manipulations of balance sheets and income statements. He says he created jobs through Bain's efforts...true to a point.....many also in China.....but for his efforts he is an extremely wealthy man without having to come up with an original idea as a basis for a company. He is a type of manager that is produced by Harvard Business School. In his particular case, he started at the top due to his father's influence and connections and never looked back or down ever again.

Now he has to explain why a substantial part of his wealth is parked in offshore accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

"It is a shadow banking system that most Americans don't know anything about. Most Americans don't have the resources to be able to set up shell companies in half a dozen different countries so that they can "filter" their profits. Most Americans don't know a thing about complicated tax avoidance plans that tax lawyers use such as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich". Most Americans would have no idea how to eventually have most of the money that they make end up in Bermuda so that it can avoid taxes." This quote is from an article The Global Elite Are Hiding 18 Trillion Dollars In Offshore Banks. I highly recommend it.

Although Gingrich won tonight, Romney is still the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination and he is supported by the GOP establishment. But can he win a general election? Unfortunately, despite his looks, organization and money he has been unable to connect with the common person. This is a problem in the general election when the GOP candidate must win the blue collar voters and convince them that he has their best interests at heart.

He is Ivy League, from Massachusetts, a Wall Street financier, uses offshore banking to minimize taxes, never served in the military, introduced a failed comprehensive health care scheme in Massachusetts when he served as Governor and last but not least is a leader in the Mormon church with its unorthodox theology and secretive practices.

No wonder Newt Gingrich with three marriages and a closet full of ghosts is beating the golden boy with all the money. Newt connects with the common people.....something that Obama has somehow lost in his three years in the White House.....and something that Mitt cannot do.

Why Ron Paul's Candidacy is Important

2012-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

I was driving home last night when I decided to switch the channel to the local conservative talk station. The commentator was Hugh Hewitt and he was commenting upon the live GOP debate from South Carolina. While applauding the Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, he turned off the debate stream every time Ron Paul spoke. He said he was un-electable and didn't deserve to be on the stage with the other three candidates and thus censored him. The un-electibility part I can understand since the election of Ron Paul would truly be a revolution but his censorship of allowing Ron Paul's answers to be heard by his audience struck me as fascistic and undemocratic.

There is now a litmus test, administered through the so called conservative media, which determines who is a true conservative. The illogical ramblings of this so called conservative can be baffling as he praises a quasi-socialist like Mitt Romney or declares that personality deprived Rick Santorum can be elected.

Conservatism has been fracturing ever since the end of the Cold War. There is a the libertarian/free market segment represented by Ron Paul; the evangelical wing is very pro-Israel, pro-military-industrial complex and pro-life; the corporate wing is represented by Mitt Romney and although less ideological than the others it amalgamates other conservative positions at election time; the Paleo-conservative or traditional conservatives are viewed unfairly and maliciously as anachronistic, crypto-racists and anti-Semites and hence shunned by the other segments; and then there are the neo-conservatives who favor big government, secularization, surveillance state, aggressiveness in foreign policy and are very pro-Israel.

At the current time there is a tacit agreement between the evangelicals, corporate and neo-conservatives to support a common platform....hence the isolation of Ron Paul and the banishment of paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchanan.

One aside from this campaign is the despicable introduction of ex-wives dirty laundry into the campaign. Although Newt Gingrich was no angel and as most divorced husband's know, it is hard to defend yourself from accusations from an ex-wife. Therefore these type of comments should be discounted unless collaborated by other witnesses and even then they should not be part of the debate. "Let him without sin, cast the first stone."

Dr. Roberts has written another great article about the importance of this election. The loss of domestic freedoms to pursue global hegemony runs counter to American traditions.

Why is Ron Paul America’s last chance?

Because he is the only candidate who is not owned lock, stock, and barrel by the military-security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel Lobby.

All of the others, including President Obama, are owned by exactly the same interest groups. There are no differences between them. Every candidate except Ron Paul stands for war and a police state, and all have demonstrated their complete and total subservience to Israel. The fact that there is no difference between them is made perfectly clear by the absence of substantive issues in the campaigns of the Republican candidates.

Only Ron Paul deals with real issues, so he is excluded from “debates” in which the other Republican candidates throw mud at one another: “Gingrich voted $60 million to a UN program supporting abortion in China.” “Romney loves to fire people.”

The mindlessness repels.

More importantly, only Ron Paul respects the US Constitution and its protection of civil liberty. Only Ron Paul understands that if the Constitution cannot be resurrected from its public murder by Congress and the executive branch, then Americans are lost to tyranny.

There isn’t much time in which to revive the Constitution. One more presidential term with no habeas corpus and no due process for US citizens and with torture and assassination of US citizens by their own government, and it will be too late. Tyranny will have been firmly institutionalized, and too many Americans from the lowly to the high and mighty will have been implicated in the crimes of the state. Extensive guilt and complicity will make it impossible to restore the accountability of government to law.
If Ron Paul is not elected president in this year’s election, by 2016 American liberty will be in a forgotten grave in a forgotten grave yard.

Having said this, there is no way Ron Paul can be elected, for these reasons:

Not enough Americans understand that the “war on terror” has been used to create a police state. The brainwashed citizenry believe that the police state is making them safe from terrorists.

Liberals, progressives, and the left-wing oppose Ron Paul, claiming that “he would abolish the social safety net, privatize Social Security and Medicare, throw the widows and orphans into the street, abolish the Federal Reserve,” etc.

Apparently, liberals, progressives, and the left-wing do not understand that privatizing Social Security and Medicare and destroying the social safety net are policies that many conservative Republicans favor and are policies that Wall Street is forcing on both political parties. In contrast, a President Ron Paul would be isolated in the White House and would never be able to muster the support of Congress and the powerful interest groups to achieve such radical changes. Moreover, Ron Paul has made it clear that a welfare-free state cannot be achieved by decree but only by creating an economy in which opportunity exists for people to stand on their own feet. Ron Paul has said that he does not support ending welfare before an economy is created that makes a welfare state unnecessary.

Candidate Paul cannot take any steps to reassure Americans that he would not throw them to the mercy of the free market, because his libertarian base would turn on him as another unprincipled politician willing to sacrifice his principles for political expediency. If libertarians were not inflexible, candidate Paul could endorse Ron Unz’s proposal to solve the illegal immigration problem by raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour, so that Americans could afford to work the jobs that are taken by illegals.

Economist James K. Galbraith is probably correct that Unz’s proposal would boost the economy by injecting purchasing power and that the unemployment would be largely confined to illegals who would return to their home country. However, if Ron Paul were to treat Unz’s proposal as one worthy of study and consideration, libertarian ideologues would write him off. Whatever liberal/progressive support he gained would be offset by the loss of his libertarian base.

Why can’t libertarians be as intelligent as Ron Unz and see that if the Constitution is lost all that remains is tyranny?

In short, Americans cannot see beyond their ideologies to the real issue, which is the choice between the Constitution and tyranny.

So we hear absurd accusations that Ron Paul, a libertarian “is a racist.” “Ron Paul is an anti-semite.” “Ron Paul would favor the rich and hurt the poor.”

We don’t hear “Ron Paul would restore and protect the US Constitution.”

What do Americans think life will be like in the absence of the Constitution? I will tell you what it will be like, but first let’s consider the obstacles Ron Paul would face if he were to win the Republican nomination and if he were to be elected president.

In my opinion, if Ron Paul were to win the Republican nomination, the Republican Party would conspire to refuse it to him. The party would simply nominate a different candidate.

If despite everything, Ron Paul were to end up in the White House, he would not be able to form a government that would support his policies. Appointments to cabinet secretaries and assistant secretaries that would support his policies could not be confirmed by the US Senate. President Paul would have to appoint whomever the Senate would confirm in order to form a government. The Senate’s appointees would undermine his policies.

What a President Ron Paul could do, assuming Congress, controlled by powerful private interest groups, did not impeach him on trumped up charges, would be to use whatever forums that might be permitted him to explain to the public, judges, and law schools that the danger from terrorists is miniscule compared to the danger from a government unaccountable to law and the Constitution.

The reason we should vote for Ron Paul is to signal to the powers that be that we understand what they are doing to us. If Paul were to receive a large vote, it could have two good effects. One could be to introduce some caution into the establishment that would slow the march into more war and tyranny. The other is it would signal to Washington’s European and Japanese puppets that not all Americans are stupid sheep. Such an indication could make Washington’s puppet states more cautious and less cooperative with Washington’s drive for world hegemony.

What America Without the Constitution Will Be Like

In the January 4 Huff Post, attorney and author John Whitehead reported on the militarization of local police. Some police forces are now equipped with spy drones. Whitehead reports that a drone manufacturer, AeroVironment Inc., plans to sell 18,000 drones to police departments throughout the country. The company is also advertising a small drone, the “Switchblade,” which can track a person, land on the person and explode.

How long before Americans will be spied upon or murdered as extremists at the discretion of local police?
Recognizing the privacy danger, if not the murder danger, the American Civil Liberties Union has issued a report, “Protecting Privacy From Aerial Surveillance.”

https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/protectingprivacyfromaerialsurveillance.pdf

The ACLU believes, correctly, that liberty is threatened by “a surveillance society in which our every move is monitored, tracked, recorded, and scrutinized by authorities.”

The ACLU calls on Congress to legislate privacy protections against the police use of drones. I support the ACLU because it is the most important defender of civil liberty despite other misguided activities, but I wonder what the ACLU is thinking. Congress and the federal courts have already acquiesced in the federal government’s warrantless spying on Americans by the National Security Agency. The Bush regime violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act many times, and all involved, including President Bush, should have been sent to prison for many lifetimes, as each violation carries a 5-year prison term. But the executive branch emerged scot free. No one was held accountable for clear violations of US statutory law.

The ACLU might think that although the federal executive branch has successfully elevated itself above the law, state and local police forces are still accountable. We must hope that they are, but I doubt it.
The militarization of local police has received some attention. What has not received attention is that state and local police are also being federalized. It is not only military armaments and spy technology that local police are receiving from Washington, but also an attitude toward the public along with federal oversight and the collaboration that goes with it. When Homeland Security, a federal police force, comes into states, as I know has occurred in Georgia and Tennessee, and doubtless other states, and together with the state police stop cars and trucks on Interstate highways and subject them to warrantless searches, what is happening is the de facto deputizing of the state police by Homeland Security. This is the way that Goering and Himmler federalized into the Gestapo the independent police forces of German provinces such as Prussia and Bavaria.

Homeland Security has expanded its warrantless searches far beyond “airline security.” The budding gestapo agency now conducts warrantless searches on the nation’s highways, on bus and train passengers, and at Social Security offices. On Tuesday January 3, 2012, the Social Security office in Leesburg, Florida, apparently a terrorist hotspot, became a Homeland Security checkpoint. The DHS Gestapo armed with automatic weapons and sniffer dogs demanded IDs from local residents visiting their local Social Security office. http://www.dailycommercial.com/News/LakeCounty/010412shield

Thomas Milligan, district manager for the Social Security Administration office, said staff were not informed their offices were about to be stormed by armed federal police officers. DHS officials refused to answer questions asked by local media and left with no explanation at noon, reports infowars.com.
The DHS gestapo justified its takeover of a Leesburg Florida Social Security office as being an integral part of “Operational Shield,” conducted by the Federal Protective Service to detect “the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”

One wonders if even brainwashed flag-waving “superpatriots” can miss the message. The Social Security office of Leesburg, Florida, population 19,086 in central Florida is not a place where terrorists devoid of proper ID might be visiting. To protect America from the scant possibility that terrorists might be congregating at the Leesburg Social Security office, the tyrants in Washington sent the Federal Protective Service at who knows what cost to demand ID from locals visiting their Social Security office.
What is this all about except to establish the precedent that federal police, a new entity in American life, the Federal Protective Service, has authority over state and local police offices and can appear out of the blue to interrogate local citizens.

Why the ACLU thinks it is going to get any action out of a Congress that has accommodated the executive branch’s destruction of habeas corpus, due process, and the constitutional and legal prohibitions against torture is beyond me. But at least the issue is raised. But don’t expect to hear about it from the “mainstream media.”

Americans in 2012, although only a few are aware, live in a concentration camp that is far better controlled than the one portrayed by George Orwell in 1984. Orwell, writing in the late 1940s could not imagine the technology that makes control of populations so thorough as it is today. Orwell’s protagonist could at least have hope. In 2012 with the erasure of privacy by the US government, protagonists can be eliminated by hummingbird-sized drones before they can initiate a protest, much less a rebellion.

Never in human history has a people been so easily and willingly controlled by a hostile government as Americans, who are the least free people on earth. And a large percentage of Americans still wave the flag and chant USA! USA! USA!

The Bush regime operated as if the Constitution did not exist. Any semblance of constitutional government that remained after the Bush years was terminated when Congress passed and President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. One wonders how the National Rifle Association, the defender of the Second Amendment, will now fare. If there is no Constitution, how can there be a Second Amendment? If the President, at his discretion, can set aside habeas corpus and due process and murder citizens based on unproven suspicions, why can’t he set aside the Second Amendment?

Indeed, it is folly to expect a police state to tolerate an armed population.

The NRA is very supportive of the police and military. Now that these armed organizations are being turned against the public, how will the NRA adjust its posture?

Many NRA members, pointing to the “Oath Keepers,” former members of the military who pledge to defend the Constitution, and to police chiefs who support the Second Amendment, believe that the police and military will disobey orders to attack citizens. But we already witness constantly the gratuitous brutality of “our” police against peaceful protesters. We witness military troops all over the world murder citizens who protest government abuses. Why can’t it happen here?

If you don’t want it to happen here, you had better figure out some way to get Ron Paul into the Presidency and to get him a cabinet and subcabinet that will support him.

Meanwhile, the police state grows. On January 4, 2012, the Obama regime announced by decree, not by legislation, the creation of the Bureau of Counterterrorism which will among other tasks “seek to strengthen homeland security, countering violent extremism.” http://newsok.com/obama-launches-bureau-of-counterterrorism/article/feed/332475

Take a moment to think. Do you know of any “violent extremism” happening in the US? The regime is telling you that it needs a new police bureau with unaccountable powers to “strengthen homeland security” against a nonexistent bogyman.

So who will be the violent extremists who require countering by the Bureau of Counterterrorism? It will be peace activists, the Occupy Wall Street protesters, the unemployed and foreclosed homeless. It will be whoever the police state says. And there is no due process or recourse to law.
Given the facts before you, you are out of your mind if you think Ron Paul’s rhetoric against the welfare state is more important than his defense of liberty.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

"Managing One Million Animals Gives Me A Headache"

2012-01-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

The next time someone wearing an 'Adam Smith' tie starts to tell you about the glories of unregulated and unfettered capitalism ask him to explain the morality of a system where an important component (contract manufacturing) of the globalist system views his employees as animals.

No you cannot make this up......it is recorded in print. The secular 'saint', Steve Jobs, who recently died left an estate of $6 billion and a philosophic jumble of new age aphorisms about higher consciousness, brands and high tech mumbo jumbo. Multiply his $6 billion by hundreds to estimate the wealth of the Apple Juggernaut dispensed to other venture capitalists, investment bankers, employees and shareholders.

On the other hand there are thousands of empty factories from Silicon Valley through the entire industrial Midwest. You cannot place the entire blame on this USA deindustrialization upon companies such as Apple or GE but they have been the major beneficiary especially their managers and enablers such as Mitt Romney and Bain Capital who have reaped billions in bonuses and compensation in playing lead roles in the development of an immoral economic system.

Pundits say well that change is unavoidable and an inevitable part of 'progress' and maturation of global capitalism. If so, why hasn't Germany seen similar deindustrialization in recent decades and a displacement of German workers? It is simple....the German government and people will not allow it and have taken steps (labor law liberalization, emphasis on automation, etc.) to stem the tide of plants and jobs leaving Germany. Of course it has happened on the margins in Germany but it is still a great export economy and the engine of Europe. The same processes could have happened here in the USA but unfortunately our political system has been so corrupted by global financial interests that instead of implementing policies to retain jobs, the government created tax incentives (and trade treaties) for companies to leave the country. People like Steve Jobs and Jack Welsh were only too happy to participate and ................take the money and run!

We have all heard the saying that all that matter is the 'bottom line'. The Wall Street analysts who judge companies performances could care less about foreign worker exploitation, child labor, suicides, loss of domestic jobs and damage to the overall economy. It is an immoral system all around from Wall Street to Silicon Valley to the industrial and environmental wastelands of China. Let us not forget us - the consumer. Everyone of us participates in this immoral system by making conscious choices on price. We are like horses with blinders when it comes to our buying of products that come from China and other authoritarian countries where workers are viewed as animals...exposed to horrible working conditions and toxic chemicals. It will continue as long as the majority of us are 'forced' to make choices due to reduced disposable income and an economy in depression.

The current globalist economic system is totally contrary to two millennium of Catholic teaching. We would do well to listen to church teaching over the past 150 years on economics, just wage and the rights of workers. If global capitalism is just another form of slavery, how in God's name can we not oppose it?

It is a tragedy that the US system is so rigged that we will not hear this issue discussed during the 2012 election.

Pope John XXIII
Pacem in Terris, 1963,

"It is clear that (the human person) has a right by the natural law not only to an opportunity to work, but also to go about (that) work without coercion. To these rights is certainly joined the right to demand working conditions in which physical health is not endangered, and young people's normal development is not impaired. Women have the right to working conditions in accordance with their requirements."

"Furthermore, and this must be especially emphasized, the worker has a right to a wage determined according to criterions of justice and sufficient therefore . . . to give (workers and their) families a standard of living in keeping with the dignity of the human person."

Neoconservative Putsch

2012-01-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

One of leading neoconservatives and son of a former Trotsky follower and founder of neoconservatism, Bill Kristol, expresses his disdain for Rep. Ron Paul and Patrick Buchanan in the video below. He believes that both men should be expelled or 'shunned' from the GOP - even though both men are more traditionally republican than people like Kristol. It speaks volumes of the current mindset of the GOP establishment that there can be no doctrinal deviation concerning preemptive war and 100% support of Israel.

I find it ironic that after ten years of neoconservative wars and people like Bill Kristol urging an immediate attack upon Iran (which will result in tens of thousands of Americans deaths), that there appears so little introspection and analysis of these neocon doctrines. No, rather than defend these policies, the neoconservatives want to eject from the GOP anyone who disagrees with their policies of continuous wars and extending global hegemony.

Very good summary of neoconservatism by Ron Paul.

Any wonder why voters are deserting these parties captured by the neocon agenda? I have only voted twice for a GOP presidential candidate and that was three decades ago. Not that I like the Democrats and their similar pro-death agendas. I am strictly a third party person. Except for its nominal pro-life support, which BTW Kristol has written should also be jettisoned by the GOP with all other cultural issues, how can Catholics support a party whose interests are not for the common good but rather for narrow parochial interests and Utopian fantasies?

The following review of Pat Buchanan's new book 'Suicide of a Superpower' encapsulates the neoconservative mindset very well.

" In contrast, neoconservatism, which strikes neutral observers as equally tribal in motivation, has unleashed so much violence over the last decade precisely because of its pretenses to universal benevolence. If you root for some other team than the neocons root for, well, that’s not just an accident of birth, as Buchanan understands. Instead, to a neocon, rooting for the wrong team is proof that you are, as Richard Perle and David Frum used to say,evil. Worse, you aren’t supposed to get the joke when it comes to neoconservatism. If you realize why neocon claims to be repairing humanity are funny, you are worse than evil.

As Buchanan mentions in a brief aside:

“Neonconservatism, which shares attributes with the Trotskyism that is one of its roots, is one of the new ideologies to have seized the imagination of those seeking a cause …

Defending the Last Thirty Years

2012-01-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

What can you say about a political party with this cast of characters? War mongers (except for the honorable Ron Paul), all beholden to Wall Street (ditto Ron Paul). Is this the best the US can produce? Of course not but it is the approved candidate list of the establishment.

However, as I wrote two months ago before it became a national issue weeks ago, Romney, the presumptive nominee with all but assured wins in South Carolina and Florida in coming weeks, already has his Achilles heel exposed - Bain Capital by his own party. This will be the main issue of the 2012 campaign. You can look back to the 80's with firms like Bain executing LBO's and industry roll-ups and see the beginnings of the de-industrialization of the US. For example, they buy an American firm; shut down the factories and outsource to China; streamline operations while conducting M&A within the industry. Three years later......an IPO and hundreds of millions in profit for the investment bank.

There are benefits to this approach as well as negatives on a deal by deal basis. However looking back over 30 years, these activities, in conjunction with 'free trade' treaties like NAFTA and GAAT, have created a USA service and consumer economy; built up a potential adversary in China; made a wasteland of the heartland of industrial America; and through strategies such as 'maximizing shareholder value' have created an economy where there is little future for college graduates or for those seeking a middle class blue collar job.

Therefore, the GOP in nominating Romney (as the poster boy for these policies), will have to defend this conscious and deliberate wreckage of the US economy. In the pivotal states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, I am sure Obama will pound this message home. In the South, Romney will have to defend his religious cult affiliation.

They don't call it the stupid party for nothing.

Pat Buchanan Weighs In On the Topic

Two Geniuses

2012-01-16T15:17:00.000-08:00

About fifteen years ago, I had the opportunity to work with one of the smartest men that I have ever met in my lifetime. His name was Herb Sullivan and he was an erratic genius with an encyclopedic mind. His father, a high powered Washington lawyer, was a co-author of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1933 that actually remains controversial to this day concerning its role in the Great Depression. Herb's mother was Jewish and it was with her that he identified the most as a cultural but not religious Jew. He was a boy genius and graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in physics when he was 19 y/o. He spent the war working in naval intelligence (and the Manhattan Project) and after the war years he worked as a researcher at Columbia University working on various technologies including radar and computer technology. We met when I worked with him as a consultant in his parallel processing company in San Diego, CA. He gave me a quick tutorial - not really quick but a series of wine filled lunches - where we discussed religion, politics, philosophy and technology. He knew as much about Catholicism as I did and we had fabulous times discussing the Old and New Testaments. In our conversations he had a very good intellectual understanding of Christ as Messiah but he was not a believer. He was a sad person, childless and divorced, who for all his brilliance was a bit unfocused due to his personal life and unfulfilled genius. He died a few short years later of cancer. He was of the few people that I have met who was really a very good and kind person - a noble pagan in the best sense of the word. His hero was Johnny von Neumann.

John von Neumann was one of the most brilliant men of the 20th century. In reading his biography, one can understand why a young Herb Sullivan admired him so much. Born in Hungary, John was a mathematician and an early pioneer in computer development. On the dark side, he was one of the main people involved in nuclear physics and the invention of thermonuclear weapons. You can read his biography here. I don't know if Herb and Johnny, as Herb called him, ever met but I think so during the war but my memory is a bit hazy at the this point......I usually had to have a few drinks with Herb after the work when he really opened up about his life.

So here is one of the most brilliant men of the past century.....or any century.....who finds himself with an incurable disease and he is dying. Here is a 'secular account':

Eugene Wigner wrote of von Neumann's death [18]:-

When von Neumann realised he was incurably ill, his logic forced him to realise that he would cease to exist, and hence cease to have thoughts ... It was heartbreaking to watch the frustration of his mind, when all hope was gone, in its struggle with the fate which appeared to him unavoidable but unacceptable.

In [5] von Neumann's death is described in these terms:-

... his mind, the amulet on which he had always been able to rely, was becoming less dependable. Then came complete psychological breakdown; panic, screams of uncontrollable terror every night. His friend Edward Teller said, "I think that von Neumann suffered more when his mind would no longer function, than I have ever seen any human being suffer."

Von Neumann's sense of invulnerability, or simply the desire to live, was struggling with unalterable facts. He seemed to have a great fear of death until the last... No achievements and no amount of influence could save him now, as they always had in the past. Johnny von Neumann, who knew how to live so fully, did not know how to die.

In reality this is not the end of the story although to the agnostic scientific community it has a certain drama and truth and is nihilistic in tone. Here is the rest of the story......

I found the following in another biography of the great man.

Von Neumann was diagnosed with bone cancer or pancreatic cancer in 1957, possibly caused by exposure to radioactivity while observing A-bomb tests in the Pacific or in later work on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, New Mexico. (Fellow nuclear pioneer Enrico Fermi had died of stomach cancer in 1954.) Von Neumann died within a few months of the initial diagnosis, in excruciating pain. The cancer had spread to his brain, inhibiting mental ability. When at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C., he invited Roman Catholic priest (Father Anselm Strittmatter), who administered him the last Sacraments.^[8] He died under military security lest he reveal military secrets while heavily medicated. John von Neumann was buried at Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey.

He wrote 150 published papers in his life; 60 in pure mathematics, 20 in physics, and 60 in applied mathematics. He was developing a theory of the structure of the human brain before he died.

Hopefully Herb and Johnny are conversing in heaven where the two geniuses are eternally contemplating and analyzing the works and designs of the Divine Genius.

Requiescant in Pace.

Getting Pushed Into War

2012-01-15T23:18:00.000-08:00

It is bad enough that the neoconservatives are pushing for war with Iran but now we have the Netanyahu administration telling the US that it is disappointed with the 'progress' of US action against Iran. With nuclear scientists and engineers dying unexpectedly, there is obviously a covert war being conducted within Iran by western powers , specifically Israel and the USA.

We are experiencing another episode of 'war fever' that precedes actual conflict or war. This has occurred periodically in US history most notably in the run-up to the Spanish American and WWI. When Hearst Artist Frederic Remington, cabled from Cuba in 1897 that "there will be no war," William Randolph Hearst cabled back: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." Today, we have Rupert Murdoch newspapers and cable news channels providing edited pictures and film to convince the American people to support a war with Iran. Over a century later, the media and government work hand in hand to propagandize the American people. It is a well known fact that the US media is owned or controlled by oligopolies with interests in petroleum and the military-industrial complex.

If the American people (anesthetized by sports, pop culture and selfish pursuits), could step back and be analytic and look at the situation objectively, they would see the absurdity of the USA with thousands of nuclear warheads and Israel with hundreds if not thousands itself, willing the plunge the world into World War III with Russia and China because of Iran's nuclear program that may produce enough nuclear material for one bomb. Would the American people be willing to live with tens of thousands of military casualties and perhaps millions if nuclear weapons are deployed and a couple came through to hit US cities?

Last night I listened to a Chris Matthews interview on CSPAN concerning his new book on John F. Kennedy. It was a very good exchange between Sam Donaldson and Mathews and I learned that if Kennedy had followed the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and mad General Curtis LeMay in particular and attacked Cuba in 1961, Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that we would have launched nuclear missiles against New York City. I paused when I heard that since my family was living in New York City at the time and I was a grade school child. Thank God Kennedy was level headed and a imperfect but practicing Catholic but he did not want to risk a nuclear war over a seemingly minor issue. He negotiated with the Soviets and removed US missiles from Turkey. The crisis was avoided........and I am still alive to write about it.

Let's give other children today in Iran and Israel the chance to write about it fifty years from now. The late Pope John Paul II was the most consistent and frequent promoter of peace and human rights for the last two decades.From Iraqi War I to Iraqi War II, he has echoed the voice of Paul VI, crying out before the United Nations in 1965: War No More, War Never Again!

We should heed his advice and turn our backs on the malefactors of evil who push war as a first option before other options have even been tried. Is Israel wants another Mideast war and feels that it is in its best interests, let them do it on their own.

Netanyahu Deputy Disappointed with Obama on Iran

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior Israeli official voiced disappointment in the Obama administration on Sunday, saying "election-year considerations" lay behind its caution over tough Iran sanctions sought by U.S. legislators.

While Washington has been talking tougher about Iran's nuclear work and threat to block oil export routes out of the Gulf if hit with harsher sanctions, new U.S. measures adopted on December 31 gave President Barak Obama leeway on the scope of penalties on the Iranian central bank and oil exports.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel's vice prime minister, contrasted the administration's posture to that of France and Britain, which he said "are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately."

"In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations," Yaalon told Israel Radio.

"In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now."

The Democratic president says he is determined to deny Tehran -- which insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful needs only -- the means to develop an atom bomb. His aides cast their sanctions strategy as a bid to work collaboratively with foreign powers and win over states that import Iranian oil without triggering price-boosting shocks to energy markets.

MIXED MESSAGES

The remarks by Yaalon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, appeared to jar with praise centrist Defence Minister Ehud Barak offered last month for what he described as Obama's resolve against Iran.

Running for re-election in the face of Republicans who hold sway over big pro-Israel constituencies, Obama has sought to burnish his credentials as a friend of the Jewish state despite having frosty relations with Netanyahu.

In a phone conversation with the prime minister on Thursday, Obama "reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel's security," the White House said. Both sides said the leaders' discussion dealt with Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Reputed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, Israel sees the makings of a mortal threat in Iran's uranium enrichment and missile projects, and has threatened to resort to force if it deems diplomatic isolation of its foe a dead end.

The prospect of Israel worsening regional instability with a unilateral strike has stirred worry in war-weary Washington.

Obama's top military adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, was due to make his first visit to Israel on Thursday.

Israeli media predicted Dempsey would seek to persuade his hosts not to "surprise" the United States on Iran. The U.S. embassy had no immediate information about the visit's agenda.

Yaalon, himself a former top armed forces commander, said Israel should not "leap forward" to attack Iran.

"But Israel has to be ready to defend itself," he said. "Let's hope we do not arrive at that moment."

Netanyahu sounded sanguine last week about the efficacy of big-power pressure on Iran, telling an Australian newspaper: "For the first time I see Iran wobble ... under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank."

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

What Type of Christians Want War?

2012-01-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

Eric Margolis has a very good piece about the growing escalation of words between Iran and the USA. Interestingly, the US military is not very bullish about a war with Iran........worn out after ten years of war. The following quote about the leading advocates of an Iran war left me feeling uneasy:

" The powerful US Israel lobby and its Christian fundamentalist allies (now 44% of all Republican voters) have bribed or intimidated the US Congress into pressing for war against Iran."

I can understand that the right wing Israeli government wanting the USA to wage a war on their behalf. But Christians crying for war? I worked last year with a fundamentalist Christian. Whenever we spoke of religion he referred to the Old Testament. He named his children after prophets and heroines of Israel. Divine retribution was always part of his vocabulary specifically Sodom and Gomorrah and Jericho and its implications in our present age. Although we live in the 21st century my friend's views had more in common with the famous Puritan of the 17th century Oliver Cromwell, who butchered loyalist Catholics and Protestants in England during the Civil War.....all in the name of God and based upon a puritanical interpretation of the Bible. He also killed the king, Charles I. I have to admit that every time I pass by his monument outside the House of Commons in Westminster, London I cringe. He was a 'religious' man but his actions were evil -  Cromwell seized three-quarters of Ireland's land from Catholics in 3 years and ordered the slaughter of one-third of local population........over 500,000 innocent men, women and children were murdered.

We also witnessed the bizarre GOP debate earlier this week with the GOP candidates (except Huntsman and Paul) each outdoing each other is demonstrating their desire to go to war with Iran. Two of these candidates are Catholics who are puppets of the neo-conservative movement........but purport to be conservative Catholics as well which is even more confusing. The sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill." In my reading of scripture and church teachings I am convinced that unprovoked and unnecessary war are grievous offenses against God. Any premeditated military decision that results in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of innocent women and children is morally wrong.   The late Pope John Paul II begged the USA not to attack Iraq for this very reason. He was ignored and catastrophe was the result.

As Christians we are only obligated to support just wars. Jesus warns us, Then Jesus saith to him: Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword.   St. Matthew 26:53.

What is a just war? Is it murder when upon finding out that my neighbor has intentions to kill me that I go to his home and shoot him first? The same holds true in attacking a country without exhausting every other alternative other than violence. War should be the absolute last resort and not the first option.

To have Christians advocating war against Iran is scandalous given the gravity of the situation and the possibility of engaging Russia and China in Iran's defense.

Hedging the Future of Europe

2012-01-14T08:39:00.000-08:00

There is an article this morning's UK Independent that reviews the Friday the 13th downgrade of EU currencies. There is no reason to review the many internal causes of the collapse. However, it brings to mind a few questions as the fate of the Euro spirals downwards towards a prolonged disintegration.

1. Why is so much sovereign debt held by gamblers.....I mean hedge funds? I understand that these government bonds are financial instruments on the one hand but they also represent much more to the country issuing the bonds - retirement, capital expenditures, welfare state deficits, etc. These bonds are dependent upon a long term stable future that allows a country to retire the debt over a period of time. Hedge funds by their very nature are not long term oriented and to have such a large stake in any one country's future doesn't appear very smart especially since most of this debt is financing the illogical schemes of the European welfare state.

2. Why is there no analysis of the sovereign debt that is being used to finance the welfare state? Perhaps Germany with its uniqueness can get away with it's high productivity and an export oriented economy, but it is just a catastrophe waiting to happen in the more profligate countries like Greece, Italy and the Iberian countries. I find it ironic and ludicrous that President Obama wants the United States to become more like Europe with a cradle to grave welfare system. Unfortunately, none of the GOP candidates except for Rep. Ron Paul oppose this trajectory towards socialism.

The welfare state is a lie. It is government's attempt to buy the loyalty of its citizens. It may start out with good intentions but eventually it becomes an instrument of control of the citizenry. It's true cost is never revealed and the craven politicians and their overlords are content to push off this debt to future generations with the connivance of the financial markets who love the long term interest. Top-down security is also very inefficient as layers of bureaucracy live off the largess of the taxpayer on borrowed money and by the time services are delivered the quality and the quantity are found wanting. The 'system' gives the citizen a false sense of security since he or she believes that the all mighty and powerful government stand behind the promises of a 'free lunch' life.

Eventually, the welfare state is a pyramid scheme in which all the parties are guilty. It can only happen because the concept of sovereign debt is allowed to be floated in the financial markets and gargantuan amounts of interest allowed to be paid to banksters and other cretins sitting is the skyscraper offices thousands of miles away staring at their over-sized computer monitors.

Just as a rotten apple eventually falls to the ground, so are the economies built on the sand of debt falling also.

Belief and Unbelief have Consequences

2012-01-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

I am lucky to have been born with a simple faith in God. By simple, I mean a childlike trust in the Creator of all things. I have not been torn by doubts about His existence and even as a little boy my mother said that I had a high spiritual awareness. I thank my Celtic genes. This did not stop me from being a sinner most of my life but as the Bible says, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." May God have mercy.

My religious faith plays a central role in my life. For many of my contemporaries it does not matter at all and if they have a spiritual sense it has more to do with science fiction rather than in the All Holy, All-Powerful and All Mighty. The crisis of unbelief is the biggest problem facing the western world and is the major cause of the economic, political and psychological angst that prevails in our society. What is the ultimate purpose of our lives in this socio-economic system that robs us of our individuality and faith? Millions are lost in the cosmos.....tiny inconsequential specks of atoms in the billions of stars and planets that comprise the Milky Way Galaxy which itself is only one of many billions of other galaxies. For the unbeliever, human beings are biological accidents that started in the pond scum of the primordial past and through Darwinian luck are here today and importantly...still evolving... not much different except for consciousness than many other animal groups. Its survival of the fittest and our society is the outcome of this mindset. Even the ancient pagans had myths and religion to guide their morals and actions.

I am skeptical of grand overarching conspiracy theories that claim that some unseen forces, like the Illuminati, far above us in society, are programming our lives through media, education, politics, etc. However, I am agnostic on the issue rather than a denier. It is easy to fall into this type of thinking due to the prevalence of evil all around us. However, from what I know of management and trying to get things done in a large organizations, a grand conspiracy that is controlling society is not feasible - mediocrity is too common and self interest trumps collective action in many cases stretching over long periods of time. But, I do believe in less grand conspiracies that are entirely plausible such as the JFK, MLK and RFK assassinations, overthrow of the English Catholic religion, the French Revolution, weapons of mass destruction, etc.

It is not a conspiracy but a spiritual mindset or disposition that impels human beings in similar paths of action. Unbelievers only connect in the here and now and what they can see and touch. The metaphysical realms for them are fairy tales such as Hans and Gretel or 1001 Arabian nights and should not even be discussed in normal company. A certain percentage of these people are not only disdainful of religion but also actively work to minimize its influence in society. As my mother used to tell me, "birds of a feather, flock together." They view the Ten Commandments as useless restrictions to the human (evil) spirit and hence pursue agendas that are contrary to the spirit of Christianity.

It doesn't take many of these unbelievers with a committed mindset to start to change the culture. It has been going on for hundreds of years now and in the past decades has reached a tipping point. The former Christian civilization of our forefathers is barely recognizable as the forces of unbelief have gained ascendancy in the last century. The 'overt' war against religion is only beginning and with power in hand I would expect that believers will be be pressured in many ways to compromise their beliefs and persecuted in many little ways if they resist. The Catholic recusants in England after the Reformation are a good example of Christian life in the near future. The only way to reverse this trend is to preach the Gospel and convert the world that the mass of society becomes Christian once more.

There is an old Catholic hymn, Holy God We Praise Thy Name, that was very popular before the guitar strumming tunes became more fashionable in church. Having faith in the all Holy One allows the Christian to have hope and confidence. This world as great and glorious as it is is passing and an entire new existence awaits us once we cross the river of eternity. God is all around us....we only have to open our eyes with the lens of faith. A good article below of the wonders of the cosmos......which was also praised 3,000 years ago by King David in Psalm 103.

Billions of Stars in The Milky Way Galaxy

Psalm 103

Benedic, anima. God is to be praised for his mighty works, and wonderful providence.

[1] For David himself. Bless the Lord, O my soul: O Lord my God, thou art exceedingly great. Thou hast put on praise and beauty: [2] And art clothed with light as with a garment. Who stretchest out the heaven like a pavilion: [3] Who coverest the higher rooms thereof with water. Who makest the clouds thy chariot: who walkest upon the wings of the winds. [4] Who makest thy angels spirits: and thy ministers a burning fire. [5] Who hast founded the earth upon its own bases: it shall not be moved for ever and ever.

[6] The deep like a garment is its clothing: above the mountains shall the waters stand. [7] At thy rebuke they shall flee: at the voice of thy thunder they shall fear. [8] The mountains ascend, and the plains descend into the place which thou hast founded for them. [9] Thou hast set a bound which they shall not pass over; neither shall they return to cover the earth. [10] Thou sendest forth springs in the vales: between the midst of the hills the waters shall pass.

[11] All the beasts of the field shall drink: the wild asses shall expect in their thirst. [12] Over them the birds of the air shall dwell: from the midst of the rocks they shall give forth their voices. [13] Thou waterest the hills from thy upper rooms: the earth shall be filled with the fruit of thy works: [14] Bringing forth grass for cattle, and herb for the service of men. That thou mayst bring bread out of the earth: [15] And that wine may cheer the heart of man. That he may make the face cheerful with oil: and that bread may strengthen man's heart.

[16] The trees of the field shall be filled, and the cedars of Libanus which he hath planted: [17] There the sparrows shall make their nests. The highest of them is the house of the heron. [18] The high hills are a refuge for the harts, the rock for the irchins. [19] He hath made the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. [20] Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night: in it shall all the beasts of the woods go about:

[21] The young lions roaring after their prey, and seeking their meat from God. [22] The sun ariseth, and they are gathered together: and they shall lie down in their dens. [23] Man shall go forth to his work, and to his labour until the evening. [24] How great are thy works, O Lord? thou hast made all things in wisdom: the earth is filled with thy riches. [Psalms 103:24] [Latin] [25] So is this great sea, which stretcheth wide its arms: there are creeping things without number: Creatures little and great.

[26] There the ships shall go. This sea dragon which thou hast formed to play therein. [27] All expect of thee that thou give them food in season. [28] What thou givest to them they shall gather up: when thou openest thy hand, they shall all be filled with good. [29] But if thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled: thou shalt take away their breath, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust. [30] Thou shalt send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

[31] May the glory of the Lord endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. [32] He looketh upon the earth, and maketh it tremble: he toucheth the mountains, and they smoke. [33] I will sing to the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. [34] Let my speech be acceptable to him: but I will take delight in the Lord. [35] Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and the unjust, so that they be no more: O my soul, bless thou the Lord.

The Greek parents too poor to care for their children

2012-01-10T20:38:00.000-08:00

Is this what the world wants from Greece? Mothers having to abandon their children to Orthodox priests because the austerity measures imposed the common people. We need to move away from a type of capitalism that ensures that bankers never lose and the common people always lose. It not a question of capitalism vs, socialism........it is greedy crony capitalists working in collusion with socialist governments. A pox on them both!

Mothers forced to abandon their children

Austerity Killing Greece

If you are one of the culprits - global banks; EU bureaucrats; politicians, etc. - to cause this type of inhuman outcomes due to greed then remember that your evil deeds will be remembered on the last day. So enjoy your bonuses, holiday homes and promotions but there will be a heavy price to pay at the end.

It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones. Luke 17:2

Why should Greece remain any longer in the EU? I'd rather be an independent and poor country than one that is a vassal state of the corrupt bankers. As far as the banksters, Max Keiser tells it like it is and why more bad news is yet to come..............

Political Correctness gets Pat Buchanan

2012-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

Political correctness will triumph the Bill of Rights every time. It appears that Pat Buchanan's latest book, 'Death of a Superpower', contains content that MSNBC feels is inappropriate (eg. racist, anti-Semetic, etc.) . Pat's major thesis is that the decline of white middle class culture does not bode well and that the USA is in serious decline. I haven't read the book but from I have been able to ascertain from reviews, it is very well documented.

Political correctness is insidious and comes with a complete set of double standards. If you against the neoconservative foreign policy of the past few administrations, then you are an isolationist, anti-Semitic and a nativist. If you happen to think that the Palestinian cause has merits, you are automatically a anti-Semite...even if you are Jewish! The list is endless but the disease of political correctness has infected both parties. In last night debate, Rep. Ron Paul was jokingly referred to as a 'constitutionalist' in a negative sort of way. I find it hilarious and also scary that a group of men in last night's NH primary debate - with straight faces - can talk about 'helping' the people of Iran by going to war against them and in the process probably kill hundreds of thousands of women and children in the process. If Uncle Sam tells you that he wants to help you, watch out. It wasn't always this way but we have psychopaths in control of government.

Here is a list of politically incorrect propositions: War is evil and should only be undertaken as the last possible resort and then only in defense; Marriage is between a Man and a Woman; America should be governed by a sound money and fiscal principles; All races should be treated equal; Affirmative action is wrong and should be abolished; Abortion is morally wrong; corporations and people are not identical. The list goes on but you get the idea from these alone

A free discussion of ideas is no longer possible. In corporate America, in to be an executive you must adhere very strictly to the various politically correct protocols that infect our large companies - affirmative action, gay rights, feminist preferences and on and on. - all enforced by a Gestapo of sorts called Human Relations.

Pat will survive but he was the only reason that I ever tuned into the channel.

Obama's Re-election Strategy

2012-01-05T23:27:00.000-08:00

With the announcement today of significant budget cuts in our gargantuan military budget coinciding with the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama has negated his bellicose actions over the past three years and is positioned as the 'peace candidate' in the 2012 elections. Ironically, his Republican opponents are huffing and puffing about who will be seen as the champion of the Neo-conservative movement and bring fire and brimstone upon the Iranian people. After ten years of war the American people when presented with the option of peace versus war will choose peace. Advantage: Obama.

Economically, Obama runs against Wall Street Mitt Romney and Big Capital's funding of offshoring as a fundamental reason for high unemployment in the USA. He'll say, " these people caused the problem that I am trying to fix for the American people." Advantage: Obama

With the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' in the military and his distinct preference for gay/lesbian appointments within his administration and the Supreme Court, he will own the alternative lifestyle vote especially if someone like Rick Santorum in the VP candidate. This political stance also gets him a fair share of the woman vote who perceive his "fairness" as an admirable attribute. Advantage: Obama.

Jews and Blacks: He owns them even though he governs against their interests. Call it Jewish guilt and black pride but he'll get 90% of the votes. Advantage: Obama

Mexicans: We should expect some type of initiative to grant amnesty and citizenship to the millions of illegals aliens in the country by Presidential decree. Can you imagine a Mexican relating to Mitt Romeny who just bought a $20 million ocean front home in La Jolla, CA.? Maybe...if he hoping to be his gardener, maid or cook. Advantage: Obama

Women: He'll pick Hilary as his VP candidate. She is still very popular with woman and she will be contrasted with any GOP VP candidate and the female cartoon character Sarah Palin from the 2008 election. Advantage: Obama

I'm sorry but Mitt Romney is not going to sell too well this year with his Wall Street background, flip flopping on issues and his newly found Neo-conservative credentials as a hawk wanting to attack Iran. Obama has the mainstream media, celebrities and pop culture totally supporting him.

I don't think the election will even be close despite what the polls are saying today. Given the dynamics of the Electoral College, Romney will have to win Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvania to have any chance. I don't see him relating to Joe Six Pack.

P.S. Obama will double cross all of his constituencies once he is reelected and he will order the bombing of Iran.

Santorum the Neo-Con

2012-01-05T08:35:00.000-08:00

My exposure to Rick Santorum up until this week has been minimal. I did remember him endorsing Senator Arlen Specter over a conservative challenger only to see Specter join the Democrats. He says he did so because he was loyal to the party even though Specter was a very liberal Republican. So, he is a party over principles politician. Nothing new there. However, I admire him for his staunch pro-life stances over the years.

I knew he was a Neo-conservative and a chickenhawk but the following speech describes his vision of a non-ending war against Islam....which I am sure is music to the ears of the military-industrial complex. I will not dissect the speech paragraph by paragraph but his overall logic escapes me. It has the echo of a Hilaire Belloc treatise without the erudition and wisdom of the early 20th century author. We have not been fighting a united and homogeneous Islamic enemy for 1500 years but rather a series of Islamic empires with the Ottoman empire being the most recent and dangerous. He wants to rally Christendom in a war against the new militant Islam but the agnostic and secular humanists in the West could care less about religious wars....it is about petroleum resources and hegemonic power.

BTW, he couldn't help himself in the speech not taking a swipe at France. He noted that France was not part of the Holy League in the late seventeenth century in the fight against the Ottoman's similar to its stance on the Iraq invasion in 2002. He neglected to add that neither was England or a slew of other European countries involved in the Holy League crusade against the Ottomans. This assertion is just intellectually dishonest on his part and demonstrates the reflexive Franco-phobia of the Neo-con clique.

Some of his points have validity but his overall thesis does not hold up that we have to be on a war footing with militant Islam for decades to come. I don't think he has a chance to be President although he finished strong in Iowa this week. But he could be Vice president and that could make him a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

The ideological struggle with militant Islam is a mirage. We are not dealing with caliphates or Ottoman's but with militants who are fighting.......to be left alone and rule as they wish in their own territories according to 7th century precepts. They do not want the western type of democracy practiced in the West. The Jihadist talk is aimed at Israel and removing Israel from the Middle East but no one is directly threatening Europe or the USA. The greatest enemies of Europe and the USA are themselves and in the case of Europe the dilution of religion and cultural identity over the past half century. I don't know how Santorum can talk so long and never mention the subject of Israel while discussing the dynamics of Middle East politics and Iran in particular.

Although the speech was given in 2007 I wonder about the results of his support of the decade long military, ideological and quasi-religious crusade and the rise of Islamists during the Arab Spring. I would reckon that there is a high correlation between the popularity of the Islamists and the implementation of reckless invasions by the western powers.

Rick Santorum Speech

Mitt's Achilles Heel

2012-01-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Many people think that Mitt Romney's major weakness is his Mormon religion. Perhaps it will be a hindrance in a few primaries in the South but in the general election in November it will be a non-factor. Romney, given this religion liability, will pick a vice presidential running mate who has evangelical credentials and whose main purpose in the election will be to rally this electoral segment. At this early point in time I would predict Perry or Santorum. We'll see........

His biggest negative as I have previously written, is his career at CEO of Bain Capital - a venture capital and private equity firm in Boston that specializes in downsizing and streamlining corporations in which it invests, takes private and then in a few years plans to sell or take public in an IPO. Bain's primary tactic in restructuring in order to make the company as profitable as possible. If the company is in the manufacturing sector, you can bet that offshoring manufacturing is at the top of the restructuring program. At the moment, the Democrats are analyzing every Bain deal and Romney will be positioned as the candidate of greedy and rapacious Wall Street. Every poor person who lost a job due to Bain restructurings will be videotaped and used in crucial states such as Michigan or Ohio. The nomination of Romney is the equivalent of giving the candidate Obama fastballs down the middle of the plate in the months leading up to the election.

In the final analysis, Romney is the worst possible candidate for the GOP to nominate is these perilous economic times when 1 out of 6 Americans lives below the poverty line.

As you can see in the video below, it has already started.

Europe on the Brink

2012-01-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

The following short documentary is a very good overview of the grave economic situation in Europe. It was produced by the Wall Street Journal and it points to stark decisions that need to be made very quickly. I have been reminded for the past twenty five years from my European friends that the USA was a Darwinian society without an adequate safety net for the poor or the proper social welfare benefits for the middle class. For a long period the European system worked very well making a mockery of my protests in arguments that an entrepreneurial society was a better choice than a welfare state society. However, to use an old phrase....the chickens have come home to roost throughout the EU.

Well, we were all wrong. My entrepreneurial society was a mirage...or maybe an ideal.... of what the USA had the potential to become but I ignored the implications of a national security state married to global financial interests. It is difficult to have a prosperous society where the wealth is spread around when at the same time millions of jobs are being exported to Asia along with substantial wealth. A couple of decades of criminal financial greed and global martial hubris have destroyed the great potential of the USA at the end of the Cold War. Our political class has no answers or solutions with the GOP candidates arguing over who will bomb Iran first.......and they are all Christians to boot...except for Mitt Romney who has yet to convince the evangelical voters that he is not a member of a cult.

Unfortunately, we have seen a serious decline in the standard of living on both continents with no end in sight. The governments lie and say there is no inflation but the average consumer is confronted with sticker shock every time they walk into a supermarket, gas station or department store. The middle class is being squeezed by powerful interests who are intentionally destroying one of the greatest societies in human history.

Radical solutions are required if there is a chance to escape the abyss but the European politicians cannot obtain quick consensus. In many ways the current EU is similar to the USA under the Articles of Confederation before the adoption of the US Constitution. Unfortunately, in the USA, the Constitution has been subverted. Ron Paul came in third tonight in the Iowa so there is hope that he can rally enough citizens to force change. I hope he runs as a third party candidate.

Starting the Year Off Badly

2012-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Our western culture is in serious decline if the pictures and stories from London, UK are any indication. Similar scenes are common in every major western city in Europe and the USA. I may be getting older but I did live through the 60's and 70's in this country which in a few decades upended a way of life that had existed for centuries. I would have to say that people have become much coarser in manners, self absorbed and more morally decadent in the past two generations as behavioral rules were discarded. I do not see any movement that can change the downward trajectory of the culture. Only a revival of religious faith has the possibility of reversing the moral decline. This looks unlikely to happen in a increasingly agnostic and decadent culture such as our own.

Parents need to speak truth to their children whether they want to hear it or not. Obviously, many parents allow their daughters to dress in a manner that would have landed them in jail only a half a century ago (see the attached picture for evidence) Without a moral compass themselves many parents do not have any norms in which to guide and lead their children. Without faith or an ethical system to guide them each new generation increasingly becomes more hedonistic. Unfortunately in many cases parents of young adults act and dress worse than their offspring and do not provide examples for them to copy. We are a culture is decline and many people who share similar moral viewpoints realize that we live in a transitional period of history between the collapse of a Christian based civilization and a new civilization that in its emerging manifestations is Neo-pagan and has substituted religion for a belief in the possibilities of Science.

The noted British cultural historian Christopher Dawson's major theme in all his works is the linkage of religion to the vitality of a culture or civilization. His life was dedicated to the study of world cultures which led him to claim that: "It is the religious impulse which supplies the cohesive force which unifies a society and a culture... A society which has lost its religion becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture."

Feast of the Theotokos

2011-12-31T00:11:00.000-08:00

We start the year at midnight tonight honoring Our Blessed Mother - Mary the Theotokos. In the Latin rite of the Catholic Church there has been an overemphasis on the humanity of Christ ever since Vatican II with movements such as liberation theology and feminism seeking to diminish the divine mysteries of the our religion and relegating the miracles and significance of Christ and His mother as folktales.

One of these mysteries is the role of a very special human being who played a key role in the divine plan of salvation. Some Protestants and secular humanists assert that we Catholics and Orthodox worship the Blessed Virgin Mary. Of course anyone who would take 10 minutes out of their day to study this claim would discover that is is completely false. We honor, venerate and pray to her but don't worship her..... we only worship God. We believe in her intercessory powers with her Son. As a matter of fact these same dismissive people dishonor her...and her Son....by trying the best they can to push her presence from the Christian message entirely.

Mary, the Theotokos (God bearer) was a central figure in every event of Christ's earthly life from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion. The woman who bore the Savior, who pondered wondrous things in her heart and was present at Pentecost was the indispensable human being who played the key role in the salvation history by saying, "Behold, I am the Handmaid of the Lord; be it done according to your word" (Luke1:38)..

We recently celebrated Christmas in all its beauty and mystery. The Nativity is narrated in the Gospels from a first hand source. Who? Mary of course. If you think of the events of Christ's early life, the flight to Egypt, Simeon's prayer (Nunc Dimitis), visit to Elizabeth, etc......these were all conveyed by Mary to those writing the Sacred Scriptures. The gospel authors (Matthew and Luke) only wrote down the events told to them by the Blessed Mother with regard to events in which she was the only surviving witness. When a newspaper reporter is writing a story and is quoting the original source, should we not recognize that the real source is the person being quoted. The same is true for the gospel of Mark which is regarded by most scholars as being the words of St. Peter transcribed by his companion and disciple Mark.

To dishonor the Blessed Mother is to dishonor Our Lord her Son. She was the perfect disciple, no matter the belittling over the centuries of her significance by Christians with figurative and literal iconoclastic intentions. During the horrendous 24 hours between the Agony in the Garden to her Son's death on the cross, she never wavered and stood beneath the cross and while dying, Our Lord gave her to us....."Son, behold your mother."

Even the prophet Mohammed, certainly not a friend of Christianity, when naming the best woman who ever lived named Mary (Maryam in Arabic), the mother of Jesus, as the best woman to ever live. Shame on those pastors of any Christian denomination who do not hold the Theotokos as a subject of many sermons as the perfect disciple. Christianity, without the central figure of Mary as a focus of human interaction with the divine, is a mere shadow of its potential.

Mary is also known as the Sorrowful Mother. Her life was filled with heartbreak and for that reason many mothers throughout the ages believe that they have a person in heaven who is closer to Our Lord Jesus than any other human being and to whom they can confide and trust their own sorrows and pain. Her power is evident in the story of the Wedding Feast at Cana. Even though it was not time for His public ministry to begin, he acted upon her request and turned water into wine..

The following ancient hymn is one of my favorite and you can find my excellent recordings on YouTube with orchestra. It is also very beautiful when sung in Latin chant which I did several times in my youth in choirs.

Holy Theotokos, pray for us.

Stabat Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother)

Stabat mater dolorosa
juxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.

O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!

Quae moerebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?

Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?

Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.

Eia, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.

Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
in amando Christum Deum
ut sibi complaceam.

Sancta Mater, istud agas,
crucifixi fige plagas
cordi meo valide.

Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.

Juxta Crucem tecum stare,
et me tibi sociare
in planctu desidero.

Virgo virginum praeclara,
mihi iam non sis amara,
fac me tecum plangere.

Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,
passionis fac consortem,
et plagas recolere.

Fac me plagis vulnerari,
fac me Cruce inebriari,
et cruore Filii.

Flammis ne urar succensus,
per te, Virgo, sim defensus
in die iudicii.

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per Matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriae.

Quando corpus morietur,
fac, ut animae donetur
paradisi gloria. Amen.

At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to her Son to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?

For the sins of His own nation,
She saw Jesus wracked with torment,
All with scourges rent:

She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;

Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;

While my body here decays,
may my soul Thy goodness praise,
Safe in Paradise with Thee.

Translation by Edward Caswall
Lyra Catholica (1849)

2012 Predictions

2011-12-28T22:42:00.000-08:00

Once again I am willing to stick my neck out and make predictions for the coming year - 2012. Looking back at some of my previous forecasts I would give myself a grade of B. Basically, more right than wrong but that is not saying much but let's give it a try.

1. It will be Obama/Clinton vs, Romney/Perry. Romney and Obama need to keep their respective parties core constituencies in line. Hilary makes sense from several perspectives and gives her a running start for the nomination in 2016. Perry encourages the anti-Mormon evangelical base in the South to stay with the GOP. Another choice for VP could be Backmann or Santorum. I'll stay with Perry. Either way you have two national security state candidate pairs to maintain the war first, peace second strategy being practiced in Washington. This could be an extremely close election and I give the edge and prediction to Obama/Clinton.

2. The economy will stay in a slight decline with many corporate managers waiting to see if there will be any change in Washington.

3. War with Iran appears to be inevitable for logical reasons that escape me. There is no demonstrable threat to the United States. However, Iran is a threat to Israel and has a tremendous amount of oil reserves. Invading Iraq did not make sense either and they (national security establishment) got away with it. Why not Iran....especially when an election is at stake? We should expect an October surprise from Obama to get the election support of the flag wavers and Jewish vote and then some sort of amnesty plan for the Hispanic vote. The key to Obama reelection is to make everyone forget about the economic issue.

4. Europe will sink into deeper crisis as the forces of centralization (unification) clash with the decentralization ones. There will be a EU backlash against to UK for leading the decentralization forces and will find itself isolated with a 'non-aligned' Obama administration. This could lead to a financial crisis in the UK as its banking industry is threatened. This is probably the last year for the Euro as the rest of the weaker members get flattened by the recession.

5. There will be increased domestic unrest in China as the effects of the global slowdown hit a highly leveraged economy. China will propose large scale infrastructure projects in order to keep people working and give the facade of a healthy economy and society. However, this will only be a band aid on a hemorrhage. China's middle and working classes are well aware of what is going on around the world and there will be more pressure for more openness. I predict increased violence and crackdown by a desperate regime only too mindful of the results of the Arab Spring.

6. No secret that Wall Street will be the main issue of the 2012 election. Obama will make it the centerpiece of his campaign and will paint Romney and the GOP as representing Wall Street, greed and corporate corruption. We can expect every deal done by Bain Capital to be highlighted as a symbol of offshoring jobs and layoffs. This will help Obama is the industrial rust belt.

7. Wall Street will be in decline all year as the economy stagnates and foreign growth slows.

8. In religion, the Anglican communion will suffer significant defections to make its continued existence appear be in doubt even in the UK. A religious body whose main principle is doctrinal contradiction cannot continue much longer before economic and spiritual collapse are inevitable.

9. Sarkozy will be defeated in France despite his desperate efforts to keep France as a European and global player. He will not enjoy Obama's luck this time around and anyone in his position would find it hard to be re-elected.

10. Celebrity culture will continue unabated and I can guarantee that the Kardashians's and the rest of the Hollywood trash will dominate not only the media but also the fashion industry.

Let's hope I am wrong on most of these predictions.......I would be most happy.

Trends Going into 2012

2011-12-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

Despite the blessings of the Christmas season, we also have to deal with the rampant materialism that this season of the year. The basic message is........buy this product and you or your loved one will be happy, fulfilled, completed, loved.......and on and on.......all one big lie delivered daily with sexy and attractive people subliminally telling you that you can be them....although they are actors or models and not real at all. A gigantic mirage concocted by marketers but millions around the world fall for its message every day even though deep in their hearts they know the lesson is false.

Things do not bring happiness. If you don't believe me I can tell you that some of the richest people I know are the most miserable and unhappy of my friends and acquaintances. I also have friends who are poor, also fellow parishioners and for the most part they are happy people with loving families and faith. I also know many people without religion in their lives and many appear to be content (what exactly is happy all the time anyway)?

Now that the Holiday weekend is over........people have to deal with reality - borrowed money to pay for gifts that they really couldn't afford but felt pressured by society to buy anyway. It is a vicious cycle that replays itself every year for millions of people. However, this year it probably is causing much more anxiety given the economic climate which unfortunately is in serious decline.

Here are some bad statistics that surely don't bode well as we enter the new year:

50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

From the Economic Collapse Blog

Even though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we don't make dramatic changes immediately. If we do not educate the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling them. Just "tweaking" things here and there is not going to fix this economy. We truly do need a fundamental change in direction. America is consuming far more wealth than it is producing and our debt is absolutely exploding. If we stay on this current path, an economic collapse is inevitable. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers from 2011 that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

At this time of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation usually gets around to politics at some point. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic crisis with your family and friends. If we all work together, hopefully we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that "business as usual" will result in a national economic apocalypse.

The following are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe....

#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.

#3 If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.

#4 The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.

#5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.

#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

#7 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

#8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

#9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.

#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

#11 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

#12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

#13 One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

#14 The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.

#15 According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

#16 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percentof all U.S. adults were married.

#17 The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year.

#18 In Stockton, California home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were at when the housing market peaked.

#19 Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 monthsin a row.

#20 If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

#22 New home construction in the United States is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011.

#23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.

#24 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#25 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

#26 One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#27 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#28 The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#29 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.

#30 The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

#31 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

#32 According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America's biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.

#33 Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

#34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

#35 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.

#36 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.

#37 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.

#38 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.

#39 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

#40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

#41 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

#43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

#44 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.

#45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit ofnearly 1.3 trillion dollars. That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.

#46 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#48 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

#49 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.

#50 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

Of course the heart of our economic problems is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence. If the Federal Reserve system had never been created, the U.S. economy would be in far better shape. The federal government needs to shut down the Federal Reserve and start issuing currency that is not debt-based. That would be a very significant step toward restoring prosperity to America.

During 2011 we made a lot of progress in educating the American people about our economic problems, but we still have a long way to go.

Hopefully next year more Americans than ever will wake up, because 2012 is going to represent a huge turning point for this country.

Mount Athos

2011-12-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

I am not a fan of the politics at times of 60 Minutes on Sunday evenings but I have been watching it on and off for my entire life. It is usually always interesting except when they do fawning interviews of their favorite politicians such as Presidents Clinton or Obama.

Last night they hit a 'home run' on Christmas night. It was a profile of the Eastern Orthodox monks on Mount Athos in Greece. I highly recommend watching this video to get a glimpse of holiness and the other-worldliness of these men with one foot on earth and the other in the heavenly spheres.

There were giants and heroes in those days............

2011-12-24T10:57:00.000-08:00

There were giants and heroes in those days............

No, I am not talking about ancient history. The great men Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Karol Josef Wojtyła, Lech Walesa and last but not least Václav Havel emerged from eastern Europe and changed the world from one that was on the brink of nuclear annihilation to the ‘new world order’ and the liberation of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. These men will be remembered in history as having the courage and faith to stand up to an atheistic and corrupt system without guns, bombs or terrorist tactics but by speaking Truth to the Lie. They literally cahnged the world...for the better..... and they warn us of the evilness of all human systems including the secular new world order.

It is unfortunate that the younger generations, even in their own eastern European countries, are unaware of the long odds that were against their success…..or survival. They were threatened, imprisoned and almost assassinated in their quest for freedom and truth. As great as Reagan and Thatcher were during this period – and the former did much to aid the success of the dissident movement – they did not take the risks of the consequences of failure as did the men working within the evil system.

I believe that these men were able to accomplish so much was due to their belief in God and that He works in history. We must never forget that none of these men came from aristocracy or the elites. Like Our Lord’s apostles they came from humble and common stock. The media may be full of ‘heroes’ and ‘superstars’ who pass from the scene such Steve Jobs – who will not be remembered much in twenty years - but these men from Eastern Europe will be remembered centuries from now as heroes of human freedom.

Sic Transit Gloria!

The following essay from the Acton Institute does a great job of summarizing of the achievements and Václav Havel’s place in history.

Requiescat in Pace.

Acton Institute

Living Responsibly: Vaclav Havel’s View

by Edward E. Ericson

If you could have one chance to speak to the world’s most powerful political body, what would you say? When Václav Havel’s invitation came, he told the United States Congress that “the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart.” He told people preoccupied with getting reelected that they should “put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics” and that “the only genuine core of all our actions–if they are to be moral–is responsibility.” Then, as a capper, he explained that our supreme responsibility is “to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success”; it is to the transcendent realm above us.

Havel had indubitably earned his right to be heard by the high and mighty. He had put his successful career as a playwright on hold to lead the dissenters against communist totalitarianism in his native Czechoslovakia, had therefore been repeatedly imprisoned, and then–during our turbulent century’s most sensational year, 1989–moved within months from prisoner to president of his country. This was enough for America’s Most Beautiful People to invite him to a gala reception in New York, where they could have their pictures taken with him, and Barbra Streisand allowed that he could smoke in her presence. The New York Review of Books, that bellwether journal of America’s elite opinion, regularly publishes his essays. Havel has become as much of an icon as our secular establishment can accommodate.

This appropriation is incongruous. Havel’s ideas do not comport well at all with those of our cultural pacesetters in Manhattan or inside the Beltway or in the Big Academy. They do comport well, by contrast, with those of the many ordinary American citizens who also think against the grain of today’s fashions. Havel believes in the old-fashioned concepts of good and evil. He speaks of truth, without quotation marks. He sees individuals as the chief engines of history. Championing human liberty, he warns against the centralization of power, and his plays describe the dehumanizing effects of bureaucracy. Challenging the doctrine of progress, he looks to the past for wisdom. He speaks freely about God and religion. He conjoins these themes in a call for each of us to live responsibly. Personal responsibility is his central theme.

Our Century’s Unprecedented Flight from God.

As Havel presses this theme, he offers a particularly penetrating analysis of our times. What, would you say, is the distinctive character of the twentieth century? Many, perhaps most, would point out its amazing technological advances. Others call it the American century. Havel says that our century’s distinguishing mark is that “we are going through a great departure from God which has no parallel in history.” It is no coincidence that “the first atheistic civilization” has produced the bloodiest century in history.

The civic face of atheism is ideology. Havel considers ideology “almost a secularized religion.” His exact synonym for “ideology” is “the lie.” An ideological regime “must falsify everything”–the past, the present, the future, statistics, everything. Citizens under such a regime “need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did.” Havel depicts a greengrocer who puts in his window the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” He thereby embodies the moral illness of “saying one thing and thinking another.”

Were the greengrocer not to put up the sign, he would wordlessly announce that “the emperor is naked” and would show that “it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal.” This, Havel explains, is exactly what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did. And so did other dissenters, whom he calls “ordinary people with ordinary cares, differing from the rest only in that they say aloud what the rest cannot say or are afraid to say.”

According to Havel, ordinary people everywhere can live in the truth only by embracing the “notion of human responsibility.” Responsibility is “that fundamental point from which all identity grows and by which it stands or falls; it is the foundation, the root, the center of gravity, the constructional principle or axis of identity.” Thus, Havel declares, “I am responsible for the state of the world,” and he means a “responsibility not only to the world but also ‘for the world,’ as though I myself were to be judged for how the world turns out.” Citing Dostoevsky’s spiritual dictum that all are responsible for all, he points to that “‘higher’ responsibility, which grows out of a conscious or subconscious certainty that our death ends nothing, because everything is forever being recorded and evaluated somewhere else, somewhere ‘above us,’ in … an integral aspect of the secret order of the cosmos, of nature, and of life, which believers call God and to whose judgment everything is liable.”

The Transcendent Reality from Which All Life Draws Its Meaning

Despite his Roman Catholic rearing, Havel does not number himself among the believers. He admits to “an affinity for Christian sentiment,” and he tries “to live in the spirit of Christian morality.” Yet, when queried about a rumor that he had become a Christian, he began ambivalently–“It depends on how we understand conversion”–then said no. No, because “genuine conversion, as I understand it, would mean replacing an uncertain ‘something’ with a completely unambiguous personal God, and fully, inwardly, to accept Christ as the Son of God.… And I have not taken that step.”

Yet the rearing shows. Havel does insist–and this is what matters most for Havel as cultural critic–that there is a transcendent reality from which all of human life draws its meaning. And, despite the impersonal ring of his God-substitutes, such as “the mystery of Being” and “the absolute horizon of Being,” he routinely makes personal references to them, as when he converses with “someone” who “addresses me directly and personally.” He is always approving toward believers and disapproving toward atheists. In his cultural criticism (as distinct from his private life), Havel might as well be a Christian.

This is certainly true in his analysis of the West. Havel and his fellow dissenters took “the traditional values of Western civilization” as their guiding light. He remains wholeheartedly committed to “the ideals of democracy, human rights, the civil society, and the free market”–the values America espouses. As a lay historian of ideas, he particularly praises the “blending of classical, Christian, and Jewish elements” that has created “the most dynamic civilization of the last millennium.”

With the Cold War over, we can now look beneath its surface split in the world and recognize that “the West and the East, though different in so many ways, are going through a single, common crisis,” for both are heirs of the Enlightenment’s legacy of atheism. In both precincts we observe the “arrogant anthropocentrism of modern man, who is convinced he can know everything and bring everything under his control.” This worldview “kills God, and takes his place on the vacant throne,” viewing the world as “nothing but a crossword puzzle to be solved.”

Because “communism was the perverse extreme” of this modern world-view, Havel sees life under communism as “a kind of warning to the West, revealing to it its own latent tendencies.” He once admitted being particularly “taken aback by the extent to which so many Westerners are addicted to ideology, much more than we who live in a system which is ideological through and through.” But the West shows “unwillingness to hear the warning voices coming from our part of the world.” So, it misses the real significance of “the end of communism,” which is “a signal that the era of arrogant, absolutist reason is drawing to a close.”

Havel’s Warning to the West

Thus, Havel laments that “the Western way of affirming Western values … seems to me to have seriously cooled off.” The West has “lost its ability to sacrifice,” he asserts, because its “economic advances,… based as they are on advances in scientific and technical knowledge, have gradually altered man’s very value systems.” We now worship “a new deity: the ideal of perpetual growth of production and consumption.” The American-led West offers the world an “essentially atheistic technological civilization.” It mainly exports not its traditional high ideals but its unsavory “by-products,” such as “moral relativism, materialism, the denial of any kind of spirituality, a proud disdain for everything suprapersonal, a profound crisis of authority and the resulting general decay of order, a frenzied consumerism, a lack of solidarity, a selfish cult of material success, the absence of faith in a higher order of things or simply in eternity.”

Such an indictment could easily turn Westerners defensive. What about democracy? we might ask. Is not that a high ideal? Havel the democrat considers that we promulgate a cut-flower variety of it. He considers the right to vote, freedom of expression, and private ownership of property to be, by themselves, “merely technical instruments,” which can “enable” but “cannot guarantee [human] dignity, freedom, and responsibility.” Electoral procedures are the husk, not the kernel, of a free society. And do we not ourselves sometimes fear that “the democratic West [has] lost its ability realistically to foster and cultivate the values it has always proclaimed and undertaken to safeguard”?

We might also ask, What about our free-enterprise system, now widely imitated? Havel values its wealth-making ways, as his own policies in the Czech Republic show. However, he also espies “the general unwillingness of consumption-oriented people to sacrifice some material certainties for the sake of their own spiritual and moral integrity.” So, he resists a marketplace without morality. “If [the West’s] own consumer affluence remains more important to it than the laudable foundations of the affluence, it will soon forfeit that affluence.” As we might have learned from another source, we could gain the whole world and lose our own soul.

Our moment in history is, according to Havel, a “watershed” moment “in the history of the entire human race.” Can we come out from under the rubble of our century’s atheism? Michael Novak thinks we can and will. He predicts that “the twenty-first century will be the most religious in five hundred years.” And he cites Havel as one of “the leading spirits of our age [who] have begun to sense that humans are naturally religious.”

Havel’s advice for the future, whether to America or to the world as a whole, is governed by his view that “our very planetary civilization is endangered by human irresponsibility.” In a nutshell, he counsels us to reinvigorate the wisdom of the past. To America, he declares that “the fathers of American democracy knew” what “modern man has lost: his transcendent anchor.” Ironically, it is a foreigner who reminds an audience in Philadelphia that “the Declaration of Independence, adopted 218 years ago in this building, states that the Creator gave man the right to liberty. It seems that man can realize that liberty only if he does not forget the One who endowed him with it.” Is this what American schoolchildren hear?

The Way Forward Is First the Way Back

To the world as a whole, he also suggests that the way forward is first the way back. As Western technology imposes “the veneer of world civilization” through “informational and economic globalization,” we need to locate “sources of a shared minimum that could serve as a framework for the tolerant coexistence of different cultures within a single civilization.” Although Havel asserts that “no unbiased person will have any trouble knowing where to look,” his answer is surprising. He looks to ancient religions. He emphatically rejects the familiar modern move to make the Creator “disappear from the world” and “into a sphere of privacy of sorts, if not directly into a sphere of private fancy–that is, into a place where public obligations no longer apply.”

The religions of antiquity proclaim in common what modern humanity has lost: “The certainty that the Universe, nature, existence, and our lives are the work of creation guided by a definite intention, that it has a definite meaning and follows a definite purpose.” Despite our superior information about the universe, our ancestors “knew something more essential about it than we do, something that escapes us.” They knew that “people should revere God as a phenomenon that transcends them.” They knew that “true goodness, true responsibility, true justice, a true sense of things–all these grow from roots that go much deeper than the world of our transitory earthly schemes. This is a message that speaks to us from the very heart of human religiosity.”

In short, Havel commends, as Christians such as C. S. Lewis before him have commended, the concept we sometimes call natural law. This may not be the whole counsel of the God of the Bible, but what a sharp contrast it provides to the blandishments of our secular elites.

Think of how our public discourse would change if we drank deeply from Havel’s well. We would talk less about such secondary aspects of our being as race, class, and gender and more about our souls. We would couch our conversations about politics and economics in a moral vocabulary. For every mention of rights, we would mention responsibility. We would stop ignoring God. One need not know Havel to live responsibly, but knowing him can only help.

Tyranny of the Elites

2011-12-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

The EU decision to tax airlines for carbon emissions is one of the more ridiculous decisions of the year. Instead of taxing investment banks, hedge funds and private equity - if for no reason other than the tremendous harm they have caused to the global economy - the cowards and corrupt bureaucrats go after one of the industries most hard hit by the recession and also higher energy prices. Of course, these taxes will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher fares. However, this will have a damper effect upon demand since the hard pressed consumer can ill afford higher air prices when alternative choices are available. Here is the NY Times article

I find this whole global warming scam to be galling example of corruption with the financial banksters and politicians teamed together once again to create a false potential catastrophe and then profit from it in the form of taxes to the government and trading income to the banksters. These same corrupt individuals in the United States as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down are beefing up the internal security within the country to counter potential terrorism.

Just who is the damn enemy that we are afraid of?

Iran - I haven't heard of any terrorist plots lately aimed at the USA

Iraq - They will be busy killing themselves for the next couple of decades to bother with us

Syria - I think Assad has his own problems

Russia - They are too busy socking the money away in Swiss bank accounts

China - They are more worried about the economies of the West and their own corrupt system

Afghanistan - What? the Taliban?

North Korea - They will be in mourning for years........more a South Korea and Japan issue anyway.

Mexico - There narco war is caused by our War on Drugs. They have their own problems.

The internal security threat is a power grab by a centralizing federal government and a threat to the civil liberties of the citizenry.

Listen to General Robert E. Lee's reply to a letter to Lord Acton a year after the War between the States ended in 1866.

"I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism."

We have met the enemy and it is us..............Charlie Brown

Who is the Hypocrite?

2011-12-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

Maureen Dowd's recent piece on Newt Gingrich was also a subtle dig at Catholicism. It surely incited many anti-Catholic comments in her on-line page similar to those comments that I referred to my own post I did a few days ago about the comments about Shroud of Turin column in the UK telegraph. I don't share Mr. Gingrich's views in Neo-conservative foreign views but the icy and malicious ad hominem hatchet job by Ms. Dowd focused on his religious conversion to Catholicism. I know Ms. Dowd was raised as a Catholic but if she has faith or any doctrinal tenets I believe she would subscribe to the far left of the Episcopal Church. She is of an age of those converted to the lie of radical feminism in the 1970's who believed that all that gibberish about the overall superiority of women, children as a burden, etc.

I do not think Newt's conversion was a politically inspired act......who in their right mind can judge the intentions of another person especially in matters of the soul. Also, conversion is a continuous process and Mr. Gingrich has only begun the journey. He is an admitted sinner.......who is not a sinner? I am sure that the unmarried Maureen has more than a few things that she has done over the decades that she would rather forget.....or remain unmentioned. Unfortunately, Newt has been in the political limelight for over thirty years.......has he lied, has he had extra-marital affairs, etc.? Yes, but so has Alexander Hamilton, Warren Harding, FDR, JFK and most famously of all, Bill Clinton. At least he admits his sin openly unlike Clinton who continues his priapic adventures to the present day if the tabloids are to be believed.

The underlying theme to her column was personal disdain of Mr. Gingrich and Catholicism in general. Conversion to Catholicism compounds his negativeness to the liberal and progressive crowd of the New York Times. How could a rational person who wants to be President of the USA subscribe to a religion that opposes: homosexual and lesbian marriage; a woman's right to choose (to kill her offspring); women in the priesthood, etc.? The NYT smiles at those Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Cuomo who live political lives divorced from the teachings of the Catholic faith but declare in public that their faith has no bearing on their political decisions. Christ had one word for people like this....Hypocrites.

The liberal and progressive dogma has transformed into a form of neo-paganism. Therefore, the Ten Commandments are not celebrated as the supreme wisdom but rather are openly mocked and denigrated by the agnostic neo-pagans in the USA and Europe. Keep holy the Sabbath, take the Lord's name in vain, do not kill, covet your neighbor's wife and goods.......we are a society that celebrates the violation of the Ten Commandments. Our celebrity culture is based upon this disavowal of God's laws.

I don't plan on voting for Newt Gingrich unless he is the GOP nominee versus Barack Obama. I admit I would have to hold my nose but at the end of the day I would rather choose a repentant sinner rather than the current President who shares the values and disdain for Christian civilization as does the self hating Catholic raised Ms. Dowd.

BTW, the downward spiral of the New York Times continues............it does not help to mock God.

Dance of the Buffoons

2011-12-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

It has been 30 years since Americans were offered a real choice in a presidential election. The monopolistic two party system has corrupted the intent of the Founders and we are offered establishment candidates every four years, promising 'change' but delivering at best the status quo and at worst schemes like No Child Left Behind, Obamacare and foreign wars. The two parties have managed to campaign on issues such as abortion on the right and (yes!) abortion on the left to galvanize sectors of the electorate at the extremes and then whomever gets elected always governs against the interests of the citizenry. Both parties are but two sides of a centrally planned military-industrial complex that is impregnable to the opinions, desires and interests of the People. It owns the mainstream media and increasingly the major web sites. But many are not fooled by the charade that has more to do with a television soap opera than a real debate of statesmen.

Unfortunately, with buffoons like the two retreads Gingrich and Romney or the imbecilic Palin or Bachmann for the GOP; and the weak, controlled,socialist and anti-Christian Obama being offered as candidates, albeit both parties governing mandate will be exactly the same, more and more thinking Americans are not wasting their time voting. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to James Madison, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and is as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” The status quo should not always be considered unchangeable and we should heed the great man's advice, of course in a non-violent manner. Unfortunately, most Americans identify Jefferson with a sport star or Archie Bunker's neighbor.

A good article on the leading GOP buffoon, Newt Gingrich, from Tom Fleming in the UK Daily Mail.

Newt's Last Hurrah

Newt Gingrich's campaign has been a roller coaster ride. Newt started out at a low level in the polls, he sank even lower as his personal irresponsibility--spending his ill-gotten gains at Tiffany's, going on vacation as the campaign began--alienated even his staff. Nonetheless, as dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney, the once-and-future frontrunner, failed to dissipate and as, one by one Romney's challengers--Bachmann, Perry, Cain--inevitably faded, Republicans switched from saying, "Why in the world would I vote for this has-been" to a rueful, "why not?"

Answers to that question came quickly. As Republican speechwriter and strategist Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal, few of Newt's supporters actually know him personally. By contrast, former staffers, congressional colleagues, and Republican collaborators were adamant in saying "anyone but Newt."

Admirers and critics alike agree that Newt is "brilliant." This is very nice of course but means nothing. In politics brilliant seems to mean the ability to steal sound bytes from the few books you have read. Gingrich's intellectual credentials are a PhD in history from a Tulane with a dissertation on education policy in the Belgian Congo. He also spent some years teaching history, geography, and environmentalism at an Georgia college that did not grant him tenure.

As an historian, he made absolutely no contribution to his academic field or to the popular writing on history. He must have been a popular teacher--undergraduates always fall for the classroom drama queen with simplistic theories and potted ideas--but he is neither a scholar nor a thinker. Aristophanes had a word (Greek) for people like this: alazon, imposter.

In watching Newt, mostly from afar, I have never heard him make one original intelligent observation. When he was borrowing from the Tofflers, he was filled with their Future Shock and Third Wave inanities. Newt and the Tofflers always reminded me of the Mighty Criswell, the nightclub prophet who always began his routine by assuring the audience, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives," before going on to predict a comical series of absurdities. That, in essence, is Newt Gingrich, though Criswell, at least, got laughs.

Well, a lot has come out: Newt's unofficial lobbying activities for the corrupt and crumbling loan giants, Fannie and Freddie, and for the healthcare industry. His agreement with Nancy Pelosi to campaign for the fraud of the century, Global Warming. His ultra-Zionist pronouncements against the Palestinians, who are a made-up people because they were part of the Ottoman Empire. What about Iraq, Turkey, and Syria or, for that matter, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia, and Greece? Does Newt actually know any history or, if he does, does he really care even remotely about truth? It is better not to ask.

Finally, Gingrich's rivials have pointed to his frequent and repeated tergiversations and flip-flops that should remind some voters, at least, that a newt is an amphibian that can live on land or water. Newt's response has been to declare that he will not engage in the negative campaigning his rivals are using against him. It's a wise move, rather as if Qadaffi had rejected the use of nuclear weapons, stealth jet fighters, avant-garde artillery, and tanks in his battle with NATO forces.

The sooner Newt's expiring carcass can be dragged off the battle field, the better for the campaign, the Republican Party, and for the United States. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and its media organs--The New York Times in particular--know they have a gold mine in Gingrich. By comparison, Obama seems sane, patriotic, and honest. The Democratic media have done and will continue to do their best to keep this corpse alive.

If Gingrich should by some miracle should get the nomination, he will have the Democratic media to thank, the same media that went all-out for the Republicn loser of all losers, John McCain. But even though the Grand Old Party has legitimately borrowed the mantel of "the stupid party" from the Tories, I find it hard to believe that large numbers will ever vote for Gingrich.

But then, what do I know? I watched in slow-motion horror as the two parties settled on Obama and McCain, just as they had previously settled on Bush and Kerry, Bush and Gore, Clinton and Dole. If Americans ever needed a clear refutation of Churchill's fatuous aphorism on democracy--an institution he, more than any man of his time, knew how to manipulate to his own benefit--they have it now. If modern democracy cannot do better than the presidential candidates of the two parties, we need to adopt the model of the ancient Athenian democracy, which selected political leaders by lot.

Even a national presidential lottery would not save us. We have the leaders we deserve, leaders who reflect the American character. American voters like to complain that they are dissatisfied with the politicians they elect, but Bush, Obama, McCain, and Gingrich are the political face Americans see when they look in their mirrors.

Shroud of Turin - A British View

2011-12-20T10:43:00.000-08:00

There is an article in today's UK London Telegraph written about the Shroud of Turin. It rehashes all the arguments both pro and con. It was written because a group of Italian scientists have declared that the only way the image could have appeared on the cloth was through the means of ultra-violet radiation.

The Shroud is the mysterious object given its 700 year old 'known' history. I say known or documented since the historical record only begins in the 14th century in southern France with a family with links to the Knights Templar. I have a number of books about the subject and have read scores of articles on the web and in periodicals. There is mention in the ancient Constantinople histories of a very similar sacred object dating back for a millennium before the 1300's. Is it the same object? All the evidence appears to point to the disappearance of this sacred object around the time of the Crusader's sacking of Constantinople, hence the link with the Templar's and its appearance shortly thereafter in France.

If you are interested in reading more I would suggest Ian Wilson's book which is very objective. I find it intriguing that Eastern Christianity's iconography of Christ has a very close resemblance to the haunting face of the shroud. Is this a coincidence......I think not.

More interesting than the article, which is written in the typical British intellectual, skeptical and condescending fashion, are the comments from the Telegraph readers who mock and jeer in comment after comment. There is a difference between US atheists and British atheists even though both countries share a legacy of anti-Catholicism. While 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God, only 35 percent in Britain do. In the US religious belief is still respected whereas in Britain it is not. Ad hominem attacks on the Pope and clergy are taken de rigueur and the pro-life stance is viewed as a form of bigotry and religious oppression.

In many ways, I see the UK disintegrating from within. With the Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg seeing no difference between gay and straight marriage, the coming secession from the EU forced by the Tory 'fire-eaters', high unemployment/little social mobility and the dominance of its financial center in the City of London in politics and economics, the British appear to moving into uncharted territory that will isolate it from both the continent and the USA. Although the British look back on their history and see a pugnacious and independent country always winning against all odds and for a period dominating the world stage, they fail to realize that this image was a two century aberration which ignores a 2,000 year relationship as part of Christendom and linked to historical Europe in many ways. BTW, the royal family is German in origin and the Duke of Edinburgh is from the Greek royal family.

"Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it". I find the British in general being ignorant of the real history of their island. This is a disaster in the making.

A better warning is from the Bible:

2 Peter 3:3-7

....."scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."

The image above is of Christ Pantocrater (All Powerful) which is 1600 years old and has resided at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai in Egypt. It is the oldest Icon surviving in the world. For similarities between the face on the shroud and this icon, the following site is very enlightening and informative.

No proof is ever enough for some doubters......even St. Matthew had to see the risen Jesus in person.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. --Blaise Pascal

A Famous Author and Considered Brilliant.......and Wrong Most of the Time! !

2011-12-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

Christopher Hitchens was a prime example of our post-Christian intellectual class - a group without a moral center in their lives. The noble pagans of antiquity at least had philosophy in the Pre-Christianity era but our modern pagans have nothing but discredited Marxism, Freudianism and arguments 200 years old from the Rousseau. His positions over the years reflect an intellectual confusion and the vacuum of a lack of faith.

Hitchen's denigration of religion in general and Catholicism in particular in addition to his hedonistic lifestyle (self-admitted) indicate a morality of secular humanism - which I define as a philosophy devoid of a moral center. His support of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan also shows a lack of judgement on his part. There are many of us who believe that these wars were disasters for all involved and strengthened Islamism rather than weakened it. I hold a Bellocian view of Islam and also view it as a pernicious enemy of western civilization. If Hitchens was truly consistent is his anti-Islamism, he would have opposed the continued self annihilation of European peoples through contraception and abortion; the favored status of the corporate elites of 'enlightened' society of Saudi Arabia and other favored tyrannies; and the importation of millions of Muslims into Europe over the past 60 years as cheap labor and in the process the development of an alien strain to the body politic.

One his many wrongheaded quotes makes you wonder about his objectivity and did he ever analyze the outcomes of the outlawing of religious instruction behind the Iron Curtain for over 70 years? See his quote about outlawing religious instruction below and the beneficial results of such a policy.

Many people were praying for him and perhaps in his very last moments between death and judgement and meeting the Lord (and Mother Teresa), he may have changed his positions one more time. RIP.

Christopher Hitchens, celebrated writer for Vanity Fair and outspoken atheist, died yesterday of complications from esophageal cancer. Hitchens was known for courting controversy, from his surprising support for the war in Iraq to his biting criticism of religion. He angered both liberals and conservatives. Whether you found him infuriating or enlightening, he was a powerful writer with strong convictions. Here are some of his most provocative quotes.

[Mother Theresa] was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions. (Slate, 2003)

For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. (Booknotes, 1993)

A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory. (The Trial of Henry Kissinger, 2002)

[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things. (Hardball with Chris Matthews, 2000)

Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint. (Slate, 2002)

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has — from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness. (History News Network, 2003)

I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information. (Love, Poverty, and War, 2004)

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world. (from his book, God Is Not Great)

Millions of people would have mindlessly starved to death if [Gandhi's] advice had been followed. (God Is Not Great)

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it. (God Is not Great)

Atheists have always argued that this world is all that we have, and that our duty is to one another to make the very most and best of it. (The Portable Atheist)

Will an Iraq war make our Al Qaeda problem worse? Not likely. (Monthly Review, 2005)

So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion. (January 2012 Vanity Fair)

We have the same job we always had: to say that there are no final solutions; there is no absolute truth; there is no supreme leader; there is no totalitarian solution that says if you would just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you would simply abandon your critical faculties, the world of idiotic bliss can be yours. (October 2011 speech at the annual Atheist Alliance of America convention in Houston, as he accepted the Freethinker of the Year Award)

Is This the Same Country That My Grandparents Knew?

2011-12-18T15:41:00.000-08:00

If my late grandparents - all of whom would have been 110 and older if alive today - what would they say about the state of society and the country? I think some good things and some very bad things but at the same time they would be appalled with what is considered 'normal' today versus the world they knew fifty or one hundred years ago. Such convenience items as microwavable food they would consider amazing but they would probably frown upon the amount of artificial chemicals and preservatives contained in the food. They would also be amazed to see 70 year old's looking and acting as if they were in their fifties but appalled to see so many young people overweight. Another area of significance would be they way we dress today. No longer men in suits and overcoats with fedora's on Sunday morning, they would be aghast as the slovenliness in men and the indecency of women's clothing.

It is a different world than the first half of the 20th century in almost every way. I have faint memories of the 1950's myself and it was a different childhood than many experience today. At Christmas we only received one or two toys and some clothes. We made do with our imaginations using old mattresses in spare lots to practice high jumping and using sawed off broom handles to use as bats in parking lot stick ball. At home we had a black and white television that only had four channels. However, our families were close with grandparents and extended family close by and in family gatherings there were always a few relatives who could entertain with musical instruments and everyone danced.

Everything changed in the 1960's. Assassinations, race riots, drugs and the Vietnam war revolutionized society. Young high school girls started to go on the birth control pill and the sexual revolution was in full swing. Where religion once served as a bulwark of society, most protestant denominations went along with the zeitgeist and Vatican II in the Catholic Church completely upset the apple cart. Gone was the permanence and unchangeable nature of the Roman Church - nuns deserted their orders and priests let their hair grow and were rarely seen in their roman collars. It was as if the trap door was opened and the baby boom generation as well as some of the previous WWII generation fell through the cracks with long held assumptions about government, religion and morals completely abandoned.

What would my grandfather's think of a nation held hostage to several thousand terrorists around the world? A generation that fought world wars would sneer at disgust at the martinets who wield power today - bombing innocent populations, preempt invasions of countries who disagree with the neo-con vision of the world and antagonizing and threatening Russia and China which could lead to another world war. What would they think of the leadership of the baby boom political class in ruining the finances of the country by promising more than they could ever deliver and being corrupted by money and the pernicious influence of Wall Street?

I think - after a quick glimpse at the present and going back to their eternal reward- that they would have glad to have been alive during their era and would bemoan the world of their grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Rise Of The Beast System

2011-12-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

I have a few friends who call into talk radio shows to air their views on different topics of the day.....little did they know that their conversations are being recorded and analyzed. I have written about the loss of freedoms in this country. The facts below speak volumes.............

Rise Of The Beast System: 11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea

Should we just get it over with and change the spelling of America to "Amerika"? Every single day, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea. In North Korea, the citizens are told that everything that they do needs to be monitored, tracked, recorded and very tightly controlled so that everyone can be kept safe. No dissent is allowed at all. If government officials in North Korea even suspect that you are thinking the wrong thing, your entire extended family can be shipped off to a prison camp. And you know what? North Korea is a pretty safe place. There is not much terrorism in North Korea. But why in the world would anyone ever want to live like that? America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom, but now we are falling for the same totalitarian lies that so many other societies have fallen for throughout human history. We are witnessing the rise of the beast system - a system of control more pervasive than anything that the world has ever seen. We are constantly being told that the emerging "Big Brother" control grid is being put into place for "our safety", but someday we are going to wake up in a dystopian nightmare where government tyrants have absolutely unlimited control over our lives.

Those that approve of the "Big Brother" police state control grids being constructed all over the world should really study North Korea. That country is what the end result looks like.

North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole. No rational human being would ever want to live there. You can see an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary on what life is like inside North Korea on YouTube right here. If you have never seen that documentary before, it is definitely worth the time that it takes to watch it. If we stay on our current path, our country is going to become just like North Korea.

America does not have to go down this road. Right now nearly every nation on earth is implementing "Big Brother" security measures, but we could choose to be different if we wanted to.

Unfortunately, right now we seem to be leading the charge toward a world where liberty and freedom are absolutely dead.

The following are 11 ways that Amerika is becoming more like North Korea....

#1 It has been revealed that Predator drones are now being used inside of the United States to spy on American citizens. These Predator drones are equipped with the latest high-resolution cameras, very sophisticated heat sensors and incredibly advanced surveillance equipment.

Predator drones can sit up in the sky and watch you for 20 hours without stopping. If one was watching you right now you probably wouldn't even know it.

We are accustomed to Predator drones being used in the "war on terror", but now they are being used to watch American citizens. The following comes from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times....

The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.
In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."

You can see mainstream video news reports about how authorities are using Predator drones to spy on American citizens right here and right here.

#2 The Department of Homeland Security says that paying for your hotel room in cash is a sign that you could be a potential terrorist. If you do not believe this, just watch this shocking DHS video.

#3 As I have written about previously, authorities in Tennessee are going door to door conducting "assessments" of how "prepared" residents are. The following comes from a recent news article about this new program....

The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.
The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.

#4 Today, government authorities track nearly everything that we do. For example, one woman in Washington D.C. has been fined $2000 for not properly recycling homemade cat litter made out of old newspapers and junk mail.

#5 Just like in the movie "Minority Report", face tracking technology is now being used in advertising billboards all over the nation. This type of technology is also increasingly being used for law enforcement purposes.

#6 Police are not just using tasers on hardened criminals anymore. Now tasers are even being used on young school girls. The following comes from a report about an incident that recently happened in Pennsylvania....

The mother of a 14-year-old Dieruff High School student has filed a federal lawsuit claiming an Allentown police officer used excessive force when he shot her daughter in the groin with a stun gun during class dismissal in September.
Victoria Geist says her daughter, Keshana Wilson, had her arms raised high to indicate she surrendered when officer Jason Ammary pointed a Taser at her on Sept. 29 outside the high school and fired, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by attorney Richard J. Orloski.
The suit claims Ammary fired the Taser directly at the teen's groin and he then filed retaliatory charges against the girl to justify using the Taser.

#7 A number of very elderly women have come forward with stories of being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports. Not even North Korea treats their elderly women like this.

#8 Americans are being watched in hundreds of different ways each day, and most of them have no idea what is happening. For example, in Washington D.C. the movements of every single car are tracked using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The following comes from a recent Washington Post article....

More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

#9 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....

If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.

#10 As I have mentioned previously, new high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com....

Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.

#11 Congress has been debating a new bill that would officially designate the United States as part of the "battleground" on the "war on terror" and would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. According to U.S. Senator Carl Levin, it was actually Barack Obama that was pushing for the indefinite detention of American citizens to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act....

Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

The Obama administration has been attacking our civil liberties even more than the Bush administration did.

Unless something dramatic happens, at some point all of our liberties and all of our freedoms will be gone.

Thankfully we can still share information like this on the Internet, but that will not last forever. Eventually, "hate crime laws" will be used to greatly restrict what we are able to say on the Internet.

If you don't that that is possible, guess again. Our northern neighbor, Canada,already has a very strict law against "hate speech" on the Internet.

So what is "hate speech"? Well, it turns out that the people almost always targeted for their speech are libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians.

In the United States, not too many people are being put into prison for what they say or what they believe yet, but law enforcement authorities all over the nation are being instructed to be on the look out for certain kinds of bumper stickers and certain kinds of literature. If you do not believe that the government is specifically targeting libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians just watch this video.

Amerika is not as bad as North Korea yet, but we are well on the way.

In a recent article for News with Views, author Paul McGuire described what the future could be like if we stay on our current path as a nation....

Low flying helicopters flew above us, aiming surveillance devices at us. Everywhere I looked, people stared vacantly like soulless zombies. Very few people could think, most just walked about in a trance. The drugs in the water supply, vaccinations and the endless bombardment of EMF waves, along with hypnotic suggestions through the media kept people in a trance-like state. I, like a few others, managed to retain my mind, by forcing myself to think critically. I discovered early on that you could choose not to enter the trance-like state. But, you had to always maintain that dead and vacant look in your eyes. If somebody thought you were thinking, they would report you and you would disappear.

Please wake up America.

Yes, the rest of the world is steamrolling toward a dystopian nightmare.

But America does not have to join them.

The last chapters of our history can be the most nightmarish or they can be the greatest.

It is all going to depend on the choices that we make.

Please share information like this with your family and friends while there is still time.

Distributism is the Answer

2011-12-14T19:45:00.000-08:00

The last few years have caused me to reevaluate my political philosophies in the shadow of the collapse of corporate capitalism and its total corruption of the US political system. The following article from the Remnant newspaper crystallizes the case for Distributism in my mind. How can we cheer lead for a system that thrives on the use of slave labor from China and will peddle any good or service as long as profit is involved? The European ongoing socialism experiment is experiencing the devastating results on its inherent contradictions such as aborting its own babies and importing foreign Muslim workers with large families.

When societies or cultures become agnostic or even atheistic they loose the rationale for their existence. In the USA the 'official' religion is consumerism based upon oligopolistic capitalism and in Europe it is hedonism disguised as the welfare state. Both are focused on the individual rather than society in general. The two systems are headed towards a collapse.

I think small capitalism is the answer...........

Christopher A. Ferrara

REMNANT COLUMNIST, New Jersey

“Distributism is just capitalism with morality.” - Robert Laskey

(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) In recent years spokesmen for neo-liberalism who call themselves “conservatives” and libertarians have labored to take out of commission a growing movement for economic independence that goes by the name of Distributism. The neo-liberal attack on Distributism is in keeping with the process by which, for nearly two centuries, Catholics have been chased by the boogeyman of socialism into the domain of radical laissez-faire capitalism, where corporations peddle everything from pornography to human zygotes without restraint by law and Big Business allies itself with Big Government for the destruction of the moral order. Distributism is under attack precisely because it represents, in the economic realm, an alternative to the endless liberal game of heads I win, tails you lose.

No, It’s Not Socialism

So, what is Distributism? Contrary to what our critics suggest, Distributism does not denote government redistribution of wealth, which is socialism, but rather the natural distribution of wealth that arises when the means of production are distributed as widely as possible in society.

Distributism essentially equates with family-owned enterprises of any sort (not just hobby farms, as sneering critics would have us believe) or firms owned by their employees (otherwise known as cooperatives) or small or even mid-size corporations operating on a local or regional scale. Small business and self-employment in general are distributism in action. So are the growing local produce movement (in which many traditionalists participate) and the widespread boycotts of Wal-Mart and other multinational giants that have annihilated small businesses and destroyed the commerce of neighborhoods.

Chesterton formulated the Distributist idea with his usual genius for stating the essence of things: “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” Distributism looks to increase the number of owners of private property by encouraging individuals and families to acquire or create means of production for themselves instead of being dependent upon wages. In practice it might well mean Chesterton’s “three acres and a cow,” but in the modern economy it might just as likely mean “three computers and a home office.”

Because it seeks to restore microeconomic life—commerce between neighbors in neighborhoods—Distributism is a movement for liberation from the globalized, interlocking, government-dependent, and dangerously fragile economic order that laughably describes itself as “free enterprise” today. Anybody who thinks “free enterprise” means Wal-Mart, with its legions of Chinese wage-slaves toiling for the benefit of American shareholders while under the yoke of a Communist government that will not even allow them to have children, needs to consult Catholic social teaching immediately. Something is drastically wrong in the moral order when the founders of Wal-Mart sit on an $84 billion stock portfolio built largely on virtual slave labor while Wal-Mart’s “sales associates” cannot support their families or pay their medical bills, even though a small fraction of the Waltons’ billions could fund in perpetuity a self-insured medical plan for every Wal-Mart employee.

I am not suggesting government confiscation of the Walton family’s wealth. The point, of course, is that the Waltons should be doing justice to their struggling employees without any government mandate. That is, they should be applying the law of the Gospel to the conduct of their business. In The Church and the Libertarian I show how Costco, whose co-founder and CEO is a Catholic steeped in Catholic social teaching, pays its employees a family wage along with 92% of their medical bills.

Distributism succeeds to the extent people simply refuse to participate in the culture of mass capitalism. It is a way of life, not a government program. It is a form of peaceful secession from an economic order dominated by multinationals that scour the world for virtual slave labor, corrupt public and private morality by peddling innumerable vices, destroy domestic industry, receive government advantages at every turn, and demand treaty concessions and bailouts whenever necessary to prevent the collapse of their surreally bloated and otherwise unsustainable structures. Distributism is a justified reaction against moral and material excesses condemned by the Magisterium in encyclical after encyclical and summed up by that renowned Lutheran defender of the free market, Wilhelm Röpke, in one memorable phrase: “the cult of the colossal.”

Socialism and distributism are thus antithetical. Let me repeat: socialism is the opposite of distributism. Whoever suggests that distributism is a form of socialism is either uninformed or dishonest. Even the Wikipedia entry gets it right: “Distributism (also known as distributionism, distributivism) is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc to apply the principles of Catholic social teaching articulated by the Catholic Church, especially in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum and more expansively explained by Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno... Essentially, distributism distinguishes itself by its distribution of property (not to be confused with redistribution of wealth).” I hasten to add that to be a Distributist is not to endorse every practical suggestion Chesterbelloc advocated, but only the goal of widely distributed ownership of the means of production and with it true economic freedom for the individual and the family as the basic unit of society.

What is meant by a “third way”? Simply that Distributism is neither socialism nor capitalism. As Thomas Storck has put it: “both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life.” This is precisely what the Popes have counseled in their social teaching.

The Sordid Love of Wealth

As Pius XI declared in Quadragesimo anno (1931), social and economic liberalism have a common root in abandonment of the precepts of the Gospel on account of sin:

The root and font of this defection in economic and social life from the Christian law, and of the consequent apostasy of great numbers of workers from the Catholic faith, are the disordered passions of the soul, the sad result of original sin which has so destroyed the wonderful harmony of man’s faculties that, easily led astray by his evil desires, he is strongly incited to prefer the passing goods of this world to the lasting goods of Heaven.Hence arises that unquenchable thirst for riches and temporal goods, which has at all times impelled men to break God's laws and trample upon the rights of their neighbors, but which, on account of the present system of economic life, is laying far more numerous snares for human frailty.

It was nothing other than an “unquenchable thirst for riches and temporal goods” that caused the Meltdown of 2008. Indeed, Quadraegismo could have been written to describe the corporate climate surrounding that event:

For what will it profit men to become expert in more wisely using their wealth, even to gaining the whole world, if thereby they suffer the loss of their souls? What will it profit to teach them sound principles of economic life if in unbridled and sordid greed they let themselves be swept away by their passion for property, so that “hearing the commandments of the Lord they do all things contrary.”

Since the instability of economic life, and especially of its structure, exacts of those engaged in it most intense and unceasing effort, some have become so hardened to the stings of conscience as to hold that they are allowed, in any manner whatsoever, to increase their profits and use means, fair or foul, to protect their hard-won wealth against sudden changes of fortune.

The laws passed to promote corporate business, while dividing and limiting the risk of business, have given occasion to the most sordid license. For We observe that consciences are little affected by this reduced obligation of accountability; that furthermore, by hiding under the shelter of a joint name, the worst of injustices and frauds are penetrated; and that, too, directors of business companies, forgetful of their trust, betray the rights of those whose savings they have undertaken to administer.

The contention that the Meltdown resulted simply from the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve is ludicrous. It was a perfect storm of greed arising from the combined avarice of (a) mortgage originators and brokers who made loans they knew would fail in order to earn processing fees and commissions, (b) borrowers who borrowed far more than they could afford to repay in order to acquire far more than what they really needed, (c) usurious interest rates on variable rate mortgages and credit card balances, (d) the packaging of risky mortgages palmed off by the originators into bundles of worthless securities sold as hot investments by investment firms based on fraudulent AAA ratings by rating firms, and (e) the practice of hedging these toxic assets with credit default swaps that allowed the same firms that peddled the toxic assets to their clients to bet that the very investments they had recommended would go bust, triggering massive insurance payouts to the investment firms while the clients suffered catastrophic losses. (Cf. The Church and the Libertarian, Ch. 13).

All of this happened in a de-regulated environment in which depositary banks once prohibited from engaging in risky investments were no longer restrained from doing so, investment firms once limited to their partners’ own capital were allowed to amass vast pools of risk capital from public offerings of their stock, and credit default swaps were allowed to be traded as unregulated securities, creating a vast and unstable pile of pickup-sticks just waiting to collapse if someone pulled out the wrong one.

The Meltdown, in short, represents what Pius XI called “[t]he sordid love of wealth, which is the shame and great sin of our age...” The Fed’s lowering of interest rates did not cause the sordid love of wealth that led to a worldwide economic collapse any more than a pistol causes someone to commit suicide. In any case, the Fed—which of course should be abolished—is itself a creature of capitalist manipulation of state power: a quasi-private banking cartel that is not even accountable to government, which is why the same libertarians who deplore the Fed (while conveniently ignoring its seamy capitalist origins) demand an audit that Congress refuses to compel.

A Movement for Economic Freedom According to the Gospel

There could be no Meltdown in Catholic social order because in Catholic social order economic activity will be governed, as Pius XI wrote, by “the gentle yet effective law of Christian moderation which commands man to seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice, with the assurance that, by virtue of God’s kindness and unfailing promise, temporal goods also, in so far as he has need of them, shall be given him besides.”

Distributism is nothing other than free enterprise conducted according to the Gospel as summed up in Our Lord’s two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. Subtract “the sordid love of wealth” and boundless ambition from free enterprise, add love of God and love of neighbor, and you will see emerging naturally the very economic order many of us are old enough to remember: the economy of the local grocer, hardware store, and savings and loan; an economy in which one could provision a household entirely on the basis of exchanges with one’s own neighbors in one’s own neighborhood; an economy conducted on a human scale by human beings rather than fictitious corporate “persons” created by government fiat that display all the personality traits of a psychopath.

Nor is the recovery of what Röpke called a humane economy merely a question of “personal” morality a given capitalist could choose to observe if he wishes, as the libertarians would argue. The imperatives of the Gospel must be reflected in laws and institutions. In the realm of economy no less than the realm of politics there is no disjunction between public and “private” morals, but rather one divinely ordained moral code governing the whole of society. A capitalist does not love God or his neighbor when he exploits his workers, sells pornography and otherwise pumps moral filth into society, provides abortions, engages in usury and price-gouging, recklessly speculates with his clients’ money, systematically defiles the Sabbath with the most vile commerce, extracts unconscionable bargains from weaker parties, discharges toxic waste into rivers or the ground, or commits a thousand other offenses against the moral order and the common good.

Civil authority—especially at the local level in keeping with subsidiarity—has every right to restrain the capitalist’s depredations with appropriate legislation, including penal sanctions. We are not, after all, at the mercy of corporate boards of directors who have not received any authority from God to govern us with decisions affecting the common good in its moral, spiritual and material totality.

Pope John Paul II was teaching in line with all his predecessors when he declared on the anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum that the Church cannot approve capitalism if it means that “freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious...” Distributism, as a movement for a humane economy on a human scale—that is, an economy more in keeping with the Gospel—respects the ethical and religious limits on economic activity and naturally leads men away from the corporate cult of the colossal toward an economic order that subordinates the pursuit of material goods to man’s eternal destiny.

Distributists at Occupy Wall Street

In an article for the Remnant Richard Aleman noted that he, John Rao and I went the site of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in order to present the Catholic case for economic justice. We did not go there to commune with the hippies or to lend support to any sort of Leftist ideology. We went there because we recognized that many of the wandering souls who had gathered in Zuccotti Park suspected that something was radically wrong with the modern economic order but had no clear idea of what it was.

We saw the Occupy demonstration as a neo-pagan search for the Unknown God. We told those who would listen that the God for whom they seek is the one who gave us His Gospel for the good of both men and nations. We handed them excerpts from Quadragesimo Anno and a flier containing the elements of what a humane and distributist economy would look like—without a single government intervention—if people would only order their pursuit of material goods to the highest good of eternal beatitude. We felt compelled to tell as many of these people as we could that the fundamental social problem that had brought them together—unwittingly or not—is the apostasy of Western civilization, and that there could be no approach to social justice that did follow the path the Catholic Church has marked out for men and nations. As Pius XI put it:

All experts in social problems are seeking eagerly a structure so fashioned in accordance with the norms of reason that it can lead economic life back to sound and right order. But this order, which We Ourselves ardently long for and with all Our efforts promote, will be wholly defective and incomplete unless all the activities of men harmoniously unite to imitate and attain, in so far as it lies within human strength, the marvelous unity of the Divine plan. We mean that perfect order which the Church with great force and power preaches and which right human reason itself demands, that all things be directed to God as the first and supreme end of all created activity, and that all created good under God be considered as mere instruments to be used only in so far as they conduce to the attainment of the supreme end.

It is really very simple: to apply the two great commandments to the pursuit of material goods is to be, more or less, a Distributist. A Distributist, trusting in Providence, will want for nothing his family needs, and he will be the first to defend private property as essential to ordered liberty—and not only against government, but also against the corporate hegemons that are relentlessly snuffing out the God-given right to make one’s own way in the world with one’s own means.

How ironic it is that Catholics who consider themselves libertarians defend government-assisted corporate collectivism on a scale so vast as to amount to privatized socialism, while attacking Distributists for their truly libertarian defense of economic independence for the individual and the family in an economy that does not depend upon the labor of Chinese wage-slaves.

Let us have an end to this demagoguery. And let the Remnant help lead Catholics toward the humane economy the Magisterium has always had in view.

The Plague of Pedophilia

2011-12-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

There is probably no other crime as detestable as pedophilia. Once hidden and hushed up, one scandal after another confronts us. The Catholic priest scandal has been front page news for years but within the last month we also hear of the horrendous Penn State monster called Jerry Sandusky who preyed upon and raped innocent boys and also the other cretin at Syracuse University who was also accused of the same crimes. In the New York City, a twenty something man is accused in the Orthodox Jewish community of abusing and/or raping over one hundred boys.

I believe these stories are the only the tip of the iceberg. Has our society gone so completely mad sexually that this plague goes unchecked? What drives these men to steal the innocence of little boys thereby scarring them for life and distorting their view of sexual relations for the rest of their lives. There is an evil in pedophilia that is beyond this world. But, one complement vice is pornography.

I have come to the conclusion that pornography has done more to change the fundamental nature of the western world than any other factor in the past fifty years. The 'sexual revolution' which was started in the 1960's has come full cycle with men like Sandusky now reaching their retirement years having spent the last half century as adults saturated with the false illusions and fantasies of pornography. There is much to be said with the old saying, "If I think it, I'll do it"....or better yet, Our Lord stating that looking at a woman with lust is adultery. Human beings do not commit adultery or any other sexual sin unless the thought of doing it is there beforehand. If the thought is not introduced into your mind, the action will not follow. Pornography introduces thoughts and desires to be fulfilled. What ever happened to self control?

We live in a very sex saturated world. My late mother, in her early 80's a few years before she died confided in me that television and magazines were so sexually saturated that she was afflicted with sexual thoughts. In the eyes of many people my mother was a living saint but soft porn is so pervasive that it attacks even the souls of 80 year old's.

I really don't know the exact answer but many of our social ills - pedophilia being at the top of the list - need to be addressed in a systemic fashion and there needs to be a way to reduce the primary causes. I think it goes without saying that openly available pornography on the Internet and other media leads to increased sexual activity especially among young people. Pornography is also like an addictive drug which requires new and more exciting situations to maintain the same level of excitement. These pedophiles were made vile through pornography and they are not born that way. Perhaps they were corrupted when they were young also but this can never be an excuse for criminal behavior. Additionally, since pornography is primarily focused on young people with perfect bodies and an air of innocence, the depraved are drawn to the young like a bee to honey. When you add the homosexual element, the results are scary because young boys in pre/early puberty are obvious targets for the pedophile who lurk for their prey in football camps, organized athletic teams, boy scouts, etc.

If these men were caught in earlier ages......they were dead men. Hence the crime was scarce and kept is deep secrecy by their fellow like minded criminals. However, in a modern and politically correct society they are protected by a lunatic legal system and actually communicate in man-boy 'love' groups actively promoted on the Internet. As a Christian I would have to be mightily provoked to kill someone, but this crime would test my resolve if committed against one of my family members.

Our Lord in Mark 9:29 in discussing certain types of demons said, " And he said to them: This kind can go out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."

I think this is the case for eliminating the world of pedophilia. We are not dealing with only human beings but also demons.

An Interview with Admiral Kimmel 0n the Day that will Live in Infamy

2011-12-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

An Interview with Admiral Kimmel

Dean Clarence Manion

December 7. Whenever this fateful date reoccurs on the calelndar, it invariably revives a flood of tragic and painful recollections. The pain of recollection will be intensified this year when you read the recently published frank, and informative, memoirs of the widely experienced and universally respected General Albert C. Wedemeyer [Wedemeyer Reports! -- Ed.]. This big revealing book begins and ends with the emphatic and unequivocal assurance that the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been -- and should have been -- prevented, and that the United States could have -- and should have -- stayed out of World War II.

Says Wedemeyer, and I quote: "The Soviet colossus would not now bestride half the world had the United States kept out of war -- at least until Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany had exhausted each other. But Franklin D. Roosevelt, the proclaimed champion of democracy," continues the General, "was as successful as any dictator could have been in keeping Congress and the public in ignorance of his secret commitments to Britain. Commitments which flouted the will and the wishes of the voters who had reelected him only after he had assured them that he would keep us out of the war. The fact that Japan's attack had been deliberately provoked was obscured by the disaster at Pearl Harbor," says Wedemeyer. "President Roosevelt had maneuvered us into the war by his patently unneutral actions against Germany and the final ultimatum against Japan."

So much for the beginning of the Wedemeyer Reports! Near the conclusion we find this, and I quote again:

"On December 4th, 1941, we received definite information from two independent sources that Japan would attack the United States and Britain, but would maintain peace with Russia. On December 6, our intercepts told us, the Japanese would strike somewhere the very next day. President Roosevelt," he says "had ample time to broadcast a warning that might have caused the Japanese to call off the attack." "In any event," continues the General, "we would not have permitted 3,500 Americans to die in Hawaii without an opportunity to fight back."

Who, then, was responsible for the bloody surprise at Pearl Harbor? A few days after the bombs fell there, President Roosevelt made a radio speech to the American people in which he condemned the treachery that propelled us into war, and called Sunday, December 7, 1941 a day that will live in infamy. Mr. Roosevlet was never more truly prophetic than he was when he spoke those words. The infamy of Sunday, December 7, 1941 becomes increasingly notorious with each passing year. Ever more and more certainly that calamitous day is being firmly established in history as the infamous time when more than 3,000 American soldiers and sailors were sentenced to sudden and violent death by the calculated and deliberate dereliction of their own Commander-in-Chief.

Pearl Harbor was but the bloody beginning of what is yet an endless tale of woe. Down with the sacrificed sailors and soldiers went the heart and soul of our proud Pacific Fleet. But with the flotsom of this powerful and humiliating holocaust came the corrosive curse of Communism to poison the whole stream of human civilization. The bright light of freedom that was extinguished by Mr. Roosevelt's dreadful "day of infamy" may not come on again for a thousand years.

Fixing the responsibility for this terrible catastrophe has been a delayed and difficult task. In war the truth is always the first casualty. It was so at Pearl Harbor. The American people were shocked by this successful sneak attack, and enraged at the realization that it had dragged them into the foreign war from which the president had promised "again, and again, and again" to steer then clear. Popular clamor demanded appropriate scapegoats, and the president obligingly and promptly met the popular demand by nominating for disgrace two men who, respectively, commanded the United States Army and Navy forces in Hawaii on that fatal day.

The American people did not know then that the president and his top military advisors in Washington had been intercepting Japanese secret messages for many months, and that as General Wedemeyer has said, "These messages had finally indicated the time, the place, and the character of the Pearl Harbor attack, days in advance of December 7," Neither did the American people know then that this dreadful and im portant information had been deliberately withheld from the men who were most entitled to know it, namely, the top commanders of the United States Army and Navy forces in Hawaii.

Ten years ago the distinguished newsman George Morgenstern wrote and published what he calledPearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War. The politicians saw to it that Morgenstern's early revelation was given the silent treatment in the press of the country. But, in that book today, you can trace the long, sadistic persecution that was forced upon two great military men who were selected as the scapegoats for the day of infamy.

Namely, Lieutenant Walter C. Short and Rear Admiral Hus band E. Kimmel. General Short is now dead, but Admiral Kimmel is now living in Connecticut. Three years ago, he published his own book about Pearl Harbor, which is authentic, remarkably restrained and entirely without rancor [Admiral Kimmel's Story -Ed.].

In the magazine section of the Chicago Tribune, he writes an up-date of his findings concerning the available warning that was never given to him. Admiral Kimmel happens to be my life-long personal friend. Last week I went to his home to obtain his direct answers to key questions about the Pearl Harbor attack. Here is my recorded interview with this distinguished, long-suffering man, to whom the officers and trustees of his alma mater, The United States Naval Academy, recently gave an extended testimonial for the patriotism, loyalty, ability, for titude and devotion to duty that he displayed at Pearl Harbor, before, on and after the 7th day of December, 1941.

CM: Admiral Kimmel, for myself and the radio audience, I am very greatful for the privilege of this interview. You know, of course, that you hold the key to one of the great tragic mysteries in our country's history. What you are doing here to day is a continuation of the great patriotic service to which your whole life has been dedicated.

HEK: Thank you, Dean Manion. In view of our long family friendship, I'm delighted to give this information to you, and through you, to the American people.

CM: To your present knowledge, how many people knew in advance that the Japanese planned to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7?

HEK: I believe those who had seen the intercepted and decoded Japanese messages, including the 14 part message received on December 6 and December 7, 1941, knew war with Japan was inevitable. And the almost certain objective of the Jpanese attack would be the fleet at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, at 1 p.m. Washington time.

CM: Who are some of these people and from what source did they get the information?

HEK: Those who saw the intercepted Japanese messages as they were received included: the President, Mr. Roosevelt; the Secretary of State, Mr. Hull; the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson; the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Knox; the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Marshall; the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stark; the Chief of War Plans, Army, General Gerow; the Chief of War Plans, Navy, Admiral Turner; the Chief of Army Intelligence, General Miles; Chief of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Worthington. Recorded testimony shows that all of these, except General Marshall and Admiral Stark were shown 13 parts of the 14-part message by 9 p.m. December 6, 1941, or shortly thereafter. When Mr. Roosevelt had read the 13 parts, about 9 p.m. December 6, 1941, he remarked: "This means war." All investigations of the disaster have failed to disclose where George Marshall spent the evening of December 6, 1941, or what he did. Admiral Stark, some two years after he had first been asked, finally produced evidence that he had attended the theater on that evening, though he still maintained that he had no independent recollection of where he spent the evening or what he did during the evening of December 6, 1941. In 1957, I received information, which I believe to be reliable, that the British subject serving in the Chinese government as commissioner of education and in telligence in China, received on November 30, 1941, from his intelligence sources in Japan, information of the planned at tack on Pearl Harbor to be launched on December 7. Where the Japanese fleet would congregate to launch the planes, the hour the planes were to be launched, the berths of the U.S. fleet in Pearl and which ships were to be bombed first. This information was sent to London in a coded message, on Sunday, November 30, and Monday, December 1, 1941. Whether the Chinese commissioner's intelligence was transmitted from London to Washington, I do not know, but it appears highly probable that it was made available to Mr. Roosevelt. If Mr. Roosevelt did, in fact, receive the Chinese commissioner's intelligence, it was merely a detailed confirmation of the in tercepted Japanese messages already available to him.

CM: In your opinion, why were you and General Short not notified well in advance that the attack was expected?

HEK: My belief is that General Short and I were not given the information available in Washington and were not informed of the impending attack because it was feared that action in Hawaii might deter the Japanese from making the attack. Our president had repeatedly assured the American people that the United States would not enter the war unless we were attacked. The Japanese attack on the fleet would put the United States in the war with the full suppport of the American public.

CM: Thank you, Admiral Kimmel, for this interview and for the patriotic persistence with which you have pursued and corralled the tragic facts about the attack upon Pearl Harbor.

My friends, you now have the authentic postscript on memorable day of infamy in 1941.

Seventeen years later the United States stands poised once more on the brink of shooting war. If the fighting must start again, let us demand the full truth in advance as a condition precedent to the conflict. Are we again bound by secret commitments which put the interest of other countries ahead of the interests of the United States? Are our far-flung armed forces spread around the world for our own defense, or as an assurance that we will automatically participate in every brushfire that breaks out any place on earth? The terrible truth about Pearl Harbor sould galvanize our foreign policy with im penetrable armor of our own national self interest.

At long last, the finally revealed truth has revived righteous respectability of a policy that put the interest of America first.

(This interview was broadcast under the auspices of The Manion Forum in Fall, 1958.)

For a similar view see Pat Buchanan's article on the Pearl Harbor Attack

December Musings

2011-12-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

1. Clinton gets $50K per month from Corzine and Newt Gingrich gets a similar amount from Fannie Mae. This is why we cannot expect any change from the current political party duopoly.

2. I have become convinced that the NFL should be banned. The horrendous injuries including multiple concussions are rampant. Knees, ankles, arms and legs broken on a weekly basis. I also read recently that the violence lowers the overall moral tone of the country providing examples of behavior that is the opposite of what we are teaching our children. In my own case, it does not help that my team is the dregs this year and football has become very uninteresting to me...........but this is the case for all sports most of which have fallen due to the corruption of money, outside gambling and winning at all costs.

3. Newt as the GOP front runner.........confirmation of the Peter Principle and that some people have no shame. I believe in religious conversion but what is there to convince the people that he is not just another typical politician who has been a Washington creature for over 30 years. I have a lot of respect for his intellect - I think he is the smartest of the group with the exception of Rep. Ron Paul. The flip flopping appears to driven by greed of the moment but it his neo-conservatism that alientates me from being his supporter.

4. The only reason that Paul is not the front runner is that he is perceived as anti-Israel or worse anti-Semitic. I think this is a misconception. He just wants to treat Israel like any other country rather than an American vassal state in the Middle East. It is estimated that Israel has hundreds of nuclear ICBM's but we are willing to go to war to avoid Iran obtaining only one. Rep. Paul's stance is not new but hearkens back to the tradition of the Old Right, a group that was demonized and discredited almost 70 years ago to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With 20% real unemployment and a decimated national infrastructure, how do we justify billions in aid to Israel per year as well as to a soon to be Muslim Brotherhood Egypt?

5. On a similar subject, why is it possible to be anti-France; anti-Germany; anti-Mexico; but never ever anti-Israel. I thought this was a free country. However, it is politically incorrect in both parties to believe that after 60 years Israel should be supported by itself without the help of the US Government. The USA is subsidizing Israeli government behavior (West Bank settlements, Gaza, de-Arabization of Jerusalem, etc.) that many believe is contrary to long term peace in the region.

6. The Middle East persecution of Christians by the Islamist's continue without letup. It is apparent that the Arab Spring will mean the Christian exodus from the Middle East and North Africa. Is the current US policy of supporting Arab 'Democracy' in the best interest of anyone except militant Islam? To dethrone the secularist regime in Syria means that a more militant Sunni government will come to power. Does this make sense?

Campion

2011-12-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday was the feast day of St. Edmund Campion - a great English martyr of the late 16th century. He was murdered by the Elizabethan government for being an enemy of the state - which is those horrific times covered many crimes but especially being a Catholic priest was very high on the list since a disassociation of Catholicism from the English people was a very high priority. He was a Jesuit who had been previously ordained as an Anglican priest. He was a very popular Oxford don who having recognized the errors of Anglicanism fled England and eventually joined the Jesuits in Rome. After ordination he was content to teach young boys in the current day Czech Republic but when asked to volunteer as a missionary to the English he accepted. Upon arrival in England, he only had months to live before his capture but he bolstered the Catholic cause due to his intellect, sanctity and courage. He was tortured terribly in the Tower of London, found guilty and executed at Tyburn in a most gruesome manner.

Handsome, charismatic, holy and brilliant and with a very promising future in Elizabethan England, he gave up everything for the Truth. Like most men and women he tried to delay the martyrdom for which he was destined but eventually he was betrayed and caught by the notorious priest catcher Sir Francis Walsingham.

Our current times are becoming reminiscent of these long forgotten times. The freedom of speech to express opinions in endangered by political correctness and anti-constitutional laws such as the Patriot Act. Catholicism is once again suspect and under attack by a secular humanist culture that holds anti-Christian positions such as radical feminism, gay rights and agnosticism as part of the politically correct spectrum. As I have previously written, I have sometimes have received sneers and disbelief from colleagues who hear me profess my Catholicism and belief in God. It is fashionable today to regard a believers as fools or hypocrites. However, as each decade passes the sneers are are becoming more sinister and it is only a matter of time before Catholics are once again regarded as 'enemies'. I foresee this future persecution as a real possibility by mid-century at the latest. The only thing remaining to protect believers is the US Constitution which is being ripped to shreds by the neo-Marxists by secular interpretation.

St. Edmund, pray for us.

A recent post from recent days is highly recommended for those who may be interested in more information on St. Edmund Campion.