Archive for the ‘History’ Category

A desperate People are a dangerous lot and the uproar over Donald Trump is evidence of our desperation. However, to throw stones or worse, misperceive what all the hoopla is about, will lead the Nation into deeper waters than we currently tread.

More than half the country, and I venture a guess it’s more like three-fourths, are frustrated at best and angry at worst. For a variety of reasons, some having their roots in the far Left and others in the far Right…with a not insignificant percentage smack in the middle…we feel twice misled by the candidacy of Barack Obama. This is not to absolve us, the voters, of responsibility for our choice but rather to say out loud the unspeakable thought: Barack Obama had an agenda to transform our Nation into something un-American and desirable to him, yet unfamiliar and unrecognizable to us.

He succeeded.

There is no time for blame. That time is long since passed and blame, in any case, is hindsight. We must look decidedly at the conditions of our present with clarity towards our intentions for the future. Unless we are prepared to understand and accept how we hungered for hope and change, we are destined (perhaps doomed) to now make a more egregious error than we did in 2008 and again in 2012.

For those of the far Left who think my choice of an analogy to the conditions of 1932 Germany that led to the rise of Adolph Hitler with the current popularity of Donald Trump is their dream post, your cause for celebration and glee is premature. My analogy is to the consciousness of the German people in 1932 that permitted an Adolph Hitler to rise to power, not to Hitler himself. The mindset of those people is not unlike the mindset of Americans today.

For those on the far Right and Middle, who would therefore anticipate that I am about to rally in support of Donald Trump would also be celebrating prematurely. Trump is tapping into, and giving voice to, the frustrations and anger of the majority but he is doing it poorly. The originator of the “art of the deal,” it turns out, is incredibly crass at articulating the deal.

Don’t kill the messenger.

Trump is substantively correct. We have ignored the law and the border at our peril. We have been on the losing side of every deal with every nation with whom we negotiate economic matters. We have alienated or abandoned our friends while exhibiting indecision and weakness to our enemies. We have allowed the founding documents and the Constitutional process to be demeaned and shredded before our very eyes while allowing corrupt and favor-beholden politicians to sell our interests to the highest bidder for their own personal gain.

Don’t kill the messenger.

Donald Trump is speaking truth to power. Speaking it poorly, and by so doing, allowing his detractors to make the issues bias, bigotry and comedy rather than giving the substance and truth of what Trump is bringing front and center the attention and consideration it warrants. As for Trump’s admirers, they are so caught up in the thrill of finally hearing someone say what we all know to be true, that they are blinding themselves to the dangers of how he is saying it.

I never blame Hitler. If blame resides anywhere it resides with a people so hungry, desperate and downtrodden as to throw caution and reason to the wind and follow a Pied Piper of Hate because he stood for something, however evil, at a time when all else had lost its meaning.

Today, marriage between a man and a woman is no longer what it has been for two thousand years. In fact, a man and a woman are no longer what they have been either. White is black if you “identify with it” as such. Assurances “you will see your health insurance premiums reduced $2500 per family” mean nothing. Working hard towards the American Dream is no longer hard…it’s impossible, with 93 million Americans out of the work force. A diseased and deranged mind is caused by a flag that needs to be abolished while dozens of youth gunned down, and gunning down, in Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore every weekend go unnoticed. Lies become truth because the liars say them often enough and we remain compliant.

Enter Donald Trump.

The appeal is the hubris. The unabashed admission of wealth so vast it can insulate him against the backlash of a corrupted system. The take-no-prisoners attitude. The one voice finally emerging on behalf of the many.

This is a dangerous and pivotal time for America. The easy out will be something akin to a dictator. A person who will tell you what is wrong, who’s to blame and why they are the one with the answer. The answer, in the long run, usually turns out to be oppression followed by enslavement. Jesus never said he had the answer. He said he found the way. The way is never easy and no one can do it on your behalf whether you are an individual or a Nation.

Our task is now twofold.

First, as individuals, we must live lives of impeccable integrity and service to one another. We need each other and there is no shame in that. I’ve always said that if we were meant to be alone, God could have just as easily placed each of us on our own planet. Instead, we are here together and as the saying goes, “united we stand.”

Secondly, as citizens of the greatest experiment in human freedom ever to grace this planet, to quickly and with resolve focus upon the responsibilities of citizenship. These responsibilities are to stand for what is right and lawful, to hold our elected representatives accountable to We The People, and to rise up when necessary to correct the course of events in order to preserve, protect and defend what so many before us gave their lives so that we might read and write posts such as this.

I have long lived by the certainty that everything is energy. This includes money which, by logical extension of thought, includes the economy. The evolution and advancement of humanity has always been tied to its understanding, harnessing and application of energy. Since human nature, in its lower form, contains elements of both selfishness and greed, there are those who throughout time have sought to understand, harness and apply to their sole benefit, the production and distribution of money for the purpose of concentrating power among the few.

The concentration of power among the few can only be achieved at the expense of the many. Which brings me to the invaluable lesson we in the United States and elsewhere can learn from Hamas.

What we witness Hamas inflicting in Gaza, and what occurs throughout the radical Islamic controlled regions of the world, is a combination of physical and psychological enslavement. Through terror, brute force and total disregard for quality of life (or life itself) such “leadership” profits and prospers while sacrificing the very people it claims to be representing.

We in the West should not be quick to judge how the Palestinian population could allow and participate in such a diabolical arrangement as we in the United States are living in an “economic glass house.” Instead of physical and psychological enslavement we in the West have been blindly cooperating in our own financial and psychological enslavement.

By way of understanding and controlling the means of production, distribution and regulation of the energy of money, and the mind-altering control of the means of dissemination of information by media…elites and power brokers in this country have enslaved us as surely as those in countries we condemn for lacking humanitarian policies. The only difference is the subtlety and masking of true intent as executed in the West. While Islamists use kidnapping and torture as their weapons of choice, the U.S. government and global power brokers use the Federal Reserve, the World Bank and social engineering as theirs.

What humanity must do, and do in a hurry before escape (freedom) is no longer a viable option, is to plunge the stake of truth into the heart of the beast of enslavement that has been sucking our life’s blood from us for at least the last 100 years. We can do this by awakening to the truth of what’s happening and taking a lesson from the ancient Israelites who were economically and psychologically enslaved to Pharaoh: they opted out in a hurry.

We too, must now hurry to opt out of a corrupt and diabolical system that manipulates us through the illusions of “lack and fear” and which have caused us to become indebted and addicted to a fiction that “more and faster” is better.

You must opt out of the lie that you are only one person who has no ability to know what is happening to you and lack a voice to articulate that knowing.You must opt out of fear and all its progeny…victimization, depression, frustration, impotence, rage, violence, and hate.

Step into who you are. Step into your connection with all that is good and true. Step into the memory of what freedom feels like and reclaim your birthright.

Slow down. Self-source. Have courage. You have the answer and you know the way out.

We are living in extraordinary times. There isn’t anyone I know who does not feel the profound upheaval and changes we are experiencing both globally and personally. One of the awakenings taking place is the realization that we are free to see, and therefore create, a world of our choosing. We need not be enslaved any longer to someone else’s reality or to the perspective fed us daily by a variety of media outlets and politicians.

Which leads me to write about “compassionate war.” I realize the phrase itself seems like an oxymoron. How can you have something as violent and destructive as war and see it in terms of compassion? The answer lies in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

My focus is not the politics of the conflict nor is it the terrorist designation of Hamas. It’s about Israel and the manner in which it has chosen to prepare for and proceed with this inevitable clash.

In two weeks of fighting, Israel has agreed unilaterally to 4 separate halts in the armed fighting. Two of those were humanitarian requests, one by Hamas itself, which Israel honored and Hamas did not. Israel literally built a hospital at one of the border-crossing check-points to treat any wounded Palestinians who would need treatment. No one has showed up. Israel offered and readied millions of shekels, (Israeli currency is 3.5 :1 as against the US dollar) so at least one million dollars, of medical supplies and equipment to deliver to Gaza but the Palestinian Authority rejected the offer.

Israel has spent millions of dollars building bomb shelters throughout Israel and in these past two weeks, 75% of its population has had to use them. In Gaza, tens of thousands of tons of cement and building supplies intended for schools, office buildings and homes were diverted by Hamas over the past five years to burrow and build elaborate tunnels underground from Gaza to Israel to be used in a mass terror attack scheduled for this coming September 25^th, the first night of the Jewish New Year.

Perhaps most astonishingly, Israel has done what no other nation in the history of the world has done. It gives advance warning to Gaza’s citizens where and when they will strike. By way of leaflets dropped by the Israeli Air Force, cell phone text messages and twitter postings, Israel gives the Palestinians every opportunity to flee a known missile launch site before striking. Hamas has deliberately positioned those sites in homes, schools, graveyards, and mosques while ordering Palestinian men, women and children to remain where they are despite certainty of injury or death.

Just today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any lasting truce will require 1) the “demilitarization of Gaza and social and economic relief for the Palestinian people there.”  Even in the midst of war, the Israeli’s are looking out for the well-being of their adversary.

All civilized people who revere life want a world without war. However, as long as there remain uncivilized people who glorify violence and death there will be a need for defensive action.

In the Torah, the Old Testament, it talks about the nation of Israel being a “light unto the Nations.” I think it is fair to say that in a defensive war thrust upon it, Israel has and continues to act in ways that exemplify how even in the darkest of times, honorable men and women can shine a light upon their humanity and reflect for the world our connectedness to one another.

The American spirit at its best is unfettered optimism. Our belief in the ability to accomplish a goal despite all odds is why so many people from around the globe want to be Americans. But optimism, in excess, can also be a detriment. Absent any basis in reality or fact, optimism deteriorates into mindlessness.

Such was the case in 2008 and, it appears, may be the case in 2016.

In 2008, the nation was captivated by the emergence of a well-educated articulate, seemingly bright, charismatic, civic-minded African-American candidate for President. Our national optimism propelled a majority of us to rally behind his candidacy as he represented the culmination of decades of optimism that we would one day rise above the superficiality of race and see a person based upon the content of his or her character.

We erred by allowing our optimism to negate our discernment. We raced past logical review and analysis of the candidate’s background, achievements, and philosophical underpinnings to embrace his bumper sticker. We were content with a promise because we are, after all, Americans and doesn’t every American want what is best for the country? Apparently not.

The Presidential election of 2016 portends a similar fate unless we temper our wishes with our intellect. Hillary Clinton remains the Democrat front-runner should she make a formal announcement to enter the race. Hillary has likely been promised that position should she desire it. While I don’t yet know her slogan, we need to see past the prospect of the “first female President” and face the truth of Hillary’s career and her condition.

Hillary Clinton failed at passing socialized medicine but got it anyway to what we now know to be the Nation’s harm. She worked for the Children’s Defense Fund advocating children’s rights but represented an admitted child rapist and bragged at her success in getting him off “for time served” due to an evidentiary error…not to mention her laughing at the rapist having “beaten” a lie detector test. Hillary disparaged the women her husband sexually harassed, fondled, or had sex with rather than condemn his behavior. She failed to adequately protect and defend our Embassy in Benghazi and it now seems she knew the President was lying when he blamed a video for the attack then stood by that lie as she had stood by her husband’s immorality.

And Hillary is not healthy. She has fallen, had blood clots, arrhythmia, and who knows what else. Lately, she has made statements about she and her husband’s financial status that draw into question either her version of reality or her values system.

How does that saying go? “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” Let us not be so eager to follow the first black President with the first female President that we once again throw caution to the wind and see not what is in front of us but rather what’s being sold to us.

The next time Secretary of State John Kerry chooses to describe Israel as heading towards an apartheid state he would do well to closely examine the reaction of world Jewry to L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s bigoted remarks about African Americans. There is probably no other People on earth, living in or out of Israel, more sensitive to bigotry, bias, religious persecution and hate speech than Jews.

Sadly, the Secretary’s comment was founded in either 1) ignorance of historical fact or 2) his own apparent bias about Israel, its people and its government. I hope it is the former, although in a position of such gravitas requiring heightened diplomatic skills neither is acceptable nor excusable.

Arab Israeli’s make up approximately 20% of the population. Historically, Arabs living within Israel since 1949 have enjoyed more freedoms than Arabs living in any Arab speaking country. Since 1949, Israel has seen 70 Arab Israeli’s elected to the Knesset (with 13 serving currently). Arabs serve in the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli police, as emergency medical service providers, doctors, businessmen, entertainers, television personalities and in a multitude of positions within every aspect of civil society.  In 2004, Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that every public company have at least one Arab Israeli on its Board of Directors.

Does this seriously lead anyone other than Secretary Kerry (or Arab extremists seeking the annihilation of the State of Israel) to conclude that an apartheid Israeli nation is a foregone conclusion? I think not.

Personally, I stand with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who today said that “children are running our foreign policy” and with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who yesterday called for the resignation of Secretary Kerry.

Ignorance is only bliss when it does no harm.

The “greenest” faction of the Nazi war machine was the SS.  Heinrich Himmler who headed the unit was an animal lover, a vegetarian and organic farming enthusiast. In fact, at Treblinka, the SS had beautiful picnic grounds and a zoo, while the last sight the Jews saw before entering the gas chambers was an exquisite flower garden. The SS advocated an ideology of “blood and soil” that rolled into one policy evolutionary racism, peasant agrarianism and environmentalism.

So, it is possible to be politically correct while simultaneously being inhumanely insane. Which brings me to Cliven Bundy and the Obama Administration.

Mr. Bundy is a fourth generation rancher in Nevada. He has been grazing his 500 cattle on Clark County, Nevada public lands as did his father and grandfather before him. He has paid his grazing fees to the County and the State. He has not, however, paid fees demanded by the federal government as it is his position, supported by the Governor of Nevada, that the U.S. Government and Bureau of Land Management have no authority to collect them.

The response to his refusal to pay those fees is now the theft of his private property by the Federal Government (200 cattle thus far captured and removed), armed marshals surrounding the remainder as well as he and his family, his son tasered and a dangerously escalating situation. Memories of Waco and the Branch Davidian Sect standoff come to mind. The prospects for this ending poorly increase exponentially by the day.

The regulation and legal basis by which the Federal Government is asserting its authority and claim was enacted 20 years ago protecting the desert tortoise of the region from extinction.

As an animal lover I would never want to see any animal harmed, let alone extinct. But when we reach the point where the survival of the tortoise is grounds for abrogating the U.S. Constitution and basic human rights, we are dangerously close to…if not over…the same line the SS crossed. That story ended poorly as well.

We need to understand our connectedness to one another,to all living things, and to the environment within a well-thought through balanced approach. No one aspect of that triad should prevail at the expense of the others. Every American should be appalled and vocal about what is taking place in Nevada. As German Lutheran Pastor and vocal Nazi opponent Erik Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Not to speak is to speak. Not to stand is to stand.”

I’m not often compelled to write a post that leaves my readers feeling anything but optimistic or at least hopeful.  Its not that I shy away from difficult stories.  Its just that my style is to always seek the high ground, and so, when writing about the most negative or fear-based events I seek, and generally find, the inspirational take-away.

Hopefully, this post will stay true to that intention; although as I write I am momentarily at a loss to see how.

We have a President who has serially lied to the Nation and who disregards the rule of law. He’s lied so many times that I am astonished at his hubris, given the existence of video recording. His repeated contradictions and outright untruths are both stunning and deeply disturbing to anyone with an understanding of how the U.S. Constitution has kept this great experiment in governance from going the way of so many failed efforts that came before it that tried to create a free society.

The President has gone so far in overstepping the Constitutional bounds of his office, and done so without any opposition from Congress or clamor for accountability by the populace, that he now feels safe in saying such things as “I’ve got a pen and a phone…and I can use that pen to sign Executive Orders (referring to Congress’ reluctance to support his agenda) and “The good thing about being President is that I can do whatever I want” (while touring, of all places, Jefferson’s Monticello).

I have witten before on this blog about the imperial nature of this First Couple and I am not alone. Others have expressed similar observations…just not enough others. So now I feel compelled to say that if you, reading this post, stand by while this bastion of liberty is highjacked by an arrogant, self-annointed, dictatorial President who YOU elected, then there will be nowhere to go and no one to see when all of his actions converge to reach critical mass and result in the economic and societal collapse of this Nation. Its show time, folks. Use your voice or lose your voice for a very, long, dark period of time to come.

Yet it pains me to end on other than hope. So here it is.

If you refuse to be silent or complicit or in denial any longer, and there are enough of you, then you will yet be able to tell your grandchildren that in a critical hour of American history, when much of what this country was founded upon to abolish was in jeopardy of being destroyed. you found your voice… and stood… to speak truth to power.

I like to play with words…and words within words. So here’s my latest effort. It concerns the choice each of us has as we go through uncharted territory of profound change. The word I worked with is “revolution.”  The words I found within it are as follows: vile; revolt; to; lure; into; evil; lie; rile; rule; toil; into; the; root; to; true; love.

These are the concepts behind “revolution” that I created using the above highlighted words.

1.  Revolution can manifest as a vile revolt whose few proponents will lie and purposefully rile others in order to lure them to an evil end resulting in oppressive and manipulative rule over the subjugated majority.

2.  Revolution can be a person or group willing to toil ceaselessly and diligently to unearth fundamental truths by getting to the root of existence…which is light energy emanating as true love.

I think we’re in a revolution of the second kind.  At least that’s the revolution I’ve signed up for and, since we’re a complex adaptive system, the actions of each of us matter. How we think and behave during the revolution matters because each of us is an Agent of Change and how we choose to use our energy will determine the outcome.

Which revolution are you down for?

 

Time magazine has named Pope Francis “Person of the Year” for 2013. The Pope’s face graces the December edition of Time. So it begs the question, “What criteria determine their pick?” As far as I can ascertain, its “the person who most influences or impacts the world” in the prior year.

It’s not about position or popularity, or political agenda. In fact, I recall when Time named the Ayatollah Khomeini “Person of the Year.” I remember because it angered me. Yet, under Time’s stated criteria, it made sense. It was 1979 and the plight of American hostages imprisoned in a takeover of the American Embassy there by Islamic extremists relentlessly gripped the world’s attention until they were released.

This year’s pick of Pope Francis angers me also, albeit for different reasons. I am angered now as I was when Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. Angered because these men did nothing to warrant their awards prior to receiving them. In the case of Pope Francis, he hasn’t been Pope long enough, or done enough in the office, to have influenced much of anything.

Yes, he embraced a few disfigured people and he initially shunned fancy digs for more modest ones. But he also dished, just days ago, Capitalism. You know, the economic system that provides 60% of all contributions to the Catholic Church thereby allowing it to be the largest landholder in Manhattan, and the United States generally.

Really, what else has he done?

So, the award couldn’t have been given based upon the stated criteria, just as the Nobel Peace Prize couldn’t have been given Barack Obama for creating peace. In both instances, the choice of those men was, and remains, an affront to every thinking person. Whatever the rationale behind Time’s choice, it wasn’t about the person who most influenced or impacted the world in 2013 because that simply does not apply to Pope Francis.

The selection committee of Time Magazine has an agenda. I don’t profess to know what it is. What I do know for certain is that each day that passes by trust in the media withers away.  Instead of maintaining the honorable position of “The Fourth Estate” they have been corrupted becoming deceitful and manipulative.

This reality is just the latest reason why, in a world of rapid change and power struggles, thinking for yourself is the surest guarantee that you will remain your own Person of The Year rather than become enslaved to someone else’s agenda.

Whether you are pro-gun ownership or pro-gun control, there is no doubt that an airsoft gun is not a firearm. This simple fact makes the suspension from school of Khalid Caraballo, age 12, and his friend, Aidan for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” the latest example of politically motivated efforts to redefine reality and subjugate our children’s behavior to the directives of government control.

Did I mention that the boys were playing in their own front yard awaiting the arrival of a school bus at the time of the alleged behavior? Yet, the misdirected punishment is…suspension from school?

How do reactions such as this by administrative bodies and government entities continue to have legs? Well, when the President of the United States uses a memorial service, as President Obama just did, to shamelessly put forth a political agenda and seize the moment to actually encourage “transformation” and “obsession” it’s no wonder.

This isn’t about the 2^nd Amendment right to bear arms. Nor is it about the propriety or impropriety of children playing with guns of any ilk. Those are topics for another day. This is about common sense and the relentless redefinition of what is right, wrong and politically correct by the powers that be.

The President (and all Progressives) commonly refer to the United States simply as a democracy. As a former Professor of Constitutional Law myself (as was the President) I find this to be incomplete and misleading. A “democracy” is one person/one vote. It is ultimately mob rule. The Constitutional Republic established by the Framers was a deliberate and carefully crafted effort to avoid creation of yet another failed democracy. Historically, that model of government had never worked. A fact that remains true as of this writing.

We are not governed by mob rule and the Administration’s and media’s efforts to incite “transformation” and “obsession” to achieve their goal of gun control leads not to an end that is in the highest interest of all, but rather to incidents such as the one where a 12-year-old child is punished for…well…being a 12-year-old child.

If Khalid Caraballo’s mother and father have an issue concerning their child playing with a toy gun, if their particular morals and values prohibit it, they will act accordingly in directing and educating their child. Absent that, the powers that be, in this case school Administrators, need to mind their own damned business.

If you aren’t incensed by this latest and blatant display of arrogance and overreaching power, it’s because enslavement is a slippery slope and you’ve past the point of recovery.