Archive for the ‘History’ Category

Few words in the English language make me as uncomfortable as the word “appeasement.” That’s because it conjures images of Neville Chamberlain, train tracks and ovens. So, when tonight I heard talk radio host Glenn Beck use the word appeasement in the context of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, I sat up and took notice. I reacted as I did because that one word instantly brought into focus all that is occurring around us.

Energy, finances and Wahhabism are the 21st century trinity. You probably know about the U.S.- Saudi oil dependent relationship. You may even know that Saudi investment and ownership in U.S. companies and enterprises includes such holdings as 60% of Citibank and $20 million gifts each to Georgetown and Harvard Universities to buy Departmental Chairs and influence curriculum. The list is endless and the sums of money (read “influence”) are staggering.

But did you know that Saudi Arabia is the largest source of funding for terrorism in the world? Or that Wahhabism is the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia? Or that it’s “a religious movement among fundamentalist Islamic believers that seeks to return to the earliest fundamental sources of the Quran”? It teaches the worst kind of hatred and spawns terror against all non-Muslim people and beliefs. It has schools in the United States teaching, for example, that Muslims should not only “always oppose” infidels “in every way”, but “hate them for their religion … for Allah’s sake”, that “democracy” is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century”, and that Shia and certain Sunni Muslims were infidels.”

We have turned a blind eye towards the destructive relationship that has evolved with Saudi Arabia. While this Administration is not the first to be complicit in this, it is the one history will charge with being most like the despised Neville Chamberlain who appeased the enemy.

Today we are not witness to the final destination of train tracks but rather to beheading and suicide bombers. And as with the most recent attack in Boston, we again hear voices from those in power who deny the truth (“there’s no such thing as Islamic terrorism”) and conspire with the enemy to conceal it (Janet Napolitano lying to Congress about the immanent “voluntary” deportation of Boston terror attack likely co-conspirator Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi).

Appeasement.

Whether the Nazis or the Saudis, selling your soul to Evil in exchange for anything is but an illusion. Evil make no deals from which it does not emerge the victor having consumed the vanquished.

Our only hope is to courageously stand for what is right and true albeit it difficult.  My prayer is that there are enough of us willing to do just that before we find ourselves out of options.

I’m watching breaking news in the Boston area and I’m wondering how many people who previously thought otherwise are now rethinking the stance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Bibi” Netanyahu was born in Israel, educated partly in the United States at the same high school I attended, wounded while serving in an elite unit of the Israeli Defense Forces, lost his brother Yoni who was later commander of the same Special Forces Unit, Sayeret Matkal (and who was killed in 1976 while commanding Operation Entebbe which successfully rescued kidnapped Americans and other European nationals). Netanyahu was the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations from 1984-1988.  In summation Bibi has been on the front lines, figuratively and literally, in both negotiation with and combating Islamic extremism.

Now, Islamic extremism has indisputably arrived in America. Two Muslim trained and radicalized Chechen young men selected what is euphemistically termed “soft targets”…what you and I call “people”…and blew them to bits. On the run, they continue to seek maximum destruction and intend to themselves die in seeking that end.

The “hard line” Prime Minister Netanyahu formed in relation to terrorism over the life of his military and political careers as a citizen of a nation perpetually in survival mode is born of experience. It’s not founded in theory, philosophy, or some idyllic utopian vision of a world joined by either Socialism or a Caliphate. When you’ve experienced enough deceit, mayhem and murder in your past, you tend to make decisions about your well-being based upon the likely occurrence of such things in your present and future, absent a change of heart by those who have pledged themselves to your extinction.

The Obama Administration is headed by a community organizer who, as President, has repeatedly insulted our friends and embraced and emboldened our enemies. Yet, the American people continue to “like” him.

As with Netanyahu, Obama’s experiences have formed, and continue to form, his ideology and stance. His experience teaches him that the West, and in particular the United States and Great Britain, have committed great sins in colonizing and oppressing peoples of other nations. His experience is that it’s time for an American mea culpa and it’s his time to structure and lead it.

We are not leaderless.

We, as a Constitutional Republic, are on the road to extinction.

We are not leaderless.

We are asleep and acting as sheep.

We are not leaderless.

We are being led down the road of extinction by this President.

We are not leaderless.

We are voluntarily blind, deaf and frighteningly dumb.

 

A house of horrors abortion clinic in Philadelphia.  A fourth grade teacher in Florida having students print that they would “give up some of [their] constitutional rights in order to be safe or more secure.” A New York high school teacher who assigned his class to “argue Jews are evil” while blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany.

I am less troubled by who we have become than by the question, “Why don’t we care who we’ve become?” Have these collective offenses to the Divine in each of us been reduced, at best, to passing stories on the nightly news? Why do we not care about education that is agenda based, deceitful and perverse? Why are we so apathetic or hardened to the systematic slaughter of the unborn that we allow it to continue in the name of a woman’s right to choose?

I am a woman and I chose. When my ex-husband and I could not have a child we chose to go to China and adopt our daughter. She is a beauty both inside and out.  In light of the gruesome story out of Philadelphia, I look at her and am pained by the thought that she, too, could have been brutally “terminated” but for the courage of her birth mother, the existence of an orphanage and her own sheer will to survive.  What right do we have, we who are the beneficiaries of the gift of life, to take it from the innocence of others?  Why do we think we can escape the inevitable slippery slope of turning a blind eye to the total disregard and devaluation of human life?  If you know your Purim story and Mordechai’s admonition to Queen Esther, then you know the wisdom teaching that if you try and deny your responsibility towards saving humanity, you too will perish.

As for the stories out of Florida and New York, they are “the canaries in the gold mine” of education.  We are, through “Common Core” and our indifference to the personal responsibility for educating our children, abandoning and enslaving this and future generations to the distortions and perversions of evil. So as the power players bombard us with news and arguments in favor of gun control, they are simultaneously and systematically seeking to selectively control the population and mold minds through abortion and curriculum, respectively.

What they seek to accomplish can only be attained by our accompanying indifference and cooperation. What we think will not happen here is based upon the false premise that it can never happen here because it has never happened here.

The premise is false on two counts.

First, at the end of the Civil War, the nation embarked upon Reconstruction and by way of Black Codes, prohibited  gun ownership from freedmen, slaves and African-Americans.  The result? A flourishing Ku Klux Klan.  We have, in our own history, sought to control birth, education and self-defense of an entire people. It was a shameful time, a blight upon the National saga, with repercussions still felt today.  Secondly, an enlightened and civilized society, Europe of the early twentieth century, was the breeding ground for Adolph Hitler.

Evil can and will exist anywhere humanity allows it to germinate and grow through indifference and cooperation. The good news is that each of us has total control over how indifferent or cooperative we choose to be. Pick your cause. This is the time to be heard. This is the time to stand. Find the indignation within and, with focused intention, speak truth to power. This is your moment.

There is only One of Us. In no more concise a fashion can this be stated than it was by Rabbi Hillel, the 1^st century Jewish sage and scholar who said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?”

Have the presence of mind to ask yourself “When?”  Then have the courage of heart to hear the response. “Now.”

I understand why Jesus smashed the tables in the Temple courtyard. I could smash a few myself. There simply comes a time when enough is enough. When every rational and civil attempt to right the wrongs has failed.

The fiscal cliff is looming, Obamacare is about to change our lives (not for the better), and 20 children who had no means of defense are dead. Meanwhile…

– Members of Congress have gone home for Christmas. Really?

– The President and his family are vacationing in Hawaii. Really?

– We’re told we’re in an economic recovery and should believe the numbers… not our personal experience. Really?

– Congress has a better healthcare plan that the rest of us. Really?

– Sasha and Malia have guards with guns to protect them at school. Really?

– The children of many Congressman and Senators go to private schools with enhanced security. Really?

– In 2000, then President Bill Clinton requested $60 million in federal funding for a program called “COPS in Schools” that does exactly what the NRA has now proposed and which the media is currently mocking. Really?

There is such a thing as righteous anger. Righteousness, as I define it, is the “rightful use of energy.” When energy is properly utilized and directed so that both the intent and the outcome are in alignment with eliminating that which is diseased and corrupted, then such use is necessary.  As our “leaders” vacation and provide themselves with exceptions, exemptions, protections and perks unavailable to the rest of society, I am reminded of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

At the moment I have but one prayer:  “Please, God, show me the way to the tables.”

It now seems the Obama Administration has decided upon a new, definitive and focused approach to Israel regarding the latest contention in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It goes something like this (and I paraphrase): “Remain silent and let the other guys do the dirty work.” This is, in essence, the approach the Administration will take towards Israel’s announcement to commence new settlement construction in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a/ the West Bank).

According to American Jewry liberal spokesman Peter Beinart, also considered one of Obama’s associates, the President and Secretary of State Clinton have decided that they will sit back and say nothing while allowing the EU members to put the pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli’s to forego construction plans.  The Administration also hopes this strategy will put additional pressure on what they perceive to be a recalcitrant Netanyahu to make more concessions to “the peace process” as no Special Envoy will be sent to kick start peace talks.

Further, Daniel Levy, Middle East director at the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, has noted that in recent days the Administration has not been “investing diplomatic capital” in seeking to call off the escalating EU criticism of Israel.

This approach by the Administration is resulting in a progressive (no pun intended) isolation and alienation of Israel in relation to other world governments. Such a turn does not bode well for Israelis, Jews around the world, or free societies wherever they may exist.

To think that we in the United States can remain silent in the face of Israel’s escalating vulnerability and its condemnation by surrogates doing our bidding is foolhardy. It also flies in the face of history. The world, and the United States in particular, once before remained silent while Hitler sought to deliberately, methodically and without opposition marginalize and isolate Jews with the intention to destroy them. The inevitable outcome was disaster not only for the Jews but for the entire free world.

The Obama Administration may think it is being clever by its silence, providing itself a veneer of impartiality and distance from the unfolding Middle East scenario as it relates to Israel’s security and Islamic extremism. However, as German pastor and dissident anti-Nazi Deitrich Bonhoffer so succinctly stated in the face of this same emerging pattern of behavior 72 years ago, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

I would add that silence will neither insulate the silent from the taint of evil nor will it exonerate them from being judged culpable co-conspirators. However, culpability is not limited to political leaders. It is incumbent upon each of us awake enough to comprehend the magnitude of this error to speak and act. One voice can change history. It has and will again.

Yours may be that voice.

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche, commonly translated as “Let them eat cake,” was not actually spoken by either French Queen Marie Antoinette or First Lady Michelle Obama although it could have been uttered by either.  Like Marie, Michelle continues to display her propensity for excess and luxury while espousing, through word only, her compassion and understanding for the economic plight of the Nation and its citizens.

She is a perfect representation of her husband’s Administration. Self-indulgence and hubris sum it all up.

We need look no further than Christmas. You know, that time of year when we step outside our own wants and egos to fulfill the needs and wants of others.  In theory, it’s a season of compassion, charitable giving and unity. Even when we fall far short of the theory and the ideal, finding ourselves caught up in the materialism of it all, we none-the-less stretch our minds, and our pocketbooks, to give what we hope others will delight in receiving. During tough economic times such as we presently find ourselves in, the stretching is all the more challenging and therefore, perhaps more heartfelt. We make do with less in order to give more.

Except for the Obamas.

A $4M taxpayer funded vacation to Hawaii in the face of looming economic crisis and 54 (yes I said 54!) Christmas trees throughout the White House is the First Couples way of saying not “Merry Christmas” but rather Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

I do not begrudge a sitting President a Christmas break. Nor do I think the First Family should deny themselves a Christmas tree or two. After all, it’s a big house. And besides, there is nothing inspiring about your leader living like a peanut farmer in the most respected residence in the world. However, it’s a long way from peanut-farmer-austerity to the excesses of French nobility…or, in the instant case, those of the current inhabitants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Don’t even get me started on the President’s “my way or the highway” proposal to Congress to resolve the fiscal crisis that was delivered this week by an arrogant, self-impressed and unapologetic Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner. That’s the earlier hubris reference.

We have serious and mounting challenges to face. You and I are living the reality of those stresses every minute of every day. Yet those in whom we have placed both our confidence and the power to solve, or at least try to solve, these challenges are going about their lives arrogantly, uncompromisingly, and extravagantly.

Lately, I hear people attempting to compare President Obama to Abraham Lincoln. I will admit that both faced a fractured Nation. They are also both thin. Beyond that, I find the comparison laughable. If there is a leader with which to compare our current President I would suggest not Lincoln but Louis…as in Queen Marie’s husband, Louis XVI.

Louis started his reign as a popular monarch, but his indecisiveness led to the populace eventually perceiving him as part of the tyranny they sought to shake off.  It was also the people’s belief that Louis was seeking foreign invasion as a means of political salvation. His credibility eventually undermined, his reign foreshadowed the end of the monarchy and likely birth of the Republic.

At the recent Soul Train Music Awards, actor Jamie Foxx referred to “…Our Lord and Savior Barack Obama.” I think that was a bit extreme. King Barack, and Queen Michelle, would have been just fine.

Perhaps with prayer and an awakened populace this too will end with (a return to) the Republic.

 

A Palestinian terrorist breaks into the home of an Isreali woman asleep with her two children. He is wielding a knife and a pipe. His intentions are clear. Absent a miracle, the horrific scene from Itamar where the Fogel family was slaughtered in their sleep will be repeated. I am uncertain whether this qualifies as a miracle or just good defensive planning…but the mother, Yael Matzpun, trained in Krav Maga (an Israeli defense technique) battles her attacker, secures him in a bathroom, and calls for help. Upon trying to escape the bathroom window while refusing to put down his weapons, the terrorist is killed by the arriving IDF forces.

I have a few politically incorrect questions.

1.  Where are the stories of Israeli men, breaking into the homes of Palestinian women and children with the intent to slaughter them in their sleep?

2. What is wrong with a culture/religion that breeds such men, labels them martyrs and celebrates their atrocities?

3. How amoral or blind has the worldwide media become that it sees no distinction, or lacks the courage to articulate, the difference between the basic humanity of these two societies?

If you approach it like a quiz, the answers are 1) there are none; 2) it is perverse; and 3) very amoral and cowardly.

There comes a time when those with eyes to see and ears to ear are called upon to use their voices to speak truth to power. We are living in such times. The world should cease deluding itself while labeling terrorists as freedom fighters. Both use violence to achieve their ends but that is where the commonality stops.

Freedom fighters seek autonomy and a free society. Terrorists seek death and total destruction using fear as their means of achieving it. The people living in Gaza have an autonomous society (Hamas is their “democratically” elected government) that is free of Jews. It is not enough because neither freedom nor autonomy are their goals. Their goal is murdering every Jew until none remain then obliterating the Jewish homeland.

The terrorist who broke into the Matzpun home to carry out Hamas’ mission is where he belongs; Yael Matzpun is a hero whose children are alive as I write this because she knows who she is dealing with; and I have called it as I see it.

To hell with political correctness.

In Koheleth 3:1 (Ecclesiastes 3:1) it states,“Vanity of vanities, said Koheleth; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” It’s a much quoted, and as much interpreted, phrase. Recently, I have come to a new understanding of vanity.

Vanity, the isolated ego, likes to say, “I did this” or “What a great person I am to have accomplished this” or “I got this all by myself.” Vanity is the false belief that any one individual, solely of their own power, accomplishes success or greatness.

This thought immediately led me to President Obama’s recent statement that became so controversial during the campaign. The President said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” His statement, on its face, seems true and consistent with my definition of vanity, which caused me to reflect upon how I, and many others, had so negatively reacted to the President’s statement.

But I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about Abraham Lincoln. Mainly because I’ve been trying to figure out what has prompted the “revival” of his story. The sixteenth President seems to be suddenly emerging everywhere…in novels, new biographies, re-printing of former biographies, reissuing of his own writings, as well as movies. Why?

I’ve concluded that in no time since the Civil War has our Nation been so divided. While in 1861 it was North against South and abolition against slavery, it is today poor against rich, black against white, Republican against Democrat… but it’s the same deeply held differences and the same destructive hatreds. What saved the Union was President Lincoln.

Lincoln, who was not traditionally religious but deeply theological, believed in both Divine Presence and Divine purpose. To that end, he called upon Creator for guidance and strength. However, he also bound himself to certain behavior based upon Divine purpose. For example, he vowed to God that if, at the Battle of Fredericksberg (Virginia), the North was successful at turning back Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Lincoln would issue the Emancipation Proclamation he had written two weeks earlier. Upon the North’s success at Fredericksberg, Lincoln did just that citing his vow.

Lincoln none-the-less understood that Divine principles had to be realized within the context of the morality of the times. Therefore, he saw the error and danger of both the radical Abolitionists (who would have instantly forced the end of slavery and destroyed the Union) and the pro-slavery advocates (who would have had their goal reached at the same destructive price).

Lincoln knew he had a partner in his vital mission to preserve the Union. He also knew his partner had the grander vision and the greater plan. Which brings me back to President Obama’s statement.

Everyone, and every idea, has its “shadow side.” This is the person or idea turned on its head, so to speak, misusing its energy to accomplish not the highest good but rather the expedient and/or self-serving outcome. Both Presidents Lincoln and Obama tell us that if you build it you do not do so or succeed alone. You have a partner. The critical difference between these two leaders is the end to which their perspectives lead a nation.

President Obama would have us believe that our “partner”…with a small “p”…is everyone and anyone along the way who had any input into our journey. Therefore, they too deserve the benefits and profits of the outcome.  It is this belief in “entitlement” that has caused so much division and, now hatred, among the citizenry. This perspective generates a “right” not found in either our Bibles or our Constitution. Even God demands action on our part as a quid pro quo to Divine protection and prosperity.

President Lincoln had a “Partner” as well. However, that Partner was the Supreme Being Itself to whom Lincoln turned, drew upon, and publicly acknowledged. He was, after all, the President who initiated a Federal Day of Thanksgiving and signed a Proclamation for a National Day of “humiliation, fasting and prayer” during the Civil War.  President Obama is the first President in the history of the Nation not to mention God in his formal Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Contrary to President Obama’s words, which result in ego-based entitlement and the remedy of forced redistribution of wealth, President Lincoln’s actions sought spiritual and national unity engendered by submission to the purpose and power of Divine principles.

As a result of Lincoln’s certainty in his beliefs and willingness to publicly acknowledge the role of the Divine in human history, the Civil War was followed by a stronger Union than had ever before been achieved. We truly became The United States of America. This was in no small way attributable to the insight, foresight and deeply held theological beliefs of the Nation’s leader at the time.

My conclusion is my prayer. That the Nation awakens to the shadow side of the principles that President Obama supports and advocates. We will not be joined, and will not survive, so long as we believe not in God but in government as the authority and power that makes life worth living. As we traverse these potentially perilous times, we have had quite enough “vanity of vanities.” Let us now seek to rediscover humility by acknowledging Divinity.

Devotees of Ayn Rand ask “Who is John Galt?” I would concur adding, “and where is our Abraham Lincoln?”

General Petraeus testified on Friday before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. He was explicit in his assertion that within moments of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi he deemed it to be an an act of terrorism committed by al Qaeda-linked militants. Consequently, there are now only two options relative to President Obama, what he knew and when he knew it.

Either the President lied to the American people when he maintained, for weeks following the attack in Benghazi, that it was the video that spurred the attack or he is so lacking in leadership capabilities that members of his Cabinet knew from experience it was unnecessary to tell him what was going on because he doesn’t make command decisions…others routinely do.

The first hypothesis is more plausible, albeit much more troubling, given the fact that despite the uncovering of a blatant lie perpetrated on the America people, this President has not fired anyone and everyone who should have been fired had they failed to comply with the law and advised him of events as they were occurring. The President’s inaction in this regard speaks volumes.

When combined with his Administration’s ongoing refusal to name the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization (self-proclaimed to imposing global Sharia law) while appointing Muslim Brotherhood members and advocates to positions of importance within the Administration, aiding the enemy is a de facto conclusion.

I wrote a post on November 10^th that dared suggest treason may have been committed in relation to Benghazi and our government’s use of Muslim Brotherhood intermediaries to arm not Syrian rebels seeking freedom but radical Islamists seeking to do in Syria what this President supported them doing in Egypt.  I no longer feel compelled to use the words “suggest” and “may.” It now appears the President committed treason which demands resignation and prosecution.  In Egypt he publicly supported and encouraged a Muslim Brotherhood backed revolution which resulted in Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi. In Benghazi, he failed to adequately protect and rescue American citizens under attack; knowingly sought to shield our enemies from condemnation rightfully placed upon them; manipulated and withheld vital information from the American people in order to get re-elected and, lied to the American people for weeks following the attack in an attempt to cover up his deliberately dishonest actions thereby continuing to shield the enemy.

Politics gets sets aside on this one. This isn’t about “R” or “D.”

This is about a man so possessed by his own aggrandizement, and in such disregard for the Constitution of the United States, that he believes he answers to nothing and no one in the quest to impose his will upon the Nation. He must be stopped. Such men are dangerous and drive nations into dictatorships that are protracted, difficult to disgorge, and detrimental to society.

It is now up to “We The People” through our Congressional representatives to have the courage and determination to do what is right as opposed to what is easy.  It would be easy to turn a blind eye and deaf ear… then write this off to “politics as usual.” It is not that. These are the willful and destructive actions of a man who has neither earned, nor deserves, the office he has duplicitously obtained. Let us do the heavy lifting and right the wrong we allowed ourselves to be manipulated into believing. Then, perhaps, we can return to the Office of the Presidency the integrity it necessitates and the respect it was intended to engender.

 

I had many people reach out to me today via email and phone calls to express their disappointment, frustration, depression, anxiety, and even anger over the re-election of President Obama. I have responded in the same way to each of them. Since their range of emotions is likely indicative of all those who supported Governor Romney, let me share my response here for those of you who feel similarly.

There are no accidents. Life has a plan even when we lack our own or fail to recognize the grander one. I see profound meaning and glorious potential in what has occurred.

The Torah, the first five books of Moses, has God on occasion calling the Israelites a “stiff-necked people.” By that is meant that they can be, and at times were, resistant to following Divine Guidance.  I think the word applies to our culture here in the United States.

For quite some time, certainly for the past 50 years, years, we’ve lost our way in terms of prioritizing our values. We became too materialistic, too impatient, too disrespectful of life for both the unborn and the elderly, too condescending to Nature, and too lacking in compassion for our fellow citizens. We look to the state and the federal government to do what is ours to do. We’ve abdicated personal responsibility in so many ways that we’ve forgotten how, and why, to do things for ourselves.

Such behavior is inconsistent with all the great religions of the world and so we have become a stiff-necked people.  Where there is abdication there always follows consequences. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that as government continues to grow and more and more people become externally reliant rather than self-reliant, and the freedom that comes with personal responsibility is eroded to the point that all people feel the constricting arms of dependency…we will awaken. When that occurs, we will have the opportunity to pay the price for the personal liberty we thought we could bargain for nothing. It is good news though.  Such a payment is always worth it and, yes assuredly, there is literally Light at the end of this tunnel.

For those of us already awake, it will be a smoother ride knowing that Divine Providence is driving and has a plan. For those unawakened, the ride will not be without its treacherous moments for a stiff neck takes a greater hit than one that has bent itself to the Will of God.