Archive for the ‘World’ Category

History repeats itself. Unfortunately this axiom is true when humanity fails to learn the error of its ways.  A demoralized populace in the Weimar Republic was hungry for food, self-respect and leadership. Enter Adolph Hitler who had all the right buzz words and charisma to lead sheep to slaughter. By sheep, I refer not just to the Jews but also to “the good people of Germany” who followed their Pied Piper all the way to devastation by the Allied forces.

The repeat?

We, here in the United States, have been on a slippery slope for decades. Never mind the sociological and economic reasons why. Suffice it to say it is truth. Now, having experienced staggering unemployment, an over-extended and weakened military, a dollar of diminishing value, and dangerously incompetent leadership, Vladimir Putin enters stage left via a New York Times op-ed piece.

Putin has the hubris to lecture Americans on just behavior as he arrives cloaked in language that belies his own history of repression and thuggery not to mention religious and human rights oppression. Yet, in the absence of real leadership, the forcefulness of his conviction as devious as it may be makes this one-eyed monster appear as a King in the Land of the Blind.

We, here in the United States, have become the Land of the Blind. We turned not only a blind eye but also a deaf ear to the lies and manipulations of those to whom we entrusted power even as we knew in our hearts they were abusing it and us.

We have arrived at the door to our own demise.

Do not touch the handle. Do not think there is any way back from what is on the other side. Turn now. Run as far and as fast as you can in the other direction. Leave Putin and Obama behind. Become your own leader until such time as you come upon one who is genuine and does not seek the position. There you will have found meritorious leadership.

In the meantime, act swiftly and keep an eye out for John Galt. Let’s also pray that neither he nor Galt’s Gulch are fiction.

They want us divided. No, this isn’t a conspiracy post. It’s an epiphany.

You know the old saying, “United we stand, divided we fall?” Well, it’s old. Very old. It goes back to Aesop, the Ancient Greek story teller who lived between 620 and 654 B.C. Maybe it’s older than that. I suspect it is because it holds a fundamental secret that is the difference between destruction and survival…between lack and prosperity.

I’d been thinking about the seeming deterioration of race relations in this country over the past few years and wondering what was the impetus? The more I thought about it the more I decided that there really is no racial deterioration…just the promotion of a false sense of one by the media and others who have more to gain, and more to retain, by our division than by our unification.

After 9/11 we saw what we were made of. We experienced our connection and our love for one another. We each know that we are all One in humanity. We know it and we exhibit it whenever we are called upon to do so…and sometimes even when we are not. But we each feel insecure and alone in some ways as well. Maybe it’s just the impermanence of life as we know it that gives us a feeling of unease that is so easy to exploit.

And exploit our insecurity they do.

Those of us on a spiritual or God-focused path know that we are at a tipping point of understanding from deep within our hearts such as the world has never seen. And those who would rather that awakening not occur will do everything and anything in their power to make certain we do not get there. The tool most within their power is division by way of fear.  Therefore, in order to to strengthen their grip on humanity and retain the positions of power they have cheated, lied and stolen to achieve, they are pulling out the “big guns”…figuratively and literally. War is on the horizon. Whether its nation against nation in the Middle East or black against white in the West. Divide and conquer.

Gandhi had it right. So did Martin Luther King. We, the People, can overcome. But our only hope is the acknowledgement of our Oneness and the expression of that knowing through Love. Without it we remain divided. And divided we fall.

Let each of us be the change we wish to see in the world, as Ghandi admonished. Let us be loving and truthful in our daily dealings with those we encounter. Let us not perpetuate the worst of humankind by being part of it.

I have a Catholic friend who just returned from Amstedam where she visited The Anne Frank House. She asked me, “How could people do that to one another?” “They forgot there is only One of Us and that we’re born for the sole purpose of remembering that single, life altering fact” was my reply.

Remember now. Unite now. Love now.

I am a Jew. As such, I have heard the refrain “Never Forget” my entire life in relation to the Holocaust. Like other Jews, I always took it as a caution to be aware that under the right conditions, it could happen again. To the Jews. But as I hear and see what is happening to Christians in the Middle East and particularly in Egypt, I fully understand that the admonition goes far beyond we Jews. It is a mantra that every compassionate human being must recite because we, as a species, remain capable of horrific persecution and devastating destruction.

Not all of us, of course. At least not in the moment.

In the moment that perverse banner is being carried by the Muslim Brotherhood as they seek to exploit the political unrest in Egypt by scapegoating Christians, burning their churches, looting their places of business, raping their women and executing them simply because they are seen carrying a bible.

There is not a Jew alive whose stomach should not turn and whose body should not feel a chill at the familiarity of these events. Been there. Done that.

So what is the issue? The issue is, “Do we as Jews have the courage to stand in solidarity with Christians of the Middle East?” “Do we as Americans retain yet enough of what has made us a beacon of light throughout our history to now shine that light on the atrocities being inflicted upon Christians?” “Are we as humans still able feel the pain of others who, though outwardly different from us, are inwardly the essence of who we truly are?”

There is only One of Us. Today, we are all Coptic Christians.

I have never understood how so much of the world sat silently by and turned a blind eye while Hitler and the disease called National Socialism embarked upon its campaign of annihilation. I am sad to say that I have begun to understand it.  Today, the silence of our media and paralysis of our Administration are eerie portents of what may follow.

We are each responsible not for the carnage being inflicted upon Christians in Egypt, but for our silence in the face of it. God help the Muslim Brotherhood extremists who are looting, burning raping and murdering.

But who will help the silent?

In Rose, Michigan, a 6th grade student is groomed for two years then raped by a 40-year-old pedofile teacher at the public school. The teacher is then tried and convicted by a court of law and sentenced to 15-30 years. The School Board, the local Lutheran Church and the faculty stand in support of the pedofile.

In Ontario, Canada, a mother with an autistic son moves into a new neighborhood and receives an anonymous letter in her mailbox suggesting she euthanize her son and donate “whatever non-retarded body parts he has” to science because the sounds the child makes when playing outside are “not normal” and disturbing. The letter further states that no one is ever going to employ or love him. The surrounding community is silent.

Al Jazeera, a purported “news” channel owned and operated by the nation of Qatar, began cable broadcast today into 49 million homes in the United States. Not only is this the network that promoted and broadcast tapes by Osama bin Laden, but Qatar is currently the outcast Arab nation that is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda and atrocities in Egypt, much to the public dismay of its Arab neighbors who deem the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. What the Arab world deems terrorist, the United States welcome into its homes and families.

If Adolf Hitler knew one thing it was how reluctant people are to take a stand against what they know in their hearts to be wrong. Behavior can defy reason and decency and yet we humans, all too readily and in the end tragically, remain mute for fear of reprisal.

There is historical instruction on this issue. And its not WWII but rather the biblical Book of Esther. Esther, a Jew, is married to the King of Persia who is unaware of her heritage. When the King’s Ambassador and confidant Haman attempts to eliminate all the Jews, Esther’s uncle Mordechai tells her to go to the King and plead for intervention to reverse the decree. Esther, fearing for her own life should she reveal her Judaism to the King, at first declines Mordechai’s request. In reply, Mordechai tells her that if she seeks her own personal safety at the expense of her People, the Jews will die but inevitably so shall Esther. His admonition: Your silence will cost you the very thing you seek it to protect.

Whether the issue is a pedofile teacher, a cruel and cowardly neighbor lacking all compassion, or the media outlet of our sworn enemy being invited into our children’s minds, silence in opposition will cost you the protections and peace you hope it will bring.

No one enjoys feeling like a broken record. It’s especially frustrating when the urge to inform is overwhelming and the reception is, at best, lukewarm. I am certain Paul Revere felt like a broken record as he blazed through New England announcing “The British are coming!” However, what differs from Colonial times is that those of us who are currently awake and concerned enough to perceive imminent danger are ringing a bell whose sound is falling upon deaf ears.

I have been writing you for over two years about the inevitable harm to our way of life, particularly our personal freedoms and free enterprise system, that will result from our government’s deceitfulness, corruption, negligence and sheer incompetence. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about the lust for power regardless of party affiliation. We are way beyond politics now. We are into survival.

What humankind in general, and Americans in particular, shrinks from accepting is personal responsibility for creating the brink at which we now teeter. We have arrived at a government out of control, forcing upon us rules and regulations that defy our founding documents as well as our present will, because we have been too self-indulgent and momentarily satisfied to stand for what is right rather than acquiesce to what is expedient.

I have written about history’s pattern of enslavement and how we choose to remain blind to its teachings. I have written about power versus force and where true power is found. I have written about personal responsibility and the hell that follows its willful abdication. I am not alone. There are other voices, other “riders ringing the bell,” who also grow weary and disillusioned by your silence and inaction.

You and I are each but one voice. But one voice has changed history time and time again for better and for worse. One voice has joined with many voices time and time again to change history for better or for worse. So whether it is your lone voice speaking loud and clear with a firm determination to be heard, or your voice joined with other like-minded individuals to unite in a chorus of humanity’s best, it matters not.

What matters is that those of us who grow weary of ringing the bell, but who will not cease to do so, hear and are refreshed by the sound of an approaching army of voices who say, yet again, to the corrupt and oppressive powers that be, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Who would have ever thought that the Egyptians would be teaching us anything about Civil Disobedience or “Hope and Change”? But as the Egyptian people take to the streets and raise their voices in opposition to deceit, oppression and incompetence…we here in American remain disturbingly silent in the face of the same issue: a President and Administration that is not, it turns out, what they purported to be when seeking office.

Tellingly, during the Arab Spring, President Obama was quick to support the “will of the Egyptian people” and equally ready to praise the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi in replacing the ousted Hosni Mubarak. Now, as Morsi has been revealed to be the incompetent, radical Islamist that he is, President Obama’s silence is deafening, not to mention indicative of his true stance on “the will of the people.” For it seems that to President Obama, the will of the people is nothing more than a tool to be implemented when it aligns with his goals and an annoyance or obstacle to be ignored or circumvented when it does not.

But I digress.

I have to admire Egyptians for their unwillingness to allow Morsi any more time that he has already been given to right the country’s economic and social ills. While I do not condone violent revolution (deaths and rape are still a part of the unfolding “democracy” in Egypt) it is none-the-less admirable that those people are willing to take to the streets, raise their voices and risk their lives to bring down an Islamic dictatorship bent on, not democratic principles, but rather a global Caliphate. Their bravery and willingness to stand is something we Americans used to pride ourselves on before we became greedy, sated with materiality, and disconnected from our Creator.

While no one knows for certain the outcome in Egypt, I have a bit more certainty when it comes to the outcome here. If we don’ take heed of the Egyptians (a sentence I never thought I’d write) and read their signs (“Wake Up Americans…Barack Obama Backs Up A Fascist Regime in Egypt”) it is we who will soon be lugging stones to build a pyramid under the direction of a Pharaoh.

Perhaps two of the most frequently posed questions about the reluctance, even failure, of German Jews to stand and fight against Hitler’s onslaught is “Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they fight back?” Over the past 70+ years many theories have been postulated in response to that inquiry. Yesterday, in Great Britain, I believe we witnessed the answer.

As an evil Muslim terrorist brutally, viciously, and without conscience hacked to death and then nearly beheaded an innocent young man in broad daylight, onlookers stood by and watched. Not one man in the crowd lifted a finger or raised a voice to either stop the slaughter or even try and take down the assailant. The onlookers might just as well have been thought to be watching a passing parade.

Slavery is a slippery slope. While physical enslavement can come upon someone by a single act (such as capture or seizure of the means of defense a/k/a/ “gun control”), psychological enslavement is a more subtle and prolonged process. Most often, it is achieved by manipulation of the truth and implementation of fear through threats or physical pain. Slowly, over time and given the right conditions, even the strongest of individuals is susceptible to relinquishing autonomy of thought. Once that occurs, submission follows.

Terrorists and political elites have been using manipulation and fear to enslave us for some time now. One might argue its been occurring intermittently for as long as recorded human history. However, with the advent of modern technological advances, and simultaneous removal of all things spiritual from our lives, it has reached a dangerous tipping point. Humanity is on the verge of psychological enslavement. It will not be necessary to physically enslave us once this becomes complete.

In Great Britain, people watched because the unthinkable and inhumane is hard to process. People watched because terror is becoming a way of life. People watched because in the face of evil it isn’t uncommon to become immobilized. People didn’t do anything because they feared for their own safety. These are the same reasons given in attempts to analyze the non-action of so many Jews in Nazi Germany.

But there’s a glitch. One woman in Great Britain DID act and speak.

A mother of two, who was a passenger on a bus moving past the horrific scene, disembarked after seeing all the blood. She thought an accident had occurred. When she realized what was happening, she approached the terrorist and asked him if he had done this and what was it that he wanted. When later interviewed and asked why she took the risk, she said it was because of her faith. There were children standing by and she thought better she be harmed than one of them.

The presence of God knows no fear.

This is the 11^th hour.  This is the hour to exercise your autonomy. This is the hour to find your voice. This is the hour to demand accountability from the few who are misusing power to enslave the many. We have been cooperative and complacent for far too long. To not push back now is to irretrievably abdicate our birthrights of Freedom and Free Will.

The most important aspect of the Benghazi terror attacks has yet to surface. It’s not about why there was insufficient security given advance knowledge of the dangers, or who gave the order to stand down, or even why President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton contrived to lie about both the cause and the decisions that followed in response.

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

Just how much deception, manipulation and disrespect will we allow ourselves to be subjected to before we become indignant, demand accountability, pursue prosecution and replace those individuals with public servants who honor integrity and truth above expediency and power?

How many brave individuals, such as those who died in Benghazi and those who now testify to the truth of what occurred there have to risk their careers, or forfeit their lives, to do what is right in the face of evil?

How many of us will continue to choose self-imposed blindness and ignorance of leaders with an endgame that culminates in our enslavement and whose means of getting there knows no ethical, moral or legal bounds?

Benghazi isn’t about them.  It’s about us.

While our minds play intellectually disingenuous games based upon particular agendas and political predispositions, our hearts know with certainty that President Obama, Hilary Clinton, Jay Carney, Susan Rice, and a supporting cast of literally thousands are liars.

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

So long as we acquiesce to allowing ourselves to be distracted from the truth and herded like sheep into a state of manageable containment, we have far more pressing concerns than Al Qaeda. We are on the brink of voluntarily relinquishing our birthright. Like Biblical Esau, who traded his birthright for a bowl of hot soup because he was more concerned with instant gratification than the long-range consequence of his choice, we are condemning ourselves and our children to a world where deception and slavery are the norm.

This isn’t a hypothetical. Nor is it hyperbole. This is the real danger, and now is the defining moment, each of us is facing. What will you accept?  What will you do?

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

 

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.