And now we are broke:
Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.Of course, the Republican leaders understand this outcome full well. They want the economic destruction of the United States.
The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.
Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."
That is why they have been so brazen in their thefts -- billions stolen in Iraq, billions stolen from Homeland Security, billions stolen duriing the Katrina "rebuilding" efforts, billions stolen through Pentagon corruption, and so forth. At the end of the day, they want to see a country in which most of the citizenry are poor, miserable and unable to rebel, due to advanced "non-lethal" weaponry and an utter lack of privacy.
Meanwhile, the fat cats will hold all the money. All of it.
That is the future. Blame the fundamentalist Christians. The ignorant, arrogant fools.
(MJ: Your lies have gotten you banned. Don't try it. You won't last twenty minutes.)
37 comments:
Joseph,
I am hardley a fan of the Christain Right, but would you not call them a vehicle rather than the driver behind the Neocon (for that matter all past and present varieties of the Conservative movement)agenda?
Would you call Iraq's insurgency the driving force behind Neocons dream of creating a Utopia of their version of Democracy and free markets or more a vehicle?
oopps
I meant Iraq and not Iraq's insurgency...
Vehicle or driver? Let's go for "enabler." If gullibility can be considered a sin -- and I think that there are times when it can -- then they have committed it.
How could this situation get any worse, or any more tragic? While I agree with you, Joseph, that fundamentalist Christians have been enablers of this travesty, I would not blame that group - as a whole - for Bush's actions - in his first term. They were duped, not just by Bush, but by the press.
However, I believe we CAN lay significant blame at the feet of Christian issues voters for putting Bush in office a second time. After the Bush administration itself, I blame the corporate media the most for not reporting the facts, and for replacing hard-nosed analysis with he-said/she-said "balance".
But there's no question that many of those who pulled the lever for Bush a second time allowed their biases and wishes to outweigh what they know in their hearts is the right thing for the country. But again, it was the quisling media that allowed - even encouraged that kind of thinking.
Thanks for taking a difficult but correct stand on this, Joseph.
Jim
Since the neocons have deliberately
pursued ruinous policies, I have come
to suspect that a bankrupt USA is what
they want.
Perhaps I'm suffering a failure of
imagination. Could you expand on WHY
they want a bankrupt USA? "Starve
the beast" theory I can understand--
depleting the treasury so dreams of
federal social programs are crushed
for an entire generation. The
purpose seems to go beyond this to
destruction of the country itself.
Why? What is gained?
WTC7WTF: I've pondered the same question many times, and all I can come up with is the very nebulous world government theory. It seems to me that triggering an economic collapse and associated currency crisis would leave even the top 1% worse off than if they left well enough alone.
Anyone else have an idea or link to a reasonable explanation?
Jim
anon, I direct your attention to the stage and film version of Li'l Abner, in which the villainous industrialist General Bullmoose announces his motivation: "To own all the money in the world -- because I NEED it."
It never occurs to a General Bullmoose that if he truly did own all the money, the very concept of money would become meaningless. He would possess...nothing.
Bullmoose never thinks the matter through. Bullmoose never understands that capitalism thrives only when the masses have extra money to spend on non-essential items. All Bullmoose knows is that he NEEDS all the money in the world.
Joseph, I, too, am a Li'l Abner fan from way back. But I just can't wrap my brain around the image of people who are smart enough to accumulate world-changing power, but can't see far enough into the future to foresee the negative consequences that an economic collapse would have on their own situation, and their ability to hold power.
Yes, I believe those ranks are populated by plenty of sociopaths (including most neocons and G1000 CEOs), but even sociopaths have enough common sense not to crap in their own beds.
And I can understand the sociopathic drive to grab a larger share of a decreasing pie, but at a certain point, even a sociopath must see that 1% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
I can see only two possibilities - either the current rush to the bottom is governed by chaos theory that resists attempts at control, or (my bet) it is being abetted by individuals and governments who believe they have something to gain, beyond individual power.
If they were all fundamentalist Christians hell-bent on bringing on the rapture, I could at least discern a rationale. But they aren't. So the question is, what do the powers who are really pulling the strings see as the end game?
Jim
Guys, I think all of you are misreading the quote.
In fact, the author -- Kotifkoff? -- is arguing for the elimination or drastic reduction of entitlement programs ("unfunded liabilities"), what we know fondly as social security, medicare and medicaid. The Bush tax cuts are significant, but not the main source of the revenue shortfall he predicts.
What the wealthy elite wants is not the bankruptcy of the country, but the elimination of these programs, the hated New Deal welfare state. They don't care about the coming train wreck, because they fully expect the programs to be cut, rather than higher taxes or cuts to the military budget and corporate welfare.
For the rest, there's also a lot of short-term thinking, stupidity and greed, as has already been pointed out. But the real thrust of this alarm isn't tax cuts, but the kind of spending most of us here would endorse.
Historically, there is plenty of precedent for this gorging at the public trough until bankruptcy brings political upheaval. (Eg: Rome before its fall, and France before its revolution.) So, I don't think there's a long-range secret agenda at work this time, either. Greed wears blinders, that's all.
Thanks for addressing this most important subject, Joseph.
ah, li'l abner! i choreographed my high school version of that hooplah; what fun! and i fondly recall our general bullmoose, who poured it on soooo thick!
so you folks'll know, one of the symptoms of a sociopath is that they do NOT - repeat, DO NOT - recognize the larger consequences and implications of their actions. they want what they want when they want it, the hell with the rest of it, ends justify the means, damn the torpedoes. part of the pathology of this entire group is a truly disease level short-sightedness, driven ultimately by fear, fear of all manner of things.
so when you're asking yourselves just how these idiots can possibly not see what you're seeing, remember: this is what makes us different. they see things the way they want to, and we're trying to see the truth. in seeing things the way they want to, a great deal of denial and repression and projection and distortion must be - and are - employed. it's part of the sickness.
(just parenthetically in here, on a more christian note, i feel the need to add - not entirely without irony - forgive them, for they KNOW NOT what they do. just to raise the question of what good it could possibly do to assign blame to these poor village idiots?)
which leads me to remind folks of the study john dean has based his new book on. in a nutshell (pun intended), it shows that authoritarian types are followers. they do not want to think for themselves. when you abdicate this responsibility (granted, it is an effort, and one that comes with risks), you must make allowances for discrepancies between your own real experience and what you are following. not healthy.
this also reminds me of an excellent article in this month's harper's about the reliance in this past century on "backstabbers," or the enemies within, to promote an empirialist agenda. because the empire cannot admit to a power even comparable enough to itself to be a threat, it must constantly raise internal enemies, like commies and hippies and traitors, OH MY!
hm. now that i think about it, i may have seen these very two articles just so juxtaposed....maybe by glenn greenwald?
goodness, but i have made a list of things here that need linking, but i apologize, i cannot. at least not now. somehow, soon; i promise.
unirealist nails it, as ever!
greed does, indeed, wear blinders. as well as that other set of psychic artillery, like the egyptian river and all that jazz.
Anon,
I think you make a fair point that the magnitude of unfunded mandates dominates other factors, but the combined cost of the Iraq war (est $1-2 Trillion in total costs), tax cuts ($3.3 Trillion if extended, through the next decade), the Medicare drug scam ($750B plus increased out-of-pocket expenses to individuals due to the outlawing of price negotiations), plus other Bush-enabled waste (Katrina "recovery", DoD budget growth) is well in excess of $5 Trillion in outlays, the vast majority of which was wasted.
I think a key point in this discussion is that catching problems like the Medicare deficit early makes them much cheaper to solve. And at risk of feeding the trolls, it is true that economic growth - assuming it continues - also diminishes the problem - it seems like yesterday (actually around 1970) that our GDP went over the $1Trillion mark, and now it's over $12T.
I'm no economist, but I can't help but think that if we hadn't added nearly $1T per year to the national debt since Clinton left office and instead applied some of that money to catching the problem early, we wouldn't be facing the dire situation we have today.
Getting back to the question of motive, I'm still left wondering how anyone with an ounce of self-interest (leaving conscience out of this discussion) could believe that the cost of killing entitlement programs in this way works to their benefit.
Still waiting for that flash of insight...
Jim
anonymous,
Here is what I can contribute to the subject
1-It seems that Conservatives here in the US have always believed in "Isolationism" of a kind that allows them to operate in a realm where they are the chosen masters and all others are by thier exclusion fated to be prey, slaves, etc. Going back to the early days of American history, from the treatment of the American natives to the black slaves and the civil war, conservatives have backed this view of "a few elite masters" natural supremacy over all others.
2- They fought against any domestic or foriegn policies that embraced inclusiveness, sharing of good will or the common good, but after WWII with the rise of Communism and the cold war, they became more convieced that their ideas and beliefs were being marginalized. Any political idealogy that embraces the common good, equal rights, international cooporation, fair distribution of wealth naturally threatens their status of "chosen few elites" and therefore it has to be fought with everything one can muster. In this struggle, military and economic superiority is not an option but a neccessity, and hence the invention of the militay-industrial complex. Corporations are also thier natural allies, since in the pure Capitalist economic system, a corporation's aim is superiority and maximum market share.
3-Internationaly they believe in using a superior military to provide dominance over others and providing optimum environment for corporations.
4- Domestically, they reject any regulation, restriction or oversight that hampers this optimum environment for corporations as well as any legislation that hampers their power politically. Economically, any programs that provides social safty nets, eqaul and fair distribution of wealth or any political organizing on behalf of the domestic masses is as fervently opposed.
My conclusion from this behavior, is that they simply believe in their "superiority" and survival at all cost. It can be compared to the Biblical tribe of Isreal and their "chosen" status and their struggle for survival against all odds. It is no wonder that
Zionism and it's manifestation Isreal is their natural ally, the same way that pure Capitalism and it's manifestation the corporations are natural allies.
I do not think that Christians are by any means a natural ally of Conservatism, but merely a hijacked and used idea the same way patriotism, American exceptionalism, fear of real and imagined enemies etc. have been.
I do believe that man's biggest sin is pride, the desire to be master and above. The desire to believe in an inherent right to dominate and rule.
This is my explanation and not a defense.
Sustaining the viability of this country may not be in the long-term interest of American financial elites, who are already moving their money abroad and will be more than happy to walk away from "unfunded liabilities" and higher taxes (despite the best efforts of Grover Norquist , taxes are going to be higher in future years. Even Republicans will, sooner or later, have to listen to the financial markets).
Greg Palast believes that the whole social security privitization drive is nothing more than [an intended] underwriting by the general public of large foreign investments by American elites. Somebody, after all, has got to keep the prices up in New Delhi, Singapore and Shanghai (until the smart money gets out) and cushion the crashes which the smart money can't avoid.
When you've got an automatic deduction from every salary check in the country going into private investments, it does take the sting out of "free-market" risk for those in the know.
Aside from who is in charge and what their motivations are, does anyone believe the American public pushed far enough will rebel?
No, sociopaths do not have enough common sense not to crap in their beds. They do it all the time because common sense doesn't operate outside the basics - such as physics. Crapping in ones bed is the unintended consequences of sightless goal-seeking. But no matter, they just don't care. What's a little crap on the bed - it's probably not their bed! Sociopaths don't see things the way they want to, they simply see things the way they do. It's a total lack of what others of us would call "character." No matter the stage. They can be quite charismatic in pursuit of their ends. They are entirely capable of recognizing consequences - perhaps even with a chuckle.
Authority types have what is known as "identity foreclosure" that is, who they "are" was a done deal a pathologically early and long, long time ago during personality development. There is no more evolution. These are not your followers. The followers have what is called "identity....(I forget - the opposite of forclosure)..." and they can never solidify their identity and continually search for it from others - mostly from authoritarian figures. These would be your standard cult followers. They need leaders to function in daily life and are otherwise wishywashy. But they hold the ideas of their leader tenaciously because otherwise they have no sense of self.
Money? Money is the object - more of it is the verb. Focusing solely on personal wealth is the game. The masses can and will be obtained elsewhere.
To me, the Christian right is trying to make slaves of women. Even a rape pregnancy counts as more important than the woman's quality of life therafter. Would love to spread a little after-birth on them!
And probably the only thing the mideast and the Bush Admin agree on.
Yes, beeta, I think there are enough of us to do the right thing. My forefathers were off the boat about 4 years after the pilgrims. 3 grandfathers were in the revolutionary war. I'm ready at least.
Miss P.
Well...this is Tom Englehardt's view of what we have been talking about..
"Bush's Faith and the Middle East Aflame"...tomdispatch.com
It's amazing how narrow and polarized you liberals are. I stopped being a partisan who engaged in zealous warfare a long time ago. When I read these posts it's like a mirror image of the right wing garbage I see. When are you people going break free of the right-left paradigm? The paradigm should be freedom-tyranny like it was in 1776.
Anyways, my point here is that both Dems and Reps have been complicit in the looting of this country. But it all started in 1913, when a DEMOCRAT named Woodrow Wilson, in violation of the Constitution, voluntarily surrendered the governments ability to print money interest free to a private corporation called the Federal Reserve which is neither federal nor a reserve. The Fed prints worthless debt dollars which accumulates a boatload of debt through interest which our tax revenue typically pays. Oh and the bankers which run the Fed and manipulate our country's economy are typically Jewish as are Chairmen like Greenspan and Bernanke.
So change the title to read: "How Jewish bankers in conjuntion with Democrats and Republicans destroyed the United States"
anonymous,
Who defended the Democrats? as in the "party".... the subject was Christian Right and the Conservatives....or do you still believe that Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton are tree hugging, bleeding heart "Liberals" ?
miss p, with all due respect, sociopaths do NOT lack in common sense; some do, but that is NOT a defining feature. i would argue that dick cheney is a sociopath; call him what you will, but he is NOT stupid and he does NOT lack in common sense.
what he does lack, however, is the capacity to think beyond his own desires, what he wants, forget about the rest of the world. that is practically the definition of a sociopath. not sure what definition you're operating with there, but for what it's worth, there is a diagnostic definition, actually of anti-social personality disorder, the nomenclature that replaced sociopath at least twenty years ago.
i'm only vaguely familiar with the concept of identity foreclosure, which i believe is eriksonian, at least by derivative. but it's just another way of describing personality disorder, of which sociopath is just one (e.g., a schizotypal PD is frozen, or in identity foreclosure, but is definitely not sociopathic, and not necessarily stupid).
identity foreclosure simply means the individual fails to grow or develop or learn from experience. the personality is locked in, and the individual's approach to the world is rigid and unyielding. piaget referred to this problem as failure to accommodate, or conform, to reality by remaining in the early developmental stage of assimilation (where reality is conformed to the child's preconception of the world).
all a bunch of terms, i admit. but i think it's important to maintain consistency in these concepts. insisting that this disorder - whether we call it personality disorder or identity foreclosure or failure to accommodate - does NOT mean these individuals lack intelligence by definition. some are quite smart. frighteningly smart.
as for the study john dean was referring to, it's been around for quite a while, several decades, and it simply shows, by following individuals over time, that the personality traits of the authoritarian are those of a follower. which makes sense, even for the so-called 'leaders' of authoritarian movements. all these people, followers and their 'leaders', point to some fixed and rigid source of authority - whether it be the bible or the koran or the aryan myth or whatever - to guide their thinking, their decisions, and their lives.
and again, these people are not necessarily inherently stupid; they are simply afraid, afraid of the dangers and risks of having an independent thought.
that may sound completely absurd to you, but i see folks like this all the time, very very intelligent men and women who simply cannot think outside the little box they've constructed for themselves. smart, high-functioning, achievers, some with advanced degrees and acclaim. but they're stuck, and they're stuck because they're afraid.
and money comes in to fill the void. fear creates a sink of need, a bottomless pit of need and greed that can never be filled. but they construct their little boxes of reality to allow them to believe it will bring them fulfillment, and they get just enough of a rush from it to convince themselves that's what it means.
but it feeds on itself so rabidly, and before you know it, you're gazing into the black hole of evil with your own reflection staring back at you. can you imagine that kind of fear? takes a saint to face it, and these poor slobs are far from it, so they frantically build bigger boxes, and more of 'em. more fear, more need, more greed, more black holes, more evil.
hence my reminder of the wisdom in forgiving them, because they really know not what they do, no matter how intelligent they might be.
and just as a counter example, my uncle never finished high school, but he possesses wisdom i've rarely encountered anywhere. it's a personal wisdom; he's 86 and he's still growing. no identity foreclosure there, though he does not possess what we would classically call high intelligence.
i suppose the reason i'm harping on this distinction is that it seems to be so much easier to speak about someone or treat them with disdain if we call them stupid, and easier to find compassion if we recognize they are afraid. really, though, we should find compassion for the fearful and the stupid; it's all just people.
and hey, i'm with you on the optimism! there are just too many examples in history where the oppressed have their limits and stand up to their oppressors. the numbers of the oppressed have not reached a critical mass as yet, but with the economy tanking like it is, it won't be long now. and if these crazy bankers think for a minute that they can finally control the people by making them poor and hungry and homeless while they sit fat and flush on their money piles, they are NOT paying attention to reality. marie uttered 'let them eat cake' from an addled little head that did not rest much longer on her shoulders!
not that i recommend anything like that reaction, mind you. but i'm flabbergasted at the short-sightedness of these creeps who thought iraqis would shower us with flowers and chocolates. they're the same ones who believe they can fool all the american people all the time if they keep using the same tricks. they'll be even more surprised than they are now with iraq. hell, they're already surprised that they can't get their poll numbers up!
finally, finally, such an honor to be chatting with the daughter of such distinguished lineage! hold us to it!
III,
Hear hear,
I agree pretty much....except I have a hard time with compassion...
I personally have experience with what you describe...I know someone who had a pretty awful childhood and by all accepted standards should have become crazy, a sociopath, disfunctional memeber of society, except she is educated and highly motivated, seemingly functioning contributing member of society. If you knew of her as oppose to know her....you would have envied her... I knew her intimately...and she was nothing but scared, anxiety ridden, stuck in a box and terrified to question, reconsider any portion of her belief system even in the face of undeniable evidence. She considered her religous beliefs to be her only grip on reality and what saved her from abyss. As a friend and a confidante, I could not bring myself to shake what seemed the only thing that kept her from losing it altogether. I loved her as a friend and despised her as a person. I still have a hard time.... feeling compassion...
there is nothing scarier than what we precieve to be scary...reality is only scary when you deny it.
Great blog!!!!
A featured post today at:
http://www.followthelinks.com/
What marvellous and profound comments! lll is at her superb best (and that's saying a lot), beeta reveals insights that make me stop and ponder (especially about corporations reflect the sociopathic paradigm of elite mastery), and so many others are on target with their own viewpoints, all of which are surprisingly truthful...
Anon 7:28, perhaps you meant to be argumentative, but you're too correct to get much debate. Not just Wilson but also FDR and Nixon contributed to the destruction of our currency. And that is where all this began, because money is fundamental to a society's system of values. Once you debauch the monetary system of values, all others values follow it down the toilet. Bush has done irreparable damage to the national treasury, but yes, the groundwork was laid long ago.
Sometimes it's sheer joy to be here on Cannonfire. I want to repeat, because it demands repetition, what lll said, above:
"...so when you're asking yourselves just how these idiots can possibly not see what you're seeing, remember: this is what makes us different. they see things the way they want to, and we're trying to see the truth."
Thanks to you all. guys. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
III, I never said sociopaths were stupid. Nor followers. Nor leaders. Hardly. (By the way, I usually always love your posts :) I used the somewhat archaic but oft-used and well-understood term sociopath because someone else did that's all - and the term sociopathic personality refers to antisocial personality disorder. Potatoes potatoes, unless we're filing a claim to the insurance company it doesn't matter that much which term is used for the purpose of argument. Ultimately, we agree that these people are not particularly concerned with how their behavior affects others. "The essential feature of this disorder (APD) is a pattern of irresponsible behavior beginning in childhood/adolescence..." (From DSM). No planning ahead, reckless behavior, agression, violence, no remorse. Anyway, to me there is a big difference between lack of "common sense" and "intellect". All the intellect in the world can't make up for failure to deal with known consequences, repeatedly. The antisocial guy I know is a genius. Does he have enough common sense not to keep shitting the bed? No. What does that mean? It means not learning from errors, not changing course, in matters of daily living and a penchant for being involved in trouble. This has nothing to do with intellectual capacity. I'm sorry you thought that's what I meant. BUT, to be antisocial one really, truly, must have done the "torturing small animals" thing as a kid.
Rather than sociopathic or antisocial, and while we're doing some armchair diagnostics: My feeling is that Cheney and Bush have full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder: DSM: "The essential feature of this disorder is a prevasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), hypersensitivity to the evaluation of others, and lack of empathy that begins in early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts…..People with this disorder have a grandiose sense of self-importance. Then tend to exaggerage their accomplishements and talents, and expect to be noticed as "special". These people are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty…with chronic feelings of envy…sense of entitlement…interpersonal exploitativeness…self-aggreandizement, friendships are made after the person considers how they can profit from them. Heck, let's throw Rove in the bucket as well.
I would argue that identity foreclosure does not mean inability to learn from experience. It is what we would think of as "closed-minded." Disinterest and/or inability to see different sides of the same issue. The opposites, followers, will adhere to someone else's fixed ideas and cling to them, yes. Symbiotic. Neither extreme is good. Both experience anxiety in the gray areas of life. The rest of us walk freely and without anxiety between the two extremes.
Miss P.
ah, miss p; clearly we share professional backgrounds? too cool! and fitz fans, to boot!! i ALWAYS love your comments, by the by. but also love these discussions that become debates; i always learn something.
after i sent that very rushed comment, i realized that we were probably arguing from the same place, just getting terms and assignments mixed up. happens too often on e-spaces.
in any case, i definitely agree that the cheney cabal, rove and bush included, are flaming narcissistics. but cheney also exhibits numerous symptoms of anti-social, as well. but then, both are cluster b PDs, and so share a number of traits.
APD also shares a number of symptoms with ADD/ADHD, which could lead me to embark on my cortical imbalance theory of cognitive behavior, but i'll spare everyone, including my own sorry self.
just know that animal torture is NOT a requisite for APD diagnosis, though its presence would definitely place the perp there.
as for the fine tuning of identity foreclosure, i feel the need to emphasize that this is a theoretical term. i also disagree that, because it means 'close-mindedness' it does not mean an inability to learn from experience. that is precisely what close-mindedness invites, though it does not constitute a definition. i will admit that failure to learn from experience is not necessarily what we see in APD and other such deviants. they do learn, but they learn only according to their demands and views of the world, more along the lines of what piaget called assimilation. it is a sign of growth when an individual can accommodate a world view to reality as presented to them.
and again, as for the study of authoritarians. what i have presented are not theories or operational definitions; these are findings. you really cannot argue with findings. and these are the findings: authoritarian personalities are followers. period. whether following or leading within the authoritarian paradigm, they do not think for themselves, but adhere to a rigid world view established by religion or myth or tribal values.
again, this is not a theory you can disagree with; this is a finding. and consider the implications for our perspectives on these poopheads, really! they truly are incapable of independent thought, but must have a rigid template within which to frame their world. hence scalia's insistence on a literal interp of the constitution just as he insists on a literal interp of the bible. cheney and the neocons cannot sway from their narrow, rigid interp of executive powers and american supremacy.
this is important: their minds, the findings show, do not differ significantly from the minds of thosewho follow them! they are all afraid of independent thought, of the possibility that they might have to adjust their world view. this frightens the living pee out of them.
this is a crucial insight to understanding this dysfunction, and i applaud john dean for grasping its import.
OK, here comes da judge..or..there are traitors in our midst.
First, thanks for all the interesting attempts to analyze evil and the roots of it. Coming from a biblical context we are immersed in the final death rattle of eons of darkness that has nullified and overshadowed most of mans goodness that comes from the divine.
This long predicted death rattle is the last stages of the power struggle between light and darkness coming to a climax in Iraq where the ancient city of Babylon has been rebuilt by Saddam Hussein who unwittingly set the stage for the global consummation of history and terrible conflagration we are witnessing today.
The bulk of Christianity is being swept into this cauldron and witches brew because of her willingness to follow leaders no matter what..especially of such leaders mouth religious slogans that match their pin headed sheep think, fixations on human leaders instead of listening to their founders voice of love, compassion, reason, and resistance to evil in its many sometimes attractive and seductive forms.
America is the last bastion of freedom of the individual and our liberty to choose freely our religious or philosophical underpinnings is hated by the governing elite..hell bent on bringing us down financially, morally, and spiritually, but it has to be accomplished very very slowly..incrementally like Hitters bologna tactic he applied in Germany to woo the population..thin slices, almost imperceptible by the masses who today are glued to their TV's or cheering in huge crowds at their favorite pastimes.
The bible predicts that in these last days (or daze as most people seem to be swirling in) the world and all its peoples will be brought to its knees by events
What form of government will the soon coming world dictator called antichrist create? A one world government similar to a United Nations or the now familiar New World Order that ex president Bush proposed during his presidency. Adolph Hitler first proposed it during his rise to power to describe a global government of his making that would be a religious/political/military system with an elite (predominately Aryan) at the top and a body of administrators over the rest of the worlds people underneath.
So I suppose we could call it a one man dictatorship but as far as how it is glued together and governed we need to find a modern form of government that we can recognize so we can more easily “see him coming”. He will come with great miracles of all kinds, political, military, supernatural, and natural. He will bring “Peace” to a very chaotic and unpeaceful world. Probably a series of cataclysms and economic catastrophes (that he engineers like our 911) to bring the people of the world to their knees. W e had a preview of coming attractions during World War Two when the nations of the world were all locked in a life and earth struggle for supremacy as we fought the axis powers for our very survival. Hitler demonstrated his genius as he brought Germany up into a world power in a very short time performing economic miracles as he built his war machine at the same time. Then when he was ready he leaped forward in his blitzkrieg attacks on the surrounding countries. Countries that only half heatedly had prepared for his global strategies. By his single mindedness and visions of world conquest he prevailed against the weaker nations that caved in to the onslaught. Part of the reason he won so quickly and easily was that within the citizenry of each of the nations he conquered he had sent spies and infiltrators that recurred from within that welcomed his invasion. France..Belgium..Norway..Eastern Europe..and even England and America had been infiltrated by his ideology and political visions of the superiority of the Aryan race. Within the United states we had some of our homegrown heroes like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, and many other of the “America First” political movement (including Prescott Bush), that supported Hitters ambitions for a world wide political system dominated by an elite minority of “palefaces”.
Today we have a modern versions of the very spa,me ideas. The militias and the resurgence in remote areas like idaho, of a nazified Christianity have their underground cells trained and waiting for their day. As we look at the “Middle Eastern Terrorists” ads our arch enemies we are overlooking the sinister armies within. remember the satanic cults that are organized around the swastika and that to this day worship Hitler. Charles Manson and his ilk are also loyal to the dreams of Adolph Hitler. The ghost of Hitler roams all over our nation from the Ku Klux Klan through the Aryan Nations, Satanic Cults, militant blacks in their Black Muslim movement originally founded not on Elijah Mohammed that is usually credited with it origins but instead a mysterious muddle eastern looking person named Fard that trained, appointed and and anointed Elijah Mohammed to lead the Black Fascist armies called “the Fruit of Islam”. All the homegrown cells are under the jurisdiction and orders of International Fasccista. The hierarchies seem distinctly different and unconnected but “un contraire” they are all worshipers of Adolph Hitler. The Black Muslim movement espouses the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” a fictitious treatise that Hitler preached “proved” a Jewish conspiracy that was hell bent on dominating the world. Hitler used that monograph as did Henry Ford to propagandize his audiences to believe that the Jews deserve to be eliminated and destroyed.
So..lets get the big picture so we don't act so surprised when it all happens according to ACs plans and strategies..his final attacks on democracies.
Hitler sent agents into the United States early in his stratagems to prepare the soil for his poisonous plants.Now we have modern movements that also seem unconnected like the UFO cults sprouting up since the end of world War Two. First the contactee movement that claimed to be recruited by superior beings from far away galaxies and star systems to prepare the paths for the super righteous and vastly superior beings with an obviously far advanced technology to prove their superiority over the weak and underdeveloped humans down here on planet earth. then the abductee movement that claimed they were lifted up into marvelous space ships by beautiful beings to be toyed with in experiments on their bodies and minds. Again the agents of the Elite have recruited the gullible and naive (uninformed) and is set up to be easily persuaded that they were specially chosen: what a intriguing idea, to be the advance guard and to prepare the way for the “shining ones” to follow. The shining ones will bring peace and prosperity to this poor shopworn planet of warmongers and nincompoops.
(Google Nazi UFOs and discover that Hitlers scientists developed disc shaped aircraft over sixty years ago and the United States “secret” government has continued their R&D to fashion the new religion of our soon coming space brothers the extra terrestrial “angels” to assist us in our pitiful ignorant condition)
(Google banna nzii to see how it was actually Hitler that started Al Quida out of the Moslem Brotherhood in the 1930s then later the PLO under Arafat)
Remember AC will come masquerading as a peacemaker and religious leader extraordinaire. Their is only one man on the scene that has completely fulfilled the description of the AC to a T and that is (was) Adolph Hitler..right?
Lets look at his credentials or resume to see.
Lest you think that Hitler was just a cranky occultist that used black magic to woo the masses of Germany,,here we have a sampling of the Christianity of Hitler revealed in his speeches and proclamations
. “We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession....
“ My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice....
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people....
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolph Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922
[Note, "brood of vipers" appears in Matt. 3:7 & 12:34. John 2:15 depicts Jesus driving out the money changers (adders) from the temple.]
“It will at any rate be my supreme task to see to it that in the newly awakened NSDAP, the adherents of both Confessions can live peacefully together side by side in order that they may take their stand in the common fight against the power which is the mortal foe of any true Christianity”.
-Adolph Hitler, in an article headed "A New Beginning," 26 Feb. 1925
“Except the Lord built the house they labour in vain.... The truth of that text was proved if one looks at the house of which the foundations were laid in 1918 and which since then has been in building.... The world will not help, the people must help itself. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it we may wage the battle of our life.... The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty-- of Him Who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward, let us never forget the duty which we have taken upon us....
We are all proud that through God's powerful aid we have become once more true Germans.”
-Adolph Hitler, in a speech in March 1933
[Note, "Except the Lord built the house, they labour in vain" comes from Psalms 127:1 ]
“ The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.”.
“ The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed.”.
“ It will be the Government's care to maintain honest cooperation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith.”
“The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavoring to develop them.”
-Adolph Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933
” We want honestly to earn the resurrection of our people through our industry, our perseverance, our will. We ask not of the Almighty 'Lord, make us free'!-- we want to be active, to work, to agree together as brothers, to strive in rivalry with one another to bring about the hour when we can come before Him and when we may ask of Him: 'Lord, Thou seest that we have transformed ourselves, the German people is not longer the people of dishonor, of shame, of war within itself, of faintheartedness and little faith: no, Lord, the German people has become strong again in spirit, strong in will, strong in endurance, strong to bear all sacrifices.”'
“'Lord, we will not let Thee go: bless now our fight for our freedom; the fight we wage for our German people and Fatherland.”
-Adolph Hitler, giving prayer in a speech on May Day 1933
So there are the biblical platitudes uttered by Mr. Hitler with his propaganda minister Karl ...Ooops , Goebbels assistance, to enamour and hypnotize his audiences so that they would submit to his ambitious enterprise “The New World Order” which I cal “The New Weird Odor”
Perhaps the reason the nearly inevitable future consequences aren't given much consideration can be seen from Bush's response as to how 'history' would see his Iraq endeavors: (paraphrasing) 'we'll all be dead' [so who cares, in other words].
Same thing that Reagan's horrible Sec. of the Interior James Watt said, more or less, that husbandry of the nation's resources wasn't so necessary given that God was going to end this world as we know it quite soon, within the generation.
Now, Israel's re-formation in the Middle East is taken as one of the presumptive signs of the imminence of the end of days, from which many have calculated various Biblically-derived timelines, all of which put the end times slightly overdue by now, and surely just around the corner. (Which doesn't leave much to worry about normal society and our structures down a 20-year timeline or longer).
However, as Jews note each time they set a Seder dinner place for Passover (Pasoch) for the missing-in-action, never died since he was taken to heaven in bodily form, Elijah, for God to return the Holy Land to the Jews requires a) the return of Elijah to signal, and then b) the actual appearance of the Messiah. BEFORE the Jews are regathered in Israel-- BY GOD-- the same GOD who Himself took AWAY the land He promised the Jews in perpetuity, because they had fallen away from Him.
Now, check with your observant Jewish friends, but I don't think they claim Elijah has returned, nor that the Messiah has returned. In fact, what got Israel reconstituted in its current form was indirectly, but as a proximate cause, the Anti-Christ figure of Mr. Hitler hisself.
As this was the obvious and undeniable causation of the creation of Israel, it used to be the case that orthodox Jewry strongly condemned Israel as an abomination and against God's will, formed as it was by acts of terrorism and war by (mostly) atheist Zionist Jews. That is, mainly by Godless men, forcing it to happen by force of will, and evidently, against, or at least well before, God's own timeline.
Orthodox Jewry has mainly been coopted away from their prior universal condemnation of Israel by Israel's very generous financial arrangements, whereby students at yeshiva are paid annual stipends, and they are exempt from the otherwise univeral service required in the military from all Israelis, including women. Still, some among the orthodox continue to insist that their understanding of the Torah, and how it was always understood by the Jews for millenia until some 50 years ago, remains correct.
Those who have studied Satanist practices know that they like to imitate God's ordinances and practices, but in a reverse or twisted manner. For example, the cross is used as a symbol, but upside down. The Catholic Mass is said, but recited backwards.
So, my suggestion is that Israel herself, as currently founded and constituted, is another such counterfeit imitation, and one that has convinced the very elect themselves, which perforce must lead to the very bad ends that such a thing might be expected to lead.
The world is being set on fire by design by fascists trying to maintain their dominance by intimidating other countries and pushing people into reliance on more authoritarian governments to protect them.
See also:
Strategy of Tension
Anon 7:08 here.
Response to Beeta: It's not so much about you and your ilk defending the Dems that bothers me. It's your blind liberal orthodoxy to just point out the horrible acts of the Republican party without spending hardly anytime calling out "liberals" like Clinton and Boxer who do just as good of a job selling out their constituents and this country in general. What's worse is Cannon makes a gross generalization about Christians which amounts to nothing more than hate speech.
Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton are both arch-Zionists who will continue to sell out this country to support Israel's agenda, just like Bush is doing now. Just to support my point about the fake left-right paradigm, Hillary has been pretty cozy with Rupert Murdoch as of late...
Response to unirealist:
You are correct that I won't be debated because it's not debatable. It's good to see that someone here has their head screwed on straight. The fact is you won't see any Republican or Democrat line up to stop the Fed or shut down Israel and its ultra powerful lobby AIPAC. Total complicity. It's like a dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about.
Anon,
First, I was the one that started this comment thread by asking Joseph why he is blaming the Christians for the state of affiars in the US and later pointed out that, I believe they are being used or hijacked for other's purposes.
Second, there is no love lost on my part for the Democratic Party and specially Joe and Hillary and I am well aware of the fact that most office holders are beholden to the corporations that are marginalizing the American public and are trying to mis-inform them, drawn them in debt and reduce them to slaves.
Third, it is totally logical that if the discussion starts from the point of view of whether Christains are the vehicle or the driver of the current takeover of the Neocons, that the discussion will revolve around "NeoCons" and not so called "Liberals" or "Democrats".
Fourth, if you wish to start a discusssion about the virtues or rather the lack of virtues of the Democrats, I'll bet you will get a range of opinions, some further left than even you entertain.
Anon,
What I menat by "left' in the last paragraph was radical.
Beeta,
I agree with everything you said. Perhaps I made a mistake by including you as a lemming liberal and I apologize. With regards to your 2nd point though, why can't most Americans figure that out? That's why I submit that the paradigm battle waged on these pages is pointless and will yield no solutions.
I don't debate that Christian evangelicals played a large part in the rise and success (rather non-success) of neocons. I do protest the use of gross generalizations. Saying all Palestinians are evil, or Jews, or Christians is the point of view of a bigot and is intolerable in my opinion. I'm a Christian but I do not support this madness and I don't want to be accused of destroying the U.S. If anything we are all culpable for destroying the U.S. by enabling teh destroyers if you really want to get down to it.
Anon,
First, no apology is neccessary.
Second, I respectfully disagree with you on the futility of discussing this subject or any other. I remind you that the root of violence is hatred and the root of hatred is ignorance. If none has been achieved as a result of this very long comment thread, is the fact that you came to see that as much as I abhore the NeoCon agenda, I am not ready to offer my neck to the Left (whatever label you may choose to describe them) without understanding the issues. And I came to see you as a reasonable, logical and very frustrated person. I call it a victory in combating ignorance and hatred. This (how we are communicating) is the best thing since sliced bread. It is the only way isolated, frustrated, freedom loving, essentially intelligent logical people can come together and hopefully merge as a force to be reckoned with. How else can we ever hope to push our (we the people) agenda?
-Rabid Lamb
I've read all these post so far even the bizarre 'Hitler as AC' one. Just let me say that I HATE Christians. If I lived in Israel I would probably hate Jews, or Saudi Arabia I would probably hate Muslims, but I live in America and I frikin' hate Christians.
I stopped believing in god when I stopped believing in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Wolf Man. Seems natural to give up all your imaginary friends at the same time, right? Yet most of my classmates didn't give up God with Santa Clause. I was physically threatened to the point of having to carry a weapon. Some Christians wanted to tell the police, as if being an Atheist is a crime, or tell my parents, or the principal. Luckily I was in high school during the 80's when the separation of church and state was (still) mostly intact, and the weapon was all that I needed for safety.
Everything I've ever seen since then has only reinforced my opinion that all religious people are functionally retarded. They are inherently dangerous, and the bearers of a communicable mental disease. When they stay to themselves they are relatively benign but sooner or later they always seek to codify their morals and values into the laws of the nation.
Now here comes the lame apology from the so called "good/nice Christian", the "we're not all like that" BS, but in their hearts, every single Christian secretly wants to make the rest of us conform to their moral values but is too cowardly to come to your house with a gun and make it happen. So they vote for whichever politician promises to change the laws of the land so the police can come to your house (with guns) and take away your alcohol, pornography, choice of abortion, choice of religion (or none at all), and every other innocuous thing that they deem 'immoral'.
I don't believe for one second that the Neo-Cons care one wit about Christianity (or any other religious doctrine) but these 'man-children', these functionally retarded mental cretins can always be counted on to vote against their own self interest again and again just like a retard will hit his head against a wall again and again.
If I had my way anyone who even dares to codify their religious beliefs into law, or influence the political process would be dragged into the street and shot in the head as a service to public health. The fact that so many Christians feel that their morals should be enforced with guns or by government proxy (also with guns), leads me to believe that this country is headed for civil war.
And frankly, I eagerly hope for it so we can settle this once and for all.
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