It seems like the past 5 or 6 weeks they’ve been telling us that the economy is going to bounce back. Well… we may not all be standing in bread lines just yet, but there is no doubt that the news this week indicates that the economy is a long way from being recovered. As is usually the case, many are still saying that everything is going to go in the tank rather quickly, while others are predicting a “slow burn” so to speak. As for me, I think that it is still a situation that the elite have enough of a handle on that they are still trying to squeeze every last ounce of blood out of the turnip, before they toss it on the scrap heap [note the to opaque... we are that turnip].
Anyway… there is still a lot of other stuff going on that is worth taking a look at. Israel appears to be hell bent on taking care of the Iranian nuclear situation, regardless of what President Obama and the rest of the world think about it. And along those lines… this issue might bet the only one in which Obama breaks from his DNC/Clintonian/New American Century proclivities. This doesn’t make him a true “liberal” or progressive though. It only makes him a proponent of Realpolitik… out of the mold of Kissinger, Brzezinski, James Baker; in other words all those on the mainstream left and right who care more about maintaining the status quo for the elite than any sort of populist ideology.
The thing is though… if history has taught us anything, it is that pragmatists and moderates do not fare well in times of crisis and peril. Men and women… for better or worse; tend to seek out those who are decisive:
Sorry… couldn’t help that one, but seriously… whether or not people (even secular people) want to admit it, they are looking for “Messianic Leadership”… someone with the answers and not afraid to take bold action to stand for what is right and true. The bad thing is though… in this present world we more often than not get “deciders,” tin-pot dictators and demagogues when we go that route… and in the days to come we’ll get much, much worse.
The other day I was replying to someone that had asked whether Antipas Ministries supported the Left in their efforts to essentially destroy the “Christian America” that once was. Back in the old days we used to get those sorts of questions quite a bit, but it has actually been a while so I thought that I would expound a bit on the subject.
So many Christians, even those professing to be in agreement with us, really have a misguided sense about what we as believers are called to do in this world. Somehow they have come to the notion that theirs is a calling to defend Christian culture and civilization as it presents itself in this world. They believe that the US was and still could somehow potentially be a, God fearing Christian nation, executing His will as some sort of “new Israel.” Where they end up going with this is to inevitably conclude that the liberals, socialists, fags, radical minorities, and feminists are going to destroy America to the point that God will remove His hand from it.
What they are really saying… though they do not put it together as such… is that if it weren’t for these liberal heathen sinners, America could actually be a GOOD, Christian nation, capable of fulfilling God’s will.
This, my friends is very revealing. What does it reveal… you may be asking? It reveals that most American Christians have no idea what the Bible actually says about our calling as Christians in this present world. It reveals that they have no idea that God finds the WHOLE WORLD lacking and as such fit only for judgment (not just the liberals, but the whole world).
It also reveals that most American Christians would rather spend all their time trying to violently remove(check out the poll at the bottom of the linked article) the mote from someone else’s eye, while foolishly ignoring the giant beam in their own [Matthew 7:3]. These ridiculous people somehow think that if it weren’t for the evil sinners on the Left that are trying to ruin America; they could somehow get it right. I suppose they have completely forgotten that all have sinned and fallen short of Gods glory, that the WHOLE world (America included) is fit only for judgment, and that the sins of the APOSTATE CHURCH (those who profess to be Christians while spreading death and misery all around) are to play a much larger role in bringing about the destruction of America than anything the Nancy Pelosi’s and Barney Frank’s of the world could ever do. [Romans 3:23, Acts 17:31, Revelation 18:3]
This is not just a case of making a theological gaffe… instead; it is a manifestation of something truly rotten at the core of American Christianity. It is a self centered, sense of entitlement and false piety that enables them to cast stones at others; while never seeing their own offenses. It is a marriage of self-righteousness and greed that enables them (in circular fashion) to justify their goodness by their wealth and justify their wealth by their goodness. God help us all when these people regain power… and I say this not out of a love for the Left… but a biblically base understanding of just how much damage American Christianity can and will do.
And besides, if we haven’t learned anything else; what we ought to already know is that in this world both the Left and Right are merely two sides of the same coin.
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. [John 9:41]
Yeah I realize its been a while, but lets get over that. There is a lot of stuff to talk about that is much more pressing than my excuses for not getting a blog up lately. To start with… out of nowhere we have a huge swine flu outbreak that began in Mexico. It has killed 68 people and over 1000 are sick. It has also been reported in California and Texas and even in New York. It also seems that the virus is transmittable person to person… which gives it a real potential to become a world-wide pandemic. SR Shearer just released a new article that deals with the specter of disease and pestilence during the end of days… and while he was talking about something much more sinister due to its “man made” implications… what is going on with this swine flu is a very serious situation.
Pretty serious business no matter how you look at it… What I also want to share this evening is some info about Dubai and its connection to corporate America. I ran across a fascinating article that details the glitz, growth, and grotesque nature of Dubai… a city literally built on the backs of slave labor. Since then I have done quite a bit of research and what is also just as terrible is how enmeshed the Elite are in Dubai and also how involved corporate America is. From banking, finance, construction, retail and fast food; all the major US corporations are there… and to me it is really ironic (but not surprising) that the US, which is the supposed land of the free would be so involved in one of the most corrupt places on earth. Also ironic (and also not surprising) is why more Christians aren’t raising bloody hell about corporate America’s involvement in a place in which slave labor is openly used. American Christians, it seems, are always willing to turn a blind eye toward what their corporations are up to as long as they can get their back scratched a little.
I guess its funny in a sad sort of way that they’ll rail on corporate America for taking the Christ out of Christmas or the secular and vulgar nature of the entertainment industry, but they won’t speak out about the degradation, oppression, and outright enslavement of humanity that corporate America perpetrates upon the world (or in the case of Dubai rides the backs of those engaged in such acts). They won’t speak out because they have been co opted and bought off by corporate America. And as SR Shearer wrote in his old article, APOSTASY: Christianity In The Service Of A “Religio-Political-Corporate-Terrorist” State:
When Christianity operates in this capacity; when it serves the interests of the elites of this world, when it becomes the servant of the state; when it becomes an instrument of the rich to oppress the poor - IT HAS BECOME APOSTATE. That is what apostasy is all about! - AT LEAST IN THE FIRST INSTANCE!!
That’s where it begins! The false doctrine that inevitably follows this condition of things - i.e., apostasy - is made necessary to mold the church to its new reality as a servant to the rich rather than to the poor; as a servant to the elites rather than to the downtrodden; as a servant to the state rather than to the kingdom of heaven.
So that’s what we’re dealing with… not just swine flu and the evils of corporate America… but an Apostate Church that will make every wrong decision as the world continues to plunge into crisis. In closing… check out an interesting presentation from Thomas Frank on how the Elite have ensnared the Church and middle America to serve as their foot soldiers (profanity alert):
I realize this is not breaking news or anything, but the situation with the world economy is one that folks really need to begin connecting the dots on. What I mean is that there is a cause and effect at play here and the world economy going in the tank is the “cause” that is going to bring about a particular sort of effect.
As Antipas Ministries has been writing about for years… financial crisis is ultimately what is at the root of civilizations trending toward fascism. It happened in Germany after World War I, where the failed economy of the post war Weimar Republic played just a huge part in providing the ammunition the Nazis needed to take power. In a very good article on Information Clearing House, Chris Hedges writes about this. He also provides a link to very good supplemental information on how the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic brought the Nazis to power.
What I found most fascinating in the article by Hedges is his brief description of how economic collapse provides the fuel that enables fascist demagogues to take power. Hedges says:
“We will become Weimar Germany. A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans. A cabal of proto-fascist misfits, from Christian demagogues to simpletons like Sarah Palin to loudmouth talk show hosts, who we naively dismiss as buffoons, will find a following with promises of revenge and moral renewal. The elites, the ones with their Harvard Business School degrees and expensive vocabularies, will retreat into their sheltered enclaves of privilege and comfort. We will be left bereft and abandoned outside the gates.”
Hedges is not speaking in a vacuum either. James Petras recently wrote about another aspect of this in pointing out that we may be witnessing the collapse of free market capitalism and the US. I am not so much going down the same path as Petras as I am using him as a jumping off point… so to speak.
What I think we are looking at is a situation like the one Hedges wrote about… in which the populace is going to look for their “21st Century William Jennings Bryant” to rally the Christian right and the knee-jerk patriotic crowd. The Elite though will try and find a way to co-opt this movement… since a failure to do so means they will be swept away like the corrupt nobility of Versailles.
The only way I think they can do it is to reinvent the system in a way in which some of the corporate giants are underwritten and spared while others are left to their fate. It will become a hybrid system in which the executive branch of the federal government will ultimately have control of Wall Street and the Military/Industrial Complex. And by control I do not mean implied control… but actual control. The guy that Americans end up rallying around to right the ship will not only be the most powerful man in the history of the world… but one of prophetic impact as well.
In the interim we get to watch the same old game of manipulating the masses… like this blast from the past:
Lots of good stuff out there on the economy. Michael Hudson has a blurb on how the banks are scamming truckloads of taxpayer money while artificially pumping up the market in the process. As usual Hudson is very astute in noting that nobody on the mainstream Left or Right has any intention except to enrich the Elites. If you’ve been reading S.R Shearer’s writings for any length of time, then this of course does not surprise you; but for a lot of people… especially those who truly thought the Oboma adminstration was going to take on the Elite… realizing that he too serves the same masters is a bitter pill to swallow.
Meanwhile, Mexico appears on the verge of collapse and things are so bad that some Mexican television stations are reporting the possibility of a US invasion. Don’t believe me? Well check it out for yourself.
Whats really sad in all this is that most of Mexico’s problems are the fault of the US… and as things continue it will become nothing more than some sort of neo-colonial sweatshop for the US Elites. And if you are Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales, I wonder how it makes you feel to think about the US putting its weapons of war that much closer to their states.
Meanwhile some folks are saying that we need to be worried about the use of the US military within the US. And one of those people is none other than Michel Chossudovsky. He thinks the economic situation is so bad that soon there will be civil unrest in the country, which will bring about the internment of parts of the population. There is movement starting up that is driven bythe deterioration of the economy and frankly… if things get as bad as they appear to be… then this is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Hold on folks the ride might get bumpy. As Robert Freemaqn so aptly put it… The US is facing a Weimar Moment, where the decisions made in the near term are going to determine whether it can prevent itself from becoming engulfed in the sort of pathology, which led to Germany’s post WW1 transition from bankrupt democracy to fascism.
Yes I realize it has been a week since the last blog submission. Yes I realize a lot has happened between now and then. So rather than apologize for being so recalcitrant… how about if I just jump right into the whole blogging thing.
To start with… I recently saw that esteemed journalist (oxymoron alert!) Seymour Hersh is writing a book that will include evidence that Dick Cheney actually ran assassination squads while he was Vice President.
Of course I am sure all of the right wingers will just say that the liberals are trying to attack the former administration to take everyone’s eye off of how bad things are going in the hear and now. Yet, I think there is a poignant fact to consider if these accusations prove to be true. That fact is that the Christian Church in America overwhelmingly supported the Bush presidency right up until the wheels totally came off at the very end.
Included in that package was the vice presidency of Darth Cheney… a man who in no way represents himself to be an agent of anything Christ-like. What is poignant about this is the fact that Christians don’t really care about the teachings of Christ, insofar as their political proclivities are concerned… instead they more often than not subscribe to the “might makes right” school of thought insofar as choosing their leaders is concerned.
In that sense it is perfectly natural for them to support a monster like Cheney.
And rather than throw a mea culpa out there for blindly supporting the sins of GW and friends… the Church would rather cry about the left’s fixation on still attacking Bush and company. What this means my friends… is that THEY HAVEN’T LEARNED A DAMN THING! Really… they have not learned a single thing from all the putridity that has occurred over the past 9 years.
Instead they are still blind slaves to their elite masters and will continue shilling the name of Jesus to the highest bidder; while slavishly oiling up the gears of the war machine. Little wonder that they will fall for the one who comes in his own name and plunge this world into agony and chaos. Heaven help us all!
Yes I know… I have been away from the keyboard for a while. The man has been keeping me down ya’ know? And in this economic environment… It is not so advisable to kick against the pricks. Besides S.R. Shearer has been very prolific of late (with a brand new article out yesterday)… so there has been a lot for everyone to read.
Anyway, I wanted to get some info up on the blog, what with everything going on in the world… like the market wallowing in the six thousands, the rhetoric against Iran heating up, and Rush Limbaugh challenging the President to a steel cage match.
Seriously though. As S.R. Shearer has written, this economic crisis is going to get a lot worse before it gets better (if it ever really does). And as he pointed out in his article of February 26th… peace is not on the way, insofar as the long term outlook is concerned… because the coming prince is not a “prince of peace” just as assuredly as he is not THE “Prince of Peace,” though that is surely how he will present himself.
And lastly… insofar as this quick hitter of a blog entry is concerned… I implore everyone out there to not get caught up in all the political fireworks that surround the Liberal versus Conservative battle in the US. Whether you are a fan of Obama, Limbaugh, McGovern or Goldwater… remember that the New Testament commands us to pray for the King, regardless of his or your political stripes. Besides… if you are planning to be a part of the kingdom to come… there are much bigger fish to fry anyway.
“Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling. It’s the unraveling and it undoes all the joy that could be.” - Joni Mitchell
Man, I hate to sound like a broken record; but it is incredible to watch how deeply our economy is unraveling. And when I say our economy I don’t mean just the US economy… I mean the global economy. Guys like Michel Chossudovsky are convinced we are headed for bad times. In fact check out his recent presentation on “The Global Financial Crisis: The Great Depression of the 21st Century.”
And also pay attention to what is going on in Eastern Europe… where several economies are on the brink of collapse and as Mike Whitney recently noted:
“If one country is allowed to default, the dominoes could begin to tumble through the whole region.”
What Whitney is talking about is the fact that Western European Banks are up to their eyes in bad debt in Eastern Europe and are seeking the same sort of rescue that their American cousins want. The only thing is though… there may not be enough assistance available to save everyone and even worse is that their rescue plan won’t really do anything to keep the economies of these countries from collapsing.
I realize everyone is getting tired of all this doom and gloom, but is quite simply the most important thing going on right now. In a world in which the pursuit of mammon, i.e. “filthy lucre” is the engine of existence we do well to pay attention when the train starts jumping the tracks. To keep hammering on this point we ought to pay attention to those that point out that this is not just a problem on Wall Street, in the banking sector, or the real estate market. This is a problem, which extends throughout the width and breadth of the world’s economic system. And what many have been saying for a while is that the problem originates from the fact that the dollar and all the world currencies that are aligned around it are fiat currencies with no real attachment to anything of intrinsic value.
What does this mean you might be asking? I mean after all… there is so much “fuzzy math” in the world of finance that it can make one’s head spin:
But seriously, what does it all mean? Well for one thing it means that the dollar amount of all “real assets” that are held are far exceeded by the amount of debt that has been attached to each asset. Some estimates are that this ratio is something like 400 to 1 and believe it or not… that is considered a conservative estimate?
So who is responsible for all of this? Is it the poor taking on mortgages and credit cards they can’t afford? Is it those sorry third world countries borrowing for ill advised programs?
No, that is not the case at all. In fact, according to Darryl Schoon, the culprits here are bankers. Schoon writes that they “control capitalism” by their ability to issue credit… and have brought about the ruin of capitalism through their… insatiable greed. The Schoon article is a real doozy… in that it provides a fairly in depth portrayal of how the present economic meltdown has its roots in the United States’ abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 and how this abandonment is at the heart of why asset to debt ratios are so skewered.
There is also a new Michael Hudson article available, which touches upon all the points I have hit upon today. In the article Hudson talks about how Obama’s recovery plan is not going to fix our problems and just how far down the road of despair the world economy may be heading. So try and take the time to check this one out as well.
Ultimately though, what we need to take from all of this is that we are headed toward a situation in which it appears very possible that the present world economic system will collapse or at least require a radical restructuring to stave off anarchy. If this is the case… what exactly does that mean? Are we going to see fascism arise in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and/or North America? In what capacity will the US hold onto its mantle as sole super power? And will a world wide depression of epic scale lead to another world war (as was the case of the Great Depression and WW2)? I mean hey… it wouldn’t be the first time a series of events like this took place.
Biblical prophecy indicates that the end of days will be a time of world war and economic disaster, which will bring about the ascension of the “King of Babylon” and the full annexation of all economic resources into a single economic system, which enriches the elite that have aligned themselves to this coming king. I don’t think we are there yet… but there is little doubt we can see how easily it would be for the world to head down that road… especially in light of history.
More and more the warning cries can be heard above the din. The economic situation is not going to get better any time soon, regardless of what ever sort of stimulus package is passed. In fact most of the “authorities” are now saying that the world is headed for a full blown depression. Gerald Celente, who has a fairly substantial reputation as an economic forecaster, says that 2009 will see the worst economic collapse ever, including the Greatest Depression. He actually thinks things are going to get very violent in the U.S., including there being a tax revolt. Don’t believe me? Well, take a look for yourself:
Speaking of revolts… have you seen some of the stuff that regular people are starting to do to protest against the economic injustices that have been perpetrated on them by the rich? Check out this video about one such instance, where people having their homes foreclosed are setting up shop with their belongings and protesting in front of the homes of the CEOs that have benefited from the bailout:
What is all this leading up to though? Are we looking at another great depression? Will there be tax revolts? Will the basic fabric of our lives and our economic system deteriorate into something beyond repair? Or will we push right up to the edge of the abyss without fully plunging in? Well, the Bible appears to indicate that we are headed toward times that are to be utterly terrible for the average person, but still times of great profit and power for the economic elite. It is to be a time marked by the words of the black horseman of the Apocalypse, who ominously says:
“A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.” Revelation 6: 6
And concerning the meaning of this passage, Steve Shearer has pointed out time after time that:
The meaning of the first part of the lyric: ["A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny ..."] is this: that the condition of most men during this era will be reduced to such a state that they will be forced to labor a whole day simply to buy a loaf of bread or three measures of barley - barely enough to survive.
But the second part of the saying ["... and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine ..."] means that these conditions will not extend to everyone; that there is a certain portion of mankind which will prove exempt - a kind of “global elite of worthies” who have selfishly secured for themselves most of the world’s wealth and who, as a result, now live sumptuously and extravagantly while the rest of mankind has been reduced to a condition of abject, grinding poverty (only the rich in the ancient world could afford oil and wine). That these conditions will result not necessarily because of natural phenomena, but because of greed and avarice is clear from the text: conquest, war, famine and pestilence have always been more the consummation of man’s brutality and his misuse of the earth’s abundance than it ever has been the consequence of natural phenomena.
So I guess we can pretty much surmise that the bible is predicting that we little guys will get further trampled upon while the rich will as always get richer. How is that going to happen when it appears even the rich are at risk from all the garbage and instability in the markets, finance, credit, and real estate worlds? Why create another bubble of course! At least that’s what our old friend Michael Hudson is saying. In another ground breaking economic treatise Hudson says that even though the media has tried to paint the economic crisis as being brought on by the poor unworthy louts that defaulted on their subprime housing loans… the truth is that he:
“learned the reality a few years ago in London, talking to a commercial bank strategist there. ‘We’ve had an intellectual breakthrough,’ he said. ‘It’s changed our credit philosophy.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, imagining that he was about to come out with yet a new junk mathematics formula?
‘The poor are honest,’ he said, accompanying his words with his jaw dropping open as if to say, ‘Who could have guessed?’
The meaning was clear enough. The poor pay their debts as a matter of honor, even at great personal expense. Unlike Donald Trump, the poor are less likely to walk away from their homes when market prices sink below the mortgage level. In today’s neoliberal Chicago School language, the poor behave ‘uneconomically.’ That is, they make choices that do not make economic sense, but rather reflect a group morality. This sociological gullibility is what made them rich pickings for predatory lenders such as Countrywide, Wachovia and Citibank.”
What Hudson also does in the article is talk about the devious way in which this new bubble will be created. In a nut shell, what they are going to do is bail out the elites, i.e. the “richest 10% of the population” that control the financial sector (Wall Street, the banks, major mortgage lenders) so that their wealth can be preserved. Next they’ll let the real estate market continue to depreciate to half its peak value. Once there they’ll use further bailout money to have the government partner with the financial sector to renegotiate the mortgages of millions of Americans that will by then be terribly upside down in their loans. The caveat on the renegotiation though… is that any rise in value on the real estate belongs to the lenders since they so magnanimously renegotiated the original mortgage. You really have to read the Hudson article to get the picture fully, but the bottom line is that they are figuring out a way to get the taxpayers to underwrite their losses and to also get homeowners to sign away the rights to future equity in their homes in order to stay in them now. And that my friend… is how the black horseman rides!
Wow… I guess the honeymoon between the Democrats and the Republicans is over. If there ever was one that is. Shortly after Gen. Petraeus jabs at President Obama over the issue of pulling the troops out of Iraq (referenced in the last blog), now we have old Mister Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life, err I mean Dick Cheney…check out theuncanny resemblance below:
Anyway though… Cheney all but called Obama and the Democrats milk toast imbeciles if they do anything other than follow the Bush/Cheney New World Order blueprint for making friends and influencing people. Don’t take my word for it, check out the clip below.
And on the other side you’ve got former CIA man Ray McGovern talking up what Leon Panetta and his boss need to do to pull the US out of the mess the former administration has put them in. Here is a link to an interesting video on the subject:
What’s funny though is that none of this rancor, regardless of how important the subject matter, is going to matter if the economy keeps sliding down the slippery slope. Some are seeing breadlines in our future:
Did you catch that? He is saying the Dow will plummet to the 5000 range… as well as the whole breadline thing… and the far left also foresees a bad moon a’rising. And as is usually the case… the majority of Christians slumber along, oblivious to the levity of the situation. Now is the time for people to get off the dance floor and take a look at what is going on around them. And it is also time for those who love the Truth and want to be a part of spreading it to begin taking very prudent steps in that direction.
With that said I will cut this monologue (or diatribe) short… sorry to somewhat leave everyone hanging… but there is surely more to come and in the interim I’ll give you a really old blast from the past that probably provides an ominous preview of the things that are to come:
