I don’t know how many of you have read SR Shearer’s old articles, of which there are literally hundreds… but one of his earliest and best pieces is a 1998 article, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE: The Corporate / Pentagon / CIA / Missionary Archipelago. In the article Shearer relates how the American Elite ruthlessly control the people and resources of the Third World so that they can rake in mountains of money at their expense. An example he goes over in great detail is that of United Fruit’s collaberation with the CIA and missionary groups to overthrow the democraticaly elected president of Guatemala in 1952. It is an incredible story that serves to highlight just how greedy and corrupt corporate America is… and it also exposes just how corrupt American Christianity is through its alliances with all the players involved in toppling numerous states, and bringing death and misery to millions in the Third World.
Well… as the title to this blogs declares by borrowing a quote from Yogi Berra… It was like déjà vu all over again when I checked out the Information Clearinghouse website the other day and ran across an article by John Perkins [Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?] in which he revealed the following information:
I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.
Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.
Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.
Like the old song says, the more things change, the more they stay the same… and by that I mean that it is very interesting to see that the new incarnation of United Fruit is still using the same business model as they did in the 1950’s. What is also interesting to me is that all the right wing Christians that hate Obama so much for being a “liberal socialist” or in many cases things even worse:
Well… these same boneheads don’t seem to realize that even with him at the helm the US is still in the business of overthrowing democratically elected governments if it is good business for the US corporate elite… And I say this because I can guarantee you that the Honduran government was not overthrown by a right wing military coup with the support of the CIA, State Department and Pentagon… as well as the Oval Office.
Without going to far into what the Church thinks about Obama… what I really wanted to note with this quick hitter… is that the very things SR Shearer highligted over ten years ago concerning how the American New World Order System operates, are still very much true… and sadly… the Church is just as in bed with all parties as they were back in the days of Jacobo Arbenz.
This question was asked by the late Archbishop Oscar Romero… defender of the poor and oppressed… enemy of the American New World Order System. In full… and as noted in a recent Consortiumnews.com article by Ray McGovern… Romero said:
“A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what kind of gospel is that?”
And that my friends, is about as straight up as one can be. The big question though… is does the church pass the mark in this accord? Well, according to McGovern, the answer is a resounding no. Noting something that those of us at Antipas Ministries have been harping about for years, McGovern points out the findings of a recent Pew Research Center survey, which reveal that 54% of white non-Hispanic Catholics, white Evangelicals, and white mainline Protestants who attend church regularly said torture could be “justified,” while a majority of those not attending church regularly responded that torture was rarely or never justified.
Sounds like the Church is pretty much on the oposite side of not just the principles by which Romero lived his life… but the principles of Jesus Christ himself… who continuously admonished his followers to turn the other cheek, forgive those that would do them harm, and to NOT live in fear of those that can harm or kill the body only. Cause isn’t that what is driving the Church’s rationale to excuse torture? Isn’t it fear? I think yes… fear, a love for this world, and a deep seated contempt for their enemies are the driving forces.
It is against this backdrop that I want to touch upon SR Shearer’s recent bombshell of an article, As in the Days of Noah, which details the deeply wicked spiritual forces that have pushed America’s descent into depravity, vice, and even abuse of children on a shocking scale. In particular, the documented accounts of crimes against children is so ghastly that at first we may find ourselves willing to dismiss them… yet Shearer is not the only person to have reported such terrible information. In addition to the sources he provides, and in particular the eye opening Discovery Channel documentary, Conspiracy of Silence.
There is also other evidence to found on the web. In particular and quite alarming in the sense that it pulls the American Church firmly into the fray… there is a bombshell of an article written a few years ago by Wayne Madsen. The article is titled, EXPOSÉ: THE “CHRISTIAN” MAFIA - Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us… and among many points it also makes the same allegations of sexual abuse against children that Shearer and others have touched upon. It is a very long read, but one that I beg you take the time for.
Shearer’s article, the Madsen piece, and McGovern’s recent article highlight some fairly basic truthes we need to understand. The American Church is wholey and completely corrupt. If they are not in favor of torture they refuse to speak out against its practice in God’s name. It has fallen prey to the flood of pornography and deviant behaviour sweeping America, just a badly as the rest of American Society. It is also aligned with an all-powerful and exceedingly corrupt elite power structure that is willing to tap into powers and principalities tha hate Jesus Christ and His true Church.
Knowing these things there is little wonder that the US is heading toward the brink… it is no surprise to see the the next level of degeneration take place before our eyes. As Shearer alluded to un his last article… and as Antipas Ministries has been saying for several years… the only real solution is to separate ourselves and our testimony from the twin entity of harlot and beast that the American Church and State have become.
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.