Who Was Whittaker Chambers

   
          If you have visited this site for any length of time you know that the subject of Communism comes up often. I imagine that at first many just rolled their eyes but they may be paying more attention today for more and more news stories and related articles on Communism are appearing.           Communism forces itself upon its victims. Its proven strategies have lost nothing over the years. It seeks to divide a people with grand and glorious claims of prosperity, fairness and equality, none of which it cares anything about or has any intention of following up on once in power. It is important to know that Communism never reasons with anyone and any compromises it made in the past were last ditch efforts in a losing cause. It is always hungry and will never settle for what it has devoured. It is built upon lies, breathes lying and exhales lying. It takes advantage of a nation's malcontents turning them into rabble-rousers. It preys upon celebrities who need a cause to somehow validate the adulation they receive. It preys upon the young who need a cause to get the adulation they think they deserve. It preys upon Higher Education that tenures the squeaky wheel. It preys upon religion in the form of Liberation Theology. It has no redeeming qualities.
        The following post is on a classic read that will take you right into a Communist cell group and even into the White House previous to the McCarthy era. Most of the major divisions in America today are Communism at work and you can only deny this if you refuse to investigate it yourself. The following post is from earlier this year:

         
          This from Whittaker Chamber's Witness.... "When, in 1936, General Emilio Mola announced that he would capture Madrid because he had four columns outside the city and a fifth column of sympathizers within, the world pounced on the phrase with the eagerness of a man who has been groping for an important word.......what Mola had done was to indicate the dimension of treason in our time......other ages have had their individual traitors-men who from faint-heartedness or hope of gain sold out their causes. But in the 20th century, for the first time, men banded together by millions, in movements like Fascism and Communism, dedicated to the purpose of betraying the institutions they lived under, In the 20th century, treason became a vocation whose modern form was specifically the treason of ideas."
          With the 'treason of ideas' men...and women...turn against their own country because they don't agree with it anymore, or they think there might be a better way, and they might not even realize what they are doing. That's where we have been for quite some time and still are here in America. There is treason by willful misconduct and there is treason by willful disregard. We are subject to the first and have subjected ourselves to the second as the Lenin/Obama hit musical continues its run on America's great Broad Way.

Who Was Whittaker Chambers

          In September of 1963 my mother and I had moved to Pittsburgh and I started the eighth grade in a new Catholic school taught primarily by nuns. It was a wonderful year and I treasure those memories with the great exception of the afternoon of November 22, 1963 where the nuns cried and we students were shaken. Three nuns taught the different subjects for the eighth grade and each one had characteristics that we students occupied our free time with by making fun of. One Sister was very overweight, very strict but also very likable. She was also just a little bit airheaded at times and for some reason would address me, the new kid, as 'Whittaker' instead of my real name. I would remind her time and again and my classmates would chuckle. I quite naturally wound up with that nickname.....thankfully only for a while.
          Whittaker Chambers had died from a heart attack in July of 1961 at the age of 60. Does that name sound familiar to you? It would have been very familiar to my eighth grade teacher for Chambers had been in the news for well over a decade. He was an intellectual and an operative in the Communist Party underground movement in the United States since the 1920s until he broke with  Communism in 1938. This former communist who once furtively passed pictures, microfilm and documents to other operatives on the streets of Baltimore, New York City and our nation's capitol went on to be a writer-editor of Time Magazine and later a senior editor of William Buckley's newly founded National Review.
          Does the name Alger Hiss mean anything to you? These two names, Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss, should be as familiar to students today as Nathan Hale. Whoa, I take that back. We don't teach about Nathan Hale anymore in this enlightened and tolerant age, tolerant of anything that's not Christian and patriotic anyway, do we? Alger Hiss was not a patriot to America as Nathan Hale was even though he had the opportunity to be one as he had held a lofty position of influence in the FDR administration. Alger Hiss eventually was brought to trial and served time in prison. But we do know about Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy don't we? Yes....McCarthyism... he was that wicked Senator who accused so many loyal Americans of being Communists....or so we are constantly told.
           I was a liberal once, I even did phone work for Ted Kennedy's campaign for the Democrat nomination for president in 1979. I shook Jimmy Carter's hand...twice... and remember very well reading with great interest his book Why Not The Best. I know what it's like to think that you are being compassionate when in fact you are merely a dupe of an insidious ideology that fronts itself as compassionate but in reality is murder incorporated, for that is what Communism always was and always will be, no matter what name it assumes. I know what it's like to read just about every article in the Sunday New York Times and think that you are enhancing your knowledge and strengthening your mind. I know what it's like to listen to a college professor and admire his knowledge and wisdom when in fact he may have had much of the former but not a trace of the latter.
          I visit college campuses quite often... almost every chance that I get. I leave some cards with the URL of these posts on it, usually along with a pen. Actually now the pens have the address on them. I'll gather as many of the student newspapers that I can to read later. I know that I can get these issues online but I'm one of those who loves words written on paper. What I'm looking for is a sign that our youth are waking up and that somehow (which really could only come through the grace of God) wisdom and discernment had broken through the bondage of a Facebook culture or that they had actually used their minds and not simply regurgitated something from Jon Stewart or the mainstream news. But alas, too often but not always, they still think that bold journalism comes from challenging the rules that the college lays down. This if it is a Christian college, for the secular college administration has long since given them everything they want in return for the honor (and tuition) of matriculating to their bastions of higher something-or-other..
         Young people...you have been had. The courage isn't in voting to ban the American flag as news reports inform us just happened at the University of California, Irvine. The challenge is in demanding that the college leave their left wing politics out of the curriculum. The challenge isn't in telling administrators at a Christian college to lighten up, it's in standing before them and demanding...."More food sir,"  more of the history of America's beginning and of the Christian church in America and the world....and the doctrinal history of that church....more of the Reformation and more from the lives of great Christians from the past!   
         My hope, and I sheepishly admit this, is that my posts might generate some conversation. I hope this not only for the student bodies on college campuses but in Bible studies and families and even on that wretched Facebook! Let me leave you with this: America has crumbled beneath the weight of its own greed. The largess it once prided itself on turned into rank bribery. Benjamin Franklin wrote the following and his words have come true.... "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."
          A copy of Whittaker Chambers 1952 book Witness is before me, all 807 pages of it. The library called me yesterday and told me that it was overdue. I apologized and will pay the fine but I need just a little bit longer to finish reading it. It is not only history, it is great literature, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you. Read this book and make up your own mind on Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. Read it and you will see why President Reagan posthumously awarded Whittaker Chambers the Presidential Medal Of Freedom. If time constraints make it difficult for you to start on Witness, I also highly recommend two books by Grove City College professor Paul Kengor..Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century and Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. The first is reviewed in these posts on July 24th of this year and the second on September 15th.

River Of Passion

         I spent another day on a college campus today. It was homecoming and I actually did graduate study there so I wasn't totally out of place.  I may have looked out of place though with my cowboy boots, mirror blue sunglasses and black tee shirt with large bright neon green letters on the back reading Specialdogg.blogspot.com.  So I bring this post back for those who may have been curious about the web site:

         It was drizzling and a bit chilly as my wife and son and I walked Cambridge University back in the spring of 2001. I wanted to see where many of the Puritans were educated, and I wanted to see some of the places where the Academy Award winning Chariots Of Fire were filmed. The building that housed the White Horse Inn was long gone but a small blue plaque hung in the nearest spot possible to that location.

To our youth.....may they make more of it than we did. 

River Of Passion.......2012

          It was in the 1960s when Madison Avenue realized that the youth of America were a potentially potent economic force with their newly established buying power. Along with all the attention given to us, for I was a Baby Boomer also, came a microphone. Some used it to shout pro-Ho Chi Minh slogans from atop university statues, some used it to attack Richard Nixon, some used it to announce to the world the true meaning of love, peace and happiness, and a very few used it to ask "Brother, are you saved?". The youth never relinquished that microphone but didn't really use it again until the horror of the murderous and imperialist Bush Administration (to use their words and their contorted reasoning) savaged the Middle-East with war.
          When Barack Hussein Obama came along with no employment history to speak of, no legitimate letters of recommendation, no experience outside of community organizing and not even a birth certificate to prove eligibility for the job he was applying for, the youth came out in force to change America and the world.. Obama received 66 percent of the 18-29 vote in 2008. More recently, Rand Paul became a favorite of young people in the republican primaries.
          It was in a 16th century English pub, the White Horse Inn, that a youth movement did indeed help to change the world. Located on the grounds of Cambridge University... students, Dons and travellers discussed the works of Martin Luther and out of this discussion came a passion for the hearing of the Word of God which resulted in the English Reformation.
          America needs a vigorous and positive contribution from its youth at this very moment in our history. It must not be birthed by the spirit of the age but by God's Holy Spirit. Just getting a job cannot be the criteria to determine success. The college student of today is in a more precarious situation than any generation before them. Not the Civil War, nor World War II, nor the Cuban Missile Crisis compares to it. They are losing their republican form of government, the Constitution that kept the rule of law intact, and most importantly the blessings of having God's very hand upon our nation.
          The original discovery that youth were an economic force has evolved into a monster feeding frenzy with the youth feeding on every material and social networking product thrown at them while others feed on the youth themselves and enemies of America feed on the vacant minds seeking anything to occupy it.
          I realize that you, any young people who may be visiting this site, do not want to hear this. Possibly you are not represented by this description. You have made plans, worked hard and now it is your turn to enter the work force and carve out a niche with a prosperous future. Are you going to attempt this without God, or at least expect the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a nation that overtly rejects God? Realize this.... past generations had the benefit of living within of a God-fearing populace. Even the agnostic could graze in the fields of plenty. This is not the case today! Others have long since sprayed the insecticide of secular humanism over the amber waves of grain, killing the grain it was supposed to protect. You can join this survival of the fittest if you want, where prosperity is soulless and void of true happiness; or you can join those who are seeking mercy from God and a renewed reverence to the one who blessed your grandparents and their parents as far back as to arrival on this continent.
          Do you sometimes feel a void of passion in your life...a meaninglessness that cannot be satisfied by the picture that you paint on your Facebook page? Well, a river of passion flows right by you! Cup your hands and drink from it. Let mercy and peace pass over your palate. A President's election will give but one night of elation but the coronation of the King of Kings provided every morning and every evening with a ceaseless ardor that will make you forever thankful. If you happen to really see the trouble that we are in here in America... that very sight is from God, and He will also give the balm, supply the strength and provide the wisdom to see the joy of redemption even in the darkest hours of this world, and to plan ahead with the full trust that if it be His will it will happen and if it not be His will you would not want it to happen. Here is the only true hope and change...... "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Note: If you are not afraid of having to use your intellect, there is a place to go to have it exercised... and the rewards will be great. You can start at whitehorseinn.org

A Song Of Remembrance.....And A New Song

The following post is a month old: 

         With history as our witness, it is not an anomaly, nor is it inconsistent, nor is it even odd. When a nation or an empire is overrun, destroyed, or even just collapses, it often if not usually happens in what could be called a 'caberet' or 'gladiator games' culture. Its entertainments had consumed it. In such a society, vigilance can be non-existent. That nation's or empire's discernment, not only as to its enemy's intentions but even the existence of an enemy, can also be non-existent. We are such a nation and such an empire.
          Where did it begin and what precipitated our fall. It began roughly six-thousand years ago in a beautiful garden in what may now be the war torn and terror ravaged nation known as Iraq...or that garden could have been almost anywhere before the flood of Noah's day. We are fallen creatures capable of, over time, unlocking mysteries of the world around us. We can visit the moon. We've done it a few times and then we got bored with it. We can send a camera through arteries. We can replace a diseased heart with a mechanical pump....for a time anyway. We can carry almost all the information known to man...in our pocket. We can do everything accept make a spray starch aerosol can that won't plug up.....but the Artificial Intelligence that we are about to perfect will have their robots to do that.
         You and I have a front row seat to the fall of the most powerful nation that ever was.  Who needs Will Durant or Edward Gibbon or Charles Beard or Josephus?  We can watch it on the telly, that is until the telly loses power. Or we can see it on stage. We've already sat through two acts. In Act One we jumped up on the throne with God and in Act Two we told Him to get off.  We are though, going to want our price of admission back because we thought we were going to see a delightful comedy with a happy ending, but it is a tragedy.
         The violence has overwhelmed us. It is now but a long list of nightly news stories that may or may not be read.  Our intellects have atrophied. The mechanical functions well but we have no wisdom to speak of. Yet we are giddy. Our sports teams win and that's the only international relations that we care about. We are as children who when frightened the parent places a toy in their hands and the pop-up clown causes us to laugh, the rattle gets our attention and the spinning mobile above our heads puts us back to sleep. We retreat into our enclaves where there is only minimal violence but those enclaves are receding as the snow cover at winter's end.
         Oh, but we had the finest minds at the beginning! They could reason. Their sentences, written with quill and ink, displayed a magnificent logic. Their conversation, as we read in their letters, were beautiful prose, flowing, didactic and profound. Though shorter on average in stature they towered above us.  Amused by their clinging to something called honor, we place them under a microscope and label them worthless if any imperfection is found.
         God has given us weak leaders and cunning enemies. The Song Of Moses from the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy was to be a witness against Israel. They would rebel....God would remind them of it.  Moses wrote....."For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps."
         But all praise is to be given to Him who as the Psalmist in Psalm 40 sings...."He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."
     

Sermon In A Bottle

          It began a couple of decades ago when our son was just a boy. Our vacations were just about always at the beach. I would buy a few of those little corked bottles filled with sand and small sea shells or maybe a sharks tooth, and put a little piece of paper inside with a Christian message on it, push the cork firmly down, and together we would toss the bottles into the surf. Today our son is married and not always with us on vacation but I still toss those little corked bottles, only nowadays I put the URL of these posts on the paper.
          I have an enduring habit in that when I pass a church in my travels, I offer up a short prayer for the congregation and the pastor. We passed a lot of churches on our recent trip to South Carolina and hence I prayed for a lot of churches. Less than twelve hours from my typing this, men will begin ascending into pulpits all across America. They will either speak on their own, as has been our general custom ever since America's downgrade began, or God's Holy Spirit will endue them with the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that He might have mercy on us in the difficult days ahead. The Jews had a saying....'next year in Jerusalem.' If only ours was....'this Lord's Day... at the foot of the cross of Christ.'

Sermon In A Bottle.......March of 2014

          I received a letter in the mail today from a former pastor. Yes, I said the mail. I've written about him in the past but in a forum like this, old posts can be lost forever. That's why I bring back posts every so often or write often on the same men and themes and times and ages. He's about my age, this pastor friend.... 66 to my 64, but he's much older than that, almost 400 years older. He was our pastor for about ten years. Our son grew up in the second pew in front of his preaching.
          He wore a preacher's robe in the pulpit and spoke softly but passionately with just a slight trace of a stutter on occasion. In conversation he always paused before offering an opinion or answering a question. I just sat and looked at the letter for a while with a smile on my face before reading it. It was cursive writing, barely readable, on what looked to be note paper from a small notebook. There was a second paper in the envelope, actually six pages, they were typed...on a typewriter, on what must have been a very old one at that. It was a sermon preached a few months ago. The type was very light and every so often a letter was missing. I doubt if this man has ever punched a key on a computer.
          I was in full memory mode, sitting in that pew and looking up to the pulpit as he turned the same folded pages. I could see from the pew that sermons were written on the back of some paper he must have had lying around the house. Such a simple man is he.....simple yet highly learned and profound. It was the same today. The back of the paper was a receipt from a Christian book dealer! Some things never change....and I'm so very glad for that.
          I said that he was much older than 66....almost 400 years older. Well, maybe that was a little bit of exaggeration....let's say 150 years older.......and from London........Charles Spurgeon's London and J. C. Ryle's London. I'll title this post "Sermon in a bottle" for it's as if his sermons could have been printed and tossed into the raging sea of this world many years ago. He preaches Christ....not the name....the Person. He's a fish out of water today. Let me take you back about a dozen years when we were part of his congregation. The church building probably goes back to the 1800s with white stone latticed together by orange stone of a Victorian church architecture but more importantly is its history. Renown Presbyterian scholar and pastor John Gerstner once filled it's pulpit. Add to this my former pastor and it should be a legitimate historic landmark to those who know Christ, who bow before His majesty, humble themselves before His holiness and exhaust themselves in praise to His goodness, mercy and love to us.
          I would enter the sanctuary on the Lord's Day morning in great expectation and hardly ever be disappointed. He presented Jesus Christ to us in all His majesty. We knew we were sinners and were glad to be reminded of it but joyful in being reminded also that we were redeemed. Very seldom could I even rise immediately after the sermon for I needed time to catch my breath.
          He moved to the Midwest and eventually we moved to a church closer to home for it was about a forty minute drive. It's faithful men like this and books telling of more faithful pulpit ages that fashioned many of my posts on today's preaching. I'll add but a little bit of the sermon I received today that was filled with Scriptural proclamations of Jesus Christ and the answering of the question from Hebrews 2:3, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

          How great is our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. Is it great above anything, greater than everything, greatest of all things? How many more degrees of greatness can we add? The Bible employs this simple term which supersedes all degrees of greatness. "So great". The greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is unsearchable, incomprehensible, unspeakable........how great is the atoning sacrifice which Christ accomplished for us, to redeem us from our sins......who are we in Christ, what has happened to us, what is the momentous change, of so great a salvation in Christ.....we have undergone a change, greater than any other possible change--greater than from poor to rich, than from sick to well, than from danger to rescue.....for our great change in Christ is that we have been changed from death to life......Christ has delivered us, out from the power of death and darkness, and the devil; into his kingdom of power of life, of light, and of the salvation of Christ.....

The Power Of The Written Word

       They may not all have been Christian but God's hand was upon them in their wisdom, intellect and integrity. There are so very few today who could even dialogue on the same level with them. I'm referring to our Founding Fathers. They themselves looked up to men before them such as John Locke, Edmund Burke and particularly Charles de Montesquieu. I'm convinced that lawyer, author and conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin is one of those very few!
        I read his new book Plunder And Deceit and I'm listening to the CDs right now for the third time. There is an analogy in this with Christian writers, R. C. Sproul and Michael Horton being two, who have been gifted as were men of the past such as John Calvin and Martin Luther; but as for secular political philosophers, it is Mark Levin that could have been a contributor and even an influence at our Constitutional Convention.
       I have been a professing Christian for roughly thirty-three years and when I open God's Word tonight it will amaze me anew over yesterday, and when I open it tomorrow, Lord willing, it will amaze me anew over today. Such is it with God's Word to us. Words and ideas of men...alone... will not heal America, but God will not heal us without words and ideas either. So I recommend this book by Mark Levin. If nothing else we may see by reading it how far our wisdom has been removed from us, how far ahead of us were our Founding Fathers, and we might just contemplate who it is that grants wisdom and can take it away as easily!
         The following are two paragraphs from Plunder And Deceit. The first is from the pen of Mark Levin from his chapter on education, and the second Levin quotes from the pen of Montesquieu:

        "There are salient realities that very few in the academy will acknowledge. The most prominent is that education is not supposed to be about administrators and educational bureaucrats, labor unions, tenured educators, improvident construction projects, and statist indoctrination. It is supposed to be about the enrichment and improvement of young people and society. Students are not lab rats to be subjected to endless educational experiments; they are not Pavlov's dog to be conditioned as societal malcontents; and they and their families (and the taxpayers) are not cash cows for reckless spending and debt assumption. The failure of American education is an unforgivable dereliction of one generation to the next."         

        "...there are three kinds of government, REPUBLICAN, MONARCHICAL, and DESPOTIC...I assume three definitions, or rather, three facts: one, republican government is that in which the people as a body, or only a part of the people, have sovereign power; monarchical government is that in which one alone governs, but by fixed and established laws; whereas, in a despotic government, one alone, without law and without rule, draws everything along by his will and caprices"  (Italics in 
original)

note: My book review on Plunder And Deceit can be found on my September 1 post.

Debate Coverage

         The biggest surprise for me in last night's debate was that CNN did a respectable job. I read the name Jake Tapper often but until last night I couldn't pick him out of a line-up. I watched from the opening bell to the comedy routine at the end....no pre-game show and no wrap-up commentary. I've been familiar with Hugh Hewitt for a couple of decades and.......was that blond on the right Megyn Kelly?
          Here's my rundown on the players from a purely political point of view.....left to right on the dais:
          Rand Paul certainly held his own with the Libertarians. He's a smart man but I wish that he was a little wiser.
          Mike Huckabee is a wise man but I wish he was a little smarter.
          Marco Rubio did a fair job informing the viewers on the foreign dangers to America....with one exception.....illegal immigration.        
          Ted Cruz is far and away the truest statesman of the group.
          Ben Carson is a true gentleman.
          Donald Trump remains the only one that cuts through the politically correct straight jacket.
          Jeb Bush is a very nice......member of the Republican establishment elite....as opposed to say a John McCain.
          Scott Walker needs a few more years....which we do not have.
          Carly Fiorina is no outsider as she is portrayed but was well versed on what is happening to our military and was the most serious candidate on the stage but what happens when Hillary is eliminated?
          Did I miss anyone?  No, I don't think so.

          No one on the dais came close to yelling....Mayday....and that is what is needed right now in America. As an exercise, try reading the first four chapters from the book of Jeremiah. Picture God speaking to us in it instead of Israel for we are a carbon copy of God's rebellious people in this book. The following is an older post:

         I'm an army veteran, not navy, but I think I can describe a series of events that happen on a United States warship on occasion. At one moment the ship sails peaceably yet vigilantly and then in either a drill or the real thing a call to General Quarters is given.....also known as Battle Stations. Huge deck guns are quickly filled with men turning valves and bulkhead doors are shut. The bridge becomes alive with orders being called out and bells and horns blaring. The poker games are over, the radios are off and every man is decked out in battle gear from head to toe. I submit to you that the  enemy is well within striking distance of our country and a General Quarters should be sounded. Battle Stations for the Christian begins by leaving the games and the entertainments behind. Put on that protective gear, be sober-minded, alert and to use a trusted but well-worn quote attributed to Oliver Cromwell....."Trust in God and keep your powder dry." 

Mayday!       December, 2014

         Some news sources picked up on a commentary that Billy Graham recently published. In it he wrote "America is just as wicked as Sodom and Gomorrah ever were." He wrote also that today prayer has become just a formality in our nation. If you read the news with more then just casual interest you are familiar with what is transpiring in the Vatican on the issue of homosexuality, you would also be aware of the mayor of Houston, Texas and what is going on there. If you are not aware of these news reports then maybe you have a very good reason. If not you may be one of who Billy Graham was alluding to when he also wrote that "We (America) have no sense of coming to grips with God."       
        I have used a fair amount of naval terminology in these posts over the years, "all hands on deck" would be one..."battle stations" would be another." I did a whole post on 'Don't give up the ship,' the words of James Lawrence as he was dying aboard the USS Chesapeake in the Battle of Lake Erie and the words that Oliver Hazard Perry had stitched on the battle flag of the USS Niagara in the same battle. I have never used the phrase 'abandon ship' but this ship of state is indeed going down.
          Have you even pondered for more than a few moments the inaction of this our 'stand-down president' on issues of national security as he fritters the days away on the golf course, or his usurping powers not enumerated in our Constitution when he does act, or his seeming ambivalence towards the people of Iraq or the Kurds or the Israelis, or Christians anywhere, or even Americans
or really anybody outside of those who support him for their own private gain?  Have you noticed how many people he appointed to important positions because of some perceived political advantage irregardless of whether they have any ability or experience? And have you noticed the ensuing disasters from these appointments? I'll choose a different naval distress signal today.....'MAYDAY!'
          Whether you are in college or working tons of overtime to secure your family's financial future.....MAYDAY! Whether you are 65 years old and trying to retire or 25 years old and buying your first house.....MAYDAY! Whether you are Republican or Democrat.....MAYDAY! Whether you are black or white or brown or yellow or red.....MAYDAY! Whether you are union or supervision.....MAYDAY! Whether you are male or female.....MAYDAY! And whether you are American or not.....MAYDAY!
           Prayer is our only answer.....intense, perspiratory, humble, pleading prayer!:

         Franklin Graham, son of Evangelist Billy Graham, made some comments on the deteriorating conditions of this world and the possible nearness of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, comments that made the Drudge Report because of their extreme candor. He said in part "As I read the news, I can't help but wonder if we are in the last... hours... before our Lord Jesus Christ returns......"
         Have you ever been involved in some activity or exercise that was so robust that you felt the immediate need to rest for a few minutes just to get your bearings? Well, that is what it feels like to me as I read the news of the day. Fifteen years ago I and many others recognized that America was beginning to spiral out of control. Five years ago I wrote about the imminent dangers we faced as a nation and a free people and within the last few years my words became warnings on the incipient collapse in just about every area of our society and the world.
         There is a big difference between resting for a few minutes to regain one's bearings and sticking one's head in the sand to temporarily eliminate the clamor of the crowd as they search for exits from this horror movie being played out on the front pages of our news sources.
         Martin Luther once answered when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." That indeed is what we must do but even there we need tranquility enough to guide our hands.
         Franklin Graham knows it, other Christians know it, and I know it.....the only true peace of mind that comes amidst the howlings of the tempests that are shaking every pillar of justice in our country, damming up every fount of blessings and ripping asunder every document holding any truths that limit our own self-autonomy is at the foot of the Cross on Calvary, the empty tomb and the mount upon which Jesus ascended and will one day return, whether it be, as Graham added, hours, days, months or years.

       
         

Tie Up Donald Trump?

        Vacations and short trips always give me an opportunity to watch Fox News on cable that I do not subscribe to at home. I've never seen Megyn Kelly, Stephen Colbert and many other extended cable personalities, nor do I desire to. I did watch some morning news on a recent vacation and this post is a commentary on the coverage I viewed on the campaign for president.
         It is satisfying, to say the least, to see these people squirming over the popularity of Donald Trump, and squirming is what they are doing...in between conniptions! They're like little kids complaining to mommy how Donald keeps jabbing them. What jumped out at me was how they argued that Trump was not an expert. My gut response is this: Ooookaay....experts....so how do you explain utter failure on your part.....consistently.....over decades.......in just about everything....failures so egregious in that a little common sense or an ounce of gumption could have avoided them? You're the smart ones in your own estimation and yet you have sat by and watched God evicted, our Constitution shredded, our heritage besmirched, marriage mocked, our national defense taken apart piece by piece, children handed over to the state, our military demoralized, our enemies emboldened and our allies stabbed in the back? You have deceived us throughout...pretending to be conservative...outraged when necessary...only to yuk it up with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi et al behind the scenes when the cameras are off.....or maybe when you thought that they were off, and then you appear to be so sad and perturbed when you have to announce that ....'you just don't have the votes" to stop or defend anything!
         We have a Communist in the White House putting sycophants in positions of strategic importance, who then advance carefully chosen docile careerists under them.....and you are aghast that a patriot may get in office that doesn't fit your image of an acceptable candidate!! But I know that this is not your real concern. You've got a cushy deal going. You worked hard to get that seat in Congress....the perks are out of this world and people give you the best seats in restaurants.....and Trump jeopardizes that. If this thing gets out of hand the people might actually want something of substance to come out of your mouth! And as for the corporatists.... the upgrade on your yacht might be delayed, and that Monet would look so good next to the Renoir! The fact is that you are the ones with little to no discernment on the dangers our country faces. This is not a game folks. Boehner, Mitchell, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg may be the dungeon masters in your life but not in ours! Donald Trump exists because of your failures and deceit!
         These people, the ones I saw continuously bashing Donald Trump, are 'free market capitalist' worshippers! There is no heritage to be defended other than the free market in its pristine form that gave them the opportunity to pervert it. There is no liberty other than to get as much cheap labor as can be had. There are no ethics other than from one shyster to another in a backroom deal. There is no honor other than amongst thieves.
         Let me reiterate here that I do not get to see many of these folks on TV except when on a trip of some sort and this is my take on their self-righteous bloviating. I watched an 'expert' lawyer (female), almost hyperventilate as she excoriated the woman from Kentucky who would not sign onto same-sex marriage certificates. My thought at the time? We have a president who ignores laws and makes his own, imperiling not only our nation's stability but that of the whole world and this 'expert'  is up in arms because a law was ignored in the Rowan County Courthouse!
        Folks, our enemies have a window of opportunity in Barack Hussein Obama and they are not going to miss out on it. Quit complaining about Donald Trump and speak out against our Manchurian President that is setting our nation up for a fall! Quit taking Obama's bait of Hillary's indiscretions for we may not even have time enough left to elect her. If you want to compete with Donald Trump then defend America against its enemies, for that is what Trump is doing and that is why people are responding to him. Tie up Donald Trump if you will, but then you would be seen as mere Lilliputians.
      

"All The Hostages Are Safe"

        We are coming to the 77th anniversary of the attempted appeasement of Adolph Hitler in the Munich Agreement. The world was on the brink of war and this deal was an ill-advised attempt to hold off Hitler's aggression. Munich would again capture the world's attention 34 years later.
        I recently watched a documentary on the Munich Summer Olympics massacre from the first week of September 1972. I had seen the film before and might even be compelled to view it again if the opportunity arose. Murderous hate such as displayed before the world in the Olympic Village almost 43 years to the day from today has since become commonplace, so common that we now not only negotiate with terrorists, we humble ourselves in appeasement to them; but there was one segment of the film that is difficult to dislodge from my mind. Gunfire at the airport had erupted and the world waited. A report came in....all nine Israeli athletes were safe and the terrorists were all killed. Do those of you old enough remember that?
        I was in my last few weeks in the army at the time. Having no real duties to speak of, I spent my time playing chess and watching these Olympics. Some newspapers had headlined the news....'All Hostages Safe.' Then ABC's Jim McKay tried to prepare listeners for the truth.....all nine hostages were in fact murdered in the final assault. Nothing of the future is certain other than what God has spoken of in His Word.
        The following is a well-known passage from the fifth chapter of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians..."But concerning the times and the seasons brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, 'Peace and safety!' then sudden destruction comes upon them.....' It would behoove all Christians to follow the news of the world with this caveat in mind for it would serve to temper the confidence that most people seem to emote that things may get bad, and maybe set us back in our 401k....but not catastrophic......that just can't happen to us!

         I'll add to this short post two chapters from a post published in May of 2014:
   
         I was in a state prison this morning visiting a friend incarcerated there. The visiting room was packed with inmates and their families and friends. It was a moving experience. On the way home I stopped at a college campus. It also was packed with families of possible future students being shown around the campus. If you have followed my posts for any amount of time you may be tired of this anecdote; Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he knew for certain that the Lord Jesus was to return the very next day. Luther's answer was "I'd plant a tree."  It would be irresponsible to our families not to plan for the future and it would be irresponsible as citizens not to pray for wisdom and discernment...and strength....in at least attempting to elect wise and honorable leaders but there is also reality to face.
         It is the height of absurdity for us look to presidential elections as if they hold the key to our survival. It's beyond presumption to think that we can stop our fall or even defend ourselves against our enemies without national repentance and God's mercy upon us. But we, as a general consensus anyway, no longer attribute our existence to Him. Difficult days are ahead and that is even with God's mercy. Yes, plant that tree...make those plans.... always adding "should the Lord will it," but be prepared also for God's judgement upon our nation for we have gone beyond tempting Him to punish us....to goading Him and mocking the mere mention of His righteous judgement upon a nation.

"Take That, Bibi"

            Americans struck a Faustian bargain in putting Barack Obama in office, and now there is the Devil to pay. The projected passage of the treaty with Iran, if it comes about, will prove the most disgraceful and despicable failure to do what is right in America's history. God has blinded the Congress of the United States of America. Responsibility for a tragedy ahead for the Jewish nation will fall square at the feet of a gentile nation that was established in part to promote justice, and indeed did so for over two hundred years, but has recently promoted pure evil. It's not that there is going to be another war in the Middle East because of Barack Hussein Obama.....it would come anyway. The difference is that we are 100....no....1000 times worse off than if Iran would have been dealt with just about anytime in the last 6 1/2 years.
            If only it were just ignorance there might be hope but it is much more. Have you by any chance read an article on today's Drudge Report that was written by the ombudsman at PBS titled More Self-Inflicted Wounds? The author of this column is Michael Getler and is described below the article as one who "serves as an independent internal critic within PBS...(who) reviews commentary and criticism from viewers and seeks to ensure that PBS upholds its own standards of editorial integrity."
          In this column he responds very negatively, to his great credit, to a comment made by PBS NewsHour co-host Gwen Ifill. Mr. Getler describes the "self-inflicted wound" in question with this...."a tweet by...Gwen Ifill...on Wednesday-after it became known that President Obama had secured the necessary number of Democratic backers in the Senate to ensure that the nuclear agreement with Iran could not be blocked by opponents..... said... 'Take that, Bibi'." It was "inexcusable" wrote Michael Getler. No...this is not just ignorance... this complete abandonment of Israel.
         America is in full rebellion against God even without its betrayal of Israel, and Israel has remained steadfast in its rebellion to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the one who David sang of in...."The LORD said unto my Lord. Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool'." The Bible is very clear in that many times God used foreign nations to bring judgement upon Israel, and Iran would fill that bill if this happens, but not us, for we were friends and allies before Mr. Obama took office. It would be through deception and even mockery that we betrayed Israel, and God addressed such actions in His Word. Indeed many Americans are dumbfounded at how we can not only do this to an ally but imperil our own nation at the same time! God will deal with Iran as he had with other nations that he used as instruments of destruction.... but he will also deal with us.

Tebow Cut!!

        The top story on The Drudge Report right now is Tebow Cut By Eagles and I'll use that to bring back these thoughts from a 2010 post. I've written on this young man a few times over the years and the message has been basically....get out of football and use your celebrity to help our nation......run for Congress, for they are an '0-fer' team that needs help bad!         

        There's a entry in my 1981 Complete Runner's Day-By-Day Log and Calendar by James Fixx that always brings a smile to my face, Saw Chariots of Fire tonight. Below this is an entry that does not bring a smile, weight 160 lbs.. Eric Liddell's dedication and honor to this religion of his meant a lot to me when I first saw the film........I don't know a lot about Tim Tebow for I don't follow college football that much other than to read an article here and there. I did see a few minutes of yesterday's Florida vs Florida State game. Tim Tebow had Heb 12:1,2 in the eye black below his eyes, something normal for him I understand.
         I have to say that I never heard announcers give accolades quite as exemplary to anyone as they did to this young man yesterday. He must be an extraordinary athlete and leader and will undoubtedly cause many young athletes to reassess the Christian message and to encourage young believers     
         Should Tim Tebow decide to play in the NFL he will have many more opportunities to express his faith in Jesus Christ and will have an effect on some but the greater glory to Christ might be to say no to professional football on the Lord's Day because of the negative effect it has had on our being an informed citizenry and on the Christian life. From what I have read about this incredible young man, if the historic and scriptural evidence of the Lord's Day is placed before him, I would not be surprised if he passed on the NFL and sought God's will in his life.

Note: I was obviously wrong on this last sentence. Tim Tebow is indeed an exceptional young man. I have some advice for him.......give up football Tim, read Michael Horton's Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace and then Mark Levin's Plunder And Deceit and then run for Congress.....if we still have one.

"No One Knows The Day Or The Hour.....So, What's Going On Tonight At The Breen?"

       There are various ways to do research on what the most often quoted Bible verse is. You can conduct surveys or you might tally up the number of hits on Internet web sites. Most people think that John 3:16 would be the most quoted verse but recent research shows other very familiar verses beat it out. I'd like to challenge these statistical methods and offer my own verse as the most quoted.
        Now by the word 'quoted,' we picture a conversation where a Christian quotes a verse and then gives chapter and verse, but there are other ways to quote Scripture in conversation where it is not so formal. For example, smoking, drinking, exercise, obesity, diet and regular doctor checkups are everyday topics in our conversations and very often in these conversations one might say "...your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit..." Now this is a 'quote'...or is it.....no chapter and verse....not even the complete verse? But I think that it can be considered a quote from Scripture, and one that would not show up in polls or data research on the Internet.
        As for me....I nominate Matthew 24:36 as possibly the most often quoted Bible verse. What is it? I'm sure that you have used it often....."But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only." Now I'm certainly not disagreeing with this verse, for all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.....whoop, there I go giving a quote....2 Timothy 3:16....which is one of the very top quoted verses. On the contrary, we can thank God for the truth in Matthew 24:36 and for the truth in every verse of His Word.
        Most everyone knows how the Bible instructs us in that we cannot know the day or the hour of Christ's return. 'Last Days' conversation is often alluded to in the conversations of Americans today. We might be talking about Israel or nuclear war or asteroids or the rise of the Antichrist or a plethora of other disturbing events in every day conversation, even if only for a moment, before we move on to the more trivial matters of everyday life. In those moments we make sure that we cover ourselves with a portion of Matthew 24:36 for we do not want anyone to think that we might be one of 'those people' who think that these may 'really' be the last of the last days!
        My question and the reason for the previous four paragraphs is this....at what point do you think that you might actually admit to others that this may very well be the time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in power and glory....with all His angels? What will it take to persuade us to believe that these are not normal times and that Jesus must be near? Israel and 1948 should have awakened some. Israel today with their backs against the wall as never before....lied to and deceived....should get our attention. Communism's 100 million plus murders and recent trendy revival should be a clue as should radical Islam. Fifty million abortions in America and the newly revealed market for baby parts should drive us to Matthew chapter 24 where Jesus addresses the question of His Second Coming. The forced anti-God re-education of our children in our schools through both Darwin's failed concepts and same-sex marriage should send us to our knees. Virulent Pantheism run amok in the man-made global warming farce, the scamming of the World by those who would benefit by it, and the shaking of the earth in frequency and intensity should have encouraged us to open Scripture every night of the week.
         And if Nobel Peace Prize 'winning' Barack Hussein Obama with his torturing Scripture through his photo ops and National Prayer Breakfast speeches, his despising Israel and traditional Americans, his shredding of our Constitution, his anti-God Marxist philosophy, his pathological narcissism and his perfected to an art form lying...if these things do not cause one to put away the hobbies for a while.....well.....then maybe nothing will.
        How far must the world collapse, how many technological 'advances' such as Artificial Intelligence or gene drive research must we see before we admit that we, and the entire world, are in deep deep trouble.....trouble as this world has never experienced?
        We err on two opposite fronts. We either set a date...that always passes.... or we run as fast as we can from what Scripture tells us to do, which that is to be vigilant, to be sober, to be ready, to prepare.....to read revelation and even meditate upon it.....to consider the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 24.....and most of all to look with great anticipation the Lord's coming, for after that day and only then will the great evils and great suffering of this world end.

Mount Obama

          I try not to go too long in these posts without bringing back one of my many warnings on Communism. A few years ago I hung a Rand McNally world map in my workplace and the first thing that I did was put a line through 'Ho Chi Minh City' and write in "Saigon." That's just me. In the same vein there will always be a 'Mt. McKinley' to me! The occupant of the White House announced today that during his upcoming trip to Alaska that he will change the name of the mountain to 'Denali'  He'll have his defense....it's been an ongoing debate....Alaska requested it.....it honors an indigenous people in Alaska.....but the meaning of any change like this goes deeper with Barack Obama and I'm sure that he is happy to take advantage of the opportunity. Mark Levin gives us this quote from the Communist Manifesto in his new book Plunder And Deceit..."In bourgeois society....the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past." Our past, our heritage, has to be erased... and our heroes besmirched! This name change is a relatively small thing. It is not a coup for Obama....it's more of a jibe....between the coups. On the positive side, had not Antigua and Barbuda renamed its highest peak Mount Obama in 2009 we might have had that as a compromise!
         The following post is one of the many that I've written on the topic. Ignore Communism if you wish......but know that that's exactly what they want you to do:        

         As best as I can recall, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn tells this story of his conversion. He was a prisoner in the gulag system that he would eventually expose. He became ill and a doctor, a fellow prisoner, worked on him throughout the night. That doctor openly talked about his Christian faith while he worked on the future Nobel Prize winner in Literature. A guard came by and warned him to stop. When Solzhenitsyn awoke in the morning he asked for the doctor but was told that he was dead, killed for his testimonies of Jesus Christ. This was the beginning of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's gift of literature to the world from the eyes of a Christian. He later wrote the following on the condition of his country...Russia.
         Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat : "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."

         Communism is not just a political and socioeconomic system. It's a cancerous cell inflicted upon the human race for a purpose. Is this an outrageous statement made without warrant? Are100 million plus lives and counting not enough to warrant such a statement? Communism instigates hate and violence for the sole purpose of societal upheaval so that it can take power. It works tirelessly and patiently to perpetuate ignorance upon which it thrives. It leads decent people into committing crimes. It plays upon the weaknesses of societies, not too help them but to subjugate them. It lures the poor and the rich alike. It first sets the focus of its attack on whole professions.....professions that in turn can protect it through naivete' and vainglory (journalism) prevent it from having to deal with a God-fearing people (higher education) and propagandize and tranquilize the rest (entertainments industries) while it only has to send a relatively small contingent, in comparison to the entire population, of trained and professional operatives to help set up a shadow government ready to take power when all government and law collapses.
          It's been written that the Devil loves it when people laugh at the very thought of a Devil. In like manner Communism flourishes in its mission precisely when people consider it a toothless old bogeyman. They, the Communists, are more than thrilled knowing that the great American circus of electing a president has started as this endgame progresses. The last thing they want is for they themselves to become the focus of attention. Slowly but surely that is just what is happening!

The following post is from this past May:

The Road Most Travelled

        Their system was very effective. They were seen almost as heroes, dashing revolutionaries who would stop at nothing to eliminate the inequalities in society. They played Pan's flute and were followed by college students, malcontents, the idle rich and many connected with Hollywood.....all the usual suspects really. If one has no moorings in life, no country that they love and no God, then they are perfect specimens to be molded and further brainwashed into communist operatives and dupes.
         That was the situation in America in the 20s, 30s and even the 40s. The communist underground was extensive, ultra secretive and very successful. All of this came to light through Whittaker Chambers and others in our Congress but the America outside of this revolutionary underground had also changed. When did it change? I don't know. Maybe it was during the Korean War or maybe even before that. We didn't want to hear about communists we wanted to hear about television and Disneyland and Buddy Holly.
         Sputnik changed a few things...."Maybe we should pay attention to what's going on in the Kremlin?" The line was drawn in Vietnam but that nasty system of dashing revolutionaries, this time emblemized by Che Guevara, were busy again in the colleges. In what to me to this day seems almost  inconceivable, Viet Cong flags were flown on college campuses and Jane Fonda travelled to North Vietnam to have her picture taken on an anti-aircraft battery. The Tet Offensive came along in early 1968 and what with assassinations, riots, Charles Manson and the Democrat Convention in Chicago, we gave in.....'get the boys back, make a peace treaty that we have no intention of keeping as far as defending the South Vietnamese government and get back to the business at hand....doing nothing of substance.'
         Then along came a cowboy named Reagan coinciding with a spiritual renewal in the form of the evangelical. The Soviet Union, the Evil Empire, was taken on and eventually came crashing down. The celebration began but Reagan was gone, replaced by a New World Order devotee. But that wasn't good enough for us for we wanted a few more bucks in our wallet and Bill and Hillary promised that.
         You have to know something about the communist mind to even have a clue as to what became of them. The true believing communist did not say "Oh well, Communism is done...guess I'll see if I can get a McDonald's franchise." He goes underground in his own country and waits for their day to come back, under a new name if necessary and with a new plan but with the same tactics and goals.
          Once again they had to infiltrate but this time they had an advantage for so many of the 60s college alumni who were never educated in American freedoms or communist atrocities settled in the universities and media. These academics weren't looking for a communist to lead them, they were looking for an reason for their existance, and they found one in Barack Hussein Obama. If he succeeded then all their guilt of having no foundations, not even a post to tie their ideological horse to, would be assuaged. And that's were we are today only something as insidious as Nazism has also arisen in radical Islamic fundamentalism. Just as Uncle Joe was appeased....so are they.
          Today the revolution is not in this band of intellectual lost souls but in the grassroots of America. They are the ones shouting 'no taxation without representation.' They are the ones pamphleteering now. They are the new Minutemen. They are the ones with intellects like Jefferson on  their side. They are the ones going head to head with the Tories (a.k.a. RINOs) in their midst. The real question is whether or not God is looking for a revival of this play, but God is not a Broadway producer looking for another hit and America itself is not totally sold on the idea that God is even necessary.
          If you are a college student then I have some, what should be alarming, news for you. A would-be king has torn up our Constitution and demands that you bow before him. You may be allotted a fancy car and a condo if you tow the line but you won't have a lick of freedom or liberty to go along with it. Furthermore, should Jesus Christ tarry in His return and should He he even permit us to continue as a nation, your generation, along with mine, will have let down all of the other generations who sacrificed so much. We are in need of mercy from He who gave to us all of the blessings and freedoms and liberties that we had enjoyed and then abused. We are in need of a reformation more than a revolution, a George Whitfield more than a Benjamin Franklin and an open Bible even more than a constitution.

Witness by Whittaker Chambers is an extraordinary book that cannot but open the eyes of even the most skeptical on Communist involvement in our government in the first half of the 20th century. (reviewed May 29, 2015)

Dupes, How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century by Paul Kengor will explain the whole rotten hand dealt to America, by dealers in our own house! (reviewed July 24, 2015)

Takedown; From Communists To Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, also by Paul Kengor, will show you how communism influenced much of what we were taught in both high school and college. (reviewed July 24, 2015)

What's Trump?

       Donald Trump is like a sunflower that you just have to stop and look at for its immense size. The other Republican candidates appear as a flowerbed of pansies that would hardly get the notice of a passerby. Trump is as the one person who speaks up at a school board meeting. He's the Belgian draft horse pulling a carriage at Light-up Night that everyone fixes their stare upon. He's as Abraham Lincoln towering over the shorter generals in the iconic photo taken on the battlefield of Antietam.
       Marco Rubio has been Find Waldo, and we don't want to find him! Should Mr. Trump's support collapse as so many insist will happen, the others will seem as session musicians as Elvis leaves the stage.
        It's their own fault, for conservatives have have been pleading for someone to take their cause to a national platform and no one has done that as Donald Trump has. Everyone else has been molded by the media, playing by their rules, living up to their expectations, while Trump looks directly at that media and says, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "you are not part of the solution to our problem...you are part of the problem!" Conservative candidates need to buck the system and band together for they are the only ones that should know that it's not a name plate in the Oval Office that is at stake but a name written on a scroll in heaven!
        Ted Cruz is potentially the greatest future statesman in America, Ben Carson is someone that I would stand behind in anything, Bobby Jindal would be welcome relief, even Mike Huckabee would be acceptable, as for Rand Paul.....I'll tell you later, but they would have to realize that there is no tomorrow.....not politically but for America itself.....so clang that bell, shout orders on the left flank and sit upright on their horse as canister shell explodes all around them, for that is what Donald Trump has been doing!
        Senator Ted Cruz filibustered on the Senate floor for 21 hours and 19 minutes and I wrote a glowing post on that on September 25th of 2013 if you are interested. He has consistently placed himself in harm's way in defense of America and has shown himself to be the single most courageous member of our Congress, or political figure in America.....Trump included. The fact that he is not leading is more our fault than his, but nonetheless he has to stand next to Donald Trump...and call others up. Getting to the next general election is the problem....not winning it.... but if we do and if the elites stack the deck again.....for they have Fox News on board now....then an independent run would be the only answer; and we better unite if that happens for no truth spoken yet in this campaign equals....."Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."
      

Plunder And Deceit

       The following book review is only two weeks old but I'm bringing it back to the front of these posts because high schools, colleges and universities are beginning a new year and this book was written primarily for them. I'm adding to this post the last paragraph from Mark Levin's chapter...."On Education." This paragraph is an example of the lucidity that you will get in every chapter. If Levin's words can't win you over and encourage you to read his book, even in amongst your other reading requirements, then my words surely cannot either.
        "There are salient realities that very few in the academy will acknowledge. The most prominent is that education is not supposed to be about administrators and educational bureaucrats, labor unions, tenured educators, improvident construction projects, and statist indoctrination. It is supposed to be about the enrichment and improvement of young people and society. Students are not lab rats to be subjected to endless educational experiments; they are not Pavlov's dog to be conditioned as societal malcontents; and they and their families (and the taxpayers) are not cash cows for reckless spending and debt assumption. The failure of American education is an unforgivable dereliction of one generation to the next."


Plunder And Deceit      

        Mark Levin begins his new book with this question....."Can we simultaneously love our children but betray their generation and generations yet born?" We are voting in America today.....in abstentia.....our minds being absent, our efforts to learn lazy, and ultimately our discernment near nonexistent. We fail to grasp that we are ignoring the disastrous, even cataclysmic, trends of the day at the expense of our children's future. This is the essence of Levin's book.
        Folks.....friends.....as the subtitle states, it is the young generation...our children...who will bear the brunt of the burden for our abdication! I have tried over and over in these posts to sound an alarm to parents, and to shout this warning from these pages! This is not politics and it is not a game and it is not just theory. It is rather... plunderers, barbarians and Marxists who are not only attacking us but succeeding! The effort has to be made to come up to date on what has transpired in this nation of ours, that is if we love our children, for Mark Levin answered that first question in the negative...one cannot love our children and simultaneously betray their generation.
        Our nation has collapsed and I have accepted my own responsibility for this many times over in these near seven years of posts. There may be some who are unscathed but they are few. I've used the word mayday a number of times in these posts. It's somewhat of an archaic term but it's relevance to today is as current as this morning's newspaper and as the SOS sent from the Titanic.  Levin writes that "Many are acutely aware of the gathering storm of societal and economic disorder and wish to do something about it." I am part of that, only I personally and continuously also focus on our rejection of God. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote that Russia experienced their evils and oppressions and horrors because, as he stated..."We have forgotten God," and many Christian ministers who have a national platform today say the same thing about us......that we have forgotten God, and indeed Israel of the Old Testament was guilty many times of the same and was judged many times!
        Levin writes that younger people, by the very fact that they are young and inexperienced, are "especially vulnerable to be manipulated" while the older generation chooses not to look to the future but only the present. He concludes his first chapter with these words..."The mission of this book, as in my past books, is to persuade as many fellow citizens as possible, through scholarship, facts, and ideas, to avert a looming tragedy.......a real and devastating American tragedy, the loss of the greatest republic known to mankind."
        The author, beginning in his second chapter, demonstrates that "scholarship, facts and ideas" with a clear and concise tutorial on our national debt, particularly as it pertains to "federal entitlement spending and debt financing." I think that I may have written before that Levin, the number two conservative radio talk show host, writes even better than he speaks. I say this to encourage you to put out a few bucks and give the time to read this book, and then give it away! I bought three books so far and the CDs which are great for the car.
        Levin calls our debt a "moral issue," explains his position very well and then ends the chapter with statistics and figures that will unnerve you......and with this statement...."The devastating consequences of wealth redistribution, inter-generational thievery, massive federal spending, endless borrowing , and unimaginable debt accumulation on American society, and most particularly on the rising generation and future generations, are a travesty."
         I am 65 years old and may, Lord willing, be applying for Social Security benefits in the near future. Levin gives the best explanation of the impending disaster on this front that I have ever read, and his message is as much for the younger generation as it is for mine, actually more. He concludes this chapter with this...."(Social Security).....the federal government's biggest program will stop with a crash, taking down the older recipients and the younger payers alike."
         The author then gives another best explanation on Medicare and Obamacare. Plunder And Deceit is only 192 pages before the notes. The chapters are not long and can easily be understood and digested. Education is next up and he uses the word "dereliction." He lays out very clearly where America is today on the world stage in our elementary to college education and why we are failing and who is behind it.  It's not a pretty picture. Many of us know much of this already but the younger generation is in the middle of it and is cognisant of little to none of the machinations aimed right at them. This younger generation, or "rising generation" as Levin refers to it, needs to have heard at least once, an educated opinion as opposed to a regurgitated "quixotic idealism." Whether it is the minimum wage, immigration or "A New Civil Rights Movement," one cannot read this book and then as easily fall prey to the choreographed soundbites that are constructed to 'educate and inform' today.
         Levin mentions Karl Marx and Communism as instigators. His "On The Environment" chapter alone can explain just why climate change is more than a scam, it's a full-fledged battle plan, not on any warming temperatures but on overachieving economies that are a monkey wrench in the Marxist scheme that the younger generation has fallen for hook, line and sinker. This same generation should know that our weakening national security affects them more than anyone and that the disemboweling of our Constitution will be their inheritance of tyranny and servitude from what would be a defunct republic.
         When I was in high school, we were taught about John Locke and Montesquieu. I may not have remembered the specifics come exam time but my point is that we were taught the writings of the philosophers who influenced our Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were heroes from history. If these names are not etched into your memory then you should read and study Plunder And Deceit. Consider the following words that these three men would have read over and over and meditated upon as they helped formulate the foundations of our republic, and then consider which definition describes us today. The words are from Charles de Montesquieu..."...there are three kinds of government, REPUBLICAN, MONARCHICAL, and DESPOTIC...I assume three definitions, or rather, three facts: one, republican government is that in which the people as a body, or only a part of the people, have sovereign power; monarchical government is that in which one alone governs, but by fixed and established laws; whereas, in a despotic government, one alone, without law and without rule, draws everything along by his will and caprices"  (Italics in original)
         In his book, the author stressed that a nation must retain a continuity if it is to survive. He quotes others on this necessity of holding to the eternal truths known by those who preceded us and I'll end with this blurb from the back of the book, written by Edmund Burke in his Reflections of the Revolution in France, 1790....."By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, as as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of summer."
         I've covered the main themes of this book, Plunder And Deceit, Big Government's Exploitation Of Young People And The Future, but cannot convey the brilliance of this former top advisor in President Reagan's administration, for this brilliance emanates from a legal mind with a passionate love for this country.