Suppressed Truth

Vietnam - The Truth

2022-02-13T07:15:00.006-05:00

Few events in modern history have been more distorted than the struggle to keep South Vietnam a free nation. In beginning this posting I intend to disseminate some facts that upend the orthodox understanding of that struggle, hopefully in such a way that will keep the reader interested and seeking for more.

1.) The orthodox argument: that Richard Nixon as President misled the American people by insisting that America, in Vietnam, was not pursuing a war but was engaged in a "conflict".

The Truth: President John F. Kennedy's brother, Robert Kennedy, appointed Attorney General of the United States by his brother John, told a reporter during a trip to Vietnam in February 1962, years before Nixon became president, that America was involved in a "struggle short of war" in Vietnam. (1)

2.) The orthodox argument: that exposure to a degenerate, third world Vietnamese society undermined the morals of American servicemen and women stationed there

The truth: in June 1962 the government of South Vietnam, under the leadership of Catholic Prime Minister Ngo Dihn Diem adopted his feisty sister-in-law's "Social Purification Law", outlawing prostitution, dancing, beauty contests, contraceptives, cockfighting, and sorcery. It also placed restrictions on divorce, smoking and alcohol consumption by minors. His sister-in-law stated, "Asians are not used to promiscuity between men and women. If the Americans want to dance, they should go elsewhere." (2)

3.) The orthodox argument: the war in Vietnam was always unwinnable, owing to the terrain, the jungle, the proximity to China and her inexhaustible supply of troops, etc.

The truth: It was Kennedy who chose to take a stand in Vietnam, having a favorable view of the fighting spirit of the people and it's accessibility by sea. President Eisenhauer, had wanted to draw the line against communist expansion in southeast Asia in the country of Laos, despite being landlocked and it's people lacking a warrior spirit. Why? Because Eisenhower wanted to win; win by putting U.S. troops on the ground supported by tactical nuclear weapons if necessary "If Laos is lost, South Vietnam and Thailand will eventually go because they would be outflanked. All Southeast Asia will be lost, and Indonesia will follow and the world will be divided. I therefore place the greatest importance on the maintenance of Laos...(and would provide) whatever support necessary to achieve the objectives of their mission, including - if necessary - the use of tactical nuclear weapons". Moreover, it was Kennedy successor, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, that adopted a policy of "limited war", rejecting the advice of Eisenhower, who had prevailed in not only Europe but Korea. In a July 2, 1965 phone call with then President Johnson, Eisenhower counseled, "When you go into place merely to hold sections or enclaves, you are paying a price and not winning. When you once appeal to force in an international situation involving military help for a nation, you have to go all out! This is war, and as long as [the North Vietnamese] are putting men down there, my advice is 'do what you have to do'."(3)

(4.) The orthodox argument: Vietnam was a quagmire waiting to happen.

The truth: nearly every objective, credible source affirmed South Vietnam under the leadership of Ngo Dihn Diem was not only stemming, but advancing against the communist threat to his country up until he was assassinated in a fall of 1963 coup supported by Kennedy-appointed Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge. It was only after the assassination, which threw that nation into chaos, that U.S. ground troops were needed.

(1) New York Times, February 19, 1962

(2) Time, June 22, 1972

(3) Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954-1965, Mark Moyar, pg.163

I Was Wrong

2021-01-26T06:11:00.000-05:00

I was wrong (see December 12 post) that God would not let Joe Biden be inaugurated, but I remain convinced Jesus is going to intervene to not only bring that inaugurated to nothing, but to disgrace the master schemer behind this coup - Obama.

Bring Back the Fire & Brimstone

2021-01-03T19:17:00.003-05:00

Born in the second half of the twentieth century I came of age in an era when it was increasingly frowned upon for preachers to expound fire and brimstone. This was unfortunate for me since I've always been handicapped in understanding sin. I never really understood exactly what sin was and I generally carried around high expectations for the conduct of others and myself. Naturally as time passed I found myself increasingly dumbfounded by the conduct of other people and have become correspondingly disillusioned by humanity. If I had had it pounded into me at an early age exactly what sin is, its ubiquity and its seriousness, I'd have been better prepared to confront the world. Moreover, since repentance is a requirement for a normally functioning relationship with God, a wrong understanding of what sin is is only a hindrance.

It's time for a revival of that Old Time Religion.

How They Attempted to Eliminate Democracy

2020-12-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

The 2016 election of Donald Trump, politcally a populist revolt, was spiritually an intervention by Jesus Christ againts the global advances being made by the demonic principalities and powers of this Universe.

The push back to that intervention has been led by Barack Obama, principally in league with The Chinese Communist Party.

The strategy was thus - employ the Democrat-run House of Reprentatives, the Deep State (intelligence, justice, state) and social justice warriors to openly distract and harrass Trump and the Republican Party, all the while working behind the scenes to broadly introduce at the state and local level new voting systems (Dominion) that could be manipulated to switch the votes at will.

I believe that Christ will not permit this interference with his intervention and Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term as president, and that Barack Obama will be the chief casualty.

What Will Bring Them Down?

2020-10-26T09:38:00.001-05:00

Hunter Biden's laptop was turned over to The New York Post and alternative news outlets (Steve Bannon's War Room, et al) and many are counting on the FBI, the Justice Department and/or Congressional oversight committees to investigate and prosecute the high crimes and misdomeanors exposed in the laptop. That won't happen. It was the intervention of God that brought the contents of the laptop to public inspection and it will be God himself who will puruse and secure justice.

Driving Electric Cars to Save the Planet is Foolish

2020-01-02T10:11:00.001-05:00

Most of the time when charging an electric car one is using energy generated by burning fossils fuels. Moreover, manufacturing an electric car generates so much CO2 that one is not actually acheiving CO2 savings on an electric car until it has been driven 60,000 miles.

Source:https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/12/29/marketwatch-electric-cars-and-vegetarianism-pointless-virtue-signaling-against-climate-change/

Smiling Liberals?

2019-09-03T09:40:00.002-05:00

In reading an account of the Battle of Okinawa the author pointed out that despite the fact that civilian Okinawans had been coached by the Japanase military that American troops were barbarians, those American troops were usually able to win over the children with proferred candy bars and a smile. Actually this is typical - reading about American military winning over civlians with smiles.

Can one imagine Nazis or ISIS troops doing the same? Now try to imagine a U.S. military staffed almost exclusively with American leftist of the ilk of Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez - always angry, alwasys driven forward with grim ideological purpose.

Biologists Agree - Human Life Begins at Conception (Unless You're a Godless Liberal, Then Maybe Not)

2019-07-30T09:24:00.003-05:00

Steven Jacobs, a University of Chicago student working on a Ph.D. found that most American (81 percent) prefer to trust biologists to answer the question, At what moment does human life begin? That compared to just 7 percent trusting religious leaders to answer that question, and only 2 percent trusting Supreme Court justices.

So Jacobs did the logical thing - he surveyed thousands of biologists (62,469 in all) from all over the world to find out when they say life begins among mammals...at conception, at birth, somewhere in between. Of the 5,502 biologists, from 86 countries, who responded to the pertinent questions, 63 percent identified as non-religious, 89 percent as politically liberal. 75 percent of them said human life begins at conception.

However, among those biologists who identified as very pro-choice, only 69 percent ageed that human life begins at conception, while 86 percent of neutral, and 92 pecent of very pro-life, contend life begins at conception.

Also see: Study

Illegal Immigration Attempts Up, Migrants Deaths Down Under Trump

2019-07-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

As Breitbart reported today, despite that illegals are storming, in big numbers, America's southern border in an attempt to get in before Trumps seals off that border with a wall the number of illegals dying in the attempt is actually down in absolute number, let alone percentages, under Trump, so far, vs. Obama.

According to Breitbart:

"During the eight years of the Obama administration, 2,977 migrants died after illegally crossing the southwest border with Mexico — 372 per year on average, according to a report obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

During the first two complete fiscal years of the Trump administration, 581 migrants died — an average of 291 per year. Despite massively higher border apprehensions in Fiscal Year 2019, the number of deaths appears to be on par with the two prior years, according to the International Organization for Migrants’ Missing Migrant Project. This represents about a 20 percent drop from the Obama administration’s reported migrant deaths."

The Child Migrant Crisis - Another Obama Legacy

2018-06-26T06:49:00.001-05:00

Another truth the god-haters would like you to be ignorant of stems from the Obama administration's push to utterly transform this nation's, and this world's, economy away from carbon-based energy to so-called sustainable renewables. I believe in my blog the environment I recorded one of the hidden costs of that transformation - in growing foodstuffs, like corn, sugarcane and palm oil for biofuel instead of human consumption the price of what remained for food would inevitably rise. I recall reading about riots over the rising price of food in impoverished nations under Obama. Now I've just read in the July/August 2014 issue of Mother Jones that a significant factor spiking the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the Southern U.S. border is hunger caused by skyrocketing cost of corn, which families in Central America heavily rely (corn tortilla's etc.)

The Meaning of Trump

2018-06-18T10:34:00.001-05:00

Americans are wont to joke about small American towns they sometimes pass through, off the beaten paths, in their automobiles thus: "If I was to have blinked, I would have missed the whole town."

It is likewise possible to visit, on foot, the ruins of some the villages Jesus preached in during his ministry on earth. I was immediately struck by how humble some of them are.

This got me thinking about Donald Trump. Unlike Hillary, he eschewed the power centers of our day, bypassing them to spend his time among the ordinary folk. It seems to be an entrenched malady of humanity dating back to Cain (the builder of cities), Sodom and Gomorrah, Nimrod and his tower. Godless men like to build up cities and other concentrations of mortal power and inevitably, it seems, these centers become hopelessly corrupted. Jesus avoided them and so did Trump. To get down to the truth, one has to go where the real ones live and work, not the power centers of the deceived and perishing.

John D. Rockefeller

2018-06-18T08:26:00.002-05:00

I am reading now a biography of John D. Rockefeller, written by a Jew from the Brooklyn.

I'm aged 61 and am about as apple-pie American as one can get, college educated, and yet in all my life I was never told, never taught and never heard that Rockefeller was such a pious man. All I ever heard was that he was, supposedly, an exceptionally powerful, money-grubbing titan of business.

I realize now that Rockefeller, because of his piety and his accomplishments, has been a special target of the the devil and the devil's slander machine.

I have come to the conclusion that God chose a special man to exploit the aftermath of the Flood, and that man was Rockefeller. The world doesn't believe that God flooded the world in judgement, so it certainly doesn't believe that all the fossil fuels in the world are artifacts of that flood. But that is exactly what they are, and as such they have special meaning, especially to the devil. Fossil fuels are our tangible link God's holiness, his willingness to show himself holy, and a link to a major defeat for Satan. Fossil fuels border on sacred. Handling them is like handling the dead, but in this instance a special kind of dead - those who are dead as direct result of God's judgement. They are special. They bear mute testimony to who God is, and it is an important testimony. They testify to the final outcome for all who deny God, and so are anathema to the devil; for every scrap of fossil fuel on earth is a reminder to him of his ultimate fate, and also God's ultimate triumph.

Lying dormant for thousands of years, God chose a deeply pious man to be the first to exploit this testimony about God to the benefaction of mankind. He wasn't about to let the devil be the first to convert this overwhelming testimony to the devil's defeat to the devil's own benefit. And Rockefeller wasn't just an ordinarily pious man, he was exceptional in his piety - sort of a type of Noah himself. For this reason the devil went all out to slander the name and the memory of Rockefeller, and he largely succeeded. But the devils victory is, and will be, largely Pyrrhic. For one thing, I exist, and have heard all the slander, but I now know the truth (not because of the Jewish biographer, but in spite of him).

God bless the memory of John D. Rockefeller.

Reflections on Hebert Hoover

2018-02-09T11:02:00.001-05:00

Many of you, who know at all, will know that Herbert Hoover was the 31st President of the United States (and yes, the Hoover Dam was named after him).

You may have some vague associations with him in your mind of bad things, like economic bad times.

Hoover became President in March 1929, and seven months later the stock market collapsed.

What you may not know is that Hoover was fairly progressive for his era, and took many bold steps to address the economic crisis he was handed, the crisis that came to be known as the Great Depression. (You may also not know that Hoover, prior to The Crash, was a rare voice in public office (he was Secretary of Commerce in the 1920's) counseling against stock speculation, and that he acted on his own advice, by liquidating much of his own stock holdings prior to the crash.)

Hoover was born into a Quaker family in a small town in Iowa, the son of a blacksmith; was orphaned at a young age and grew to be one of greatest engineers America ever produced (he was ranked equal with Edison), and amassed a great fortune.

The Great Depression hit when communism, fascism and national socialism (Nazis) were gaining a foothold in the world and Hoover had a tireless message for his country and the world - that mankind should not lose faith in what individual imitative could, and would, do to retrieve the situation. He counseled mankind to not yield to "isms", but to have faith in what God could, and would, do through individual human beings.

The Great Depression reached its nadir under Hoover and then began to recede. His opponent, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign for President counseled Americans to believe, as did his successor, Barack Obama, that Americas greatest days were behind her. This may ring untrue, but in fact Roosevelt never counseled Americans to have hope for a return to halcyon days - his chief objective was to distribute "more fairly" what wealth remained. Roosevelt laid all the blame for the depression at Hoover's feet, although for the next eight years of Roosevelt's presidency, up until WWII, the depression lingered.

In short, Hoover was a man who believed, informed by his faith, not that man was good, but that made in the image of God, the greatest hope for man was not in new political ideologies, but that the God in man would ultimately emerge and save the day. Roosevelt did not believe this way. To him, men were cattle to be herded.

Hoover was one of the greatest Presidents this county ever had and his name has been trashed, ever since his presidency, by those who place their faith in the state to redeem mankind.

No One is Good, Not Even One

2018-02-09T10:03:00.002-05:00

You may have heard that Jesus of Nazareth responded thus to a person who addressed him as "Good teacher"

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone."

We live in a world that is at war over the answer to the question of whether man is basically good or basically evil. Whole philosophies, systems of governance, and worldviews are based on one's answer to this question.

For example, the preoccupation with the welfare of children in the modern age, at least in the West, is based upon it. As people search for meaning and purpose in their lives, many come to believe that the only objective worthwhile is to help the "innocent" children.

I for one struggled for years with guilt from "bad" things I had done, particularly as a child, adolescent, and as young adult. I had had such high expectations of myself, encouraged by so-called role models in film and television. I was dumbfounded at the chasm between my good intentions and what I was actually capable of. This, in my case, led to significant self doubt. For others, like Martin Luther, it led to a search for means to be lifted from the burden of guilt.

Although I am a Christian, I think I have spent much of my life searching, for one reason or another, for persons who are good. I wanted my parents to be good at their role in parenting. I've wanted my employers to treat me fairly, I've wanted my neighbors to be friendly and sincere and my friends to be true. When I was in the institutional church, I wanted the clergy to be Christlike. I want my political leaders to be wise and just, and keep their promises.

Now, as the years go by, I realize I am growing disillusionment and bitter. Without realizing it, I have been formulating the question in mind that contemporaries of David asked thousands of years ago:

Who can show us anything good? (Psalms 4:6)

God has answered that question for me - no one can show me anything good. It is just as Jesus described:

"No one is good - expect God alone."

I'm going to excuse myself a little bit for getting this wrong for most of my life. There's a whole lot of people out their trying to convince us that that there is good in the world. Look at the fanatical devotion that was, and still is, to Barack Obama - people ascribing to him to every characteristic of a hero including divinity. We are told to "buck up", "have faith", and "keep you chin up" in a thousand different ways by as many sources, from teachers, to film, to media, to government. It is all self-delusion or lies. There is only One hope.

Realizing now, as I do, Who it is that is good, and where my hope needs to be placed, I feel as though a great burden has been lifted from me, and I have certainly lifted one from the back of my fellow man. I no longer need to burden my fellow man, any man, with the expectation that he show me anything good. I know it is not in him. Henceforth, I will seek for glimpses of God's in men, for which those men (and women) will receive no credit from me. I will be gladdened when I see God acting through persons to achieve His purposes, and to give us reason to hope on earth.

Why The Church Is Failing

2018-01-18T09:43:00.000-05:00

Dating back to my early childhood I understood that something is the wrong with the world. It wasn't long before I concluded that the church is impotent to remedy the problem. However, I was never entirely sure why the church was impotent. I have written extensively on my conviction that the model for church, ubiquitous in the world, is not biblical (see sister blog Suppressed Truth in Church and Faith), so that explains part of her impotency. I have concluded that another big factor in her impotency is her failure to understand and embrace this injunction from Christ:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Over a lifetime of church attendance I most typically heard that scripture interpreted to mean that we should expect to suffer daily for Christ. This is not what it means - Jesus would hardly have had to enjoin his followers to suffer. Suffering is part of being human, not just Christian. What Jesus was demanding was that we, in effect, stand ready to forfeit our very lives each and every day.

The greater context of what Jesus actually said makes this clear:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

This is a much tougher message for pastors to imbibe and spread abroad, preoccupied as they, and their parishioners are, especially during the relative peace and prosperity of the post WWI year, with securing all manner of comforts and security (nice building, fat salaries and pensions, raising families, and the like).

It is my worldview that evil was afoot during WWII, trying to dominate the world order, and that's its defeat has made life easy, too easy, for modern day Christians. A tough day for the modern Christian is too find himself short of needed funds to complete a multi-million church building, not facing imprisonment and death. However, that does not mean the threat to mankind became less serious after the war. The devil simply had to shift his tactics. That he is just as busy to day is manifest.

There is a person who knows a thing or two about this subject who agrees with what I am saying - the author of the International Religious Freedom Act (of 1998), former Congressman Frank Wolf, said there is no longer anyone willing to take a stand for what really matters in Christianity, and that it's time for some pastors to show their mettle by risking jail.

In short, the church has become, in effect, a defender of the corrupt world system, a system run by the devil.

The Value Of Liberal Arts Education

2018-01-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

For most of my life I saw little or no value in a so-called liberal arts education. Like the Germans, it has always seemed to me that the emphasis on education should be it's utility - how to fit oneself to be productive in society. This I believed was especially true for post-secondary education.

Now, I am beginning to see things differently - I am increasingly exposed to college graduates that have impressive careers in terms of their utility as teachers, nurses, engineers, architects, lawyers, software developers and so on, but who, in effect know nothing. They may know how put a crown on a tooth, or design a strut to support bridge roadway, but they seem to know nothing about the things that make it possible to live as free men in a body politic or, far more importantly, save their own souls.

This is not only troubling, but catastrophic. I am increasingly persuaded that a free, Christian, Western civilization cannot endure. Likely, by the time that its inhabitants realize their freedom is in jeopardy, it will be too late. So too with their souls. By the time they become truly aware that they face extinction rather than eternal life, it will be too late.

When I Return, Will I Find Humility?

2017-12-29T03:04:00.000-05:00

Jesus posed this question:

...when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

I submit, considering the current state of the world, that an equally valid question to ask is, When Jesus returns, will he find any humility?

I am sixty years old and yet I still find I am battling a tendency within myself to puff myself up, to evaluate my standing in the world versus other persons - what they have accomplished versus myself.

Jesus pointed out:

For everything in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--comes not from the Father but from the world.

As I look about me I perceive that the entire world system confirms Jesus words about the pride of life, and in this I include the church. Where is the discipline, where is the pursuit in which humility is paramount, or even considered desirable?

In academia we aren't so much taught to learn, but to be first - to get the "best" grade or make the first team.

In our film we are taught to "win" - to beat the bad the guy and "save the world".

In our search for employment we are taught to boast of our accomplishments in our resume, and when we do get the job, to push ourselves forward as the best candidate for promotion. We consider this "natural".

In our social relationships we inquire of others about their progress, how well they are getting ahead.

In government we elect people who put themselves forward for promotion to office by boasting of their experience, accomplishments and character.

In church we submit ourselves to a single individual, who has typically actively sought out that position to begin with, in every facet of church life, including inviting to him to sermonize to us weekly, with little or no opportunity for disagreement or dissent.

In every circumstance, in every manifestation of human endeavor we see people seeking to glorify themselves, have themselves considered in a positive light, even down to child rearing.

Perhaps the least expounded truth in all the scripture is the testimony it provides us that persons we consider giants of the Christian faith were renowned, not in man's eyes, but in God's, as men of great humility.

Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. (Numbers: 12:3)

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:25)

How often do we hear anyone, including clergy, truly examining the implications of verses like these? What does it mean when it says Moses was a "very" humble man? What does that look like? Does anyone inquire, does anyone ask? I don't think anyone wants to know. It takes faith to believe this admonition:

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:12)

It takes faith to believe this and I don't think anyone believes it anymore. The world system, and it is the devil's system, strives against humility, and it seems the entire world has capitulated. Once again, as in the days of Noah, it seems:

There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one (Romans, chapter 3)

Be Careful What You Say!

2017-06-20T07:37:00.000-05:00

As young man growing up in America I was exposed to the cultural imperative, primarily communicated by other men, of working age, that it was indisputably wise to avoid giving offense with the content of my speech. I was subtlety urged to watch what I say - to not offend anyone politically and religiously.

Now, as I grow older I find that older men, especially those who have retired from the work force care less about the content of their speech.

I have concluded that older men no longer care because secure in their finances they no longer care what other people think. The men who were advising me when I was young must have motivated primarily by pecuniary gain - one doesn't want to offend anyone might conceivably benefit one in business.

At this juncture in life I can see how I was misled, especially when I look at the example of Jesus who is the perfect embodiment of the Father. Jesus was concerned with the truth, not avoiding giving offense. What we need more of, not less, is more people boldly willing to speak the truth, not be preoccupied with hedging bets.

White Brutality Towards Blacks?

2016-11-12T09:41:00.001-05:00

To live in America in the 21st century is to be fed a constant diet of stories of how the "white man" has brutalized blacks in America over the centuries.

While some, even many, of these stories may be true it has always been my contention that, at least for the past fifty years or so, it is far more hazardous to be white in America than black, at least in terms of being brutalized for your skin color.

In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's ascendancy to the presidency there have been street protests and violent acts, including this attack on a white man by an all-black mob simply because he is either white, or perhaps because he had a Donald Trump campaign sticker on his car. Although this video is said to have "gone viral" I found it difficult to locate on Google's YouTube, which is presently run by a hard left-winger, perhaps because Google's master doesn't want you to see this truth.

Obama Promised an Electric Car in Every Garage. Where are They?

2016-09-11T06:14:00.003-05:00

The Electric Car Future That Never Happened

That The World May Not Forget

2016-07-18T08:33:00.001-05:00

In the sea of lies concerning race relations in America, hard evidence about so-called police bias may get shipwrecked, so I am going to make sure I record it here for posterity.

According to a study* conducted by black Harvard professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. in which 1,332 police shootings between 2000 and 2015 in six major cities and four Florida counties were analyzed, no racial bias was found. In other words, no evidence was found that police were more likely to shoot a black suspect than a white one.

A link to the study is here.

*"Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings", New York Times, July 11, 2016

What Do Donald Trump and Samson Have in Common?

2016-02-07T14:58:00.001-05:00

In the biblical book of Judges a 300 year history of the nation Israel after Joshua and before David is related. One can take away many important lesson from this history. Perhaps the most important is what the book tells us about the human condition absent consistent, strong, godly religious or political leadership. As the book repeatedly informs us, in those day everyone did what was right in their own eyes:

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. (Judges 21:25)

Now, what the Israelites "saw" as fit was not always what God saw as fit. Seven times in the book of Judges the conduct of the Israelites, from God's perspective, is described thus:

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord (Judges 3:12)

In fact, early on in the book of Judges we are told that in this time, in the wake of the leadership of righteous Joshua, God left the Israelites to their own devices; He tested them:

(God) test(ed) the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses. (Judges 3:4)

Now the book gives us both a general and specific description of what disobedience in Israel looked like. Generally speaking, it looked like this:

The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s angerbecause they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. (Judges 2: 11-13)

Now from our perspective this general description doesn't look too bad - after all, all they did was forsake the Lord and serve other gods. However, from God's perspective, this is the worst sin. In the list of ten commandments, first is the command:

You shall have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:3)

Now, there is a story in Judges about what this general kind of sin looked like specifically in the life of one man, Micah, and his mother. Micah stole a great deal of money from his mother. When he overheard her curse about the loss, he confessed, and in response the mother praised God by name and then promised God that should would use some of the recovered money to make an idol! Micah took this idol into his own home where he had created a shrine (the Israelites were only supposed to worship where God designated) and installed his own son as priest (only Levites were supposed to be priests in Israel) in his shrine and with the idol. How nutty is this?

However, to our modern sensibilities, there is another story in Judges that gives us some inkling of how bad things were (from our perspective, not just God's) in Israel at the time.

A certain Levite (Levites were supposed to be priests) took a concubine, they had a falling out, she left, and eventually he went to find her and bring her back. On the way back they accepted the hospitality of a certain man, in a certain town, and stayed in his house. That night some of the wicked men of that town surrounded the house and purposed to rape the Levite. The owner of the house intervened and the upshot was that the concubine was sent out to these men and was then raped to death. This was, so to speak, just a typical night in the nation Israel at that time, and from this we discover the true condition of affairs.

So what do what does Donald Trump and Samson have to do with all the above? Samson, a deeply flawed, but a man greatly used of the Lord was typical of the kinds of saviors God raised up the rescue the Israelites from themselves at the time described above. These "judges" were appropriate to the time - like the people themselves, they were deeply flawed and brimming with contradictions. So too Donald Trump - he is bold leader that God may be wanting to use to rescue America, for a time, but many people are shocked and amazed at the apparent contradictions of the man. I say, Donald Trump is suitable to the times. The American people are as lost today as the Israelites of the time of the judges - Christians lay claim to heaven with their lips and turn a blind eye to gay marriage, butchery abortion and the teaching of evolution to their children. God-haters hail the policy of Obama as beyond reproach but then run to embrace a full blown socialist (Bernie Sanders) who would overturn almost all of Obama's policies, including those favoring Wall Street (quantitative easing) and Obamacare.

American is not (yet) deserving of a savior along the lines of a David. We get what we deserve.

Narratives as Stand-Ins for Truth

2016-02-01T19:50:00.002-05:00

If you are old enough to remember the rhetoric of the old Soviet bloc you will recall how one day you might hear, via some political speech, Soviet propaganda about how superior life was under communism, and then the next day you might see footage on television of the drab conditions, in say, Eastern Germany - buildings with no paint, stores with no merchandise on the shelves, etc. So, in other words, the Soviets supplied the world with a narrative of conditions within the Soviet Union that were belied by a casual glance at the reality.

We have the same thing going on in America today - we are seven years into the presidency of Barak Obama and the American people are fed, from the White House, the Democratic Party, academia, and the media a narrative of how wonderful things are under Obama, or at least how much "progress" has been made since the dark days of George W. Bush. Then, in contrast, there is the reality that the average American grapples with every day.

I just read today that billionaire film director Steven Spielburg is a good example of how these false narratives are created and maintained.

For example, according to DiscovertheNetworks.org:

In August 2004 Spielberg produced a promotional video montage for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, consisting of 1970s film footage from Kerry's military tour-of-duty in Vietnam. According to a campaign source, Spielberg also advised Kerry on how he could enhance his public image. In addition to encouraging the candidate to smile more and to tone down his "academic" speaking style, Spielberg sent Kerry a number of John Wayne movies and urged him to emulate the actor's use of strategic pauses to give his words greater emphasis.

This was just a warm up for Spielberg. According to the same source:

During the 2012 presidential campaign season, Spielberg advised the Obama re-election team on how to effectively use advertising messages to smear Republican challenger Mitt Romney as a heartless multi-millionaire who was indifferent to the troubles of ordinary folks. For example, commercials backed by Spielberg’s creative advice deceptively depicted Romney’s investment firm, Bain Capital, as an evil entity whose refusal to provide health insurance coverage for one particular woman had resulted in her dying from cancer.

But my point is best illustrated by this episode, supplied by DiscovertheNetworks.org:

In November 2012, President Obama hosted Spielberg and actor Daniel Day-Lewis at the White House for a private screening of "Lincoln". According to an August 2015 New York Times report: “Mr. Spielberg held the president spellbound ... when he spoke about the use of technology to tell stories. Mr. Obama has continued those conversations, most recently with Mr. Spielberg and the studio executive Jeffrey Katzenberg over dinner at a Beverly Hills hotel in California in June.... [Obama's] advisers said Mr. Spielberg was focused on helping to develop a 'narrative' for Mr. Obama in the years after he leaves office.”

So, you see, it doesn't really matter what President accomplishes or fails to accomplish as president. The narrative has already been prepared, to be disseminated by media and academia about exactly who Barack Obama is, and what he is supposed to have accomplished. It isn't what you can see with your eyes, or experience in your own daily circumstances that shall inform you about Obama; no the script has already been prepared; Mr. Obama is, and will always be, exactly what the narrative tells us.

Federal Student Aid Boosts Tuitions, Not Enrollment

2015-07-07T09:33:00.000-05:00

Prevailing conventional wisdom is that federal student aid is an indispensable tool to enable persons, who otherwise couldn't afford it, to access a college educations. Research published by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York prove otherwise. Their research demonstrates that the primary result of federal student aid is to boost tuitions; that it does not boost enrollment.

Here is a link to the report: Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition: Evidence from the Expansion in Federal Student Aid Programs

Fracking Means Fewer Jobs Shipped Overseas

2015-07-07T09:18:00.001-05:00

A study undertaken by Boston Consulting Group reveals that lower prices for oil and gas brought upon by fracking translates into a better competitive position for U.S. based manufacturers, especially in plastics, vis-a-vis oversea competitors including China. Here is a summation provided by the National Center for Policy Analysis:

"A recent report projected that the cost of manufacturing in the U.S. will fall below costs in China within the next three years, in large part due to the rise of fracking. Fortune, citing an analysis by Boston Consulting Group, reported that the average cost to produce goods is currently only 5 percent higher in the United States than in China, and that the cost is expected to be 2 to 3 percent lower by 2018.

Rising wages in China and increased industrial productivity in the United States contributed to that trend, but the report cited hydraulic fracturing as the primary reason for the shift in costs.
Despite plummeting crude oil prices worldwide, the United States leads the global rankings in petroleum and natural gas production due to fracking.
As a result, the prices U.S. industrial customers pay for electricity are now 30 to 50 percent lower than the rates in other top exporting nations.
Falling energy prices particularly helped the metals, paper and petrochemicals sectors, which rely heavily on those fuels. A chemical trade group expects the plastics industry alone to create 127,500 jobs over the next decade due to decreasing natural gas prices.

The Fortune report noted that increased domestic production can also curb transportations costs, particularly with trucks fueled by natural gas.

Maintaining the country's fracking advantage over other nations could also help bring manufacturing jobs to the U.S. from overseas. A BCG analyst noted that even the current 5 percent cost gap between the U.S. and China could persuade companies to produce domestically, thereby avoiding potential shipping delays and political complications."

- See more at: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25823&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD#sthash.uBPLs0LQ.dpuf