Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Current Events & Trends: The German election: the other side of the story


An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Germany's domination in Europe. This follows this post about the Star of the Wise Men. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Current Events & Trends: The German election: the other side of the story

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The Jewish Chronicle stated in a front-page article, "Angela Merkel's historic third election victory was warmly greeted by European leaders this week" (Simon Rocker, "Board Welcomes Angela Merkel," Sept. 24, 2013).

Other headlines in British newspapers confirmed this viewpoint:
• "Decisive Win Gives Merkel Strong Hand"
• "Angela Merkel: The German Leader Set to Eclipse Margaret Thatcher"
• "Poland and Germany Should Unite, Says Lech Walesa"
• "Merkel Is Europe's Misunderstood Visionary"
These are only a few of the many positive reactions to Angela Merkel's success. Majority opinion, however, is not always right. One particular columnist expressed a totally different view of Merkel's vision of Europe. Noted author Frederick Forsyth's column in the Daily Express offers an almost biblical insight. His analysis of the German election result reflects a polar opposite position to the generally accepted assessment. He does not misunderstand the German chancellor's vision of Europe.
Forsyth's view follows: "She does not posture, she does not strut as most do. She does not shout the odds, rant or preach like so many. But her smooth destruction of her one-time patron and mentor Helmut Kohl gives the measure of her ruthlessness in pursuit of her goal" (Sept. 27, 2013).
What, according to Forsyth, is her goal? "That is the complete—and I mean total—unification of the countries of Europe, Germany included, into a single super-state. Nothing, absolutely nothing, must be allowed to stand in the way of that divine vision. And that includes the withdrawal of the UK from the EU." This partially explains her friendly, cooperative relationship with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron. If Britain leaves the European Union, other countries will likely follow suit.
Forsyth concluded: "For the third time in 100 years Germany has made up its collective mind on the future of Europe and does not intend to be gainsaid again by this blasted little offshore nation [Britain] and its dreadfully disobedient people."
This assessment may seem radical—but not to observers who have carefully studied German history and biblical prophecy hand in hand. To understand much more, read the free Bible study aids Are We Living in the Time of the End? and You Can Understand Bible Prophecy . (Sources: The Jewish Chronicle, Daily Express, Financial Times, The Independent, The Telegraph. )

Next Steps for the U.S.-Iran Deal

A very interesting post from www.stratfor.com about the U.S. and Iran's new deal. This follows this post about a cheerleader turned soldier. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more about what you can do to get more involved click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.


Next Steps for the U.S.-Iran Deal

   
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran after talks in Geneva on Nov. 24. ARASH KHAMOOSHI/AFP/Getty Images

Summary

What was unthinkable for many people over many years happened in the early hours of Nov. 24 in Geneva: The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran struck a deal. After a decadelong struggle, the two reached an accord that seeks to ensure that Iran's nuclear program remains a civilian one. It is a preliminary deal, and both sides face months of work to batten down domestic opposition, build convincing mechanisms to assure compliance and unthread complicated global sanctions.
 
That is the easy part. More difficult will be the process to reshape bilateral relations while virtually every regional player in the Middle East seeks ways to cope with an Iran that is no longer geopolitically encumbered.

Analysis

The foreign ministers of Iran and the six Western powers that constitute the so-called P-5+1 Group clinched a six-month deal that begins the curtailment of Iran's nuclear program while relaxing as much as $6 billion in sanctions -- basically those embargoes that do not require U.S. President Barack Obama to secure approval from Congress. Allowing Iran to enrich uranium to "civilian" levels while making sure the know-how is not diverted to military purposes will be complex.
 
There will be disruptive events along the way, but the normalization process is unlikely to derail. Both sides need it. The real stakes are the balance of power in the Middle East.
 
Iran is far more concerned with enhancing its geopolitical prowess through conventional means. Meanwhile, the United States wants to leverage relations with Iran in order to better manage the region in an age of turmoil. Contrary to much of the public discourse, the Obama administration is not facilitating a nuclear Iran.

Washington and the Middle East

The United States is prepared to accept that Iran will consolidate much of the influence it has accumulated over the 12 years since the Sept. 11 attacks. From the point of view of the Iranians, they had reached the limits of how far they could go in enhancing their geopolitical footprint in the U.S. war against Sunni Islamist militancy. The tightening sanctions threatened to undermine the gains the Islamic republic had made. Thus the time had come for Iran to achieve through geopolitical moderation what was no longer possible through a radical foreign policy.
 
Though the United States is prepared to accept an internationally rehabilitated Iran as a major stakeholder in the Greater Middle East region, it does not wish for Tehran to exploit the opportunity in order to gain disproportionate power. The strategic focus must now shift from nuclear politics to the imperative that the United States balance Iran with other regional powers, especially the Sunni Arab states.
 
The post-Arab Spring turmoil in the region has plunged U.S.-Arab relations into a state of uncertainty for two reasons: First, the autocratic regimes have become unreliable partners; second, the region is seeing the rise of radical Sunni Islamist forces.
 
A rehabilitated Iran, along with its Shiite radical agenda, serves as a counter to the growing bandwidth of Sunni radicalism. All strategies have unintended consequences. A geopolitically unchained Iran, to varying degrees, undermines the position of decades-old American alliances in the region. These include Turkey, Israel and the Arab states (the ones that have survived the regional chaos defined by anti-autocratic popular agitation, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others).
 
Washington is not the only actor anticipating a shift in its regional ambitions. France initially challenged earlier attempts at a U.S.-Iranian accord, placing greater pressure on the Iranians -- much to the enjoyment of regional states such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Though Paris has been eying the Middle East -- specifically the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf -- as a larger potential market for its energy firms and defense exporters, France stands to gain little from unilaterally opposing a U.S.-Iranian deal. Rather, France sought to shape the talks and regional reactions to the benefit of its domestic industries. Germany and the United Kingdom, the other EU powers present at the talks, are hoping to gain greater exposure for their energy firms and exports to Iran's large domestic consumer base. Germany in particular enjoyed one of the largest non-energy trade relationships with Iran before the most recent sanctions program took effect.

Regional Reverberations

The United States and the rest of the P-5+1 are not the only ones attempting to reset their relationship with Iran. Ankara, though initially opposed to Iranian ambitions in Syria and competing for influence in Iraq, has pursued a warming of ties with Tehran over the past several months. Turkey is a rising regional power in its own right, but domestic infighting within Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party is coinciding with a slump in the national economy. Meanwhile, Ankara is struggling to find a peaceful, political solution to its Kurdish issue. Turkey faces an uphill challenge in moving beyond the ring of Iranian influence on its borders, but a potential normalization of relations between Washington and Iran provides some opportunities for Ankara, even at the risk of empowering Iran's regional ambitions. The two countries face similar challenges from Kurdish separatism in the region, and the Iranian market and potential energy exports could help mitigate Turkey's rising dependence on Russian energy exports and potentially boost its slowing economy.
 
For all its rhetoric opposing the deal, Israel has very little to worry about in the immediate term. It will have to adjust to operating in an environment where Iran is no longer limited by its pariah status, but Iran remains unable to threaten Israel for the foreseeable future. Iran, constrained by its need to be a mainstream actor, will seek to rebuild its economy and will steer clear of any hawkish moves against Israel. Furthermore, Iran is more interested in gaining ground against the Arab states -- something that Israel can use to its advantage. The report about the Israeli security establishment seeing the deal as a positive development (in contradiction to the position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government) speaks volumes about the true extent of Israeli apprehension.
 
That leaves the Arab states, in particular Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, for whom a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement is a nightmare scenario. Riyadh and its neighboring monarchies are caught in the middle of the Arab Spring, which challenges them from within, and were long concerned with the rise of Iran. But now that their biggest ally has turned to normalizing ties with their biggest adversary, these countries find themselves bereft of good options with which to manage an Iran that will gain more from normalizing relations with the United States than it did with the American response to the 9/11 attacks.
 
Iran has played a large and visible role in bolstering the beleaguered al Assad regime during the Syrian civil war. Iran's potential reset in relations will bring no easy or quick resolution to Damascus. The Syrian regime will still face the daunting task of having to rout the rebels and secure large swathes of Syrian territory, a difficult task even in the unlikely scenario of a precipitous drop in Sunni Arab backing for the rebels following a more comprehensive agreement between Tehran and the West. Indeed, the Syrian conflict, Iran's support of Hezbollah and the future of Iranian influence in Iraq will form the more contentious, difficult stages of U.S.-Iranian negotiations ahead.
 
The Saudis, domestically at a historic crossroads, are trying to assert an independent foreign policy given the shift in American-Iranian ties. But they know that such a move offers limited dividends. Riyadh will try to make the most of the fact that it is not in Washington's interest to allow Tehran to operate too freely in the region.
 
Likewise, the Saudi kingdom will try to work with Turkey to counterbalance Iran. But again, this is not a reliable tool, given that Turkish interests converge with those of Iran more than they do with Saudi Arabia's. Quietly working with Israel is an option, but there are limits to that given the Arab-Israeli conflict and the fact that Iran can exploit any such relationship. In the end, the Saudis and the Arab states will have to adjust most to the reality in which American-Iranian hostility begins to wither.
 


Read more: Next Steps for the U.S.-Iran Deal | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook

5 Great Immigration Solutions

A very interesting post from www.NumbersUSA.com about immigration solutions to ask your Representative and Senators to sponsor. This follows this post about  the timeline of increased immigration under the Obama Administration. REMEMBER, “Amnesty” means ANY non-enforcement of existing immigration laws! This follows this comment and this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more about what you can do click here and you can read two very interesting books HERE.

5 Great Immigration Solutions
 
NumbersUSA believes the majority of immigration problems would be solved with passage of bills in the five categories below. In some categories, more than one bill has been introduced that would resolve the problem. Members of Congress who have co-sponsored at least one of those bills get a YES by their name in that column.
Only Members who have co-sponsored in at least one category are listed below. Thank them and ask them to sign up for the bills they haven't yet co-sponsored. Click on the link for each bill to read more details and view the co-sponsor list. Contact Members who have done nothing and are not listed; urge them to put themselves on this Solutions Grid.



https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/abandoned-pages/what-we-support/5-great-immigration-reduction-bills.html

END CHAIN MIGRATION
Rep. Gingrey's H.R.477
MANDATORY E-VERIFY
Rep. Gingrey's H.R.478
Rep. DeFazio's H.R.502
Rep. Graves' H.R.830
 
END VISA LOTTERY
NO BILL YET
END BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP
Rep. King's H.R.140
HELP LOCAL ENFORCEMENT
NO BILL YET

Monday, December 30, 2013

Editorial: Reversing Obama's Non-Enforcement of Immigration Laws

Editorial

Since Barack Obama has taken office, he has drastically scaled back on the enforcement of immigration laws. I would encourage you to review this post from last week, and then ask your Representative and Senators what they are going to do to reverse this trend while so many Americans are unemployed or otherwise financially struggling.

If your government officials are in a primary race, the one with the best answers to these is the one that deserves your vote! Also, it is not too early to begin asking Presidential candidates what they are going to do about this either, as well as demanding more coverage from your talk radio hosts!

Federal Judge: Obama's DHS Involved in Human Trafficking‏

A timely post about from HTTPS://PrayFor.US about the corruption in the Department of Homeland Security. This follows this post about the Knockout Game NOW being acknowledged as a "hate crime." This follows this post about Christmas in Mexico.  In the meantime, you can get more involved if you like here and read an interesting book HERE.



Federal Judge: Obama's DHS Involved in Human Trafficking



Ask yourself this question:
If Obama's federal officers in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are willing to aid and abet the Mexican drug cartels in their human smuggling operations, is there anything that these officers would NOT be willing to do to you and your family, if Obama gives them an order?
In a court ruling in Texas this month, a federal judge stated that he is seeing cases EVERY WEEK in which DHS is helping the drug cartels carry out their mission to smuggle more illegal aliens into this country.
Your tax dollars are paying for this and the drug cartels are profiting from it.
This is the stark, ugly truth:  The DHS is violating our border security laws to swell the number of illegal aliens in this country on behalf of Obama's efforts to create a permanent Democrat majority.
Obama is making you a partaker in these evil deeds by spending your tax dollars to help enrich the drug cartels.  This government-sanctioned crime is as low as it gets.
Please Contact the House Oversight Committee and demand that they investigate this criminal conspiracy. Every officer involved in it should be fired and punished!

The case that US District Court Judge Andrew Hanan ruled in last week involves a child of an illegal alien.  While that might tug at your heart-strings, keep in mind that Judge Hanan says the parents of the child, the DHS officers and the drug cartels ALL placed this child in danger while carrying out a conspiracy to break our laws.
Here's what is happening on a regular basis, according to Hanan's ruling in United States v. Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez.
Ms. Nava-Martinez is a human smuggler. It's her job to sneak illegal aliens and human slaves across our southern border on behalf of the drug cartels.
She was caught by federal officers at the border this year with a child in tow.  The child belongs to an illegal alien hiding out in Virginia.  The parent had paid the drug cartel that employs Nava-Martinez $6,000 to transport the child from El Salvador to Virginia.
So, the DHS agents delivered the child to her parent in Virginia and walked away.
They didn't arrest the parent for conspiring to thwart our border laws or start deportation proceedings against them.  The drug cartels still got their $6,000.  The illegal alien now has a child on U.S. soil, making it next to impossible to deport her under Obama's executive order amnesty. Mission accomplished all around.
Judge Hanan says that in one case that he has presided over, DHS agents took a child on four separate airline flights to deliver him to his parents.
Your tax dollars are paying for these crimes!

Please Contact the House Oversight Committee and demand that they investigate this criminal conspiracy. Every officer involved in it should be fired and punished!

The head of the labor union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed everything in Judge Hanan's ruling on Fox News.
The drug cartels know that even if they get caught at the border, they'll still get paid because Obama's DHS agents will finish the mission for them.

Obama has made us all unwilling participants in his unfruitful works of darkness, by using our tax dollars to encourage and maintain a criminal enterprise that endangers children and in some cases, costs them their very lives.
The only way that we will be able to stop this is if Congress investigates and prosecutes Obama's law-breaking DHS agents.


Please Contact the House Oversight Committee and demand that they investigate this criminal conspiracy. Every officer involved in it should be fired and punished!

Human rights organizations say the cartels smuggle up to 20,000 slaves across our southern border every year. (The Justice Department used to track these numbers more closely, but stopped doing so the year that Eric Holder became Attorney General.)
Judge Hanan alleges that DHS is assisting in those operations as well, and again, your tax dollars are therefore paying to perpetuate these crimes.

If you know anyone else who would be willing to speak out against these crimes by the Obama regime, please send them this link:

A&E Reverses, Welcomes Back Pro-Life Phil Robertson to Duck Dynasty

An interesting story from www.lifenews.com  about Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty. This follows this previous post about him. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can also get two very interesting books HERE.

A&E Reverses, Welcomes Back Pro-Life Phil Robertson to Duck Dynasty After a national debate about sexual moral and values following A&E’s decision to kick Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson off of the program, the cable television channel has relented and issued a statement late Friday welcoming him back.
An A&E statement to The Hollywood Reporter read: As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals... http://www.lifenews.com/2013/12/27/ae-reverses-welcomes-back-pro-life-phil-robertson-to-duck-dynasty/
 

Christmas Box Office: Grudge Match, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Wolf of Wall Street

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Christmas Box Office: Grudge Match, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Wolf of Wall Street


By Debbie Schlussel
The grinches who dominate Hollywood don’t offer you much good or cheery at movie theaters today:
grudgematchwaltermitty

wolfofwallstreet

* “Grudge Match“: I didn’t particularly care for this movie, but I didn’t completely hate it like some movie critics did. It is mildly–very mildly–entertaining, BUT . . . . The jokes were mostly stupid–I laughed only a few times–and it has sexual themes, so you can’t really take your kids to see it. Plus, what is the point of a movie about two old guys in their 60s and 70s–one of whom is partially blind–preparing to fight each other? It’s not exciting to watch. It’s painful. Also, I could have done without the silly, trumped up melodrama story about two guys fighting over a girl who cheated on one of them with the other. This is Christmas fare? Really?
Here’s a tip, Hollywood: just because two famous actors once played boxers in successful movies, doesn’t mean it’s a sure fire formula for success to make them aging, senior citizen boxers doing a rematch when they are in their 60s and 70s. I mean, I don’t wanna see “Rocky XCMVII.” Do you?
 

The story: Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro play former champion boxers who were about to have a rematch in their prime. But the Stallone character retired before the match to get back at De Niro for sleeping with his girlfriend (Kim Basinger). De Niro also got the girlfriend pregnant and abandoned the kid. Yay, another “fathers suck” movie from Hollywood–Merry Christmas! Now it is years later,and both are old. Stallone still doesn’t want to do the rematch, but he needs the money. He spent all his boxing winnings and just got laid off from the plant where he works. He has a lot of overdue bills to pay. So, he agrees to the fight, and both he and De Niro begin training.
Predictably, De Niro becomes reunited with the kid he abandoned and Stallone gets reunited with the girlfriend he dumped after she cheated. Also, De Niro and Stallone get into repeated fights on the street in videos that go viral, making their boxing match a popular attraction.
Did I really need to see 70-year-old De Niro having sex in the middle of an SUV with some young woman, while his grandson catches them? Did I need to see a partially blind man get repeatedly slugged in his blind spot? And this is a comedy?
This isn’t Christmas entertainment. It’s two old actors doing whatever it takes–minus any scruples–to get a paycheck.
ONE MARX
karlmarxmovies.jpg
Watch the trailer . . .

* “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty“: This is a remake (of sorts) of the 1947 Danny Kaye movie, but it’s less a remake than a new version of the James Thurber short story upon which the Kaye movie was based. I found it entertaining enough, but kind of dopey, and I wouldn’t pay ten bucks-plus to see it. Plus Sean Uber-Communist Penn is in it in a positive role. And the movie is anti-business, too. On top of all of that, eHarmony.com is a major part of the plot (with Papa John’s blatantly thrown in, too)–so it’s a commercial for a website and you pay ten bucks-plus and two hours to see it. The best part of the movie is a hilarious scene with the TSA. Other than that, it’s just okay. It’s not nearly as funny as typical Ben Stiller fare. Not even close.
The story: Ben Stiller plays Walter Mitty, who fantasizes about being heroic and doing larger than life things. In reality, he is a nerdy photo editor at Life Magazine. He learns that Life will publish its last hard copy issue and many employees will lose their jobs, since the company has been bought out. A new management team headed by Adam Scott (who, as I’ve noted on this site before, looks like Liza Minnelli) comes in and is obnoxious to everyone. He constantly has run-ins with Mitty and is mean-spirited and mocking in tone. A famous photographer (Penn), whose photos are used by Life, sends Stiller the negative for the final photo (he refuses to do digital). But Stiller cannot find the negative, and the boss threatens to fire him. So, he travels around the world and does things like skateboarding and running from a volcano to track down the photographer. (When he finally finds the photog, they watch Pakistanis in the middle of the mountains play soccer–and the peaceful Pakistani Muslims are so nice and inviting, they invite Mitty and Penn to join in. Like that really happens in real life. They (the Pakis) would kill them (Mitty and the photog) and use their head as the soccer ball.)
All throughout this story, Mitty is also trying to catch the eye of Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), who is a single mother and is on eHarmony. Mitty is constantly on the phone with the eHarmony customer service guy, trying to enhance Mitty’s online profile.
The end of the movie is touching, but the rest of it feels like it was mostly phoned in. I never saw the Danny Kaye version from beginning to end, just snippets, but I can’t imagine this version is better.
ONE REAGAN
reagancowboy
Watch the trailer . . .

* “The Wolf of Wall Street“: I absolutely HATED this movie. Total garbage. And I’m disgusted that this movie celebrating crime and utter depravity was shown at the Obama White House.
The movie is way too long (THREE HOURS!!!), repetitive, boring, and full of illegal drug use, full-frontal nudity, disgustingly kinky sex scenes (Leonardo DiCRAPio’s butt up in the air with a lit candle sticking out of it as a dominatrix whips him), and anti-Wall Street crap. If you’ve seen “Boiler Room” and “Wall Street” and any other Hollywood movies attacking investment houses, you’ve already seen this unoriginal movie a gazillion times. I know I have. And while the movie goes out of its way to let you know that the main crooks here are Jews (one of them even wears a Jewish “Chai” necklace charm), they don’t tell you that the real-life JINO (Jew in Name Only) scumbag portrayed in this movie, Jordan Belfort, repeatedly describes each Jew he knows as a “savage Jew” in the book upon which this movie is based. As I said in my review of “American Hustle,” we Jews are only about 2.1% of the American population (to which we made many wonderful contributions throughout American history), but we are nearly 100% of the criminals in the Christmastime movies, this year.
And while the movie is an attack on Wall Street, most of Belfort’s crime was as an off-Wall-Street boiler room king in Long Island. Plus, the people involved with this movie, including that schmuck Jonah Hill a/k/a Jonah Hill Feldstein, actually reward Belfort for his disgusting, sleazy, criminal behavior because they paid him a boatload to use his book as a basis for the script–yes, the same book that refers to Jews as “savage Jew[s].” And the movie essentially sympathizes and laughs with Belfort, who is played by Leonardo DiCaprio).
The story: Jordan Belfort is the middle-class son of suburban New Yorkers (his father is an accountant played by Rob Reiner, in this movie), and he’s an aspiring investment adviser. But, just as he’s rising up the chain of command at the dishonest Wall Street firm where he works (and is encouraged to rip off customers), Black Monday happens (the late 1980s one-day big stock market crash), and he loses his job. His then-wife encourages him to apply for a job at a boiler room, and he soon realizes he can make even more money ripping people off on penny stocks. He soon opens his own such company with Jonah Hill and illegally, artificially pumps up stock prices, then sells his own shares, leaving his customers with worthless paper (this tactic is called “pump and dump”). Belfort does this with Steve Madden shoes stock, which was an interesting real life story that the movie could have explored but didn’t do much with. The real life Steve Madden went to jail over that. But this piece of trash movie doesn’t go into that part.
Belfort, upon becoming rich, flaunts it with extravagant taste in cars, homes, boats, etc., and he dumps his wife for a blonde model. He also flaunts his lifestyle in an attempt to taunt the FBI agent investigating him for insider trading and other illegal activities. He’s an obnoxious and an extremely offensive and unlikable character. And he’s a criminal beyond the insider trading and pump and dump schemes. He uses his wife’s elderly English aunt to launder and hide the money in Swiss bank accounts and tries to have sex with the aunt. Uggh. And Uggh is the key descriptor for this entire toilet bowl full of excrement disguised as a movie.
I regret that the real Jordan Belfort served very little jail time and is free and making more money off of his book and, now, this movie, glamorizing his criminal behavior and activities. He’s laughing all the way to the bank. Crime pays, apparently.
The real wolves in America are not the successful on Wall Street (many of whom, by the way, are liberals and Obama supporters). They are the producers and directors of Hollywood that bring this crap to the tarnished silver screen on a regular basis. I used to think Martin Scorsese was a talented director. What the hell was I thinking?
There’s nothing new in this movie. You’ve seen this anti-business rant on screen a million times. Don’t make it a million and one.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS
karlmarxmovies.jpgkarlmarxmovies.jpgkarlmarxmovies.jpgkarlmarxmovies.jpgplus.jpgobamasmilingsmallerobamasmilingsmallerobamasmilingsmallerobamasmilingsmallerplus.jpgbinladensmallerbinladensmallerbinladensmallerbinladensmaller
 

Friday, December 27, 2013

This Is the Way... Wise Men Still Seek His Star

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the Star of the Wise Men. This follows this post about the "untouchables" in India. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

This Is the Way... Wise Men Still Seek His Star



Two thousand years ago, men of the East gazed into the heavens and were drawn to a star. They were compelled by something beyond themselves to follow its light.

Two thousand years ago, men of the East gazed into the heavens and were drawn to a star. They were compelled by something beyond themselves to follow its light.
Perhaps they were familiar with ancient Israel's literature that spoke of a time when "a Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel" (Numbers 24:17).
Again, they may have pondered and acted upon the colorful depiction of Isaiah 60:1-3 where it declares, "Arise, shine; for your light has come!… The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising."
Their account in Matthew 2 is a story of faith set in motion to encounter the revelation of that star. Their unwavering purpose as recorded for future generations is summed up in their own words: "For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him" (Matthew 2:2).
As we know from the familiar passages related to the first coming of Christ, these strangers from the East were not foreign to the protocol worthy of a ruler and thus offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child. Their anticipation was matched with the realization of being summoned to appear before a king.
The "voice of God" quieted?
What do these wise men of old have in common with us, and how might we tap into their wisdom? And why turn our sights in reverse to the first coming of Christ when so much of this magazine is devoted to current events and future prophecies?
Actually, there are amazing similarities! Let's come to appreciate that at the time of Christ's birth it had been 400 years since the "voice of God" had been recognized and accorded stature as Holy Scripture. There had been no sure word from the Lord since the time of Malachi the prophet. A bestial system with an iron boot held sway over much of the world. The people of Judea had already experienced the force of Rome for nearly three generations.
It was a time of darkness in which there was a bubbling to the surface of anticipation, not too far removed from desperation, for a special deliverer sent by the Almighty. And yet God Himself appeared "quiet" in the arena of events.
In one sense, there was no secret about what was to transpire. God had foretold the coming of the Messiah. How often had the words of Isaiah 7:14 been read: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel" or the "x-marks-the-spot passage" of Micah 5:2 that declares: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting"?
Oh yes, the people of that time had much to consider! But did they comprehend? Well, that would be another matter. Yet there would come a time when all the pieces began to come together and these men, called magi, with all their accumulated human wisdom did the smartest thing of all. They remained open to God's lead. They made sure they were available to follow the sign when it did come, and they were willing to go wherever it led them.
The bottom line is they moved beyond knowledge to action, and that made and continues to make all the difference in the world.
The seamless interventions of God
It has been more than 2,000 years since that journey wrought by a beckoning star, and the first coming of the Christ child can seem like distant history. That's five times the duration of quiet between Malachi and the time of Christ. Yes, it seems like forever and more!
But our Heavenly Father, the One who inhabits eternity, looks at the first and second comings of His Son as one seamless activity. God, because He is God, has looked far into the future and brings us as His invited audience forward to understand and come to appreciate His great love for us even when at times He seems far away and out of touch.
As you read this column, autumn will be knocking on our seasonal door in the northern hemisphere. We will be entering what I like to call "the season of kingdoms." It is in this time of year, not the humanly appointed winter solstice celebration of Dec. 25, that the King of our lives first came to earth.
Oh yes, there was heraldry involved with proclamations of angels, visiting shepherds and the before-mentioned celestial light show illuminating the way. But most of mankind missed the first coming. But come Immanuel did, not in our prescribed time by our human clocks, but in the right time! Not in how we would have done it, but in how God knew it had to be performed. God's perfect interventions are always better than the best of our human machinations.
God chose to pitch a tent
John, the Gospel writer, spells out in crystal clear fashion how the God Being called the Word "became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).
It is of note that the word dwelt comes from the Greek term skenoo , which means to literally "pitch a tent" or "to tabernacle." It is John, under the inspiration of God, who shows us that God decided to "pitch a tent" within the wilderness of the human condition.
It is this statement that differentiates Christianity from all other religions. It reveals that God is not merely some benevolent "First Cause" and absentee faraway cosmic babysitter. The One known as the Word separated Himself from the privileges of His divine station and volunteered to be placed on a bed of straw in a dark and smelly manger, because "there was no room for them in the inn."
It is in the framework of this humble setting that God interrupts human history. It is here in this perfect "palace of humility" that He reveals the incredible attributes of the godly servant. The apostle Paul shares how the "quiet of the centuries" was shattered in Galatians 4:4: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law."
The time was ripe
No, God was not late, for the time was ripe! God not only created time, but is the master of timing. It was in this moment of historical convergence of the Roman Empire, the Greek language and the Jewish Diaspora that the bright light, heralding the birth of a king in the autumn, was on display.
But this light was more than a celestial flashlight guiding the footsteps of camels. Rather this heavenly sentinel showed how all along God had worked "loudly" behind the scenes in preparation for the entrance of our Savior. He had moved empires, spread languages and scattered His religious folk around the Mediterranean Sea so that their religious house might be a springboard of understanding to grasp the fulfillment of Isaiah's words.
But Christ's pitching a tent among humanity is not left standing alone in the Gospel accounts. Remember how I mentioned the seamless nature of the comings of Christ to our world and how the autumnal time that approaches can be called the "season of kingdoms"? It is noteworthy that the biblical festivals of Trumpets and Tabernacles are observed during this time frame. These God-ordained observances, centering on the saving works of God through Jesus Christ, bring us into remembrance that Jesus Christ is returning to this earth to establish His Kingdom.
Many who read the Bible can accept a first coming, and thank God for a good story of a baby, shepherds and wise men. But a true and responsive believer accepts that a first coming demands a second coming, and that a first coming must precede a second coming. And do you know how you know you believe that? Because, when you come into contact with the reality that God became a helpless baby, and that He loves us so much that He is going to enter human history once again to rescue humanity from itself—a major change takes place.
Yes Christ is going to pitch a tent once more. But next time it will be in holy splendor and not merely straw. Revelation 21:2-3 gives us a sense of what is to occur, when speaking through the apostolic writer:
"Then I, John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.'"
Right there in the middle of this triumphant declaration of God's plan is the word dwell . That's right, skenoo or "to pitch a tent" is right there at the end of the good book. It's kind of a graphic and simple term, to remind us that God never changes His plan, from the manger till now and beyond. He wants us to know He is coming and will plant Himself in our lives when times are troubled and seemingly quiet as to the "voice of God."
"The Bright and Morning Star"
That's why the book of Revelation speaks of a star—the "morning star" that is. It doesn't get the same attention as the one mentioned in Matthew, but it's just as important and it's the one you and I have been given to focus on and follow now!
It is interesting that Revelation 2:28 speaks of this morning star as a gift given to the Church. Jesus, the risen Christ in heaven, says, "I also have received from My Father; and I will give him [speaking of His followers] the morning star." And then it says in verse 29: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
We are granted further definition of this gift in the last chapter of the Bible. Interestingly, this star is mentioned here as one of the last pivotal items that God asks us to consider through Christ. It is here in Revelation 22:16 that Christ defines this gift to the Church as Himself.
Notice, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches, I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star."
Why does Christ reserve this name to Himself? Consider for a moment that it is the morning star that appears when it is darkest and coldest. It is the appearance of this sentinel of light that gives hope for the dawning of a new day. It is when it is coldest and darkest in human history that He enters time and space one more time.
"Follow Me"
How wise will we be? The wise men of old set a course for us to consider. It's interesting that Jesus, the Bright and Morning Star of Revelation, always came to His followers with one message: "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19; John 21:19).
Perhaps it is the encouragement of Jesus' own words of "follow Me" that points us to the admonition of Isaiah 30:21: "This is the way, walk in it."
Like our counterparts from yesteryear, today's wise men will be open, available and willing as they still seek and wait upon a star. It is time to look up and follow! WNP

Re-Examining the Arab Spring

A timely post about from www.stratfor.com about the Arab Spring. This follows this post about sending a letter of protest on behalf of Duck Dynasty.  This follows this post about beheadings in Brazil in the run-up to the World Cup.  In the meantime, you can get more involved if you like here and read an interesting book HERE.


Re-Examining the Arab Spring

Stratfor
By George Friedman
On Dec. 17, 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, set himself on fire in a show of public protest. The self-immolation triggered unrest in Tunisia and ultimately the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. This was followed by unrest in a number of Arab countries that the global press dubbed the "Arab Spring." The standard analysis of the situation was that oppressive regimes had been sitting on a volcano of liberal democratic discontent. The belief was that the Arab Spring was a political uprising by masses demanding liberal democratic reform and that this uprising, supported by Western democracies, would generate sweeping political change across the Arab world.
It is now more than six months since the beginning of the Arab Spring, and it is important to take stock of what has happened and what has not happened. The reasons for the widespread unrest go beyond the Arab world, although, obviously, the dynamics within that world are important in and of themselves. However, the belief in an Arab Spring helped shape European and American policies in the region and the world. If the assumptions of this past January and February prove insufficient or even wrong, then there will be regional and global consequences.
It is important to begin with the fact that, to this point, no regime has fallen in the Arab world. Individuals such as Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have been replaced, but the regimes themselves, which represent the manner of governing, have not changed. Some regimes have come under massive attack but have not fallen, as in Libya, Syria and Yemen. And in many countries, such as Jordan, the unrest never amounted to a real threat to the regime. The kind of rapid and complete collapse that we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989 with the fall of communism has not happened in the Arab world. More important, what regime changes that might come of the civil wars in Libya and Syria are not going to be clearly victorious, those that are victorious are not going to be clearly democratic and those that are democratic are obviously not going to be liberal. The myth that beneath every Libyan is a French republican yearning to breathe free is dubious in the extreme.
Consider the case of Mubarak, who was forced from office and put on trial, although the regime -- a mode of governing in which the military remains the main arbiter of the state -- remains intact. Egypt is now governed by a committee of military commanders, all of whom had been part of Mubarak's regime. Elections are coming, but the opposition is deeply divided between Islamists and secularists, and personalities and ideological divisions in turn divide these factions. The probability of a powerful democratic president emerging who controls the sprawling ministries in Cairo and the country's security and military apparatus is slim, and the Egyptian military junta is already acting to suppress elements that are too radical and too unpredictable.
The important question is why these regimes have been able to survive. In a genuine revolution, the regime loses power. The anti-communist forces overwhelmed the Polish Communist government in 1989 regardless of the divisions within the opposition. The sitting regimes were not in a position to determine their own futures, let alone the futures of their countries. There was a transition, but they were not in control of it. Similarly, in 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, his military and security people were not the ones managing the transition after the shah left the country. They were the ones on trial. There was unrest in Egypt in January and February 2011, but the idea that it amounted to a revolution flew in the face of the reality of Egypt and of what revolutions actually look like.

Shaping the Western Narrative

There were three principles shaping the Western narrative on the Arab Spring. The first was that these regimes were overwhelmingly unpopular. The second was that the opposition represented the overwhelming will of the people. The third was that once the unrest began it was unstoppable. Add to all that the notion that social media facilitated the organization of the revolution and the belief that the region was in the midst of a radical transformation can be easily understood.
It was in Libya that these propositions created the most serious problems. Tunisia and Egypt were not subject to very much outside influence. Libya became the focus of a significant Western intervention. Moammar Gadhafi had ruled Libya for nearly 42 years. He could not have ruled for that long without substantial support. That didn't mean he had majority support (or that he didn't). It simply meant that the survival of his regime did not interest only a handful of people, but that a large network of Libyans benefitted from Gadhafi's rule and stood to lose a great deal if he fell. They were prepared to fight for his regime.
The opposition to him was real, but its claim to represent the overwhelming majority of Libyan people was dubious. Many of the leaders had been part of the Gadhafi regime, and it is doubtful they were selected for their government posts because of their personal popularity. Others were members of tribes that were opposed to the regime but not particularly friendly to each other. Under the mythology of the Arab Spring, the eastern coalition represented the united rage of the Libyan people against Gadhafi's oppression. Gadhafi was weak and isolated, wielding an army that was still loyal and could inflict terrible vengeance on the Libyan people. But if the West would demonstrate its ability to prevent slaughter in Benghazi, the military would realize its own isolation and defect to the rebels.
It didn't happen that way. First, Gadhafi's regime was more than simply a handful of people terrorizing the population. It was certainly a brutal regime, but it hadn't survived for 42 years on that alone. It had substantial support in the military and among key tribes. Whether this was a majority is as unclear as whether the eastern coalition was a majority. But it was certainly a substantial group with much to fight for and a great deal to lose if the regime fell. So, contrary to expectations in the West, the regime has continued to fight and to retain the loyalty of a substantial number of people. Meanwhile, the eastern alliance has continued to survive under the protection of NATO but has been unable to form a united government or topple Gadhafi. Most important, it has always been a dubious assertion that what would emerge if the rebels did defeat Gadhafi would be a democratic regime, let alone a liberal democracy, and this has become increasingly obvious as the war has worn on. Whoever would replace Gadhafi would not clearly be superior to him, which is saying quite a lot.
A very similar process is taking place in Syria. There, the minority Alawite government of the al Assad family, which has ruled Syria for 41 years, is facing an uprising led by the majority Sunnis, or at least some segment of them. Again, the assumption was that the regime was illegitimate and therefore weak and would crumble in the face of concerted resistance. That assumption proved wrong. The al Assad regime may be running a minority government, but it has substantial support from a military of mostly Alawite officers leading a largely Sunni conscript force. The military has benefited tremendously from the Assad regime -- indeed, it brought it to power. The one thing the al Assads were careful to do was to make it beneficial to the military and security services to remain loyal to the regime. So far, they largely have. The danger for the regime looking forward is if the growing strain on the Alawite-dominated army divisions leads to fissures within the Alawite community and in the army itself, raising the potential for a military coup.
In part, these Arab leaders have nowhere to go. The senior leadership of the military could be tried in The Hague, and the lower ranks are subject to rebel retribution. There is a rule in war, which is that you should always give your enemy room to retreat. The al Assad supporters, like the Gadhafi supporters and the supporters of Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, have no room to retreat. So they have fought on for months, and it is not clear they will capitulate anytime soon.
Foreign governments, from the United States to Turkey, have expressed their exasperation with the Syrians, but none has seriously contemplated an intervention. There are two reasons for this: First, following the Libya intervention, everyone became more wary of assuming the weakness of Arab regimes, and no one wants a showdown on the ground with a desperate Syrian military. Second, observers have become cautious in asserting that widespread unrest constitutes a popular revolution or that the revolutionaries necessarily want to create a liberal democracy. The Sunnis in Syria might well want a democracy, but they might well be interested in creating a Sunni "Islamic" state. Knowing that it is important to be careful what you wish for, everyone seems to be issuing stern warnings to Damascus without doing very much.
Syria is an interesting case because it is, perhaps, the only current issue that Iran and Israel agree on. Iran is deeply invested in the al Assad regime and wary of increased Sunni power in Syria. Israel is just as deeply concerned that the al Assad regime -- a known and manageable devil from the Israeli point of view -- could collapse and be replaced by a Sunni Islamist regime with close ties to Hamas and what is left of al Qaeda in the Levant. These are fears, not certainties, but the fears make for interesting bedfellows.

Geopolitical Significance

Since late 2010, we have seen three kinds of uprisings in the Arab world. The first are those that merely brushed by the regime. The second are those that created a change in leaders but not in the way the country was run. The third are those that turned into civil wars, such as Libya and Yemen. There is also the interesting case of Bahrain, where the regime was saved by the intervention of Saudi Arabia, but while the rising there conformed to the basic model of the Arab Spring -- failed hopes -- it lies in a different class, caught between Saudi and Iranian power.
The three examples do not mean that there is not discontent in the Arab world or a desire for change. They do not mean that change will not happen, or that discontent will not assume sufficient force to overthrow regimes. They also do not mean that whatever emerges will be liberal democratic states pleasing to Americans and Europeans.
This becomes the geopolitically significant part of the story. Among Europeans and within the U.S. State Department and the Obama administration is an ideology of human rights -- the idea that one of the major commitments of Western countries should be supporting the creation of regimes resembling their own. This assumes all the things that we have discussed: that there is powerful discontent in oppressive states, that the discontent is powerful enough to overthrow regimes, and that what follows would be the sort of regime that the West would be able to work with.
The issue isn't whether human rights are important but whether supporting unrest in repressive states automatically strengthens human rights. An important example was Iran in 1979, when opposition to the oppression of the shah's government was perceived as a movement toward liberal democracy. What followed might have been democratic but it was hardly liberal. Indeed, many of the myths of the Arab Spring had their roots both in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and later in Iran's 2009 Green Movement, when a narrow uprising readily crushed by the regime was widely viewed as massive opposition and widespread support for liberalization.
The world is more complicated and more varied than that. As we saw in the Arab Spring, oppressive regimes are not always faced with massed risings, and unrest does not necessarily mean mass support. Nor are the alternatives necessarily more palatable than what went before or the displeasure of the West nearly as fearsome as Westerners like to think. Libya is a case study on the consequences of starting a war with insufficient force. Syria makes a strong case on the limits of soft power. Egypt and Tunisia represent a textbook lesson on the importance of not deluding yourself.
The pursuit of human rights requires ruthless clarity as to whom you are supporting and what their chances are. It is important to remember that it is not Western supporters of human rights who suffer the consequences of failed risings, civil wars or revolutionary regimes that are committed to causes other than liberal democracy.
The misreading of the situation can also create unnecessary geopolitical problems. The fall of the Egyptian regime, unlikely as it is at this point, would be just as likely to generate an Islamist regime as a liberal democracy. The survival of the al Assad regime could lead to more slaughter than we have seen and a much firmer base for Iran. No regimes have fallen since the Arab Spring, but when they do it will be important to remember 1979 and the conviction that nothing could be worse than the shah's Iran, morally or geopolitically. Neither was quite the case.
This doesn't mean that there aren't people in the Arab world who want liberal democracy. It simply means that they are not powerful enough to topple regimes or maintain control of new regimes even if they did succeed. The Arab Spring is, above all, a primer on wishful thinking in the face of the real world.
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