The Real U.S. Unemployment Rate Is 49%
By Gregory Patin
Madison Independent Examiner
Saturday, January 31, 2015
The U.S. government officially admits that 8.3 percent of the labor
force is “visibly” unemployed.
The government’s most widely publicized unemployment rate takes
into account only those who are collecting unemployment benefits
and actively looking for work.
It does not take into account those whose unemployment benefits
have run out, those who have given up seeking work, or those who
are underemployed desiring full time work, but forced to work part
time.
Last year, 86 million Americans were not counted in the labor
force because they didn't keep up a regular job search and these
86 million Americans are the "invisible" unemployed.
The total US population is approximately 330 million.
24 percent of those, however, are young people not eligible to
work and 13 percent are retired.
So the total population of available workers in the United States
is 100% – (24% + 13%) = 63% of 330 million people, or 208 million workers.
Out of the pool of available workers, therefore, 8.3 percent
accounts for about 17.3 million people.
Together with the 86 million “invisible” that means 103.3 million
Americans are available to work but do not have a full time job.
And with 103.3 million workers not working or underemployed, the
true jobless rate in the U.S. right now is closer to 49 percent, not
the 8.3 percent the U.S. government and media is continually
propagandizing about.
That calculation is consistent with a recent survey of income and
program participation conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that
shows that well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least
one welfare program run by the federal government.
And that figure does not even include social security and medicare.
The implications for the U.S. economy should be obvious.
Government benefits for the unemployed merely provide enough
for families to get by and cover basic living expenses, they leave no
room for the type of discretionary spending that keeps businesses
thriving in America.
The amount of citizens out of work, not contributing revenue
and receiving benefits, combined with billions in defense and
war spending, bank bailouts, tax breaks for huge corporations
that outsource jobs, etc., is simply unsustainable.
Gregory Patin earned a B.A. in political science from U.W. Madison
and a M.S. in management from Colorado Technical University and
he is currently a free lance writer residing in Madison, WI who
considers himself politically independent.
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-real-unemployment-rate-
the-u-s
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
War Criminals Throwing Stones
War Criminals Throwing Stones
“I have been a member of this committee for years and I have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable…”
By Eleanor Goldfield
Disinformation.com
January 30, 2015
You know that feeling you get when someone says something that is
just so laughably absurd that you feel yourself stuck in this mental
and emotional limbo between anger and hysterical laughter,
typically settling somewhere in between; a murderous chuckle,
perhaps.
Well, that’s the place my mind settled today at about 9:30am EST
when McCain said those words about a group of activists, myself
included.
In a government run on logic, justice, freedom and honesty, McCain
would have of course been directing those comments to the lizard-
faced Kissinger.
But alas, those four tenets are about as absent from these
hearings as youth and common sense.
Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee (@SASCMajority)
invited three dinosaur war criminals to testify on our National
Security Strategy: Madeleine Albright, George Shultz, and Henry
Kissinger.
Code Pink organized the action calling for an arrest of Henry
Kissinger for war crimes, to be tried as a war criminal for his
involvement in decades of death and destruction including
overthrowing democratically elected governments in South
America and supporting genocide and mass killings in South
America, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
With hands painted red, activists walked up behind Kissinger
carrying signs and chanting “Arrest Henry Kissinger for War
Crimes!”
A few activists held up handcuffs signifying a citizens arrest.
Kissinger said nothing.
In fact, in the video, you can see he scarcely turns around.
Shultz, however, managed to find strength enough to stand up
and shoo us away as Capitol police pushed us back to our seats.
Medea Benjamin called out as the chant quieted “In the name
of the people of Chile. In the name of the people of Laos. In
the name of the people of East Timor. In the name of the people
of Cambodia.”
McCain then uttered those words which proved to be too much
for a protestor who then stood up and called out to McCain.
Shortly thereafter, he was escorted out by police while McCain over
his microphone eloquently pointed out that the man should shut up
and “Get out of here, you low life scum.”
Irony doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the scene of a war hawk
sitting before three war criminals calling a protestor for peace a
“low life scum.”
And if speaking of disgraceful, outrageous and despicable, there
isn’t enough bandwidth on the entire internet to bullet point out
the atrocities performed by the three “honorable” guests.
However, I can also easily attach those three adjectives to the
testimony given by the sociopathic three.
All three of them based their answers upon hugely outdated data
not surprising considering they already had AARP cards by the time
I was born.
Shultz’s testimony began with a foray into storytelling, harkening
back to how Reagan had asked him to come visit him when he was
deciding on his run for the Presidency.
Meanwhile, Albright continuously mentioned her first job on the
Hill, working in Senator Muskie’s office.
And of course, Kissinger, who sounds an awful lot like the emperor
from Star Wars by the way, has no shortage of decades-old
experience in attacking and terrorizing countries around the globe.
Between the three of them, the message of continued war, fear
mongering and US hegemony echoed off the walls like blast beats
at a rave.
All three of them also used the word “indispensable” to describe
the US’s place in policing the world and keeping democracy and
freedom safe for, “all people” with this footnote: except for the
ones we decide are a threat to our global domination in which case,
you don’t count.
In short, it was a hearing to discuss how amazing the US is and why
we need to keep killing people and gave unfortunate evidence that
Lewis Black may be right – “pricks live forever.”
http://disinfo.com/2015/01/war-criminals-throwing-stones
“I have been a member of this committee for years and I have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable…”
By Eleanor Goldfield
Disinformation.com
January 30, 2015
You know that feeling you get when someone says something that is
just so laughably absurd that you feel yourself stuck in this mental
and emotional limbo between anger and hysterical laughter,
typically settling somewhere in between; a murderous chuckle,
perhaps.
Well, that’s the place my mind settled today at about 9:30am EST
when McCain said those words about a group of activists, myself
included.
In a government run on logic, justice, freedom and honesty, McCain
would have of course been directing those comments to the lizard-
faced Kissinger.
But alas, those four tenets are about as absent from these
hearings as youth and common sense.
Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee (@SASCMajority)
invited three dinosaur war criminals to testify on our National
Security Strategy: Madeleine Albright, George Shultz, and Henry
Kissinger.
Code Pink organized the action calling for an arrest of Henry
Kissinger for war crimes, to be tried as a war criminal for his
involvement in decades of death and destruction including
overthrowing democratically elected governments in South
America and supporting genocide and mass killings in South
America, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
With hands painted red, activists walked up behind Kissinger
carrying signs and chanting “Arrest Henry Kissinger for War
Crimes!”
A few activists held up handcuffs signifying a citizens arrest.
Kissinger said nothing.
In fact, in the video, you can see he scarcely turns around.
Shultz, however, managed to find strength enough to stand up
and shoo us away as Capitol police pushed us back to our seats.
Medea Benjamin called out as the chant quieted “In the name
of the people of Chile. In the name of the people of Laos. In
the name of the people of East Timor. In the name of the people
of Cambodia.”
McCain then uttered those words which proved to be too much
for a protestor who then stood up and called out to McCain.
Shortly thereafter, he was escorted out by police while McCain over
his microphone eloquently pointed out that the man should shut up
and “Get out of here, you low life scum.”
Irony doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the scene of a war hawk
sitting before three war criminals calling a protestor for peace a
“low life scum.”
And if speaking of disgraceful, outrageous and despicable, there
isn’t enough bandwidth on the entire internet to bullet point out
the atrocities performed by the three “honorable” guests.
However, I can also easily attach those three adjectives to the
testimony given by the sociopathic three.
All three of them based their answers upon hugely outdated data
not surprising considering they already had AARP cards by the time
I was born.
Shultz’s testimony began with a foray into storytelling, harkening
back to how Reagan had asked him to come visit him when he was
deciding on his run for the Presidency.
Meanwhile, Albright continuously mentioned her first job on the
Hill, working in Senator Muskie’s office.
And of course, Kissinger, who sounds an awful lot like the emperor
from Star Wars by the way, has no shortage of decades-old
experience in attacking and terrorizing countries around the globe.
Between the three of them, the message of continued war, fear
mongering and US hegemony echoed off the walls like blast beats
at a rave.
All three of them also used the word “indispensable” to describe
the US’s place in policing the world and keeping democracy and
freedom safe for, “all people” with this footnote: except for the
ones we decide are a threat to our global domination in which case,
you don’t count.
In short, it was a hearing to discuss how amazing the US is and why
we need to keep killing people and gave unfortunate evidence that
Lewis Black may be right – “pricks live forever.”
http://disinfo.com/2015/01/war-criminals-throwing-stones
Thursday, January 29, 2015
American Sniper and US Doom
American Sniper and US Doom
By Finian Cunningham
Press TV.com
January 29, 2015
The film American Sniper has sent the US public into raptures over
the “heroic life” of its autobiographical subject Chris Kyle - who has
been described as America’s “greatest warrior” soldier.
Last week, the movie premiered in cinemas to rave reviews,
earning its director Clint Eastwood a box office smash-hit.
Multiple Oscar awards are nominated.
Critics have quibbled about this or that aspect of the
cinematography and storyline.
But the prevailing impression is that Kyle - a US Marine marksman
was a tragic hero, a guy who honorably served his country during
the American war in Iraq.
The film has even been described by some as an “anti-war” movie
because it delves into the mental trauma of veterans and the
suffering they endure after conflict.
Lost in the discussion is the central issue, which is the criminal
nature of American militarism and its destructive impact on millions
of innocent people.
American Sniper may express certain misgivings about US foreign
wars, owing to the psychological consequences on its military
personnel.
But in indulging “heroes” like Chris Kyle, the insidious effect is
to glorify American war-making.
This reinforces American narcissism about its “exceptionalism”
as a nation that is intrinsically good, superior and which has the
prerogative to wage wars wherever it deems necessary for its
“national interests” regardless of international law or morality.
Over one million Iraqis were killed during American military
occupation of that country from 2003-2011.
The fraudulent pretext for that war – Saddam Hussein’s weapons of
mass destruction - has been amply documented and is irrefutable.
That makes US involvement in Iraq an epic crime, a war of
aggression, or, to put it plainly, a state-sponsored terrorist
cataclysm.
American government leaders and Pentagon commanders, including
incumbent President Barack Obama, should be prosecuted for war
crimes based on legal standards established at the Nuremberg Trials
for the Nazi Reich.
Astoundingly, the power of American propaganda and brainwashing,
facilitated by its corporate media, erases any awareness or
discussion of this central issue.
Instead, American angst is consumed in sympathy for “our noble
veterans” and their trauma suffered “in the line of duty.”
America’s War Machine Killing Own Society
Where are the calls for justice over America’s state-sponsored
criminality and genocide of the Iraqi people?
Where is there even a semblance of remorse or reparation?
American politicians continue to swan around the world,
sanctimoniously lecturing others as if they were the epitome
of virtue.
Legal justice may be absent, but nevertheless there is a
very real form of justice for America’s systematic iniquity.
The American war machine may appear to trundle on untrammeled
by international law, illegally occupying countries, assassinating
with aerial drones on a weekly basis, and subverting foreign nations
by covert proxy terrorism, as in Syria and Ukraine.
But, unequivocally, this war machine is killing its own society,
financially, psychologically and morally.
Chris Kyle is eulogized as “America’s deadliest sniper” having
killed single handedly over 200 people during his four tours of
duty in Iraq.
It doesn’t matter if most of his victims were “terrorists” or if he
was serving in good faith to protect the lives of other American
soldiers.
The fact is that Kyle was a cog in a criminal war machine that
was engaged in destroying a whole nation.
For Americans to celebrate him as a “warrior hero” is indicative
of the moral corruption that US society has descended into.
It shows how much that violence has become endemic
in the American psyche.
Kyle was shot dead at a Texas shooting-range in 2013.
His alleged killer, Eddie Ray Routh, was also a veteran,
said to be suffering from post-traumatic syndrome.
Kyle, who declared his own post-conflict trauma after he
was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2009,
was working as a counselor for other mentally disturbed
US vets.
It says something about American social pathology that victims of
conflict trauma are treated with “therapy” by letting them fire off
assault rifles at shooting-ranges.
Every day, some 20 US military veterans commit suicide,
most of them wracked by mental breakdown.
That’s over 7,000 deaths every year.
Tens of thousands of other veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan and
other overseas American killing fields are reckoned to be silent
victims of post-conflict trauma, committing acts of violence and
crimes against other citizens, or degenerating into self-destructive
lives of alcohol and other drug abuse.
Similar numbers of American families are ruined by dysfunctional
veterans who can’t readjust into normal society.
The economic cost of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is put
at $6 trillion - or a third of America’s crippling national debt pile.
But a proper accounting reveals a much greater toll when the full
social damage of these wars is assimilated.
Medical bills, unemployment, crime, personal breakdown,
unproductive members of society are just the tip of the iceberg.
In real, but intangible magnitude, American society is sitting on
a massive “dirty” time-bomb from its criminal war-mongering.
This is the “justice” for US wars of apparent impunity.
The violence and destruction that American leaders have unleashed
- are unleashing – on countries around the world are coming back to
haunt and corrode American society to its core.
Killing millions of people remotely in far off villages and deserts
is exacting a righteous revenge on American society.
The story of Chris Kyle is not just a story about an ill-fated
American sniper.
It is a metaphor for America as a whole.
Part of this destruction, and what makes it so profoundly terminal,
is that the American public is largely oblivious to its own collapse.
When mass murder of humans is hailed by popcorn-munching
morons as heroic, it is a sure sign that America is doomed.
Fatally.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on
international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as
a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge,
England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/28/395105/American-
Sniper-and-US-doom
By Finian Cunningham
Press TV.com
January 29, 2015
The film American Sniper has sent the US public into raptures over
the “heroic life” of its autobiographical subject Chris Kyle - who has
been described as America’s “greatest warrior” soldier.
Last week, the movie premiered in cinemas to rave reviews,
earning its director Clint Eastwood a box office smash-hit.
Multiple Oscar awards are nominated.
Critics have quibbled about this or that aspect of the
cinematography and storyline.
But the prevailing impression is that Kyle - a US Marine marksman
was a tragic hero, a guy who honorably served his country during
the American war in Iraq.
The film has even been described by some as an “anti-war” movie
because it delves into the mental trauma of veterans and the
suffering they endure after conflict.
Lost in the discussion is the central issue, which is the criminal
nature of American militarism and its destructive impact on millions
of innocent people.
American Sniper may express certain misgivings about US foreign
wars, owing to the psychological consequences on its military
personnel.
But in indulging “heroes” like Chris Kyle, the insidious effect is
to glorify American war-making.
This reinforces American narcissism about its “exceptionalism”
as a nation that is intrinsically good, superior and which has the
prerogative to wage wars wherever it deems necessary for its
“national interests” regardless of international law or morality.
Over one million Iraqis were killed during American military
occupation of that country from 2003-2011.
The fraudulent pretext for that war – Saddam Hussein’s weapons of
mass destruction - has been amply documented and is irrefutable.
That makes US involvement in Iraq an epic crime, a war of
aggression, or, to put it plainly, a state-sponsored terrorist
cataclysm.
American government leaders and Pentagon commanders, including
incumbent President Barack Obama, should be prosecuted for war
crimes based on legal standards established at the Nuremberg Trials
for the Nazi Reich.
Astoundingly, the power of American propaganda and brainwashing,
facilitated by its corporate media, erases any awareness or
discussion of this central issue.
Instead, American angst is consumed in sympathy for “our noble
veterans” and their trauma suffered “in the line of duty.”
America’s War Machine Killing Own Society
Where are the calls for justice over America’s state-sponsored
criminality and genocide of the Iraqi people?
Where is there even a semblance of remorse or reparation?
American politicians continue to swan around the world,
sanctimoniously lecturing others as if they were the epitome
of virtue.
Legal justice may be absent, but nevertheless there is a
very real form of justice for America’s systematic iniquity.
The American war machine may appear to trundle on untrammeled
by international law, illegally occupying countries, assassinating
with aerial drones on a weekly basis, and subverting foreign nations
by covert proxy terrorism, as in Syria and Ukraine.
But, unequivocally, this war machine is killing its own society,
financially, psychologically and morally.
Chris Kyle is eulogized as “America’s deadliest sniper” having
killed single handedly over 200 people during his four tours of
duty in Iraq.
It doesn’t matter if most of his victims were “terrorists” or if he
was serving in good faith to protect the lives of other American
soldiers.
The fact is that Kyle was a cog in a criminal war machine that
was engaged in destroying a whole nation.
For Americans to celebrate him as a “warrior hero” is indicative
of the moral corruption that US society has descended into.
It shows how much that violence has become endemic
in the American psyche.
Kyle was shot dead at a Texas shooting-range in 2013.
His alleged killer, Eddie Ray Routh, was also a veteran,
said to be suffering from post-traumatic syndrome.
Kyle, who declared his own post-conflict trauma after he
was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2009,
was working as a counselor for other mentally disturbed
US vets.
It says something about American social pathology that victims of
conflict trauma are treated with “therapy” by letting them fire off
assault rifles at shooting-ranges.
Every day, some 20 US military veterans commit suicide,
most of them wracked by mental breakdown.
That’s over 7,000 deaths every year.
Tens of thousands of other veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan and
other overseas American killing fields are reckoned to be silent
victims of post-conflict trauma, committing acts of violence and
crimes against other citizens, or degenerating into self-destructive
lives of alcohol and other drug abuse.
Similar numbers of American families are ruined by dysfunctional
veterans who can’t readjust into normal society.
The economic cost of US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is put
at $6 trillion - or a third of America’s crippling national debt pile.
But a proper accounting reveals a much greater toll when the full
social damage of these wars is assimilated.
Medical bills, unemployment, crime, personal breakdown,
unproductive members of society are just the tip of the iceberg.
In real, but intangible magnitude, American society is sitting on
a massive “dirty” time-bomb from its criminal war-mongering.
This is the “justice” for US wars of apparent impunity.
The violence and destruction that American leaders have unleashed
- are unleashing – on countries around the world are coming back to
haunt and corrode American society to its core.
Killing millions of people remotely in far off villages and deserts
is exacting a righteous revenge on American society.
The story of Chris Kyle is not just a story about an ill-fated
American sniper.
It is a metaphor for America as a whole.
Part of this destruction, and what makes it so profoundly terminal,
is that the American public is largely oblivious to its own collapse.
When mass murder of humans is hailed by popcorn-munching
morons as heroic, it is a sure sign that America is doomed.
Fatally.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on
international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as
a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge,
England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/01/28/395105/American-
Sniper-and-US-doom
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Three Minutes To Midnight
Three Minutes To Midnight
The threat is serious, the time short. The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists does not move the hands of the Doomsday Clock for
light or transient reasons.
The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because
international leaders are failing to perform their most important
duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2015
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Dissident Voice.org
January 28, 2015
When Barack Hussein Obama was presented with the Nobel Peace
Prize on December 10th, 2009, just eight months into his Presidency, the motivation was:
“ for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy
and co-operation between peoples.”
The Nobel Committee “… attached special importance to Obama’s
vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons … as
President he (had) created a new climate in international politics.”
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama
captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for
a better future.”
In his presentation speech, Nobel Committee Chairman, Thorbjørn
Jagland said that Obama had, from the first moments of his
Presidency, strived against confrontation and had already “lowered
the temperature in the world.”
In his acceptance speech the President Obama stated that:
“Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction
of justice.”
He was also committed to:
“upholding the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It is a centerpiece
of my foreign policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to
reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.”
In conclusion, to applause, he appealed: “Let us reach for the world
that ought to be – that spark of the divine that still stirs within each
of our souls.”
Since then the myriad mass graves of America’s victims have
become silent witness to the hypocrisy and insincerity of his
address at Oslo City Hall on the 113th Anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s
death in acceptance of an Award which Nobel’s will had specified
should be presented “… to the person who shall have done the most
or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition
or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion
of peace congresses.”
Gulag Guantanamo remains open, much now militia-run Libya is in
ruins, American troops are back in Iraq, where over 2,000 bombing
raids have been carried out by American ‘planes.
Obama’s Administration still endorses the illegal overthrow
of President al-Assad of Syria, training the mass murdering,
beheading, organ-eating “moderate” opposition, and the much
vaunted departure from Afghanistan, is not a full departure at
all.
Ukraine bleeds daily from the US boasted five Billion dollar coup,
Russia is blamed, sanctioned and resultantly feels threatened
enough to rearm.
The Cold War had been not only rekindled, the flames are
visibly rising.
In March 2013 Stratfor noted:
”With the full support of a feckless policy, elite and an uncritical
media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a
new Cold War with Moscow.” Strong words from Professor Stephen
Cohen, in a January article published in The Nation, who is a lonely
voice in the US academic establishment with an unpopular point of
view. He has been warning for several years now that rapidly
deteriorating relations between the US and Russia will lead to a
new period of sustained political and military tension between the
two powers.‘
Now, the annual setting of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Doomsday Clock (January 22nd) has been re-set – forward two
minutes to three minutes to midnight, the first time since
the end of the Cold War and thirty years on from the last such
setting in 1984 under the presidency of Grenada invader,
another Libya bomber, and Iran-Contra dealing Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, the Bulletin recorded:
… relations between the United States and the Soviet Union
reached an icy nadir. Every channel of communications has
been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has
been attenuated or cut off. And arms control negotiations
have been reduced to a species of propaganda.
Sound familiar?
Yesterday they noted:
Today, more than twenty five years after the end of the Cold War,
the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and
Security Board have looked closely at the world situation and found
it highly threatening to humanity – so threatening that the hands
of the Doomsday Clock must once again be set at three minutes to
midnight, two minutes closer to catastrophe than in 2014.
Further:
… efforts to reduce world nuclear arsenals have stalled.
The disarmament process has ground to a halt, with the
United States and Russia embarking on massive programs
to modernize their nuclear triads – thereby undermining
existing nuclear weapons treaties – and other nuclear
weapons holders joining in this expensive and extremely
dangerous modernization craze.
It is not alone the nuclear nightmare:
Insufficient action to slash worldwide emissions of greenhouse
gases can produce global climatic catastrophe.
Even a so-called “limited” nuclear weapons exchange will produce
massive casualties and severe effects on the global environment.
We implore the political leaders of the world to take coordinated,
quick action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping
gases, especially carbon dioxide, and shrink nuclear weapons
arsenals.
The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board whose Board of Sponsors
include seventeen Nobel Laureates:
… implore the citizens of the world to demand action from their
leaders. The threat looms over all of humanity. Humanity needs
to respond now, while there is still time.
The Clock, established in 1947, has become a universally recognized
indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear
weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in the life
sciences.
The Board stresses that catastrophe can be avoided with
urgent action.
Time wasting is not an option.
Essential priorities are:
* Actions which would cap greenhouse gas emissions at levels
which would halt the average global temperature from rising
more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
* Dramatically reduce proposed spending on nuclear weapons
modernization programmes.
* Re-energize the disarmament process – with commitment to
results.
* Deal urgently with nuclear waste problem.
If President Obama read the documents and consulted with the
towering collective knowledge available at the Bulletin, applied
that commitment for which they plea, built bridges globally
rather than blowing them up, there is enough time in the final
twenty two months of his Presidency to embark on the road to
justifying that Nobel.
We can only fervently hope that as he stated in his acceptance
speech his actions at last “can bend history in the direction of
justice.”
Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq,
and Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great
City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior
Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq,
John Pilger's Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and
Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.)
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/three-minutes-to-midnight
The threat is serious, the time short. The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists does not move the hands of the Doomsday Clock for
light or transient reasons.
The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because
international leaders are failing to perform their most important
duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 2015
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Dissident Voice.org
January 28, 2015
When Barack Hussein Obama was presented with the Nobel Peace
Prize on December 10th, 2009, just eight months into his Presidency, the motivation was:
“ for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy
and co-operation between peoples.”
The Nobel Committee “… attached special importance to Obama’s
vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons … as
President he (had) created a new climate in international politics.”
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama
captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for
a better future.”
In his presentation speech, Nobel Committee Chairman, Thorbjørn
Jagland said that Obama had, from the first moments of his
Presidency, strived against confrontation and had already “lowered
the temperature in the world.”
In his acceptance speech the President Obama stated that:
“Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction
of justice.”
He was also committed to:
“upholding the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It is a centerpiece
of my foreign policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to
reduce America and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.”
In conclusion, to applause, he appealed: “Let us reach for the world
that ought to be – that spark of the divine that still stirs within each
of our souls.”
Since then the myriad mass graves of America’s victims have
become silent witness to the hypocrisy and insincerity of his
address at Oslo City Hall on the 113th Anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s
death in acceptance of an Award which Nobel’s will had specified
should be presented “… to the person who shall have done the most
or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition
or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion
of peace congresses.”
Gulag Guantanamo remains open, much now militia-run Libya is in
ruins, American troops are back in Iraq, where over 2,000 bombing
raids have been carried out by American ‘planes.
Obama’s Administration still endorses the illegal overthrow
of President al-Assad of Syria, training the mass murdering,
beheading, organ-eating “moderate” opposition, and the much
vaunted departure from Afghanistan, is not a full departure at
all.
Ukraine bleeds daily from the US boasted five Billion dollar coup,
Russia is blamed, sanctioned and resultantly feels threatened
enough to rearm.
The Cold War had been not only rekindled, the flames are
visibly rising.
In March 2013 Stratfor noted:
”With the full support of a feckless policy, elite and an uncritical
media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a
new Cold War with Moscow.” Strong words from Professor Stephen
Cohen, in a January article published in The Nation, who is a lonely
voice in the US academic establishment with an unpopular point of
view. He has been warning for several years now that rapidly
deteriorating relations between the US and Russia will lead to a
new period of sustained political and military tension between the
two powers.‘
Now, the annual setting of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Doomsday Clock (January 22nd) has been re-set – forward two
minutes to three minutes to midnight, the first time since
the end of the Cold War and thirty years on from the last such
setting in 1984 under the presidency of Grenada invader,
another Libya bomber, and Iran-Contra dealing Ronald Reagan.
In 1984, the Bulletin recorded:
… relations between the United States and the Soviet Union
reached an icy nadir. Every channel of communications has
been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has
been attenuated or cut off. And arms control negotiations
have been reduced to a species of propaganda.
Sound familiar?
Yesterday they noted:
Today, more than twenty five years after the end of the Cold War,
the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and
Security Board have looked closely at the world situation and found
it highly threatening to humanity – so threatening that the hands
of the Doomsday Clock must once again be set at three minutes to
midnight, two minutes closer to catastrophe than in 2014.
Further:
… efforts to reduce world nuclear arsenals have stalled.
The disarmament process has ground to a halt, with the
United States and Russia embarking on massive programs
to modernize their nuclear triads – thereby undermining
existing nuclear weapons treaties – and other nuclear
weapons holders joining in this expensive and extremely
dangerous modernization craze.
It is not alone the nuclear nightmare:
Insufficient action to slash worldwide emissions of greenhouse
gases can produce global climatic catastrophe.
Even a so-called “limited” nuclear weapons exchange will produce
massive casualties and severe effects on the global environment.
We implore the political leaders of the world to take coordinated,
quick action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping
gases, especially carbon dioxide, and shrink nuclear weapons
arsenals.
The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board whose Board of Sponsors
include seventeen Nobel Laureates:
… implore the citizens of the world to demand action from their
leaders. The threat looms over all of humanity. Humanity needs
to respond now, while there is still time.
The Clock, established in 1947, has become a universally recognized
indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear
weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in the life
sciences.
The Board stresses that catastrophe can be avoided with
urgent action.
Time wasting is not an option.
Essential priorities are:
* Actions which would cap greenhouse gas emissions at levels
which would halt the average global temperature from rising
more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
* Dramatically reduce proposed spending on nuclear weapons
modernization programmes.
* Re-energize the disarmament process – with commitment to
results.
* Deal urgently with nuclear waste problem.
If President Obama read the documents and consulted with the
towering collective knowledge available at the Bulletin, applied
that commitment for which they plea, built bridges globally
rather than blowing them up, there is enough time in the final
twenty two months of his Presidency to embark on the road to
justifying that Nobel.
We can only fervently hope that as he stated in his acceptance
speech his actions at last “can bend history in the direction of
justice.”
Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq,
and Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great
City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior
Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq,
John Pilger's Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and
Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.)
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/three-minutes-to-midnight
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Corporate Capitalism 101
Corporate Capitalism 101
By The Coffee Party
January 25, 2015
There's 12 cookies on a plate, and a CEO, a middle-class worker, and a poor person are sitting around the table.
The CEO takes 11 cookies and tells the middle-class person that the poor person is going to eat his cookie.
By The Coffee Party
January 25, 2015
There's 12 cookies on a plate, and a CEO, a middle-class worker, and a poor person are sitting around the table.
The CEO takes 11 cookies and tells the middle-class person that the poor person is going to eat his cookie.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
The State of The Union
The State of The Union
By Tony Whitcomb
Expotera
January 22, 2015
According to a previously published report in, "USA Today" the United States of America owes, "$62 Trillion Dollars" and since, "Money Equals Time" and, "Time Equals Money" let me be brief.
1 Billion seconds equal 1 billion divided by the number of seconds
in a year (31,536,000) equals 31,709.79 years.
So right around 32,000 years.
1 Light Year is roughly 6 Trillion miles, and 6 Trillion seconds
equals 189,276 years.
So with a current outstanding debt of well over, "$62 Trillion
Dollars" the United States of America is currently well over,
"10 Light Years" in debt.
Yet the current sitting President of the United States of America,
stood before the entire Nation on live T.V. this past Tuesday
evening and said:
"The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is
strong."
Well, "Men are from Mars" and, "Women are from Venus" and those
who believe, "The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the
Union is strong" are clearly from another planet that has yet to be
discovered somewhere very, very, far out in the Universe, because
a mere politician may lie, but basic math doesn't lie, so this is the
true, "STATE OF THE UNION" and there is absolutely no, "HOPE" as
well as absolutely no, "CHANGE" in sight.
By Tony Whitcomb
Expotera
January 22, 2015
According to a previously published report in, "USA Today" the United States of America owes, "$62 Trillion Dollars" and since, "Money Equals Time" and, "Time Equals Money" let me be brief.
1 Billion seconds equal 1 billion divided by the number of seconds
in a year (31,536,000) equals 31,709.79 years.
So right around 32,000 years.
1 Light Year is roughly 6 Trillion miles, and 6 Trillion seconds
equals 189,276 years.
So with a current outstanding debt of well over, "$62 Trillion
Dollars" the United States of America is currently well over,
"10 Light Years" in debt.
Yet the current sitting President of the United States of America,
stood before the entire Nation on live T.V. this past Tuesday
evening and said:
"The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is
strong."
Well, "Men are from Mars" and, "Women are from Venus" and those
who believe, "The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the
Union is strong" are clearly from another planet that has yet to be
discovered somewhere very, very, far out in the Universe, because
a mere politician may lie, but basic math doesn't lie, so this is the
true, "STATE OF THE UNION" and there is absolutely no, "HOPE" as
well as absolutely no, "CHANGE" in sight.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
We Now See
We Now See
By Anonymous
January 18, 2015
We now see with clarity,
All of your depravity.
We march as one mind,
To rid the world of your kind.
We see with great skill,
You usurp our freewill.
For we are not sheeple,
We are the people.
You take us for fools,
Blindly obeying your rules.
You have no authority,
We are the silent majority.
Now is the time at hand,
To take back this Great land.
Flee if you must,
For in God we trust.
By Anonymous
January 18, 2015
We now see with clarity,
All of your depravity.
We march as one mind,
To rid the world of your kind.
We see with great skill,
You usurp our freewill.
For we are not sheeple,
We are the people.
You take us for fools,
Blindly obeying your rules.
You have no authority,
We are the silent majority.
Now is the time at hand,
To take back this Great land.
Flee if you must,
For in God we trust.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
"I Have A Dream"
"I Have a Dream"
By Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as
the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow
we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames
of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their
captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled
by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners
of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of
the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as
white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory
note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the
Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the
great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America
of the fierce urgency of now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off, or to
take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley
of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of
racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the
moment.
This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not
pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.
Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will
now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to
business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the
Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations
of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand
on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice.
In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty
of wrongful deeds.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from
the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity
and discipline.
We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical
violence.
Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting
physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro
community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our
destiny.
They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably
bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always
march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights,
"When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim
of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with
the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the
highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility
is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped
of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating
"For Whites Only".
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote
and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty
stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here
out of great trials and tribulations.
Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.
Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom
left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by
the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering.
Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is
redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South
Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back
to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that
somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious
racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words
of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama,
little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill
and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made
plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope.
This is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the
mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords
of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together,
to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom
together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing
with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's
pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we
let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state
and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of
God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in
the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)
was an American Pastor, Activist, Humanitarian, and Leader
in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best
known for his role in the advancement of Civil Rights using
nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.
By Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as
the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow
we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames
of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their
captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.
One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled
by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of
poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners
of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of
the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as
white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory
note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the
Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the
great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America
of the fierce urgency of now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off, or to
take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley
of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of
racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the
moment.
This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not
pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.
Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will
now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to
business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the
Negro is granted his citizenship rights.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations
of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand
on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice.
In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty
of wrongful deeds.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from
the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity
and discipline.
We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical
violence.
Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting
physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro
community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for
many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here
today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our
destiny.
They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably
bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always
march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights,
"When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim
of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with
the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the
highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility
is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped
of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating
"For Whites Only".
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote
and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty
stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here
out of great trials and tribulations.
Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.
Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom
left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by
the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering.
Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is
redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South
Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back
to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that
somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but
by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious
racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words
of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama,
little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill
and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made
plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope.
This is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the
mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords
of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together,
to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom
together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing
with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's
pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we
let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state
and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of
God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles,
Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in
the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)
was an American Pastor, Activist, Humanitarian, and Leader
in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best
known for his role in the advancement of Civil Rights using
nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Humanity
Humanity
By Lauren Fischer
All Poetry.com
January 12, 2015
I’m the creator of all evils of tragedies dire,
if its anger you feel then I’m up for hire.
I kill the innocent,
feed filthy desire,
of love i’m spent but,
of hate I never tire.
I play the emotions,
I run the show,
I kill without purpose,
I think and then go.
I’ll kill the good notion,
how I hate reason so,
of leaders I’ll give for you to follow,
like a virus I’ll expand and grow.
I’ll turn the kindest of hearts to a blackness most ugly,
I’ll destroy all the art for art doesn't serve me.
I kill people and act like I’m setting them free,
I've been here for years, and your blind not to see,
pretend to have the answer, but I hold not the key,
you know what I am, humanity.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/11373552-Humanity-by-Lauren-Fisher
By Lauren Fischer
All Poetry.com
January 12, 2015
I’m the creator of all evils of tragedies dire,
if its anger you feel then I’m up for hire.
I kill the innocent,
feed filthy desire,
of love i’m spent but,
of hate I never tire.
I play the emotions,
I run the show,
I kill without purpose,
I think and then go.
I’ll kill the good notion,
how I hate reason so,
of leaders I’ll give for you to follow,
like a virus I’ll expand and grow.
I’ll turn the kindest of hearts to a blackness most ugly,
I’ll destroy all the art for art doesn't serve me.
I kill people and act like I’m setting them free,
I've been here for years, and your blind not to see,
pretend to have the answer, but I hold not the key,
you know what I am, humanity.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/11373552-Humanity-by-Lauren-Fisher
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Why Kill Innocence?
Why Kill Innocence?
By Angira Chakraborty
Poem Hunter.com
January 8, 2015
Every time a gun shoots
A tree looses its roots
Every time there is bloodshed
Along with it millions of tears are shed
Every time a heart is stabbed
Someone else's life gets barren
As violence grows
Many more mothers moan
The sounds of destruction
Overpowers the voice of those
Who are innocent
Who suffer with no reason
Who beg for life
Who have heart full of innocence
So why kill innocence?
Why do so much violence?
That the child’s cry cannot be heard
When his father is killed
Why kill innocence?
Why do so much violence?
That a mother moans
Over her child’s dead remains
Why kill the innocence?
For winning any stupid battle
Which is taking lives
Of people who have wives
And mothers and children
Full of innocence
When you can keep calm
Talk things out
Do whatever you can
To keep violence out
Because there is no sin as big as
KILLING INNOCENCE…
By Angira Chakraborty
Poem Hunter.com
January 8, 2015
Every time a gun shoots
A tree looses its roots
Every time there is bloodshed
Along with it millions of tears are shed
Every time a heart is stabbed
Someone else's life gets barren
As violence grows
Many more mothers moan
The sounds of destruction
Overpowers the voice of those
Who are innocent
Who suffer with no reason
Who beg for life
Who have heart full of innocence
So why kill innocence?
Why do so much violence?
That the child’s cry cannot be heard
When his father is killed
Why kill innocence?
Why do so much violence?
That a mother moans
Over her child’s dead remains
Why kill the innocence?
For winning any stupid battle
Which is taking lives
Of people who have wives
And mothers and children
Full of innocence
When you can keep calm
Talk things out
Do whatever you can
To keep violence out
Because there is no sin as big as
KILLING INNOCENCE…
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Blessed Are The Peacemakers
Blessed Are the Peacemakers
John Piper
Desiring God.org
January 4, 2015
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
With each beatitude another nail is driven into a coffin.
Inside the coffin lies the corpse of a false understanding
of salvation.
The false understanding said that a person can be saved
without being changed.
Or: that a person can inherit eternal life even if his attitudes
and actions are like the attitudes and actions of unbelievers.
The Cry of the Beatitudes: Get a New Heart
One after the other the beatitudes tell us that the blessings
of eternity will be given only to those who have become new
creatures.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
the sons of God.
If we don't obtain mercy, we receive judgment.
If we don't see God, we are not in heaven.
If we aren't called the sons of God, we are outside the family.
In other words these are all descriptions of final salvation.
And it is promised only to the merciful, the pure in heart,
and the peacemakers.
Therefore the beatitudes are like long spikes holding down the
lid of the coffin on the false teaching which says that if you just
believe in Jesus you will go to heaven whether or not you are
merciful or pure in heart or a peacemaker.
In fact, from beginning to end the Sermon on the Mount cries out,
"Get yourself a new heart! Become a new person! The river of
judgment is at the door!"
You recall the words of verse 20:
"Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"
(Matthew 5:20).
And at the very end of the sermon in 7:26f. the Lord calls out over
the crowds, "Every one who hears these words of mine and does not
do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the
sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of
it."
In other words, a life of disobedience to the beatitudes and to the
Sermon on the Mount will not stand in the judgment no matter
what we believe!
Not Optional Suggestions But The Path To Heaven
I have been convinced this past week that I have probably
not treated this dimension of the beatitudes with as much
earnestness and seriousness as I should, and that the care
that I have for your eternal good has not shown itself as
genuinely as it must.
My conscience was pricked in reading an old book by Horatius Bonar to pastors in which he said:
"Our words are feeble, even when sound and true; our looks are careless, even when our words are weighty; and our tones betray the apathy which both words and looks disguise." (Words to Winners of Souls, p. 55)
So I want to impress upon your consciences with as much
earnestness as I can that in the beatitudes Jesus is not making
optional suggestions, and this sermon is not a series of suggestions
on how to make the world better.
On the contrary, Jesus is describing the pathway to heaven,
and this sermon is a message from God to urge you to get on
that pathway and stay on that pathway so that you can be called
sons of God at the last judgment.
That is what is at stake.
If you are on the narrow path which leads to life, my purpose
is to help you stay on it.
And if you are still in the broad way that leads to destruction,
my purpose is to direct you to the path of life.
How To Become Sons of God
When Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the sons of God," he does not tell us how to become a son
of God.
He simply says that sons of God are in fact peacemakers.
People who are peacemakers will be recognized as the sons of
God at the judgment and they will be called what they are and
welcomed into the Father's house.
To see how to become sons of God we can look, for example, at
John 1:12 and Galatians 3:26. John 1:12 says, "To all who received
him (Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave power to become
children of God."
And Galatians 3:26 says, "For in Christ we are all sons of God
through faith." In other words, we become sons of God by trusting
in Christ for our forgiveness and hope.
Sons of God Have the Character of Their Father
What Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:9 is that people who have
become sons of God have the character of their heavenly Father.
And we know from Scripture that their heavenly Father is a "God
of peace" (Romans 16:20; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:20).
We know that heaven is a world of peace (Luke 19:38).
And most important of all, we know that God is a peacemaker!
"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).
He made peace by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:20).
In other words, even though by nature we are rebels against God
and have committed high treason and are worthy to be eternally
court-marshaled and hanged by the neck until dead, nevertheless
God has sacrificed his own Son and now declares amnesty free
and clear to any who will lay down their arms of independence
and come home to faith.
God is a peace-loving God, and a peacemaking God.
The whole history of redemption, climaxing in the death and
resurrection of Jesus, is God's strategy to bring about a just
and lasting peace between rebel man and himself, and then
between man and man.
Therefore, God's children are that way, too.
They have the character of their Father.
What He loves, they love.
What He pursues, they pursue.
You can know his children by whether they are willing to make
sacrifices for peace the way God did.
By the sovereign work of God's grace rebel human beings are
born again, and brought from rebellion to faith, and made into
children of God.
We were given a new nature, after the image of our heavenly
Father (1 John 3:9).
If he is a peacemaker, then his children, who have his nature,
will be peacemakers too.
The Spirit of God Is the Spirit of Peace
Or to put it another way, as Paul says in Galatians 4:6, "Since we
are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
'Abba! Father!'"
And therefore, as he says in Romans 8:14, "All who are led by
the Spirit of God are the sons of God."
And being led by the Spirit always includes bearing the fruit of
the Spirit.
And the fruit of the Spirit is peace!
So you see why it must be so, that the children of God must
be peacemakers.
It is by the Spirit of God that we are made children of God,
and the Spirit of God is the Spirit of peace.
If we are not peacemakers, we don't have the Spirit of Christ.
So we do not earn or merit the privilege to be called sons of God.
Instead we owe our new birth to the sovereign grace of God
(John 1:13). We owe our faith to the impulses of the new birth
(1 John 5:1).
We receive the Holy Spirit by the exercise of this faith.
(Galatians 3:2).
The fruit of this Spirit is peace. (Galatians 5:22).
And those who bear the fruit of peace are the sons of God.
Our whole salvation, from beginning to end, is all of grace,
therein lies our hope and joy and freedom.
But our final salvation is not unconditional, we must be
peacemakers—therein lies our earnestness and the great
seriousness with which we must deal with these beatitudes,
and seek the grace of God in our lives.
Now let's look at . . .
What It Means to Be a Peacemaker
The promise of sonship in the second half of the Matthew 5:9
points us to Matthew 5:43–45 for our main insight.
Both of these texts describe how we can show ourselves to be
sons of God.
"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor
and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
Notice verse 45, " . . . so that you may be sons of your Father
who is in heaven." The thought is the same as in Matthew 5:9.
There, we must be peacemakers to be called sons of God.
Here, we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute
us if we would be sons of God.
So probably Jesus thinks of peacemaking as all the acts of love by
which we try to overcome the enmity between us and other people.
And if we ask for specifics, he gives two examples.
The first thing he mentions is prayer (verse 44): "Pray for those who
persecute you."
Pray what? The next chapter tells us.
In Matthew 6:9–10 Jesus says, "Pray like this."
Pray that you and your enemy would hallow God's name.
Pray that God's kingdom be acknowledged in your life and his life.
Pray that you and he would do God's will the way the angels do it in heaven.
In other words, pray for conversion and sanctification. The basis of peace is purity.
Pray for yours and pray for his, that there might be peace.
Then in Matthew 5:47 Jesus gives the other specific example of
peacemaking-love in this text:
"If you salute (or greet) only your brethren, what more are you
doing than others?"
In other words, if there is a rupture in one of your relationships,
or if there is someone who opposes you, don't nurse that grudge.
Don't feed the animosity by ignoring and avoiding that person.
That is the natural thing to do, just cross the street so that you
don't have to greet them.
But that is not the impulse of the Spirit of a peacemaking God,
who sacrificed his Son to reconcile us to himself and to each
other.
Peacemaking tries to build bridges to people.
It does not want the animosity to remain.
It wants reconciliation.
It wants harmony.
And so it tries to show what may be the only courtesy the enemy will tolerate, namely, a greeting.
The peacemaker looks the enemy right in the eye and says, "Good morning, John."
And he says it with a longing for peace in his heart, not with a phony gloss of politeness to cover his anger.
So we pray and we take whatever practical initiatives we can to
make peace beginning with something as simple as a greeting.
But we do not always succeed.
And I want to make sure you don't equate peacemaking with peace-
achieving.
A peacemaker longs for peace, and works for peace, and sacrifices
for peace.
But the attainment of peace may not come.
Romans 12:18 is very important at this point. There Paul says, "If
possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all."
That is the goal of a peacemaker: "If possible, so far as it depends
on you . . . " Don't let the rupture in the relationship be your fault.
A Tough Question: Peace and Truth?
Ah, but that raises a tough question:
Is it your fault when the stand that you take is causing the division?
If you have alienated someone and brought down their anger upon
your head because you have done or said what is right, have you
ceased to be a peacemaker?
Not necessarily.
Paul said, "If it is possible . . . live at peace."
He thus admits that there will be times that standing for the
truth will make it impossible.
For example, he says to the Corinthians (in 11:18–19), "I hear
that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for
there must be factions among you in order that those who are
genuine among you may be recognized."
Now he would not have said that, if the genuine Christians should
have compromised the truth in order to prevent divisions at all
cost.
It was precisely because some of the Christians were genuine,
genuine, peacemakers, that some of the divisions existed. (Also
see 1 Corinthians 7:15.)
Jesus said in Matthew 10:34:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have
not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set
a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's
foes will be those of his own household."
In other words, you must love peace and work for peace.
You must pray for your enemies, and do good to them, and greet
them, and long for the barriers between you to be overcome.
But you must never abandon your allegiance to me and my word,
no matter how much animosity it brings down on your head.
You are not guilty; you are not in the wrong if your life of
obedience and your message of love and truth elicit hostility
from some and affirmation from others.
Purity the Basis for Peace
Perhaps it's just this warning that Jesus wants to sound when the
very next beatitude says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake."
In other words, righteousness must not be compromised in order
to make peace with your persecutors.
When Jesus pronounces a blessing on you for being persecuted for
the sake of righteousness, he clearly subordinates the goal of peace
to the goal of righteousness.
In James 3:17 it says, "The wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable."
First pure, then peaceable, not the other way around.
And that is the order we have in the beatitudes also (in verses 8
and 9): First, "Blessed are the pure in heart," then, "Blessed are
the peacemakers."
Purity takes precedence over peace.
Purity is the basis of biblical peace.
Purity may not be compromised in order to make peace.
Why Focus on the Individual Dimensions?
Now I want to close by dealing with one more question that
a message like this would raise for some people today.
Why, in view of the world situation, does this message on
peacemaking confine itself to the personal dimensions of
prayer and greetings and individual reconciliation?
Aren't these personal issues insignificant in comparison with the
issues of nuclear war, military budgets, arms talks, civil wars,
religious oppression, and international terrorism?
Before we answer that question, let's ask another one.
Was Jesus unaware that the iron hand of the Roman Empire
rested on the tiny land of the Jews without their consent?
Was he aware that Archelaus slaughtered 3,000 Jews
at a Passover celebration?
Was he aware that the Roman soldiers could conscript
any Jew they chose to carry their baggage?
Was he aware that Pilate had his soldiers bludgeon a crowd
of Jews protesting his stealing from the temple treasury?
Was he aware that Pilate massacred Jews on the temple ground
and mixed their blood with their sacrifices they were offering?
When Jesus spoke of enemies, why did he confine himself to
prayer and personal greetings and blessings and individual
deeds of generosity and kindness?
Why didn't he talk about the issues of national humiliation, and
Roman oppression, and political corruption, and the unbridled
militarism of his day?
Was he utterly out of touch with the big issues of his day?
No.
There is another explanation for why he preaches the way he does.
There were some present at that very time who told him of the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
In Luke 13:1–5 some people confronted Jesus with one of Pilate's
atrocities. Here's the way he responded:
And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were
worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered
thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise
perish."
He took a major social outrage of injustice and turned it into a
demand for personal, individual repentance.
"Unless you repent you will all likewise perish!"
That's what he always did. Why did he do this?
Because for Jesus the eternal destiny of a human soul is a weightier
matter, a bigger issue, than the temporal destiny of a nation.
If you come to Jesus with a question about the justice of taxes to
Tiberias Caesar, he will turn it into a personal command aimed
right at your own heart: "You give to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:15–21).
If you come to Jesus with a complaint about the injustice of your
brother who will not divide the inheritance with you, he will turn it
into a warning to your own conscience, "Man, who made me a judge
or divider over you? . . . Take heed and beware of all covetousness;
for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his
possessions" (Luke 12:13–15).
The Truly Weighty Matter In The World Today
Now let's go back to the question.
Why does a message on peacemaking from the Sermon on the Mount
focus on the individual issues of prayer and greetings and personal
reconciliation?
Aren't these personal issues insignificant in comparison with the
issues of nuclear war, military budgets, arms talks, civil wars,
religious oppression, and international terrorism?
The answer is no, because the point of these personal issues in the
Sermon on the Mount is to make crystal clear that every individual
within the hearing of my voice must become a new creature if you
are to have eternal life.
You must have a new heart.
Without a merciful, pure, peacemaking heart you cannot
be called a son of God at the judgment day.
And that is the truly weighty matter in the world today.
Is the Son of Man confined in his views of the world, is he out of
touch with the real issues of life because he regards the eternal
salvation of your soul as a weightier matter than the temporal
destiny of any nation on earth?
Blessed are you peacemakers who pray for your enemies and greet
your opponents with love and sacrifice like your heavenly Father for
the reconciliation of people to God and to each other, for you will
be called sons of God and inherit eternal life in the kingdom of your
Father.
http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/blessed-are-the-peacemakers
John Piper
Desiring God.org
January 4, 2015
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
With each beatitude another nail is driven into a coffin.
Inside the coffin lies the corpse of a false understanding
of salvation.
The false understanding said that a person can be saved
without being changed.
Or: that a person can inherit eternal life even if his attitudes
and actions are like the attitudes and actions of unbelievers.
The Cry of the Beatitudes: Get a New Heart
One after the other the beatitudes tell us that the blessings
of eternity will be given only to those who have become new
creatures.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called
the sons of God.
If we don't obtain mercy, we receive judgment.
If we don't see God, we are not in heaven.
If we aren't called the sons of God, we are outside the family.
In other words these are all descriptions of final salvation.
And it is promised only to the merciful, the pure in heart,
and the peacemakers.
Therefore the beatitudes are like long spikes holding down the
lid of the coffin on the false teaching which says that if you just
believe in Jesus you will go to heaven whether or not you are
merciful or pure in heart or a peacemaker.
In fact, from beginning to end the Sermon on the Mount cries out,
"Get yourself a new heart! Become a new person! The river of
judgment is at the door!"
You recall the words of verse 20:
"Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"
(Matthew 5:20).
And at the very end of the sermon in 7:26f. the Lord calls out over
the crowds, "Every one who hears these words of mine and does not
do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the
sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of
it."
In other words, a life of disobedience to the beatitudes and to the
Sermon on the Mount will not stand in the judgment no matter
what we believe!
Not Optional Suggestions But The Path To Heaven
I have been convinced this past week that I have probably
not treated this dimension of the beatitudes with as much
earnestness and seriousness as I should, and that the care
that I have for your eternal good has not shown itself as
genuinely as it must.
My conscience was pricked in reading an old book by Horatius Bonar to pastors in which he said:
"Our words are feeble, even when sound and true; our looks are careless, even when our words are weighty; and our tones betray the apathy which both words and looks disguise." (Words to Winners of Souls, p. 55)
So I want to impress upon your consciences with as much
earnestness as I can that in the beatitudes Jesus is not making
optional suggestions, and this sermon is not a series of suggestions
on how to make the world better.
On the contrary, Jesus is describing the pathway to heaven,
and this sermon is a message from God to urge you to get on
that pathway and stay on that pathway so that you can be called
sons of God at the last judgment.
That is what is at stake.
If you are on the narrow path which leads to life, my purpose
is to help you stay on it.
And if you are still in the broad way that leads to destruction,
my purpose is to direct you to the path of life.
How To Become Sons of God
When Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called the sons of God," he does not tell us how to become a son
of God.
He simply says that sons of God are in fact peacemakers.
People who are peacemakers will be recognized as the sons of
God at the judgment and they will be called what they are and
welcomed into the Father's house.
To see how to become sons of God we can look, for example, at
John 1:12 and Galatians 3:26. John 1:12 says, "To all who received
him (Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave power to become
children of God."
And Galatians 3:26 says, "For in Christ we are all sons of God
through faith." In other words, we become sons of God by trusting
in Christ for our forgiveness and hope.
Sons of God Have the Character of Their Father
What Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:9 is that people who have
become sons of God have the character of their heavenly Father.
And we know from Scripture that their heavenly Father is a "God
of peace" (Romans 16:20; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:20).
We know that heaven is a world of peace (Luke 19:38).
And most important of all, we know that God is a peacemaker!
"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting
their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).
He made peace by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:20).
In other words, even though by nature we are rebels against God
and have committed high treason and are worthy to be eternally
court-marshaled and hanged by the neck until dead, nevertheless
God has sacrificed his own Son and now declares amnesty free
and clear to any who will lay down their arms of independence
and come home to faith.
God is a peace-loving God, and a peacemaking God.
The whole history of redemption, climaxing in the death and
resurrection of Jesus, is God's strategy to bring about a just
and lasting peace between rebel man and himself, and then
between man and man.
Therefore, God's children are that way, too.
They have the character of their Father.
What He loves, they love.
What He pursues, they pursue.
You can know his children by whether they are willing to make
sacrifices for peace the way God did.
By the sovereign work of God's grace rebel human beings are
born again, and brought from rebellion to faith, and made into
children of God.
We were given a new nature, after the image of our heavenly
Father (1 John 3:9).
If he is a peacemaker, then his children, who have his nature,
will be peacemakers too.
The Spirit of God Is the Spirit of Peace
Or to put it another way, as Paul says in Galatians 4:6, "Since we
are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
'Abba! Father!'"
And therefore, as he says in Romans 8:14, "All who are led by
the Spirit of God are the sons of God."
And being led by the Spirit always includes bearing the fruit of
the Spirit.
And the fruit of the Spirit is peace!
So you see why it must be so, that the children of God must
be peacemakers.
It is by the Spirit of God that we are made children of God,
and the Spirit of God is the Spirit of peace.
If we are not peacemakers, we don't have the Spirit of Christ.
So we do not earn or merit the privilege to be called sons of God.
Instead we owe our new birth to the sovereign grace of God
(John 1:13). We owe our faith to the impulses of the new birth
(1 John 5:1).
We receive the Holy Spirit by the exercise of this faith.
(Galatians 3:2).
The fruit of this Spirit is peace. (Galatians 5:22).
And those who bear the fruit of peace are the sons of God.
Our whole salvation, from beginning to end, is all of grace,
therein lies our hope and joy and freedom.
But our final salvation is not unconditional, we must be
peacemakers—therein lies our earnestness and the great
seriousness with which we must deal with these beatitudes,
and seek the grace of God in our lives.
Now let's look at . . .
What It Means to Be a Peacemaker
The promise of sonship in the second half of the Matthew 5:9
points us to Matthew 5:43–45 for our main insight.
Both of these texts describe how we can show ourselves to be
sons of God.
"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor
and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
Notice verse 45, " . . . so that you may be sons of your Father
who is in heaven." The thought is the same as in Matthew 5:9.
There, we must be peacemakers to be called sons of God.
Here, we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute
us if we would be sons of God.
So probably Jesus thinks of peacemaking as all the acts of love by
which we try to overcome the enmity between us and other people.
And if we ask for specifics, he gives two examples.
The first thing he mentions is prayer (verse 44): "Pray for those who
persecute you."
Pray what? The next chapter tells us.
In Matthew 6:9–10 Jesus says, "Pray like this."
Pray that you and your enemy would hallow God's name.
Pray that God's kingdom be acknowledged in your life and his life.
Pray that you and he would do God's will the way the angels do it in heaven.
In other words, pray for conversion and sanctification. The basis of peace is purity.
Pray for yours and pray for his, that there might be peace.
Then in Matthew 5:47 Jesus gives the other specific example of
peacemaking-love in this text:
"If you salute (or greet) only your brethren, what more are you
doing than others?"
In other words, if there is a rupture in one of your relationships,
or if there is someone who opposes you, don't nurse that grudge.
Don't feed the animosity by ignoring and avoiding that person.
That is the natural thing to do, just cross the street so that you
don't have to greet them.
But that is not the impulse of the Spirit of a peacemaking God,
who sacrificed his Son to reconcile us to himself and to each
other.
Peacemaking tries to build bridges to people.
It does not want the animosity to remain.
It wants reconciliation.
It wants harmony.
And so it tries to show what may be the only courtesy the enemy will tolerate, namely, a greeting.
The peacemaker looks the enemy right in the eye and says, "Good morning, John."
And he says it with a longing for peace in his heart, not with a phony gloss of politeness to cover his anger.
So we pray and we take whatever practical initiatives we can to
make peace beginning with something as simple as a greeting.
But we do not always succeed.
And I want to make sure you don't equate peacemaking with peace-
achieving.
A peacemaker longs for peace, and works for peace, and sacrifices
for peace.
But the attainment of peace may not come.
Romans 12:18 is very important at this point. There Paul says, "If
possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all."
That is the goal of a peacemaker: "If possible, so far as it depends
on you . . . " Don't let the rupture in the relationship be your fault.
A Tough Question: Peace and Truth?
Ah, but that raises a tough question:
Is it your fault when the stand that you take is causing the division?
If you have alienated someone and brought down their anger upon
your head because you have done or said what is right, have you
ceased to be a peacemaker?
Not necessarily.
Paul said, "If it is possible . . . live at peace."
He thus admits that there will be times that standing for the
truth will make it impossible.
For example, he says to the Corinthians (in 11:18–19), "I hear
that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for
there must be factions among you in order that those who are
genuine among you may be recognized."
Now he would not have said that, if the genuine Christians should
have compromised the truth in order to prevent divisions at all
cost.
It was precisely because some of the Christians were genuine,
genuine, peacemakers, that some of the divisions existed. (Also
see 1 Corinthians 7:15.)
Jesus said in Matthew 10:34:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have
not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set
a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's
foes will be those of his own household."
In other words, you must love peace and work for peace.
You must pray for your enemies, and do good to them, and greet
them, and long for the barriers between you to be overcome.
But you must never abandon your allegiance to me and my word,
no matter how much animosity it brings down on your head.
You are not guilty; you are not in the wrong if your life of
obedience and your message of love and truth elicit hostility
from some and affirmation from others.
Purity the Basis for Peace
Perhaps it's just this warning that Jesus wants to sound when the
very next beatitude says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake."
In other words, righteousness must not be compromised in order
to make peace with your persecutors.
When Jesus pronounces a blessing on you for being persecuted for
the sake of righteousness, he clearly subordinates the goal of peace
to the goal of righteousness.
In James 3:17 it says, "The wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable."
First pure, then peaceable, not the other way around.
And that is the order we have in the beatitudes also (in verses 8
and 9): First, "Blessed are the pure in heart," then, "Blessed are
the peacemakers."
Purity takes precedence over peace.
Purity is the basis of biblical peace.
Purity may not be compromised in order to make peace.
Why Focus on the Individual Dimensions?
Now I want to close by dealing with one more question that
a message like this would raise for some people today.
Why, in view of the world situation, does this message on
peacemaking confine itself to the personal dimensions of
prayer and greetings and individual reconciliation?
Aren't these personal issues insignificant in comparison with the
issues of nuclear war, military budgets, arms talks, civil wars,
religious oppression, and international terrorism?
Before we answer that question, let's ask another one.
Was Jesus unaware that the iron hand of the Roman Empire
rested on the tiny land of the Jews without their consent?
Was he aware that Archelaus slaughtered 3,000 Jews
at a Passover celebration?
Was he aware that the Roman soldiers could conscript
any Jew they chose to carry their baggage?
Was he aware that Pilate had his soldiers bludgeon a crowd
of Jews protesting his stealing from the temple treasury?
Was he aware that Pilate massacred Jews on the temple ground
and mixed their blood with their sacrifices they were offering?
When Jesus spoke of enemies, why did he confine himself to
prayer and personal greetings and blessings and individual
deeds of generosity and kindness?
Why didn't he talk about the issues of national humiliation, and
Roman oppression, and political corruption, and the unbridled
militarism of his day?
Was he utterly out of touch with the big issues of his day?
No.
There is another explanation for why he preaches the way he does.
There were some present at that very time who told him of the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
In Luke 13:1–5 some people confronted Jesus with one of Pilate's
atrocities. Here's the way he responded:
And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were
worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered
thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise
perish."
He took a major social outrage of injustice and turned it into a
demand for personal, individual repentance.
"Unless you repent you will all likewise perish!"
That's what he always did. Why did he do this?
Because for Jesus the eternal destiny of a human soul is a weightier
matter, a bigger issue, than the temporal destiny of a nation.
If you come to Jesus with a question about the justice of taxes to
Tiberias Caesar, he will turn it into a personal command aimed
right at your own heart: "You give to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:15–21).
If you come to Jesus with a complaint about the injustice of your
brother who will not divide the inheritance with you, he will turn it
into a warning to your own conscience, "Man, who made me a judge
or divider over you? . . . Take heed and beware of all covetousness;
for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his
possessions" (Luke 12:13–15).
The Truly Weighty Matter In The World Today
Now let's go back to the question.
Why does a message on peacemaking from the Sermon on the Mount
focus on the individual issues of prayer and greetings and personal
reconciliation?
Aren't these personal issues insignificant in comparison with the
issues of nuclear war, military budgets, arms talks, civil wars,
religious oppression, and international terrorism?
The answer is no, because the point of these personal issues in the
Sermon on the Mount is to make crystal clear that every individual
within the hearing of my voice must become a new creature if you
are to have eternal life.
You must have a new heart.
Without a merciful, pure, peacemaking heart you cannot
be called a son of God at the judgment day.
And that is the truly weighty matter in the world today.
Is the Son of Man confined in his views of the world, is he out of
touch with the real issues of life because he regards the eternal
salvation of your soul as a weightier matter than the temporal
destiny of any nation on earth?
Blessed are you peacemakers who pray for your enemies and greet
your opponents with love and sacrifice like your heavenly Father for
the reconciliation of people to God and to each other, for you will
be called sons of God and inherit eternal life in the kingdom of your
Father.
http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/blessed-are-the-peacemakers
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