On New Year’s Eve

On New Year’s Eve

By Evie Shockley
December 31, 2017

we make midnight a maquette of the year:
frostlight glinting off snow to solemnize
the vows we offer to ourselves in near
silence: the competition shimmerwise

of champagne and chandeliers to attract
laughter and cheers: the glow from the fireplace
reflecting the burning intra-red pact
between beloveds: we cosset the space

of a fey hour, anxious gods molding our
hoped-for adams with this temporal clay:
each of us edacious for shining or
rash enough to think sacrifice will stay

this fugacious time: while stillness suspends
vitality in balance, as passions
struggle with passions for sway, the mind wends
towards what’s to come: a callithump of fashions,

ersatz smiles, crowded days: a bloodless cut
that severs soul from bone: a long aching
quiet in which we will hear nothing but
the clean crack of our promises breaking.

America at Christmas

America at Christmas

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Real Independent News & Film
December 29, 2017

What if Christmas is a core value of belief in a personal God who
lived among us and His freely given promise of eternal salvation
that no believer should reject or apologize for?

What if Christmas is the rebirth of Christ in the hearts of all
believers?

What if Christmas is the potential rebirth of Christ in every heart
that will have Him, whether a believer or not?

What if Jesus Christ was born about 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem?

What if He is true God and true man?

What if this is a mystery and a miracle?

What if this came about as part of God’s plan for the salvation
of all people?

What if Jesus was sent into the world to atone for our sins by
offering Himself as a sacrifice?

What if He was sinless?

What if His life was the most critical turning point in human history?

What if the reason we live is that He died?

What if after He died, He rose from the dead?

What if He was murdered by the government because it feared
a revolt if it did not murder Him?

What if the government thought He was crazy when He said He
is a king but His kingdom is not of this world?

What if He was not crazy but divine?

What if when He said that He could forgive sins, He was referring
to Himself as God?

What if He is one of the three parts of a triune God?

What if this is an inexplicable mystery?

What if there is no power without mystery?

What if the power He possessed, He exercised only for the good?

What if He truly gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf,
musculature to the lame, hope to the disillusioned, courage
to the weak and even life to the dead?

What if He freely did these things but sought no acclamation
for them?

What if after each of these miracles, He disappeared into the
temple precincts or walked well past the crowd, lest the crowd
hail him as a temporal or secular leader?

What if there was in that towering personality a deep thread
of shyness?

What if He was shy about His Godness?

What if He was shy about His goodness?

What if He loved saving us?

What if He was joyful but did not want us to see His joy?

What if He knew all along how profoundly untimely and utterly
painful the end of His life on earth would be but He neither feared
nor avoided it?

What if His greatest display of love was self-restraint on the Cross?

What if most of the world that He came to save has rejected Him?

What if He still loves those who have rejected Him?

What if He still offers them salvation?

What if His offer is real and forever?

What if many folks today have rejected the true God
for government-as-god?

What if the government-as-god has set itself up as providing for all
secular needs in return for fidelity to it?

What if this seductive offer has been accepted by millions
in America?

What if the acceptance of this seductive offer of government-as-
god has ruined individual initiative, destroyed personal work ethic,
fostered cancerous laziness, enhanced deep poverty and impelled
thoughtless obedience to government in those who have accepted
it?

What if the defiance inherent in the belief of government-as-god
chills the exercise of personal freedoms for fear of the loss of the
government’s munificence?

What if government charity is really munificence with money
it has taken from those who work and earn it?

What if it’s then given to those who don’t?

What if it is impossible to be truly charitable with someone
else’s money?

What if Jesus came to set us free from the yoke of government
oppression and the chains of personal sin?

What if freedom is our birthright, given to us by the true God,
not by the government-as-god?

What if the true God made us in His own image and likeness?

What if the most similar likeness between us mortals and the
true God is freedom?

What if just as God is perfectly free, so are we perfectly free?

What if we have failed to preserve freedom and have permitted
governments to take it from us?

What if we are not full people without full freedom?

What if the world was full of darkness before He came
into it?

What if there is darkness still today but yet much light?

What if we recognize that He is the Light of the World?

What if Christmas is the birthday of the Son of God
and the Son of Mary?

What if we recognize the presence of the Son of God
and the Son of Mary in our hearts and among us?

What if the God-as-baby whose birthday we celebrate
is the Savior of the World?

What if we don’t mask this but live it?

What if we say with our hearts and mean with our words —
Merry Christmas?

http://rinf.com/alt-news/newswire/america-at-christmas-lewrockwell

So What? Christians

So What? Christians

By Laurence M. Vance
Lew Rockwell.com
December 27, 2017

Thanks to a note from a preacher friend, I think I’ve discovered
a new type of Christian: The So what? Christian.

I have written many times about Christian jihadists, Old Testament
Christians, Christian armchair warriors, theological schizophrenics,
Christian Coalition moralists, nuclear Christians, Janus Christians,
evangelical warvangelicals, Catholic just war theorists, reich-wing
Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians,
pro-lifers for mass murder, Red-State Christian fascists, bloodthirsty
Christian conservatives, beam Christians, double-minded Christians,
Christian warmongers, God and country Christian bumpkins,
sniper theologians, Christian military idolaters, conservative
Christian militarists, and members of the Christian axis of evil.

The So what? Christian, when presented with some negative
assertion about the U.S. government, the U.S. military, U.S. wars,
or U.S. foreign policy, instead of inquiring as to its validity, doing
some research, or spending more than three seconds thinking about
it, dismisses it with “So what?,” usually followed by some ridiculous
statement.

Here are some examples.

The U.S. military has bombed Afghan wedding parties: So what?
The bride and groom were going to produce potential terrorists.

The U.S. military has killed thousands of civilians in Iraq
and Afghanistan: So what? They are just collateral damage.

The United States gives billions of dollars a year in foreign
aid to Israel: So what? The Jews are God’s chosen people.

The U.S. military has a thousand overseas military bases:
So what? America is the exceptional nation.

U.S. drone strikes regularly miss their targets: So what?
America makes no apologies.

The United States has been fighting in Afghanistan longer than
against Nazi Germany: So what? It is better to fight “over there”
instead of “over here.”

The real defense budget is around a trillion dollars: So what?
The military keeps us safe.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist minister.
So what? America is still one nation under God.

The U.S. military kills innocent Muslims that were no threat
to the United States: So what? All Muslims are terrorists.

Inmates at Guantanamo are being held indefinitely with neither
charge nor trial: So what? Terrorists don’t need trials.

U.S. soldiers have committed war crimes: So what?
There’s always a few bad apples in every bushel.

U.S. soldiers recite filthy cadences in basic training: So what?
I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.

The U.S. military keeps brothels open overseas: So what?
The troops are defending our freedoms.

A preemptive war against Iraq was wrong because Iraq was
no threat to the United States: So what? There is “a time of
war” (Ecclesiastes 3:8).

Thousands of U.S. soldiers died unnecessarily in Iraq and
Afghanistan: So what? There is no greater honor than to
die for your country.

Military recruiters lie to impressionable young people: So what?
There is nothing more noble than military service.

Veterans are committing suicide at an alarming rate: So what?
They should not feel guilty for anything they did while in service
to their country.

The U.S. military is increasingly being filled with women,
homosexuals, lesbians, and transgenders: So what? There
is no higher calling than military service.

The U.S. military and intelligence services have tortured people:
So what? As long as it saves the life of one American.

The U.S. military has created tens of thousands of widows and
orphans in Iraq and Afghanistan: So what? The terrorists who kill
Jews are Muslims.

The U.S. military killed millions of Vietnamese in the Vietnam War:
So what? The only good communist is a dead communist.

The U.S. military has bombed seven Muslim countries over the past
few years: So what? Islam is a false religion.

The United States hasn’t constitutionally declared war
on any country since World War II: So what? Romans 13.

War is the greatest destroyer of civil liberties: So what?
Civil liberties are the concern of leftists.

The U.S. military is a bombing, maiming, and killing machine:
So what? The LORD is a man of war (Exodus 15:3).

It is shameful that some conservative Christians have this So
what? attitude. It is even worse when this mindset is followed
by ridiculous statements that display their willful ignorance.

So what? Christians.

Rebuke them, chastise them, reprimand them, reprove them,
castigate them, and scold them.

Just don’t forget to educate them, instruct them, teach them,
inform them, enlighten them, and admonish them.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/12/laurence-m-vance/so-what-
christians

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

By Christina Rossetti
December 24, 2017

Christmas has a darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas has a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June;

Christmas has a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

Earth strike up your music
Birds that sing and bells that ring,
Heaven has answering music
For all angels soon to sing;

Earth put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.

FBI: American Gestapo

FBI: American Gestapo

By Colonel Lawrence Sellin
Information Clearing House
December 21, 2017

Any government agency with law enforcement and surveillance
authority that uses those powers for political purposes is the
definition of a secret police, no better than the Nazi Gestapo
or the Soviet KGB.

There is indeed probable cause to conclude, meaning indictable
offenses, that employees of the Department of Justice and/or the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sympathetic to the Democrat
Party, used the power of their offices and with the assistance
of foreign nationals to influence the 2016 election in favor of
Hillary Clinton, first to exonerate her and then obtain information
to prevent the election of Donald Trump or to provide a basis for
his impeachment should he win.

It is also abundantly clear from the Congressional investigations
involving the Department of Justice and the FBI that those
institutions of government are protecting themselves at the
expense of transparency and accountability to the American
people.

In other words, the government employees involved consider the
survival of the Deep State more important than the survival of the
Constitution.

That is the definition of tyranny.

Here is a summary of the apparent sequence of events based
on the revelations so far.

There may be more damning evidence yet to be disclosed.

- The Democrats hired Fusion GPS to find dirt on Donald Trump.

- Fusion GPS hired former British MI6 agent in Moscow, Christopher
Steele, to canvass and very likely pay his Russian contacts, some of
whom may be present or former members of Russian intelligence,
for negative information about Trump.

- Steele creates the "Trump dossier" and distributes it either
directly or indirectly to media outlets and to politicians like
Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

- The FBI obtains the "Trump dossier," but inexplicably
or perhaps intentionally does not check the veracity of
any of Steele's assertions.

- The FBI uses the "Trump dossier" to apply to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to obtain warrantless
authorization to conduct surveillance on Trump and his associates.

- It now appears that Christopher Steele might have been, at some
point, on the FBI payroll, and, by extension, the Russians.

The use of an un-vetted document from dubious Russian sources
as a basis for unwarranted surveillance of American citizens,
ultimately for political purposes, renders the entire Mueller
investigation a farce and could provide exculpatory evidence
to vacate the guilty plea of former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn.

It is a verdict many believe was based on improperly-obtained
information as part of an overall effort by politically-motivated
federal employees to manipulate the results of the 2016 election.

The conditions that led to the election of Donald Trump
as President remain.

They bear repeating.

The federal government and the media are, as institutions,
hopelessly corrupt and, although we have elections, we no
longer have representative government.

There is a Cold Civil War underway in the United States
to determine who should control the federal government.

It is not a contest between the Democrat and Republican policies,
but a battle between the entrenched power of the bipartisan
political establishment, the Deep State, versus the freedom and
well-being of the American people.

It is a conflict between those who want to adhere to the
Constitution and the rule of law and a ruling elite, who
wish to continue the practices of political expediency
and crony capitalism for the purposes of personal power
and profit.

Americans now believe that we are no longer citizens of a republic,
but subjects of an elected aristocracy, composed of a self-absorbed
and self-perpetuating permanent political class, which serves its
own interests and those of its international financiers, not those
of the American people.

Three years before the start of the American Civil War, Abraham
Lincoln said a government cannot endure permanently half slave
and half free - that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Likewise, a government separated from the people cannot stand.

The American Revolution, a war to free ourselves from foreign
tyranny, lasted eight years.

The Second American Revolution, a battle to root out the
corruption and despotism of the Deep State will take longer,
but equally necessary.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48438.htm

Illusions

Illusions

By Luke Kurkowski
December 18, 2017

Illusions exist to keep order.

They limit the visionaries.

They hinder the Philosophers.

They stop the would be radicals.

They hide the truth.

To be rid of them you are rid of safety.

To be rid of them you are free.

Evolution

Evolution

By Serenus
December 15, 2017

Many people don’t believe in evolution
But I’m determine to evolve

Then I’ll start a revolution
And get the masses involved

We’ll spread the message like pollution
Love will be our cause

Hate needs a substitution
Or else nothing will be solved

We will be immune to evil
A sickness that can never again take control

No more hatred or animosity
It’s like cancer to the soul

No more violence or war
One day we’ll look back in horror
And wonder, what was it all for?

One day we’ll rise above the fray…
And be disgusted
By the way we behaved…

Racism
Sexism
Slavery
The holocaust

War of religions
Terrorism
Torture…
How could we have been so lost?

As a people
We don’t have a choice
But to evolve

Or else
As a people…
We will all dissolve.