Apostle Paul's Remains Found Right Before Tourist Season

I love the Apostle Paul. He started churches, but other people took over, he loved the Lord Yshua and could not forebear telling people about Him, so much that he was constantly beat up, imprisoned, stoned, rioted against, shipwrecked, bitten by vipers, and run out of town. Over and over. He never could hold a position in the pulpit for very long. One longstanding 'joke' letter in Christian circles is a letter from Paul applying for a job with the following credentials:

"Gentlemen:

Understanding that you need a preacher, I would like to apply for the position. I have many qualifications that I think you would appreciate. I have been blessed to preach with power and have some success as a writer. Some say that I am a good organizer. I have been a leader in most places I have gone.

Some folks, however, have some things against me. I am over fifty years of age. I have never preached in one place for more than three years at a time. In some places I have left town after my work caused riots and disturbances. I have to admit that I have been in jail three or four times, but not because of any wrong-doing. My health is not too good, though I still get a good deal done. I have had to work at my trade to help pay my way.

The churches I have preached in have been small, though located in several large cities. I have not gotten along too well with the religious leaders in different towns where I have preached, and I am sure that they will not recommend me. In fact, some of them have threatened me, taken me to court, and even attacked me physically. I am not too good at keeping records. I have been known even to forget whom I have baptized. However, if you can use me, I shall do my best for you, even if I have to work to help with my support."
The Apostle Paul

HE kept on preaching though. Unlike preachers today, he had seen the Lord up close and personal and he was anything but the kind of man who went for any sort of fanaticism. Trained at the feet of Gamaliel, (Acts 22:3), he was in his own words, a "Hebrew of the Hebrews",

Phl 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, [of] the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

He was a man among men. So zealous of the faith of his fathers, that when the new sect of 'little christs' came about he got a legal order to persecute and arrest all those radicals who refused to go along with the status quo, you know, the big money ministries that were ruining Israel and giving Judaism a bad name. They saw the little band of believers (then) as dangerous, nutzy , hellenized, and threatening Israel, possibly bringing trouble with Rome like their leader Jesus, Yshua, that rebel slave from Galilee. Zealous Saul Paulus of Tarsus got his order, mounted his horse and took off with a band to do some real damage, that Scholar of Israel, zealous for perfect Judaism. He wasn't opposed to a stoning or two, maybe even a roundabout here and there, if these rabblerousers were put in prison and their light put out. On the road to Damascus though, something so drastic happened, that it turned that Israeli Sanhedrin-bound scholar, into a shivering child, asking Yshua, "Lord, what would you have me to do?". The rest is History.

The Bones in the Tomb of Paul

While legend surrounds the Apostle Paul and other disciples, regarding where he died and how, it is known that his last letters were written from Rome, although some argue he travelled in between to Spain and Portugal, and then back to Rome where he was either burned, beheaded, or otherwise killed. One legend has it that Nero, setting Rome on fire attempted to blame Paul and the Christians for it, a great tradition of world leaders even in this day and hour. They all fiddle around with the truth.

However he died, though, this scholar of the Law turned itinerate preacher in love with the Messiah of Israel and filled with the Holy Spirit of God, however he died, Rome is now claiming that the bones in the tomb of St. Paul outside the Wall, are really Paul's, just in time for tourist season.

To begin with, it is a non-issue: whether they are or not, proves nothing and adds nothing to faith: we all have bones, all have a few left or at least ashes years after our death, and though today we can do DNA traces, then we could not. However, I had to wonder and even marvel at the constant lack of logic that comes up lately at the new hobby of finding Jesus and his apostles' bones, and how odd a hobby that has come to be.

First of all, buried in St. Paul's tomb, by the Roman Catholic Church automatically means that there is at least a 5% chance it might be Paul. The RCC wasn't around back then to collect bones or build tombs. Perhaps there was a note in his pocket that said, "Not John Mark, anybody but John Mark"---addressed to Barnabas. Maybe there were viper bite marks. Just a little first century humor here folks. Maybe it had enclosed a bookbag full of scrolls. Who knows? The article though said one thing, that makes me doubt completely that it was ever Paul's remains: it had a gold brocade wrap of some sort, and all of Paul's teaching is to the contrary.

Paul admonished women not to wear broided hair, and bangles, but to be adorned in the inner spirit.

1Ti 2:9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

and his constant theme was humility and surrender, dying to self. He himself surrendered the fine things of this life for the finer things of the next. Gold brocade wasn't on the list.

What are they going to do? Get DNA samples? Even if they could, the most they could tell is that the bones were possibly Jewish and male. How many Pauls were there in Tarsus? Or Rome? Thousands. The Vatican loves its icons and tombs, but most are idolatry, and our faith does not need to rest on the 'seen' but on the 'unseen', that being the substance of faith. Two thousand year old bones don't often tell very much when there are only fragments. Scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists and Bible scholars of the Curia may be brought in, but for all their observations and tests, they will be guessing, theorizing, and still will not be able to prove whether or not the bones really belonged to the Apostle Paul, who does not need them anymore, save for perhaps one day in the near future when God will decide which bones belong to whom, and what to do with them.

Some think that finding St. Paul's remains will 'prove' the Gospel, but belief in God and His Messiah is an issue of faith for Jews and Christians: all the authenticated bones in the world will neither cause faith nor destroy it. The Shroud of Turin, if anything, has been 'unauthenticated' but it does not prove Jesus and His Resurrection was not real, only that someone produced by whatever method, an icon to entice faith not in Jesus but in the Catholic Church. The recent controversy over someone thinking they had found Jesus' bones, rested solely on the name Joshua (yshua) scratched on the side of a stone ossuary, in a time when the name was very common and He is reported no where to have left bones.

Large religious organizations often feel the need to manufacture faith, objects, icons, statues, etc to entice or confirm belief. The ones that do it, feel they have real proof, and atheists argue that those inauthentic objects make faith inauthentic but neither is correct. Our faith does not hinge on objects or even on historical or anthropological 'proof'. We teach constantly that John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence and nobody doubts it, and we have his signature, but we were not there. Our belief that it is his signature rests on our FAITH, the belief in the unseen, that there was a John Hancock, and that the signature was his. Why then, do we think we apply a different set of rules to faith in Yshua, or Jesus, or God in General?

Chariots drowning in Reeds

A few years back, theologians, who may be known by skeptism more than wisdom, argued widely that when Moses crossed the Red Sea and the Waves allowed God's children to go through, that they were actually referring to the "Reed Sea" a shallow swamp, assuming that they , the million or so sloshed through mud and yuck to get to Canaan, and then the mighty Egyptian army, the greatest army of the day, experience in all forms of warfare and mad as heck, got to the 'Reed' sea, and what, got stuck in the mud? What a God.

A story was told of a little boy returning from Sunday School who was asked by his grandfather what he learned. He replied, Well we learned there was this general named Moses, and he was being chased by an army, so he got helicopters and hand grenades and bombs, and threw them in the water and it blasted the waves apart so all the people could go through and be safe'. His grandfather said, now is that really what they taught you? The little boy replied, Well, no, but if you heard it they way they taught it you would never believe it.

That's what our theologians are like. They can't believe the God who created the waves could roll them back for the purpose of the Salvation of the Jews, the Messiah and mankind. They have however been stuck in the mud before, so they use a whole different location than the one mentioned because they HAVE NO FAITH. Only the paltry thing called human reason---NOT DIVINE REASON. They argue that Mary, the virgin of Galilee could not have borne the Messiah of Israel in a virgin birth, because they cannot conceive (ahem) of it, so they say that a Roman soldier probably raped her, not knowing that this particular slander came from a Nazi theologian arguing for an Aryan Christ. They argue that the Word of God cannot possibly have been preserved over the years, but they have no problem with the writings of Josephus, or anyway lesser problems. They see miracles and they make archetypes. They want dead things for proof like bones, tombs, ruins, and artifacts, but when they find them, they still do not believe. Imagine their surprise at the finding of chariot wheels embedded in the sand under the RED Sea, or the body of Pharaoh, at least one of them! That is because faith has a different economy, comprehension and conversation than human reason and logic which fails us often, and especially about every 5 to 10 years.

The Catholic Church did not rest on the shoulders of Peter, the man with the keys to the Kingdom, nor Paul, the servant of God who gave up all for the high calling of Yshua HaMeschiach, Jesus Christ. It had its underpinnings in Paganism, including the worship of Ashtoreth, and Diana, and it was no surprise that Paul's preaching caused such a stir among the Diana worshipers who made their living off the sales of statues and idols. The solidifying of the emulation came in 313 a.d. not in a steady succession of Popes, but in a steady succession of Emperors from Rome who persecuted Christians, but because of the nagging of his mother, Constantine gave clemency to Christian worshipers ending severe persecution, but doing it even worse damage by making it a State religion and integrating pagan practices such as the worship of the sun god in what would become not the breaking of bread Messiah commanded, but the Eucharist and perpetual altar, instead of the one and for always sacrificial atonement. The nature of the beast was a "Holy Roman Empire" partly political, partly religious, ruled by the same persons, which has contrary to popular opinion never really died, but waxed and waned through the centuries. The Roman Church is the only religious body with declared and recognized ambassadors, the Apostolic Delegates and Pro Nuncios, which regularly influence world politics and defend the interests of the Catholic Church with embassy status. The Holy See and Vatican City is a Nation-State, though undeclared as a nation among nations, and has fought Israel at every turn for their right to Statehood. It is far more political than religious and has always been.

So the bones of poor Apostle Paul are no doubt not resting easy, as it is probably for political purposes that they rise up this one last time to speak to the Goyim.
Perhaps they are not his real bones, but the bones of some poor priest who decided to really preach the Gospel and got shown the Apostle Paul up close, say in the 15th century. How about enough of trying to find forged Copies of the New Testament at Mt. Athos like the Sinaiticus, or the bones of Jesus (since not one of his bones were broken, that would be hard) or the bones of Paul, or the miraculous radiated impression of Christ's face on a napkin which couldn't have been either since it was rolled up separately in the tomb, or Jesus' image on toast, or buildings, or in the photo on eBay, or the weeping Mary who only weeps blood when a little woman puts red dye in the faucet around Easter, etc, etc, etc, etc. Give it a royal rest.

Paul is probably not the body in the tomb of St. Paul. No one is going to be able to absolutely tell, in any event. Old and New Testament are strong in their admonitions against idolatry. And Paul will live on, through all of us who love him for his great work in the Gospel every time the Word is preached in love and rightly spoken, but his remains can be nothing more than one more political ploy or religious fascination, assaulting real faith. The truth is, neither the Catholic Church nor most of Protestantism or even Evangelicalism would have wanted Paul in their presence for very long: he was a little touchy about doctrine.


This blog may also be found at judahsglory.blogspot.com

Keeping the Baby, Throwing Out the Bathwater: A Lost Lesson

One disturbing trend would be an understatement when referring to the United States these days. Yet if there is 'one disturbing trend' that I have noticed, it is the inability of the general citizenry to think clearly, to discern, to reason, to order ,order, and systematize and to compare and contrast in planning, decision-making and other acts of reason. The etiology of the problem, in my opinion, lies partly with the changes in Education, ('holistic' education has not helped); partly with changes in family structure and roles, and partly with the media, and the constant grab for non-stop entertainment as opposed to other pursuits.

A perfect example of the problem, albeit a minor one arose in a story on a local news channel not too long ago. A demolition company had just demolished the wrong house, and the owner, an aging man came to check on his childhood home, where he still kept his mother's china cabinet and other memorabilia, to find it in rubble. In tears he called the demolition company, and asked why in the world they had razed his house to the ground. They said, 'Well, we had the address'. He replied, 'it was the wrong address'. They stressed, that their fault was minor because 'they had the address'.

That little vignette is a perfect example of the logical retardation that seems to have beset the country over the past several years. The idea of doing wrong, of causing suffering, of having to pay damages, was of lesser concern than whether something can be 'said' to make the errors all go away. More and more I hear that type of reasoning. Once a number of years ago, I sat on an ethics committee for a Children's Hospital research review. Whenever someone wanted to do research in the hospital, they came before the committee, presented the study, the risks, the safeguards, the consent process and so on to the multi-discipline group. Once a fellow described a study regarding treatment of children with Cystic Fibrosis, and one possible side effect of a treatment was that it could get worse. This concerned me (then a College Professor at a Medical School), and a Rabbi who also sat on the board, although it seemed to bother no one else. At least I thought, they would offer treatment, if the new procedure did not work, but that was not the case. After some debate about the ethics of the study, the head of the committee turned to speak with the hospital attorney, asking , 'Will we get in any trouble for this?' The bottom line was not whether it was ethical or not, but what it would cost the hospital monetarily if something went wrong. Again, no 'rights and wrongs', no concern for other people, only the bottom dollar and not getting in trouble.
We're all fine with that kind of reasoning as long as it is not our child when the treatment goes wrong, or the wrong house gets demolished.

The problem though extends further than that: it extends to Congress, the national debt and mortgage crisis, to issues regarding Church and State, to Medicare, to Wall Street, to Psychology, Law, and Medicine and just about every other area in life which requires in-depth thinking. 'Pork barrel' spending in Congress isn't just a result of special interests, it is a result of failure to reason down the line: and so is the mortgage crisis , social security crisis, health crisis and national debt. There is a new non-chalance regarding actions at the highest level of the land: e.g. giving the Queen of England an I-pod for a gift, or giving a Russian dignitary, a prank gift with a misspelling. People at the highest level of decision making, are thinking in the moment, for the moment and carnally, contrary to higher level discernment of times past.

The Vatican, no matter which side of it one stands on, has a telling saying:

"We think in centuries here."

They certainly do, as do any millennia-old institutions or groups: they consider every major decision for its wisdom, short-term consequences and long term consequences, and whether there are safeguards against failure, and how the decision and its possible outcome will impact not just the current situation but the next generation, and the generations to follow. They also learn from past mistakes, noting what works and what does not, and detailing at the highest levels of the world a better descriptive psychology than anyone teaches in a classroom. Monarchies which have survived centuries and great families have learned a few lessons: never to turn in on themselves, never in in bitter quarrels to make the negative known, and how to deal with every situation. Further, they teach it to their children and grandchildren, who will someday follow suit. In America, we just don't do that much anymore: we give a little advice here and there, make sure kids are clothed and off to school and count on them to impart reasoning, thinking, and problem solving skills, but almost all our education today at home and in school is focused on 'in-the-moment' gratification with the highest ideal being some myth of 'self-esteem'. Wisdom and reasoning, ordered thinking and thinking in systems is disappearing from the American way of life. Families and institutions who grow great and survive, continue in seeing themselves as whole and vital units, and pass not just knowledge, but acumen onto their sons and daughters.

Getting to the point
Now, after that diatribe, one probably thinks that this blog is about better education and the training of thinking and reasoning (which there should be, but that is for another time); but the issue at hand particularly is the need in our society to not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' and stop repeating tried and true phrases and axioms, stop following 'handbooks' of correct behavior, and stop refusing to consider some ideas when they are related to other distasteful ideas, and /or distasteful people.

Liberal and Conservative Handbooks
One of the first issues that needs to be dismissed is the following of hardcore rules for how liberals vs conservatives 'have' to think. The news channels are down the line on one side or another save for a few that most consider 'boring' but carefully weigh the facts. BBC and the PBS news programs are examples of the latter. Does anyone doubt though, on a nightly basis on TV which side of an issue Keith Olbermann, or Rachel Maddow will end up on? Or Pat Buchanan, O'Reilly, or some others? This is no smear of those folks: they are all very bright and capable, clear-spoken, and can be really compassionate about other people even though they are on opposite continents of thought. Yet that is how we divide issues and reasoning and why we never move ahead. Liberals would have to hide in a closet if they opposed Proposition 8, or abortion. And a Conservative who opposed military spending, or some other hot conservative issue, would have to do likewise. The world and nation have become so complex, beset by so many threats and for the first time since the Civil war, even the possibility of overthrow, that polarized thinking and carnal reasoning will only contribute to the fracturing.

Mixed Issues

An example of a mixed issue that polarizes people, without clear thought, is the separation of Church and State. We hear about the Deutsche Christen, the nazified Church in the Shoah which changed doctrine, practice, training , theology and liturgy to satisfy the Nazis, and we cry 'how could they: why would anyone do that" and we use it as an ensign of danger and revulsion. We fill out 5013c organization forms though, for non-profit status of Churches so that we can give tax deductions for contributions, and do not realize at all that it is the same issue: the registration of churches with the State, so that the state has the 'last word'. That is headship of the State. That is what Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, and Barth fought against. We proclaim Bonhoeffer as a hero of the war for taking down the Nazi flag from the altar, but we consider it a nutcase thing to do here.

One of the reasons for our unwillingness some will argue is that the US is not a despotic and deadly place to live, but we are certainly there or headed there. Secondly, we equate such beliefs with White Aryanism, the 'Ruby Ridge' crowd, or the 'wackos from Waco', and we surely do not want to be one of those. We are afraid to stand up for what we know is right, e.g. the 'headship of Christ' vs. the headship of the state, the very center of the Barmen Declaration which even 'High' and liberal churches hold dear, and yet we give the Federal Government the right to oversee our membership lists, finances, pulpit speech, etc, even to the point of disbanding a church which will not comply. We are afraid of being typecast as a nutcase, reactionary or a bigot or 'nazi', although the Nazis would have been very happy with our 5013c laws, because it would have given them the direct 'in' to state control of the Churches. So do faith based initiatives. Back to the issue of clear and in depth reasoning, the issues need to be separated from those who commonly hold them. I believe the 5013c is contrary to the Constitution, but I am not an Anti-Semite: indeed, I believe the Synagogue should be free of the requirement as well. The Federal government was never meant to have control of the House of God.

Davy Crockett (yes, really) most do not know was a Senator, and very well thought of because of his clear thinking and reasoning. A fine Christian man, devoted to the Lord, and compassionate beyond measure, he opposed government spending on welfare issues. He did not lack concern for the poor, ill and disenfranchised, quite the contrary, he was more concerned than most, he just believed it should be families and the Church who cared for them, not the Federal Government. We stay where we are growing deeper and deeper in debt because many Senators and Representatives feel that to oppose social programs will bring them bad press and fewer votes. The difficulty though, is that no one want to think outside of the box for real and long term solutions. Our lack of concern for thinking about tomorrow is leaving us very possibly , very soon with a bankrupt social security system.

We do the same for 'Homeland Security' and 'Patriot Act' issues. We remove boundaries of Civil Liberties, all glad that terrorists can be caught but we sacrifice freedom and may if not careful substitute a free society for one as oppressive as the one terrorists would bring in. Hurricane Katrina had evacuation routes well established but no way to care for tens of thousands of homeless persons long term. The scrambling for solutions was done at the end. The FBI profiling of Vicki Weaver led to two innocent deaths, because the Feds did not understand the admixture of fundamental faith, with the incursion of hate doctrines. Think tanks are often sophisticated opinion tanks but not solution 'tanks'. Repetitive sayings have over-ridden reasoning and the truth.

I have encountered this kind of reasoning lately in my own work. I put over 20,000 hours of work into one of my main websites over 12 years, and now that it is nearing completion, there are these moronic folk who think they can override copyright law, web law, registrations and so on and 'represent' the work for me, without my permission. They think because they have a better weight, age, appearance, dress style, etc that they can replace an author. And though that sounds so moronic that no one would take it seriously: it is a line of thinking that is becoming rampant in business and academics, and now in ministry related work. Segments of society think they can bluff anything. Question them about right and wrong and they will repeat phrases: 'Well I am sure, kind sir we can address that issue when we come to it." "Well, so and so may be the author, but I will represent the work, quite adequately". It's a stunning defense: pretty people will replace Shakespeare, Cyrano De Bergerac, and modern authors who look, I don't know, look just kind of....". Others have tried to put their children who were 0 to 5 when my work started as an issue of humiliation and degradation like the men and women who look at a painting by Pollock or Picasso and say, "O my kid could have done that". The ability to reason and think systematically is gone, in favor of repetitive encantations, and outright violence and bullying.

The Recent Shooting at USHMM

It was the recent shooting at USHMM which started my thinking down this line. The man was at least from appearances, a raw, straight out fascist bigot. There is no reasoning to shooting the security guard, but none of us really know what happened or what the interchange was. We race for the easiest scenario, bad guy, good guy, bad guy kills good guy. We stamp it a hate crime, before hearing any facts. It probably was, but we ASSUME without facts. A fellow at a church we once attended spread a rumor he had heard about us all over town. We thought it was too ridiculous to be true and no one would even remotely believe it, so we laughed. Twelve years later, it is no laughing matter, because it profoundly went from one ministry to another causing devastating ruin. No one even bothered to confront or reason through the rumor.

The fellow, von Brunn who shot at USHMM, though, did understand amidst his vile hatred and prejudice, other aspects of society which are serious and need attention. He tried to citizen-arrest members of the Federal Reserve years ago, and landed in jail. That was not wise, however symbolic. But it does not mean that others of us cannot consider what he thought was wrong with the Federal Reserve, and quite technically, they were doing some very suspect things. If one brings it up publicly are they a 'von Brunn lookalike'? We need to slow down and stop repeating our unquestioned positions. Iran currently has two factions fighting over a fair(?) election: one faction wants an oppressive Islamic fundamental worldview, but their view is a society with little crime which is safe and comfortable for them. The other faction wants a liberal contemporary, progressive leader (that would be a moderate there), with Western openness, to live freely. Both have plusses and minuses. We don't want to live in a fundamental Islamic regime, but we all want safe streets, peace and law and order. We want to be free, and forward thinking but we do not want drugs, violence, etc. So what shall it be? A society where women can be killed in honor killings, but there is no adultery, or a society which is liberal but incites violence on every street corner. Reason says 'neither: there has to be another solution"---and then seeks to find it.

Unless this society starts in all levels of government and the Church to think carefully and with complexity about issues confronting us, and returns to standard boundaries of right and wrong, whatever one's politics, we are gone in a couple of generations. Systematic reasoning can be taught. Tolerance does not begin with telling zealous Anti-Semites that 'all races are equal': they will laugh. It begins with extracting and even exhuming the vestiges of the reasoning process and ordered thinking in all of us, when confronting even hate crimes. We need to keep the baby, and not throw it out with the bathwater, because the two were in such close contact. As simplistic as this sounds, educating ordered thinking and reasoning, and using it in everything from neighborhood spats to Congressional hearings, may mean the difference between a nation surviving or being overthrown.

USHMM as a National Ebenezer: Understanding Why Violence Chooses Unique Targets

Jos 4:21-2 And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What [mean] these stones?
Then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land.

By now all are aware of the events of June at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in which James von Brunn, an elderly Holocaust denier and well known anti-Semite, shot Stephen Tyrone Johns, on a busy visitor day at the Memorial Museum.
The security officer died, and von Brunn remained in serious condition following the exchange. Needless to say no one expected the violent interchange, on a quiet summer morning when thousands of tourists flock the streets of the Capitol to see the sites, and the great portion of honor goes to the other security guards and police officers who responded with immediacy and dignity to avoid a much more tragic scenario, though the incident is hardly unremarkable.

To some extent, although few will breathe it out loud, it is far more surprising that many more such incidents have not already occurred. USHMM, partially federally funded, partly privately funded more than any other nationally visible symbol, or 'Ebenezer' speaks of the Shoah and the Jews more than any other ensign, (more even than the Wiesenthal Center) just by being there, by being in existence. Terrorists like to target symbols, and those involved in 'hate industries' are no exception. James von Brunn had been known to make symbolic gestures before, serving time for the attempted 'citizen's arrest' of members of the Federal Reserve some years back. (Not that a lot of us might not want that honor one day, from all backgrounds-pardon the black humor.)

James von Brunn is a little 'showier' than many anti-Semites and holocaust deniers, but his rhetoric on the net is vile and open : racial epithets fly on his 'holywesternempire.com' site, decrying world Jewry, denouncing Obama for being controlled by his 'Jew' bosses, etc. (I wish Obama would listen to those folks a little more, maybe the world would run more smoothly. ahem.) One cannot though underestimate the sentiments and beliefs of many of the 'true believers' of Anti-Semitism, and dismissing them as crazy, or imbecilic will not work. For all the time spent in teaching tolerance, these folks are often not listened to nor understood, and that just fuels the fire for future tragic incidents, targeting 'representative' organizations.

Vicious Anti-Semites

I must begin by saying that it should be self-evident that I am not condoning any act of hate, certainly not the senseless shooting death of the USHMM guard. Yet in our swift efforts to condemn the action, we need to understand how we polarize people into corners leaving them no release for even expressing their views which may very well lead later to hate crimes. The anatomy of a hate crime usually has a lengthy process: there are first years and years of inculcating the hate, through family members, schools, unfortunate incidents, and later literature , groups, and 'admission' to 'secret knowledge', often a temptation to pride in which those of a certain lodge, society or other group knows something the rest of the world does not. Reinforced by many others of similar beliefs, hatred and bigotry to racial or creed groups grows, but as long as the society is generally stable and comfortable, confrontations stay mainly verbal.

Later in the process though, events may reinforce and enhance hatred: run-ins with the objects of hate, e.g. young Jewish students who yell back, or an Afro-American who they perceive cheats them in a business deal, fuel the fire and become self-fulfilling prophecies, of 'see, I told you 'they' were like that'. Tolerance organizations more often polarize anti-Semites instead of seek dialogue. I have been around both kinds of people a great deal in the past, and I have heard the expression 'vicious anti-Semite' as often as I have heard 'nigger' or 'kike' from the other side. Liberal persons characterize these men and women as stupid, ignorant, uneducated, backwoods, paranoid, and even insane. That is also untrue: education level runs the gamut across Anti-Semitic, and so does background these days, in colors from University-Based pro-Palestinian all the way to White Aryan groups and politicized churches. The hatred though, is very real, and foments over time, and while deniers and others seldom seek out or wish interaction or dialogue with those they consider controlled by Jewish interests, tolerance folks also very rarely venture out to initiate real discussion instead of argumentative and incendiary debates.

There is no naivete here: it is highly unlikely that dialogue will change the minds of these folks, anymore than tolerance people would change to the opposite point of view. What might be changed though is an education on both sides as to the human status of both sides. One cannot underestimate the danger involved in practiced and organized hatred, but it almost always comes from a failure to identify the humanness of the person hated.

Beliefs of Anti-Semites

There are dozens of varieties of Anti-Semitic belief. Some are anti-Semitic out of a lack of education or exposure to Jewish people: they speak awkwardly and even repeat epithets and myths they have heard, because they do not know any differently. In one Sunday school many years ago, I gave a copy of a coloring book out called "Jesus was Jewish" that taught the very young very simply about what it meant to be Jewish. One parent expressed surprise that her little girl did not even know what a Jew was. It was an opportunity for learning. In churches I have confronted 'ignorant anti-Semitic' in doctrine, truisms, beliefs or adages, not from people who hate the Jews, but from those who see only differences. This first realm of Anti-Semitic is the most educable. When people who have ideas which are wrong but who do not hate received information which corrects those beliefs, they grow and many problems are averted.

Portals Into Hate

There is a more difficult level though, and the group is growing, of persons who did not start out Anti-Semitic, or hateful, but fall into the snares of very real organized propaganda. In the early 1990s, I attended a small Baptist Church in the Midwest, which looked for all the world like most others. They had a bus ministry for kids, potluck suppers, preaching etc, and while the preacher was from a country background, he appeared a pleasant and polite man. One Sunday though, quite by surprise he began to preach about the Jews being the most wicked people in the world. Later we discovered many anti-Semitic pamphlets and literature on the tables in the Church foyer. After a few months we were invited to a large church meeting in Indianapolis, in the days following the Ruby Ridge incident, and not knowing who we were dealing with, discovered about 500-1000 pastors, families and other worshipers dealing not with the Gospel but with politics, world Jewry, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and one of the main speakers was Bo Gritz, who had just been at Ruby Ridge negotiating the end of the crisis. We had been led to believe that the meeting was mostly about Homeschooling and church-state issues, church and school registry etc, but we were baptized into a whole different culture than I had seen up close: the group was not just Baptists, but a diverse group including even some Mormons and an orthodox Episcopal priest. They really were very circumspect and suspicious, but with some reason: many had been investigated by agencies such as ATF, the FBI, and the IRS, and a few jailed. A short time later the Church where the meeting was held was closed down for tax evasion. The literature out on the tables in the lobby and the persons hosting tables were an array of real hardcore anti-Semitism and racial hatred: exaggerated drawings, leaflets inciting the overthrow of the Jews, the government and so on, mixed with information on survivalist issues, and the featured speaker, Gritz, had come with videotapes from the foot of the mountain the Weavers were on.

One may think that given those beliefs that the group was a hardcore unkind bunch of haters, but that is really not the case. Am I trying to say that these anti-Semites were really very lovely people? No: I have spent years and years trying to get the church to understand a right and loving perspective towards Israel and the Jews, but to really understand and confront the problem, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. There really were very lovely people there: not unlike others I had gone to church with elsewhere. A number like us, were 'unregistered' homeschoolers, a legal status, but there to get information on legal defenses. Many were not even anti-Semitic but believed as we do that the Church should be separate from the State, and were keeping up on issues and legal concerns. Many more though could not separate the issues, and they indeed were hateful and saw the Jews as responsible for all problems in the world: all: money problems, political problems, religious problems and even their own life problems. They believe that if the Jews were gone, their lives and the world would be better. They espoused doctrine I know now had its genesis in the DC, the Reich Church, although most would be hard pressed to know its origin. Some really were dangerous and advocated militant overthrow of the government and the Jews, which they did not differentiate. And the Federal Reserve, an arm of what they saw as World Jewry because of the Jewish names of many of the bankers.

While we left the little church in our home city when we got home, flabbergasted at what the whole thing had been about, the point is not that I was ignorant and had fallen into an unsuspected situation, but that even with my background, education, and at that time in 1992 8 years in bible study, I did not detect the whole 'process' for a few months. There is a subtle and growing indoctrination process, not of a lot of little old nazified men ranting and raving many picture, but of kind and nice church people, inviting people from the periphery of issues which many people share even in holocaust studies such as Church and Synagogue independence, tax-free status for churches, or non-state affiliated religious schools, to the more virulent and offensive issues including anti-Semitic stance and doctrines, often not promoted or addressed until a person is well into very tight-knit groups. By the time they are in 'inner circles' of these folks, hatred begets hatred, and it is even plausible that persons with no ill feelings towards other racial groups can be groomed and trained into it.

The Spotlight

More to the point: Anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitic groups are growing significantly with more and more mainstream conservative people joining at the periphery and being led into the center of prejudice. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, one of the main publications of the Patriot movement and similar movements was a paper called "The Spotlight". The first time I saw it I was appalled: it carried stories of 'heroes' handing out the protocols of the Elders of Zion (from the Nazi era) in German airports and getting arrested, ads for buying and selling gold, rants against the secret council of Jews that ran the world, etc, in short it was an identifiable fringe newspaper of the White Aryan variety. A few years later, in Illinois, I found it in a middle class public library, and it had changed its timbre and look: it carried conservative columnists and issues, articles on homeschooling, back to nature issues, church state controversies, mixed in with the former junk. It also had greatly, even geometrically increased readership. One could tell that they were 'boiling the frog', or warming up converts. By the year 2001, there was some sort of controversy which had shut down "The Spotlight". However, one must understand keenly that within 10 years, they had gone, with their related groups, from being a fringe rag, echoing the Volkische Beobachter, to a 'Conservative Christian Newspaper' with some fringe issues, without changing hands greatly. The reason many Christians were deceived, and also courted, was because of the twisting of scripture and doctrine, accompanied by the comfort of companions, clean living, church activities, and comradery mixed with a fervent 'true belief'.

Numbers and Hate

ADL has published numbers which I have quoted before in SeditionAct regarding the number of members in the Militia organizations, but their numbers are underestimates. One cannot get at the real numbers because many will not even keep membership lists and if they do, they are 'high security'. They know there are Feds in their midst, and they do get paranoid, although some with good reason, such as a couple some years back whom we met after they were investigated by the IRS. They had their credit card records checked, their family and friends called, and any number of uncomfortable occurrences. The constant fear also drives people further into those kinds of beliefs. The man who walked into USHMM and fired his gun, had been for years involved in that kind of life, including imprisonment for the Federal Reserve incident. While the Gospel teaches "Perfect Love casteth out Fear", the converse is true also: Perfect Fear casteth out Love. Love and Tolerance become for these folks seen as 'soft', namby-pamby' ideas meant to weaken an individual, or even as 'plots' to overthrow the conservative stable 'American' way of life. The subtle indoctrinations, coupled with Church proselytizing, coupled with overlapping issues such as ecclesiastical-state issues, coupled with a trained us-them mentality, painted with fearfulness, portrays a scenario in which many hate crimes will occur in the future under the guise of protecting a way of life.
If the number of persons actively involved were really tallied combined with those who will look the other way, it would be frightening. The SA in Germany by 1933 contained 2.5 million para-military members, about 3.8% of the population then. We have close to 70 million who claim to be conservative Christians, who will certainly not all even be tempted to the agenda, but provide a fertile ground for the propaganda. The Militia may number close to a million, the Patriot movement more. White Aryan nation groups or 'Identity' groups number in the hundreds of thousands or more. The influx of persons from the Southern border is bringing many persons with prejudice and religious-anti-Semitism, and that is not to mention the overflowing move on college campuses toward Pro-Palestinianism and even acts of violence, or other groups such as some brands of Islam which espouse and use the same hate literature and propagandizing as the other groups.

The USHMM as an Ebenezer Target
When in the Book of Samuel, the men of Israel fight the Philistines, and win, Samuel the prophet places a stone called 'Ebenezer' between Mizpeh and Shen to denote the Lord's help in battle. Ebenezer means 'stone of help', and marked a victory and a remembrance of what the Lord had done. Now, the USHMM is partly federal so I cannot perfectly equate the two, but the Museum was a great victory when it was proposed in 1980 and dedicated in 1993, as a 'stone of remembrance' and victory. While most rejoice at the Museum which has mostly sensitively and tenderly carried out its mission, and provided the strong leadership and cohesion the Holocaust Studies and Education field needed (as well as resources, scholarships, education, archives etc), not everyone in this country is happy with the institution. Some want it changed into an 'all people-all genocides' organization which while a worthy cause, betrays the reason for it. Others want it to be more Federally controlled, which cannot be done and retain its purpose, character, or demeanor, and which I believe would lead to its use as a propaganda tool to ameliorate the US role in the Shoah. There was a small inkling of that flavor recently when representatives from the Military marched into the President's speech. Far too many though, do not want it there at all: the massive support and number of visitors gives a pollyana-ish hope that there will be no problems, but we can see why there can be and has been.

USHMM is a symbol, a stone of remembrance. For most of us, that is a good and even great thing. To those who are fearful, it is seen as a banner of those they hate. Most anti-Semites will not go so far as to commit hate crimes beyond rhetoric, but harassment, confusion, and even overthrow are not beyond possibility. There is either some form of understanding and dialogue, or massive education campaign within and by the church and conservative groups, or the tragic shooting of this past week will be only a portal.

CyberCzars, CyberRasputins, and Cyber Anastasias

For the past six days or so I have been reading about the pending appointment by Obama of a forthcoming "CyberCzar". Supposedly, in this one individual, will be an embodiment of some ethereal 'internet security policy', which keeps getting encumbered by, how shall we say, 'a lot of big words' but never ends up in any where near a useable or pragmatic way to even begin to keep the Internet safe for government, business, or private citizens.

The new 'Czar' will hopefully, they think have a role on the National Security Council, to do something which has been carefully reviewed with suggestions in a 60 page review by Melissa Hathaway. Others note that the favored candidate will be the darling of the Recording Industry, ahem, who fears the download on Bearshare of such all time money makers as 'The Great Speckled Bird" or "Cowboy Pride".

Obama entered office and began appointing any number of Czars. He tried to appoint Czars in places where no Czars have ever been allowed to date though there have been many 'secret' Czars and self-appointed Czars. He appointed a whole committee of Faith and Benevolence Czars, Church, Mosque and Synagogue Czars, and all the Czars answered to the Czar Czar...I think that's Rahm. Obama and Rahm are both from Chicago , the city of Czars.

The appointment of an Internet Security 'Cyber Czar' though, is unique for a few very terrible reasons: one is, the Internet is already full of CyberCzars, each fighting for the right to control the Internet and none of whom are really sure who is or should be in charge. I have recently confronted in my own work how confusing authority can be on the net when little Czars, Rasputins and Anastasias begin to control what you can say, do or own on the net. The problem with Internet security, whether it is for the Government or individuals is that it is still undefined and unsolved. Government is worried about intrusions and hacking and modification/information collecting by foreign governments and special interests. We are far beyond the days when Wozniak and Jobs and Gates tried to find security holes in NASA or the FBI (whoever tried that first), and then helped the agencies solve the problem. We are now in an age of technology and expertise which includes such insurmountable problems as the one mentioned recently in a Senate hearing regarding whether foreign manufactured routers could include unknown and virtually undetectable data collectors which could return info to governments such as the Red Chinese.

How Bad Security has gotten and Can Get
When alot of people think of security on the net, they think of 'wurms' and viruses.That same Senate hearing included intense discussion of the recent 'conficker' worm that created havoc , well sort of on the internet and which should have included midday cyber sirens and red alert buttons, but which could be removed by almost any spyware or malware cleaner. The first thing to recognize then is what is really a threat to security and what is merely a pest. First and foremost, education makes a difference and there is no consistent central source of education for basic security training for all. We all learned about adaware, spysweeper, spybot etc on our own, out in the street, and then learned what were real virus protection programs and what were scams. While this is a first line of basic defense, it is hardly the massive security issue that bears a half hour discussion before Congress.

A much greater threat to us all, is strategy and esoteric knowledge. Who knows the Internet rules the World. Overstatement? Not even a little. I met a young fellow a few years back in Reno Nevada, who had savvy and knowledge on the net beyond most I have ever met, in his early 20s. He had studied and 'figured out' Google robot technology, and could SEO almost any site to the top of its class. While there are thousands of folks in Search Engine Optimization who can greatly improve a site's chance, this one fellow, a real Cyber Rasputin, could catapult a site to # 1 fairly consistently. Knowledge. On the net it is a golden grail. It means that what we see in a search, and thereby what influences our research, writing and BELIEFS is now heavily influenced by what appears high in search rankings.

Take a simple example. Let's say a child is looking up the word 'holocaust'. Out of 25,500,000 listings, he or she will probably look no further than 2 or 3 pages, or around 50 to 60 listings out of the 25.5 million. That's .0000002 (rounded) of what is out there, influencing that child's perspective on the shoah. Not much to worry about with Wikipedia and Ushmm figuring prominently, or about.com or History1900s, but what if stormfront.org, or radioIslam.com press in with the best to run their ideologies to the top? Or what if a darkhorse Congressional candidate or presidential candidate, rather than using wisdom and positions, merely hired the best IT guy, and ran a propaganda campaign with a 'cyber edge'?

Coupled with an emerging technology to control information (see Bayesian Networks), the education, beliefs and reasoning of an entire forthcoming generation will cease to be in the hands of traditional 'estates' of the nation but will instead rest in the hands of an oligarchy of savvy tech wizards. While they are benevolent and tolerant, few will care, but when that goes, its anyone's guess.

Another Security Issue though, premiere in this decision which has been addressed before in this column, is the idea of what happens when the Government begins to take control of first Security concerns on the net, and then other issues. The government of nations has already had some hand in Internet control: Red China and North Korea tightly control amount of time on the net, registry of users, allowable content, and commerce, and recently Iran has jumped on board, momentarily losing its mind to sequester the use of Facebook. No more easter eggs for Mahmoud. Google, the still growing Monolith that it is has succumbed for business purposes to their whims, and so has Yahoo! including the turning over of registry information on blogs which contributed to one blogger to be beaten to death. The 'free speech' arena is drying up for us recalcitrant bloggers, us 'cyber Anastasias'-nobody knows who we are, we thought, though they somehow noted our royal stature.

The US is no exception, and while the nations rage, the government entity of ICANN governs the right usage and registration of Domain names, the last vestige of hope for authors and web designers to own their own material on the web. The World though does not want a US entity solely to govern such matters, and really, apart from our glut of pride and 'ethnocentrism' we really do not have a right to control the total governance of DNS usage. What if a dissident falls out of favor with the US government? It's happening now. Even suggesting the above means undue monitoring. If ICANN, even though they are usually very fair and moderate falls under the pressure of a despotic executive branch, what decision will they make towards an individual out of favor and with little power? Design something fascinating on the net today, with high numbers, and it becomes a free-for-all threatening the loss of copyrights, revenue, reputation, and results potentially in even career and life ruin while merchandisers and 'cowboys' attempt to get something for nothing, except for the fact that that 'something' may involve a decade of hard work. People are becoming reluctant to put too much quality material on the net at a time, and I know of at least three formidable sites which were taken over by far less competent people than the owners and authors by the snakiest methods on earth.
Hosting companies may contrary to the law move and hide IPs and switch servers at the last minute and after years, in one fell swoop can make it look like your extensive site was really on another IP and everyone ends up in court. Mirror tricks, that result in deadly consequences. Who do you appeal to? Courts, law enforcement and attorneys often are not nearly sharp enough on IT issues to really argue points of law: I have found in my own work they often do not even know the law in their states.

Also, some hosting companies are disappearing with thier clients' work, and reselling or marketing it in a way the client can do little about: the stats and specs they need for court are in the hands of the ones they are suing, if they can find them. These are all individual site owner security issues, not national issues, seemingly, although they join the ranks of stolen bank accounts, rerouted mortgages, and ID fraud: so easy on the internet. Is the Recording Industry angry about lost revenue from downloads? I am worried about the massive misuse of the net and chat rooms to seduce children or even young adults across state lines by the most sinister of folks, with the problem growing so great, that law enforcement cannot deal with it. How will a cyberCzar address any of those very real Security issues.

Can a CyberCzar stop 'cyber-bullying' which is driving some children to suicide? Will they even look into it? Can they stop corporate takeovers by sinister interests of even large businesses and organizations using the net? How easy is it to overthrow a corporation? Fairly easy, with enough people with know-how. They can switch browsers, steal motherboards, fake and redirect registrations, waylay shopping carts and checkouts, and conduct massive credit card fraud, stealing millions of dollars of merchandise, leaving the seller holding the bag with no recourse. They can commit insurance fraud, waylay income tax returns, and worst of all, looming dark and threatening on the horizon, they are bartering IDs: careful use of the Internet can garner whole fraudulent identities to falsely gain benefits, jobs, housing, and all the other baubbles thieves go after.

In short, despite CyberCzars, Rasputins (some real wizards out there) and the mundane but outspoken, wistless , winsome Anastasias such as myself, the solution to Internet Security lies outside a Federal appointment, and all a Federal appointment of a Czar does is add to the melee and create a frightening incursion into government control of the net. This is the progress of such an appointment: they first 'look into things', then they make recommendations. When the recommendations are not followed, they begin to take action: break up and down monopolies and control such as Google and Microsoft and Sun. Will W3C still set standards if the Government takes hold? Then a government search engine becomes very plausible to ensure 'fairness' as the government finds a couple incidents and tries to convince the public that the search engines are unfair, which they can be. It is a boiling frog mentality, and leads to undue government influence on the net, and later to serious international concerns, for the net is not contained by national boundaries.

A Moderate Solution
I really do believe there needs to be consistent security on the net, although I know where it leads, I am afraid, inevitably. Rather than a CyberCzar, a non-government Resolution and Ombudsman group, containing careful and diverse representation of major Net decision-makers and private companies, along with significant net users such as editors of net newspapers, imminent bloggers, website directors of well known sites, etc, with government representation, able to influence government but not under the auspices of the government seems far safer in addressing National, International and Individual security issues than a new Executive branch appointment. Government does have to come to terms with Cyber Issues, but the US has no inherent rights to the net: it is a conglomeration of private and international interests: any decision the US makes under such a Czar can always be challenged in World Court, due to that international, borderless nature.
If there is to be a Czar, I posit that it should be to advise the Executive branch but have virtually no controlling function over the net or even net security issues. Rather, let the government encourage private endeavors to:

1. Teach local, individual Security Measures Consistently and Centrally
2. Make laws protecting free speech, and ensuring private ownership
3. Alert the general public via a suboffice of Homeland Security as to current viral threats or other issues
4. Work to ensure through traditional constitutional means protection of children on the net through COPPA and other measures.
5. Absolutely without wavering declare primary ownership of sites as the registrant of the DNS, until proven differently in a court of law. Establish a systematic way of processing abuses, like ICANN does.
6. Encourage private measures to provide widespread free and inexpensive security measures such as super secure email accounts for private use of hosting: email is a mainstay of overthrowing accounts and registrations.
7. Train law enforcement on cyber issues: they do not know the law often, they often overstep their bounds, and they take million of hitech manhours as insignificant leaving web workers in despair.
8. Beef up existing well written laws and ENFORCE THEM. I have found the laws are generally not enforced.
9. Do not rush to government control: it will lead to international instability in issues of litigation.
10. If a community or large organization will not comply with internet law (it has happened horribly locally), then use government measures to remove privileges from a community such as federal funding, until they agree to comply. It is the only measure in extreme circumstances which can keep out the worst elements on the net.

Just a last note: in the end, the Czar died, Anastasia couldn't remember who she was, and only Rasputin escaped shootings, poisoning, beatings but in the end died thrown in the river by a few Princes and others. The net has become just a little too dangerous.ekbest

"About the Jews"

Why the Shoah Must Always Be Seen as Being 'about the Jews'

The Last few weeks have offered a juxtaposition of a number of events all of which point to what could happen to considerations of the Holocaust in the Future, and which will certainly affect Shoah Education over the next decade. A week or two ago, USHMM hosted a Presidential Speech and speeches from Eli Wiesel and other holocaust survivors, as well as the director, and a procession of military units whose predecessors were among the liberators at several German camps. Then, the Pope visited and spoke in Israel, at first balking at a visit to Yad Vashem but then condescending, due to an exhibit regarding the role of Pacelli, Pius XII, in the Shoah, and during the visit was met with very mixed reaction, though generally cordial. May 14th marked the 61st Independence Day for Israel. In serendipity I watched a short clip of the 1993 'Schindler's List' the Stephen Spielberg film, when the Soviet soldier arrives at the liberation of the concentration camp, and Stern stands and asks, "Are there any Jews left in Poland?"---the pause answers the horrible question of what has occurred in Europe. I watched later two salient clips of Eva Kor, a Mengele twin survivor, speaking about reconciliation and forgiveness, and one of Eli Wiesel speaking at Yad Vashem in which he made the point that the Holocaust was not merely a humanitarian issue, but must forever remain about the Jews---he remarked that the world did not kill them because they were humans, they killed them because they were Jews. (See Universal lessons of the holocaust)

About the Jews, vs. About Genocide

Whenever one discusses the issue about whether the Shoah was about the Jews or about other humanitarian issues such as genocide, civil rights, treatment of the ill, lame, poor etc, controversy arises, and 65 years after the end of the war, regarding what the Shoah was really about. It shows a somewhat moronic forgetfulness and lack of discernment beginning to creep in during this age of genocide. Rather than put an end to genocide and war, WWII and the Holocaust did little more than set the stage or foretell it: the Shoah was grim prophecy.

Now the varied events first mentioned may seem only vaguely related to the topic, but they are really a synthesis of several issues which arise. Today, at the outset, everyone uses the words 'holocaust' and 'Shoah' too glibly: they are used with regard to abortion, to any genocide, to any catastrophic event, and even to the treatment of chickens. The well meaning but unwise use of the words have ranged from school children to Congressmen, and what they really mean when they use the word 'Shoah' or 'holocaust' is 'great catastrophe' or even mass killing. The Shoah though, bears some marks in history and in the history of God's dealing with mankind, that point to it as 'about the Jews' even though many died of every nationality, and certain groups such as the infirm, Roma Sinti( gypsies), political dissidents, church dissidents, the mentally infirm, and even epileptics, drunkards and 'chronically unemployed' were targeted for the same 'special treatment'. The Shoah though must be kept in focus as an event about the Jewish Nation, and not merely the largest genocide, although it has certainly held its own in that regard.
Since the end of the Shoah, there have been more and not less genocides, of an increasingly cruel and vile nature (as if they were not all), so while the Shoah provides the foretelling and nature of genocide, it must be kept as its own event to be properly understood, and its lessons not lost.

The Modern Mind and the Shoah

Growing up in the United States where many fought in WWII, the Holocaust was not an unknown or under mentioned event, but was often portrayed and described as a ghoulish one, akin to Horror movies, or tales of evil. Hitler, rather than a political leader became the penultimate Evil one, and fascination with the Shoah was more on the level of a horrid fascination, rather than a historical and lived atrocity.
One author noted that the Jews who suffer pogroms and other tragedies often begin to tell the story about 50 years afterward. As American children, we heard only rarely of WWII and only a little of the Shoah. Then came Yad Vashem in 1953, (with American partners in 1981), Simon Wiesenthal Center in 1977, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 coupled with Holocaust Studies in Colleges and Universities, Holocaust Education in Schools and Churches, and a number of significant museums and memorials.

Additionally, foundations like VHF, and Fortunoff and others began documenting eyewitness testimonies of Holocaust survivors, rescuers, and even the testimony of liberators and Nazis. As educational efforts increased, so did a more dignified response to the Shoah, although at the same time, so did Holocaust Denial. Then, for all intent and purpose while there had been Holocaust information and news on the 'green screen' web, by 1995 and 1996, the web we know today became feasible and widely used enough to contain real efforts at online Holocaust education. The first efforts were made by such as Shoah Education Project Web (now at shoaheducation.com), Spartacus, History Timeline, Nizkor, USHMM, Mining Company (now About), and many others.Within 4 years , FCIT, Wiesenthal Center's MOTLC , Jewish Virtual Library and many other very fine sites were all working with ways to efficiently provide basic information about the Shoah, with Shoaheducation.com , USHMM and Wiesenthal Center attempting generalist approaches for Introducing Holocaust studies online as opposed to only 'encyclopedic' approaches.

Wikipedia also added extensive and detailed overviews of people, places, things, events and resources although they have not yet collated them into a separate resource. Death_camps.org , shoaheducation.com, Holocaustchronicle.com , ushmm.org and MOTLC all provided introductions to the Killing and Atrocity centers and thousands of sites then detailed individual topics ranging from the burning of the Reichstag to the liberation of Nordhausen and every other imaginable topic. However, for the millions of persons reached, mostly with information services, we still have a general public with a superficial understanding of the Shoah. Though we now have interdisciplinary programs putting out doctoral-level persons in Shoah studies, we have mostly educated those who already believed in the Shoah, and only a little, and hardly changed minds who hold opposing views. While interest in the topic has in the past 2 or 3 years waned somewhat on both sides, a quick review (See Seditionact.com-January 10,2009) shows that Holocaust Tolerance or standard history sites are not faring quite as well as online Denial sites.

As the Tolerance Museums Turn

One notable trend though in the focus of Tolerance Museums, Holocaust Museums, Online and In Class education, is that rather than keeping a focus on what became of the Jews in the Shoah, how the world has treated the Jews over the history of mankind, who the Jews are and a variety of other dynamics, institutions dealing with the topic have been seduced into a generalization of topics , assigning the importance of the Holocaust to what we can learn about genocide and humanitarian efforts, rather than focusing on the Shoah as a uniquely Jewish event. While others were killed and suffered alongside the Jews, there can be no question that the Shoah was focused on erasing the Jewish people in Europe, with a 'clean up' of other imagined threats to Aryan bloodlines. Tolerance efforts have worked so hard to equalize our view of persons, nationalities and races that they sometimes err in not recognizing real differences without pejoration, and having a naive idea of realistic possibilities and probabilities that Tolerance objectives will ever be fully reached. Yet in their effort to 'erase differences', an almost opposite view to 'Master Race' ideologies, several major institutions are losing their focus as Holocaust Museums and learning centers in favor of becoming Centers on genocide studies and civil rights. Please do not misunderstand: those are essential cores of holocaust studies, but they are to be end results and not replacements. Said Eli Wiesel in his speech "Universal Lessons of the Holocaust"

...."I know what people say,
It’s so easy, those that were there---want to agree with that statement, 'it was man's inhumanity to man---No! It was man's inhumanity to Jews! Jews were not killed because they were human beings , in the eyes of the killers they were not human beings. They were Jews---it's because they were Jews. But it was so easy for the killers to kill. You see the pictures...Jews were ordered to dig their own graves. Have we ever had that in history, which is filled with cruelty but not with such cruelty? Have mothers ever been forced to give up their children in order to live, and few mothers chose that! Mothers went with their children, their babies, there are no words. At that time we had the feeling that history had entered into madness, and madness had its own logic, its own destiny, even its own archaeology. And within that madness it was perfectly plausible to kill Jews! And so we go through the museum and we don't understand: all we know is that it happened.
We never tried to tell the tale to make people weep..[...]If we decided to tell the tale it is because we wanted the world to be a better world. Just a better world, and learn, and remember. E. Wiesel, April 2008

The dilemma we face in Holocaust Education, is that as the Shoah fades out of first person view, as the next 10 years will take with it most eyewitnesses, are we to ascribe the Shoah to the general category of genocide, or to understand it in terms of the History and people of the Jews and the world's pathological reaction to them or to try and be naively generous and erase knowledge of the Jews in the world and what has become of them, in order to categorize the Shoah as merely the genocide of the Jews, among the dozens of other genocides since. We run the risk I suppose of seeming intolerant if we separate out the Jews, and some fear we say that the Jews suffered more than others in genocides such as the Hmong in the Killing fields, or those of Bangladesh, Croatia or others, and so they would consider the Shoah one among genocides, noting that other nationalities were killed also. There must be a point of reason though, to both recognize suffering in all genocides, and still be able to understand the very unique existence and plight of the Jews in History and suffering. There are a few differences which do not in any way diminish the sufferings of other peoples, but should be recognized to understand the dynamics of our contemporary systems.

1. The Jews are the only people who have existed in dispersion for 2000 years. Other nationalities and races which were dispersed due to war or catastrophe usually did not maintain their identity beyond a couple of generations.
2. Judaeo-Christian views hold the Jews to be held in divine mystery, a people chosen out by God for His purposes. While the modern mind does not care to entertain this, the view is still held by somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of the world. Even Islam notes the Jews in origins.
3. 'Root Race' theories prominent in various forms at times in history but eminently since the late 1800s , in Theosophy, the Thule Society and derivatives, and other 'New Age' philosophies hold a pejorative view of the Jews as a root race which once ended, will usher in a Utopian age and people. The foundation of these ideas greatly affected Nazi philosophies and theologies. Even when disparaging, the centrality of the Jews as an identified group holds. In essence, people who love the Jews, hate the Jews or do not care about the Jews, all hold to some sort of parenthetical status.
4. Socio-Political and Economic focus on Israel, for 2000 years, has been on whether the Jews had an inherent right to their homeland, or whether another people(s) or religion did. All have contended for that tiny piece of property for that long. In the Shoah the struggle was pronounced and heated, with atrocities in Palestine, aliyahs and blockades of immigration, Waffen-SS and Islamic cooperation in carrying out a 'final solution', and Vatican lobbying to keep the Jews from declaring Israel their rightful homeland.
5. The nonstop history of Pogroms against the Jews in every nation they resided
6. The far higher preponderance of banishment from major cities and nations than most other groups, and
7. The unheard of actual return of a people two thousand years after dispersion to their homeland, without any of their own military strength.

While there are other distinguishing factors, even unbelievers would acknowledge that their mere existence is at least a phenomenon hard to explain, as well as the inexplicable hatred and persecution of the 'children of Israel'. They have been often at the helm of discovery, economics, art and literature, politics and war. They have been scapegoated throughout history for minor and major crimes, and have cyclically had their possessions, houses, and businesses confiscated or destroyed. So even aside from the Shoah or how we view it, the Jews stand uniquely in the world, not by their testimony but by all of ours.


Understanding a Jewish Shoah
Even the name 'Shoah' is Hebrew, and outside of a few scholars and museum officials, the Shoah is recognized worldwide as having been 'about the Jews'. Liberal efforts to be so utterly fair and balanced, that we miss the essence of understanding about the Holocaust points to a moronic liberalism. I am not advocating a return to the Dark Ages of racial hatred or division, quite the contrary, that would be bizarre, but we really can in research and teaching, in writing and memorials, maintain the Jewish essence of the Shoah in order to comprehend world systems then and since, rather than blindly assert that the Jews have no distinction in the world at all. To merely breathe that lately brings cries of prejudice, but there has to be an element of common sense, even in research. The Shoah was genocide, but all genocides are not the Shoah. All genocides are unspeakable crimes, and all must be tirelessly combated, but while Holocaust Museums, studies and memorials speak to genocide, that is not their primary concern. That may sound unconscionable to suggest, but there is a great effort afoot to alter the purpose of Holocaust memorials to be not about the Jews and the Shoah, but instead as a moral marker briefly in a world which has not ceased genocide.

This is a dangerous position, for it once again, displaces the Jews in the US and other societies, removing a form of protection of a constantly persecuted people, in favor of a blind erasure of all real differences among persons. Rather than the erasure of racial reference, it is better to recognize the differences crying viva la difference!, appreciating the many expression of God's glory and creation in a diverse world instead of rewriting all of creation into one 'kind', which never works. While Roma Sinti, the Mentally Ill, Political and Religious Dissidents, and some Soviets were killed along with the Jews in the Shoah, 'Endlosung', or "The final solution of the Jewish Question" was about the Jews, and Germanization, Aryanization, Judenrein and Operation Reinhard, were about the Jews, with other agendas on the side.

What if USHMM were not about the Jews?

Not to pick on USHMM, but What if the displays, teaching and research and Memorials at the United States Holocaust Museum were not about the Jews? There have been undertows of that philosophy brewing for years. USHMM is funded partly by private funds and grants, and partly by the Federal Government. I last visited in 1998, and its purpose was still very much in tact, with 'Daniel's House', passports commemorating victims, history, memorials, shoes, walls, rescuers, railcars, etc, but recent years show more and more concern with contemporary genocides instead: a very worthwhile cause, but the balance must not be tipped. I know the temptation: after years of daily studying the Shoah and WWII history and never getting to the bottom of the hundreds of thousands of resources, it is invigorating to put one's hands to the protest of and ending of crises such as Dar Fur, Eritrea, and other current slaughters. If we lose the 'pillar' though of Shoah Studies regarding the Jews and the world's response to the Jews, we aid those who would again grind the gears of Gleichschaltung, by making the Jews first, just one of the crowd, and then an unwanted member of the masses.

When Stern rises and asks , in "Schindler's List" of the Soviet soldier, "Are there any Jews Left in Poland", no words are spoken at first. 'No' would have been an understatement though there were a few left. How could the Jews be gone from the one European nation which harbored them more than any other? All of them? Uri Zvi Greenberg wrote a poem 'Where are the Jews' cited in Wiesel's A Jew Today, in which Jesus is walking the streets of ruined Warsaw, asking "Where are the Jews", and falls to his knees weeping when each query brings the response 'gone', 'gone too'. Turning, the Polish crowd turns, and recognizing 'just another Jew' they turn to kill him, asking 'how did he stay alive?"
The poignant reminder of a world without Jews and the sorrow of God, would not sit among scholars or journals today. The politics of the White House would no doubt prefer through more than one administration a sanitized 'purification' of Tolerance efforts over Holocaust Remembrance, but USHMM and the other centers are a Bulwark against the historical anti-Semitism of the world in one of the last bastions of reasonable life for many Jews. The first step in removing support for Israel with little objection may be the removal of the central nature of the Shoah as the attempted destruction of the Jews on the advent of their return to their promised homeland. Political attempts to remove the Jewish focus in these so called 'tolerant' times are really efforts against tolerance for the Jews, and should be stood against at all cost. It is good to forgive, as Eva Kor posited, but forgiveness of Nazi persecutors yet the Jews bearing the glory of God have always been the first show the pattern and way of God, shown even in the New Testament to be the 'oracles of God'. It is the bearing of that Glory that shows a people, a nation saved apart in captivity for two thousand years and returning to a Promise that must cause us to understand, that the pillars of memorial which we have set must not be moved.

When Israel crossed the Jordan, to take Jericho, the water , just as at the Red Sea subsided and the Ark of the Covenant , the priests and army passed over. They were told to leave 12 stones to mark the work the Lord had done.

Jos 4:8 And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.
Jos 4:9 And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the Ark of the Covenant stood: and they are there unto this day.

Those stones where stood the chosen priests marking the work of God in coming into the land given them through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were pillars to be remembered forever. Our memorials should stand like those pillars, those stones also. ekbest

Where the Gay Sidewalk ends....Miss California & the Bad Hat

I woke up pontificating this morning--- It's happening more and more. Yesterday, several members of Congress it was announced, now qualify on at least 3 or more major points to be declared as on 'terrorist-watch' by Homeland Security. Why? Because 'extreme views' of any kind, 'over-religiosity' and the opposition to illegal immigration on the Mexican border, to name a few are all criteria now to send up a red flag for profiling. Those who strongly believe there is a 'right' and 'wrong' now qualify in the United States to be tailed, watched, reigned in, and maybe even denied travel. I wish I was being sardonic but I'm not. Not one of those Congressmen are anti-Mexican or anti-Mexican immigration---only against ILLEGAL immigration. Lawmakers were supposed to be on the side of Law, one thinks, not against it.

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (KJV)]

The foundations are being destroyed. So destroyed that fundamentals we have all implicitly held since infancy are all open to question. Foundations like 'if the law holds, the truth holds', or that we are protected in our free speech about ANYTHING. We have always advocated and stood for across the board Civil Rights and Freedom of Speech and the practice of religion, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, whether or not one agreed with the person or issue involved.

. My own faith is Christian, what the world refers to as 'born-again' (the only kind), although I was once a raging liberal existential type. What has mattered to me in both cases is that people be free to follow their paths unencumbered as long as the very reasonable guard rails of society hold. We aren't to physically hurt one another, or destroy another with words or incite riot. We are to recognize the very righteous boundaries of personhood and ownership regardless of race , creed or color. We are also to uphold honor and 'right ways' as ensigns of a healthy society. Some cry 'you can't legislate morality' and I say, that is what we do legislate! Freedom though has always been the zenith of our societal goals, with safety closely in tow.


Real Tolerance

I have stood by most aspects of what is deemed 'tolerance': taught my children that while race makes one unique, that 'God is no respecter of persons'. No east nor west, no male nor female, no Jew nor Gentile, etc, when it comes to valuing a person or allowing them to journey through their lives, with the one proviso that no group, liberal nor conservative may so overtake the 'deciding factor' as to force their beliefs on another. NO GROUP, including those politically in favor, or 'correct', a dangerous misnomer. As such, I have stood by the rights of all, from Afro-Americans, to the Jews, liberals, conservatives, and even people like Randy Weaver, Zundel, Pro-Palestinians even though I downright hate what some of them believe and work against it non-stop. My children were taught when young that the Truth has a life of its own and does not need to be shouted down, sequestered or forbidden or banned: the light of the truth will stand against the most sinister sophistry, and therefore does not have to be bound or outlawed. Some a person can dialogue with and some one cannot, but decently and in order, free speech, even of extreme positions has always been allowed. If a dangerous position begins to arise, one can vote it down, boycott, walk away or any other form of legal protest. Civil disobedience for Christians is sometimes necessary but may only be used when to obey a man-made law requires disobeying God's laws.

In light of those 'basics' while I hold very strong opinions on some issues which are not 'politically correct', I am astounded over the past several years at how the law is being tossed aside, Civil Rights becoming a farce, the truth twisted or hidden beyond belief, and major factions of society who lobbied for their civil rights, gaining them ,only to forcibly deny other people theirs.

Miss California and the US-Gay Pageant

At the outset I am pro-civil rights for homosexuals as for all, but not at all pro-gay lifestyle. My trust in the Word of God does not allow the condoning of what I consider immoral practices. That is a BELIEF. I have a right to believe that gay lifestyles are unhealthy and even sinful, and lead a person into life-ruining dissension. I hold the right to state that openly. I do not have a right to harm or hurt, deny opportunities, employment or any rights to persons of a homosexual persuasion, and no one should be allowed to physically harm anyone, of any type or kind. It goes both ways, though, or it doesn't work. One ravel and the garment falls apart. It is with consternation then that I express even outrage at the way Miss California was treated in the Miss USA pageant.

I am not particular, either toward beauty pageants. Too often they demean the personhood of women, allowing them to be judged on outward appearances and as 'objects' more than as valued human beings but that is for another time. In the recent Miss USA pageant, though, an interchange so unjust occurred that I cannot but stand alongside many others in defense of Miss California, Carrie Prejean, in her right first not to have been asked the alarming question, and secondly, in not having to be assaulted for her dignified answer, because an gay judge, Perez Hilton , in a very aggressive stance, did not like her BELIEFS. Her answer, quite frankly was fairly nonplussed, and remarked at least vaguely on equal rights, while upholding her own position:

"Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and in, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," "No offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised and that's how I think that it should be between a man and a woman."

The Question and the Gay Lobby

Over the years there have been a lot of questions asked in that Pageant. "What do you want most for the world?", or even this year other questions were about mildly 'discussable' political events, but no one else was asked, for example about abortion, or the holocaust, or any other topic which raises armaments on both sides. I cannot understand why a gay rights extremist was even among the judges of what has been traditionally seen as a heterosexually-oriented event, or why the question was put forward to a born-again Christian (by her profession). More and more, events and podiums are being turned into forums on the 'gay' question, which had nothing to do with gay rights. Churches, especially evangelical churches, are becoming targets of Sunday morning 'rushes' where gay activists run into the
sanctuary handing out gay rights literature even during sermons and collections. Churches and Synagogues and other places of worship have traditionally been considered 'off limits' to outside disruptors of any kind but particularly to those of opposite beliefs. So why the question, and why to her? They know ahead of time the background of the young women, usually with in depth searches. They also are quite clear that Christians of a more conservative nature do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle. The question was not even about civil rights per se but about gay marriage, which even some who believe in the former do not endorse as a 'fabric of society' issue. And why the element of an embarrassing question? The other questions were not asked with the same demeanor. And why a gay judge posing the question? It stinks of 'agenda', and the pageant was not the place for it.

Miss California and Her Civil Rights

The outlandish reaction and over attention to the small remark which actually endorsed freedom of choice, but personally endorsed monogamy, was the utter right of free speech for Miss California, Ms. Prejean, and it was not Hilton's rights which were violated in any way, but Prejean's. She was graded down for her remarks because they did not express the will of the pro-gay activists. Further, she has since been targeted violently in the press, and even some photos with her back showing have been made into a bit of riotousness. In my view, those photos are not up to the standards of modest apparel for a Christian woman, but that is not the issue. The issue is the contestant stood up for her very normal beliefs, and was crucified in the press fore MERELY HAVING THE BELIEF, not just expressing it. It has been a nonstop hate crime against her right to both be a representative of a State or the US, and hold a very traditional belief that millions hold. Millions.

Controversy is one thing, and disagreement another but lambasting someone who is a reasonably tolerant person because she does not believe that a marriage contract extends to two same sex persons, is a violation of HER civil rights, not theirs.

There is a militant overtone or outright militancy by some gay rights organizations and lobbies. They are not willing to accept mere legislation or Civil Rights like the rest of us, they want you to be forced to agree that their lifestyles are moral and righteous and many, many just will not extend them that privilege, any more than we will extend it to other 'lifestyles' with which we disagree. This is not the first public crucifixion on the topic. Dr. Laura came out on her talk show several years ago, declaring that it was not a healthy lifestyle in her eyes and beliefs, and gay activists tried to run her off the air. Anita Bryant many years ago made a small remark and the Orange Growers Association was lobbied to ditch her as representative.


The militancy extends further, and may include interruption of church services, open lewdness and anti-religion displays in 'Gay Pride Parades', for which families who attend are never prepared , physical assaults (it goes both ways), and even setting up conservatives to look gay, because they know it will ruin them among their own kind. Deliberate and planned seduction of young people in families who are religious or conservative is also occurring and a whole lot of us are saying, wait, stop, this is not a 'right' for anyone or any position, and tolerance while one of our highest goals does not mean we have to adopt or agree with those very different from us and our beliefs.

I would fight vehemently for the rights of AIDS patients for gracious care and mercy, for equal opportunity in housing and jobs, and the right of any gay person not to be physically assaulted because they are gay. Please understand , that though I will fight also for persons who are assaulted because they lead conservative moral lives and do not want either themselves nor their children deceitfully seduced into a destructive and lewd lifestyle just so I can appear more tolerant than others. It is not a lifestyle of just Jane liking Judy, or Tim liking Glen, but the society of the gay person involves a whole lot more than most persons, even liberal straight persons would tolerate or want for themselves or families.

Homosexuality Over Time
Homosexuality has always been with us, that is certain, since recorded history. It almost always flares up though toward the end of a powerful but decadent society such as Rome, Greece, or now the US. It appears in animal experiments of 'overcrowding'. The Bible refers to homosexuals as 'sodomites' after the city of Sodom which was destroyed for its lasciviousness. It is warned against throughout the Scriptures as spiritual reprobacy , a threshold which once crossed makes a relationship with God near impossible. While some try and twist scriptures to make it sound o.k., such as trying to make David and Jonathon lovers, or worse, no case of homosexual behavior is ever endorsed and intimate friendships between men can and were healthy and whole without being gay. It is hard enough to live in these days and times as a celibate single person of either gender, even in the Christian world, because attributions are often made about any single person being gay and yet very often it is quite the opposite for those leading productive and disciplined lives. The gay lobby has been effective and pervasive, and has deeply imbedded itself in all levels of our culture.

In the 1940s and before, homosexuality was seen as a personality disorder in the DSM, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the APA, an issue for treatment. By the time of the Kinsey report, Kinsey suggested that close to 10% of the population was gay or had that leaning, but it caused quite a stir in the 50s and early 60s as no one could believe there was such a preponderance. APA's DSM changed points of view, as psychological diagnosis often wavers with political expediency. Then, homosexuality was partially discluded as a gender issue in which it was a disorder only if one was dissatisfied with the leanings. It opened the floodgates to such a rash of 'anything goes' that many abandoned membership in the APA not on that issue alone, but the APA Monitor even ran articles on transcultural acceptance of pedophilia, and other aberrations. Efforts to be tolerant do not necessitate efforts to endorse immorality or allow even sadistic behavior to the young because it involves some valueless point of view, or psychological makeup: some 'psychological makeups' are dangerous. They destroy societies.

Miss CA and the Bad Hat

So to the 'Bad Hat' who will not allow Miss California to be herself or hold her own beliefs without a criminal assault on her character nationwide: back off. You hurt your own cause when you do that. That's so gay...I mean so 'girl with skirt as a shirt'. This is where the Gay Sidewalk ends... Freedom of Speech: yes. Freedom of belief : yes, for all. Freedom to crush those who do not like you lifestyle: No. Absolutely not, and I am not alone in that belief.

Obama at USHMM: America needs repentance, not accolades

Today I watched the carefully choreographed presentation of a number of rescuers, statesmen, military liberators, survivors and Museum folk on streaming video from USHMM, speaking as they should, upholding the dignity of persons in a world gone mad with violence and a complex and schizoid way of dealing with conflict. Eli Wiesel spoke, as well as some others, preceding the address of the President, who invoked the examples of LeChambon and American liberators of the concentration camps, here, some 64 years after most of the liberations were complete in 1945, and the war at least officially came to an end.

Amidst the hush of a respectful crowd in a cool semi-lit conference room at USHMM, a military guard marched in bearing their ensign banners and flags and much of the talk was of the great things Americans and the US Military had done in the Shoah, along with the selfless deeds of some rescuers who now reside here. Mention was made as expected of the horror of marching into the Killing and Atrocity Centers and finding the depths to which humankind can sink, and Wiesel remarked poignantly on the day his father was told they would be going to an unknown location called Auschwitz, not knowning what awaited, after they turned down a offer to escape. A very moving rendition of the Kaddish, the prayer of mourning and praise was cantored.

Though there was certainly nothing wrong with the ceremony, and in fact much quite right, I could not help but wonder though, if here in the United States of America, we should be canonizing our efforts in the Shoah, just as the Vatican is considering canonizing PiusXII, with self-congratulations over the marginal efforts of a Oswego, or Military liberations of the German camps, or give ourselves credit for the real selfless acts of rescuers and liberators who emigrated here after the war. One walked away feeling like were it not for the US, the Jews and the other poor souls who were victimized would never have been rescued and the world would not have been safe for Democracy. On the surface, it is invigorating and nationalistic, with warm feelings all around.

Accolades or Repentance? Which is Closer to Reality?

While the tender music played though, and while the testimonies were given, with the great and critical call for understanding and education, I felt a great sense of alarm at what was not being said, and for what in this day and time will probably never be said openly: that while we should indeed laud the liberators and rescuers, America has a far greater need to repent for their role in the Holocaust than to congratulate itself for its 'honorable' stance. Part of the latter is myth, archetype and even fairy tale, and it does not aid a world in need of self-assessment and contemplation, instead of self-given awards.

And it is with great concern, or perhaps 'burning concern', that we should consider that Germany also, at the end of WWII, did not feel any need to repent for its actions during the Shoah, nor did even many of its Church leaders, and it was only by the Call in the Stuttgart Confession by Neimoller and others in the inception of the WCC, that even the clergy were begged to consider whether the church had given in to the Spirit of force and retaliation or the Spirit of God. We look back now and wonder how could they not see the need for repentance, with millions of innocents dead and wounded, with their own nation, people and churches ruined and bombed, having followed a lunatic into hell with no redeeming end, how could they not have repented, and yet many would not. Years later, finally, a move of true hearts of Jews and Christians, for the past several years have yearly, solemnly walked the paths of the death marches from a number of camps, praying and repenting for Germany and humankind's role in the Shoah.

Why Does America Need to Repent? (of its role in the Shoah)

Most in the United States on the surface will find it untenable that one should even suggest that the US needs to repent of anything during the Shoah: we were the good guys, right? We were the ones who liberated Mittelbau Dora and Nordhausen, Buchewald and Dachau with many others, who brought down top level Nazis, and sieged Berlin. We were the ones who sacked Nazi technology and stolen loot returning much to owners: We brought the war criminals to speedy and just trials, and with Britain, we aided and supported Israel in its bid for statehood and homeland. What on earth do we have to repent for? The question of why repent comes because so much of US involvement in the Shoah is still not known to its citizens or to much of the world. However as scholars uncover more and more of the dynamics in 'world systems' behind and during the Shoah, one can no longer deny the outright complicity of the US in aiding in the rise of the Third Reich, the start of the War, the reluctance to enter on either side, the funding of the war, the technology of the war , use of slave labor, and the prolonging of the war: our efforts at a few rescues seem paltry in light of that complicity.

The Sins of America in the Shoah

Below are a number of reasons, the US needs to serious repent of its actions during the Shoah.

1. We drew up the bridges of Immigration at the onset of the War.
In the legislature, even when we began to hear of immigration problems for the Jews, there was a great reluctance to receive Jewish citizens. While German and polish police made it impossible for many Jews to immigrate, our Congress did even worse by severely limiting quotas, and some senators even suggested stopping all immigration both to keep us out of the war and because anti-semitic feeling was widespread. Claude Pepper tirelessly lobbied for Jewish immigration as a benevolent act, but did not prevail.

2. We turned away the St. Louis, a rescue ship

Related to #1, when a ship of several hundred Jews escaped from Nazi persecution, we left them in Havana bay on the St. Louis, refusing to allow them refuge. The ship was turned back to Europe where most onboard were sent to Auschwitz.

3. We gave only token support and maybe worse at the Evian Conference
FDR did not send a 'legal' emissary to the Evian Conference, the conference which was to decide where Jewish persons escaping the Third Reich could find refuge, but instead sent his friend, Myron Taylor, a former CEO of US Steel. US Steel was affiliated with Silesian Steel and Mines, using slave labor in the Auschwitz-Birkenau-Monowitz-Furstengrube complex. The US took none at the conference although later through the nonstop lobbying of Ruth Gruber about 965 were allowed to live in a detainment camp in Oswego, NY. (out of 12 million needing asylum)

4. Many Eminent Americans Openly supported the Third Reich
There has always been a large contingent of German heritage in the US and at the time of the war, about 35-40 million claim all or half German heritage. Swastikas, before they took on their sinister symbology graced many signs the way Christian 'fish' signs or crosses grace Christian owned businesses. German bunds were by in large anti-Semitic, even holding large marches and rallies. Open air speeches even in Madison Square Garden were given by the Nazi, Fritz Kuhn, and Father Coughlin, an American priest gave virulent broadcasts condemning the Jews and support thereof. Charles Lindbergh, the great American hero of flight, lobbied for the Third Reich and received awards from Hitler, as did George Miller, a novelist whose book, I found No Peace propagandized the US.
Henry Ford was openly complicit with the Third Reich and outspoken in their defense. These were but a few of the eminent citizens who supported Hitler.

5. American Capitalists consorted with Ruhr Industrialists in the prewar era to fund the rise of Hitler and the NSDAP.

At the end of WWI, Germany was impoverished because of the war debt incurred on them by the War Guilt Clause of the Versailles Treaty. Wall Street Capitalists colluded with Industrial giants in Bavaria to rebuild Germany and help fund the NSDAP or Nazi Party.

6. Wall Street Tycoons and American Business Poured Millions Into Nazi Germany even in violation of Wartime acts.
The famous 'Bush-Dulles' controversy had to do with the great grandfather of George W. Bush and John Foster Dulles (his brother the Cardinal Avery Dulles), W. Harriman and their link, Fritz Thyssen, the primary financier of Hitler. Many Wall Street businessmen believed Hitler would be good also for the US economy and recovery from the devastation of WWI and the Great Depression. Millions of dollars poured over seas and the extremely complex net of US support for industry, business and the war effort in Germany prospered, including later in the war, hand in hand use of slave labor.

7. American Businesses Which Aided and Abetted the Death of 11.5 million Innocents.
Ford not only supported Hitler and the Third Reich, but provided technology and streamlined production of Ford products and concepts which eventually contributed to the development of mini-tanks used against American soldiers! We said, 'buy American' and then supported a company who aided and abetted the enemy. Speer was put on trial and imprisoned for prolonging the war, and received a hefty sentence, but Ford who had taught the concept of a production line, received accolades not a war crimes trial. IBM developed the "Hollerith Machine" a tabulation machine without which the massive genocide would not have been possible for it allowed the streamlining of processing victims to deportation, slavery and the camps. DuPont, Standard Oil (Exxon), and other companies held the vast number of shares in a company called DeGussa, which was a subsidiary of I.G. Farben, which was the main thrust behind the use of slaves in Auschwitz for mining, chemical manufacturing, coal and oil, including the production of Zyklon-B which caused the deaths of millions in the gas chambers. Bayer Co, the aspirin folks, solicited and used hundreds of women for experiments killing them when through. These are only a few examples.



8. Slavery

While we have already mentioned the use of slaves at the Auschwitz complex and others, US companies also availed themselves of free slave labor or the purchase of slaves in collusion. So did the Catholic Church, who recently had to pay restitution.

9. We helped keep the Luftwaffe flying
Recently a fellow from MIT produced a report that showed that Standard Oil sold a component chemical to the Luftwaffe near the end of the war. Had they not sold the chemical, it is estimated that the war might have ended by 1.5 years earlier.

The quote is as follows:

This was the company enthusiastically embraced by Standard Oil as well as other major American corporations like Du Pont and General Motors. I do not, however, state that Standard Oil collaborated with the Nazis simply because I.G. Farben was its second largest shareholder. In fact, without the explicit help of Standard Oil, the Nazi air force would never have gotten off the ground in the first place. The planes that made up the Luftwaffe needed tetraethyl lead gasoline in order to fly. At the time, only Standard Oil, Du Pont, and General Motors had the ability to produce this vital substance. In 1938, Walter C. Teagle, then president of Standard Oil, helped Hermann Schmitz of I.G. Farben to acquire 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from Ethyl, a British Standard subsidiary. A year later, Schmitz returned to London and obtained an additional 15 million dollars worth of tetraethyl lead which was to be turned into aviation gasoline back in Germany.


From: "A People's History of the United States", The Thistle
http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v13/3/oil.html

9. While in the end in the Truman administration we strongly on paper supported an Israeli Homeland, the support was circumvent and possibly not there for real at all during the FDR administration. The Holy See had the constant ear of FDR during those years, and a man mentioned before, FDR's friend and confidant Myron Taylor, was representative to the Vatican, securing an "Honorary Rome Citizenship" for FDR during the height of the deaths in Auschwitz when we well knew. September 1943 the Jews of Rome were deported: November 1944, FDR was awarded an honorary citizenship. Further, the apostolic delegate Cicagniano lobbied consistently in the US under the auspices of Pacelli and Maglione in Rome, for the US not to support a homeland for Israel! This is not speculation but is clearly stated in the letters of the Pro Nuncio. They argued that the Jews had no inherent right to Palestine, albeit they saw themselves having Eminent Domain to Jerusalem and surrounds. Several key Catholic figures figured here and in Germany and Rome regarding the 'slow code' back to Israel including Pacelli, Maglione, Cicagniano, Von Papen and Myron Taylor with a host of others. Pacelli during the Shoah appointed ultraconservative Bishops and Cardinals in the US during that time, aiding the Roman Catholic position of no homeland for Israel. (Myron Taylor's letters are available online)

10. At the end of the war, we immediately gave refuge to over 10.000 Nazis including war criminals, carte blanche and even Eichmann was reported in South Florida in the 1950s. Jewish immigration though remained difficult, and while we ended up endorsing Statehood for Israel, Jews were continuously 'watched' here and within less than 10 years the same rhetoric of Jews being Communists emerged resulting in the McCarthy era and again hurting Jews in the US. Further there is some evidence of 'modernized' Jews being given far more leeway in immigration and citizenship that more Orthodox and 'Old world' Jews, and yet the latter were far greater in number.

11. While we deported and tried known war criminals, the efforts were less than stellar, and many lived their lives out comfortably in the US under assumed names well into the elderly years, often being tried or jailed in their 80s. Many records were sealed, and after some years, searches ceased. Nazi influence and technology though grew and affected the US greatly, and through certain financiers such as Ahmed Huber, Nazi, Neo-Nazi groups and Islamic groups were joined in a mutal effort of a new 'final solution. We are Israel's best friend (?) and worst nightmare.

Streaming Video and Streaming Repentance

As I watched President Obama speak of the refuge of LeChambon, a French Huguenot refuge, and listened to Wiesel talk about what might have been in a world which has closed its eyes but stayed at the edge of that Abyss called the Shoah, as we all sat in the cool comfort and quiet in different chairs and stands, watching 'streaming video' live events 1000 miles away, at first I reacted impulsively with a reaction of "isn't that good---Rescuers, Survivors, Liberators and a President remarking we must not forget, and that in the words of one speaker, we must strive to live in a world where we do not have to light candles of remembrance. That is a dream, and a vision, isn't it? It will not come true on this earth. I am a pacifist of the first order, the kind who fears God, yet I also know that all people will never change and we have had genocide after genocide on this earth AFTER the Shoah, never learning, and never changing our hearts. We are beginning to look foolish and falter crying 'Never Again', for the 20th or 30th time in 65 years, with the deaths in the Killing fields of Cambodia, the Karen of Burma, Armenia, Croatia, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Bangladesh, Uganda, and many with significant but lesser numbers. After a few million deaths beyond when we said 'Never Again', we start the words but they fall in our mouths. "Repentance" means to 'turn away' or 'to turn around' as in 'to go another way'. We have to admit we have done wrong, and 'go another way', or all our beautiful, gracious words, will only fall on more deaf ears, from all nations, all with a sword in their hand, waiting for the reason they must kill another people. Love doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry, Love means BEING sorry, and so changing that we would lay down our lives that the next genocide would truly meet the great cry of 'never again'. ekbest.

The Unthinkable---

FAITH THAT SURVIVES THE UNTHINKABLE

Persecution.com

While most today are focused on the economy and energy issues, the media hides or at least does not well address, the degree of suffering which is being encountered by real life Martyrs: people, not unlike those you like and love, who are standing for a cause, or for their faith, and facing circumstances, in the 21st century which rivals that of first century Christianity, or of the concurrent persecution of the Jews by Rome. While it is often said that people are still people and do not change, there were truly a few differences back then: first, the early disciples had really seen the events described, and would face horrible deaths rather than return to unbelief, and secondly, death, and even martyrdom was not unheard of: there were many who counted causes, some cause, so worthy as to be willing to lay down one's life for it. The Roman Soldiers then were no less nor more brutal than today though we would like to believe that, and while we think that open crucifixions are beyond us in our 'civility' nothing could be further from the truth: we have every form of torture, horror and sadistic death now as then, and we have even somewhat expanded our horizons with massive occult-tainted deaths.

I read regularly about Christian and Jewish persecution around the world, and free speech issues, and get reports emailed to me about persons who have committed such horrible crimes as teaching about God's love, refusing to bow when passing the statue of an emperor (still now as then), or passing out pamphlets by bike at the Beijing Olympics. One attorney in China recently, was tortured so vilely and violently nonstop for 10 days, that beyond it being a wonder that he survived, it is a wonder that his torturers could bear it. His crime? Defending the free speech and religious rights of his fellow countrymen---not in terrorist attacks, or in seditious activities--- but by the laws and constitution of China. There were burnings and beatings, physical alterations to his body, and indescribable cruelties . Christian attorney Gao Zhisheng was accused of being apart of the 'mob' the term his jailers used to refer to a group named Falun Gong, a large and growing organization promoting 'spiritual exercises', who often meditate in public. Falun Gong is not the mob, nor is it Christianity, but China worries about both, and because both involve disciplined lives, worship and quiet practice, to the untrained eye members of either may be mistaken for one another. The account may be found at ChinaAid.org and there are other accounts of others who have suffered such as 'Pastor Bike', and Harry Lee
(Jaws of the Dragon) [OMS) and more from around the world noted daily by Voice of the Martyrs. In places where great moves of the Church are taking place, almost invariable great persecutions follow: Eritrea Christians , Sudanese Christians, Christians in the Chiapas Mexico area, are a few and recently, notice was given that Extremists had killed over 500 Indian Christians, destroying homes and driving 50,000 into the jungles, with beatings and brutal rapes in the wake of the persecutions. (Gospel For Asia). In Tanzania, young Christian women who convert from Islam are being kidnapped and incarcerated and 're-educated'. Most when they accept Jesus, Yshua, as their Lord and Savior, do not imagine what they might possibly confront for saying, and meaning "Yes, I believe", though they intellectually acknowledge that great suffering is possible.

Over Here, in America

It would be easy to write a modern update of Hebrews 11 based on what is happening to real Christians in today's world: Christians who would not turn back from Love so great and so real, that they could see it no other way. In many countries, to come to faith in the Messiah means to be cut off from family and friends, even exiled, or to receive beatings or even to be raped (male or female) or tortured and killed. Yet they persevere. Some turn back. Some get right back up, regain their health and composure and move forward. Yet here in the United States in our American Church Culture (it is more that than the real Church), we have cultivated an attitude toward belief and suffering that is quite dangerous. It goes something like this, and may be found in the philosophies of Rod Parsley, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, and even a modicum in preachers like Charles Stanley, Hagee ( just to name a few) and other 'moderates', that though they may preach and teach occasionally otherwise, the belief that has been promoted widely and implicitly, is that if you are in God's will and way, you will prosper, avoid suffering, receive blessings, have your life in order, and that people who because they are open about their faith are suffering job loss, persecutions, poverty, slander, lawsuits, or as in the rest of the world beatings, tramplings, rape or even death, are somehow not right with God, or have been disobedient to God, and should not be listened to or heeded.

In America we think we are being persecuted if we have a late night prayer service in a home with rock and roll guitars blaring and someone asks the police to have us turn the volume down. That is obviously not real persecution. There is though in the US blatant and real persecution of those who refuse to proverbially 'throw incense to the Emperor', so to speak. There are Christians and Jews who are being beaten to death for their faith. There are young Christians who have lived a very pure and disciplined life who are cruelly mocked, bullied and worse by classmates who live anything but a pure life, and true walking Christians, such as home-schoolers (though the movement has grown) still have to worry about some Social Worker showing up at their door , clipboard in hand like an ancient saber, ready to defy gravity in finding fault and taking away children from very good and decent homes while returning even badly abused children to the homes that abused. One cannot say the targeting is not ideological at some point. As in other parts of the world, true believers are being cast into mental hospitals for such great crimes as 'over-religiosity' i.e. daily bible reading and prayer, or believing that 'God' or a 'Spirit' is 'telling them something' or given them direction, etc. What's a poor Pentecostal to do? Additionally there is often a violent affect to those who persecute, and very often, there is no appeal.

The Christians we see on TV and in local lukewarm congregations are not the ones out there really taking a stand, obeying the LORD and making a difference: many of those have been driven out of Churches whose main aim is building a new social hall or getting exercise equipment. Often, even the 'Christian Civil Liberties' groups, quick to protest state Capitols over manger scenes and the Ten Commandments, won't even represent street preachers or bloggers, acting the same toward them as the rest of the world: as if they are nutcases, destroying their perfect but precarious perch, where you can say yes to the Lord, but still live your life as you always have. Eventually the wind blows one way or the other. Real Christian suffering almost always ends up solitary.


Surviving Christian Faith

While noting the great degree of persecution that is out there for the faithful, there remains the critical issue of how to confront the "Unthinkable" : the things that happen in the life of a believer, that are real faith-breakers for most people. I am not hateful towards those pastors and ministries I have mentioned, because there are hundreds more, and even in our own walk, we start believing that God will alleviate every suffering, right every wrong, and comfort every sorrow. We take scriptures such as 'I will never leave you nor forsake you" to mean that He will never let anything bad happen. I am not rewriting Yancy's book on suffering, or the dear Rabbi's book on 'Bad things happening to Good People', but I have learned in 24 years of belief, that the one thing more likely to ruin real faith than any other, is the belief that if you believe and walk right, obeying the commands of God, growing, walking in love, and so on, that there are certain things that could never happen.

I have worked, in my lifetime, with migrant farm children in the depths of poverty, families grieving stillborns, widows and widowers, holocaust survivors, and been confronted by indigence, the homeless and the mentally ill. In my own life I have had a daughter who developed Juvenile Diabetes at 6 and a half years old, with three shots a day, and trips to the hospital fighting ketoacidosis or coma, divorce and starting life over, sometimes extreme poverty and unemployment not because I was unqualified nor unskilled but because other people did not like what I believed. I have been criminally slandered, and ostracized to the nth degree, and in recent times far worse although that discourse is for another time, but in sum, I have walked through events in life which almost broke my faith and break most people's faith, including losing everything more than once (and worse). When I gave my life to the LORD, many years ago, I was on my way up, successful in my professional career, becoming well known in my area, speaking at national and international conferences, but when I said I believed, I meant it, and the command to 'follow me' does not take any of us where we expect. I was moved though to write this, to help those who have been through or are now facing unspeakable cruelties, the 'unthinkable', to help them understand that the 'normal' Christian life is not horrible things, but filled to the brim with them, and that it is far more abnormal not to have some real faith-breakers confront you in your life.

The Rain Falls
The New Testament teaches the following:

for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matt 5:45

A good deal of life happens not because of the designation of that thing by God, though he allows it, but because certain things are the stuff of life. Jesus remarks also when asked about those that died in the fall of the tower of Siloam, that they did not sin more or less than any others to deserve that untimely death. How can we justify then, a totally sovereign God? All things are under Him without question. Yet even God mentions in the book of Isaiah, that trouble will gather that is NOT of Him:

Isa 54:15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, [but] not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.

Hosea 8:4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew [it] not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.

Some trouble and heartache we inherit by our own actions: sin and bad choices and lack of obedience, there is no doubt. More trouble and even the 'unthinkable' happen because it is a world that hates God and all that is related to God. Thousands may gather at rallies and sing about the Love of God, but only a remnant really understand. One is just as likely to be done in, turned over to authorities, physically hurt, etc by a fellow Christian or person of like faith, as by an unbeliever. When we come to faith, we essentially, whether we realize it or not become commissioned as infantrymen in His battlefield. We WILL fight the wars He fought, although there were obviously some only he could fight.

The teaching of the "Great Exchange" has been lost in this generation: dying to self, means not just a little self-discipline here and there to do something we don't want to do, but that we have EXCHANGED our lives for His: we are His hands, and eyes, and mouth and feet, we are His to live through as He pleases. And when we do, we are not lost to who we are, or what we are---we do not cease to be ourselves. When we do surrender to that degree, the end product is Joy unspeakable ; we live even now, ahead of time, in His presence where there is rest.

I read recently of Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs who suffered torture and lengthy imprisonment in Romania, turned in by a fellow pastor in the underground church. Betrayal hurts worse than the suffering. He could not see the forthcoming global ministry he would have attending to the needs of suffering believers. If it had happened in the U.S. there would have been a bevy of Job's comforters (accusers) showing him where he went wrong. Real Christianity though, cannot if we really believe, be brushed aside for prosperity and 'modern' Gospels: there is no such thing as a 'modern' Gospel, only a real 'Gospel'. We just want a Gospel without suffering and to slightly misquote Bonhoeffer, "Discipleship without cost".


During the Orissa, India raid in 500 were killed and homes destroyed, their persecutors raped their women. Christian mothers and daughters, some young girls who had never even held a little boy's hand for the first time. Were mauled and mistreated: It did not matter to the rioters: they had degenerated into almost soulless beings. Yet for many Christians, if that occurred, their reasoning would be "Where was God?" "Why would a good and powerful God, if He loved me, let that happen?". Many in our soft and senseless form of belief, rail against God, with shaking fists against what they perceive as injustice in not allowing their lives to continue without pain. When something outright 'grotesque' happens, many turn away, thinking they were either not real believers, or that God was angry, or that it was beyond their comprehension, and so they give up and cease seeking or following God, figuring they can have the same or less trouble on their own.

Many who hate Christianity and Christians and do not even know why, become even more violent towards real believers than others---They are fighting belief, and the power and presence of God, and though they may not be able to articulate it to themselves, they try persecution, then 'spiritual rape', and then even cruel attacks and lewd attacks to try and get away from how unholy they feel in the presence of real believers. They do not hate the kind of churchgoer whois accusatory, finding fault, condemning all but themselves, but the kind that walk in love and peace and wish harm to none. They want to kill them, to wish them dead, so that the warfare in their own spirits will go away.

Internal Warfares

The internal warfare can be relieved by belief and repentance (turning away) but they will not trust, and so the internal warfare becomes external, directed towards everything that even reminds them of God. What did Jesus, Yshua teach in Israel? What did He teach that bought for Him a death penalty? Overthrow? Blowing up the Roman Empire? Tearing down the Temple or dethroning Caiaphas? While He made His feelings clear about those folks, He advocated no overthrow at all, but wished to establish the normal and natural order of Israel. Did he take up arms? No He gave orders mostly not to, and healed a man, Malchus whose ear was cut by a sword. He healed a centurion's son. Saved a tax collector--the greatest miracle. He healed and they chased him out of town attempting first to push Him off a cliff. In the end, He received the most published account of beating , ridicule and torture known in history. Because He sinned?

A story is told of a mother passing by a Catholic crucifix on an Easter morning and her little girl looked up to the Cross at the bleeding Savior and asked her mother, "What did he do wrong?" "It must have been really bad". The little girl, as do we all equate bad occurrences, horrible occurrences with punishment. To survive this world as believers we have to let go of the idea that when violence or heartache occurs to us it is a punishment. It is not. It is warfare against a soldier who is Christ's hand and in Christ's hand in this world.

Trial and Tribulation

Jesus, Yshua said we would have trial and tribulation. That was a promise. The TV preachers and many local ones, always stop at standing for Christ if there is cost. We can't remove the flag from the altar, two of our deacons are servicemen and it would be 'un-American'. We can't refuse to register as a 5013c corporation, the government would persecute us. We can't refuse to sit on a faith-based initiative board, it would ruin our career, and beside EVERYBODY ELSE DOES IT OUR WAY. That declaration, repeated often was a death knell in the church.

The real reason though for writing this entry, putting aside for the moment issues in Holocaust studies, was that

1. The persecution against Christians and Jews is greatly increasing, just as worship in the two bodies is,
and
2. We can not give up, nor allow our Christian/Jewish brothers and sisters to give up in the face of 'faith-breakers', the unthinkable things which challenge all we believe.

Over the past few years, I have learned a little in surviving some 'outrageous fortune' which confronts the steadiness and trust our faith demands. These are some practical means of survival in the Spirit and are in need of teaching, so that our 'faith fails us not'.

1. Stop believing that horrible things that happen are all judgments of God. Some are, but many more are the normal warfare of the believer.

2. Stop thinking that the worst events of life cannot happen to you even if you read your Bible every day, pray and go to church. Those things may provoke the worst of men.

3. Stop thinking that living a true and pure life excludes you from being confronted with lewd and lascivious people and actions. Those actions which others commit in front of you or even toward your person are not your doing and will not be held to your account. They are occurring all over the world to clean-living people, in part to horrify them. Screaming and yelling is exactly what they want. Withstand it in the name of the Lord.

4. Do not take the death of a loved one, especially who was a believer, as God's wrath. Death is a natural and normal part of life. Old men and infants both die from natural causes which tear the heart out: while God has and exercises His sovereign will over life and death, not all deaths are in any way a judgment of God.

5. Set your face like flint. Here's the apex of faith I have learned: one does not have to think or feel about the horrible incidents of life in any way but the way you choose. Do you ache and sorrow and despair over the horror of the thing? Then cry, and if you like, scream (preferably alone, as most do not receive it well). Later, when you have moments of numbness, realize you can choose your reactions. I am not talking about artificial zen like ethereal stuff, but real choices: "I will not blame God" (for :making it happen, letting it happen, not stopping it from happening etc). You can decide to REFRAIN from making decisions about how you feel about God and your faith until you know more. I am not suggesting hiding feelings ; they should be honestly expressed. Determine in your heart you will not turn back.

6. Suffer, and even mourn, but refuse constant Despair. Those who have been in the throes of despair understand that this is not said superficially---life can deal some hands so deadly, that living a moment further does not seem desireable. Losing meaning and purpose, all that we love, and seemingly the future, blocks out the sun, and if accompanied by torture and pain, most give up the will to live. C.S. Lewis once noted that he thought himself a stalwart Christian as did most of the world, until his wife died, and he compared his faith to a 'house of card's which fell quickly down. The swift reactions to either despair and unbelief or to even hate God for taking what we love from us, but those are infantile screams of desperation and hurt: we can actually chose if nothing else, to refuse to doubt, and only feel the pain and walk through it without erasing the one anchor which will bring healing. It hurts to make it, but it is a choice.

7. Take it all before God, even if you are angry at Him. Someone once commented 'He can handle it'. " Pray without Ceasing"Do not leave off praying because of the hurt, but consciously turn toward God, even if in anger, and work it out. Tell God you do not understand. Tell Him you were not so strong that you could handle what happened. Spend time in His presence and if you have to grit your teeth, praise Him. The Holy Spirit is not called Comforter for nothing.

8. Refuse to receive what the world says about you or the event. You do not have to argue, nor rail back if they claim you deserved it or say all manner of cruelties. When I counseled mothers who had stillborns, many reported horrible things others said such as 'well 'it' would have been deformed' or 'you can have others' or 'aren't you glad it happened now' or 'you must not have taken care of yourself'. Likewise, a person may be in poverty because they were noble, or in jail because they saved lives or stood in the gap for another: one cannot be certain.

9. This is trite, but neither terror nor pain last forever. Sleep will at least for the moment dispel despair, and weariness and sleeplessness can aggravate decision making and hopefulness. Sleep and then decide.

10. Refuse to identify yourself as a victim. If you are arrested and imprisoned for your faith, hold your head high, and maintain your dignity. They will try to take it from you at all counts. If you are incarcerated in a mental hospital, for that is what it is, an incarceration, walk wisely and discreetly, and do not discuss spiritual things with natural minds unless the Lord prompts you to. They are viewing you as insane, so what you say is 'halo-effected' by that---you can talk about the Lord's soon return in Church, or about the parting of the Red Sea, but most of our poor psychologists and psychiatrists are not mature enough to receive it.
Remember that people all over the world are suffering the same outrage as you are, and that you are not alone.

11. Understand that God has not forsaken you: He is in the process of a great work, the fullness of which you may not see for years. A famous hymn says "When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest in His unchanging grace"... Keep praying and staying in the Word: feelings and faith must not be confused. Feeling God's nearness comes with obedience and faithfulness, but when the divine warfare becomes great enough that we cannot sense His presence, we cannot let go of faith, which spans those abysses.

12. Doubt is not losing faith. If you have doubts, and all believers have, even after seeing God's great power, take it before the Lord. Take it into the Word. Search it out. But don't give into it. The apostles saw the healings, loaves and fishes, walking on water and the raising of the dead, the Cross, and the Resurrection, but shortly after, turned back to go 'a-fishing'. Moses' followers saw the waters of the Red Sea part and all Israel saved, and then wondered if God could feed them in the desert. They doubted after some time passed that at Meribah God would provide water. Happens. The response is not to give up, but to lean further into faith.

13. In the middle of the very worst agony which is occurring far too frequently in this world now, refuse to make any decisions about your faith, even if it fails. Chin up, shoulders back. If some monster is going to hurt you, he is looking to devour your spirit also. Don't give it to him. Look in the distance and be somewhere else with the LORD. Recite scripture if you still can (pain can take away the ability for a season). Praise God when you least feel like it. Name the Name above all names. Speak the Words Jesus, Yshua gave "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, No man cometh unto the Father but by me, then " I withstand you" directed toward the real enemy of faith. Might be surprised what happens!

14. This is the hardest point, but for Christians, if you study out the way the early disciples preached, they gave the whole gospel as quick as possible in a nutshell even to brutal soldiers carrying them off to prison or beating them half to death. One missionary family in Korea some years back, was taken under arrest and buried alive, shovel full by shovel full, while they kept singing a hymn. Their little girl died first, then the mother, and lastly the pastor-father. The worst death imaginable, resulted in the coming to Messiah of one who held one of those deadly shovels, who went on to win thousands , the very heart's desire of the couple and their daughter.

Our bitterness comes when we keep looking at the horrors of life as something interfering with our wishes , wants and desires and happiness. I gave into bitterness more than once, even sometimes now, because life just seemed too difficult, too many unhappy, or aggressively confronting, or too much 'danger'. During the time of those high waters, though, I continued the work I was given to do. If it should be gone tomorrow, I will start all over again. Might kick and scream a little if I still can, but I will start over. I once saw that pearl of great price, the truth that could not be undone, and I have seen nothing like it. I have seen the Power of the Name above all Names. I will be returning in the next column no doubt to some phase of Shoah Education, or Ethics, or the church , but even that, though in a slightly more secular vein, is the product of refusing to give up. When the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by the tribes, they were instructed to hold a sword in one hand, a stone in the other, and not to even change till it was done. Tobiah, Sanballat and Geshem fought the wall continually, with letters to the King slandering the work, demeaning, humiliation, then war, but block by block, the wall that remains today was rebuilt.

That is the tenacity required of real Christianity, not going along with Chuck Smith, or Irwin Lutzer, or John Hagee, David Jeremiah, or Chuck Swindoll or anyone else: though there may be good men among the powerful, the Christianity of the Bible prevails against "the way things are ". The real Christians of the World are suffering and the suffering and persecution is intense, awful and increasing. We cannot live complacently with the kind of belief that Jesus said he would 'spew out of His mouth'. We must take the stands for the Messiah He asked of us: love for God with a whole and real heart, and join the ranks of real Christians worldwide. First, we must learn real faith, and how to stand against the unthinkable. We will indeed meet at the Bema seat of Christ, where the questions will be all His.

A 17 Year Old "Twitter Bug" and a Poor Man's Version of the History of the Internet: Ruin isn't a Job Interview

This week a 17 year old was found to be the culprit in planting a worm (virus) on Twitter which wreaked havoc for their staff in causing over 10,000 bogus responses and redirects to a real 'viral' site. When questioned about the act, he remarked that he thought it might lead to a job in internet security. Now I would like to say this calmly, and more fluently than I will, but "Good Lord, Has this country lost its mind?"
And please don't think that is a 'minced oath' at the beginning, it is really a prayer.

Criminal Acts on the Net

I would like to express to that brilliant little boy, what his self advertising did, because I am having to put up with constant garbage like that as are many individuals, companies, news sources and others. To the 'child' who wants a reward for ruinous behavior let me say that the rest of us, mostly adults who are working on the net, don't want you on the net at all, much less working in internet security. You think it is fun and games? Twitter, just for the current example, runs a business, a corporation, and every extra task and/or downtime costs them money. Real money. The kind it takes to feed your family, like 17 year old boys who hack. It also causes strife and contention, rage, ruin to the site's reputation, though they had nothing to do with it, hours of work lost, and when enough of it happens people and businesses give up and abandon the net for being a viable education, social or business environment.

As with Twitter, constant 'play hacking' is not funny, and eventually interferes with free speech. We were all young once, and some of us, though our age and appearance betrays us, were also fairly rebellious and innovative when we were young: the youthful Gates, Job, and Wozniak did their fair share of intrusion into phone systems, and other lofty governmental organizations, but the difference is, well, except for Gates, it was momentary, and they used it to show security holes and not to ruin their targets, although frankly, even that creates an environment where nobody's work is sacred, and no one has safe boundaries anymore. I don't want anyone testing my sites or computers seeing if I have a security leak. The internet in part was born of rebellion then, but it is nothing but a filthy rag if it becomes a sort of 'Mad Max Thunderdome" arena where anything goes. Now the kid may be valuable after about 6 months to a year in county detention, and if some reader thinks that is merciless, a real short jolt now is better than years of ruin later.

How bad it Can Get

Let me explain how bad it can get on the internet. That is, if I can get through writing this without the screen 'disappearing' without hands, or blacking out, or browser switching etc. When we first began to work on the net in 1996 (before on green screen), most of what we encountered in the way of 'trouble' were glitches and learning: like everyone else we had to become proficient before beginning our then somewhat laughable sites. (All sites were somewhat laughable back then, and styles went in waves, but in the beginning everybody loved little goofy animations and walked away feeling like Stephen Spielberg). Quickly though, many began to learn the ropes and virtually thousands of hours per coder was put into the net, either coding, designing, producing graphics, researching, learning to write for the net, devising better navigation and searches, learning networking and advertising and the eons of other endeavors which preoccupied us. The net was mesmerizing and one could do the coolest graphics ever with light behind vivid colors and opacities, and all were enchanted. I could continue to teach in areas I wanted to even if I couldn't teach those courses on campus, so for me, it was a challenge and a way to publish what academics never gave me the opportunity to do, and it also provided for me as a Christian, networking, new ministry opportunities etc, and while I know there are more perverse interests than holy ones out there, all could have their say as it became the world's backyard fence.

Shortly though, the monster's teeth began to show, and true to its nativity, it began to be a little vicious: big businesses started to go under as the little demonized hacking contingents began to waylay pages, advertisements, shopping carts, etc, and soon pages like Pets.com went under, and software companies came and went.
There were feeding frenzies too, when the great big overbloated monopolized Pirate Whales ingested all the tiny little cyber plankton in their path. That is a process that has not stopped. The World Wide Web had a world wide market and it began to be a place of world wide trade and world wide scamming. And then with the advent and growth of interpersonal chatrooms and webs, it became a horrible net in which lewd men and pedophiles could enchant and entice young victims playing on the computer while their parents were at work, and I wish the Feds and the police would stand up and make known how many victims there were and how many have died or disappeared. For awhile, pornographic sites ran helter-skelter over the net, and until good filters, even the most prudish emails got a few ads which burned through the screen. The internet became a place for easy marks and wanton crime, and because so few police or other law enforcement agencies had any experience, reporting even the loss of thousands of dollars, and businesses/sites, led to little other than despair. Blue Security, an Israeli based company, one of the foremost leaders in developing net security, discovered desperately that even the best security systems can't withstand massive bombardment of angry thieves.

Then, though for a short while, there was a sort of doldrums, when everybody garnered their troops and weaponry, and Microsoft did in Apple, and then everybody else, the Woz quit years before, and eventually Gates in the entreprenuer of Centuries retired, determined not to leave his children more than 10 million each so they would value hard work and ingenuity like their dad. Now it is, well something else, and the Woz appears on dancing with the Stars, Bill Gates wanders to and fro around the world checking on stuff, Steve Jobs is dying robbed of his place but true to the end, and the stage is set for the years to follow.

Businesses came back for awhile with increased securities, certificates, and the best IT people money could buy, because it really is a grand market. Old hippies who swore they would never allow Richard Nixon to continue Watergate practices and the Viet Nam war are now doing business with Red China and turning over info on dissidents. Bloggers sit in jail all over the world and we all blog out our personal commentaries on the way life is. Amnesty Int'l and Voice of the Martyrs send notices of people being beaten, jailed , tortured and killed for the great crime of writing down on the net 'the way they see the world'. There are alot of people who only want us to see the world one way: theirs. Governments are not the only censors, but now special interest groups, including some legalistic Christian groups, big money christian groups, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islamics, Revisionists, and spammers. It is getting a little ugly out there.

Free Guys are Gone

The Free guys are gone: not the freedom fighters, there are a few left, but the guys who all shared the philosophy that the net must remain free and open, and the great souls who poured thousands of hours into free software and its availabiiity. Many lost heart when Kim died. RegMechanic the great little registry clinic now costs, as do versions of Adware, and even Open Office the great blue fist raised in agony against MS apps is going to fees for quality. Please don't take HTML Kit from us. Bearshare has lost thousands of mp3 offerings as other sharing programs have due to copyright violations and Youtube may offer twenty amateurs singing 'Folsom Prison blues' but may or may not carry Johnny Cash. Movie downloads are done in cyber-Istanbul to avoid 15 year olds being incarcerated and fined 50,000 for downloading a copy of "Fast and Furious". The web is getting expensive partly from greed and partly because security takes as much or more time than coding and site maintenance.

When the Web Becomes a Nightmare

I used to think I might like to run a hosting company for extra income, learn how to maintain the servers, etc, but I would venture into firing ranges in Afghanistan before wandering there. Lawsuits, IP Piracy, undercurrents of shared IPs, Fly by night companies with classy ads wandering off with everyone's sites, breakins, breakdowns: you folks can have it. They also have to put up with nightmares like myself who insist on 'servers-in-the-sunshine', so to speak. In my own defense, though, having fought as one of the few remaining embattled individuals with a growing and successful set of webs, I will let you in on the cost, and why 17 year old Twitter bugs and local teenagers, housewives, and all the rest are so infuriating: because my life and my son and daughter's lives have been ripped to shreds by what has happened with regard to being somewhat successful on the web. Only somewhat.

In the past few years, while my hosting companies winced at my copious tech messages, those messages showed both of us were experiencing web problems and both were the genuine owner and host. We have had illegal break ins, missing backup disks, browser switching, IP switching, deleted files, 80 gigs of my files dumped into some mysterious cyber bin which never reappeared, 3 fried drives, 2 ruined motherboards, sound and video card switches, registration problems, extra illegal hops on tracer routes, in addition to life interferences by those who wanted to pretend to have a part of the work. A virus ruined 14% of our files in 2003, and our firewall reports look like the Standard Editions of Sigmund Freud. I have gone through trials of every firewall, and today, after reformatting my one year old drive for the third time and rerunning XP after abandoning Vista, after constant problems with software and downloads, not just from tech problems, I can't scroll with out difficulties and an occasional beep, and can't be sure my screen hasn't been seditioned.

Last week I lost 4 days to nonstop local problems, and a couple days ago found shoaheducation.com my main site pinging at the wrong place, then at two other IPs, and may have to change hosting again. What's at stake? Someone else would like to claim authorship and ownership of all I have written on the web, which now amounts to thousands of pages, researched, written, coded, SEOed and marketed, and walk away with the whole shebang just to show me 'what the real world is like.' They have been willing even to resort to violent affronts, and my other employment has dwindled to the point of unbelievability. I can't not fight for my right to my own work and say, because my integrity and the integrity of the material depend on it, and as many of us in our 50s on the web have found, we are too specialized for alot else, and without your integrity of work and reputation, it means career and life ruin. I did the right thing, in some regards, because the influence and result was worthwhile: many are educated and standing up, and I am glad. If I had to do it all again though, I would have said to my daughter, who said "No, mom, HTML is easy, look I'll show you how to bold and underline!, I would have said, "I can't---I have to go feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the poor, or learn to garden.I'm not a quitter, little 17 year old boy who hacked Twitter and thinks its cool to destroy work and lives and worst of all spirits. If they put you on trial, though and send you to detention, please don't think it was a job interview.

Why Does the World Hate Jesus?

Video: Kev0612

This week, I sat down in the evening to watch tv for a bit, and my son ( I will blame it on him) turned to the Colbert Report. As I have seen Colbert do in the past, he was mocking Jesus and Moses, and he particularly seems to like to ridicule Jesus, belief in Jesus, and the Word of God. He's a very funny, albeit caustic man, but as a believer in the Redeemer, I can not listen to it: it enrages me, and the station was turned. This week, though, when the world celebrates Passover and Easter, and on this day, Good Friday, I have to ask exactly WHY the world hates, mocks and ridicules Jesus Christ, or in Hebrew, Yeshua Ha Meschiach.

Who Jesus Was, and What He was Like

For years, before beginning, I must admit, I did the same, before I became a believer. I mocked everything to do with religion, and Jesus, and churchgoers, with disdain and curt remarks, and I remember having a good laugh when a student put me on her 'prayer list' at the back of a class journal in Personal Growth. So did some others she had listed there. Jesus and prayer, God and Heaven were no longer very real to me at all, for I had fallen prey to the 'universified pride' which so besets almost everyone on college campuses today, including ascribing all religious thought and experience, as did William James, to some sort of 'altered state of consciousness' or archetype 'shared by all cultures'.

When I was young, I had a picture of "The Good Shepherd", a wall tapestry, hanging on my wall, a tender though catholicized rendition of Jesus holding a lamb and a shepherd's crook, tending his flock. My mother dutifully took us to church every Sunday, we attended to every ritual, but I knew very little of God or the Messiah, His Son, though even then I got the impression he was well, good. Someone you could pray to and ask for things you didn't have, but like many children, my understanding was very limited. In the arrogance of my teen and college years, I stopped believing altogether, and though we were not allowed to stay home on Sunday till 16, fell prey to what we considered at the time a more 'sophisticated' view of life, so all in all, Darwin and Descartes had done their work, as had the NEA.

I remember though in college when my husband came home from a class, on religion and myths of the world, that he commented on the Professor noting that he was a Christian. I was fascinated that a man who taught Comparative Religions would believe in Jesus, and asked him to ask the Prof why. The response was less than satisfactory, he said, 'because it makes the most sense'. I did not ask many more questions after that. Most of the 'christians' I ran into back then wanted to know if I was 'saved' and where I went to church, and give me the 'Four Spiritual Laws' from Campus Crusade. They never told me though about Jesus and why they believed in Him.

Now, after 24 years of being a believer, and that long daily in the Word, I have a much better idea of who Jesus is, the journey of which started when Jesus asked Peter

Whom Say Ye That I Am?

And Peter rightly replied, the Son of God, or Son of the Blessed. He was not about terrorizing people with rules and laws, but about healing and love, teaching them as the first of those 'rules and laws' or commandments. He was neither the schwarzenegger like tradesman that the Baptists portray going around telling people off, nor the wispy ivory soap boy floating on air that liberalism portrays, but the incarnation of real, genuine love, the Love of God, and His very real power which cannot be ignored then or now.

He was kind to children, and considered them every bit as important as the adults who stood by, once even telling his disciples to 'back off' and suffer the little children to come unto him. He was about Life, caring to the death for one goal: Life forever, in peace and joy for all. He was able to foretell the future, and He 'knew what was in a man'. He was wise, and would commit himself to no man. Exhausted and weary in the human body He chose to bear, he prayed, healed and taught the children of Israel till their was nothing left of human strength. He was Sovereign over the elements which were His: Galilee waves braced his footsteps, and
figs dried up at his touch on command, and mere bread for a meal was no match for the Bread from Heaven.

He defended the weak and powerless, and the only people he was enraged at were the false religious leaders of the day, who used God's Word as the product of merchandise they made it, till in defense of the poor, the weak, the widow and infirm, he marched into the Temple to take it back from those who were not appointed by God but by man, who had purchased their positions from Rome. He knew they were robbing widows blind while making pretenses of long prayers. Hmm.

He could see things as they really are: his trumpeting was of the Woman who gave all that she had, pennies into the Temple offering, or of the woman of 'ill repute' (Vatican legend calls her a prostitute, not the Bible), who poured out the only precious thing she had in life, a perfumed oil, for His anointing to the only ministry which will be trumpeted in heaven.

He was zealous for independence from Rome, but even more from sin and the oppression of false religion: He announced his ministry in the Synagogue, reading Isaiah 61. He laid aside all earthly possessions to bring about the love and Salvation of God even if it meant brutal beatings and ripping flesh, and dying on a 'shameful' Cross meant by Rome for rebel slaves. He was slave to all and Master of All. The Branch, and High Priest, the King from a Kingdom Pilate could not name, and near the end of His ministry, he even raised the dead, sitting down to eat with the recovering fellow a week later.

The Way Leaders Saw Him

The way the leaders of the day saw him then was not unlike now. At first they merely ridiculed him. Romans were not too worried about him unti his strength and followers grew, and then they saw Him as a threat to the authority of Rome, and the charges in the end, which did not prosper, though His death did for a moment, were Sedition. Pilate's main concern was whether He was a King. Pilate himself could not deny it, fixated on this powerful man.

When He healed the blind man, the sure sign of Messiah, the Religious 'mob' of the day laughed and noted that nothing good and no prophet ever came out of 'Galilee', even though they did not know the Word well enough to know that several had including Elijah and Jonah. When that set of good ole boys saw Lazarus alive again after Jesus called him back from 4 days in the grave, their first impulse was to kill Lazarus again so that Jesus would not get 'credit'. While it is never spoken of in the Bible, I suspect that the day after the Sermon on the Mount, it was probably preached under every name on the Sanhedrin. When they saw His following of the poor, the lame, the blind, deaf and dumb, and even a couple of Priests from the Sanhedrin in the shadows come to Him to learn and receive the kind of Life that lasts forever, their impulse was to put Him to death, for as they said it, "better that one man die for the good of the nation". Death and money were always their solution to a problem and in the end, they themselves declared , in order to get thier way that "they had no king, but caesar". Hardly a Jewish position. Hardly in a time when 70 young zealots gave their lives, burned to death for the great crime of tearing an eagle insignia off the Temple walls.

Rather than not love us, even for a moment, rather than not complete the thing God had given Him to do, which only He could do, rather than see us die never knowing the Love of God, or risk being separated from that love forever, rather than leaving us no way out of the infection of sin on this earth which has been both ours and the earth's demise, He willingly surrendered His life, body, wellbeing, and future to become the Sacrifice of Centuries, the Blood atonement, which would renounce any claim the enemy of all souls had on us. Unbelief no doubt creeps in, because we cannot see the divine war, but as C.S. Lewis once remarked, " I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. "C. S. Lewis

Why The World hates Jesus

The World hates Jesus, first and foremost, because they do not know Him, and because He challenges, even His very being, every assumption we have about the world and life. Comedians see Him as fodder for jokes: a buffoon who is not real, who in their eyes could not have walked on water because it is not within their understanding of things beyond the mundane. Their cruelty though, I could never understand, it comes with a sharp edge of hatred. Of the world leaders of religions, none is made fun of so much as Jesus. This makes little sense that the Prince of Peace would be so disdained, while Ghandi only rarely is poked at, even though in his youth he beat his wife, and almost started a war with muslims, or Buddha, who sat under a tree till worms encased his skull, or Mohammed, who led one bloody takeover after another. I suspect it is more often the case that they consider Jesus one and the same with the meddling, legalistic finger pointers, churchgoers who are often without Christ, who tell everybody off and point to their faults. In Christ is no condemnation.

The Jews hate Christ, well, no the Jews have the most remarkable love -hate relationship of centuries. He's too Jewish and too good to hate full out: but so much barbaric cruelty and killings have been done in His name by those who claimed Him, but could not have been his, that they leave Him both in disdain and as an unfinished question. He was referred to for centuries as 'that man'. He scares some of the Tolerance folks to death because He declared He was the "Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father but by me". They walk around all day when they hear that bumfuzzled. They've invented another kind of love, a 'philia' love in which all men are brothers, but most know that "never was it true this side of Jordan'.

Academics hate Him because He requires faith as the substance of things not seen, and they want operational definitions, observations and predictions and 'known quantities. They have intellect and research, human reason which produces changing theories every five years, but no concept of faith, or willingness to entertain that the world could not possibly in its complex tapestry been produced by anything such as a Creator. The world made from 'nothing' by 'accident' is a far greater leap of faith, that believing in a Creator, whose evidence is ever apparent and declared. They do not understand how Blaise Pascal, and Farenheit, Da Vinci or Newton could have believed in Jesus, the Lord and Savior, in all their brilliance because they deal in a different economy of belief.

Theologians and complacent churchgoers also seem to hate him, because He does not fit their models and attributes. Liberal Theologians want him to be a do-gooder, social protester, a Martyr for the cause of good works, and He will not let them stay at that. Conservatives and religionists hate HIm because they do not want a God who is flesh and blood and comes down off the walls of their churches, to require an indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who requires their real and not just religious lives.

Politicians do not want the real Messiah: He still has power and so do His believers, and it does not fit with any networking or finagling they can attend to: they can't beat Him out of his position. Psychologists hate Him because to them He is a figment of imagination, a coping mechanism, an affront to their 'scientism'. Physicians are afraid they might not be needed if He is real and still heals. Kings and Potentates, Heads and Secretaries of State, are threatened by a power still so very real, as promised that just doesn't fit into the 21st century.

Carnal people despise Him because they fear the loss of their destructive lifestyles, which they are not really happy in, but its all they know, and loss is too threatening for change. The list of sins in the Old and New Testament eventually meet us with one of our own, so sinners, escape him for as long as they can fearing change, or run to Him as fast as they can, yearning for healing and peace.

Big Corporations hate his guts because He starts worldwide movements which threaten their overthrow, although that is their balliwick indeed. Mainline religions cannot take the idea that the head of the Church is Him and not the State because even Evangelicals just want to fit in.

And so hatred it is, not just reluctance. We still mock him on our airways and internet videos. Jokes abound, hardening hearts and separating from the one holy one in the World who was willing to give us all we would ever need, the one who even comedians and Web potentates run to in secret, in the dark, when their whole lives are gone by the world they trusted in. We all take a last breath, one escapes in a rattle at the end from our lungs, but for many, the one called Comforter, Healer, Almighty God, Prince of Peace and Everlasting Father is never known or called up.

The World Hates Jesus because they cannot see Him, and they are blind to the only Love that was ever real. No joking.

MARCH 28th---
LIGHTS OUT!!!

EARTH HOUR-MARCH 28,2009: LIGHTS OUT!!!

On March 28, 2009, all over the world, people for one hour will be turning their lights out. Seriously. And you should also.

Now for most people, the reason behind the worldwide effort, is to promote 'Earth Hour' like 'Earth Day' and raise awareness of Global Warming and other planetary interests. Even Google turns black that day becoming the 'other' black site on the net. It started in Australia when just one city had a 'lights out' hour a few years ago, and has now spread into a grassroots, worldwide movement.

Typically on Sedition Act we deal with ethical and holocaust related topics, so one may think we have strayed in this venture, but nothing could be farther from the truth. On March 28th, I will indeed turn off my lights during that hour, and my computer, and my television, and every other electrical appliance I can find, at least for the afternoon. I will do it for the following reasons, leaving the global warming issue to everyone else:

1. Turning off the electric worldwide shows that all of us unessential, unimportant peasantry, en Mass can bring down giants.
2. Turning off the lights shows visibly how many of us are out their, who want a safe and peaceful planet, not given to the ravages of amoral corporations.
3. Turning off the lights worldwide sends a little message to the kind sir folks at the Oil Companies, that the Giant you have become is no Goliath next to our small smooth stone of putting a finger to a switch in our own household.
4. Turning off the Lights will save an enormous amount of money and energy and fuel, even for one hour.
5. Turning off the lights teaches our children that we as the lesser important citizens of the nations of the world have a voice and are not without power.
6. Turning off the lights sets a worldwide net work of standing up to the unconscionable acts of the violence against our earth and its inhabitants.
7. Turning off the lights shows how many of us there are who do not want it the way it is going.

Hitler , Darre and Environmentalism

Not to neglect WWII and the Shoah, it should be mentioned that the only positive thing (partial though it was) that came out of the Third Reich, was a move to environmentalism, through a man named Darre who because of the push to incorporate the principles of 'Blood and Soil' (blut und boden), sought ways to preserve, enhance, and purify the land and environment of Germany. However, Darre eventually resigned when there became a divide between the sinister agenda of Hitler's government and his own aims.

As the years grew though, most of the people who headed the Environmental and 'World' days were secularists, sometimes New Agers, and occasionally scientists, until we all began to wake up and realize, through talk of depleting resources and peak Oil, global warming and the like that we cannot ignore a planet in entropy. Our children have to live in the muck we leave behind. In the early days there were books like 'The Hundredth Monkey" and the Population Bomb , and then Earth Days in schools, but most were coordinated by more radical elements, and the concern for the environment was there, but not forefront. Through the years though we have seen mass efforts of 'acceptability' and now we have the Green Channel, Planet Green, Green movements, Green products, state and city sponsored recycling, cleanups, etc and the American public is quite acclimated to the whole idea of 'going green'.

Christians and Environmentalism

When I first became a Christian, I found in the more fundamental circles I traveled in that 'Christianity' was identified almost entirely with conservative politics, and at the time, through the Reagan administration with the likes of Butz, there was an almost anti-environmental viewpoint. Corporations were allowed basically to do whatever they could get away with. There was a constant dialogue of extremes between people who would support free range chickens over human life, to the heartless Corporate ultra conservatives who considered the environment a mere means to an end. Most have come to more integrated positions since then.

Christians, however, generally stayed out of the eminent discussions regarding the preservation of the environment for years. A few who called themselves 'Christian Environmentalists' might sponsor church clean-up days, or community projects, but little was focused on doctrinally. I always found that terribly odd of believers who from the Garden through Adam were instructed to name and tend the Garden and later to tend the ground and grow food and have dominion over creation, to have somehow lost that very important issue over centuries. When you live in a house, you dust and polish furniture, you vacuum and scrub, disinfect, and organize, not just from pride but because you have a concept of dignity, health, and 'caretaking' for what you have been given. Why that idea did not extend to the environment escapes me, but we have been given a very reasonable habitation called earth, which if cared for will last to the end, but instead we relegate the issue to oblivion.

Fundamental Christians often delegate the reason for non-intervention to the fact that so many environmental groups have a 'New Age' or secular attitude, and some are even occultic. For that reason , stressing 'separation' (in the world but not of the world) they vied away from concern for Environmental issues and movements, separating glass from plastic, from cardboard for recycling but little else.

The separation issue is paramount for the Christian: we are not to have blind ecumenism with others who do not believe in the "Way, the truth and the Life", those who believe that all ways are o.k., reasoning that God doesn't really care. The Word of God teaches quite differently through the Old and New Testament, that we are 'sanctified' meaning 'set apart' for the purposes of God, and that we are not to taint the truth of the Word of God with untruths, or unholy and unhealthy alliances. Some though take this to mean that we should abandon issues such as caring for the environment, but the opposite is really true. We were from Eden to care for every aspect of earthly life, caring for it as a gift from God.

For that reason, even though I am more a strict separationist than anyone would guess, I believe that unlike other efforts, March 28th EARTH HOUR should be endorsed and participated in by even conservative Christians who adhere as I do to the Word as final and perfect authority. I do not endorse all of the tenets of every person who founded or promotes earth day, nor do I claim it as a christian endeavor or an ecumenical one. I do believe though that the massive participation of common citizens, including Christians, will 'tell some bad guys off' , so to speak, about how many of us wish to keep the earth as our Messiah would have us keep it, and while we cannot and should not join hands on many things, we should take our stand to show that we have the power and strength to stand against the insurmountable.

Auschwitz & Oil

I will be turning my LIGHTS OUT for another reason: in honors of millions of human beings who died enslaved in the concentration camps, particularly the Auschwitz-Monowitz, Birkenau, Furstengrube complex, who were criminally enslaved by Oil and other companies not just from Germany but from the US. Exxon , formerly Standard Oil (note the 'double cross'), DuPont and other companies owned massive interests in a company called DeGussa, a subsidiary of I.G. Farben, a chemical company which manufactured Zyklon B, and which enslaved thousands in the production of it and other chemical products. Now the the largest corporation of all time, it still has blood on its hands, and I believe will continue to have more. They are generally thought to be unbeatable at anything.

Yet war after war is now fought with facades regarding terrorism and justice when the truth is, they are being fought for the control of Oil, and that is not really unknown, just unspoken. We use geometrically more oil than any other country, more than double Britain, and ten times China per capita. I say, we have no right just for the privilege of luxury and comfort while the rest of the world is forced to conserve. Much of what we have is not obtained fairly or even legally, but at the expense of others. We decry Hitler and the Nazis for the wasting of the Ukraine for the sake of feeding Germany, while we do the same thing here. I will be turning off my lights and electricity, not just on EARTH HOUR, but every chance I get, if nothing else to say, "because WE CAN (apologies to Chabad). I will be saying, "I can fight you and your companies no other way, I have neither money nor power that would affect one aspect of your sinister business alone, but with millions, we can instruct YOU how our planet will function and operate and not have you tell us, what we must bow down to. I will be turning my lights off to say "I do not approve, as a Christian of the rape of oil-rich companies, even if they are not Christian, just so we can live in luxuries others cannot afford." I will be saying, "I know how powerful and dangerous you are, and how little you appreciate perspectives such as mine, but we live and die alike, and with the small insignificant people of this world, we will tell YOU that our world will survive and be livable, rather that entertain your demonic attitude of 'waste everything you can, glut everything you can, use anyone you can and dispose of them-its ruined anyway."

I will be saying, though you will not understand and will mark me as naive, "I will with what little ability I have, work to protect the very fine world God created and gave me, and others, and which you are destroying." Others may have their global warming issues, but when I turn off the Lights on March 28th, it will be in honor of the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, whose light is not dimmed.

ALL LIGHTS OFF MARCH 28th. IT MATTERS.

No Thanks....to Darwin: The Ideology We Could Have Lived Without

The Survival of the Most Brutal

Archimedes once said that if he were given a stick, a fulcrum and a place to stand, he could move the world. Move the World. His experiment was only stopped by a lack of travel beyond the stratosphere, obtaining the place to stand, and a stick long enough, or we could have been done with the whole thing long before a baby named Charles Darwin was born in 1809. Two hundred years ago, though, in the shadow of the Great Enlightenment, and Cartesian thought, a small child was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire England, to a Unitarian family back when even Unitarians went to church.His name was Charles Darwin. Before he died on April 19,1892, at 83, he radically changed the world, but not for the good. Not at all.

Before beginning my argument of 'why' it was not for the good, a guess is ventured that any loyal Evolutionist or Darwinist will no doubt lambaste how ignorant I could possibly be not to see the preeminence of Darwin and his theories. yet one thing with which we might all agree is that his influence was utterly pervasive. The theories of this one man would touch business and the industrial revolution, natural sciences, psychology and sociology, religion and theology, Eugenics and Human Engineering, Social order , politics, Education and child-rearing, would revolutionize philosophy, and provide the political philosophy for Adolf Hitler's Brave New World, as well as our own. That is the degree of profundity which characterized Darwin's concepts however... they were ONLY concepts

Theories, Hypotheses and Facts

It has been approximately 28 years since leaving graduate school, yet every year I was there, one professor or another expounded on the difference between Theories, Hypotheses and Facts. Sometimes it was in the Philosophy of Science, or Contemporary Systems in Psychology or even in Research Methods, but it was so pronounced a lesson almost any psychologist or scientist can recite it , a sort of 'catechism' entry in our field.

A Hypothesis is essentially a guess or prediction, about the possible meaning and direction of a set of observed events.
B. A Theory is a well and widely tested hypothesis, in which observations and studies have been conducted validating a hypothesis or set of hypotheses, and
C. A fact is an openly observable established observation, so readily agreed upon by all that it is essentially established for all time.

There's a little variation in that, but that pretty much it: Darwin's ideas are often called Darwin's THEORY but he really was casting forth 'hypotheses', which were not yet thoroughly proven, and were certainly not fact, as the statement at the beginning of this blog notes:


Darwinian Theories and 'Social Darwinism'.

Much of the social change and scientific changes related to the social, such as 'Racial Science' or 'Eugenics' which were birthed by Darwin's ideas are subsumed under the rubric now referred to as "Social Darwinism". Among the basic tenets of traditional 'Darwinism' which are then applied to Social variables were:

1. A Universe whose origin and reason or lack of reason could exist apart from God

2. Species adaptation such that physical and other traits would be 'selected'out for
Survival of the species [Natural Selection] or 'Survival of the fittest'.

3. The Generation of 'kinds' from 'kind'- that instead of the divine creation of 'kinds' which differed from the Garden of Eden, that a biochemical process caused life and then all life emanated by mutation and adaptation.

4. "Spontaneous Generation" of the origin of the Universe: theories such as 'Big Bang' emanated from his theories.

While the buzzword 'Evolution' is what Darwin is most equated with, he is responsible for far more than that idea, and his ponderings of what man is or might be have effected literally the entirity of Western academic and political thinking . Even though approximately 170 years later a 'transitional type' has never been found (which would have to exist for his theories to be true), they nevertheless, as his quote indicates, took wing and became 'established fact' without confirmation.


This consideration of Darwinian Evolutionary thinking is no dialogue between blind belief in a myth of Creation vs. Science: those philosophical differences are portrayed by academic snobbery as that dialectic: their unquestioned belief in 'Science' as the means and way to truth is not a Philosophy of Science, but a blind 'Scientism' in which the idea of man-made methodologies and procedures, like incantations and 'conjuring' lead to the 'truth', although they are also the modern Pilates asking constantly 'What is Truth?' , constantly changing their opinions every 5 years or so. Indeed one of the main characteristics of a 'model' or theory of man is termed 'knowability'---(i.e. Can man in whatever aspect of study: psychology, sociology etc be absolutely 'known' or is he forever 'unknowable?' ) So one of the first things Darwin accomplished, was to put into action outside ivory towers, the concept that man could exist outside of God,that God was not necessary to consider in all things, and that the carnal nature of man was a product of his environment and 'caused' him to survive, and that ergo, it was good. Two of the most basic fallacies of Darwinianism are that:

A. All life developed from a simple structure and
B. That behavior will affect genetic structure. (Think about it: genetic structure does not change in and individual or group by 'adaptive behavior', and 'breeding' in 5000 years, has not lent towards a more intelligent population, but we are just as diverse as ever.)

When one applieds the parameters of Adaptation, Survival of the fittest and evolution, micro or macrocosmic, to the Social aspects of mankind, one finds a philosophy of a 'deity-free' value system, relativism, without certain innate human values, in which even among children the 'valued' child is not the sensitive or well-acting child but the one who aggressively pushes toward survival, whether it be on a test, a playground, or relationship. In Darwinian thought, that child would hold the greater value for the species, and if we had been 'in the wild' would have been more likely to continue existing. One Nazi thinker suggested in the extreme that children such as retarded children were never 'meant to live', and therefore society is excused from their care. As children grow in the quiet by pervasive shadow of Darwinianism, they find in this and the last century a reward for pushing ahead, aggressiveness, overthrow,'winner-take-all' behavior. Corporations today court those types, and the corporate world is the clearest example of the milieu of Social Darwinism one can observe.


Survival, Success and 'Good'

Survival and Success became the premiere parameters of this new worldview and destiny. If one survived it was because of 'adaptive' traits and characteristics. This would later translate into a 'theology' of Humanism in which whoever 'won out' was the 'good' person, and the concepts of morality, law, and empathy and love were human inventions to be discarded. Gone too was the concept of kindness and respect for the other, or any idea that lives which could not contribute economically to a social group had value, though Martin Buber attempted to resurrect 'divine' thinking in his theories of the I-Thou relationship.

. In Nazi Germany, in the T4 Euthanasia Program, over 64,000 "mental defectives" [Developmentally delayed, Psychotics, Alcoholics and even Epileptics and the chronically Unemployed and homeless] were killed to clear out hospitals for the use of the Wehrmacht, and to purify the bloodline of the German race of imperfections. Rather than reason upon 'the value of human life' or the essential sovereignty of God in deciding who should live or die, the ethic became survival of the fittest among individuals, among the group or community, and hence for the State. "Mental Defectives" were renamed 'useless feeders' and a new concept by a physician named Binder was posited in which there could be "Life Unworthy of Life" or lebensunwerte leben which was defined by usefulness to society and ability to produce and generate profit. The ultimate application of 'social Darwinism' was certainly this, for the Third Reich believed that the killing of 'inferiors' would increase the Survival probabilities of the Aryan nation as a whole in a total utilitarianism.


Consider for a moment whether the Third Reich's Darwinian integration was an isolated incident in History, or whether Darwin's principles affected far more. The truth is, while Darwin may have 'winced' at the overuse of his ideas or even corruption of them, the demonic wings which carried them far virtually changed the whole of Western Thinking and Science, Politics, Theology and the Social Sciences worldwide. A few areas of Darwin's influence and their outcome are described below:



Racial Science, Eugenics & the Third Reich

I posted a comment not to long ago on a news article in which I mentioned the relationship of Darwin to the Third Reich and received an email from a fellow who found it incredulous that I should in any way associate the two. To the unstudied person, even a scholar, it must sound quite preposterous as these days everything someone does not like is attributed to 'Nazism'. The truth is though, the foundation for apologetics of the Third Reich, its philosophical and 'doctrinal' underpinnings are firmly rooted in Darwinism, and even the philosophies, societies and 'dark arts' which contributed to coloring the Third Reich were not without the foundation of Darwinism. Nietzsche and Gobineau as well as Wagner were influence by Darwin, first hand, and all contributed to the concept of Racial Science in the value of producing an 'optimally functioning' and genetically perfect Master Race.

The concept of a 'Super-man' [Ubermensch] and Master Race [Herrenrasse or Herrenvolk] was developed first not by Hitler or Goebbels but by Nietzsche and taken to the limits when a group of zoologists and biologists at University of Jena in the 1920s applied Darwin's concepts and those of racial theorists and Theosophists to an applied science which came to be called 'Racial Science'. Racial Science produced such greats as Binder, and Mengele, and scientists throughout Germany and Poland, who went after the genetically perfect race and type, the end of which was Auschwitz and the Death Camps of Europe. Shall we thank Darwin and believe the theories he posited had merit for producing a better world?


Racial Science , Natural Selection, and Social Darwinism were so central to Reich values and concepts that they cannot really be argued any longer. Those wishing further reading in the area might consider Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Aug 1, 1994) by Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, Christian Pross, et al.;From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, E… (Hardcover)
by Richard Weikart; Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Streicher, and Doctors of Death by Aziz. Darwin virtually laid the base for Nazism and Hitler himself integrated and mentioned Darwin's ideas often. While one may argue that Darwin was not the only influence, we shall see shortly that he was the foundation of many of the other influences on the Eigenvelt of the Third Reich. Continuing past Nazism (and during) Racial Science continued to influence American and British Eugenics, and was the foundation of Sanger's Birth Control movement ending in "The Negro Project" which came to be "Planned Parenthood". [Don't write, just study]. Further, Darwinian Racial Science became the foundation for mass 'euthanasias' and sterilizations here in the US, and persons involved in the movement included Davies, Terman [the son of the Terman of Stanford-Binet tests, and ex-President of Stanford] and many other eminent persons. Today's Human Engineering is only occasionally questioned, but the same value system prevails: the quest for the perfect person.

----------------------------------------------------
Psychology & Social Sciences

Did Darwin influence Psychology? So much so that his underpinnings in the field are utterly unquestioned. Racial Science went on to influence "Ethology" and one of the premiere proponents was Konrad Lorenz with the imprinting of ducks. Lorenz was a Nazi Party member, not only in name only but a proponent. (See "Did Racial Science have a grandchild in the psychology Department?"-this blog). Darwin influenced Galton who took Racial science to new heights in the study of eminence and "Individual Differences" which the area would eventually be called: the modern equivalent is Personality Psychology. The testing of Personality and Mental IQ and traits is a direct outgrowth of Racial Science and Eugenics the child of Darwin, as most tests outside of Piagetian measures were developed to weed out 'defectives' for the benefit of all or at least to increase and enhance the development of 'superior types'.


But Darwinian concepts are so entrenched in Psychology and Sociology now, that even the unproven constructs provide the basis of most reasoning about individuals and groups. The notion of the 'group' as a survival mechanism is well known and is taught as fact. I remember one fellow in an Honors Seminar who questioned 'evolutionary predispositions' and was mocked. My field earlier in my career was
grief and bereavement and the classic volumes in the field by Bowlby and Ainsworth
included the positing of 'adaptive' mechanisms in grief such as keeping individuals tied to the crowd although that never sounded too logical to me given that most mourning persons wish to be left alone. We taught 'searching and yearning' in mourning as adaptive and survival mechanisms in the same vein and never questioned the prior Darwinian concept, but rather assumed that it was 'true'. A fact, beyond theory. Comparative Psychology and EAB (Experimental Analysis of Behavior) fundamentally based upon the ability to compare lower species with higher level species: if a white rat responds to a 'variable interval schedule' then we assume it will apply to humans and readily jump to conclusions. Concepts such as 'Self-Esteem' come from the same sort of belief: highly functioning people must be successful people who feel good about themselves, although that is a shallow idea and by the end of the era of 'self-esteem' research, it was found that self-esteem was basically pride and too much of it was potentially pathological!


Psychology with its Darwinian undercurrent has done away with 'holistic' values such as love, honor, etc and replaced them with 'operational definitions' such as 'altruistic behavior', or 'attachment behavior', losing the person in the fray. Many more examples could be given but for the moment it is facile to say that all of Psychology, Cognition and perception, Social, Experimental Analysis of Behavior,even Clinical and Counseling derive principles and techniques from Darwinism and early Racial science which re-defined forever the Person, Society, and the nature of Life.

Business and Industry

Business and Industry even before Darwin had little trouble instituting competitive survival techniques and "king of the Hill' tactics: it had just not until Darwin been considered a natural and good thing. Before Darwin it carried names like 'greed' or 'avarice' or selfishness. The end of Darwin's life though saw the Industrial Revolution and his theories of Survival of the Fittest met perfectly with the dog-eat-dog value system of the Industrial Revolution. Because God could be dismissed in Cartesian enlightenment and Darwin selection from the picture, man could take comfort in redefining business values to an ethical vacuum in which anything was acceptable apart from moral consideration.

This philosophy has so grown that during the Shoah era, for the sake of free labor, even US companies participated in the funding of the Reich, slavery and genocide, and even experimentation on victims. (e.g. Bayer and the women 'subjects' from Auschwitz).
DeHomag, the branch of IBM continued during the Shoah to do business with the Nazis against ourlaws, producing the genocide-facilitating Hollerith Machine and Mass production. Ford also contributed to the cause and aided in the development of the Volkswagen and mini-tanks. A constant stream of Wall Street money aided the Reich before and after the war via the Ruhr Industrialists, and under IG Farben, a german company, American Companies such as DuPont, and standard Oil (now Exxon) used slave labor at their facilities in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. The Silesian Steel Mills included some formidable American business affiliations via US Steel, whose former CEO, Myron Taylor, friend of FDR supposedly represented the Jews at the Evian Conference where few solutions were found, and continued Vatican ties including obtaining an honorary citizenship for FDR in Rome in 1943-4.


The whole concept of the Human Being having any intrinsic value in business was gone, and has been gone since, with wanton spending and corruption, participation in genocide, US war involvement (including Oil Companies in Iraq via the "Oil Law" of 2007) Back in the 1970s, the death of many infants in impoverished nations by companies such as Nestle who sold mothers unaffordable formula and stopped them from nursing just to make a buck. Bayer, DuPont, Exxon, Ford, IBM, and many other US companies profited off of Death camp slavery; but so did the Church! Even the Church has been influenced by a moral ethic of natural selection. If I have no sympathy for bail-outs of irresponsible corporations, forgive. They have become the starring poster child for Darwinian thought and values.



Other Academic Areas

Other Academic areas readily and proudly admit their Darwinian influence: Biology, Zoology, and all the life Sciences. Medicine has so embraced Darwinism as foundational that every textbook includes 'adaptation' explanations of behavior, genetics, disease etc. Even in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the modern move to 'bond' with infants comes from Lorenz's studies of imprinting adapted by Klaus and Kennell of Case Western, resulting in worldwide 'rooming-in' with new infants. While that is a happy result for mothers, the idea of 'critical periods' in humans is still ethologically based, and traces again back to the ideas of Darwin, in which human mothers are reduced to the level of human animals and many today in animal rights movements (we should all desire the right treatment of animals) do not distinquish between Humans and others whom they consider without question of the same root.

Anthropology is utterly darwinian based. The earth is millions of years old: carbon dating techniques, although based upon the fallacy of measuring time periods by our conjectures, which is a snake swallowing its tail, perpetuate the 'primordial soup' idea emanating from Darwin of single cells diving and mutating into many forms. It is impossible to mention every field, but one can easily see that no field honored by most Universities and Labs has gone unchanged, and yet still, to this day, Darwinism has the fundamental error of no transitional forms ever found, which in essence negates the theory.

Politics & Economy

Just a brief mention, that Social Darwinism has also spoiled the idea forever that there can be honor or justice in such endeavors as the political arena or Western or Worldwide commerce. Survival of the Fittest with no holds barred attitudes of the person as object is commonplace. Elections become corrupt on every side for fear of advantage by another. With the adulterated blessing of Darwinism, we have cut out that which offends: conscience. We have made it a modern 'sin' not to get the other guy and hurt him before he hurts you, indeed we consider it foolish and insane. Modern reasoning is: 'sure it is wrong, but if I don't someone else will': it is the Azazel of American Market. Our economy is collapsing because we embraced Social Darwinism with profits and comfort and survival more important than life. And still we consider him a great hero, as we send billions of dollars to companies who have failed because of this 'doctrine'. And we will lose.

Other Societal Influences

There were almost no abortions before Darwin, although the fate of children was often poor. Today we are topping 43.2 million since 1973 although even 'Roe' has changed her mind. We have participated in killing 43 million children who by now would have been taxpayers in a failing Social Security system, because we adopted the Darwinian concept of "life unworthy of life". We value children no longer intrinsically but upon how much they will cost financially and personally. "I just couldn't afford a baby right now is the cry on the way to the clinics. Many of those clinics are run by the descendants of Sanger's Eugenic clinics, Planned Parenthood. They have in turn defined their 'product' as something other than life.


So, Thank you, Darwin. Education has travelled far since the Scopes trial: instead of the young evolutionist on trial for teaching we descended from apes, we put on trial and exile Christian and Orthodox Jewish professors who espouse Intelligent Design or a God created world with souls. Evolution is taught without hesitation as fact in K12, implying to our children that their lives have no intrinsic value and now teaching them not right and wrong but how to succeed by overthrow. The result thanks to really the misuse of Darwinism is geometric increases in drugs and suicides among the young and mental hospitals without empty beds. Even tradition psychological approaches have been replaced by 'drug therapy': the use of psychotropics to sedate and control 'patients': never any real therapy, and that matters little because the theories there, based upon Darwinism do not work. Our Medicine and modern psychological methods are all a product of 'evolutionary' reasoning. We have replaced the Third Reich's T4 program with our own: we do not kill them as we characterize them as a form of 'sub-life', but give them a living death, a meaningless and unproductive life as products of an industry for which they become victim for someone else's profit margin
.

Was Darwin Good?

This may sound like a bizarre question, but you never hear it asked. "Was Darwin Good?". Well, his theories survived, so by his musings, many would say they had value. His toll on society though was the most destructive overall influence of any generation at any time including the worst beasts history has given us including the Borgias, the Huns, Prince Machiavelli or Vlad Tepes and so on. So, in my slightly 'sardonic' opinion, I would have to consider that because of Darwinian concepts, regardless of whether one finds them acceptable or not, good or bad, that his theories have either caused or influenced the following:

Racial Science, The Third Reich, 11.5 million deaths in the Holocaust, Mass Euthanasias of the mentally challenged, The "Negro Project" of Sanger to reduce the AfroAmerican population in urban areas, the mass sterilization of the retarded in the US, Eugenics and Human Engineering with surrogate parents, 'embryo farms', 43 million abortions in the US alone in 36 years, Industries and Corporations without ethics, increases in slavery, increases in teen suicides, worldwide Genocides, the Testing movement for 'weeding out defectives', the use of aborted infants for medical school experimentation on stem cell research, and the growing consciousless imperialism in a 'Survival of the most Brutal' in both war and the conquest of nations for Oil. I think I will say, No. I don't think Darwin's influence was good. Not at all.

Is There More than Meets Our Eye?: Darwin's Academic and 'Doctrinal' Family Tree

Did Darwin act alone in the great societal upheaval and redefinitions of Life and the value of Human beings? Essentially, at first yes, followed by a quick 'no'. When researching Darwin and Racial Science and Darwin's influence I found my own area of training had many of the 'fathers' of psychological research and testing tracing back to Darwin and the Eugenicists. Then, I found that Darwin also influence Statistics the new Mathematical field of the late 1800s and since. Darwin influenced Galton, and both he and Galton influence Pearson, the father of modern correlation methods, and Cyril Burt who developed factor analysis, both of which were used in Racial Science efforts to develop tests to separate 'imperfections' in their eyes in the human race. The same people had ties to Theosophy, an occultic endeavor. One discovers that the Eugenicists were tied into the same 'influence network', and that Karl Pearson became a second generation 'hub' of influence----including in men involved in modern Bible translations! Consider the following network, which is only a preliminary study:




( a few arrows are missing as Darwin continued to influence almost all the on chart long after his demise, and a number of formidable names are not included. )

Now to be truly 'paranoid' one would have to say these folks were all connected, and then find out they were not, but readers in each of the fields mentioned will find the crossovers and mutual influence patterns. Almost all trace back to Darwin and his theories, which even he would not put forth as boldly as later followers. Those ideas fit neatly into modern 'occultic' or 'New Age' (it isn't new) groups such as Blavatsky's Theosophical Circle, which included members such as Sir Conan Doyle and Bishops Westcott and Hort who produced a new and dissensioned version of the New Testament. The pattern shows that many of the time influenced the altered disciplines in Nazi Academics, but those influences carry through today, here in the US.

I will not posit more than that, or who they may have been ( I have a strong suspicscion): some affiliations were tightly woven and others were peripheral, but today, without even tracing the roots of our ideas and theories and textbook knowledge of our Theological doctrines and academic departments, we have now those disciplines divorced from their origins. I took a doctorate in Personality Psychology and for 30 years, although it had been referred to as "individual differences" I did not know, nor do most that it's roots were in Racial Science. I took 28 grad hours in Statistics and did not know that Pearson was a major Eugenicist clamoring for the 'purification' of the human race. I did not know when I used Factor Analysis to develop several scales that Burt had developed them to partial out 'defectives'. Or that Galton, always taught as the father of the testing movement was primarily interested in producing only 'Ubermenschen', genetically, but that was why he had an interest in 'family eminence' over generations, and tests of strength and ability. I did not know when I studied doctrine and Bible history later, that a number of well known foundational 'heroes' dabbled or were entrenched in the occult, or that leaders in business might be. I suspect we will not be turning back to a day and time when we see the intrinsic value of each human life, just as it is, as a spectacular work of God, not to be emulated, reproduced, or 'cloned' but loved and appreciated.

Today, because of Darwin: this is who we are; this is where we are: this is what we know, (with apologies to the writers of the old series 'Millennium').When we were not looking, Thanks to Darwin, we let the reigns of our world be handed into the hands of heartless men, whose aim was power and wealth even at the cost of believing we had souls and worth. So, considering all of Darwin's 'Accomplishments' I would have to say,

Thank-you,Charles Darwin...for nothing---that is what is left: for example I can no longer sit at my computer and write without having to protect it from someone who thinks they are more 'fit' than I am, and mere free speech and writing have become so cut-throat that talented artists and authors are giving up. I cannot think about the number of children who because of Racial Science's euphemism 'genetic engineering' will never know who they are or where they came from, and I can't tell you what that will do to a society. Thank-you, Darwin, for a godless world where no human life has any innate value anymore: where the song at the Universities is, "its all relative". Thank-you, Darwin, for a nation which survived until recently, at the culmination of your theories, which is now neck deep in the blood of our sons and daughters and other peoples' sons and daughters, and we want more blood, more of what other people and nations have, because we are, we think, more 'fit for survival' than those starving third world types.

Thank you Darwin, for making Genocide a business where the terror in the eyes of victims losing their lives and dreams and loves is never felt again---where my worth as an artist or poet depends on my physical appearance, size or health, or age. Thanks Darwin, for a world where 'anything goes', including God's Word in 2000 translations and nobody trusts anyone or anything anymore. Marriages don't last, children don't matter,you have granted us the hymn of Epicureans: eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die'.

We have created with the theories of Darwin, who towards the end of his life began to doubt all (that is not a myth, Snopes), and would never have applied his own theories so far, we have created a 'Brave New World' and such people in it. They say in the end Darwin clung to the Word of God, studying it daily, with the expectation of something beyond what he had seen. While he did not renounce his theories publicly as some suggest, he certainly did not make the religion out of them that modern man has. I am reminded of the words to a song which says, "We in our foolishness, thought we were wise (1)....


_______________________________________
1) Michael Card 'God's own Fool


ekbest

Are Faith Based Initiatives Constitutional? Part II

This post was also published as a blog in Herald Times Reporter, Manitowoc, WI

The History of the Church in Germany, is one of both Protestantism (mostly Lutheran and Brethren) and Catholicism and the interplay between the Church in its various forms and the State. At the turn of the century, German Church-State relations were what they had been for several hundred years: a close, or rather too close alliance between the Church, particularly Protestantism and more particularly Lutheranism, and the State Government. Earlier in German History, the lines had waxed and waned as to the degree of State vs Church control in a number areas of life, and historical German provinces had been ruled by the principle of "Cuis Regio, Eius Regio" meaning His Reign, His Religion in which the Religion of the reigning Prince or Governor was accepted as the State or Provincial Religion for affairs of the State, such that if a sovereign prince was Catholic, then Catholic doctrine and teaching prevailed in the Court, Schools and other institutions of the region; if Protestant, then Protestant doctrine and practice. This rather iron clad Church State principle continued, but after Luther, Germany was characterized by the eminence of Lutheran Protestantism firmly in alliance with the German Government, a principle which held true throughout the reign of the Kaisers.

The Early 20th Century and German Church State Relations

By the early 20th century the German government rather unthinkingly dealt with the population hand in hand with Lutheranism, and since Lutheranism was so widespread, there was little controversy about the blurred lines between Church and State. The State, or Federal Government, even under the Kaisers, thought nothing of supporting Nursing colleges, Orphanages, Church Schools or other Church Benevolences, and the Church in turn strongly supported the government in a consistent working relationship. However, at the end of WWI, the "War to End all Wars", both Germany and the Church were despairing, as the nation met with the War Guilt Clause of the Versailles Treaty, and worldwide nations called in short term loans, holding Germany responsible for starting the war and for damages, and the result on the German domestic and Economic scene was poverty, unemployment, disillusionment and outrage, as many tried to rebuild after the war.

The Weimar Republic and Catholic Socialism

On the heels of the war reparations, the new government, the Weimar Republic was constituted, although it was rather far from being a Republic in the traditional sense, run by Catholic Centre Party (or Central Party), more characterized by Socialism than anything else. Further, with predominately Catholics in control, some Protestants feared the incursion of the Vatican into German politics and a breaking of the ties and favor the Protestants had up till then enjoyed. In the midst of the disillusionment, many conservative and even fascist elements stood in protest to the Weimar, and in Bavaria, in the 1920s, the National Socialists or Nazi Party grew into a 2.5 million member society garnering much power, with a stronghold in Southern Germany, opposing the Weimar on every hand feeling that they had been responsible for the admission of guilt and subsequent debt that Germany had incurred. It was in this stressful desperate situation of a failed economy, and global embarrassment that Hitler and the Nazis came to power, garnering in ten years a change from less than 3% of the vote, to almost 80% of the vote, promising law and order, prosperity, a return to German heritage and values, prosperity and the latest in technology to lead Germany back to the heights of national prominence.



The Nazi Party and the Church

The National Socialists (Nazis) garnered that power in part by making 'deals' with everyone: bartering concessions on all levels of German society, even toward communists, to appease all: labor unions were promised government aid although it turned into replacement of private trade unions with Reich trade unions. The Church was promised the renewal of former ties and funding including e.g. Pastor's pension funds paid by the state, and renewed funding and sponsored schools, but Church members and clergy did not foresee the government control which almost changed German Lutheranism to an unyielding beast. The few voices who understood the dynamics were quickly silenced.

The Vatican, regaining power after the Lateran treaties had begun to make concordats or agreements of cooperation with governments all over Europe and while the famous 1933 Berlin Concordat is seen as cementing Holy See-Nazi relations, the truth is it was merely the zenith of consolidation of several lesser concordats which had already been made with Bavaria and other regions of Germany. Hitler claimed Catholic upbringing and early in the Reich used religious rhetoric although his aim was almost completely political, and he was never given to a Catholic or Protestant controlled State. (His actual beliefs were a synthesis of Volkish Mysticism and politics.) Hitler intended to use the church as a vehicle, to bring about the agenda of the NSDAP, intending after 'taming' it , to eventually, after winning the war, do away with it considering the Church body a moribund entity, which would not fit into his revitalized Germany, nor his new religion of the Volk whose head was the Fuhrer. He considered the new synthesis would have a twofold purpose of satisfying religious sentiment with a return to Volkische archetype and accomplishing the goals of the Reich.



The "Gleichschaltung" of the Church in Nazi Germany

In this short space, one cannot consider the whole of the great 'coordination' process of Nazi Ideals to the Church (gleichschaltung), but from early, Hitler and Goebbels designed an infiltration and adaptation which would eventually overthrow the Church. He began by appointing Kerrl, the Reich Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs by 1935¹ only 2 years after taking office and a Reich Bishop, Mueller to oversee internal Church affairs in defense of the Nazis. Consolidating the Presidency and the Chancellery, and suspending German Civil Rights almost entirely, and completely for German Jews gave the newly constituted Federal Government a total sovereignty. The Lutheran Synod eventually would split into the Deutsche Christen, the portion of Lutherans who gave themselves entirely over to the Nazis to enjoy full benefits of the State, the Confessing Church of Barth, Neimoller and Bonhoeffer who saw constant imprisonments, executions and church and seminary closings and confiscations, and a small group of 'partial politics' the Thuringians.² Before the end of the Shoah, the Church was silenced, 'disembodied', and rendered fruitless. Nazi Oaths were instituted for church positions, sermons censored, compromises even in doctrine demanded, and freedom of belief was non-existent and those in opposition persecuted or killed.



Faith Based Initiatives and the State Church of the Nazis

You may wonder at this point why I draw the comparison between the State overthrow of the Church in the Third Reich and the institution of Obama's "Faith Based Initiative" Board, and see little parallel but there are significant and horrible parallels.

First, in Germany as in the US, there was supposed to be separation of Church and State, meaning that the Church was not to overthrow the government and use it for its own purposes, and likewise the government was to keep its nose out of the Church's business and governance. Most do not know but even birth, death and marriage certificates used to be in both in the US and Germany , entirely in the hand of the Church, not the State. Overtime, in both nations and others, the exclusive rights of the Church over affairs of life and death, were displaced by governmental control.

When Hitler took office, he understood as did his propaganda minister Goebbels, that the Church was a powerful influence against an oppressive government. The only way to eradicate that influence, most despots have understood is to either so water down Church influence that it has none, or to make it into an arm of the State so that its power directs the good, benefit and agenda of the State and not the Church's purpose in the world.



The Obama "Reich Ministry" of Faith Initiatives

The Christian Church and much of Judaism though has given itself to modern ecumenism, although it is actually taught to do the opposite:"friendship with the world is enmity with God" and there are constant admonitions in both Old and New Testaments to 'come ye out from them and be ye separate" or not to be 'unequally yoked'. Still, we live in a day and age where Biblical foundations are erased. In establishing a governmental overseer board to observe, judge, coordinate, fund, or even reward faith based activities, is:

1. UNCONSTITUTIONAL: There is no consensus or role of the government EVER to even look at individually run faith based programs. The headship of those programs is not to be the government but the Church or Synagogue they emanate out of. How can a Christian, called to purity of doctrine, consult with or seek to even discuss a Muslim ministry, or vice versa? Or a Hindu, or Jehovah's Witness ministry? We are called to decry their doctrinal errors, and win them to Christ, not ask them to look in on our ministries while we look in on theirs. And lest this be considered a bigoted approach, so do most of their religions! Understanding this, our founding fathers built protections into the Constitution so that the government could not begin to say yea or nay to religious activities of all kinds.

Article the third [Amendment I]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

A government council even, an appointed group violates this law as it immediately declares the prohibition of free exercise of Religion by even bringing it under government scrutiny or attempts to intervene EVEN IF IT IS FOR THE GOOD!
Further, Obama's Reichministry, has as an objective the coordination of faith based initiatives and that is a very dangerous thing, for it assumes that a Muslim named Patel, or an Evangelical name Hunter, or a Homosexual who works in a youth ministry would
ever come to a righteous consensus on how that should be done and even if they could, it is not the purpose nor right of the government to even begin a process of that sort. It is unthinkable and wholly UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

This is not a little 'manger scene' issue where atheist groups do not want Jesus Mary and Joseph on City Hall lawns. This is a change in the structure of Church State relations, that while the governments be different, and the times be different still contain the same basic error of Church State relations: they may speak to one another, they may advise and even influence but neither is to reign over the other. Our Kingdom, so aptly put is not of this world: theirs is. How can a failing earthly government think to coordinate a food bank at the local Christian Church with one at the Mosque? This is not disallowing those fine efforts: they are indeed a function of the Church: but they are not to be encumbered with government regulation, intrusion, allowance or disallowance etc because the founding fathers very clearly understood the extreme danger of a government overstepping its bounds of headship in a society.

The board that Obama has proposed is not only unconstitutional but unworkable: it contains Eboo Patel, a Muslim, another Gay man who works with youth, a National Baptist and Southern Baptist leader, an Evangelical controversial pastor, a Catholic Priest, etc, but one thing they share in common: they are all overlooking the unconstitutional nature of their position, and they are all extremely liberal even compared to their denominations and agree to across the board ecumenism. They do not represent approximately 70 million conservative Christians, nor any faith of any kind such as Orthodox Judaism, or even Islamic fundamentalism who do not believe in joint efforts in benevolent projects. This is a dangerous, unconstitutional foundation of setting an organization to oversee religious activity by the government constituted of nonrepresentative diverse faiths and homosexuals, which is implicitly declaring that those are the values the nation would set in the fledgling steps toward a state Church. It is a dangerous and illegal move.

For Nazi Germany, it ended in a church which could not even bring itself to repent of genocide. It ended in Nazi loyalty oaths before one could take church positions. It ended in persecutions and deaths to those who stood against those fine government 'coordinations' of faith efforts. Are the times really that different? Compare the parameter of prewar Germany and our own: we have differences, but the similarities should alarm any in the Church who love freedom of faith , teaching and worship.
_____________________________________________________________________________________-
¹Nizkor [http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/imt/ftp.py?imt//tgmwc/tgmwc-04/tgmwc-04-28.10]
² Peet, Garnet. History of the Protestant Church in the Third Reich. On Spindleworks.com
elizkbest

Faith Based Initiatives & the Theatre of the Absurd

Watching the Formation of an American State Church
Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

The past few Presidents have used words like "dialogue", "points of light" and the most eminent Washington doublespeak "faith based initiatives" to try and find some way to deal with religious concerns in the United States. If they could, no doubt if there could be a consensus, they would form a State Church here and now, although all would be quick to deny that motive; for some it as been only subconscious. In truth, though, 'while we were sleeping', the foundations of a State Church with the government as head has already been laid through the 5013c Incorporation of Churches, in which the following have been instituted as substitutes for Biblical Church Structure and obedience:

1. Mandatory Registration with the State as non-profit corporations instead of a living body of Christ

2. Clandestine censure of sermons by IRS definitions of what may be said in the pulpit

3. The mandate of a national flag which is defined by the US Flag code as a 'living thing' and indicates US authority where it is placed.

4. The appointment of a board and chairperson opposed to deacons and a bishop

5. The taxation of church property

6. The instigation of income tax on church salaries


7. Government aid, approval/disapproval and intervention

8. Infringements demanding publication/free perusal of membership lists, budgets, etc

9. Subjugation to building codes and regulations including asbestos removal, wheelchair ramps even without handicap members, even for tiny churches, fire regulations etc.*

10. The REQUIRED licensure of Pastors with specified requirements including the purchasing of 'right to do business' licenses in some cities.

Theatre of the Absurd

Now,its been a number of years in my youth before salvation that I read prolifically in the "Theatre of the Absurd". In the sixties, the Theatre of the Absurd was a move in drama, a branch off of existentialism which presented 'slice of life' portrayals of the oxymoronic nature of the human condition, particularly how absurd the world was, where we can ignore the great horrible aspects and truths of life rushing at us, and embrace the tiny inconsequential trivia of the day. (e.g. "the Rhinoceros"by Ionesco) or "The Sandbox" by Edward Albee. ) If my comparison seems odd, perhaps I could use Jesus' comparison of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel': the horrid, creeping mausoleum vine of a State Church is well upon us, couched in terms of incorporation and initiative and we are sleeping, and calmly convincing ourselves that nothing of that sort could upset our coffee and doughnuts at Sunday school.

Faith Based Initiatives and Points of Light

Today, Obama announced the furtherance of "Faith Based Initiatives" going a radical step further,although so couched in the language of jargon that hardly any will notice it, but if it comes to fruition will lead to a very serious blow to freedom in the Churches in the US. George Bush first began as his father did to 'reward' churches and ministries, not only Christian but other faiths, with his 'points of light' program and it seemed like nothing more than a positive rewarding of good works. When churches and ministries though become incorporations of the state, the notion that the government might 'officially' reward stellar ministries,carries its penumbra of the right to denounce certain ministries though that is not spoken. Likewise the 'sanctioning' of certain churches almost always is according to secularly defined characteristics: there are no 'points of light' whose main aim is to teach the Gospel and the blood of Christ excellently, nor will there ever be. It redefines good in the church as 'good works', which true Christians and Jews understand is not at all 'all there is to it'.

Exemption Requirements


To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

Almost no discussion came up about faith based initiatives during the Bush administration, although several churches were met with IRS interventions such as an Episcopal Church with a liberal pastor in CA who criticized Cheney from the pulpit. Later criticism came as faith based initiatives were criticized when the Executive office declared executive privilege and could not be sued for decisions regarding such.

Little was said nationally other than those issues, but by the end of the Bush administration, many church members and officials were beginning to question what direction the Church-State relation was going.

Obama and New Initiatives: Blind Ecumenism & Losing the right over Hiring and Firing
I had a pretty serious hunch that Mr. Obama, a former church organizer among Chicago churches would probably not be a premiere advocate of church independence from the state. He is focused on organizing networks of support for such issues as health care, poverty, community projects etc. He claims even now to be a Christian although the first days of his administration he removed restrictions on abortion funding which will result in an estimated 125000 deaths a year without time to blink, and appointed a gay bishop to pray at his inauguration. So far not so good. It is not fair to use the rubric Christian and believe and do the opposite of what Christians throughout history have believed. "Christian" does not mean "nice" although many use the words interchangeably. Christianity sets forth exact beliefs, and he has by his actions denied many and even publicly ridiculed portions of Scripture. (See Obama, Sermon on the Mount)
Nonetheless, being merely a lukewarm or convenient Christian is not new in campaigns nor in the White House but the new Obama Initiative plan is downright frightening, partly because of what it is proposing and partly because it will go unnoticed by massive numbers of naive Christians and others who do not understand the danger of the State making decisions and having a voice in the House of God.

The Most Dangerous Change

One suggested change which should send chills up every pastor's spine is that he wishes to take away the exception churches and synagogues have enjoyed in the hiring of persons of certain backgrounds and lifestyles which are anathema to the beliefs of the church. Obviously one of the main issues is that if Obama gets his way, local Baptist and Pentecostal Churches will have to hire pro-choice or even homosexual persons if qualified, or face lawsuits which could bankrupt many church budgets. Now most fundamental Baptists for example are not likely to seek positions in Metropolitan Community Churches (the main 'gay' church) but it is not unlikely in brutal protests that many gay people will indeed push the issue. It could so change the timbre and nature of the church, already suffering in this country from a malaise and 'over-psychologization', that the society would change, and real Christians WILL be forced at least semi-underground and later worse. The good effect is persecution usually results in a stronger real church, but do we have to be dealt that blow to surrender to the real gospel?

Back to the Nazis and the Church

Here begins the litany again: if WWII and the Shoah did one thing more than any other it showed us the nature of how the Church and Society becomes something else altogether, something horrible. Except for scattered individuals the Church did not stand up against Hitler: he bought them. Before the great split between the Confessing Church of Niemoller and Bonhoeffer and the Deutsche Christen, certain governmental structures or 'faith based initiatives' were put in gear: the great gear of the Gleichschaltung. The first thing Hitler did was meet with church leaders to try to bring them and others who might one day pose opposition into a great 'coordination'--making deals across the board, keeping everyone happy. He espoused Christianity but never really believed it, and had a dichotomy between his speech and actions not like the current President. He appeared to many a nice fellow: wanting to make amends and make all Germans content so none saw the soon coming consequence. He was technology oriented, and sought the allegiance of the church in his 'repair' of the defeated nation. He began by promising to pay Pastor's Pensions in exchange for small favors like the display of the Nazi flag on the altar,(1) although before the process finished, he sent his men to sit in on and censor sermons, literally requiring the altering of the teaching of the gospel in the most perverse way ever, changing even the meaning and purpose of Jesus and Paul into a prototypical Aryan Master (from the Aramaic part of Israel he considered Aryan), and Paul into an Introverted confused, deceived and self-deprecating rabbi whose teachings were dangerous.(2)

Some of the State tactics which were used in the morphing of independent Protestantism and Catholicism into a State Church were:

1. The institution of a REICHBISHOP which oversaw Church-State Matters

2. The Erasure and Censure of the Old Testament in Practice, Worship and influence

3. The use of Church/doctrinal language reinterpreted into State/Aryan goals

4. The translation of Biblical figures into National Socialist Ideals and Archetypes

5. The State funding reinstituted for Protestant Schools and Hospitals and Orphanages

6. The State takeover of Nursing, which had been under the auspices of the Church

7. The separation of and exclusion of the Jews, Mischlings and Jewish Converts first from practice such as separate communions and later from attendance and membership.

8. The takeover of Theological Training including the disallowing of the teaching of Hebrew

9. The formation under the Institute for the Study of German History and Culture (Nazi enculturation) under Kittel and Grundman of a Theological Think Tank with some authority to revamp doctrine, Bible translation, Lexicons, and Institutions.

10. The requirement of Party Membership and an Oath.

All the churches which were out in the open which met with no great violence were State incorporations under the Nazis. When the positions became so intolerable to true believers, it was at the point of a Synod which was to be held to require a loyalty oath to Hitler and the Reich, before Jesus Christ. That event lit the flame for the writing of the Barmen Declaration written by Karl Barth, a Swiss-born German Theologian exiled back to Switzerland, and others declaring the 'church's one foundation, of Jesus Christ our LORD'. Many pastors were arrested, and the split became volatile as both sides required the statement of allegiances to either Christ the Messiah or Hitler the Fuhrer. Banners waved declaring "The German Christian reads the Gospel in the [light of]the Third Reich" or conversely "No Fuhrer but Christ" i.e. no LORD but Christ. As the Confessing Church, loyal to her Messiah declared independence leaders were persecuted, imprisoned and killed, church property confiscated and many fled or were exiled. It is little wonder that the Jews received so little mercy or aid from the 'Church'.

Before the Obama devotees write horrible twitter remarks, it is necessary to remember that while Hitler was Fascist, and Obama seems to be the opposite, tyranny comes in many faces and Fascist oppression is equally intolerable as communist oppression. The Church needs to be free in order to be the right and good influence on our nation it needs to be. Taxing it, Incorporating it, Restricting it and telling it who it may or may not hire, makes it in to an arm of the State and not the Bride of Christ.

Some will argue that there are crimes and abuses rampant in the Church today, and I have been the victim of it so I will not argue that at all. It is utterly true. The church though is subject to the laws of the land, and investigation if a crime is committed. We do not need to change the nature of the church for control for that will only increase corruption in a different direction.

Home Churches, Unregistered Churches or a State Church: choices
A last brief comment is that if this issue of 'fair hiring' (fair to whom?} is pursued churches will have only a few options:

a. Go along and change into something else

b. Protest and be closed

c. Diversify into home meetings and unregistered churches.


Home churches currently across the world are winning souls to the Lord although suffering persecution. Home churches meet far better the criteria of the Scriptures for what a church is: an assembly of believers with Christ as head. They do not 'hire' so the issue is not applicable. They do not have to incorporate so they do not have to answer to the state. They must stay small: many have 50 or fewer members but the reward of attending is usually greater. It is still not illegal to meet for worship in homes. I have no doubt though, that if it becomes necessary to go back to suburban catacombs, they will try the banning of home churches as well. For now, some churches changing from 5013c organizations to registered 'associations' and there are even a few clever legal maneuvers to create corporations which do nothing more than provide worship buildings and furniture for poor needy large congregations, but that is a little dangerous cleverness.

We all know the story of the boiling frog, which does not at first notice the warming process, and by the time it notices, it is basically stew. We cannot serve two Masters in the house of God: we have the same decision to make as did Bonhoeffer and others in the Shoah: the difference is,we have the ability to make some legal decisions now, and show mass support for freedom of the Church instead of just going along with whatever comes down the Reich. (ahem) ekbest







______________________________________________
*NOTE: The church should actually be so loving that many of these things should occur without regulation,but the 'right-ness' of these things is no match for the 'requirement' by the government of these things.
1. Colson, Charles Kingdoms in Conflict
2. Dimont, Max I. Jews, God, and History: 2nd Edition
: Signet Classic, 2004

David and Goliath, 2009

Now, the Valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath was right smack dab on the way Gaza, at Shochoh, back when it was known primarily for Philistines, idolatry and severing limbs. The brutal Philistines lined one mountain, and the Armies of King Saul the other with a valley in between. (I Sam 17). The Philistines great hope was in Goliath, the Anakim, (a race of Giants), and Dagon, their fish god. On the side of Israel, David, the Son of Jesse was still a very young man, but he had nonetheless already killed a lion, and tended sheep, and the King back then, Saul, was willing to give him armor to fight the deadly giant, but David, overly encumbered by the heavy mail suit, left it all for the great and good armor of Faith in his Redeemer. That and five smooth stones, though he would only need one. All of Israel's army had already tried to take Gaza, the land of the Philistines, which had since the beginning of time troubled Israel and everyone else by making the easiest passage from Egypt to Israel and trade routes therein impossible. Still, on that day, with the bravest of Israeli soldiers unwilling to confront the 9 foot anakim with 6 digits on each limb, a young shepherd of ruddy complexion and a sling felled the fearsome fellow out of something that the Army which ridiculed him did not have: faith in Adonai.

I have considered of late what would have happened if David and Goliath met today, I mean, the way the world is. I suspect it would go something like this:

David: "I am not afraid. I trust in Adonai the Lord of Heaven. I will slay the Anakim in Elah."

King Saul: "Well, you know many have tried, but invariably it turns the press against us. And you know the Zionists, how they are."

David: "You're not a Zionist?"

King Saul: "Quiet knave.". "You are only a child, you have no idea of the complexities of fighting the Anakim. And Goliath, he and his brothers have connections. The Anglo-Saxons are threatening to boycott our Royal College , and in the Dominion of Last Bastion, they are circulating petitions saying that WE are brutal. Now, if I send a young teenager out in the field, what shall the world think?

David: How care we what the world thinks, if we are just and in Adonai's will? I will slay the monster.

Saul: Even the Canadians ....

David: With my slingshot I will fell the Giant Goliath.

Saul: But he is catapulting missiles from schools, orphanages and churches. They know if we fire back or send in our men, they will make us look bad worldwide, and soon, no one will even do business with us. Yet if we let it stand, Siderot will not even exist in a month or more. I believe in conventional weapons: we will flush out the Anakim. There are a few Philistines who do not want them there either, for they seek to throw out even their new King and his court.

David: Yet, sire I can fell the Giant Goliath with faith and a small river stone. I have chosen five, yet in the will of God, I should only need one.

King Saul: "It is clear you have mental problems". "Nobody believes that stuff anymore".

David: "You're the one throwing his javelin around the courtyard like it was no big deal".

King Saul: "The King has his prerogative, and I will not be jousted with." "Do you realize the Giant Goliath has six toes on each foot and six fingers on each hand and so do his relations? Do you understand there are Anakim surrounding this nation, and that we are outnumbered 4 to 1? You don't even know what they do to boys like you." "At least take this armor---maybe he'll choke when he swallows it".

David: I need not armor, for I trust in the Lord God, Jehovah Sabaoth. And beside, your Highness of Israel, it was only today I found photos of their devious measures on youtube. "

Saul: I have some intelligence that says they mean , the Anakim, that is, to take the whole government in Gaza over and put Goliath at the head, and then aim for Judah. They are toppling even the lukewarm Philistines most duly elected, and planting explosives in Israeli fields and roads. Further, the great and newly coronated NdogoButi is coming from Bastion to see how things are going and
after King Ruhr, well, we can't be exactly sure whose side anyone is on anymore. You know, David, if you can take Goliath out fast, then well, we might just be in like Flint, but if you miss, it could start a world war."

David: One stone. One smooth stone. I promise.

The Courtier from the World Council of Kirche: King Saul, and David, whoever you are, wherever you are, I am from the WCK, the United front of all who pronounce God "GAWD", and of the contingent of the nonrepentant Kirks of yesteryear who have garnered much power throughout all Kingdoms everywhere, in which there is no consensus, not one about any issue, and are we not proud of that great ecumenical accomplishment and do we not command your respect, knowing how many Kirks adhere to our pro-Philistine policies, having seen the maiming by your Hebrew police of the small innocent 6 toed children of the Anakim race, and are we not heard and echoed on the great campuses of Universities worldwide regarding our pro-philistine policies, having duly noted the brutality of David who killed wantonly a young lion, in a day when lions are to be treated with respect and wonder, and understood for how can they know it is but a cultural thing for lions to break and chew Israeli children, and shouldn't Hebrew children of the first order have patience and realize that the lion truly only wanted to befriend him and here we have a dead and maimed lion at the hands of the beast, David. We shall boycott the Hebrews over the death of the Lion, and David's criminal assault on the Giant Goliath.

David: You would boycott Israel for killing a Lion that was maiming and eating the sheep, and for trying to take out a Giant who is hurling missiles at us day in and day out and trying to either take us over or take us out?

The Courtier of WCK: Well-l-l actually we were thinking embargoes, or buying our pens and caps elsewhere. You know, investing money from the Kirk in businesses outside Elah.

The Courtier then shows photos of blood covered children, the victims of war in Philistine hospitals to show how brutal King Saul's armies are.

David: But isn't it true that there are equal photos on the side of Judah, in Judaen hospitals of little 5 fingered children covered with blood from the attacks of the Philistines? And though it is a great sorrow for the whole world to see what war does to children of all ages, is it to be only Hebrew children who suffer? For I know these photos of the philistines are circulated widely across University campuses.

Courtier of the WCK: Well, you know, the Hebrew children having suffered for thousands of years, the world verily is used to it.

David: Well would it not be better if there be better if children on both sides were not maimed and that war did not happen and that missiles were left to decay---and what if that could be accomplished by the felling of one Anakim, the demon Goliath? For not all Philistines wish war, yet there be some with five fingers and toes also who would like to raise five toed children also who could peacefully coexist.

King Saul: Do you not know young knave the complexities of an ancient warfare and how the Philistines of the kind at Elah have no thought at all for peace? Courtier of the WCK, have ye no knowledge that they teach their children even the tiny ones to sing songs such as "Ring around the infidels, pocket full of shells, ashes , ashes they all fall down"? And that there is now an international move to a new national Anthem for Anakim called "Throw the Jew down the Well"?

Courtier of the WCK: We see it as cultural frustration.

Ambassador of the Wholly C: Why we must piusly add that this is a people the Anakim, who are feeling disenfranchised from their homeland, by intruders.

David: Tell me about it.
to be continued.....

Where is Holocaust /Shoah Education Going online? Part II

Before the Holiday season, some rather disturbing figures were offered regarding the status of Holocaust Education online. In 2006, "The Sedition Act" looked at the status of websites vying for attention online, which dealt with Holocaust Education or Shoah Education, and the stats were rather surprising: for all the money, funding, Museums, etc, the major efforts at Holocaust Education online, at least in a peripheral view, appeared to be running not far ahead of 'fringe' perspectives and holocaust denial sites , but neck to neck with anti-Semitic sites, which according to the numbers are far from being fringe in the United States. It must be noted that while persons espousing views of Holocaust Denial or Anti-Semitism may seem a small minority at large in the population, those showing interest in their sites online is disproportionate to what one would expect.

I promised a further exposition of some of the data looked at between 2006 and the week just before Christmas week in the blog dated December 16, 2008, so I am including the data which I mentioned.

Please remember that this is not a raw count comparison! In other words, I am not comparing raw number of visits to the sites, and then looking at comparisons of averages between groups or between two different sites, but rather the variable under comparison is the number of references, direct references to the sites by other sites on the internet. The reasoning for this is that raw counts can be seditioned by anything but disinterested parties, and do not alway in any way yield a real count of how many people visit a site, how often, or for what reason or degree. However, when a site, such as my own, shoaheducation.com is reported by Google figures or Altavista or Hotbot or Ask to be directly mentioned '2090' times, for example, it means that the site has been listed on another site or forum, almost always by link, back into the site, meaning the site is referenced that many times and the referencing represents both eminence and usage by real persons or processes, not link farms, or kids visiting over and over to run up counts, etc. As mentioned before there are no perfect comparisons, all have some flaws, but # references for now gives a reasonable overview of which sites are being seen and used and not just 'hit'. The statistics from December 16,2008 may be found in the blog of that date regarding the raw # of references (essentially backlinks but not really), and how they have changed since 2006. In this blog, I am including the stats on the DEGREE of change, or percent change, with a comparison between traditional and well-mentioned Shoah education or Holocaust Education sites, and widely known Anti-Semitic sites which eminently teach Holocaust denial. The former sites observed are USHMM, NIZKOR, Jewish Virtual Library, Yad Vashem, WIESENTHAL, REMEMBER.org, FCIT and SHOAHEDUCATION.com, while the Denial sites observed are STORMFRONT.ORG, JEWWATCH.COM, KKK.COM, NAZI.ORG, RESIST.COM, RADIO ISLAM, AND NSM88.

A note of caution, though, there is a difference in mention between the NAME of an organization and the DOMAIN NAME of the site: e.g. 'KKK' will yield 16,600,000 mentions, but KKK.com, the standard for comparison lists 39,600, which is not a pejorative use but more accurate, for everyone who mentions KKK can be on both sides or neutral, but actual mentions and use of the site, more accurately reflects its eminence in delivering Holocaust DENIAL education. While Anti-Semitic sites do not point ONLY to holocaust issues, neither do most Traditonal shoah education sites, which often include other issues such as Anti-Semitism, Tolerance, Genocide, Civil Rights etc.

Percent of Change From 2006 to 2008

ORGANIZATION	RAW CHANGE	PERCENT CHANGE
USHMM	-140,000	-42.68%
NIZKOR	n/a	n/a
J.VIRTUAL LIBR	-107,600	-42.67%
YAD VASHEM	+800	+1.13%
WIESENTHAL	-52500	-40.87%
REMEMBER.org	-42700	-36.17%
FCIT	n/a	n/a
SHOAHEDUCATION.com	+1110	+ 148%

Holocaust Denial Sites are listed below:

ORGANIZATION	RAW CHANGE	PERCENT CHANGE
STORMFRONT.ORG	+81000	+19.05%
JEWWATCH.COM	N/A	n/a
KKK	+12800	+52.67%
NAZI.ORG	0	0%
RESIST.COM(W.A.R.)	--21800	-51%
RADIOISLAM.COM	-45900	-72.4%
NSM88	n/a	n/a

Traditional Holocaust Education Sites Mentioned Less Frequently

Now, among Traditional Holocaust Education sites, although they vary in content and format, if all data is included, the overall % change is 13.35%, with an average change of -2.225 Note however, that shoaheducation.com, while far fewer mentions, has a geometric growth over those years, painting it as an 'outlier' which skews the data based on the least mentioned site. Removing the stats for shoaheducation.com, it is a more depressing figure of an overall change of -161.35% with an average change of -32.27%, which is unfortunately a more realistic picture of how well known holcaust education sites have fared.

Holocaust Denial Sites

Among Anti-Semitic sites (that is their avowed position), the overall decension is -51.68 with an average of -10.33. It should be noted that two major sites in this category showed an upward trend: Stormfront.org, with an active forum, and KKK.com. The others lost ground witht the exception of nazi.org which stayed the same.

Compare:



CONCLUSION

The most equitable comparison, would be to leave out the statistics for the smallest but fastest rising Shoah Education Project (shoaheducation.com) although statistics from both are represented. Doing this we find that most sites which represent holocaust topics have actually decreased in eminence on the net although they are far from disappearing altogether, which may indicate a general decline in interest in Holocaust topics, pro or con overall. It must be noted though, that HOLOCAUST DENIAL sites declined far less. Below is a Student's t comparison of percent change between Denial sites and Traditional sites leaving out the outlier.

P value and statistical significance:
The two-tailed P value equals 0.0587
By conventional criteria, this difference is considered to be not quite statistically significant.

Confidence interval:
The mean of DENIAL SITES minus TRADITIONAL SITES equals 50.8940
95% confidence interval of this difference: From -2.3659 to 104.1539

Intermediate values used in calculations:
t = 2.2036
df = 8
standard error of difference = 23.096

Learn more:

GraphPad's web site includes portions of the manual for GraphPad Prism that can help you learn statistics. First, review the meaning of P values and confidence intervals. Next check whether you chose an appropriate test. Then learn how to interpret results from an unpaired or paired t test. These links include GraphPad's popular analysis checklists.

Review your data:

Group	DENIAL SITES	TRADITIONAL SITES
Mean	18.6240	-32.2700
SD	48.0768	18.8623
SEM	21.5006	8.4355
N	5	5

While the above test is for all intent significant although missing the the mark by a little, a check of a 90% Confidence Interval does indeed show the difference to be STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT

DISCUSSION


What this data really points to has nothing to do with the quality or correctness/veracity of the sites online on either side. What the data does show is that

a. There is a statistically significant difference between Denial Sites and Traditional Sites, where the decline in mention for Traditional sites is greater.

b. There is an overall decline in mention to both kinds of sites.

c. Anti-Semitic sites, overall, are both by percentage and by raw # of mentions on the net faring far better than traditional Holocaust sites.

While one may argue that these are not the figures from ALL the sites by any means on either side, they are the most recognizable: some sites under the key term "Holocaust Education" or "Holocaust" for example may rank even higher on Google's index on the front page of a search, but are not considered 'well known' holocaust sites. For example, History1900 has one of the highest listings under the term "Holocaust" but it is a timeline of the events in the 1900s, and is rather exclusive in the information it deals with, and while it has a high ranking, it is not the same as a Holocaust or Shoah Education site with hundreds of sections set to teach holocaust education. Likewise, some anti-Semitic sites gain large mention because of ongoing daily 24/7 active forums, although they should not be discounted in effectiveness, because forum visitors often turn to link to them on their own sites.

A Word of Warning.

We often get complacent in Shoah Education, thinking that with shoah Education in thousands of classrooms, we must be 'winning the war'. I see weekly new curriculum ideas, new reports of classroom projects, of students collecting paperclips, bottlecaps, 'pretending' to be Jewish for a day etc. etc. and almost every college campus has at least one course on Holocaust education, taught at least every year or two. However, when a child or an adult has a question about the holocaust, they do not go first to a museum or a classroom: they go to the internet. We have far undervalued the amount of Education that goes on in cyberspace, not to mention the problems with quality. People believe too often without discernment what they read on the internet, trusting facts without question, and not even stopping to find out whether their source might be a Denial site or a Traditional site.

In the early 1990s, we happened across many persons from the Patriot Movement, in our stand for free access Homeschooling, and became acquainted with their beliefs. They were at that time still a radical fringe group equated with the Militia, and most traditional Christians steered far clear of them, with concerns about fringe on flags and Maritime law, opposition to drivers' licenses, unregistered churches and schools, and general anti-government stands. The main publication for their ramblings at the time was "THE SPOTLIGHT", which back then contained some very vitrolic hatemongering against the Jews who were held accountable for all the world's ills and who were in their eyes at the center of a worldwide conspiracy, although it must have been far fewer after WWII, since that perspective turned out to be a genocidal one. At the time I thought, well, it is a radical position and while vile, it is not likely to gain much footing in a tolerant and free society with a great deal of respect for Civil rights. (!) Over the next ten years though till its demise (or once demise) it gained the perspective that to win converts, they had to appeal to mainline conservatives whom they knew would go along with many of their tenets (many conservative Christians for example believe in unregistered homeschools and churches but are not Anti-Semitic). They did exactly that and the newspaper started appealing to moral and Christian conservatism with only a few articles broadcasting their more purile beliefs, but it was a foot in the door, that caught a growing and loyal audience, who were then more susceptible to arguments they thought they would never entertain.

The brief data above and in the previous article shows that we are not far from seeing a similar trend online, with more and more 'mainstream' youth and adults willing to go on more 'radical' sites for discussion. The traditional sites, my guess is, have abandoned the fervor of building online Shoah education sites because

1. it is costly and time-consuming and may not always be cost-effective, and
2. because there are no guarantees on the net, and hacking and interference, as
well as competition have grown fierce and ugly, even to the point of physical harm in some cases.

Forsaking a determined and wise effort though at being forefront online in Holocaust education, in favor of Museums, exhibits, talks etc, is to ignore that longterm ongoing education will be occurring more on the net that in the brief encounters in the 'real world'. We cannot let down our guard, and become complacent, falling prey to the ennui of dealing with the net right now. In the past 12 years of online shoaheducation.com, I probably have more of a reason to both retire from the purpose, or give it far less attention. I have questioned whether or not the massive labor involved has produced the desired effect. Further, the whole area and topic has become even dangerous at points leading many to turn to other endeavors. However, who and what is on the net will very possibly determine the coming generation's attitudes when for the first time, there will be hardly any eyewitnesses.

Do you know who has most effectively educated about the shoah on the net without really setting that as their main purpose? Youtube.com and Wikipedia. Youtube carries hundreds if not thousands of clips of historical footage of everything from the Beerhall Putsch to Bonhoeffer on the radio and all points around and in between. There are clips of the burning of the Reichstag and of the Russian Front, of the liberation of Auschwitz and other camps, of deportations, the Warsaw ghetto and more. Wikpedia has beginning articles worthy of a scholar, and really should be leaned on to provide a subsidiary Holocaust 'Encyclopedia' by pulling together an index of related topics. Most critically of all, though, we have before us the ability to cooperate and claim a generation for the truth, or let it fall into the hands of violent persons with an agenda.

Sedition Act Will Return

after a brief pause over the Holiday Season.

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The Light of the World

This is a Repeated Column from 2007

Standing somewhere near the Porch of Solomon, Jesus, Yshua proclaimed he was the Light of the World. The temple had just seen its 'feast of tabernacles', and Yshua, Jesus, proclaimed yet another of His purposes and identities:

Jhn 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Jhn 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

There were other times, in his short 33-year earthly life when He proclaimed what His light, the Light of the World was in Divine words. While the Gospels start with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, or Yshua Ha Meschiach (Mt 1:1), we see first a great light appearing in the sky which was so phenomenal that royalty of different faiths followed it to an obscure cave outside of or just in Beth-lehem the house of David, the house of Bread. The Magi, or wisemen, from a pagan nation, knew as the Jews and Rome did, that the time was right for a great occurrence, for the 'King of the Jews', the Meschiach (Messiah or Christ) to be born, and even in dissensioned faiths, the evidence was so profound that Sovereigns left their posts to seek out the wondrous light to the nations:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
Mat 2:2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

They, like most of Israel at the time were looking for a great King to appear who would lead the Jews to Deliverance from the unbearable Roman affliction which encumbered even worship at the Temple, as the men in the Temple, ruling the Temple, were more associated with Rome than with the true Priesthood of Adonai: they were not even of the Levitical line, and most had bought their position from Rome on the backs of taxes charged of worshippers. It was a violent era where the young and zealous stood against the Caesar's in defense of Israel and the God of Israel, ony to be burned alive, imprisoned or crucified as 'rebel slaves'.

But in these bitter waters of Marah, a sweet branch was thrown, described in many ways, and in the instance we refer to as "The Light of the World". In the Gospel of John before any discussion of Jesus' earthly ministry or life, there is a description of a Light that the darkness could not comprehend- not merely an heavenly light, supernova or star, but the Way, the Truth and the Life, God, the Light to all men, the light of the world:

Jhn 1:4-5 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

The light that was the life of men is no mere 'divine spark', but something greater: this was LOGOS, THE WORD OF GOD, incarnate, and the occurrence had not happened ever before. The Word of God had been in the World before, in the Torah, in the Tenach, but this divine and yet human person, the Word Incarnate, in the flesh, described as the Light, pronounced from the beginning as the Light, had been prophesied throughout scripture. He was the Light of the Torah, the living Torah. There were yet other ways this newborn born in the dark on the limits of the House of Bread where weeping Rachel was buried, would show himself to be the Light which God had sent:

He would be a light to the Gentiles and would rid the world of the darkness of death:

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Isa 9:2 The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Isa 10:17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
Isa 42:6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

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He is the 'light of Israel', the Light of Life {ore chaim] and the word light means more than just brightness: it is guidance, understanding, comprehension, victory over darkness, luminescence to see things as they are, doctrinal understanding and brightness: it is the Light of God which was born in the midst of a Bethlehem night somewhere nearby---a cave or manger in the fields of the wood.

Psa 132:4-6 I will not give sleep to mine eyes, [or] slumber to mine eyelids,
Until I find out a place for the LORD, an habitation for the mighty [God] of Jacob.
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.

Ephratah, the name meaning 'place of fruitfulness', was the second portion of the name of Bethlehem. Was it in a cave in Adullam where David met with his court of outcasts with Saul in pursuit? It overlooks Bethlehem. It was in the dark, that the light came into the world, was it not? And that tiny infant who was the light, was heralded by a grand ensign in the night sky-a bursting celestial luminescence visible across nations. Across nations.

I do not believe Jesus, the baby Y'shua was born in December: there were lambing flocks out at night with shepherds in attendance, to drive away wolves and such, so it was not too cold, and lambing is in Spring to Autumn. I used to think around Passover, but now I suspect around Rosh Hashannah , the head of the year, the beginning of the new. Nonetheless, to Christians, this holiday season reminds us of the Light of the World which came into this darkness. Torah had been in the heart of the prophets, in the heart of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the heart of the Kings of Israel and Judah, but here was Torah, the Light of the World, incarnate, soon to walk as Emmanuel among those He loved. He was the stick thrown into the bitter waters of Marah, which made the water sweet, and that light, of seeing things the way they are, of having the Way, the Truth and the Life enlightened by the Living Light of God, the light which the darkness flees from, and was to all nations: this is the first lesson of tolerance that Jewish son taught. And that Light was to illuminate the truth, that God, was Love, first and foremost, though not the paltry dim love of this life alone.

Near the end of His earthly ministry, after the festival of Lights, Chanukah, which Yshua, Jesus celebrated, when the brightly lit temple returned to merely the light of this world alone, He gave a discourse on what real Light was, and was to accomplish.

Jhn 10:22-3 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.

'Dedication' is the english word for 'chanukah', both a biblical feast and the celebration of the oil lasting 8 days by God's hand for the Maccabees in their war to take back Israel for the righteous. One of the things that Jesus does at that time, is to open the eyes of the blind: the festival of lights, the Light of the World on Solomon's porch, opens the eyes of the blind: a requirement and expectation of Messiah. He illustrates the Light overcoming darkness, by light entering into the eyes of one blind since birth, one of the true signs of Messiah from the prophet Isaiah. His discourse later on Light follows,

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

Always in this world, it comes back to belief. The battleground is not works, not good deeds and benevolences, not integrity, or even character, but belief. So many Christians seek to convince or argue the truth of Jesus the Messiah as though human logic could do such a thing, but the divine economy of Heaven is after faith, the substance of things not seen: the opening of blind eyes, of those in darkness to the truth and to the Love of God, to Salvation, the healing of God, requires a healing of spiritual blindness and bondage by a heavenly act and faith: not by terrorizing souls with doctrine they have not yet understood. The blind man of John 9 once light had entered in his eyes, experience the Light of the World entering into his Spirit as well: he immediately found the courage to rebuke the Pharisees about being unable to figure out who had healed him:

Jhn 9:25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner [or no], I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

and when the Pharisees rebuke the blind man for belief, claiming they had Moses as their light, (which they did not, for Moshe spoke of the coming Messiah), the blind man, new to sight and belief replies:

Jhn 9:29-31 We know that God spake unto Moses: [as for] this [fellow], we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and [yet] he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners.

The Light of Belief and Choice

We have a choice whether or not to live with the Mastery of darkness as our sovereignty, or to walk in the Light of Life. Believing that, the great Christians of the Shoah era, made decisions about choosing to walk in a darkness which was so great, that few lifted their heads above it: they chose to walk in the Light of their Lord and Savior, no matter what the cost, even if it meant unto death, and for some it was, such as the Scholls and Ten Booms. When Moses confronted Pharaoh and God sent the plagues, one of the greatest was darkness: the scriptures note that the darkness was so great they could not see one another. How could we not argue in this day and time, that the very same plague of darkness has reached very far into our souls, and with the same figurative effect: we cannot see one another any longer at all: we walk only in our own light, as if others did not exist, did not feel, suffer, mourn, or joy---as if they did not have a human heartbeat.

If our Savior is the Light of this World, the Light of Life, the Light of Israel, and the Light which darkness cannot comprehend, is it not impingent upon us to stand in that Light in this following year, for what we know to be true and right, no matter what the cost in our own lives? Are there not real reasons to stand for one another, when someone is in trouble, often because they took a stand for what is right? Can we hate if we walk in the light? The answer is a facile 'no'- this is a blood bought, light-filled tolerance, greater than the world can teach. We must learn it from the light that came to us, one dark Bethlehem night.

Shoah Education on the Web: December 2008: Who is winning Info Wars on the Web?

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Note: The comparison in the following article are among sites dealing primarily with Holocaust topics, but only a few have a direct curriculum approach. Therefore, sites with lesser mention actually may have a greater amount of pages directed
toward education than general sites, which affect count and effectiveness. (e.g. shoaheducation.com has lesser refs, @1890 but over 500,000 visits annually.) This is pilot data suggesting directions for more indepth study.

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On October 30, 2006, the "SeditionAct" looked at who was winning (or losing) the war on the net to provide substantive Holocaust Education on the most frequently used source of Holocaust Education: the Internet. When most think of Shoah Education they immediately envision Museums such as Detroit Holocaust Center, Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, or USHMM, or perhaps classroom instruction where Anne Frank's Diary is read, or paperclips are strung together to show how many Jewish souls perished, or other sensitive and unique approaches to educating persons about the Holocaust. Most Holocaust education today is focused with good reason on the K12 population in public or private schools, with a brief emphasis on how the events of the Shoah impacted the lives particularly of children, since the regard for empathy is seen as forefront. To iterate a former point, a study taken over 12 years ago indicated that a full 25% of those under 25 in the US had doubts about whether the Shoah had ever occurred, and an even more recent study in the past 3 years indicated that among 50% of German youth did not identify with the word 'Holocaust'. 50% in the nation where much of it occurred. It would appear that while we can assess changes in attitudes before and after in class shoah education, we are still "preaching to the choir" in much of Holocaust Education, changing a few hearts and views but mostly maintaining more of a presence to those who already believe that the Shoah occurred. College course have done more to really teach to heterogenous groups the events and nature of the Shoah, but only a few courses really synthesize issues of the Shoah vs WWII History or Military History. While none can argue that the two coexist integrally, they do maintain separate 'domains' so to speak, and the real nature and goal of studying the Shoah is not just to create empathy, but to trully educate the general public and society on both the dynamics of a genocide peculiarly Jewish, in the 20th century which took the lives of 2/3 or European Jewry and millions of other lives, and its implications for the world since which has not ceased Genocide but made an artform out of it. The impact of the Shoah was so dramatic that aside from the loss of 65 million lives overall worldwide, we have never had the same World Politics or Justice System, never seen life the same, never seen Humans as having an inherent right to Life or an intrinsic value of life for life's sake, never ceased in an amoral effort of human engineering, the new name for Eugenics, never lost a quest for total war where we train killers instead of soldiers, never lost a bit of Anti-Semitism as rallies in the tens of thousands occur regularly here and in Europe, never lost the taste for National Socialism, and never seen repentance, real repentance in either Germany or the World Council of Churches or Vatican although perfunctory declarations are made. There are no real plans now to even provide care and refuge in the event of a future Genocide or holocaust other than general relief efforts.

Web and War

So how do most people get short term or 'in depth' Holocaust Education? The answer is self apparent: on the web. When people hear an odd or asundry piece of information in the media or movies regarding the shoah, do they run to the local library or call a museum? No: they search for the answer online. Ask the question 'Who were the Nazis?" or "When did the Holocaust Start" or "Did Hitler know?" or "How many Jews were killed in the Shoah?" and both k12 groups, church groups, reporters, professors, newspaper readers and politicians run for the Internet. This is not merely true for Holocaust education, it reflects the revolution in our thinking about information in general. In the beginning this was quite dangerous for the web had paltry resources and few source materials, but now, if one is careful one really can with a good search engine, find an acceptable answer with a little study.

Who is Providing Information?

One of the problems however in Shoah Education Online, 10 years ago, 3 years ago and now is where the information answering those and other questions is coming from.
Some grossly anti-Semitic sites have garnered names which are deceptive and promoted their sites with the best in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, and sit with the more traditional sites such as Wiesental's MOTCL and USHMM learnin Center.
My site, Shoah Education Project Web, at www.shoaheducation.com has grown steadily to reach at least 500,000 a year, but has been a target of such hacking and problems from ideologically opposed groups, 'merchandisers' and even church people who disagree, that the work has come to somewhat of a standstill with even attempts to rewrite and erase section, cause our server problems, or characterize the site which contains basic Shoah Education for the Church and General Public as belonging to the special interests who have attempted to takeover. It is becoming a nightmare to keep basic, interesting factual material on the net. Meanwhile, sites such as Stormfront.org, and others prosper, and in the field of Holocaust Education, many fight among themselves and cause each other trouble. In the last brief 'assessment' of who is vying for teaching about the Holocaust on the web the answer was alarming: in 2006, the Anti-Semitic sites were doing as well as the traditional Holocaust Information and Education sites, a radical concept when one considers the eminence of the Tolerance Center(s) , museums and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A Current Look at Statistics

Stats for Comparison

It would be easy to compare mere 'total hits' on each of the sites to get an estimate of who is doing well or not, but that actually, though it seems self-apparent does not offer an accurate view of the eminence of sites teaching either pro- or anti-Holocaust education (Holocaust Denial has become a slick sophistry). Total hits to a site can be easily skewed by owners of a site by having like-minded people visit without reasonably looking at the site for driving up counts, or have an IP address register one visit when many are viewing through that IP, etc so that even 'total hits' cannot be trusted alone for comparisons among sites, and indeed the most honest counters would not fair as well as the those who 'stoke' the count. Further, among those who use counts, it is argued whether to use raw counts which can even include search robot hits, page hits, which can be multiple within users, and therefore inflated, or unique IPs which may either hide multiple visits, or which may be bloated in other ways with no real way of gauging except in broad comparisons how 'popular' the site is.

The use of comparative Rankings and Search Engine Placements

SEO people argue constantly about which stats and the quality of place on a search engine page accurately represent effectiveness, but I note at least three counts which must be taken note of:

1. Actual page counts via raw hits, page visits or total hits (not alone)

2. The # of Direct mentions of the site on Google or Hotbot or Altavista. For example, "shoaheducation.com" may appear as #1 under the rubric or key terms of shoah education, but the actual number of sites with the exact words or link of "shoaheducation.com" comes to only 1860 on the last day checked. Still, it is a good idea of how effective the site is becoming, since far more people will take the recommendation or reference than a site which is mentioned by only 200 other sites.

3. The # of direct Title Mentions: My site, "www.shoaheducation.com" has the title of "Shoah Education Project Web" and the count is different for the two terms. USHMM.org will have a different count that "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" and than "United States Memorial Museum Education Center"

4.Percent of change in the past 3 years [raw count change in this count]

.

For our purposes here, as much as is possible I will include the data found from a week ago regarding several Traditional Sites and several widely used Anti-semitic or Revisionist sites. Not all major sites are mentioned, and any day's data will vary a little. Further, it should be noted that for some very popular sites on both sides, very large numbers on Google appear to be rounded off to the nearest hundred or ten thousand. Still a general view can be obtained:

COMPARISON OF SITES DEALING WITH THE HOLOCAUST
Revisionists/Denial Sites

2006	Name of Group	Direct Ref or Link	Direct Mention of Org.	Change
11500	KKK	24300	163,000,000	+12800
63400	RadioIslam	17500	57400	-45900
425000	Stormfront	506000	517000	+81000
-'hundreds'	NSM88	8310	146000	---
18200	Nazi.org	18200	294	+0
-	JewWatch	32200	1820	-

Traditional Holocaust Education/Ref Sites

2006	Name of Group	Direct Ref or Link	Direct Mention of Org.	Change
328000	USHMM	188,000	256,000	140,000
88800	Wiesenthal	36300	286,000	-52500
-	FCIT	7550	170,000	-
188,000	Jewish Virtual	80,400	98700	-107600
66900	Remember.org	24200	1300	-42700
70500	Yad Vashem	71300	750,000	+800
@750	Shoaheducation.com	1860 (8190 nongoogle)	1700	n/a
--	Death-Camps.org	1540	2030	n/a
-	Nizkor	112000	242000	n/a

These are not the only Holocaust education sites, several others such as Spartacus, Miami-Dade, History 1900, etc figure prominently, and they are not left out of this data for any reason of valuation, other than to present a somewhat truncated overview of a number of eminent well visited sites which have as one can see, declined in frequency of mention of the direct link. It is deeply troubling to see that the Neo-Nazi sites and Revisionist sites have mostly held their own or increased, while even substantial sites of a traditional view look at best unattended, partly because many built their sites fervently to a point and then assessed the effort for whatever reason as less worthy than others.

The heartening note is that the main source for quick information overall, Wikipedia has among its millions of listings, comprehensive, factually accurate, detailed summaries of the main tenets, people, histories, etc of the Holocaust, providing a sure source of continuing presence of excellent Holocaust Education on the net, as long as it stays true to the line.

Due to the lengthy nature of this blog, I will continue the critical observations in a further blog, regarding the somewhat desparate nature of Holocaust education on the web. Consider, that when your children, church members, or political representatives reach for quick facts on the net, they may find a 'nazified' version of information without realizing it, as the Revisionists, have become quite clever in presenting false data as fact.

To be continued.....ekbest08

Guess Who's Coming to .......Church?

Although I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church, I did not become a Christian until I was almost 30 years old. When you really become a 'Christian' it is not a matter of merely changing religions or churches, or agreeing to some doctrinal positions, but it is a heart comittment to the Lord and Savior. Now, I recognize that in a column normally devoted to social and ethical issues with the Shoah in mind, this may seem a little bold, but it is to preface the idea that the Church we picture and which the world pictures, is these days neither the same Church described in the early days and gospels and epistles of Christianity, nor is it anything like most of us imagined once: a safe place to raise our families, worship the Lord, serve the Messiah and all the other happy but utopian ideas we envisioned when we first attended.

I will save the discussion for another day of the contrast between what the church , the ikklesia was meant to be vs. what it has turned into, that is a significant topic, but turn instead to in part why it is just not the 'Bride' of the 'Bridegroom' it should have been. Aside from the most essential issue of Salvation, the church has turned aside from the Word of God, and the relationship it was supposed to bear, notwithstanding maintaining a socio-political influence in the world, although it has become a bit more mean-spirited and hard hearted than in years past. The title of this entry 'Guess whose coming to ....church' refers to some 'visitors' who are in the churches, especially the large or those of 'interest', and why they are there.
These 'visitors' have many different agendas, and stay sometimes for years, even in positions of power and importance from pastors on down to daycare workers, yet they share one thing in common: they are there to sedition the right working of the Church, its finances, its unity and cohesion, and its decision making ability, in short its potential success. Some are there to create strife, or to win converts to other points of view, and some are there for the most sinister reasons on earth: that's right, the fellow in the pew next to you, or the Sunday school teacher could be there for far more than reasons of worship and belief, and some may be there to literally put an end to Evangelical and Pentecostal worship.

A Word of Caution

I put off this blog for a little while because I recognized that while many of the things I am about to say have been said before, they are only occasionally summarized, and that there is a danger in pointing out 'hidden' elements in the Church because even that can cause strife and an unhealthy 'paranoia'.where everyone goes around 'suspecting others in the church of being this or that. We have been the victim for years of that, because I attended churches for some time where the education level was not high for most members, and a highly educated woman with a professional degree was just not the norm nor expected. Unfortunately one of the problems in many churches today are gossip and rumor mills which are criminal in the degree to which they will go and many innocent people, true believers, get hurt in the process of 'creative writing'. Actually, the people who appear to many 'suspicious' are often not at all the ones that are worrisome, for persons from other faiths, political agendas, and even government agencies are trained and honed into not creating a scene, and in some instances rise to high offices in the church by 'going along with the crowd'. Today, if one stands up for doctrine or the Word of God one can find oneself ostracized even in Evangelical, Fundamental and Pentecostal churches, as a comfortable and unchallenged lifestyle has displaced a self sacrificing life for Christ.

The Culprits & their Motives

Of the groups most likely to 'clandestinely' inhabit your pews, most will declare that this is utterly false and they would never do that. They deny their presence because it is a substantial civil rights violation, and their agendas would be exposed and hopefully dismissed, although today, some are so worried about losing members that even knowing, the culprits would not be asked to leave. This is a shame because in the long run, it seditions the very fabric of church life, and may lead to church splits, a lack of power, ruin of finances, strife among members, and even as has been so tragically seen in recent years, church burnings and shootings.

Not all those who cause trouble in church are from another religion or ideology, some of the deadliest members are missionaries, pastors and workers who can restrain themselves from lying, slandering, stealing and embezzling etc, and too many members cause extreme harm in the private lives of other church members. Two things can aid with those kinds of folks who can also accomplish the same thing --strife and contention:

1. church discipline (everyone is so afraid of offense)
2. Asking unrepentant members to leave, regardless of their 'contributions' or standings.

The ones I refer to below, though, are not just spiritually or morally weak or carnal people but persons who trully mean to overthrow congregations by deceptive practices even to an artform, to:

1. Win converts away from Bible believing Christianity
2. Recruit for sinister purposes either talented persons, wealthy persons or even the young for lives we could not imagine
3.To waylay budgets and funds
4. To quiet conservative moral stands in the community
5. To gain wealth by misrepresentation
6. A plethora of other reasons.

Church properly attended to does not have to be 'done in' by these folks, but exercising fair church discipline, very fair, and adhering in a close relationship to God and his Word, will keep most of them from their purpose. 'Tare pulling' is not often fruitful for some new Christians may still have doctrine or practices from former religions, but a strict plumbline of lovingly 'holding the line' can benefit the church, even if a few members leave. A healthy Holy Spirit filled church is far preferable to a wishy-washy, we-don't-want-to-say-anything church bent on pleasing all people. Salt and Light cannot lose its savor.

The Groups

1. Jehovah's Witnesses

Most false religions, even those who count themselves with the Christian umbrella, have a spirit of 'overthrow'. They are constantly trying to work to overpower the workplace, other churches, those who do not believe as they do, ministry materials, etc, and can act in mob-like ways to gain their goal. Sometimes when a JW comes to Christ, they still have 'methods' which they have not let go of even though they have made a very true profession of faith. It takes some years to undo old doctrines in some folks because many were taught false doctrines as a child, and while consenting to true, they still act or believe in certain ways which cause alarm. Those are not the people I refer to. While JWs do not admit it, they do occasionally send into particularly large and influential ministries, persons who cause strife, or try to overthrow or otherwise redirect the path of the church or ministry. I have a small home ministry of Christian materials, and have had JWs attempt to call it a JW ministry: it teaches the opposite! Hackers have occasionally and very subtlety changed a few words here or there in Bible Studies to lean towards JW materials. Since JWs have very different beliefs but often use the same jargon as Christians, it may go undetected by those who have written materials and then moved on to another project.
Further, JWs, when they encounter you in their mission work may very severely misrepresent themselves as being minister of Christianity: I have learned to question anyone coming to my door claiming they are opening up a new church without stating their denomination or affiliation. If they say they are JW, don't let them in to try and argue them down, it will seldom if ever work, and they are very carefully trained and may try to lead you away from your belief, by selective 'interpretations' and doctrines, which one will not know is false without extensive time and study in the Word. When the bible admonishes not to even wish them good day', it is not to be unloving or hateful, but to handle dissensioned faiths in divine wisdom and not our own. Christian love is steeped in obedience, not in an argument. I once sat in a church, a widely known and respected evangelical church, and this branch had a pastor trained in their seminary. However, some of what he taught, I knew from study was JW doctrine not Christian doctrine, but it was in an area of eschatology which few average church goers would be familiar. Whether the fellow was a JW, or used to be, or was simply wrong, I do not know, but the best way to handle it was to confront the doctrine andhold it up to Christian teaching. If it becomes so pronounced, then even a criminal investigation might be necessary if too much does not seem kosher, but in any event, the false teaching should not be allowed to continue. Sinister? in some cases yes. Some JW and other religious groups will spread rumors about pastors, divide families, turn church members on one another, and the problem in stopping it is it can also happen in just an ugly fashion among normal members. The way out for all is biblical church discipline: when there is strife, confront it. When there is false doctrine, lovingly confront it within the church.
If it becomes known that a person of another faith is deliberately there for sinister purposes, it is a civil rights violation, and often a criminal act, and may be dealt with by local authorities.

The Pornography Industry

Think a pornographer would never go to church? Think again: those in the sex trade industry know where to find naive, innocent and very healthy children and adults, who would never suspect sinister motives. If they are not after men women and children to ply their trade, they may be after them to become customers, and they are slick, and well practiced in the seduction of church folk. Among their tactics is to convince young people that their upbringing is not normal, that they need 'psychological exercises' or 'sexualization' exercises so that they can get a girlfriend or boyfriend, and that if they adhere to the church's or their parents teaching they will never be normal, though just the opposite is true. They will even use doctrine and the bible or worse yet, try to dismiss the Word as fantasy and myth. They know how to ply their trade, and some from other countries have been doing it for centuries with tried and true methods for the 'religious.

FDR: A Citizen of ROME?

Could you possibly believe, that during a war which turned the world upon itself, that the President of the United States would willingly accept an honorary citizenship with the vatican? Take a look---by the way, this is not from the National Enquirer, but from the FDR Library.Letter From FDR

It is a very disturbing historical footnote to realize that late in the war, when the Vatican had done little to rescue and intervene for the Hungarian Jews at the time of the letter at the height of the war and the shoah, when the former German Cardinal Pacelli sat on the papal throne, turning a deaf ear to the Jews left abandoned in Italy to deportation after he had promised the loan of ransom money and rescue, that OUR President, the one who turned a deaf ear at Evian through the same friend, Myron Taylor, and who only accepted a few hundred Jewish refugees in Oswego, and who denied harbor and refuge to the passengers on the St. Louis who were sent back to Europe to a horrible death, that the President of the US accepted honorary citizenship in Rome. It is a wonder with whom the 'Kingdoms' of this world will share a throne.

By the way, it was during this time that the Pro Nuncio to the US, AMATAEO GIOVANNI CICOGNANI, lobbied against a Jewish homeland in Palestine and a return to Palestine for the Jews, declaring that it did not belong to them. Myron Taylor, an business friend of FDR, and former head of US Steel which was using slave labor at Auschwitz, corresponded with Cicognani and Maglione about resisting Jewish attempts to establish a homeland in Israel.

"And I will give unto thee and thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession and I will be their God." Genesis 17:8 ekbest

Kristallnacht, Hell, & the Day The World Changed Forever

If God Lived on Earth, they would break his windows.... A Yiddish Proverb

November 8th through the 11th marks the seventieth anniversary of the event the world calls 'Kristallnacht' and is used most often by popular historians to denote the formal beginning of the war against the Jews, the Shoah in WWII, in 1938. It was not that there had not always been a war against the Jews: there had, since time began, nor was it that the Third Reich began their war against the Jews then, they had already within the past five years taken away their citizenship, jobs, ability to hold and maintain property, hire help, practice law, go to parks or even attend to personal care and education, by the time of "Kristallnacht" or Crystal Night, sometimes called "The Night of the Broken Glass". By 1938, Hitler and the Third Reich already wanted the Jews as far out of Germany as he could get them, as far out of the world, if he could. Within just a few years from '38, only a few Jews would be left at all in Germany, mostly those with expertise in the armaments industry who contributed to the war effort, and by 1938, major deportation plans and efforts were under way. And Hell, a very much misunderstood concept in the 20th century, laid the foundation for the bravest of New Worlds, with such people in it, with (apologies to Huxley and Shakespeare).

There are some stories so remarkably cruel, that one wishes they could begin, 'Once upon a time', but this particular 'story' or history, centered as so many world changing events do, not at some body strewn battlefield or in a State Office, but in the heart and mind of one young 17 year old. Well, at least the spark that lit the fire, although the wood and flammables were waiting next to the spark. History is a rather curious thing, often turning unpredictably at one person, or one argument, or one dislike, or theft, instead of the massive waves of change, the 'zeitgeist' changes we usually call to mind. And if I seem for the moment a bit maudlin, and not 'technical' enough, it is because it is important to grasp the attention of the modern mind, and not just those of a few dusty scholars. (Most of history has been written for about .000005% of the population and a few disgruntled school children). In any event though, though I began to write one of those dusty diatribes to please the more 'sophisticated' ( I can do it, really, I can), using jargon and hundreds of references, real and imagined, I decided to 'go for the gold' so to speak, and write about 'Kristallnacht' on this anniversary, and Hell, for the both have far more to do with each other than one might imagine.


A Boy in France Receives a Letter From His Sister

Herschel Feibel Grynspan, a young Jew born in Hannover in 1921, had grown up in Germany in a solid Jewish family, rather unremarkably. When the young man was 14, the family tried to emigrate to Palestine, for the Reich had already taken office and restrictions on Jews were becoming too severe to live in any normal fashion. (See Jewish Civil Liberties in the Shoah)
Failing that endeavor, he studied for awhile at Frankfurt am Main in Hebrew, and again tried to no avail, so the young man went to live via Brussels, to France, hoping to establish French citizenship, since they had a far more welcoming attitude toward the Jews than most, (despite the Dreyfus affair). However, the massive exodus out of Germany threatened French labor and the same was true in other countries, so the young Herschel did not succeed though papers were filed and fees were paid. Poland and Germany at the time though were in a state of unrest, and Germany had decided to expel all Jews of Polish citizenship with Polish passports back to Poland, affecting 12-17,000 German-Polish Jews. Grynspan's family was affected by that order from the Reich, and was sent with others to the Polish town of Zbaszyn a midpoint by train from Berlin to Warsaw. At the same time, the Polish government set a two week window on renewing Polish Jews passports, and fought the deportations by a little 'hard ball', which would have kept most the Jews, by delay, in Germany, partially deported in nomansland without any paperwork.^1,2

Herschel Grynspan's sister Berta, wrote a postcard from the little town of Zbaszyn, requesting money for the family, and Herschel, who in October of 1938, at 17 had already run out of time on his visa with no hope for renewal, and hiding from the French police, responded, but recognized the utter hopelessness of the situation: he was in danger of arrest and deportation to basically nowhere for he could not return to Hannover, his family was possibly on their way to the 'alleged' concentration camps (they were known of by then), but in the mean time, with thousands of others stranded in the doldrums, they also had nowhere to go that did not mean destruction. The young teenager Grynspan, distraught over his own predicament, worried for his family he had hoped to 'rescue' in France, and with virtually no way out, walked into the German Embassy in France, in despair, with all hope gone, and point blank fired at a midline Nazi official, Vom Rath, whom his family had known, presumably for refusing any solution or help. The one distraught youngster that day, with no way to turn, no legal recourse and seeing the beginning of the destruction of his family, the Jewish race, his life, and ostensibly Europe and the world, partly by plan and it is assumed partly in the heat of the moment fired point blank at the official behind the desk. ²

Vom Rath died of his wounds shortly after, and Grynspan was arrested. On the immediate heels of the arrest, Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister issued the edict to all German press that they were to make it front page and keep it front page, and spin it so that Grynspan represented the 'worldwide Jewish conspiracy' which would soon be at the door of every German, if the Reich did not get rid of the Jews. Most did not mention that the Pogrom which followed, organized and set in place of the destruction of every Jewish business and confiscation of homes and property, with the burning of Synagogues, occurred on Martin Luther's birthday (November 10, 1483 ). Now, there were no coincidences in the Third Reich, and the great German, Luther who had brought back 'Salvation by Grace' to Christian belief and doctrine, had also at the end of his life turned violently against the Jews, claiming them to be heathen and idolators, and advocating the burning of their synagogues and running them out of town. (See, e.g. Letter to Spalatin Imagine the irony.

The World Press, was initially enraged on Grynspan's side, when they heard of the 'hopeless' deportations of thousands, and some non-Jewish sources in the U.S. raised money for Grynspan's defense. (The Jews felt their contributions would be misunderstood, and some felt Grynspan had done a very dangerous thing). He was not though extradicted immediately to Germany, but stayed until 1940 in a prison in France awaiting extradition and trial. The fate of Grynspan has been given to historical mythology, with one Interpol account based upon a French police report having him escaped and living in France after the war, one claiming he was beheaded immediately arriving in Germany in '40, and several claiming he was held for trial but the trial never took place. One theory even claimed he was an operative from the beginning, others claimed even that he was a plant of the Germans, acting for the purpose of beginning an unpopular war, to gain domestic German backing. Interestingly, the train taking Grynzspan derailed with first to the south of France as the Nazis occupied Paris, derailed by bombings, and he with the others escaped, but for an unexplained reason, he went back and turned himself into a French prison before extradition to Berlin to stand trial. The reasons remain in the realm of mystery.

The Kristallnachtpogrom

Goebbel's call to action, though was swift, instant, and organized: in every community in Germany, Austria and the Czech Sudetenland, Hitler's first incursion with the Rhineland in the war, officials, Nazis, officers, and man woman and child were to take part in a rampage against Jewish businesses and organizations, against all Jewish property including homes, against Synagogues etc. Killings ensued, horrible killings: Jewish families were dragged from their houses, their mouths taped to muffle crying and screams, and shot firing squad style. Rabbis and congregates were gathered in Synagogues, the doors sealed against escape and burned. Torahs, the holy furnitures, etc were urinated on and burned, destroyed, and Jewish men as in the years prior who were of orthodox sects had their beards shaved at the corner (forbidden in scripture), and humiliated in a variety of other ways. There were over 20.000 arrests of Jews, yet most all of the looters escaped charges. The night was referred to as 'Crystal Night' or Kristallnacht' due to the thousands of glittering shards of glass from broken shop windows. The owners were required to carry heavy insurance on the sites and were forced by the Nazis to file and have the benefits turned over to the Reich. In short, they were unable again to rebuild, work or live in those areas, and businesses and homes which had been in some families for generations, ceased ownership in one evening. It was the beginning of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the beginning of a World War which has not ended, and the end, worldwide to 65 million lives, military, civilian, young, old, rich poor and 1/3 of the worldwide Jewish population. Hell had a foundation.

The Law, Civil Rights and Kristallnacht

When I was young, I was rather much of 'flower child' era, where we all assumed that anarchy could really work, because, as Carl Rogers and Maslow noted, people were really all good and lovely inside, and everything would work out without the need for government, law, rules etc, those horrid enemies of all 'coolness' . Yea right. Now pardon this momentary insanity, but with age, I came to understand the 'goodness' of Law, why there has to be sound government, and why Law, is the 'President', King, or Monarch, and not a mere man or woman. We have lost that. We think law is cheap, made to be broken and fenceposts only to 'get around' by clever ruses. Instead, I discovered, it is the glue that holds our free society together, and keeps us from Kristallnachts over and over, which begin wars which are now always leading to genocide, and getting progressively more horrific and brutal and about substances of no eternal value, e.g. oil. Lawmakers , Supreme Court Justices and Legislators can make excellent laws, and to be frank many many of ours are great laws, designed to maximize freedom and be just, but unless the perception of the law is right and honorable, unless we all agree we need laws that stay in place, any society degenerates first into hell and then is non-existant. (I will get to Hell, still shortly, lest any think this is too acceptable.) We are though currently, today, now, here in the US, a little 'beyond' law, we have a feeling we are a little 'superior' to it, and that moral relativism is the only law we all agree to. It is the rent in the fabric of our peace, and eventually as the tear grows of our justice and very existence. Kristallnacht and the action of the young Grynspan, was the formal worldwide declaration, that a new 'Order' would now exist: one of cleverness and strategy but not of right and wrong. And one where brute force with strategy would win against good laws.

As the Jews met Kristallnacht 70 years ago, I think they must have at once reacted as we would have, "you can't do that---its illegal, there are laws, you can't take my business, my copyrights, my house, my citizenship: I have rights---even as a human being!" Hitler knew that access to the courts must be circumvented early, or that those moronic enough to believe in freedom and justice would win, and keep Germany, well from becoming 'Nazi Germany' . The Holy Scriptures warn of a day when everyone would 'do what was right in their own eyes' , i.e. circumvent law, only now instead of dreading that day, we welcome it. We have learned nothing in 70 years, except more clever 'anti-law' strategies, and the deprecation of all that is life, all that is holy, and all that tends to order, is gone, and in as many pieces as those bright little shards of broken glass on German soil so many years ago. Stars and the Sand, calling in a negative image from hearing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Kristallnacht and Hell

The world 'garment' the world system has been unraveling for a few centuries. Two main features hallmark its entropy:

1. A Refusal to maintain God as Sovereign, choosing man to wear his crown instead and
2. Lawlessness

Lawlessness is always accompanied by lies. A really good lie, scheme, or ruse can undo a nation. Khrushchev, railing at the UN many years ago banged his shoe on the podium and declared he would take over the US without lifting a finger, and whether he won or not, the truth is this nation is far from what it was, and fair civil rights and employment law aside, we have degenerated not gotten better. For the first time in our history, overthrow is a possibility: we became the brutal Pollyannas of the world. The degeneration of clear thinking and institution of arrogant pride, a hubris which has blinded us, began with the Enlightenment: Cartesian methods and musings helped us to see we did not, we thought really need God, that we could reconstruct Him into our image instead of vice versa, and 'the thing itself' (apologies to Husserl) was not subject first to divine sovereignty but to what we thought about it: we flipped all logic and righteousness, and the result are seen now even in theology, which by the time of the Shoah, even by the Kristallnacht had placed man at the head of church and doctrine instead of God. The results of these modern 'advancements' (the Nazis saw it as advancement also) was death, morbid destruction, the erasure of morality, a rabid new intolerance, a disrespect, no disregard for the value of Life, and the fabric has so unravelled, that rather than learn from Kristallnacht, which began a veritable Hell on earth, we choose to live it over and over again.

"I Don't Believe in Hell"
Modern man, C.S. Lewis noted does not believe in Hell or the Devil. Lewis claimed the Devil likes that just fine, it makes his work all the easier. I cannot though much understand how the idea of pure evil personified would not be apparent to those who study the Holocaust and Genocide. Many scholars look at the Holocaust and Genocide and declare 'there is no God'. They demand utter freedom from him, and when He gives it, they are horrified at the results they cause, and cry out, 'how could you', and cease to believe, although He turns the question back on us. "How could you?" You promised did you not, when you called on His name, to be His hands, legs, eyes and and image in this world. So, I think, it is the LORD and not us, who if we followed the same logic would cry, "There is no man". "No man at all". "Otherwise, how could he have let the world be destroyed like this".

The Devil, on the other hand, never spoken of on University campuses, but all to comfortable there, also bears some characteristics seldom addressed: he destroys, he kills and he steals. John 10:10. He is the entropy of all things. In the movie 'Devil's Advocate' the character of the Devil declares he is a 'fan of man' and gives all the traditional reasons with gusto that the modern heart gives against the existence or goodness of God. The real Devil, sits reveling on the ashes of Torahs, Menorah's, bones and ashes, burnt synagogues, and the death of the heart. He blinds the eyes to the winters which stopped Hitler's march across Russia and exhausted Nazi supplies and the war effort, greatly diminishing the length of the war. He makes one forget about the shores of Israel coming into view or a new day for Israel waited for 2000 years. He hides the tales of praise and the Shema stopping death right at the brink of a flaming pit of corpses, and lulls to sleep those who saw answered prayers. There is a war out there: when the power of Luciferan doctrine swoll to the massive shroud it became, one or two prayers would not accomplish the victory, a lesson from the wars of Israel.

Though some may snicker at the idea of Hell, it is far more logical than that of those who are amused. Entropy begets entropy, and chaos, chaos. Do we find it so hard to imagine a sulphurous burning pit of bodies? We've seen it. Of demonic monsters looking like men, but seemingly without souls? They ran Europe. Of the degeneration of the person so great that it is described as 'wormlike', only a fragment of what the human condition used to be? How could we not believe: it occurred over and over before our eyes while we cried 'Where is God', 'How could he do such a thing?' , 'why would he allow this suffering', but never turning to Him, because we were now sovereign instead of Him.

Kristallnacht: the bright slivers of shining glinting glass, beginning not the dawn of all hope, but the age of Entropy. Are we more lawful? No, less. Are we more humane? No, less. Less AntiSemitic? No, actually more, and more is rising. Do we value life more? No, Eugenics became 'human engineering' and became acceptable, and life became expendable based upon the feasibility of a life, the cost of childrearing and the payback. We have had dozens of frightful genocides SINCE the
holocaust, not a heart commitment of never again. On this anniversary, when the world turned and entered Hell, at least its portals, if any one would hear, I would beg the Church at least to go back to Stuttgart in 1946 and not debate whether it should have repented, but instead, fall on it's corporate face.

"they have burned up all the Synagogues in the Land....Psalms of David.

Pray Like There's No Tomorrow: The 2008 Election

I thought about writing a clear and concise comparison of the candidates on this last blog before the elections, weighing the positive and negative qualities of each, rigorously explaining why one candidate is more deserving. I have listened to the litany of rehearsed and repetitive promises mostly about the eminent but not too charged economic and health care 'concepts' of each party. John McCain and Biden, show themselves as expected, as experienced Senators, with a knowledge of domestic and foreign policy, Obama sings 'One blue sky above us' in a manner of speaking, and Annie Oakley, er, Sarah Palin, has etched herself forever on the American mind and heart.

Controversies have arisen though that are extremely serious if some of the allegations are true, especially for Obama, as to whether he is or was a natural citizen, or even naturalized, whether he is Islam, or whatever, because it certainly isn't real Christianity, seeing as how he denounced as 'impractical' the Sermon on the Mount and thought the modern response to the Akedah, Abraham and Isaac would be to call Children's Services. While I am supporting McCain, he isn't on my list for Pastor, having made a living with Anheuser Busch, and having done a little 'high rolling' in his life, yet, of the past six or seven Presidents, its been a tough road to find any who really should teach Sunday School or Mosque daycare, ahem.

The end of McCain's story, "Faith of My Fathers", though, point to what is one of the most central qualifications for President, as is also implied in Obama's bio:

Character.

I have sat today for the thousandth time, trying to edit and write my website, 'shoaheducation.com', which has been online for 11 years. Now, lest that seems unrelated to electing a President with character, I will turn for a moment and note what it has been like to be a writer and former college professor in the United States of America over the past 11 years, and why I am so focused on the character and honor, grace and dignity, and heart of the man we elect next. Over the past 11 years, I have experienced a tragic, non-stop erosion of basic Civil Liberties of the sort that even oppressive countries enjoy with an utter disregard for the Law. What has replaced the First Amendment and several others in that time, are 'fun and games', and a Machiavellian winner-takes-all attitude toward everything in life, including politics, the Church, publishing, law enforcement, social arenas, schools and education, business and every other pillar of what used to be a livable nation.
If we do not elect the critically right person for the office for the next four years, the atmosphere is already so degenerative, that I expect, along with many creative people, that we could very possibly have to find somewhere else to live. That is no small conjecture.

Look How Far We've Come

Now, apart from gun control, abortion, catastrophic illness and social security, which are all important topics, I would like to propose that we really consider for a moment what the world is like out beyond Walmart, Microsoft, and McDonald's. We live as Ostriches, heads buried in the sand, expecting that American life, with its niceties , where a terrorist attack is a national emergency instead of an everyday occurrence, where wars are no longer fought, we think, is still the home of the free and the brave. Well, at least the brave. I grew up, dear candidates, in a town which was then about 100,000 in population, Orlando, where on Sundays everything shut down, and after church families went for a walk in the one great attraction the city had to offer : Lake Eola with the fountain that changed colors. Really. Before even the swan boats. Long before Disney crawled out of California.

Once Upon a Time

I remember what it was like back then. [I never though I would be old enough to 'reminisce' but here goes]: we lived first in a little middle class neighborhood, and my mother stayed home. She cooked, cleaned, sewed, and took care of children because she wanted to. Women worked if they wanted to almost always to supplement income, and very few people I went to school with had divorced parents. It was, well, frowned upon. Most people in our neighborhood went to church on Sundays or synagogue on Friday or Saturday. People knew their neighbors and watched after one another, even the nutcases. Nobody had 'Neighborhood watch' because it was implicit: if a family was in trouble, everyone helped. We went to local schools, had the same teachers who stayed for years, so brothers and sisters had the same, we were taught to be honest, not to cheat or steal, we were bought ten commandment bracelets, and our mothers read 'Good Housekeeping' and Reader's Digest, and our fathers went to work at 7:30 to get there at 8 and came home at 5pm exactly on the dot every time. You could set your watch by the events in your day: or the year.
Milk was still delivered to your door in glass gallon jugs, even in the early 60s, there was a milkman, a mailman, many people even not very wealthy had cleaning ladies or 'ironing ladies', and a Ford , Chevy or Dodge was parked in the driveway. We were all warned of the 'bogey men' who were I learned later, migrant workers in the orange groves, and we had friends over after school and learned to pluck hibiscus blossoms and taste the sweet nectar at the end of the flower, or blow through split grass, or watch clouds and play in refrigerator cartons, put on plays for our parents, read, watch the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday nights, and buy school clothes new in August. I felt safe all the time. Nobody broke in houses in our neighborhood, or raped children, or murdered over drugs, at least hardly ever and if they did, it was headline news.

If you called the Police, they came and they helped you. They were respectful, and so were the people who called. I had never heard of brutal police officers until around 1968 with the Chicago riots. Teen years, kids met after dinner and made makeshift skate boards out of, well, skates and a board, and talked about boys and girls, and some guys around 16 got their driver's licenses and we all went places like school dances, or later, teen Dems or teen Republicans, partly because of a developing social conscience and partly because your friends were going to go. We felt safe then to, whether it was true or not. And though there were broken hearts, and deaths, and financial woes and the other stuff of life, it really was idyllic to some degree, though we couldn't wait to get older and be 'free'.

If Tomorrow Everything Were Gone, I'd Worked for all my Life (apologies to Lee Greenwood)

Now, at 54, I don't feel safe anywhere anymore. My 'safe' career which took 8 years of hard preparation with four degrees, was fraught with the venom and vipers of academics, where a few really worked hard and a whole lot played King of the Hill, ruining others work, stealing it, beating them to grants, positions, accolades etc, in what should have been met with swift legal deterrents but never were. I have since found out that organized crime has left no social stones unturned, and has its hands in Academics, the House of God, K12 Education, Politics, in short every level of society, and now even the Media. Lest one thinks this column is about the culprit of organized Crime, though, it is not: they are only one 'Special interest' group which has devoured that idyllic place many of us used to live, even the poor. The poor may not have shopped in the same markets or bought the same items, or always bought new clothes when necessary, but before the massive onslaught of drug trafficking in this country, you could still grow up poor and content. Now, the bad part back then was many persons of color were disenfranchised from the world I report, and no matter how hard they worked, they could not get ahead. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and the Civil Rights movement came along, and it did make a difference in opportunity----or did it? Now, people of all colors and races are met with what I shall call 'The Real Bastards' [please don't write and tell me how Christian women should never say 'bastard', because it is in the Bible, used by St. Paul. It means 'men without God as their father'¹], the real B---s have basically taken over this nation and virtually ruined it, possible to the point of no return.
Now, no one is safe. No one can merely work very hard, even creatively and get ahead or even pursue a steady course. Instead you have to do it the way the real Bs say and do.


The Real Bastards ¹

The real B---s come in all races, shapes and colors. They are the drug kingpins. They are the moronically unqualified in every field who got there by playing games not by skill. They are the town and city councils who sweep the Law under the table. The Senators and Congressmen who love the earmarks and under table gifts and 'good ole boy' politics, for whom 'government in the sunshine' is a real chuckle, the Police and law enforcement officers who found out they can do anything---anything and hide it for years behind a badge. They are Party officials who only let a 'certain kind' of person get ahead: they bosses who bring in those of their own faith or clubs only. without regard for employment law. They are the college professors who feed off others work, the hackers who empty thousands of hours of another's labor into their own insidious little bins. They are the Big Ministries they should call 'Big Top' Ministries, who sell non-existing prayers and healings to the little guy and naive new Christians, offering paperweights, embroidered stockings with 'Jesus' written on and Celebrity CDs which help pay for their 20 million dollar jets. They are Black Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Armstrongists, Mormons, some Occultists and other 'religions' who are more about political overthrow than about worship. They are the MSW's, Social Workers, who think that spanking children and homeschooling is jailable abuse, while repeatedly placing children with broken limbs and cigarette burns back in truly abusive households until they are dead.

They are FEDS and Military officials who no longer play by the book because no one else does, and who can blame them, its kill or be killed. They are the heads of Oil Companies who ran Auschwitz {look it up], and got used to the sweet taste of free labor. They are Bible Publishers who threw God's Word to the Wind and scattered any concept that it was real and true, shattering it into hundreds of translations, paraphrases and rewrites without even the notion of authenticity. They are men and women of foreign 'mobs' of all nations, seeping into the US and exhausting resources while we all worry about how much jeans cost at Walmart or Shopko. The real B's are political 'systems' within the Party systems who run candidates liked brand-marketed products, polling for positions instead of standing on integrity [what's that?] and honor. They are the Nazis [the real ones] and neo-Nazis, White Aryans, the Southern Baptist politicos, the lewd skunks of the Porn industries and the Child predators which are so pervasive now that it is no longer national news when a child is kidnapped because one would need more than one 24 hour channel.

Perversions have grown so rampant and bizarre than when some groups are encountered you cannot even tell the Police and be believed. Did you know that cannibalism and beheadings have increased monumentally in the US? They are the quiet, seemingly unharmful Jesuits and Vatican presence, and lest that sound 'paranoid', the amount of property the Vatican owns in the US is rivaled only by that of several Sheiks. They are the bizarrely violent gang members, all of whom wish they were something else and none of whom can get out. They are men who enslave other men and women in everything from the garment to the sex industries. They are certain groups of people from the far reaches of the world brought here to do politicos whatever favor needs be, violent, torturers without conscience. They are the amoral kings of Wall Street and Big Corporations, the Giant Farm industries refusing to let independent farmers prosper. They are the Music Industry giants, (the Publishing industry as well) merchandising music until no one can stand to listen, finding out what they do. They are Walmart executives plundering small business and grocers, outsourcing and paying willing 'slaves' $2.00 a day. They are the big names on the Internet, who make and break businesses and careers. They are those of the 'Hollywood' brand, film industry giants, who decide how a war or an injustice is portrayed, whether a victim was persecuted or insane, how much porn and violence will be brought mainstream, and what self-destructive acts artists have to perform to get parts and stay in the public eye. They are the Sports Giants and industries, behind the scenes, squelching civil rights and allowing all sorts of violent games to go on in the shadows. They are those dwelling in 'Casino land', and those who dwell there know why I will not say more.

Free speech? Free practice of religion? Which candidate will allow me once they are elected to live without threat of assault not from gang members but some local church person who wants my work, or some well known publisher? Can I quote "I am the Way the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father but by me" and not be locked up in the Insane Asylums run by still other B--s to silence unpopular opinion? Can I discuss, even discuss the Holocaust and what really happened without placing my life or my children's lives in danger? Can I choose to live a quiet, single life without being branded a homosexual, or set up by some of the B--s in that group? Can I write a Christian worldview website without law enforcement letting people listen or look in using tax paid equipment? Can I keep my own work, even if I do not look at 54 like Brittany Spears? I am wondering, far beyond the bikes, milk on the porch, friends at the mall, and safe streets of youth, whether or not I can speak freely without becoming an enemy of the State?

The Apostle Paul once asked

Gal 4:16 Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Can I still refuse to take a State or Federal Oath and not be seen as a terrorist? [most of them are willing to in order to meet objectives]. Am I or anyone else on the net a 'wacko from Waco' if I talk about the Seven Seals, or the Lamb worthy to open them? Can I practice the gifts of the Holy Spirit without being investigated as an alien or mentally ill? [kid you not].

What if I gain some following in what I write or say? Can I live in peace, or will law enforcement laugh and look the other way when I am beat up or humiliated? Can I make it to the end of my life with a whole skull, and no broken bones for doing no more than developing a successful curriculum or writing a very interesting novel? If I stand to lose 11 years and over 20,000 hours of my hard work, and someone with 'ties' wants to give my hard work which represents intensive research and background to a moronic child or even a functionally illiterate person, will there be a legal system which works enough that I at least, with a PhD get my day in court before someone breaks into my house and takes away everything that I am and for which I have worked? Is my quality Christian work, in danger of ruin and erasure because I do not wish to have people of different doctrines or faith 'sit in' because it is 'too good' to be just by one Christian person. Does my life and name have to be ruined or my children endangered just to exercise my First Amendment rights?

If all that I have described above, not including the two or three extant or pending wars, illegal immigration, drugs pouring over the border and the whole thing falling apart, if all the things I have described characterized a 35 year change since I graduated from High School, is there a tomorrow with a United States at all? Is there? This is no soppy maudlin diatribe, but a question everyone refuses to verbalize for fear of what might happen.

Pray Like There' No Tomorrow

So, Christian, or Reader, or whoever happens upon this blog, between now and next Tuesday, here is the best recourse: Pray like there is no tomorrow. Pray for the right man to win. The right one. Pray for wisdom in making the choice. Pray for the US, that there be a US at the end of the next term. Pray that when the right person enters the office, that he will use all wisdom, and do not fail to pray.
No one man is sufficient to meet what this nation faces right now or in the near future, not even close. There are at least a dozen real possibilities of overthrow, or even infighting among ourselves which could cause events which happen regularly in other nations which we think cannot happen here. That, is fantasyland. Not finally admitting that we are not the America we grew up in. Pray like there's no tomorrow, and Vote, like there is no tomorrow.
________________________________________
Reference
1 Hbr 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Worth Dying For: An Unapologetic Defense of John McCain's Candidacy

Faith of My Fathers: The Story of John McCain

His signs, smartly black with a dash of color read "Country First", and in the past or for another, I would consider that a little corny, or a little Reaganish, but there are few people in this country, who could use the slogan "country first" and really mean it. John McCain, more than most of us, has earned the right to the slogan, "Country First".

Before making explicit my defense of his candidacy, I begin by saying that I unabashedly do not agree with him on everything, and note that he has his share of life flaws like the rest of in the human race, and from what I've seen on youtube.com, a perfectly flawless Scottish temper, and some language which would send shivers down Hagee's back. In some ways, I suppose, given his all too mentioned age, and health challenges, standing next to the young vibrant Obama with the wide smile, many have looked toward what they hope will be a bright progressive candidate, just like is done these days in corporate America.

But the United States, is not a Corporation, though we have seen a move toward governing the nation in that fashion. And the qualities to lead the most powerful nation in the world, are not the same qualities as choosing a Pastor, or friend, or a person for a lofty position in business. And so, regardless of the litany of rehearsed speeches on issues such as economics, abortion, social change, health and oil, the real issue ultimately comes down to leadership, character, intelligence with wisdom, maturity, experience, and above all, a real heart concern for the survival of the nation, a love for its people and a concern for THEIR welfare in the next generation, even over life itself. Only one candidate running has those characteristics.

Loving Not Life to the Death
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Now, it isn't popular to quote Scripture and write about politics, but the worst that can happen is imprisonment or ending up on youtube.com. The scripture above is one of my favorites reflecting Christian perseverance and what brings victory in this life. It is a lesson I learned some time ago, regarding how the greatest things in this life are accomplished: "loving not life to the death". The idea is reflected in Martin Luther's King life principle, that if one has not found something worth dying for, then one has not found something worth living for. It is not the office that is worth dying for, but the people of a nation, which at least until recently offered the most stable statement in religious, moral, and personal freedom of any era in history. While I will always hold to one sovereignty higher indeed than that, the Kingdom of Heaven, short of Heaven, a nation which holds tight to freedom is worth standing for. That nation is where the Word of God may prosper.

Freedom and a young P.O.W.

Now political pundits who seem to belong predominantly to the Obama camp, cringe when anyone begins to talk about a young pilot trained at Annapolis, who after being shot down in Viet Nam, spent several heartless cruel years at the hands of his captors. They do not like to hear the story about him engrossed in reading "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" instead learning how to use the ejection safety device in the cockpit like most reasonably sane fighter pilots. Perhaps he dreamed of being Caesar, who knows? The commentators do not care to listen to the reports of beatings, broken bones and ribs, criminal cruelties most do not survive and which many soldiers didn't, in a war no one supported very much on the homefront, though he went in duty and honor. Having been a young pacifist at the time, with black armbands on moratorium day, I remember how we felt about about those who fought in Viet Nam: it wasn't fair and it wasn't positive. After allowing a fellow prisoner to come home in his place, which he could very well have had due to his injuries and his father's influence, he admonished the press not to be hard on the protestors, for it was that freedom for which he suffered. It was the dawn of the seeing the character and honor of this man whom I find hard not to support, fiery and sleepy fellow that he may at times be.

Character Flaws vs the Opportunity to Show Character

Now, some have criticized McCain over a failed marriage, the substance abuse of his second wife, and the Keating scandal, but I note a very different perspective in these: that failed marriage was utterly understandable after a five year absence which almost no marriages hold up under, and with stress and mourning beyond belief, and an uncertainty over whether he would live, much less return. Young people change a lot in 5 years, and while I hold only the strictest views of marriage myself, it is irrational to think that almost any marriage would have survived those circumstances, no matter how much love they had for one another. During the time of the disintegration of the marriage though were seasons of unbearable pain, a will to survive and return to active duty, support of his wife and adopted children, and some little known facts about a man who amidst the national attention of being a media 'P.O.W.' phenomena, spent time with a dying child he met during physical rehab.

Nor is it mentioned very often that he brought back the Naval Air Station at Cecil Field in Orange Park/JAX Florida by building the morale of a demoralized force, during his own struggles and personal challenges. It is not often mentioned that he continued successful in business, marrying his second wife and raising a healthy beautiful and successful family, while beginning a further career of public service which led to the Senate. Or that his compassion would not allow him to turn away from adopting a child with medical needs, from an orphanage in Pakistan and welcoming her into their family and hearts.

Adversity for McCain was always met with a voracious commitment to life, whatever it brought. Years later, with Walter Cronkite, he revisited the place of his captivity, with a clear heart towards even his captors. And I believe, though I have never met him, that his dedication to what is wholly the right thing to do, is eminent among his qualifications for the Presidency of the United States.

When the stress of his overpowering life bore too heavy on his family, and substance abuse became an issue, it also was met head on and conquered. The family continued strong, the career in the Senate and foreign relations, and knowledge and participation in decisions regarding the armed forces continued, and his 'across the aisle' politics which won him no popularity contests, showed one premiere life goal clearly. In a man granted a path of days beyond a near death in a swamp in Asia, or the prison which followed, that goal, purpose and commitment was making sure the United States continues to exist, as the nation it was intended to be, governed by Law and not capriciousness, and held steady as a ship in some very dark seas which are rising daily.

Bush and McCain

A popular whipping post is that McCain is just Bush all over again, and that would be troublesome if some very selfish policies, and conditions endangering the nation continued, but both must be seen constructively for the good and bad they do and have done. Presidents leaving office are often vilified beyond a just perspective, and the friendship or alliance with Bush, has to be countered with his friendship and alliance with such Democrats as Lieberman. While they are in some ways altogether different, they do indeed share some views, yet no one is discussing which views or whether they are the alleged 'failed' views. McCain from an old family, is not in Washington merely by 'inheritance'. The membership in freemasonry for Obama is reported by Rense.com as a 32nd Degree, and most report McCain as unaffiliated but reports are not clear on either side. He has undeniably settled into a coherent policy of defending life and the quality of life, whether or not Bush, or his friend Lieberman, or any others agree with him. It was not always as defined when he was younger. He has stood steadfastly for the health of the American family, describing himself as a Federalist, though he is a remarkable statesman abroad, respected and welcomed by many foreign dignitaries. His policies towards Israel are just and balanced with a clear stance of friendship and alliance, and while Christians make balk at a few items on the list such as stem cell research, outsourcing and the like, his support of school choice, and general support of free speech and practice of religion are necessary and right, and what remains, we shall consider in pray.

The media has too often, as well as comedians attempted to characterize him as a 'war monger', a mini-Patton, who wishes only to escalate war for war's sake, but this is not the case. Sometimes the greatest pacifist is a person who has been to war. Just wars or unjust wars are topics of theologians, and I do not hold to a belief in war, yet just as McCain is not a 'warmonger' I am not a starry eyed idealist. War occurs in this complex world and is unavoidable as long as some see violent solutions as premiere weaponry. Once in a war, though, in which lives are being lost, the dialogue is resolution. Military persons understand this though the general public may not, that a Surge may bring peace about, while status quo may prolong and exacerbate war resulting in far more deaths and injuries. McCain is neither 'hawk' nor dove, but a well-thought and balanced person who has counted war
for precisely what it is, carrying in his person and family the cost and reminders daily. He is a reasonable strategist, with a clear eye towards ending the war, not a wild eyed maniacal Sherman marching across the mideast. This is not a contest between a liberal peacenik and a fascist warmonger, but a dialectic of different strategies and worldviews.


The Senator and Cussing

One of the aspects of his demeanor which has offended some is his rather raw language and fiery temper, which concerned me until I noted its target: some trials hit which are so intense and so beyond expectation at what exists in this world and country, that I have had my failings there too: when I note his audacious 'temper' it appears far more to be directed towards the often imbecilic and detrimental attempts to play politics over what is good and right for national survival.
A pilot of a ship can be forgive swearing in tempests where waves crash over the bow and threaten the life of all on board. The forces which threaten the nation today require and demand someone who knows who they are, has dealt with them, and knows the consequences of letting it all go. The 'cussing' can be forgiven and while not particularly lovely, is minor and not unknown to the Oval office. Dignity, however is always a plus.

"Affability Preferred, but not Required"

Obama is a likable person: in some ways I wonder if I would not find him more like the people I have encountered in my career and travels: he is bright, articulate, personable, quick-witted, concerned, and probably efficient as can be in bringing social solutions to complex problems. He is the young progressive prototype, quick to be hired, promoted, and preferred in today's corporate climb. But as president, there are simply a few factors outside of issues which cannot be overlooked: he has no military experience, while McCain has a lifetime of experience both in the service, as a POW, as an Annapolis grad, a war College grad, in rank and in the Senate.

Obama is a junior Senator with 3 years experience and has written few if any bills. McCain has authored many.

McCain has 20 years in the Senate and dealing with foreign governments under several administrations of differing parties. Obama has a great deal of knowledge in African politics, definitely a plus but does not even come close to the already respected and preferred McCain. Too many nations see him as dynamic but a little green.

McCain knows the OIL industry, and has wisdom about it, but is not a big Oil Candidate. Obama is not, on the one hand, but some of his support includes ties to foreign oil interests. It is not always fair to judge according to the nature of supporters, but it is at least a consideration.

McCain has lived in and actively participated politically in a post-Holocaust world, and understands, exactly because of his age, what occurred in WWII and the Concentration camps and Establishment of the State of Israel, and how it affected world politics since that time. He has interacted with the likes of several Presidents, Kissinger, world leaders, holocaust survivors, military eyewitnesses, and has been active in POW concerns and fighting torture techniques. While Obama's heart I believe is there, he cannot match the life experience.

McCain has a level of knowledge like many who work in and around world politics for a lengthy time, which is required for wisdom. Some of the greatest threats to the US are not even known to the general public nor are the dynamics of how those threats operate in and out of the US. There is no on the job training. The position is one quite frankly I cannot imagine anyone really wanting for it is one complex nightmare after another, with few clear 'rights and wrongs'. With so much of our foundation eaten away, and with the confrontation of an oncoming civil rights nightmare, utter steadiness, excellence of spirit, maturity, and pureness of intent instead of agenda is required. I cannot support another candidate available to us.

A Sovereign thought

I am going to venture a thought, that I personally believe, that McCain, in his trials and tribulations was uniquely prepared to lead. I wonder if in that dark cell, with a friend in chains in agony, with his body broken and bent, not much older than my youngest is now, if he dreamt he would survive, or might one day run for president. He tells a story of an instance of faith, when he knew he would survive, but if he did not, he could receive it. These past almost 50 years, in the years of grace he has been given, he has kept focus on what is good for the nation, what is good for our families, how we might survive and use power in wisdom and not rage or enslavement. With flaws and honors, he is a known factor. The other fellow is an unknown factor and there is no time to learn.

Life, and living a life of grace, showing not saying he cares for the underprivileged and standing for right no matter the cost, above party politics or reputation or career interests, and succeeding in a stellar manner when faced with every adversity, recommends him. I suspect there will be less division, more stability, and a steadying of course under his leadership, and will vote that path rather than another. I see in Senator McCain, a lifetime of preparation and defending what is worth dying for: a Free People, the Word of God, and a World which is bearable for our children and children's children.

Pope Defends Pacelli: Does the Vatican Respond to History?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/e
urope/7624455.stm

Free Print Copies "Pius XII...Again" and "Grading Pacelli"

Grading Pacelli

Pius XII

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The Following is a Repeat Column. Sept 18, 2008, Pope Benedict again affirms the role of Pacelli [Pius XII] in WWII as admirable, but even an introductory read of historical documents has caused historians to do just the opposite. The following two columns which ran some time ago, still responds point by point to why one cannot see Pacelli's role as anything less than instrumental. Please disregard redundant info as they were published some time apart.

BY ELIZABETH KIRKLEY BEST, PHD

Article #1 Nazi Schmatzi: Papal Representative to Yad Vashem


Thursday, May 10, 2007
Nazi Schmatzi --Vatican to Yad Vashem regarding Pius XII


Pius XII, The Vatican Nuncio to Israel, and Yad Vashem

Pius XII's record on the Jews and the Shoah has risen more times than Lazarus. A few weeks ago, at a most inopportune time, nearing the Yom Shoah commemoration of the Holocaust, the Nuncio to Israel, originally decided to boycott the services due to what the Vatican considered an ill-considered record on the role of Pius XII during the Shoah. After awhile, he reneged, avoiding a possibly nasty international scene, but the volatile situation points to the truth of Israeli-Vatican relations under all the schmaltzy decrees and letters declaring how much they all really love the Jews, their elder brothers, even though if Rome had half a chance, they would like to move onto the Temple Mount and set up housekeeping.

I know I am supposed to say that more circumspectly, but age is causing me in an oncoming diplomatic dementia, to call obvious things what they truly are. At this point in history, we are all going to have to come to conclusions which are not even really arguable any more. Pius XII, while the Vatican would like to paint him as a candidate for sainthood, was not saintly at all: he was a consummate Vatican politician, experienced in international politics and 'diplomacy' and utterly key in the movement of pro-Nuncios,Apostolic Delegates, Bishops and Clerics, and establishing a complex network of Nazi-Vatican relations from far before the first bullet flew into an innocent victim.

Grading Pacelli [Pius XII]

A number of researchers up to 15-20 years ago were not really sure about Pius XII's record: the first 50 years following an event of the magnitude of WWII, requires massive sifting of information and the Shoah's documents and records are so complex and numerous, that the careful synthesis of what really happened is only beginning to come to light. As more and more information has surfaced and the real history of the Shoah is in progress of being written, Pius XII not only does not get an 'A+' or a 'berating' for how much more he could have done, but instead emerges as a key player in chess game of Bishops and Pro Nuncios and Apostolic delegates [Vatican Ambassadors],in which among other things he consistently chose pro-Nazi, Ultra-Conservative Bishops and moved placements to aid pro-Nazi clerics.

The Berlin Checkmate & The German Question

An example of this was seen in his relationship with Cesare Orsenigo, the nuncio in Berlin from 1935 on. Orsenigo was so pro-Nazi, that his racial policies and other
opinions more closely mimicked the Reich than the Holy See: so much so that Bishop Preysing, an outspoken defender of German Jews called for Pacelli [Pius XII] to send them instead a man with "brains and heart". Orsenigo was the man who hosted Hitler's 50th birthday gala, an event sponsored by the Vatican.

Pacelli {Pius XII] also was instrumental in the concordats with Munich [Bavaria] and Berlin [the 1933 pact between the Vatican and the Nazis] and later in the careful and lukewarm declarations of "Mit Brennender Sorge" [With Burning Concern], the 'qualification' of the first Berlin concordat. The concordats were a means of the Vatican to establish diplomatic ties, for the purported relations between nations and regions with the Vatican, although it is hardly speculation now that the Holy See was in the process of re-establishing a power base in Europe and around the world, after drawing new boundaries with Italy, and delimiting the nature of Vatican City, a city-nation within a nation. The Vatican unlike other nations, has land in every nation, yet its own immediate land holdings are very small. Most countries do not want to ignore diplomatic relations with this pseudo-nation due to its representation of millions of Catholics worldwide, and its significant economic and political power and influence. Pacelli before becoming Pope had been the Nuncio to Bavaria, from 1917, and since 'Prussia' or Germany had no other delegate, he oversaw all of Germany, from the time of WWI through WWII. (It is said that he refused to yield control in Germany even after assuming the papacy, often going over the head of Orsenigo and Preysing, to hold tight reigns on the suffering post-war nation. After entering office, he instructed his former colleagues to "leave the German question to him", a politic he cannot be accused of having failed to accomplish.

The war had already begun in Europe and Pius XII hailing from offices in Bavaria and Berlin, though he was Italian, and had already discussed with Cardinal Faulhaber the necessity of letting him [Pacelli (Pius XII) take care of the "German Question".2



The Hidden Encyclical

Pacelli is also the politician ascending to Rome's throne who replaced the suddenly dead Pius XI, who was the day before in the process of signing "Humanitae Generis", the 'hidden encyclical' authored by Jesuit John LaFarge, an American, which would have made the Vatican's position on racial tolerance and hence opposition to the Reich fascists position infinitely more clear. Ledochowski, the Jesuit secretary general at the time, whisked the encyclical from the Papal desk the day of his death, and the attempt for a stronger stand was left in Pacelli's hand, who never advanced anything like it.

Pacelli and A Few Others

To be fair, those who knew Pacelli, and he was not a unanimous choice in that conclave, was first and foremost a 'mover and shaker', but politically, not audaciously.In fact, there was quite a controversy concerning his ascension to Rome's throne as there was a current of strong opposition to his appointment. He was criticized during his Papacy as taking too long in making decisions, perhaps due to his years of diplomatic and political employment.
His relations and appointments though with and of Orsenigo, Faulhaber (of Munich), [who was the consecrator to Ratzinger], and Von Papen [who most do not know had status as a Vatican representative also], all showed strong alliances with the Reich in Berlin.²

No Home for Israel

His continuing record was not complimentary. While he was not the only player at the time, his key people including Maglione showed a steady policy of refuge and aid only to Jews who had converted to Catholicism or not at all if it jeopardized Vatican presence in the targeted countries. Vatican representation in the US at the time pushed non-stop and without consideration, against granting Israel a homeland in Palestine, with the reasoning that the Vatican should have first rights there and not the Jews, believing in Catholicism's manifest destiny to the Holy Land. Cicognani in the US, argued strongly to Taylor and others, that Palestine was not the Jewish homeland, which is highly suspect since Taylor, was instrumental in witholding aid from the Jews at the Evian Conference in which he represented the US without diplomatic status, and in the incident of refusing refuge for the St. Louis, whose occupants were turned around from Cuban ports, back to certain deaths in Auschwitz and other camps since no nation including ours would grant them immunity and refuge. This is not conjecture, but may be clearly seen in the Nunciature's correspondence in the US during the time. So in addition to a policy of limited aid, was added a policy of no homeland for the Jews.^4,6

The Pope of a Few or No Words

Among his other 'accomplishments' was the non-response for help from certain Abwehr members (Canaris and Stauffenberg) and Bonhoeffer to intervene for an end to the war---in fact shortly after the plea for intervention, those requesting it were arrested and charged with plotting the assassination of Hitler. The most that was done in those years was letter writing and occasional pleas for humanitarian concern for Jews already taken under arrest. While the non response has never been proven to be contributory or causal, it must be at least noted as fitting the pattern of much aid and intervention which never came.

The Jews, in Other Words

Pius refused to use the word "Jew" during most public comminiques in the Shoah.³ Additionally, in October of 1943, when the Jews were rounded up in Rome for deportation, they banked upon Pacelli's word that the Vatican would provide gold-based ransom to release them. As the Rabbi of Rome pleaded with the Holy See to keep his promise [and by the way, the ransom was only to have been a loan] no response came and after hours and hours, the Jews of Italy realized they had been abandoned, and met their fate betrayed. So if Yad Vashem does not think that Pius XII would qualify for sainthood at least in Israel, one should not be overwhelmingly surprised.

Killing and Atrocity Centers-Pacelli Knew

Pius XII [Pacelli]'s reign in Rome, saw the death of 6.5 million Jews including 2.5 million children, and several million others in the Death Camps and Atrocity centers while Rome claimed they did not know, but recent discoveries show that constant reports of conditions in the ghettos and killing centers were well known to the Vatican as early as 1941.

⁴

Tell the Survivors They Cannot Have their Children Back

Enough? No, for over the past couple of years it was found that Pacelli issued a directive for the non-return of Jewish children to parents surviving the holocaust, claiming the Catholic interest in their upbringing with their involuntary baptisms
outweighed the grief and suffering of the few parents who survived and looked forward to nothing more than the sweet expectation of reunion. 5

Pius XII and the Vatican Ratline

There is still more: Pacelli sought clemency "for Arthur Grieser
"who had who had murdered thousands of Polish Catholics and Jews (the Poles executed him anyway); and for Otto Ohlendorf, head of one of the notorious Nazi mobile killing squads (U.S. Military Governor General Lucius Clay rejected the pope's appeal, saying that Ohlendorf was guilty of specific, heinous crimes); and for other mass murderers."1-3

Pius failed to report Nazi war criminals in Rome after the War and his staff aided the escape of key Nazis.
Pius & the Vatican later failed to report Nazi Fascists' Gold holdings from Yugoslavia in restitution hearings.[Phayer-3]


Near the end of the war, also, Vatican trains, which were allowed in occupied territories, were used not for the allowed purpose of mercy and medical aid, but for smuggling Nazi Gold out of Berlin. The Vatican Bank also has subsequently been accused of hiding known records and assets of confiscated Jewish holdings which were supposed to be restored, and aided in laundering Nazi funds.

Silence and Delayed Responses

One of Pius XII's favorite tactics was keeping silent in response to even desperate pleas for intervention: already mentioned were the group of Germans who pleaded for intervention, various Pro Nuncios throughout occupied territories received no response or vague replies, often too late. Catholic Poles who requested assistance also received no reply,not unlike the beforementioned Roman Jews.

While many like to mention the few accounts of benevolence, or the Vatican's pretty consistent policy of calls for racial tolerance in general, the truth is, that Pius's record is consistently one of non-intervention, pro-Reich, anti-Israeli homeland, and given the attempt to re-establish the Holy See in world politics from the time of the Lateran treaties on, by politics and doctrinal changes, one could hardly characterize the reign of Pius XII as pro-tolerance or pro-Semitic.

While Catholics may believe some of the PR coming from Vatican City, the record has become utterly clear, that Pius XII was anything but saintlike. Rome can object to Yad Vashem's reluctance all they want, but to even attempt to boycott the Remembrance Day of Holocaust survivors and victims, is ludicrous and an affront to common human decency: apparently the Red Shoes of power and wealth which walked with their entourage into Auschwitz a couple of years ago, were making a statement. They should have crawled in barefoot and in repentance. There is no 'nazi-schmatzi' here: there is a raw anti-human rights history of a Machiavellian Manipulator. It has taken 60 years for Vatican records and archives from this period to open to scholars from the outside---that's as big a cleanup as the one in Alaska by Standard Oil. Oh, and by the way: the U.S. helped in the escape of war criminals.
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References
1Goni, UkiThe Real Odessa (Granta Books, 2002, 2nd Ed) : material from the Public Record Office in England
2 Hebbelwaithe The Next Pope....
3 1 Phayer, Michael; (Professor Emeritus: History: Marquette U) Commonweal Magazine, "Canonizing Pius XII. May 9,2003
4 Vatican Diplomacy During the Holocaust 1933-1945.
5 http://www.shoaheducation.com/newsource.html [Archive Article]
6. FDR Library: Letters between Maglione & Myron Taylor, & c/ American Pro-Nuncio, Cardinal Cicognani
Labels: Faulhaber, Nazi, Orsenigo, Pacelli, Pius XII, Ratzinger, Third Reich, Vatican, Yad Vashem


Article #2 : Pius' Record...Again

Of contemporary issues involving the Shoah and the Church, one of the
most widely known is the controversy surrounding Pius XII, the Pope during the Holocaust years.
Many in the Catholic Church find no fault in him, and are openly working towards his canonization. Others have denounced him openly as "Hitler's Pope" (See "Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell.) The lead link argues vehemently, as most Catholic defenses do against the findings of Cornwell. A more 'academic' historical approach in the writings of Michael Phayer, ¹ whose conclusions are more in line with with the Cornwell than with Gaynor and Catholic 'lobbyists'.

The problem in assessing anyone's role in the Shoah is complex from the lowest victim or private in the military up to Popes, Presidents and Kings. Everyone was subject to moral complexities or even amorality during the time as both hemisphere's vied for power, gain and control. The other is the usual dilemmas with accuracy and authenticity of historical documents from which we build our image and the everlasting problem of human foible present in us all.

Pacelli & Germany

Pius XII, or Pacelli was no stranger to Germany but came to the Papacy entrenched in German Politics. He is said to have directed Cardinal Faulhaber to 'leave the German question to him'. Hebblewaite⁴ describes him as a premiere diplomat although his favor was not established at the Vatican when he took office. He was also known to be a 'people-pleaser', a trait developed in international diplomacy, which contributed towards views of him as an anti-Semite, for his delays in decisions were sometimes purposeful, for which he should be held accountable, and sometimes because he was not willing to make a decision when a balance would altered. Both seem to be the case, but however well-intentioned, both involved negative consequences for the Jewish community of Europe. He was also present and willfully involved in the drafting of and signing of the 1933 Concordat, and had firm connections with many legislators in Germany who became a part of Hitler's upper echelon.

Issues for Consideration

Pius's Intervention in the War

Pius to the public acted with the concern and diplomacy of most who have handled the office during the 20th century: he decried racism, called for peace, and issued carefully worded statements. The Vatican however had indeed made a Concordat with Germany to cautiously allow the continuation of relations in the early 30s, before the war, in the year Hitler took office. Both had the common goal of fighting communism, seen as a threat to each, but the Vatican was heralding the Jews in terms of religion and not race, the main difference between the two wavering allies. Most likely, both intended to use each other by the end. Pius XI by his death in 1939 had developed grave concerns about the Concordat, and the circumstances of his death have been debated. Pius XII's statements were carefully worded during most of the war, condemning broadly and vaguely the destruction of human life, but rarely mentioning the Jews directly. During the last days of the war, as Bonhoeffer and others appealed to the Vatican for intervention, they were instead met with an arrest and imprisonment, although the degree of the Vatican's involvement has not been fully determined.

Pius's Personal Bias & Character traits

Pius's personal bias according to some writers carries a tone of anti-Semitism, although, this may be hard to discern from the man himself and the unfortunate presence of it in the Roman Church across centuries. As mentioned, his background in diplomacy set him for careful consideration but also for lack of quick decisiveness. ⁴ He did however have a clear view of what he wanted in German politics and continued a hard hand in the Catholic Church at the time of the Reich, which was a church beset by persecution for local clergy who spoke out, and others willingly making close relations with the Nazis, including the planning and celebration of Hitler Gala 50th birthday party. ⁶ Though not quick to issue statements or orders he was a calculating Pope, out for the benefit of the Vatican.

Pius's Promises to the Jews

Pius's promises to the Jews have continued under question. Phayer notes an incident in which the Vatican promised the Jews of Rome loans in the event of necessity to stay out of deportation, but in October 1943, when the Italian Jews were rounded up, the promise did not hold and the Roman Jews were abandoned to the camps. ¹ Many Jews were rescued during WWII, particularly children by local clergy, but the rescue came only at the hands of separation from parents, catholic baptism without consent, and subsequent Catholic schooling. Most Catholic Clergy in Germany did not oppose the Reich, a few even maintaining advisor roles at the highest level. Pius allowed Father Caughlin to go uncensored. A pastoral letter in 1936 stated

"A Jewish question exists, and there will be one as long as the Jews
remain Jews. It is an actual fact that the Jews fight against the Catholic Church. They are free thinkers, and constitute a vanguard of Atheism, Bolshevism and Revolution...One should protect one's self against the evil influence of Jewish morals, and particularly boycott the Jewish Press and their demoralizing publications." (Pastoral letter issued in 1936. "An Answer to Father Caughlin's Critics," page 98)

and in another publication it was noted:

Pope Pius XII was as ruthless as he was anticommunist. Under his pontificate, Americans heard Father Caughlin’s radio anticommunist broadcasts and the political charges from Sen. Joe McCarthy. Both were Catholics.²

There was cooperation and relations with Hitler throughout much of the war, and Hitler even leveled a 'church-tax' for Catholics, benefiting the Vatican. (op cit). Those Catholics which did not go along with Reich policies were persecuted in the same manner as other protestors, and neither the Vatican nor their superiors intervened more than nominally. {An example is Galen, who protested The T-4 euthanasia programs.}
The Jews, both doctrinally and politically were not seen as deserving of the Vatican's protection, and their later efforts post-war to hide restitution efforts and aid Nazis and Nazi wealth out of Berlin did not lean towards pro-Semitic sentiments.

The Vatican's age old quest for Jerusalem does not require the Jew, though their doctrine on the role of the Jew is partly correct and partly one of replacement theology: the Jews were expendable.

A. The Rescue and Return(?) of Jewish Children

NPR: Document Renews debate on the Vatican in WWII

One of the most noted recent issues has been the discovery of documents which express the post-war instructions to not return Jewish Children raised in Catholic families, schools and orphanages to parents returning from the camps, because the first concern must be for their 'Catholic training'. With so great an issue as salvation at stake in the Roman Church's eye, one can understand the Catholic behavior, given the belief their church is necessary for salvation [evangelicals take issue]; and the criminal cruelty of refusing to return living Jewish children to parents who lost everything in their worlds. The insensitivity to the Jewish community was hidden until recently.

B. The Prolonging of the War due to lack of intervention

The Vatican's refusal to intervene more directly in the war is not quite as cut and dry as some would like. The Vatican, like all world powers, seeks first self-preservation; in this their motivations are understandable: tearing the balance too far one way or the other could have spelled disaster for the little city in Rome which governs and has wealth in much of the world which was oppressed. Further, while the Nazis became detestable even to many in the Vatican, they had the common goal of fighting 'Bolshevism' or communism which threatened the existence of both. This was the foundation of their early alliance, although Pacelli's predecessor, at deaths door, began to seriously rethink the wisdom of the 1933 Concordat. Had the Vatican at any point stood in strong defense against deportation of the Jews, and ordered Catholics to defy the orders not to help, most likely there would have been a great delay or even cessation of the genocide. Hindsight though is ever mentioned as rationale, and the Vatican saw an increasing role not a diminishing one as even 'mercy trains' were used at the end of the war to spirit away gold from Berlin with the help of Rome.

The Hiding and Facilitation of Nazis.

A remaining great controversy which involved not only Pius XII but also other high level Cardinals in the Vatican was the facilitation of escaping Nazis as Berlin fell, and their hiding and aided flight to waiting, predominantly Catholic countries, especially Brazil, Argentina and others. There is no doubt on either side that the Vatican aided the escapes: the Vatican argued they were aiding the Nazis in a humanitarian effort of 'helping hurting Catholics after the war' but others denounce it as a deliberate and political move and statement. Wealth went along with escaping Nazis, and while post-war Jews still had insurmountable troubles emigrating , the Nazis had little trouble and were established even in the U.S. , their supposed enemy at what is estimated 10,000 including Eichmann for a brief time in Southern Florida in 1951. Even the Vatican admits the facilitation of escapes.

War profit from the Vatican

Lastly, the Vatican and Vatican Bank willing suppressed knowledge of the wealth and laundered wealth the Nazis had accumulated after helping ship gold and other valuables out of falling Germany. The Nazis and the Vatican sacrificed even a battalion of Basque allies at the end of the war, refusing to get them back to their homeland in favor of displacing trains to carry wealth. Only a few survived. Even today, continuous claims are made not only against Swiss Banking firms but against the Vatican bank for refusing to reveal or return assets. The complete truth may never be known, but strategy has had a terrible consequence for Jewish survivors: the stalling of litigation and hiding of records kept most wealth away from survivors until now when many eyewitnesses have died and records are gone, and within 10 years, only children of survivors will be left to fight claims which they may then never win. In any event, the Vatican and Pius XII's record cannot be held in the glory of 'Sainthood' even within the Roman Church: it might better be stated as men of power and eminence vying for more, with the weaknesses that beset all of us, and a Pope during the war more willing to capitulate than to stand.

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¹1Phayer, Michael; (Professor Emeritus: History: Marquette U)Commonweal Magazine, "Canonizing Pius XII. May 9,2003 ;

²The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965: by Michael Phayer

³2-http://www.gods-kingdom.org/FFI/2005/March_April_Supp2005.htm

⁴3Exploding the "Hitler's Pope" myth Michael Gaynor

⁵"Hitler's Pope" (See

⁶"Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell.

⁷The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism , by D. Kertzer, 2001

⁸Peet, Garnet. The History of the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany: Spindleworks.com.

⁹Hebblewaite, P. The Next Pope: A behind the Scenes Look at the Forces that Will Choose the Successor tho John Paul II and Decide the Future of the Catholic Church. Harper:San Francisco, 1995.

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¹Phayer, Michael; (Professor Emeritus: History: Marquette U) Commonweal Magazine, "Canonizing Pius XII. May 9,2003 ;

The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965:
by Michael Phayer

²-http://www.gods-kingdom.org/FFI/2005/March_April_Supp2005.htm
³Exploding the "Hitler's Pope" myth Michael Gaynor

⁴"Hitler's Pope" (See
"Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell

⁵The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism , by D. Kertzer, 2001

⁶Peet, Garnet. The History of the Protestant Church in Nazi Germany: Spindleworks.com.

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Amoebic dyss

Pro 16:19 Better [it is to be] of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

GOOGLE at 10: Good Robots vs Bad Robots

Well, I am beginning to feel older than everyone, at 54, that is, but I realized with the recent news that with Google being '10', my main websites are even a year older than Google. On the net that's old, really old, and I have to admit it feels like 30 or 40 years not like 10 or 11. I cannot imagine the battles that Google has faced in this world in providing first the 'revolutionary' [except for altavista] simple search, and in 10 years progressing to Google Scholar, Google Books, Froogle, Image searches, Google earth, maps, documents , mail, etc, etc until now we have Google Chrome, and the advent of 'Google and Government'. Ten years, all that, from a little idea that might work based on another at Stanford by two PhD candidates, to the 'only game in town' in worldwide search engines.

When Google first came out, with the cartoonish letters and a blank white screen no one was sure what to think: at the time, Yahoo! was the touted engine which had overtaken early engines such as Altavista, Webcrawler, Excite, Hotbot, and Yahoo! was beating out many search engines because it had a human element to the search process, but the front page of many of the engines, save for Altavista, were complicated with hundreds of links to maps, travel, phonebooks, email searches and the myriad of other options with the philosophy of 'more the better' and the implicit belief that one couldn't have a search engine without everything under the sun on the front page. Simplicity though won out, and even with the battles Google has faced, and with the disgruntled minorities anguished over missing emails etc, Google quite rightly won as the number 1 search engine for this reason: it was better and more efficient than anything even close. They had and implemented user-friendly, great ideas, using the shortest distance between two points, always. They thought of what people needed most and went there, instead of thinking what a good idea might be, and there was a difference. So in part, I wish to say, with many others, KUDOS, to Google at 10, which in some ways has introduced a Guttenberg level phenomena in information systems, changing the way we think about information, enabling non-stop research, even at home, availing research and scholarship at our fingertips, and giving us free libraries at home without the cost of shelves. It has in some ways definitely led to a more educated general public, which aids freedom, and to a great degree, Google [not always] has stood up for Free Speech and independent work on the web, not giving in totally to the complete commercialization of the web, but not exactly lending to the increase of privacy or free speech rights in oppressed countries such as Red China, when business was a factor. And another slight criticism, true not just for Google but the net in general, is that while research is now at our fingertips, traditional reading and careful research has been somewhat seditioned by a time and presentation factor in which those of use who produce sites on the net know that one has to be brief, say alot without too much detail, link out, and not expect to be able for most readers to carefully develop an argument. We are producing a generation with broad based knowledge, without deliberate and disciplined development of logic and research, who want quick info-gratification, and willing to accept too much on the net without discernment.

The Wild Wild Web

The other night, while waiting for local problems with my computer to cease so I could work, I watched the movie, "I Robot" starring Will Smith, with the theme of a 'maverick' [where have we heard that lately] law enforcement fellow, facing a revolt of robots, in which some were good and some were bad, and the 'revolution' was violent, fast, scary, intense, and a bit hard to understand, and it kind of looked like the history of Google, Yahoo, and the development of successful sites on the web over the past few years: I couldn't help but see a metaphor, intended or not. We have real victims on the web: bloggers flogged, beaten imprisoned and killed for blogging against oppressive governments, individuals' lives ruined at the apex of success in web business, with takeover tactics which would astound even seasoned businessmen, federal intervention, lack of federal intervention etc. Pornography metasticized on the net, and so did pedophilia, child enticement, rape and kidnapping, scams, fake benevolences, in a day of easy web publishing, massive plagairism, theft, fraud and litigation out the window in a new area of law which is still not fully developed. Our laws often are great, but they are seldom enforced. For a number of years, if you have had something controversial to say on the net, you become part freedom fighter , part pioneer, part schizoid cowboy, and part soldier. I am still wondering with my own sites, whether it was worth it. I wonder whether, if I could go back 11 years, and stick with my original objection: 'html--that's too hard, I'm too old to learn all that---', and had gone into traditional forms of publishing how life might have been safer, and different. I don't know.

If it has been bad for me, though, I cannot imagine those who have fought Microsoft mergers, failing businesses, criminal slander, government interference or the non-stop spirit of 'overthrow' amidst the chaos of a new frontier which has taken place at Google, Yahoo, cnet, and other overwhelmingly lucrative and successful sites and searches: there is no rest at the apex of the world, when everyone is playing King of the Hill.

Good vs Bad Robots

But as I watched that movie, the other night, with the 'good' robots vs 'bad' robots, I couldn't help but ponder what happens when 'good' search robots may one day , maybe 10 years from now, be replaced with 'bad' robots, and I will expound a little of what I mean.

Most search engines are based upon algorhytmic 'robots' which go out through the info on the net, matching key words, terms, phrases, and in a great deal more complexity, finding ranked and tiered 'best matches' for the phrases and terms you type in the little white search box.

Most people in search engine technology today are focused on a generic concept of 'best match' and they are usually trying to whittle down the most objective process, without the taint of personal philosophies in pulling up information on the net. That is the way it should be: we do not all agree with Brin and Page or their employees of diverse backgrounds, and what we all want is a search which gives us the best and most useful information fast. Occasionally though, web sites will 'optimize' their sites so that they place very high regardless of their quality. Youtube.com has seen recently a bit of 'religious wars' where one types in a generic term like 'Jesus' or 'prophet' and where once you got scenes from movies , sermons, etc , for awhile instead you got 20 or thirty segments of Mormom teaching, or the like. Clever people can manipulate the system. I knew of a fellow in Reno NV so talented and smart at SEO (search engine optimization) that he could take any site and put it at the top of the search process. It wasn't illegal at all: he just knew how to play to the robots. He became a very valuable person on the net.

Even then, though, the procedures are fairly innocuous though competitive, and with the exception of 'flooding' certain terms, or 'spamming' or other false adjustments, we still get a reasonable return on key terms, although far from perfect, as sometimes the best sites rank low due to a lack of knowledge regarding optimization.

But what if, say, private interests, or government, gets ahold of worldwide search engines? A cleverly designed engine, could easily sway one in the direction of a popular viewpoint, or even be used to manipulate viewpoints on such things as economics or ELECTIONS. A 'seditious' search engine could term up only certain kinds of results, and could either prioritize certain philosophies or likeminded sites, or even exclude or rank some sites so low that they would never be seen. For example, most people when looking up a term, will go to the first two or three pages, some less, but in any case, even the most diligent researcher will rarely ever go beyond 20 pages of links, even when there are a million sites which mention a topic. That means that out of a million sites, only 400 would really be readily available, and most people would look more at about 20-40 out of thousands or millions. While those usually include the better sites, that is not always true even in objective searches. An example that comes to mind in holocaust education is the following: my site, 'shoaheducation.com' is first and has been for years under the terms 'shoah education'. It is the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' pick. Yet under the terms 'holocaust education' , no matter how I optimize, we are way down the list, although we are one of the most frequently cited sites on the topic and are #1 on at least 30 or 40 terms having to do with holocaust information. Though I think I have a better 'idea' for holocaust education in my site than most, I would be the first to admit it is not the 'best' site in terms of amount of information, because it was not designed to be so, but was designed to offer summaries, introductions and portals to other sites on the net which are related. [I, ahem think we do that best]. But a formidable site on the net, Wiesenthal center, with a great deal of detailed information appears lower, often. Part of the reason is optimization, part organization, navigation and 'backlinks'. It should really have been higher.

Now, imagine John McCain, a little 'tiffed' at Obama decrying his lack of cyber-expertise, hires a brilliant search engine optimizer, even with 'good' robots out there: he could use the net to promote his campaign. Or vice versa, and towards November we could see the 'Star Wars' of cyber-rank for promotion of candidates and ideas.

Still, though, the above examples are describing a clever usage of the already existing, fairly objective robots and search processes. But what if a government, say even the US, federalized search engines and processes? It is not unheard of, it is on the horizon, and will probably first be promoted either as a bailout like in the 'fannie mae' crisis or to ensure 'objectivity'. Then, though, with search engine design in their hands, they could easily determine popular opinion on just about anything: wars, taxes, campaigns, energy policies, and even morality. Free speech would cease to exist (or has it?). One wouldn't even have to arrest, beat and jail bloggers, one could merely rank them out of engines. That is the concept of 'bad robots', and it could literally be deadly to the human conscience and even to the concept of society.

Recently, Google on its 10th year, introduced yet another spinoff, which is being called 'Google and Government' which has the good effect of making government in the sunshine an immediate effect: we can know in a heartbeat what bills are being voted on, voting records, etc. Just a thought, though, that that innocuous or even pallatable 'bridge' could at the same time become a 'bridge to 'don't-go-there'.

Well, all of this lengthy diatribe is to say, Congratulations, Google, I think. We want you to stay private and free. We do not want a Government Search engine. We want you, though, Google, to stand by those of us who have also stood for freedom on the net, for the equal rights of the 'lonely little blogger' [who might become Huffington Post, or Google] to have 1st ammendment rights and protection of Free Speech and authorship/creatorship/copyright rights without harm or ruin to their lives. Can we all who have been through the cyberwars of the past 10 years, occasionally cross lines, to say, keep the net private and free, and egalitarian---not just for business, but also for expression and ideas, creativity, learning, and freedom, not control? Can we find a way to defend the little 'guerilla, would-be journalists' who often let us know what the world is really all about, which is the main media related source not controlled by powerful corporate systems? The bottom dollar must occasionally stand aside for the sake of what the net will become if we do not. I'm standing for the rest of my time on the net for the 'good robots' and praying that the 'bad robots' never come about. I am not unrealistic though. Happy Birthday, Google. Happy Birthday, Wanda June.

An Open Letter to Governor Palin's Daughter

Dear Daughter of a too-well-known Politician,

I am writing a public letter to you on behalf of virtually millions of people who want you to know, that despite the cruelties of the Press and political pundits, most of us, including Conservative, born-again, Christians who homeschooled their children, both understand and support you in your wise and only choice to face a tough life crisis maturely and responsibly, and do not want it to be an issue at all in the upcoming elections. I also would like if I could to apologize to you on behalf of the American people, if I had the right to speak for them, at the devastating embarrassment and cruelty of making such a private issue public, and speaking of it over and over to hurt your mother's political career, without regard for the despair it might cause you, at a young age.

I suspect by this time, that you have already been through much of the painfulness of falling short of perfection, like the rest of us, having to tell your parents, having to tell siblings, and at a very young age, having to go through all your situation entails, but I will let you in on a little secret: all of those pointing the finger, have situations and failings in their lives, just as painful and embarrassing and just as difficult.

I understand your sitation though a little better than most. I also had a child out of wedlock, many years ago along with many others, and the hardest thing to do, even when you are pro-life, is refuse to take 'easy ways out', but instead to allow a very significant life to continue and come to know your love and that of your future husband. Sometimes life, and doing the right thing, causes us to be put to shame for a short while in our lives, but over time, what begins as a very troubling event, turns into the blessing of nuturing and watching the child you are giving life grow and become what only they can be.

I was faced with the same issue in my life once, at a very difficult time, although I was much older: one thinks it to be the end of the world, and you face what you are afraid may be the loss of everything you hold dear. I made the decision, that there was no real decision: that the life I bore was not mine to end, and for a few months suffered embarrassment, ridicule, and even career problems as a professor at a University. To say there is no suffering is not true: there is a great deal, but there is more to know: that tiny baby I gave birth to and raised alone, turned out to be a tall handsome talented person, and for most of his life a very loving and gracious person, who years later provided even a way to survive when there was none.

That 'problem' pregnancy turned into a son who composes some of the most beautiful classical music I have ever heard, who helped me improve my own music, who studied the wars of Israel in the Bible with me when he was young, and when he got older, taught his mother all the HTML and CSS I had to know to produce several successful websites. After we went through several years of trials beyond words in standing for our Christian faith, it was he who through perseverance and hard work provided the way out, who had before he was 25, purchased his own home, made Phi Theta Kappa honor society, gotten a scholarship, is putting himself through college, builds his own computers and many other things to numerous to mention. When you are only facing fingers in the press and public pointing at you, you do not see, that 'miracles really do hide', so to speak, and that the suffering now, is a great grace later.

Yet enough of that, I want you to know, that there are no humans cut of such a cloth who can in any way point a finger at others in terms of character and failings, for we all have them. However, you are a private person, and not a public person, but you have been rather forcibly cast into the sometimes very vicious public arena, where, I am sorry to tell you, you will find the beasts of this earth, who will not be moved at all by what I or others write to defend you or your mother, but will use every advantage against you, every insensitive , callous or even arrogantly biting remark to make themselves feel 'superior', but be assured, it is only an issue of the light being currently on one vs another.

There are other issues though, that the Press and American society need to consider: when a person is capable and proven of a position or career, they are to be judged by their own merit, and not on the failings of some one near them. In this day and hour, the children of famous people, particularly pastors and politicians become targets often for some of the most sinister people on earth to 'do them in' in an effort to embarrass their parents, or gain some political advantage. Most often, the famous or well-known parent is the last to know what is going on until it is too late, and the downfall of the child is used to humiliate both parent and child and cause division: there are some real monsters out there who just do not concern themselves with anyone's well-being but their own. Since it has all come out in the press though, please know, that most of us, believe what has been done is wrong, and while no one condones getting pregnant very young, few of us, even among the most fundamental Christian parents, do not understand the terrible trials and temptations which are out there to day facing young people in a world which has essentially gone insane.

As for your Mom, it is difficult to live in the shadow of a well known person, because you can never be perfect enough for everyone. For years though, the children of political candidates have been considered 'off limits' to public discussion and targeting because the young are not running, and they deserve the great civil liberty of being able to grow up unencumbered to the degree possible with the tainting of a parent's fame or even infamy. It needs to stay that way so that we remain human. I was also somewhat appalled when during the Saddleback forum the candidates were asked about their greatest moral failing: it disturbs me because it was an affront to the dignity of the office and the race, and both have had to say too many times they were once imperfect people. A current and grotesque failing we need to be aware of because it might affect the performance in a high office, but the failings of a minor over 30 years ago, are even with public figures, a matter of privacy.

The longer I live, and the more I have seen of what this world is and is like, the more I am convinced of a great need to be kind to one another, for as the Bible notes, the earth is filled with the 'habitations of cruelty'. There is a line from a song, which if the Republican National Convention plays any music here or there after the rock concert in Mile High Stadium should be "I need you to survive". The line says,
"I won't harm you, with words from my mouth, I need you to survive"

Neither I, nor your mother, nor the GOP, nor the McCains or any others can keep you from some of the nasty and torturous things which will appear in mocking cartoons, bad taste blogs, or articles, but you need to be assured, that during this difficult time, when you did not need any additional stress, that there really are people out there, people you have never heard of, nor will ever meet, who love you and will care for you and are rooting for you to have that strength beyond measure that only God can give. Claim the holy promise, that the Lord is the strength of your life, so, of whom should you be afraid? You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Confound the pundits, the criminal cruelties, the jokes etc, by walking with the dignity of a child of God who is forgiven, and who now carries the life of a person who will very possibly make a real difference in this world. Walk with your shoulders and head high, not in disregard for sin and mistakes, but above what mere humans can say, think or do about you: your ability to conquer life is in not allowing it to conquer you, and you do not have to bend to ever believing for a moment any hurtful thing which is said, but stake your life and heart and belief on the truth. Better yet, on the 'Way, the Truth, and the Life'. I have never known that to fail.

From a Mom who has been there.

E.K. Best

The Most Beautiful Child in China