LIES AND DAMNED LIES:
NOT DISCERNING THE TRUTH

INTRODUCTION

Arundhati Roy, a tireless worker for the poor in India and throughout the world, writes:

"The U.S. government's war ... (to secure its New World Order System) has launched a two-pronged assault on the world. One is a (U.S.) military assault on the Middle East that seeks to redraw the map of that region ... (in order to) establish (its) hegemony over oil. The other is an assault on the intelligence of the human race. IT'S NOT THE LIES WE ARE BEING TOLD, BUT THE QUALITY OF THOSE LIES THAT IS TRULY INSULTING."

And she is right. The lies - while staggering in the sheer quantity of them - are so blatantly spurious that one wonders how anyone could possible buy into them. Take, for example, the belief pushed by Bush's evangelical Christian followers, that in making war on Iraq, Bush is - in the words of Don Evans, the president's Commerce Secretary, and John Ashcroft, the president's Attorney General - "doing the Lord's work."

DOING THE LORD'S WORK

Doing the Lord's work? Oh, really? Come on now, is it really that difficult for Christians to pierce the facade of this kind of "Christian-speak?" - the kind that enshrouds the Bush administration in a DECEPTIVE aura of piety? Is it really that hard to take cognizance of the fact that the Bush administration, together with its allies in the Economic and Political Right, is engaging in a monstrous HOAX; that these people have no real interest in the "things of Christ" - and that while they are raining down bombs on the people of Iraq, they are NOT in their "prayer closets" praying on bended knees for the souls of their Iraqi "adversaries" (or even for the souls of the poor American soldiers who are unwittingly doing the fighting and dying for them), but in their "counting houses" and board rooms signing contracts, securing drilling rights, making plans to lay oil pipelines, and in general planning to loot the Iraqi people of ALL they have?

THE BECHTEL CORPORATION

Come on, now! Be honest! How hard is it to see any of this? - to see, for example, that the giant Bechtel Corporation - a company that lurks as a malignant and ceaseless "presence" at the very heart of the oil conglomerate that attends the Bush administration - just received a prized $680 million deal over 18 months for the long-term reconstruction of Iraq, a "reconstruction effort" that could eventually cost over $100 billion? And one must remember here what "reconstruction" means to the Bush administration: It means preparing Iraq's oil fields to be plundered of their oil wealth for the benefit of the oil companies that command the lofty heights of the American New World Order System. [Please see our article, "The Coming War in Iraq: What It's Really All About."]

Bechtel has been banging the drums of war with Iraq for some time now - as has Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, British Petroleum, etc. - and it's NOT for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Bechtel has been whacking these drums with all of its might and pushing innocent young American men and women into the flames of war, but rather for the sake of the BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars that will ultimately pour into their corporate coffers as a result of the war.

Arianna Huffington, a person I have come to deeply admire for her unflagging courage to speak out even though it has meant ostracism from her "class" (i.e., the ultra-rich), writes:

"Sneaking a peek through the blackout curtains the Bush administration has used to cloak the awarding of contracts to rebuild Iraq is like catching a glimpse of a very special incest episode of 'Elimi-Date': a bunch of muscular, cash-drunk, hand-picked corporate Lotharios vying for the affection of their governmental kissing cousins. The relationship between those dolling out these fantastically valuable deals and those receiving them is so intimate, taxpayers should demand that the participants be checked for STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) before the first mega-buck check is left on the dresser (i.e., as in a 'John' paying off his 'hooker' after 'services' have been 'rendered')."

Huffington continues:

"Just imagine a flowchart like the ones the FBI uses to show the inner workings of a Mafia crime family. But instead of illustrating the interrelationships of the Soprano crew, this chart would lay out the connections that guaranteed that the big winners in the post-Saddam sweepstakes would be those two ultimate Washington insiders, Halliburton and the Bechtel Group."

And she isn't kidding around here: the relationship between the "corporate insiders" and the political elite of the Republican Party is truly fantastic. Everyone, of course, knows about the relationship between Halliburton and Dick Cheney. But the relationship that Bechtel has with the Republican elite is truly breath-taking, starting with George Schultz, the very man most responsible for "anointing" Bush the Younger President of the United States on behalf of Corporate America. In anointing Bush president, however, it wasn't in the name of Christ that he did so, but in the name of Mammon because that's the god Schultz has faithfully served all his life. Schultz told Bush:

"I think you ought to be president. Twenty-five years ago Reagan stood on the same spot, and I said the same thing to him. Now I am saying it to you." [Please see our article, "George Bush, the Promise Keepers, and the Principles of Messianic Leadership" for a discussion of Schultz's work in "pushing" the candidacy of Bush the Younger for President of the United States - all on behalf of the oil companies and Corporate America.]

NONE OF THESE
MEN ARE CHRISTIANS

Schultz is a former Bechtel president, a former Reagan secretary of state, and currently both a Bechtel-board member and - not surprisingly - chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. [Please see our article on the evil, money-grubbing machinations of this committee and its venomous and malevolent connection to the evangelical Christian community, "Making Merchandise out of the People of God: Selling the Upcoming War in Iraq."]

Then there is Jack Sheehan, a senior VP at Bechtel and a member of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board, as well as the Chairman and CEO of Bechtel, Riley Bechtel, who in February was appointed by Bush to the President's Export Council, an organization strategically positioned to play a critical role in Bush's globalization policies and, ipso facto, the expansion of the American New World Order System. The fact is, a list of the people associated with Bechtel reads like a Who's Who in the government elite: former Secretary of Defense and CIA Chief James Schlesinger, former National Security Adviser, Robert McFarlane, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, ad nauseum.

Christians are making a big mistake in believing that any of these men are really interested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ beyond "paying lip service" to it. Christianity is nothing more than a convenient cloak behind which the elites practice their evil, self-serving mischief. William Greider, formerly of the Washington Post, summed up the attitude of most of these men towards Christianity when he suggested in his book, Rolling Back the 20th Century, that they aren't really Christians at all; they're -

"Cosmopolitan corporate executives (who) hold their noses and go along with Christian activists trying to stamp out 'decadent' liberal culture (in order to secure the 'Christian vote' for their regressive economic policies)."

What these men (i.e., Schultz, Cheney, Sheehan, McFarlane, etc.) are REALLY interested in is money - BIG MONEY. And Iraq spells BIG MONEY to all of them. No wonder, then, that Bechtel so feverishly banged the drums of war with Iraq.

IT'S NOT JUST THE OIL GIANTS

Moreover, it's not just the oil giants that stand to benefit from what's going on in Iraq. The fact is, as Naomi Klein suggests, those who argue that "it's too simplistic to say that the war in Iraq is only about oil" are right. It's not just about oil, but water, roads, trains, hotels, ports, phone systems, and on, and on, and on.

Take, for example, the U.S. company, Stevedoring Services of America which just received a $4.9 million management contract for the port in Umm Qasr; and then there is the contract that is about to be "put out to bid" to build a CDMA cell-phone system that ONLY U.S. companies will be allowed to bid on and that will benefit ONLY U.S. patent holders.

All of this, of course, is driving the Europeans nuts. Chris Patten, the European Union's Commissioner for External Affairs, whines that "It's exceptionally maladroit" for the United States to keep all the "juicy contracts" for itself. Patten snivels, "America has to learn to share." But, then, one might say to the Europeans that they should have thought about that before they "crossed" the Americans over the war in Iraq.

Patten's whining just confirms in the minds of most Americans what they already thought about the Europeans: that they are nothing more than a pack of cringing jackals to the American lion - bloodsuckers feeding off the "kill" once the Americans are through with it and have walked away. [Please see our recent article, "America verses Europe."]

PRIVATIZATION: SELLING OFF IRAQ'S STRATEGIC ASSETS
TO AMERICAN COMPANIES AT "FIRE-SALE" PRICES

Then there is the plan to PRIVATIZE all of Iraq's industry and infrastructure - which is a euphemism for "forcing the sale" of all of Iraq's state-owned companies at "fire-sale" prices (i.e., for pennies on the dollar) to American multinational corporations - European multinationals need not apply. This is kind of like what the Germans did to the French after they conquered France in 1940 and forced the sale of French property to German companies at only a fraction of what it was really worth. This is GLOBALIZATION as ONLY the Americans can practice it, which is, in the words of Klein,

"... SEIZING NEW MARKETS ON THE BATTLEFIELD USING 'PREEMPTIVE WAR' AS THE MECHANISM TO DO IT."

Klein explains:

"It's far easier to just tear up a country, occupy it, then rebuild it the way you want (using, of course, money or resources that have been extracted from the conquered population). Bush hasn't abandoned free trade, as some have claimed, he just has a new doctrine: 'Bomb before you buy'."

Klein continues:

"And it goes further than one unlucky country (i.e., Iraq). Investors are openly predicting that once the PRIVATIZATION of Iraq takes root, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will be forced to compete by privatizing their oil. 'In Iran, it would just catch on like wildfire', S. Robert Sobhani, an energy consultant, told the Wall Street Journal. SOON, AMERICA MAY HAVE BOMBED ITS WAY INTO A WHOLE NEW FREE-TRADE ZONE."

WHAT HAS THIS TO DO WITH
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST?

But to say that all this has anything to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ is just plain nuts. It's nothing more than a flimsy subterfuge behind which the Bush administration and its cronies in the Economic Right are hiding - a subterfuge that's not that difficult to see through. Obviously, what the war in Iraq is really about is "MONEY," "BOOTY," "PLUNDER" and the "SPOILS OF WAR." A cursory reading of the Wall Street Journal's listings of what American companies are getting what contracts in Iraq - and for how much money; and what state companies in Iraq are being "privatized" and bought up by what American companies - and, again, for how much money, etc. will make the game plain enough for anyone to see, lending a certain grim reality to James 4:1-2:

"FROM WHENCE COME WARS ...? COME THEY NOT HENCE, EVEN OF YOUR LUSTS ...?
"YE LUST, AND HAVE NOT; (THEREFORE) YE KILL ...? (James 4:1-2)

CHRISTIAN BLINDNESS TO
WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING

What is it about Christian evangelicals that can anger them over such "PENNY-ante" Democratic Party calumnies as Whitewater and Travelgate while at the same time rendering them blind to the MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR scandals of their allies in the Republican Party?

Could it be that they are - in a very real way - being "paid off" for their silence with such "goodies" as the "Faith-Based Initiative" and corporate sponsorship of much of their "faith-based" social and cultural agenda? Of course it is! [Please see our article, "Creating a Common Partnership between the Moneyed Elites and the Religious Elites."]

There is a MINDSET that we are dealing with here. It's a MINDSET that cannot be overcome by an appeal to reason, or even an appeal to the Scriptures. It's a MINDSET that predisposes Christians to ignore the evil that their allies in the Republican Party are doing - and the bloodshed and war that all this evil is leading to - while at the same time inclining Christians to believe that Bush is "doing the Lord's work" in making war on Iraq; that he is engaged in what Christian apologists like to call a "JUST WAR."

THE IDEA OF A "JUST WAR" IS PURE FICTION

Sadly, however, if there ever was such a thing as a "Just War," the war in Iraq certainly wouldn't qualify as such. The sight of the CEOs of America's Fortune 500 companies bent greedily over the map of Iraq, licking their lips and rubbing their hands together as they divvy up the war booty among themselves (a picture that springs easily to mind as one peruses the pages of the Wall Street Journal) does not lend itself easily to the notion that America is engaged in a "Just War."

But more than that, the idea of a "Just War" is pure fiction. It is nothing more than the depraved "invention" of the Medieval Catholic Church. It's a fantasy, a myth, an illusion - AT LEAST INSOFAR AS THE NEW TESTAMENT IS CONCERNED. And though it has been repeated so often and in so many different venues that one hardly questions its veracity anymore, it is, nonetheless, a lie made up out of "thin air." Jesus said,

"... ALL they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Matt. 26:52)

[And remember the context in which Jesus spoke these words: The disciples were looking for Jesus to "seize the kingdom" and bring it in by "force of arms," and when it looked to Peter and the other disciples that Jesus was going to be taken captive, Peter cut off the ear of the guard who had seized Christ, thinking that in lifting up the sword in behalf of Christ, he was "doing service for God."]

But Jesus said,

"Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of ANGELS?" (Matt. 26:53)

When one can have angels, what does one need with man?

THE LORD DOES NOT NEED MAN TO
FIGHT HIS BATTLES FOR HIM

What Jesus was essentially saying here in disregarding Peter's feeble effort to defend Him is that He doesn't need man to do His fighting for Him - a rather "common sense" notion concerning "HIM BY WHOM ALL THINGS WERE MADE" (John 1:3) - a notion, however, that doesn't fit in with C. Peter Wagner's or Dr. Gregory A. Boyd's asinine and moronic concept of "WARFARE THEOLOGY."

"Warfare Theology?" Man fighting for God? The creature battling for the Creator? The finite making war for the Infinite? - the very thought of it is moronic, after all, it isn't God who needs to be saved by man, but man who needs to be saved by God. [Again, please see our article, "America verses Europe" for a discussion of this INSANE and extremely ARROGANT doctrine, i.e., "Warfare Theology."]

FIGHTING FOR THE WRONG KINGDOM

Moreover - and this is important - it wasn't just that Christ DIDN'T need Peter's help, BUT IN TAKING UP ARMS FOR CHRIST, PETER FOUND HIMSELF UNWITTINGLY FIGHTING FOR THE WRONG KINGDOM. Jesus said:

"... My kingdom is NOT of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight ... but ... my kingdom (comes) NOT from hence." (John 18:36)

The very real fact of the matter is, the foundation of the Kingdom that Jesus preached is DIAMETRICALLY opposed to the foundation which undergirds the kingdom of this world; for what Kingdom in this world could long survive using Luke 6:27-29 as a "foundational" premise? -

"Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
"Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
"And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also." (Luke 6:27-29)

Certainly not any kingdom or nation in this world that I am aware of; and that is most certainly true of the United States. Jesus wasn't kidding around when He said, "... My kingdom is NOT of this world ..." (John 18:36)

HIDING GREED AND AVARICE BEHIND THE
CATHOLIC CONCEPT OF A "JUST WAR"

The fact is, the concept of a "Just War" to be used by man as a defense for God's purposes in this world is UTTER nonsense. It is nothing more than a corrupt and evil stratagem designed by very vulgar and profoundly worldly Christians who are unable to differentiate between the "Kingdom of this World" and the "Kingdom of God" - people like Paul Crouch, David and Justin Du Plessis, Jack Hayford, Dr. Kevin Ranaghan, Ken Metz, Charles Stanley, D. James Kennedy, Tim LaHaye, the late John Wimber, Juan Carlos Ortiz, C. Peter Wagner, Beverley LaHaye, Ern Baxter, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, David Yonggi Cho, Robert Stearns, Mike Bickle, Reuven Doron, Che Ahn, Frank Hammond, Cindy Jacobs, Bill Hamon, John Eckhardt, Bobbie Byerly, Dutch Sheets, Jim Goll, John Paul Jackson, James Ryle, Frank Damazio, Ed Silvoso, Carlos Annacondia, Claudio Freidzon, Roger Mitchell, Ted Haggart, Paul Cain, Chuck Pierce, Rick Joyner, Kingsley Fletcher, Jim Laffoon, Barbara Wentroble, ad infinitum

The idea of a "Just War" as promulgated by these men is nothing more than a mask to give "cover" to the greed, avarice, bloodshed and murder of their "PAYMASTERS" in the political and economic worlds - OR do you really believe that the Thirty Years War (a "religious war" that killed off one-third of the population of Europe), OR the Inquisition (which lifted torture to a "sublime" art form in the "service of God"), OR the "Christian" conquests of India and Africa to "bring the Gospel to these continents" (and concomitantly impoverished the people of India and enslaved half the population of Africa to service the plantations and mines of their "Christian" masters in the so-called "New World), etc. were really "Just Wars" that advanced the Kingdom of God? If so, I have some swampland I would like to sell you in Florida.

And it's the same today with regard to Iraq! - the fact is, the notion that the United States is engaged in a "Just War" in Iraq is nonsense. And it's more than that: it's a lie; it's a "DAMNED LIE!" - and, as Arundhati Roy suggests, it's not a very good one at that.

But one has to have a willingness as a Christian to see through this "DAMNED LIE;" to - as Archibald MacLeish suggests - "resign from the herd (mentality of most Christians today), and think for himself;" one has to be willing to strip away the thin veneer of altruism and benevolence (i.e., the "Christian-speak" of Bush and his slavish devotees in the Religious Right) that hides the AWFUL TRUTH of what's really happening not just in Iraq, but all over the world.

And what is that? - THAT THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD ARE BEING RAPED AND PILLAGED for the benefit of a small group of "WORTHIES" that sit atop the "American New World Order System" - a group of "WORTHIES" that the apostate leadership of today's evangelical Christian community has "made common cause with."

No! - greed and avarice are the motivating factors in war, and the repulsive doctrine of a "JUST WAR" is the facade behind which wars are fought. The truth is, the New Testament does NOT endorse the idea of a "JUST WAR." "NOWHERE!" "NO HOW!"

To the contrary, as we have already pointed out, the New Testament says,

"From whence come wars ...? Come they not hence, even of your lusts ...?
"Ye lust, and have not: (therefore) ye kill ..." (James 4:1-2)

A "JUST WAR" IN DEFENSE OF A WORLD THAT
THE BIBLE SAYS "LIETH IN THE EVIL ONE?"

Wars result from our LUST to possess things we can only obtain through violence! That's what the New Testament says! But then, what else should one expect from a war fought in defense of a world the Bible says "... LIETH IN THE EVIL ONE (i.e., the devil)?" (1 John 5:19)

And remember here, that's "... the WHOLE world" (1 John 5:19), not just part of the world, "... the WHOLE world" - or do you really think that these verses (i.e., James 4:1-2 and 1 John 5:19 above) do not apply insofar as America is concerned? - that somehow or other the elites that govern America, people like Ken Lay of Enron, Bernie Ebers of WorldCom (both of whom are crooks), and companies like Boeing, Ford, General Motors, General Electric, etc. (all of which have shipped off thousands and thousands of American jobs to "slave-wage factories" in Mexico and China where laborers there "toil" for pennies a day) are so chaste and "virginal" that these verses are not relevant when applied to them? Do you really think that?

No! - the idea of a "Just War" is a LIE.

THERE IS A "JUST WAR" COMING -
BUT NOT BY THE HAND OF MAN

SOMEDAY, OF COURSE, THERE WILL BE A "JUST WAR" - BUT IT WON'T BE CONDUCTED BY THE "ARM OF THE FLESH," BUT BY THE "ARM OF GOD." And it won't be man that does the fighting, as conceited nincompoops like C. Peter Wagner and Dr. Gregory Boyd postulate in their arrogant and hideous doctrine of "WARFARE THEOLOGY." It will be God Himself when He judges the present "world system of man."

Unfortunately, when that happens, American Christians may be found on the wrong side of Judgment when it finally falls - after all, it's not the United Nations, or the European Community, or the Japanese, or the "Red Chinese," or any other nation or secret cabal (i.e., the Illuminati, the "Learned Elders of Zion," etc.) that are running roughshod all over the planet, recklessly imposing their will on the earth and acting like SAVAGE ANIMALS - it's the United States! AND IT IS PRECISELY WITH THIS SAVAGE ANIMAL (I.E., THE AMERICAN NEW WORLD ORDER SYSTEM) THAT AMERICAN EVANGELICALS HAVE MADE COMMON CAUSE. [Please see our article, "In Search of Babylon" What Does the Bible Say?"]

AN "OVERFLOWING SCOURGE" THAT
RIPS THROUGH PEOPLE'S LIVES

A SAVAGE ANIMAL! - that's what the Bible calls the AMERICAN NEW WORLD ORDER SYSTEM; a wild, ferocious, untamed "BEAST" that is "... DREADFUL and TERRIBLE and STRONG EXCEEDINGLY with great iron teeth: that DEVOURS and BRAKES IN PIECES, and stamps the residue (i.e., those who remain) with its feet ..." (Daniel 7:7), and one that Isaiah describes as an "OVERFLOWING SCOURGE" (Is. 28:18); a system that Arundhati Roy says,

"... rips through ordinary people's lives, pushes them off their lands and out of their jobs while all the time the elites journey to their imaginary destinations somewhere near the top of the world." [Please see our article, "Inside the American New World Order System."]

If American Christians don't see what's happening - if they refuse to come to grips with the awful centrality of the United States in the unfolding drama of the "end of days" - it's because they don't want to see it - so that,

"Having eyes (to see), (they) see ... not, and having ears (to hear), (they) hear ... not ..." (Mark 8:18)

THE REST OF THE WORLD SEES

But the rest of the world certainly sees what's happening; they see who's in charge of this "present evil world!" (Gal. 1:4) It's no secret to them! It has not escaped their attention that AMERICAN POWER NOW GIRDLES THE WORLD WITH A RING OF STEEL; that the new bases the U.S. has built for itself in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Balkans mean that the U.S. military now encompasses the globe as no other military has ever done before (not even the British), from the frozen wastes of Greenland to the deserts of southern Afghanistan; from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo to the giant airbase at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan - a huge bastion of American power that effectively blocks the Chinese from insinuating themselves into Central Asia and capturing some of the oil wealth there for themselves (which is exactly what the enormous American base at Manas in Uzbekistan does to the Russians).

Jonathan Schell, a "fellow" at the Nation Institute says that the United States is creating for itself a "UNIVERSAL EMPIRE," the foundation of which -

"... (is) NOT equality or consent of any kind, BUT THE ABSOLUTE AND UNCHALLENGEABLE SUPERIORITY OF ONE POWER (I.E., THE UNITED STATES) AND THE VASSALAGE OF ALL OTHERS ..."

This is precisely what all the other nations of the earth think about America too. The whole world thinks this. Indeed, Syrian President Bashar Assad says,

"WE ARE ALL TARGETED, WE ARE ALL IN DANGER."

And again, whatever one might think of Assad, he's right here!

James Rosen writes:

"From increasingly fractured Europe to Asia and the Middle East, the war (in Iraq) ... has rocked key relations between Washington and other foreign capitals ... The quick, decisive U.S. military victory is transforming how much of the rest of the world views American intentions and capabilities.

"Among international relations experts, there is widespread agreement that the war has already caused a virtual revolution in geo-political strategic thinking. 'The core of the Bush doctrine at this point is that the sole superpower in the world is able to act almost (entirely) on its own', said Helle Dale, a Danish-born international studies expert ... 'Of course, you can question the wisdom of doing that, but the show of force in Iraq and the performance of the U.S. military now place the United States in an absolute and obviously unique position in the world'."

This kind of thing - vassalage in the American New World Order System - frightens the "pod-wods" out of the once proud and haughty Europeans. Indeed, Paul Kennedy, a professor of history and the director of International Security Studies at Yale University, relates how one of his Dutch friends told him recently that many of his Dutch countrymen were actually "SCARED" of America.

Regis Debray, a Frenchman, wonders:

"What role will Europe settle for in America's march across ... (the earth): Staffing a first aid post on the Afghan frontier? Patrolling the Gulf in a paddleboat?"

FODDER FOR UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT

The French newspaper Le Monde says that this cannot help but result in "imbalance and FODDER FOR UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT."

Le Monde, of course, is right. THIS IS THE KIND OF ILL-FELLING THAT BREEDS WAR, AND MORE WAR STILL, AND YET EVEN MORE WAR - a whirling, twisting maelstrom of hate that, once begun, spins ever downward towards hell and what the Bible calls the "BEGINNING OF SORROWS:"

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars ...
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom ...
"All these are the BEGINNING OF SORROWS." (Matt. 24:6-8)

And it's already started! Take, for instance, the "UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT," BITTERNESS and ANGER towards the American New World Order System in Latin America - bitterness, anger and resentment that the United States is going to have to spend ever greater amounts of treasure - to say nothing of the lives of its own sons and daughters - to contain. Everywhere in Latin America people are angry with America! They are tired and weary of having their wealth plundered by the Americans. That's what Angel Villagomes, a retired state road inspector in Bolivia, thinks is happening; that's what he told William Finnegan of Harpers Magazine:

"It's very sad. Here in Bolivia we are sitting on a chair of gold - oil, gas, minerals - AND YET ALL THE WEALTH GOES TO FOREIGNERS (i.e., Americans)."

This perception of reality is ubiquitous in Latin America - a perception that sees the United States pillaging and plundering ordinary people in South and Central America on behalf of Wall Street. This is the "FODDER" for "UNIVERSAL RESENTMENT" that Le Monde is talking about - AND PEOPLE ARE REACTING TO IT.

THE REACTION

For example, Ecuador has just voted in a left-wing president - Lucio Gutierrez - in what by all accounts was a free and open election. Gutierrez is a frank opponent of the American New World Order System and openly opposes Ecuador's "client-state" status in that system. Duncan Campbell, writing in Britain's Guardian newspaper, says that Gutierrez looks like the antithesis of the kind of leader the United States would like to see in the region - the kind of leader the American multinationals can count on to do their bidding. Campbell writes:

"Gutierrez encapsulates the change of mood throughout Latin America (against the American New World Order System)."

America's candidate for president of Ecuador was Alvaro Naboa, the Bonita banana BILLIONAIRE and the head of the U.S. lackey-elite in Ecuador. Campbell writes,

"The contrast (between Gutierrez and Noboa) could not have been greater. While Gutierrez had the backing of the indigenous Indian population (and) came from a humble background, Noboa was a chum of Charlton Heston, a polo player and the owner of a home on New York's Park Avenue who heavily outspent his rival. On the walls of the city (i.e., Quito) over the past few weeks, a piece of graffiti captured the national mood. It used Noboa's initials to spell out in Spanish the slogan: "NOT ANOTHER ... (AMERICAN) OLIGARCH IN POWER.

"THE SUCCESS OF GUTIERREZ FITS INTO WHAT IS NOW A CLEAR PATTERN IN LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS. It follows the landslide victory of Lula da Silva in Brazil, which was also based on a platform of battling inequality (and the oppressive brutality that is inherent in Brazil's status as an American client-state)."

And the unrest is spreading: Earlier this year, for example, demonstrators rocked the government of America's lackey elite in Bolivia - the government of President Gonsalo Sanchez de Losada - in an out pouring of rage against the International Monetary Fund. [Please see our article which deals with, among other things, the IMF, "Inside the American New World Order System."]

Sanchez de Losada had decreed a 12.5 percent hike in the income tax. When Bolivians learned that an IMF "adjustment" plan - which in essence aimed at facilitating the further rape of their country's infrastructure by American multinationals - lay behind the government's decree, they targeted the national government in protest.

FIRING INTO THE CROWDS

As described by writer Tom Lewis, violent clashes left 33 dead and 170 wounded in the streets of La Paz, Cochabamba and other cities. The conflict broke out following a day of fiery criticism of the government. The next day the fighting accelerated when high school students from the Colegio Fiscal Ayacucho de La Paz set in motion events that brought tens of thousands of Bolivians into the streets. As the students shouted outside the presidential palace in La Paz's Plaza Murillo, military police inside the palace used tear gas against them.

Nevertheless, the students refused to disperse and hurled rocks back at the soldiers. As the fighting escalated, the soldiers began firing at the students. Then the mass of people who had been sitting out the demonstration on the sidelines jumped into the fray on the side of the students. Protesters demanded Sanchez de Losada's resignation and those of his vice president and cabinet. They set fire to at least three government buildings in La Paz, as well as to the headquarters of the two political parties, both of which represented the interests of the indigenous economic elite the Americans had set up in Bolivia to represent the America's New World Order System - like the Bechtel Group. [Yes! - the very same corporation that is behind America's War in Iraq.]

Office buildings, banks, shopping centers, and local businesses were either ransacked or occupied in the city center. In El Alto, the poorest part of La Paz's greater metropolitan area, demonstrators torched city hall, the customs office and the Coca-Cola plant. Two hundred arrests occurred in Cochabamba, where roadblocks disrupted traffic between the Andean city and the tropical capital of Santa Cruz. Armored vehicles, carrying soldiers with painted faces and fixed bayonets (i.e., government death squad functionaries), were mobilized across the country and sent into action.

As the protests finally subsided, Oscar Olivera - head of Cochabamba's Factory Worker's Union and chief spokesman for the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life - explained that the tax rebellion represented -

"One of those absolutely blind measures taken by the government in the belief that the people are submissive. But instead the population rises up to say 'no', to say 'enough', and to take on as its own discussions that used to happen only in the hallways of the palaces of the powerful."

The tax rebellion in Bolivia builds on a series of struggles in that country by Bolivia's courageous citizenry against the IMF, the World Bank and the other instrumentalities of the American New World Order System that date back to the victory against water privatization in Cochabamba during the Spring of 2000. [Please see Part I, "Why The World Hates America" in our article, "Today's Church: Making Zombies out of Christians - the Prophets and Apostles Movement" for a description of what happened in Cochabamba in 2000.]

THE SOCIALIST NIGHTMARE AGAIN

Campbell says that there is an "ill wind" blowing throughout all of Latin America against the American New World Order System, and nothing demonstrates this fact more than the gathering of nearly 100,000 people in Porto Alegre, Brazil for the World Socialist Forum.

Eeee gads! - SOCIALISM AGAIN - THAT HATED NEMESIS OF THE "RICHIE RICHES" THROUGHOUT THE WORLD - A NEMESIS THAT THREATENS TO STRIP THE ELITE OF THEIR WEALTH. That's no fair! Socialism is supposed to be "dead and buried." Don't these people read the Wall Street Journal? - the U.S. and capitalism won, the Soviet Union and socialism lost.

Nonetheless, there it is. SOCIALISM, IT SEEMS, IS ALIVE AND WELL, AND IN PORTO ALEGRE - along with such "hated" activists (hated at least insofar as Wall Street, the Religious Right, and the "richie-riches" are concerned) as Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenreich (whose book, Nickled and Dimed should be MUST reading for everyone), Arundhati Roy, Danny Glover (TransAfrica Forum), Noam Chomsky, Kevin Danaher and Medea Benamin (Global Exchange), Dennis Brutus (Jubilee South Africa), Rania Masri (Southern Peace Research and Education Center), Rebecca Hanscom (Jobs with Justice), Lee Sustar (International Socialist Review), etc. The list of attendees reads like a Who's Who of the Left throughout the world.

Lee Sustar reports that the entire spectrum of the Left was present - from moderate politicians and nongovernmental organizations to revolutionary socialists. Sustar says that -

"The size of the crowd and numbers of workshops created an atmosphere of one enormous, non-structured meeting."

And lest one think that this was simply a gathering of the powerless, it should be noted that both Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, and Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, were there too - and even addressed the crowd.

THE "GREAT UNWASHED"

THESE ARE THE KIND OF PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE MONEYED ELITES OF THE WORLD TREMBLE WITH RAGE. WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? - THESE UPSTARTS! THESE LEADERS OF THE "GREAT UNWASHED" who don't know their place, who refuse to "bow and scrape" before their "betters" and who actually attempt to install their own people (i.e., Lulu, Chavez, Gutierrez, etc.) in power, thereby disturbing the smooth functioning of the American New World Order System.

AND IT'S NOT JUST IN LATIN AMERICA

And it's not just in Latin America that the "GREAT UNWASHED" is making its presence felt; it's happening everywhere! - and it's easy enough to see in the BLATANT anti-Americanism that purveys the demonstrations throughout the world against the war in Iraq. These demonstrations are much more than demonstrations against the war; they are in a very real sense demonstrations against the American New World Order System: two million demonstrators in London; 2.5 million demonstrators in Rome; over a million in Barcelona; a million more in Cairo; 200,000 in Damascus - and thousands and thousands elsewhere around the globe.

The people are resisting! What have they got to lose? The fact is, many of them have reckoned that it is better to die than live on under the onerous, suffocating oppression of America's New World Order System. That's the truth of the matter! BETTER TO DIE BEFORE A FIRING SQUAD THAN ON BENDED KNEES LICKING THE BOOTS OF SOMEONE LIKE ALVARO NOBOA OF ECUADOR."

IN THE END, OF COURSE, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, GIVEN THE OVERWHELMING MILITARY POWER OF THE UNITED STATES - A NEW AND REVOLUTIONARY KIND OF POWER THAT JUNGLE HIDEAWAYS, MOUNTAIN FORTRESSES AND DESERT HIDEOUTS CAN NO LONGER PROTECT PEOPLE FROM, ESPECIALLY WHEN THIS POWER IS WIELDED WITH THE KIND OF BRUTALITY THE AMERICANS ARE PREPARED TO EMPLOY. And one should make no mistake about it - the Americans possess that kind of brutality! - the kind that only religion can arm one with, which, in America's case, is the apostate kind of Christianity that C. Peter Wagner and Dr. Gregory Boyd preach in their HATEFUL doctrine of "Warfare Theology."

THE RE-EMERGENCE OF RADICAL
ACTIVISTS ON U.S. CAMPUSES

Nonetheless, despite the fact that the "deck is stacked against them," the people are resisting, and that resistance is spreading to America as well - AND IN ALL OF THIS, IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO MISS THE LEFTISH TINGE IN WHAT'S HAPPENING. Shades of Chicago in 1968, and Shades of Vietnam too!

Moreover - as in Chicago in 1968 and in Vietnam throughout the 1960s and early '70s - America's college campuses are at the center of what's happening. For example, Eric Ruder reports that earlier this year more than 300 students representing 100 campuses gathered at Loyola University in Chicago for the first national conference of the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN). Those who met in Chicago - while billing themselves as antiwar activists - see themselves as the vanguard of something more: as the framework for the formation of a network of campus activists dedicated to battling the Bush administration's expansion of the American New World Order System. Media critic Normon Solomon set the tone for the meeting in his keynote address, saying that one day people will read about this meeting in the history books.

The Chicago conference was the continuation of organizing work that first got off the ground at simultaneous East and West Coast conferences the day before the January 18th demonstrations against the war in Iraq in Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Kathleen Brown, a delegate from the University of Vermont and a member of CAN's national coordinating committee, said:

"There's been a RADICALIZATION of the movement ... THIS SHOWS THAT PEOPLE (ESPECIALLY STUDENTS) ARE MOVING TO THE LEFT ..."

Again, this is the kind of "stuff" that drives the elites crazy. It's not so much that CAN and movements like it are that big yet - they're not; it's the fact that they are there AND THEY ARE GROWING. [Please see our article on the anti-globalization movement, "The WTO and the Masses."]

The elites have a long memory. They remember what happened in Vietnam - that although they won the war there (i.e., in Vietnam), they ultimately lost it in this country because they allowed the antiwar movement to escape them and "infect" the general population - BEGINNING FIRST WITH THE CAMPUSES, AND SPREADING OUTWARD FROM THERE INTO THE GENERAL POPULATION.

COGS IN A MACHINE

To be sure, the elites have done a lot since then to insulate themselves from the wrath of the masses: they've ended the draft (conscription) which figured so prominently in stirring up the "masses" against what was happening in Vietnam; they've bought up much of the "offending media" that fed the flames of the antiwar movement in the late '60s and early '70s (please see our article, "The Corporate State and the Mass Media"), and they've created a new type of warfare that has all but eliminated the mass Amercan casualties of the Vietnam conflict (please see our article, "The Revolution in Military Affairs"), etc.

On the other hand, however, there are inequities that currently exist in the United States that didn't exist thirty-five years ago during the Vietnam War - largely economic inequities that are today as capable of fueling resentment against the elites as the draft and the massive casualties of the Vietnam War produced against them three and a half decades ago. These inequities cannot help but be exacerbated by the ENDLESS WAR that America has embarked upon to "make the world safe for Christ and the church" as nincompoops like Jerry Falwell, Charles Stanley, D. James Kennedy and C. Peter Wagner think.

And one should not underestimate the resentment of ordinary people (if not ordinary Christians, most of whom have had the "wool pulled over their eyes") in the United States towards the elites as a result of their unjust and pernicious economic policies - essentially the same ones that are devastating the so-called Third World. THE ELITES REALLY DON'T DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN "ORDINARY PEOPLE" IN AMERICA AND THOSE WHO INHABIT THE POVERTY STRICKEN REALMS OF AMERICA'S CLIENT-STATES. TO THE ELITES, THEY ARE ALL "COGS IN THE SAME MACHINE." Christians don't seem to get this. They don't see that in reality they are nothing more than pathetic objects of ridicule to the elites; useful tools to be discarded when the elites are finished with them - and someday they will finish with them, and throw them away. But by then it will be too late! [Please see Chapter 8 of the Antipas Papers, "Midway Through the Tribulation: The Abomination of Desolation."]

GROWING INEQUALITIES

And make no mistake about it! - these inequalities are for real! For example, among the most posh of the reigning corporate magnates in the United States today, yearly compensation has accelerated from $1.3 million three decades ago (i.e., during the Vietnam conflict) to today's $37.5 million, rising from 29 times to 1,000 times above the average pay of workers in this country. The wealthiest one percent, who held 22 percent of the nation's wealth in 1975, now possesses 42 percent of it.

Even Warren Buffet, one of the richest of the very rich, admits that this kind of wealth accumulation by the moneyed-elite has never before been seen in all of recorded history. He calls it an "unwavering and shameless effort to GET IT ALL" by the elites, "it" meaning money. [We have in the past had much to say on this subject: specifically, the callousness, indifference and hard-heartedness of the elites towards "every-day" working people; please see our articles on this subject, "Making Men Cogs in a Machine," and "The Deceitfulness of Riches and the Marxist Paradigm."]

Moreover, as the American elites push their rapacious economic agenda, the polarization between the "haves" and the "have nots" will only increase - a gap that the Left in this country, especially the radical Left - will find easier and easier to exploit.

The elites, however, can't stop themselves; they are simply unable to reign their greed in; they are addicted to the incessant accumulation of wealth - and EVENTUALLY IT SHOWS, even to the point of appearing UNSEEMLY and even OBSCENE; that's when cheerleading for "wars of conquest" and the "patriotic highs" all this produces in average people can begin to wear a little thin, especially in the face of unemployment and poverty, or when both husband and wife must work 40-hour weeks at minimum wage (or near minimum wage) jobs and then hold down a second part-time job on the weekend just to make ends meet.

No time for the kids, no time for "rest and relaxation!" - every minute of every day it's go, go, go! No! - this kind of economic pressure is as capable of producing as much pressure on this generation as the draft and the massive casualties of the Vietnam War produced on the generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

CRACKING DOWN

Sidney M. Willhelm writes that because of all this, those who govern today's American New World Order System know that they must prepare themselves to deal with a world-wide "people's movement" - a movement that can only be dealt with through the use of BRUTAL repression - not only abroad (please see our articles, "Inside the American New World Order System," and the "Versailles Phenomenon") but in this country as well.

The Left must not be given a chance to mobilize itself the way it did during the Vietnam War. Cut dissent off at the roots. Nail it down before it gets started. That's what the so-called USA Patriot Act is all about.

THE PATRIOT ACT ALLOWS THE INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT TO DO LEGALLY AND IN THE OPEN WHAT THEY COULD ONLY DO ILLEGALLY AND IN SECRET DURING THE VIETNAM WAR: it allows the FBI to (1) intercept our mail and email and use what it obtains in criminal investigations; (2) obtain wiretaps more easily than ever before; (3) detain non-U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime (or allowing them access to attorneys; (4) detain U.S. citizens in the same manner by declaring them "enemy combatants," a definition that - with each passing month - grows broader and broader, even to the point of becoming a "catch-all;" (5) get a search warrant from a court in any jurisdiction that will be valid nationwide; and (6) get warrants to search our homes without ever having to show us those warrants, or without ever having to tell us its agents were even there.

THESE THINGS ARE GOING ON ALL THE TIME

At the time that the Patriot Act was first past, many people said the government would never really use these powers. However, columnist Levi Harris reports that those people were wrong. He writes:

"These things are going on every single day, and thousands of people - citizens and non-citizens alike - have been jailed (under the provisions of the Patriot Act)."

The fact that most people do not know what's happening, or know anything about the massive amount of arrests that have been taking place as a result of the Patriot Act, simply confirms what many people had been afraid of all along - that the Patriot Act is doing EXACTLY what it was designed to do: creating a shroud of secrecy behind which the government can move against those it deems "enemies of the state," which is to say, all those who disagree with its policies. THESE ARE THE WORKINGS OF A POLICE STATE, NOT A DEMOCRACY, AND CHRISTIANS ARE BLIND NOT TO RECOGNIZE THIS.

THERE IS A PATHOLOGY AT WORK

There is a pathology that is at work here - a pathology which leads to ever higher levels of government control and regimentation of our society; one step leading to the next, and then the next, and so on, and on. Each step means little by itself; but when taken together, the distance traveled is breath-taking, and the HORROR of the final destination becomes plain enough. But by that time, the process is irreversible and final. Nothing can be done.

Take, for example, the pathology that is at work at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington Law School, says that Camp Delta was originally justified as a holding area for "EVIL DOERS" (President Bush's words) from the Afghanistan conflict. Well, that's okay, one would think; after all, these people aren't citizens; they're not even POWs because they are not fighting for a particular state. They're just terrorists - LEGAL NONENTITIES the government may hold, release or even execute at its SOLE desecration.

But think about that for a minute: they're not POWs and they are not criminals; they are LEGAL NONENTITIES. That means that these prisoners have NO rights under the Geneva Convention, and they have NO rights under the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, according to Turley, "the Bush administration has argued that the detainees at Camp Delta are not "people" under the Constitution (or under the Geneva Convention)." The government may hold these people without trial or judicial review of any kind.

THAT WAS THE FIRST STEP OF THE PATHOLOGY THAT IS AT WORK AT CAMP DELTA IN GUANTANAMO BAY. NOW THE SECOND STEP: The government has now broadened its definition of the word "EVIL DOER" to include ANYONE whom it defines as a terrorist suspect or a person suspected of aiding or abetting terrorists by word (one wonders, does that include us here at Antipas?) or by deed.

IT IS PRECISELY HERE THAT ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT HAS DEVISED A WAY TO "LOCK UP" AMERICAN CITIZENS: Ashcroft has declared that - based on the provisions of the U.S.A. Patriot Act - he has UNILATERAL authority to declare U.S. citizens to be "enemy combatants" AND TO STRIP THEM OF THEIR CITIZENSHIP. Once stripped of their citizenship, they can be locked up at Camp Delta or some other similar facility forever without benefit of trial or counsel.

Turley writes:

"Camp Delta ... is one of many examples of a certain appetite in the administration for the trappings of authoritarian power. While the number of affected individuals remains relatively small, THE TASTE FOR SUCH UNILATERAL POWER IS CLEARLY GROWING INTO A CRAVING. It is tempting to dismiss these measures as mere indulgences on the edges of society. But it is much more than that ... IN THIS KIND OF SETTING, "SUSPICION" IS AS GOOD AS A "CONVICTION" because the vast majority of these prisoners will never be submitted to a tribunal, let alone a legitimate court of law."

Indeed, Turley reports that the Justice Department has no intention of trying the vast majority of these prisoners.

Turley says that THERE IS A TERM FOR THAT TYPE OF PRISON: a "GULAG!" - like the Russians had in the old Soviet union. But, in fairness to the Soviets, it should be noted that at least their prisoners got sham trials. THE ABSENCE OF SUCH SHAM TRIALS INSOFAR AS THE AMERICAN GULAG IS CONCERNED MAKES CAMP DELTA AN EVEN MORE EXTREME VERSION ON THE GULAG THEME THAT WAS EXTANT IN THE OLD SOVIET UNION.

Come on now! - is it so hard to see that what the U.S. is doing at Camp Delta is a precursor of what it is planning to do here in the United States in the not too distant future? Come on now! Be honest!

NONE OF THIS TROUBLES "BROTHER" ASHCROFT

All this, of course, doesn't bother "brother" Ashcroft. He testified before Congress last December that those who object to "phantoms of lost liberty" only serve to "aid terrorists - for they erode our national unity and diminish or national resolve."

According to Ashcroft, supposedly a "born-again" Christian and a "lay minister" in the Assemblies of God, those who question the Bush administration's policies "give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."

Wow! - again, this doesn't bode well for us at Antipas - because we certainly question those policies, and most especially we question the participation of American evangelicals in their promulgation and in their implementation. But, then, what does the Bible say? - speaking SPECIFICALLY concerning the "end of the age," Jesus said:

"But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the ... (churches) ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them." (Mark 13:9)

And again,

"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ..." (Matt. 24:9)

BUILDING A POLICE STATE IN THE
NAME OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ - you must awake to what's happening here: under the guise of building what appears to most Christians as a CHRISTIAN New World Order under the "color" of what C. Peter Wagner and Gregory Boyd call "WARFARE THEOLOGY," the Bush administration is fast constructing a POLICE STATE.

The fact is, the executive powers that the Bush administration has arrogated unto itself is UNPRECEDENTED in U.S. history, and while some of Bush's supporters cite prior suspensions of constitutional rights during the Civil War and World War II, those eras lacked today's technology to pry into the personal details of the lives of ordinary people. Even in the late 1960s and early 1970s, President Nixon and his allies were forced to adopt relatively crude means for invading the privacy of Americans. Bugs were placed on phones; agents were infiltrated into political organizations; and burglars were sent into homes and offices searching for embarrassing or incriminating information.

Nat Parry notes that by contrast, today's modern technology can let the government collect and analyze trillions of bytes of data on one's personal transactions and communications - i.e., the "electronic foot" prints left in the course of everyday life: books borrowed from a library, fertilizer bought at a farm-supply outlet, movies rented at a video store, prescriptions filled at a pharmacy, sites visited on the Internet, tickets reserved for the theater, borders crossed while traveling, rooms rented at a motel, and hundreds of other examples.

The government argues that its unrestricted access to this kind of electronic data may help detect terrorists, BUT THE DATA COULD PROVE EVEN MORE USEFUL IN BUILDING DOSSIERS ON ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS OR BLACKMAILING POLITICAL OPPONENTS. This is what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is all about - gathering "transactional data" on "every-day" citizens. It's purpose is to track EVERYONE in the country (and, indeed, the world) who is a part of today's modern economy.

"Transactional data" will be gleaned from electronic data on every kind of activity - "financial, education, travel, medical, veterinary, country entry, place / event entry, transportation, housing, critical resources, government, communications, etc." according to the Web site for DARPA's Information Awareness Office. The program will then cross-reference this data with the "biometric signature of humans" - i.e., data collected on people's faces, fingerprints, gaits, and irises. The project seeks what it calls "TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS."

TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS

The Information Awareness Office even boasts a logo that looks like some kind of clip art from George Orwell's 1984. The logo shows a Masonic symbol of an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid peering over the globe, with the slogan, "scientia est potentia," Latin for "knowledge is power." DARPA's choice of a giant white pyramid eerily recalls Orwell's Ministry of Truth, an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 meters into the air." The all-seeing Masonic eye could be read as "Big Brother Is Watching."

One would think that with all this obvious Masonic imagery, most Christians would take note of what's happening - after all, the nightmare of a world-wide Masonic conspiracy has haunted evangelical Christianity for hundreds of years now (please see our articles, "Pat Robertson, Illuminism, and the New World Order," "Conspiracy Theories," and "The Civilian Militia & The Mythology Of The Religious Right").

But most Christians don't see it - or refuse to acknowledge what's happening. For example, it's absolutely amazing to me to see people like Pat Robertson - who as recently as 1991 wrote a book, The Coming New World Order, which ranted and raved endlessly about the Masons and Masonic imagery - now totally (and very conveniently) oblivious to the Masonic imagery being employed by DARPA.

While I myself have NEVER been one of those who subscribed to such NONSENSE - and have, as a result, been mercilessly pilloried by many of my Christian peers as a result - I would have at least expected some consistency in the thinking of those who do subscribe to that kind of notion. But there is none. It seems that when liberals employ Masonic imagery, Christians can take their use of it as an indication of their diabolical and infernal inclinations and intentions; but when conservatives like Bush, Cheney, Poindexter, etc. use it, it indicates nothing.

HAVING EYES TO SEE, THEY SEE NOT

The REALITY of what we have been talking about here - about what the U.S. is really up to in Iraq, what it's really doing in the Middle East and Central Asia, what its real intentions are insofar as DARPA is concerned, etc. - is so obvious and so totally transparent that one wonders why Christians can't see it. THERE IS A DISCONNECT BETWEEN REALITY AND PERCEPTION INSOFAR AS MOST CHRISTIANS ARE CONCERNED TODAY. Everyone sees what's occurring - everyone, that is, except Christians. For example, Saul Landau, who is not a Christian, but who is a cynical observer of them, notes how totally incapable most Christians are in grasping what's going on in this world, of comporting their lives "in sync" with the Scriptures they purport to believe in. He writes:

"In my neighborhood of trimmed lawns and two or more car garages, with one or two more vehicles parked outside the garage, I counted 15 American flags in less than five minutes of my slow trot, most of them new since the U.S. invaded Iraq. One house had a sign with a U.S. flag waving over a map of Iraq.

"... (I have discovered that most Christians) learn geography through war, experience the traumas of battle - well, virtually - and root for the good guys. They know they're good because God blesses America and ... (destroys) America's enemies - with the help of the missiles, bombs, tanks and other war technology with which He has blessed America ... Their God does not like opposition ... (and) He has told our leaders, all of whom remain in close contact with Him, to punish ... (those who oppose Him) ...

"Their God teaches them that shopping and going to Disneyland constitute the highest spiritual values - outside of attending church once a week. Their God has singled them out among all peoples ... as His chosen elite to reside in His promised land ... After all, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay believed in that very ethos as did the first slave owners in the South. Since God had sent them to this land without first providing them with knowledge of farming, He must have meant for them to acquire slaves to do their work. How else could they remain free to think noble thoughts ...

"Well-dressed people pour out of churches, get in SUVs and drive to their $400,000-plus homes ... (They) feel righteous, if not downright pious, in their support of the Bush administration's policy. (They) ... see no relationship between their comfortable lifestyles and the devastation the U.S. military has inflicted in Iraq. 'Now we're even for what they did to us', said a sales manager at a local hotel chain. He referred to 9/11 as if Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis had actually done those foul deeds. 'They're not going to try that one again', he said smugly. Almost half of Americans polled blame Saddam for 9/11 - thanks to President Bush's constant references to 'his links' to terrorists, reported without critical comment by the media ...

"I have also met the programmed 'born-agains', those who believe robot-like that what they view on TV as current history is the working out of Biblical prophecy. One woman mentioned the battles of Gog and Magog that must precede the final reckoning (without ever realizing the full implications of what she is saying). [Please see our article, "Israel and the Renewed Struggle for the Holy Land."] She identifies '100% with the president'. He, unlike the lascivious Bill Clinton, 'is a true Christian'. Most of my Christian neighbors with whom I spoke said that the bloodshed had upset them, but 'that's the price we have to pay for security', one man said as he pruned his roses.

"Nothing in the fundamentalist theology seems to inhibit consumption, however. These God-fearing people buy gas-guzzling vehicles, pay Mexicans to mow their lawns and drop chemicals into their swimming pools ... In church, they listen to the pious sermons about what being a Christian means in daily life. But their interpretation of the Bible does not sensitize them to the pain of the Iraqis. I noticed a satisfied, almost smug smile on the faces of the men and women as they announce their support for the president and his policies."

CHRISTIAN ANGER

No doubt, many Christians who read Landau's description of them will be upset. Who is he - an unbeliever - to judge us? But Landau has a point! - Christians really don't get it! There is a DISCONNECT between their smug lifestyles in suburbia, and what's going on in the world today; between a Biblical view of reality, and their view of reality.

And the reasons for that DISCONNECT is that their riches have "chocked" them off to the Word of God, to the warnings of Scripture. They have become comfortable in this life. They're at home here. Life in the "here and now" is not a "fleeting" or "momentary" thing to them. They don't think of themselves as "sojourners" or as "pilgrims." They're here for the "long run." Responsibility to them means responsibility insofar AS THIS LIFE IS CONCERNED. Most of them hope it will go on forever. They're not just "passing through," they've sunk down roots and have become permanent residents of this present evil world." There is an ABSOLUTE and TOTAL detachment between what the Bible says concerning this life, and what they think.

Nonetheless, that doesn't make what they think about this life in the "here and now" true. It isn't. The Bible says - indeed, it somberly warns us - that our lives are -

"... like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. (Ps. 90:5-6)

And that -

"Thou carriest them (i.e., the years of our lives) away as with a flood; they are as a sleep ..."

That is the REALITY of life: It is IMPERMANENT, TRANSITORY, and very, very BRIEF - AND THAT IS AS TRUE FOR CHRISTIANS AS IT IS FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIANS.

But our riches - i.e., our smug lifestyles as described by Landau - make us incapable of grasping this reality; they "deceive" us, and "choke" the word's efficacy in our lives, predisposing us to believe a lie (2 Thess. 2:11) - specifically, that if we work hard enough at life in this world, we can find continuity, durability and stability in it. But that's not true - and all the work in the world, all the honest effort, all the striving for stability and permanence won't change this reality - even for a minute. Jesus said:

"... The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
"And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
"And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
"And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
"But God said unto him, THOU FOOL, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" (Luke 12:16-20)

Wow! - one would think that these verses had been somehow or other blotted out of the Bibles of most Christians today. But they haven't been. The Bible says:

"... what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." (James 4:14)

And those Christians who forget this will someday pay a big price!" Jesus said,

"... It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for thee." (Matt. 10:15)

It is PRECISELY to this kind of person - this kind of Christian - that Jesus said,

"But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark,
"And knew not until the flood came, AND TOOK THEM ALL AWAY; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matt. 24:37-39)

God bless you all!

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries