TOUGH TIMES - HOW TO "GIT 'ER DONE", 1870'S STYLE

ANYONE THAT KNOWS ME WELL KNOWS THAT I JUST CONVERTED AROUND $40K OF MY "FOUR OH-OH NONE" OKAY.... INTO SOMETHING THAT CAN BE USED TO GET BY ON.

SHAWNA AND COMPANY WAS QUITE ASTOUNDED AT HOW QUICKLY I COULD BLOW THAT MUCH CASH ON "THE GOOD STUFF" - THE STUFF I ALWAYS WANTED TO GET BUT NEVER HAD THE IMPETUS TO STEP UP AND INVEST IN. LIKE I HAVE ALWAYS SAID, "THE ONLY GOOD THING A GREENBACK WILL BE WORTH ONE DAY IS TO WIPE YOUR POSTERIOR OR AS A FIRE STARTER." I THINK THAT DAY IS EITHER HERE OR FAST APPROACHING.....

SO I CONVERTED GREENBACKS TO USEFUL ASSETS. THIS SURVIVAL SITE PUTS TOGETHER A NICE LIST OF THE USEFUL TANGIBLES. THINGS THAT CAN BE USED TO GROW A GARDEN, HEAT A LIVING SPACE, GET FUEL, STAY WARM, KEEP FROM GETTING SICK, STAY WARM WHEN OUTDOORS IN ADVERSE WEATHER, AND PICK OFF A VARMINT OR TWO (OR 12,000) TO GET SOMETHING FOR THE POT '0 STEW....

MY MORE TREASURED ITEMS INCLUDES A PORTABLE (80LB) CAMP STOVE WITH A 3 GALLON STAINLESS STEEL WATER JACKET, TWO SOLAR OVENS, TWO PORTABLE CAMP OVENS THAT I CAN USE TO BAKE FOUR LOAVES OF BREAD ON THE TOP OF THE PORTABLE CAMP STOVE, TWO GERMAN CROSS-CUT TWO MAN SAWS FOR BUCKING LOGS INTO FIRE WOOD AND ALL OF THE TOOLS USED IN "ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS" TO MAKE A MORE PERMANENT SHELTER. THE GOAL IS TO HAVE APPROXIMATELY ENOUGH FOOD FOR UP TO SEVEN YEARS (STARTING SMALL IF YOU ARE NOT THERE YET MAY BE TOO LATE - BUT PRAY ABOUT IT AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES FOR YOUR INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES). IT MAY BE TIME TO THINK QUITE BIG AND ACT QUICKLY....

SILVER/GOLD ALSO COMES IN HANDY AS A BARTER ITEM UNTIL FOOD BECOMES SO SCARCE THAT 'YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO TRADE A CAT FOR A PILE OF GOLD' TO LOOSELY QUOTE BRIGHAM YOUNG.

DOES IT SOUND LIKE I HAVE TOTALLY FLIPPED OUT?? I WOULD SAY YES. BUT THEN, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A VERY CONSERVATIVE GAMBLER (READ - NONE) AND I WILL LEAVE THE RISK TO OTHERS WITH MORE NERVES OR STUPIDITY. JUST TO ILLUSTRATE, I LOST A WHOPPING 1% IN THE LAST 2 YEARS OF "DOWN JONES" NIGHTMARE (MOSTLY ON SOME BOEING STOCK...), WHILE MOST OF MY COMPADRES LOST ON THE ORDER OF 40%. THIS IS PRECISELY WHY I STILL HAD SOMETHING LEFT TO INVEST IN A FEW TANGIBLES....

LIKE I HAVE BEEN ASKING PEOPLE LATELY, "HOW IS YOUR FOOD STORAGE?". I HAVE FINALLY PUT MY MONEY WHERE MY MOUTH IS AND MADE BETTER THAN MY USUAL RESPONSE OF "YEAH, I PROBABLY HAVE AROUND 3 MONTHS WORTH...".

MY GREATEST MOTIVATION IS HAVING SEEN SUFFERING CHILDREN IN BRAZIL. I DO NOT WANT TO PUT MY OWN IN THAT SITUATION DUE TO MY OWN LACK OF CONCERN. I CANNOT THINK OF A GREATER PERSONAL HELL THAN WATCHING MY OWN PROGENY SUFFER - WHEN I COULD HAVE HEEDED THE SIMPLE WHISPERINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND JUST GOOD OLD FASHIONED COMMON SENSE.

AT SOME POINT I WILL GET TOGETHER SOME DIGI PICS AND DO SOME NICE YOUTUBES OF THE WHOLE ASSEMBLED PILE OF STUFF TO GIVE A FLAVOR OF WHAT I HAVE DONE. IT WILL GO ON A SEPARATE "SURVIVALIST BLOG" CALLED "SURVIVIN' IN THE WOOD" - FOR ALL YOU WILD-EYED END TIMERS LIKE ME....

THE GREAT TEST AND THE GIFT OF PROPHECY AND REVELATION - THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

THIS IS A COPY OF A GREAT TALK GIVEN BY J. GOLDEN KIMBALL ON PROPHECY:

The Gift of Prophecy
J. Golden Kimball Of the First Council of Seventy Conference Report, October 1930, p.58
PDF Version
I intend to be reminiscent in what I shall say on this occasion.
I have frequently called your attention to the fact that under President John Taylor I was permitted to fill a mission in the Southern States, in 1883 and '84, under the presidency of Elder B. H. Roberts. They were trying times, and the elders, as a whole, traveled without purse and without scrip.
In 1892 I was again appointed, under President Wilford Woodruff, to preside over the Southern States Mission. It was during that period of time that I found God; as my father said: God answered my prayers, and isn't that a pretty good evidence that God lives? My testimony was fixed and fast, and what I knew I learned by obedience and through suffering.
I take the position that knowledge cannot be knowledge without experience, so that what I know through the influence of the Holy Ghost--for I have heard that still, small voice--I know to my perfect satisfaction. There is no question of a doubt in my mind as to the truth of this work, and any time in my life that I can be convinced that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God, then I will question the truth of this work. But Joseph Smith to me is a prophet, and there is hardly a Kimball living in the flesh today--of the first generation--notwithstanding we were very young when our father died, that did not have burned into his soul as a child that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God: that Brigham Young was his successor; that he too was a great prophet.
Now, it is along that line that I desire to occupy your time for a few moments, and to do so I expect to forecast from dead prophets. I shall not undertake to quote from memory as it is very difficult for me to quote correctly.
The prophet Joel said--we elders in that day on many occasions quoted this prophetic saying:
"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions.."
I think one of the greatest pieces of philosophy in the Bible is: "Where there is no vision the people perish." And the Prophet Joseph Smith left with us this statement: "Where there are no gifts there is no faith."
I further read in the Bible:
"When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken; but the prophet has spoken presumptuously, Thou shall not be afraid of him."
Jesus himself testified that "a prophet hath no honor in his own country."
I claim not to be a prophet, but I am a son of a prophet, and I expect to give you evidence--whether you question the truth of it or not--that shall be left with you--that Heber C. Kimball was a prophet of God. President Brigham Young on more than one occasion said: "Heber is my prophet, and I love to hear him prophesy."
In May, 1868---that is sixty-two years ago--he said:
"After a while the gentiles will gather in Salt Lake City by the thousands, and this will be among the wicked cities of the world,."
He said:
"A spirit of speculation and extravagance will take possession of the Saints, and the results will be financial bondage."
He said:
"An army of elders will be sent to the four quarters of the earth, to search out the righteous and, warn the wicked of coming events.
"All kinds of religions will be started, and miracles performed that will deceive the very elect, if such a thing were possible.
"Persecution comes next, and all Latter-day Saints will be tested to the limit. "Many will apostatize, and others will stand still, not knowing what to do. "Before the temple reaches the square our brethren will be imprisoned, until the penitentiary shall be full, and some of them will be removed to other penitentiaries.
"Mothers would weep for their husbands, and, children would cry for their fathers. Some would die, and sorrow would fill the hearts of the Latter-day Saints.
"When the temple roof is on, the persecution will lessen, but when the temple is completed the power of the Evil One will be shut out."
"The prayers of the Saints will then be heard. The sick will be taken there and healed."
"The Spirit of God will rest upon the people, and work for the dead will be continued night and day."
"The judgments of God will be poured out upon the wicked, to the extent that our elders from far and near will be called home; or in other words, the Gospel will be taken from the gentiles, and later on will be carried to the Jews."
"The western boundaries of the State of Missouri will be swept so clean of its inhabitants that as President Young tells us, 'when we return to that place there will not be as much as a yellow dog to wag his tail.'
"Before that day comes, however, the Saints will be put to the test that will try the very best of them.
"The pressure will become so great that the righteous among us will cry unto the Lord day and night until deliverance comes."
In 1856---that is seventy-four years ago--a small group of friends convened in the house of the Lord, called the Endowment House. The conversation was about the isolated condition of the Latter-day Saints.
"Yes," said Brother Heber, "we think we are secure here in the chambers of these everlasting hills, where we can close the doors of the canyons against mobs and persecutors, the wicked and the vile, who have always beset us with violence and robbery, but I want to say to you, my brethren, the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to that extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy against the people of God."
"Then is the time to look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall.
"For I say unto you there is a test, a Test, a TEST coming."
He further said:
"This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with glory.
"The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess a personal knowledge or witness will fall. If you have not got this testimony, you must live right and call upon the Lord, and cease not until you obtain it.
"Remember these sayings: The time will come when no man or woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within themselves. If you do not have the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ, how can you stand?"
Do you believe it?
President George Q. Cannon said, after Heber C. Kimball's death: "Heber Chase Kimball was one of the greatest men of this age." He continued: "No man, perhaps, Joseph Smith excepted, who has belonged to the Church in this generation, ever possessed the gift of prophecy to a greater degree than he."
On the morning of the 22nd of June, 1868, he died.
At the funeral President Brigham Young said: "Heber was a man of as much integrity, I presume, as any man who ever lived on the earth--a man of faith--a man of benevolence--a man of truth."
On the evening of January 12th, 1862, the Lord made it known to Heber C. Kimball that he should not be removed from his place as First Counselor while he lived in the flesh.
Now my brethren and sisters, I am here to testify that the spirit of prophecy is in this Church. Any man who has a testimony that Jesus is the Christ has the spirit of prophecy, and I know that we have living prophets. Whenever the Lord desires, and it is his will to speak through his prophets, I have no fear and no doubt as far as I am individually concerned that they have the courage and the faith to speak the words of God. At a
time when the people were suffering, when the people were almost naked, when everything looked desolate, as if they were forsaken--
"Heber C. Kimball, filled with the spirit of prophecy in a public meeting declared to the astonished congregation that within a short time States goods would be sold in the city of Great Salt Lake cheaper than in New York and that the people would be abundantly supplied with food and clothing."
"'I don't believe a word of it,' said Apostle Charles C. Rich; and he voiced the sentiment of nine-tenths of those who had heard the astounding declaration."
"On resuming his seat he remarked to the brethren that he was afraid he had missed it this time. But they were not his own words and He who had inspired them knew how to fulfil. The occasion for the fulfilment of this remarkable prediction was the unexpected advent of the gold-hunters on their way to California. The discovery of gold in that land had set on fire, as it were, the civilized world and hundreds of richly laden trains now began pouring across the continent on their way to the new Eldorado. Salt Lake valley became the resting place. Thus as the Prophet Heber had predicted, States Goods were actually sold in the streets of Great Salt Lake City cheaper than they could have been purchased in the city of New York."
Now, brethren, that is how I feel about it. I take pride in being a son of my father and as long as I live I shall never fail to honor my father and his successors, and try to be as loyal and true and steadfast in the faith as they have been. I am the only one that can destroy my faith in this work. God bless you. Amen.

HERE IS A TALK GIVEN BY BOYD K PACKER ON THE TEST:

The Test

President Boyd K. Packer
President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Neither mobbings nor the army could turn the Saints aside from what they knew to be true.

President Boyd K. PackerIt is my purpose to show that in troubled times the Lord has always prepared a safe way ahead. We live in those “perilous times” which the Apostle Paul prophesied would come in the last days.1 If we are to be safe individually, as families, and secure as a church, it will be through “obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”2

On July 24, 1849, the Saints had been in the valley two years to the day. They finally were free from years of mobbing and persecution. That called for a great celebration.

Just a few years earlier under dreadful conditions, the Prophet Joseph Smith suffered in Liberty Jail for months while the mobs drove the Saints from their homes. The words liberty and jail do not fit together very well.

Joseph called out:

“O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?

“How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?”3

The Prophet Joseph Smith had earlier sought direction, and the Lord told the Saints to seek redress from the judges, the governor, and then the president.4

Their appeals to the judges failed. During his life, Joseph Smith was summoned to court over 200 times on all kinds of trumped-up charges. He was never convicted.

When they sought redress from Governor Boggs of Missouri, he issued a proclamation: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good.”5 That unleashed untold brutality and wickedness.

They appealed to President Martin Van Buren of the United States, who told them, “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.”6

I will read the final paragraphs of their third petition addressed to the Congress of the United States:

“The afflictions of your memorialists have already been overwhelming, too much for humanity, too much for American citizens to endure without complaint. We have groaned under the iron hand of tyranny and oppression these many years. We have been robbed of our property to the amount of two millions of dollars. We have been hunted as the wild beasts of the forest. We have seen our aged fathers who fought in the Revolution, and our innocent children, alike slaughtered by our persecutors. We have seen the fair daughters of American citizens insulted and abused in the most inhuman manner, and finally, we have seen fifteen thousand souls, men, women, and children, driven by force of arms, during the severities of winter, from their sacred homes and firesides, to a land of strangers, penniless and unprotected. Under all these afflicting circumstances, we imploringly stretch forth our hands towards the highest councils of our nation, and humbly appeal to the illustrious Senators and Representatives of a great and free people for redress and protection.

“Hear! O hear the petitioning voice of many thousands of American citizens who now groan in exile . . . ! Hear! O hear the weeping and bitter lamentations of widows and orphans, whose husbands and fathers have been cruelly martyred in the land where the proud eagle . . . floats! Let it not be recorded in the archives of the nations, that . . . exiles sought protection and redress at your hands, but sought it in vain. It is in your power to save us, our wives, and our children, from a repetition of the bloodthirsty scenes of Missouri, and thus greatly relieve the fears of a persecuted and injured people, and your petitioners will ever pray.”7

There was no pity, and they were turned away.

In 1844, while under the avowed protection of Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot to death in Carthage Jail. Words cannot express the brutality and suffering the Saints had endured.

Now on this 24th of July in 1849, free at last from the mobbings, they planned to celebrate.8

Everything the Saints owned would come across a thousand miles (1,600 km) of desert by handcart or covered wagon. It would be 20 more years before the railroad came as far as Salt Lake City. With almost nothing to work with, they determined that the celebration would be a grand expression of their feelings.

They built a bowery on Temple Square. They erected a flagpole 104 feet (32 m) tall. They made an enormous national flag 65 feet (20 m) in length and unfurled it at the top of this liberty pole.

It may seem puzzling, incredible almost beyond belief, that for the theme of this first celebration they chose patriotism and loyalty to that same government which had rejected and failed to assist them. What could they have been thinking of? If you can understand why, you will understand the power of the teachings of Christ.

Their brass band played as President Brigham Young led a grand procession to Temple Square. He was followed by the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy.

Then followed 24 young men dressed in white pants; black coats; white scarves on their right shoulders; coronets, or crowns, on their heads; and a sheathed sword at their left sides. In their right hand, of all things, each carried a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The Declaration of Independence was read by one of those young men.

Next came 24 young women dressed in white, blue scarves on their right shoulders and white roses on their heads. Each carried a Bible and a Book of Mormon.

Almost but not quite as amazing as their choice of patriotism for a theme was what came next: 24 aged sires (as they were called) led by patriarch Isaac Morley. They were known as the Silver Greys—all 60 years of age or older. Each carried a staff painted red with white ribbon floating at the top. One carried the Stars and Stripes. These men were a symbol of the priesthood, which was “from the beginning before the world was”9 and had been restored in this dispensation.

The Saints knew that the Lord had told them to be “subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.”10 That commandment, revealed then, is true now of our members in every nation. We are to be law-abiding, worthy citizens.

The Lord told them, “I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose.”11

And in another verse, the Lord told them that “it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.”12 They were therefore antislavery. This was a very sore spot with the settlers in Missouri.

And so on that day of celebration in 1849, “Elder Phineas Richards came forward in behalf of the twenty-four aged sires, and read their loyal and patriotic address.”13 He spoke of the need for them to teach patriotism to their children and to love and honor freedom. After he briefly recited the perils that they had come through, he said:

“Brethren and friends, we who have lived to three-score years, have beheld the government of the United States in its glory, and know that the outrageous cruelties we have suffered proceeded from a corrupted and degenerate administration, while the pure principles of our boasted Constitution remain unchanged. . . .

“. . . As we have inherited the spirit of liberty and the fire of patriotism from our fathers, so let them descend [unchanged] to our posterity.”14

One would think that, compelled by force of human nature, the Saints would seek revenge, but something much stronger than human nature prevailed.

The Apostle Paul explained:

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. . . .

“. . . We have the mind of Christ.”15

That Spirit defined those early members of the Church as followers of Christ.

If you can understand a people so long-suffering, so tolerant, so forgiving, so Christian after what they had suffered, you will have unlocked the key to what a Latter-day Saint is. Rather than being consumed with revenge, they were anchored to revelation. Their course was set by the teachings still found today in the Old and the New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

If you can understand why they would celebrate as they did, you can understand why we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the principles of the gospel.

The Book of Mormon teaches, “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”16

And so today in these strangely perilous times, in the true Church of Jesus Christ17 we teach and live the principles of His gospel.

Three things about that 1849 commemoration were both symbolic and prophetic: first, that the young men carried the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; next, that each young woman carried the Bible and the Book of Mormon; and finally, that the old men—the Silver Greys—were honored in the parade.

After the program they had a feast at makeshift tables. Several hundred gold-rush travelers and 60 Indians were invited to join them.

Then they went back to work.

President Young had said, “If the people of the United States will let us alone for ten years we will ask no odds of them.”18

Eight years to the day after the 1849 celebration, the Saints were in Big Cottonwood Canyon to celebrate another 24th of July. Four horsemen rode in to report that an army 2,500 soldiers strong was on the plains. The army of the United States, commanded by Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston, was ordered by President James Buchanan to crush a nonexistent Mormon rebellion.

The Saints broke camp and headed for home to prepare their defenses. Rather than flee, this time President Young declared, “We have transgressed no law, and we have no occasion to do so, neither do we intend to; but as for any nation’s coming to destroy this people, God Almighty being my helper, they cannot come here.”19

My great-grandparents buried a child on the trail from Far West, when they were driven to Nauvoo, and another at Winter Quarters, when they were driven west.

Another great-grandmother, a teenager, was pushing a handcart along the south banks of the Platte River. They sang:

We’ll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away in the West,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the Saints will be blessed.20

Across the river they could see the sun glinting on the weapons of the soldiers of the army.21

In St. Louis my great-grandmother bought a little enameled pin of the American flag. She wore it on her dress for the rest of her life.

Neither mobbings nor the army could turn the Saints aside from what they knew to be true. A settlement was negotiated, and the Utah War (later called Buchanan’s Blunder) was over.

We are guided by the same revelations and led by a prophet. When the Prophet Joseph Smith died, another took his place. The order of succession continues today.

Six months ago at general conference, Thomas S. Monson was sustained as the 16th President of the Church, just five months before his 81st birthday. He succeeded President Gordon B. Hinckley, who died in his 98th year.

The senior leaders of the Church will virtually always be seasoned by decades of preparation.

President Monson is ideally suited for the challenges of our day. He is sustained by two counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—all prophets, seers, and revelators.

That same Lucifer who was cast out of our Father’s presence is still at work. He, with the angels who followed him, will trouble the work of the Lord and destroy it if he can.

But we will stay on course. We will anchor ourselves as families and as a church to these principles and ordinances. Whatever tests lie ahead, and they will be many, we must remain faithful and true.

I bear witness of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, that They live, that Thomas S. Monson is called of God by prophecy.

“The standard of truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing.”22 Today the sun never sets on congregations of the Latter-day Saints. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

EXTREME IRONY - TRAGEDY LEADING TO CHANGE (HOPEFULLY)

WHILE THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS TRAGIC (AT LEAST ON THE SURFACE), LETS CONNECT THE DOTS. SEE IF YOU CAN FIND WHERE THE EVENT HAPPENED, THE LOSS OF WHO WAS INVOLVED, AND WHY THIS IS SO BLOODY IRONIC. QUIZ ANSWERS AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE:

Family of Abortion Business Owner Irving Feldkamp Dies in Montana Plane Crash

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 26, 2009

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Butte, MT (LifeNews.com) -- The crash of a small airplane in Montana carrying a family from California after a ski trip has made the national news, but the mainstream media hasn't yet connected the dots. Were they to dig a little deeper, they would learn that the family killed in the crash has an infamous abortion connection.

The crash involved two daughters of a prominent California abortion business owner, Irving "Bud" Feldkamp, and their families.

Feldkamp owns the Family Planning Associates abortion business he purchased four years ago, but the mainstream media is only mentioning his ownership of a dental practice and that he is the CEO of Glen Helen Raceway Park in San Bernardino.

That is despite the fact that his 17 FPA abortion centers do more abortions in the state of California than Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business.

Their plane went down on Sunday killing daughters Vanessa and Amy, two of Feldkamp's sons-in-law, five grandchildren, the pilot and four family friends.

For pro-life advocates who are familiar with Feldkamp's exploits as an abortion business owner, the crash is sad news but it carries a certain irony.

The plane crashed into Catholic Holy Cross cemetery near the Butte airport and burst into flames. The site of the devastating impact and the deaths of the 14 passengers was near a memorial erected in the cemetery to honor unborn children who have died in abortions.

The memorial, called the Tomb of the Unborn, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

Gingi Edmonds, a young pro-life activist, noticed the connection and the irony associated with Feldkamp and the site of the plane crash.

"Although Feldkamp is not an abortionist, he reaps profits of blood money from the tens of thousands of babies that are killed through abortions performed every year at the clinics he owns," she says.

"His business in the abortion industry was what enabled him to afford the private plane that was carrying his family to their week-long vacation," Edmonds adds.

Edmonds, who spent time with the pro-life group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, helped organize and conduct a weekly campaign where youth activists stood outside of Feldkamp's mini-mansion in Redlands holding fetal development signs and raising community awareness regarding Feldkamp's abortion business ownership.

"Every Thursday afternoon we called upon Bud and his wife Pam to repent, seek God's blessing and separate themselves from the practice of child killing," she said.

Edmonds isn't sure if the plane crash is God's way of warning Feldkamp that he needs to end his involvement in the abortion industry, but she can't help but recall the Feldkamps reactions to her signs showing developing unborn children.

"Pam Feldkamp laughing at the fetal development signs, Bud Feldkamp trying not to make eye contact as he got into his car with a small child in tow" -- those are what she recalls.

"I only hope and pray that in the face of this tragedy, Feldkamp recognizes his need for repentance and reformation," Edmonds says.

"I pray that God will use this unfortunate catastrophe to soften the hearts of Bud and Pam and that they will draw close to the Lord and wash their hands of the blood of thousands of innocent children, each as precious and irreplaceable as their own," she concludes.

GOOD JOB. THE IRONY KIDDIES IS THAT THIS GUY SPENDS HIS ENTIRE LIFE EARNING MONEY ON THE SNUFFING OUT OF INNOCENT LIFE - THEN USES SOME OF THAT FILTHY LOOT TO SEND HIS INNOCENT CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ON A SKIING TRIP WHOSE LIVES ARE THEN SNUFFED OUT AS THEIR OVERLOADED PLANE SLAMS INTO A PORTION OF THE BUTTE CEMETERY DEVOTED TO UNBORN CHILDREN WHO HAVE DIED IN ABORTIONS. DID THE MAINSTREAM NEWS REPORT THIS????? OF COURSE NOT KIDDIES - WE WOULDN'T WANT PEOPLE TO BE AWARE THAT IN SOME COSMIC WAY, THERE MIGHT BE DIVINE RETRIBUTION FOR OUR REBELLIOUS ACTS WHILE IN THIS LIFE. MUCH LIKE YOU NEVER SEE THE MARLBORO MAN HACKING FOR HIS LAST BREATH AT THE END OF THE MANLY COMMERCIAL OR JAMES BOND BROKEN OUT IN YET ANOTHER RUNAWAY CASE OF HERPES LESIONS AFTER DEMONSTRATING



A LIFE OF UNBRIDLED AND RECKLESS ABANDON ON THE MOVIE SET. I LOVE IT WHEN THERE IS PAYOUT IN THIS LIFE. THIS INDIVIDUAL WILL NOW HAVE THE REST OF HIS LIFE TO VISIT THE CRASH SITE AND BE REMINDED OF THE OTHER SNUFFED-OUT LIVES..... COMPLETE AND TOTAL IRONY!

A LITTLE MORE TO THE IRONIC TALE - RIGHT AFTER BUYING THE CLINICS, HIS PRIDE AND JOY GRANDSON IS CALLED OVER IN AN ACCIDENT REMINISCENT OF WHAT HAPPENS IN AN ABORTION. MAYBE THAT WAS GOD'S SHOT ACROSS THE BOW - WITH THE PLANE WRECK BEING THE WAKEUP CALL.... READING THIS FREAKS ME OUT: LINK



AND SOME MORE COMMENTARY FROM THE L.A. TIMES ABOUT THIS BUSINESS OWNER WHO BROUGHT PEOPLE SO MUCH JOY......???: LINK http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/03/---font-definit.html

HERE IS A FOLLOW-ON TO THIS ARTICLE; I HAVE A FEELING THE TWO MAY BE RELATED!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ

POWERFUL!!

IOHANI WOLFGRAMM - FAMILY HISTORY

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOR QUITE SOME TIME. IT MAY WELL BE THE MOST FASCINATING BOOK I HAVE EVER READ - AND I READ SOME PRETTY GREAT STUFF. TAKE THE TIME TO READ HOW LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE IT BACK TO GOD'S PRESENCE......

THIS IS WHY I DONATE A FEW BEN FRANKLINS A YEAR TO THE BYU SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY!!:

IOHANI WOLGRAM FAMILY HISTORY - THE GOOD STUFF

http://contentdm.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/FH27&CISOPTR=31717&REC=12&CISOSHOW=31478

HERE IS A TASTE FROM THE ABOVE HISTORY FROM THE CHAPTER ON HEALINGS:

IOHANI SOUGHT FROM A DREAM

It was the first Sunday of November 1979 and I was getting ready for an 8:00 a.m. priesthood meeting. I heard a knock at the door so came to answer it and found a woman at the door that I had never before met. She said, "I'm looking for Iohani Wolfgramm who is living at this address." I noticed she had been crying.

I said, "I'm Brother Wolfgramm, what can I do for you?" "I've come because my brother, Mr. Smith, died at the Cottonwood hospital last Friday and we have asked the doctor if he would bear with us and just leave him there in the room because we have a feeling that his life will return. This Sunday morning his wife went home to Bountiful to feed the children and get them ready for Church, while his sister and other family members are at his room, keeping their eyes on Brother Smith. The reason I came: In a dream my husband saw Brother Smith come to him and ask if he would look for a man by the name of Iohani Wolfgramm and gave him this address, and said, 'Go and ask Brother Wolfgramm to come and call my spirit so it can enter my body again.' That's why I came this moming. Will you come and give him a priesthood blessing?"

I said, "I would like to help you but I can't. My bishop and stake president won't allow me out of the jurisdiction of my stake or ward to exercise my priesthood." The woman said, "May I please go and see your bishop and give him the information that my husband received?" So she went and spoke to the bishop. After she told the bishop the story, she was sent to the stake president. After the stake president heard the story, he gave his permission and said, "If this brother needs his help, he may go."
So the woman returned to my house and took me in her car to the hospital. When we entered the room I noticed all the family sitting around. His sister told me her brother had died on Friday. I met the brother-in-law who had the dream and asked if he would assist me in the administration. The brother-in-law told me to anoint the oil and he would give the blessing. I said, "Thank you." and we went ahead and gave Brother Smith his blessing. After we said 'amen' everyone sat down. They waited for about 15 minutes, nothing happened. They waited for another 30 minutes, nothing happened.

This went for an hour and still nothing. The sister began to cry again and called me aside and said, "My husband doesn't have enough faith when he prays, that's why my brother came in that dream and wanted you to give him the blessing because of the faith that you have. Would it be too much if we could all unite in faith and prayer and ask the Lord to bless my brother, and through your faith you can raise him from the dead?"

The brother-in-law returned only this time 1 offered the prayer. In my prayer I said, "Our Father in Heaven, we are here together with the rest of Brother Smith's family to offer a special prayer on his behalf. We know that he has been dead since Friday, but his spirit has come and asked if I could give him a blessing and call for his spirit to return to his body. We pray for his health to return to normal. We pray that his heart will start to function, his lungs and circulation start to work and each and every one of his veins and arteries will begin to function. Through the power of the priesthood and in the name of the holy Savior Jesus Christ, I command you, Brother Smith, for your spirit to now enter your body. And when you revive from your death bed you will know that it was through the power of Christ that your spirit has returned to your body. And you will stand as a witness to God that this is His gospel and this is one of the miracles that He performed among the people before His second coming. I pray for you that everything will function normally as we come to the end of our blessing and say this to you in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the holy Melchizedek priesthood which we bear."

Right after Brother Smith heard my voice, he slowly got up. When his sister saw her brother get up she started to cry loudly and ran up to him, and the rest of the family came running and hugged and kissed him. At that moment the phone rang and it was his wife. She asked her sister-in-law how her husband was doing. She asked if she would like to talk to him and handed Brother Smith the phone. They sat there and talked on the phone as if nothing had happened. They gave me a big hug and I was finally brought home.

Brother Smith knew he had to come back to finish his work on earth, and it was only through the priesthood blessing that this,could be accomplished. He told the family that for three days he had been there wanting to return to his body, but didn't know how. He saw his body laying there but no one could hear what he was saying. That's why his spirit went to his brother-in-law to find someone that had great faith and was given Iohani's name and address.

I received a call from the Stake President after I returned home wanting to know what happened to the man. I told him the Lord had heard my prayer and his life was revived. The Stake President told me that he would take away my restrictions, and I would be free to go anywhere that the Lord wanted me to go to bless the people.

PRETTY EXCELLENT STORY - AND THERE IS ALOT MORE LIKE IT IN THE WOLFGRAMM FAM HISTORY. READ UP!

WHEN WE FOUND OUR LITTLE DALLIN JACOB DEAD ON APRIL 4TH, THE FIRST THING THAT I DID (AFTER COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT) WAS TO CALL MY HOME TEACHER SO THAT WE COULD DO THE SAME THING IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST. IT WAS NOT UNTIL A LITTLE LATER THAT I REALIZED THAT THIS SIMPLY WAS NOT THE WILL OF THE LORD. I WILL ADD THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE TO THE BLOG AS A WITNESS THAT GOD LIVES AND LOVES EACH OF US. IT WAS RIGHT IN LINE WITH THE SWEET SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE THAT THE SMITH FAMILY HAD - JUST WITH A DIFFERENT OUTCOME.

CATASTROPHISM - VERY LARGE TSUNAMIS ON TONGA

I AM ALWAYS RUNNING ACROSS DEPICTIONS OF VERY LARGE CATASTROPHIC EVENTS THAT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY ANY OTHER THAN A CATASTROPHIST.

THIS ONE PARALLELS A LARGE TSUNAMI THAT SWEPT THE PACIFIC SIDE OF AUSTRALIA AND CAST EXTREMELY LARGE BOULDERS VERY FAR INLAND AND AT LARGE ELEVATIONS.

IOHANI WOLFGRAMM PREACHED TO THE PEOPLE OF TONGA THAT THEY WOULD ONE DAY REAP A VERY LARGE WAVE BECAUSE OF THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS PEOPLE. I BELIEVE THAT DAY IS VERY NEAR AT HAND. HERE IS AN ACCOUNT OF A PREVIOUS HIT:



Geology; February 2009; v. 37; no. 2; p. 131-134; DOI: 10.1130/G25277A.1
© 2009 Geological Society of America

Huge erratic boulders in Tonga deposited by a prehistoric tsunami
Cliff Frohlich1,*, Matthew J. Hornbach1, Frederick W. Taylor1, Chuan-Chou Shen2, 'Apai Moala3, Allan E. Morton4 and Jens Kruger5

1 Institute for Geophysics, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758-4445, USA
2 Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan, Republic of China
3 Geology Section, Ministry of Lands, Survey, and Natural Resources, Nuku'alofa, Tonga
4 343 Harvard Avenue, Rexburg, Idaho 83440, USA
5 SOPAC, South Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission, Nabua, Fiji Islands

Correspondence: *E-mail: cliff@ig.utexas.edu.

Along some coastlines there are erratic boulders apparently emplaced by tsunamis or cyclonic storms; evaluating their origin and time of emplacement places constraints on the frequency, severity, and location of coastal hazards. Seven such large coral limestone boulders are present near Fahefa village on Tongatapu Island, southwest Pacific, apparently emplaced by a prehistoric tsunami. These boulders are 10–20 m above sea level and above any possible source, and all are 100–400 m from the present shoreline. Coral 230Th ages indicate that the limestone formed during the last interglacial sea-level highstand, ca. 120–130 ka. The largest boulder is ~20 times more massive than any reported boulders emplaced by historically documented storms and may be the largest known tsunami or storm erratic worldwide situated above its source. We performed computer simulations to assess whether tsunamis produced by earthquakes, undersea landslides, or volcanoes could emplace the boulders. The simulations indicate that either volcanic flank collapse along the Tofua arc ~30–40 km to the southwest or undersea landslides on the submarine slopes of Tongatapu could be responsible. Either could explain why these boulders are not widespread on Tongatapu, and instead occur in a localized group along the western coast. This study demonstrates that small (<1 km3) submarine slope failures sometimes generate locally large tsunamis. The Fahefa boulders are in a well-studied and well-populated area, yet were unknown to the scientific community until recently; this suggests that systematic searches elsewhere for erratic boulders and other tsunami deposits might provide new information for assessing the size and extent of prehistoric tsunamis.

NOAH'S ARK AND BIG GOVERNMENT

THIS WAS PRETTY HUMOROUS STUFF FROM JOEL SKOUSEN'S SITE.

http://home.att.net/~hideaway_today/t133/noah.htm

I AM GOING THRU THE SAME THING TRYING TO HOUSE MY "ARK", AS I CALL IT, IN THE THIRD BAY OF THE GARAGE. HAD TO JUMP THRU ALL THE HOOPS WITH THE HOMEOWNERS AND THE CITY TO RAISE THE GARAGE DOOR 14". ARGHH!!

ENJOY!

CATCHING WILD PIGS - A LESSON ON SOCIALISM

GOT THIS FROM LDS FREEDOM FORUMS - VERY GOOD STUFF:

Catching Wild Pigs

A student discussing Communism with his professor looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground.. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America . The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc.. While we continually lose our freedoms -- just a little at a time.

One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

Keep your eyes on the newly elected politicians who are about to slam the gate on America .

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have" Thomas Jefferson

LESSONS FROM HAUN'S MILL - COUNSEL IS NOT ALWAYS MANDATORY

ANOTHER GEM FROM LDSAVOW.COM.

I CANNOT ARGUE WITH ANY OF THE LOGIC HERE.

GETTING SET FOR A POSSIBLE MODERN DAY REPEAT OF HAUN’S MILL

We all know the tragic story of Haun’s mill.
Joseph Smith had counseled all of the Church members living around Far West to drop
everything and come into Far West for safety. It wasn’t a commandment...it was simply a
request and counsel. Almost all the members of the Church immediately followed the counsel of
the prophet. However, brother Jacob Haun, upon hearing this counsel, came and argued with the
Prophet about the counsel at least 3 times during one day. Brother Haun’s point was that he did
not see the reason for it and he felt that he and his people could defend themselves if necessary.
According to John Lee who was present for the conversations, on 26 October 1838 The Prophet
said,
"Move in, by all means, if you wish to save your lives." Haun replied that if the
settlers left their homes all of their property would be lost and the Gentiles would
burn their houses and other buildings. Joseph replied, “You had better lose your
property than your lives, but there is no danger of losing either if you will do as
you are commanded."
Again, brother Haun thought he and his neighbors could protect and defend themselves, and
Smith finally gave them permission to remain, and is recorded as saying;
“they would consider him a tyrant if he forced them to leave and abandon their
property and come to Far West.”
Years later, on 8 June 1867 John Lee reaffirmed in his diary that;
"Jos. permitted Haun to gather the Brethren and defend their Mill but stated at
the same time that they would be massacred & sure enough it was done."1
Four years later after the incident Joseph himself recounted:
“Up to this day God had given me wisdom to save the people who took Council.
None had ever been killed who abode by my Council. At Haun’s Mill the brethren
went contrary to my Council; if they had not, their lives would have been spared.”
2
The lesson here for us to learn from is that brother Haun, the righteous local leader of a group of
good saints...felt he knew better than to obey all of the counsel of the living prophet. After all,
Joseph hadn’t made it an enforced commandment...he phrased it as counsel and advice. In fact,
it is important to note that Joseph REFUSED to make it a COMMANDMENT and force the
people to gather, even though he knew it would save their lives. Many of the good and righteous
people who trusted in their own wisdom and their local leader and refused to give full heed to the
1 Regional Studies, Missouri, Benson—Haun's Mill, p.107
2Ehat & Cook, Words, Manuscript History of the Church: 29 August 1842 (Monday Morning), p.127–129
words of the prophet, sadly, paid the terrible price four days later. That they were good people
who were righteous and had great faith is not disputed as some of them performed miracles later
even in the very day of their distress. But it was to help alleviate some of the suffering their
disobedient actions had brought down upon them. The problem was they thought it was a little
more important to try and save their material positions in the world, than to obey the suggestions
of a living prophet. This brings up another point of discussion.
LABORING UNDER A FALSE DOCTRINE
Does personal spiritual righteousness and gospel zeal guarantee the temporal protection of the
Lord and excuse an individual from obeying counsel of the Prophets and Apostles?
On the face of it the answer would seem obvious...absolutely not. We must obey all of the
counsel of the Lord’s anointed...all of the time. We can’t pick and choose without facing the
resulting consequences. But throughout history and even today many of the saints and their local
leaders believe, work under and teach this false doctrine in an important aspect of their lives.
Let me rephrase this question in another way. Can a member or a leader be trying so hard in so
many areas and be doing a tremendous amount of good while yet at the same time ignore counsel
given again and again by prophets...and then suffer terrible consequences because of his lack of
obedience in something very small he personally did not see the benefit of?
The answer is of course...yes. Let me use one more famous historical example of this very issue.
The Martin and Willey handcart experience is again, like Haun’s mill, a story of a group of good,
righteous individuals and their local leaders ignoring counsel from Prophets and Apostles and
suffering the consequences. They specifically, and falsely, applied the idea that their personal
righteousness would protect them in their disregard for following the counsel of the Apostles. In
fact they actually used as an excuse their gospel enthusiasm, zeal, faith and obedience as some of
the primary reasons in their arguments to disobey the advice of the brethren.3 After all, it wasn’t
a commandment that was enforced...it was just counsel. Again, history proved them to be
tragically wrong.
“The decision to send out the Willie and Martin companies so late in the season
was extremely reckless and based upon false doctrine. That decision cost the lives
of nearly one-fourth of the entire group; about 220 people died before the rescue
party sent by President Young could reach them.” 4
Of course we have the story of those who survived the Willie and Martin experience who drew
closer to the Lord. But, according to Brigham Young, it wasn’t what the Lord wanted:
“In mid-November President Brigham Young angrily reproved those who had
authorized the late start or who had not ordered the several parties back to
Florence when they still had the opportunity, charging "ignorance,"
3 See B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, Vol.4, Ch.98, p.91
4Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol.2, HANDCART COMPANIES
"mismanagement," and "misconduct." Though terrible, the suffering could have
been far worse. Had the rescue effort not been launched immediately—well
before the storm struck—the handcart companies would probably have been
totally destroyed.”5
SETTING UP A MODERN DAY REPEAT
Are too many of us as members and local leaders setting ourselves up for another Haun’s Mill
and Willie and Martin handcart disaster...only on a tremendously much larger scale?
I can’t tell you how many times I have talked with people who are wonderful, faithful members
of the Church, some even who are ward and stake leaders, who don’t have enough food storage
to last more than a week or so. Often this is because they have been well blessed in material
possessions and income. In our discussions about how the counsel for food storage has been
repeated by every prophet for over 60 years they commonly respond that with all of the other
issues that they are dealing with, it just isn’t very high on the priority list. Temple work, family
history, missionary work are all much more important than food storage. However, some
explain that if the Prophet made it a commandment, like they did with the Word of Wisdom by
including it on the temple recommend interview, instead of just counsel, then they would move
it up on the priority list.
These people, and I am convinced they represent a very large portion of the membership of the
Church, believe the very same false doctrines as did the members of the two ill fated groups
mentioned above. First, they falsely believe that their personal righteousness will save them.
After all, they are busy going to the temple, fulfilling Church callings, sending missionaries out,
etc. in other words...doing the works of the righteous. Surely, the Lord will be merciful to them
and take care of them despite their lack of attention to this small item. They discount what
president Benson taught on this point:
“Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the Church—and the need
for that cleansing seems to be increasing—a famine in this land of one year's
duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including
some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned.”6
Additionally, they commonly believe and have heard it actually taught over the pulpit by others
that those terrible things that have been prophesied won’t happen to the righteous and so they
need not prepare for them. Many prophets, including President Lee and President Kimball
addressed this terribly false notion, but President Benson said it best in his “Rue The Day”
statement:
5Ibid
6Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.265
“Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the
ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot happen here.
Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord,
or they do not believe them. Those who smugly think these calamities will not
happen, that they somehow will be set aside because of the righteousness of the
Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion. The Lord
has warned and forewarned us against a day of great tribulation and given us
counsel, through His servants, on how we can be prepared for these difficult
times. Have we heeded His counsel?7
It is hard for me to understand why or how so many good and wonderful people can discount
what the prophets have said, again, and again, and again, and again concerning what will
suddenly happen to the world in the future. President Benson said:
“The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our
temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of
Noah.”8
It is important to note that the people who didn’t get on the ark, suffered and died by the very
calamity that for 300 years had been prophesied would come upon them. People, including
members of the Church, have always had a habit of believing that things won’t change
drastically, or that terrible things could happen to them. It is a part of human nature.
However, the scriptures are very clear that these terrible cataclysmic events, some perhaps 20-30
years prior to the actual return of the Savior in power and great glory, will come suddenly upon
the heart of the Church, and then be poured out upon the rest of the world.
“Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of
wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of
lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith
the Lord.
“And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith
the Lord;
“First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my
name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my
house, saith the Lord.”9
It is noteworthy that President Hinckley quoted from this scripture in his famous Sunday
morning talk given in General conference following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and
7Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.706
8 (CR October 1980, Ensign 10 [November 1980]: 33.) Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.266
9 D&C 112:24-26

WHY WE ELECT LIARS - CORRUPT SOCIETY

I REALLY LIKED THIS PIECE BY DAVID KUPELIAN THAT BASICALLY STATES THAT WE ELECT PEOPLE THAT REFLECT BACK ON US WHO WE ARE AS A SOCIETY:






David Kupelian David Kupelian Why we elect liars as leaders
Posted: March 12, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

Editor's note: Barack Obama, aided by a like-minded Congress, has pulled off what amounts to an economic and political coup d'etat in the few weeks since his inauguration as president. Here, WND Managing Editor David Kupelian explains why we so often elect lying, unprincipled leaders, and why they in turn create huge crises for the secret purpose of increasing their power and control.

Did you ever stop to wonder why most governments – no matter where on earth you look, or what time period you consider – tend toward being dishonest, predatory and tyrannical?

Iraq was one big torture chamber before America and its coalition partners liberated it. North Korea is a national concentration camp, where every citizen is the slave of a demented little dictator named Kim Jong-il (who may or may not still be alive – hard to tell in such a fantastically closed society). Zimbabwe, once a major breadbasket for all of Africa, has sewers clogged with aborted babies, an inflation rate of over 11 million percent, and its average life expectancy has been cut almost in half, from 57 to only 34 years.

Yes, I know, these are some of the worst governments on earth. But a great many other nations are not much better. Burma and Sudan are ruled by brutal military dictatorships and mass slaughter and genocide are normal there. The vast Middle East is made up largely of Arab-Muslim police states, almost two dozen of them, where Islam's strict, medieval Shariah law reduces everyday life to one of repression, cruelty and paralyzing fear at best – and at worst, terrorism, "honor killings" and death by stoning for relatively minor offenses (and sometimes for no offense) – all sugar-coated with a stiflingly rigid and intolerant religious code.

China, with a quarter of the world's population – 1.3 billion souls – is still at core a ruthless and suffocating communist dictatorship, despite its massive economic growth. Russia has deteriorated dramatically in recent years; its judicial system is almost dysfunctional, there's virtually no freedom of the press, and international human rights organizations report widespread abuses, including systematic torture of people held by police.

We could continue on with our tour, but we'd just find that most other governments on this earth, from the Far East to Africa to South America, are corrupt, predatory and power-hungry. Each typically perfumes its tyranny with an idealistic, utopian philosophy like communism or Islamic fundamentalism to help control the population. Even Europe and the United Kingdom, once the crown of Western Civilization, are firmly in the grip of secular (de facto atheistic) socialism, which suffocates their once-vibrant Christian culture and seduces their citizens into giving up their hard-won freedoms, independence and wealth in exchange for "cradle-to-grave" security.

That brings us to America.

The United States of America has a transcendent heritage of liberty rooted in self-government and personal responsibility, the result of a revolutionary 200-year-old "experiment" so gloriously successful it became a shining light in an otherwise mostly dark world.

Yet, in recent decades, we too have been seduced. Many of us have been taught in our universities that the "self-evident truths" the founders relied upon are just outdated and dangerous myths. The press routinely portrays values the founders considered to be evil (high taxes, unrestrained federal power, permissive sexual morals) as good, and good as evil. Same with Hollywood, which once showcased pro-American and patriotic themes, but now glorifies sex, violence and total moral confusion.

With this constant cultural subversion in the background, no wonder millions of Americans have gradually been demoralized into depending on government to solve all of their problems, fueling today's uncontrolled, cancer-like growth in government.

Power-hungry demagogues have always used basically the same methods: They demonize "the rich," implying they obtained their wealth by exploiting and stealing from the downtrodden; they stir up racial or tribal hatreds at every opportunity; they blame convenient scapegoats for problems they themselves have caused; and they promise universal peace and happiness if we'll just give them unlimited power over us.

(Column continues below)

Click Here



But they win our support only by appealing to the basest part of us – anger, dissatisfaction, greed and especially envy. They know instinctively that if they can stir up and ignite these dark and addictive passions in all of us, they will seduce us away from our inner dependency on God, and instead create a massive voting bloc of people dependent upon them. The reward for this transference of fidelity is great power for them, and confusion, demoralization and ultimate bondage for us. In its purest form, this phenomenon is known today as Marxism, communism, socialism – the spiritual core of which is raw envy.

Communism, as we know, is atheistic – where the government is the only true god, the giver of blessings, the solver of problems, the dispenser of justice and mercy, the source of civilization's progress. Of course, the only "progress" it actually confers is from freedom to slavery.

And yet, this is exactly the appeal more and more Americans today have been conditioned to respond to, as we have progressively fallen away from the Judeo-Christian values that once animated our culture and institutions. The envy-based system Marx unleashed on the world is alive and well, and in different forms still dominates large parts of the world. In America, it has taken root in the once-noble Democratic Party.

As Americans have succumbed to this socialistic seduction, government has enlarged to its current incomprehensible size and has sucked much of the life and productive capability out of the nation, while feeding its uncontrolled growth.

For instance, here's how energy expert and scientist Arthur Robinson, Ph.D., explains this transformation, focusing on America's scandalous inability to provide for its own energy needs:

Why are American fuel prices so high? Why are food and electricity prices on their way to doubling? Why are economic conditions chaotic? The reason is simple. Americans no longer possess the freedom to produce the goods and services required to maintain their former standard of living. Taxation – both direct and indirect through currency inflation – runaway government regulation and government-sponsored-and-encouraged litigation have reduced the productivity of Americans below that required to maintain their way of life. This tyranny – this economic slavery – has been produced entirely by the federal and state governments of the United States.

There are no resource limitations, technological limitations or geopolitical reasons for the current energy shortages and high prices. These shortages and prices are solely the result of taxation, regulation and litigation that have stifled American energy-producing industries.

Government has also robbed Americans of their very substance by corrupting its money system. Almost a century ago, the U.S. Congress created the Federal Reserve System, handing over to a private banking cartel the crucial responsibility for the nation's money supply, which the people had specifically vested in Congress in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Ever since, middle-class working Americans have seen the value of their money continually diminish – a clandestine form of theft – due to the Fed's inflationary, debt-based, "crank-up-the-printing-press" policies and the abandonment of the gold standard.

If you understand what money really is – it represents your life and substance, it's literally stored energy – you'll see that life itself is being stolen by government. As Texas congressman and money expert Rep. Ron Paul puts it: "From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the '70s, to the burst of the dotcom bubble … every economic downturn suffered by the country over the last 80 years can be traced to Federal Reserve policy."

As citizens struggle to earn enough to support their families and pay their mortgages, the government literally throws their money away. Yes – throws it away. The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste annually issues its famed "Pig Book" that details the preceding year's wasteful spending by the federal government. You know, like giving $400,000 of your money to the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C., or $1 million for the "Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative" or $50 million for an "indoor rainforest" in Coralville, Iowa, or a thousand and one other wasteful and unconstitutional expenditures.

The level of squandering of taxpayers' substance is a wonder. As just one example, a recent audit showed the U.S. Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused commercial airline tickets it had purchased, never bothering to collect refunds even though the tickets were totally returnable and refundable.

And government doesn't just waste your money – it sometimes uses it to fund evil. Not too many years back, the public was less than thrilled to learn that the federal government was funneling their hard-earned tax dollars into support for obscene, perverse and blasphemous "art." There was the "homoerotic artwork" of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, featuring images too repugnant to be described here. Then there was Andres Serrano's "Pi-- Christ," consisting of a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine (as well as "Pi-- Pope," with the image of the pope in urine). And of course there was David Wojnarowicz's "Tongues of Flame," depicting Jesus shooting up heroin. All funded by you.

It's not just obscene art we've paid for; it's obscene politicians too. We have a never-ending stream of prostitute-loving governors and other "public servants": President Bill Clinton had a predatory sexual relationship with a White House intern barely older than his daughter. Then there was New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey who held a press conference, wife stoically at his side, to announce he was coming out as a "gay American," and New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer who frequented high-priced prostitutes, and presidential candidate Jonathan Edwards who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife while accepting the "Father of the Year" award. The revelations are endless – congressmen preying on teenage page boys, frequenting prostitutes, "coming out" as gay, and betraying their sacred marriage vows.

All this corruption and outrageous behavior shouldn't be surprising. The fact is, a great many human beings are just plain dishonest and predatory, lying and stealing in a multitude of obvious and subtle ways. We all have selfish tendencies. For example, think about a typical male fixated on an attractive female walking down the street. Is this love? No, he just has exploitation and selfish gratification in mind. The point is: With virtually all of us beset by typical human flaws like selfishness, egotism, lust, envy, greed, anger, insecurity and the need for approval, how on earth do we expect the same flawed human beings to suddenly manifest great love and nobility when they get into government? Doesn't make much sense, does it? That's precisely why our founders wisely created a national government with very limited powers and lots of internal checks and balances.

What we need to understand here is that it's not just deranged psychopaths like Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe that give us tyrannical government; regular politicians and bureaucrats do it too. As long as they're unprincipled and self-serving, more inclined to preserve their job, personal advantage, wealth and comfort than to risk it all by championing the public good, evil will end up running rampant in that society.

I know this sounds pretty negative, but we really need to understand why it is that governments just about always end up playing god and controlling our lives.

Let's pause again and reflect momentarily on the core reality of our lives. Are you ready?

There really is an omniscient God, and He really does create human beings whose intended destiny is to discover ultimate fulfillment by being obedient to His leading in all things. And our life goes badly – and is supposed to go badly – if we rebel against His will and defy His laws, which are not only found in the Holy Bible, but are also "written" clearly inside each of us.

If we fail to find this inner fidelity to the One who created and sustains us and directs our paths, then we automatically designate someone or something else to fill that necessary role: We will worship another god. Moreover, when we are in rebellion against the true God, we need lies and deception to keep our pursuing conscience at bay – and people who enjoy power are all too eager to step up and play that role for us.

That's right: We elect liars as leaders because we actually need lies if we're rebelling against God's inward leading. Lies do a great job of "serving" us with an illusion of worth and righteousness (that's why we believe them compulsively), as we rebel against the real God, Who is always revealing our faults to us – except that most of us don't want to hear it.

Since bad government relies so totally on persuasive lying, let's take a look at that phenomenon. There's more to it than you might think.

Why politicians lie, and why we believe them

In "The Marketing of Evil," I explore many powerful manipulation techniques used to alter Americans' attitudes toward everything from abortion to divorce to homosexuality. But there's one technique that reigns supreme as the king of all propaganda weapons – lying. To make evil look good – and good appear to be evil – you have to lie.

The power of lies is not so much in the little "white lies" that are part of the fabric of most of our lives. It's in the big lies. It's paradoxical, but we're more likely to believe big lies than small ones.

How can this be? Wouldn't the big, outrageous lie be more easily discerned and resisted than the small, less consequential lie? You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.

There's a dark magic in boldly lying, in telling a "big lie" – repeatedly, with a straight face and with confidence and authority.

One of the greatest liars of the last century – Adolf Hitler – taught that the bigger the lie, the more believable it was.

During World War II, the U.S. government's Office of Strategic Services – a precursor to today's CIA – assessed Hitler's methods this way:

"His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

Hitler himself, in his 1925 autobiography "Mein Kampf," explained with eerie insight the fantastic power of lying:

… [I]n the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. ...

Truly the words of an evil genius. But let's bring this explanation down to earth: Suppose, just prior to Election Day, one candidate accuses his opponent of immoral or illegal behavior. Even if the charges are totally false, and even if the accused candidate answers the charges credibly and effectively, "the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it." In plain English, no matter how effectively the accused answers the charges, some people will still believe he's guilty, and many others will still retain varying degrees of doubt and uncertainty regarding the accused, who may well lose the election due to the cloud hanging over his head. This, as Hitler said, is the magic of lying that "is known to all expert liars in this world. …"

The "doubt-inducing" quality inherent in a "big lie" is actually more powerful even than Hitler explained in "Mein Kampf." Let's say someone tells you a real whopper – like, "Your husband/wife is cheating on you. I saw it with my own eyes." Although it's totally untrue, the big lie has the ability to upset you in a way the little, everyday white lie doesn't. And when you get upset over anything, guess what? You feel a little bit of guilt for falling to being upset, a little angry, a little confused, perhaps a little fearful – and voila, all those conflicting emotions cause you to be unable to think straight, and you can easily end up compulsively believing the lie. To put it another way: When you're upset, the lie takes on a mysterious quality of attraction and believability, as though a protective force-field has temporarily been disabled, allowing the lie to enter your mental inner sanctum.

Hitler's principle is exactly what unprincipled leaders everywhere bank on to get their way with the public.

Using lies to create a crisis

One of the most creative uses of lying – and a key tactic for bending a population to your will – is the creation of a crisis. Now, anyone even superficially familiar with the history of the political left has heard references to the strategy of creating crises as a means of transforming society. You've probably heard of the "Hegelian dialectic," a key Marxist technique whereby an idea ("We need more gun control laws!") generates its opposite ("No, we don't need more gun laws, we just need tougher sentencing of criminals!"), which leads to a reconciliation of opposites, or synthesis ("OK, we'll compromise by passing new gun-control laws, but watering them down somewhat"). This is how socialist progress is achieved "peacefully" – through conflict or crisis – and always in the direction of greater socialism.

The problem is, this "crisis-creation" talk just sounds so wicked, so foreign to us, that it's hard to believe our fellow human beings, no matter how confused or messed up, could actually engage in such a practice. But it's not only true; it's actually a common part of everyday life.

Consider this non-political example and how it illustrates the power of a crisis to mold people to the deceiver's will: In a very sad child-abduction case, a little girl was approached after school by a man she didn't know. He claimed her house was burning down, that her parents were busy putting out the fire, and that he was a friend of the parents who had asked him to pick up their daughter and take her to them. The crisis – and the emotional upset the girl experienced over the thought of her house being on fire and her parents in danger – drowned out her normal caution about getting into a car with a stranger. You guessed it: The stranger was a predator who had concocted the lie for the sole purpose of tricking and upsetting the girl into going with him so he could brutalize and murder her.

This tragic story makes an important point: A crisis throws us off our guard, upsets us and inclines us to make decisions and accept "solutions" we normally would reject.

Politically, the strategy is to create a crisis, or exploit a real one, by throwing people into a mode where they can be redirected toward a predetermined "solution" – whether it's imposing "carbon penalties" on businesses in response to fears of global warming, or a trillion-dollar taxpayer-funded corporate bailout in response to a sudden "financial meltdown," or draconian gun-control laws in response to a rash of school shootings. We're talking about solutions people would normally reject, but now in a crisis accept, and as a result establish a new baseline of what is normal – which becomes the starting point for pushing the nation still further leftward in response to the next "crisis."

Let's look at a few examples of fake "crises." They're all around us:

* Small towns and cities across America pull a certain stunt with depressing regularity around election time. They claim that if taxpayers don't vote in favor of a new tax levy, they'll be forced to eliminate or drastically cut back police and fire protection – two items the people actually want from their government. I once lived in a town where the city council and city manager decided that the way to force voters to approve their new tax levy would be to threaten to completely eliminate police protection within the city limits between midnight and 8 a.m. No joke. This was a crisis of their own creation and for their own obvious purposes. After all, the city council members and their budget committee could have re-prioritized their budget to cut back on street sweeping, park maintenance, library hours, raises and benefits for themselves, or other things less crucial to the public safety and welfare, and gotten by on the existing tax base without leaving the citizens vulnerable to criminals every night. As I said, this is a common tactic in cities and towns up and down the turnpike.

* The radical environmental movement's primary modus operandi is the creation of crises where none exist. The "spotted owl" crisis in my home state of Oregon is a great example. Environmentalists claimed the northern spotted owl was dying out because of commercial logging of old-growth forests where the birds nested. So in 1991 a compliant judge halted logging in Oregon's national forests, causing the loss of about 30,000 jobs, an 80 percent reduction in timber harvesting, a consequent decrease in the supply of lumber and sky-high prices. I remember – I was there. However, it wasn't owls that environmentalists were in love with; they were in love with stopping loggers from harvesting any trees in Oregon's old-growth forests. The owls just provided the needed "crisis."

Oh, here's the rest of the story. Long after Oregon's timber-based economy was crippled by the court-ordered logging ban, the northern spotted owl population inexplicably continued to decline. Surprise! New research showed logging in old-growth forests wasn't a problem at all. The real problem, it turned out, was competition from another larger and more aggressive species of owl that liked the same habitat and food as the spotted owl.

The truth is, ever since "socialism" lost its luster as the salvation of mankind (because it has never actually worked anywhere), the environmental movement has become one of the most powerful, modern battering rams of the left for advancing the same socialist agenda. And of course, the biggest environmental cause of all is global warming.
* Today, a generation of children worldwide is being brainwashed into believing they face imminent doom – monster hurricanes and tornadoes, polar ice melting and raising ocean levels, leading to catastrophic flooding, tidal waves and other cataclysmic events. Many have been forced to sit in classrooms and watch Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," in which he claims the oceans may rise by 20 feet, leading to worldwide devastation. Not to be outdone, NBC reporter Meredith Vieira warned on national TV of the oceans rising – are you ready? – 200 feet. Thus, while the kids suffer from doomsday nightmares, grown-ups respond to the "crisis" by clamoring for "solutions" offered by the environmentalist crisis-creators.

And yet, not only is there absolutely no scientific basis for either NBC's 200 feet or Gore's 20 feet figure, in reality tens of thousands of scientists have gone on record stating their belief that man-caused global warming is a fake crisis. Indeed, as of this writing, more than 30,000 American scientists, including over 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a petition stating: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
* Another legacy of phony environmental crises is our fear of nuclear power. In truth, nuclear energy is clean, homegrown and abundant, and its safety record is extremely good. Many other nations – including France, Russia and Japan – have long taken advantage of this amazing power source. But irrational fear, in response to an environmentalist-created "crisis" mentality, has long gripped the American consciousness and contributed greatly to our dangerous national dependence on foreign energy sources.

* The "Fairness Doctrine" is a freedom-destroying solution to a crisis that doesn't exist. With the exception of talk radio and certain online and cable TV news offerings, virtually the entire news media establishment is overwhelmingly left-of-center. Yet some congressmen and senators claim there's an unfair conservative bias in the media (talk radio) that demands "balance" by legally forcing radio stations to provide air time to "opposing views" – that is, to the left-leaning views that utterly dominate the rest of the information media.

* Racism is largely a manufactured crisis in America today. So-called "black leaders" like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton are long-time professional race-baiters who thrive on stirring up racial suspicions and hatreds. In reality, America is probably the least racist nation in the world. Yes, we had slavery, but that ceased a century and a half ago when we sacrificed more than 600,000 American lives in the Civil War (more than in all other American wars combined) to exorcise it from our nation. Yes, we had segregation – but we long ago repented of this and made it illegal. Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the vast majority of Americans – hundreds of millions of normal, middle-class citizens – believe deeply and wholeheartedly in the color-blind America King envisioned.

And yet Sharpton, Jackson and others have thrived for decades on literally creating the perception of racism where none existed – for their own benefit. From the fake rape claims of Tawana Brawley to the fake rape claims against the Duke lacrosse team-members – the false accusation of racism remains a powerful weapon of the left.
* Similarly, charges of rampant anti-Muslim bigotry and hate-crimes in the U.S., leveled by groups like the ACLU and CAIR, constitute a totally fake crisis. Actually, Americans have demonstrated extraordinary restraint and magnanimity toward Muslims since the 9/11 terror attacks and the subsequent revelations of widespread Islamic antipathy toward America. In fact, according to a 2006 FBI report, between 2001 and 2006 anti-Islamic hate crimes in the U.S. decreased by 68 percent!

We could go on and on – fake crises are everywhere. People who want to manipulate and remold us are always creating crises, small or large, real or imagined, to use as leverage. That leverage, to be precise, is our emotional upset and our resulting inability to think straight and make sensible decisions. Repeat: Just upsetting us through any means whatsoever constitutes a mini-crisis – by means of which we can be manipulated. Although being upset by some injustice or cruelty seems like a "small" crisis in the scheme of things – it is the basis for all other crises, even the largest.

If you think about it, this process of remolding us through crises is a perversion of what God does with His children. He creates a crisis – or perhaps more accurately, allows a crisis to develop in our lives because of our ignorance of His laws – which cries out for resolution. Our marriage and family are in crisis, or our health is in crisis, or our finances are in crisis – and yet if we are sincere, truth-loving souls, that crisis mysteriously has a way of maturing and changing us, and we end up growing in His direction.

You might well wonder what kind of person could be so deranged that they'd create a phony crisis for the purpose of exercising power over others. But this shouldn't be hard to comprehend. For one thing, lots of us are so troubled and insecure that we develop an unhealthy need to be needed by others – a very common syndrome. Consciously or unconsciously, we tempt or corrupt people into becoming dependent on us, so as to fulfill our unhealthy need to be needed.

Moreover, consider that if you are consumed by pride – in other words, if you're a big egomaniac – you actually have a subconscious need or desire for other people to fail. Why? Because your own sense of worth is based on comparing yourself with other people, and particularly with cultivating others to look up to you. Unfortunately, this need for adulation can be fulfilled only if you weaken and fool other people into depending on you for their happiness.

So, if you're a dishonest, ambitious and manipulating politician like so many, even though you haven't murdered anyone, haven't committed genocide, haven't put people feet-first through a plastic-shredder like Saddam Hussein, you're still spreading evil and misery throughout the land.

If this syndrome describes you (whether in politics or in your marriage or at your workplace), you may not be aware of the forces working through you. Oh, you may occasionally catch a fleeting glimpse of it, but you quickly escape from this painful, humiliating realization. For a fraction of a second you see it, but then it's gone.

But let me ask anyway: Have you ever seen another person lose his temper, or fail in some other way – and felt a very slight, perverse sense of satisfaction? Or, when someone has done really well and received credit for it, or made a lot of money, or just expressed an obviously brilliant idea, have you ever noticed a subtle feeling of envy rearing its head inside you?

It's OK. Most everyone has experienced feelings like this at some point – perhaps often. But if you're a sincere soul and you are willing to observe these base feelings emanating from the dark side – and if deep down you really don't agree with those feelings – then in a very real sense those feelings are not you. In a sense, there are two of you, the real you being the observer who is chagrined over the dark thoughts and feelings rising from the deep. Watching those thoughts and feelings honestly leads to repentance and real change.

However, many people are not so sincere. And these type of thoughts and the dark forces behind them come to dominate their lives, albeit unconsciously. So without being a Saddam Hussein, but just being a prideful, selfish, denial-based person, you can do terrible things to other human beings – deceive them, betray them, enslave them. You can destroy lives and civilizations.

And this, once again, is exactly why we have limited government in America – because power corrupts, and now we know why.

By the way, what we're talking about here – the tendency for government to be lying and predatory – didn't start with Karl Marx. It has ever been with the human race. More than 2,000 years ago, the great orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero foretold the decline and fall of the Roman Empire with these words, which exquisitely described the ravages wrought by lying politicians:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

When all is said and done, we elect liars as leaders because we need lies. And we need lies because we haven't found God.

Lies that fulfill us in a wrong way are offered to us constantly, in every area of life: If our marriage in trouble, there's always "the other woman" or "the other man" who will embrace and reassure us that we're great people and that our spouse is the problem. But their lying "solution" only makes things immeasurably worse. If we're depressed or full of rage, but not really interested in understanding ourselves, we have experts eager to prescribe drugs to mask our symptoms – a false "solution" without repentance and hope of real change. Or we can bypass the doctor and go to the liquor store or criminal drug dealer to procure another wrong "solution."

William Penn said it all: "If man is not governed by God, he will be ruled by tyrants." Freedom apart from God is just an illusion of pride. This is because when we are at war with our conscience, something has to sustain our denial, our secret war against the still, small voice of Truth within – hence our need for lies. And government, in the form of other prideful human beings, is only too happy to oblige.

John Adams, a principal crafter of our Constitution, and later our second president, understood this very well, writing: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

But the Bible puts it most eloquently and succinctly of all: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty." (2 Corinthians 3:17)

The preceding has been excerpted from the January 2009 edition of Whistleblower, "SECRETS OF THE LEFT." You may subscribe to Whistleblower at a special discounted rate here.



David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com and Whistleblower magazine, and author of the best-selling book, "The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom." He is a dynamic speaker and has been featured on Fox News, MSNBC, CBN and many other media outlets.

RUSSIAN ANALYST PREDICTING MARTIAL LAW AND THEN COLLAPSE OF U.S. BY 2010

I HAVE POSTED THIS GUY'S PREDICTIONS BEFORE - JUST THE LATEST CLAMORING

Russian Scholar Says U.S. Will Collapse Next Year

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

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MOSCOW — If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.

Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.

"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.

The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the U.S. that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.

Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.

Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.

He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now.

But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.

Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.

Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.

"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."

Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.

It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise.

Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur."

But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.

"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP.