26 December, 2014

Greetings from Tyler,

Maybe now that the X-mas clanging is beginning to subside and the gift giving frenzy is wearing off, some people will begin to focus on important events that are altering the world in which we live in some very dramatic ways.

Russia is in the midst of a currency crisis that, while already halving the value of the ruble this year alone, is expected to get much worse in 2015. Putin’s brash arrogance is believed to be behind military provocations, not only in Ukraine, but in numerous breaches of airspace around NATO countries in addition to breaches of territorial zones around the United States. Many have wondered whether Putin would learn a lesson from the currency disaster in Russia, brought on not only by the precipitous drop in the price of oil, but also by international sanctions that are just beginning to take a toll. Will he realize the damage being done to his own patrons, or lash out to undermine what remains of relative tranquility in Baltics and the nations of eastern Europe?

The answer is in a new military doctrine signed by Putin and just published, declaring NATO as Russia’s top military threat. That comes from actions that have been taken in the east European theater in the wake of Russia’s seizure of Crimea, and its promotion of Russian separatists battling in eastern Ukraine. Russia sides with North Korea, Iran and the Assad regime in Syria, and is becoming ever more aggressive in doing so.

Germany sees the threats rising from the east and from the south, and according to its Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, must get about the business of becoming a strong military power regardless of whatever concerns may remain about its NAZI past. Steinmeier’s speeches, calling for the business leaders to get behind Germany’s efforts to become a world-class military power regardless of public sentiment, have been met with wild applause. With the United States increasingly relegated to the role of spectator in the war on terror, dramatically reducing military capability even as U.S. forces continue pulling away from the war on terror, we will continue to see the vacuum filled; first by terrorists, then by Europe which is in close proximity and already being inundated by refugees determined to import their unsanitary customs and dangerously volatile religious beliefs.

Anti-Islamic fervor is growing in Germany and across Europe, while government officials and the mainstream media continue to call the movement neo-Nazi and racist. We have some idea where this is going.

Here in the United States, all media attention seems to be focused on “peaceful
demonstrations” which are calling for everything but peace. While the debate rages over accusations of racist police, and grievance hustlers bask in the glow of attention, we learn that the organizations and individuals who tried desperately to bring about revolution in 2011 with “Occupy Wall Street” are the same ones organizing and leading the protests. Some of the signs they’re carrying, alongside “No Justice, No Peace” and “I can’t breathe,” are calling for revolution.

You are no doubt aware of today’s funeral in New York for one of the two police officers ambushed and murdered in their cruiser by a thug claiming to even the score in retaliation for the shooting in Ferguson, Mo, and the death of Eric Garner in New York where police wrestled him to the ground applying a choke hold. A dispassionate evaluation of each of these incidents reveals that race had nothing to do with either of them. But there is a mentality among our national leadership that believes that no crisis should be allowed to go to waste, and that stokes divisions and hatreds at every opportunity. We’re still waiting for some official condemnation of the cold-blooded murders of the two policemen in New York from the highest office in the land, neither of whom were Caucasian.

But no, even in the wake of these senseless killings, and the dozens of others that occur week in and week out on the mean streets of U.S. cities, the current crisis has not yet been milked dry. The truth is there for any who will see. The actual goal of the demonstrations is not justice, it is anarchy. When or where it stops, nobody knows. The thug element anxious to defy law enforcement now has the implicit support of some very powerful personalities, so we can expect more confrontational incidents with police. Anarchists who want society to collapse in the hope that an authoritarian government will have an excuse to step in and redistribute the wealth will continue pursuit of that outcome shielded by the wholly concocted premise that American society, and especially law enforcement is unfair and racist.

The current pope, Francis, has seen fit to weigh-in on nearly every controversy on earth. His progress in bringing the protesting “Christian” denominations back into unity with the mother church goes far beyond most people’s awareness. There’s no sign that any church organisation or religious leader (unless you count Al Sharpton) has had the least effect on the situation threatening to tear society apart. You may remember the pope’s seemingly friendly statements about Marxism and those who believe in the communist system? How long before he involves himself and all the various “Christian” denominations in the growing crisis in America?

Now that the world’s holiday has passed, we will pause to observe an actual holy day, the weekly Sabbath. Sunday preachers have been sounding off against “legalism” lately, saying, “You cannot recommend yourself to God by some system of works.” One recently claimed “legalism” to be Satanic. It’s just as my Dad said on his TV broadcast. “They make it sound like trying to obey God’s Laws is the worst sin you could commit!” Well, now it is the Sabbath, and we’re going to observe it whether the pope and his Sunday buddies like it or not. Maybe if more people of good will could see fit to observe God’s commands, this world would be in less of a fix.

Have a great Sabbath,

MarksSignature
Mark Armstrong