Culture War Christianity in American history

In this article, you might find our comments on our previously published articles about Culture War Christians

What Are The Culture Wars?

A History Of The Culture Wars

A Theology of Culture War Christianity

Beyond the Culture Wars

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Jared Stacy writes

What are the Culture Wars?

Think of “culture” as a way of life. It is the sum total of all values, beliefs, and practices making up a communal existence. When God commissions newly formed humanity in Genesis 1 to “fill the earth and subdue it”, he sets men and women into the world with a cultural mandate. His plan was for a human society, united under his rule in the world, ruling with him over the Cosmos as his vice-regents. {What Are The Culture Wars?}

Karl Marx saw how main religion tried to lure people in the ban of the church by false doctrines. It is because the majority of people did not take the time to read the Bible that so many religious groups were able to get people following their false doctrines.

Regularly, people were so prayed for by those doctrines of those churches that they no longer faced the real thing because they preferred to float on those ideas of those churches. It had become so bad that Marx also realised that for many, religion was like an ‘opium for the people’. In lots of Christian and Islamic denominations, their church leaders managed to have their followers, following and worshipping a wrong god and not following the real Christ. since his time still not much has been changed, and there are still lots of false teachers and false prophets around. Marx was disturbed by the knowledge that he saw so many people around him falling for those false human teachings and giving their money away to those churches when there were so many people around them suffering. Marx also noted few dared to question, let alone challenge, church doctrines.

It also bothered several thinkers in the 19th century that the church made no attempt to defend the majority of their churchgoers or parishioners, and did not stand up against the exploitation of parishioners. For far too many centuries, the Roman Catholic Church itself had done everything possible to trot out money from the poorer population.

The German revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist, Karl Marx and his closest collaborator, the German socialist philosopher Friedrich Engels’ answer to the ills of society was according to some, just the opposite of the utopian dreamers’ answers. Mainly this, because the ideas of utopists (like Mr. Ampe) seem for many too far-fetched and unreachable. Though Marx and Engels found enough people who, like them, believed that one could change the way people lived and could come to a better world with less inequality. They, too, went for a better world.

Since World War I the world has evolved incredibly on all levels. Politically it was a time of trying out several political systems, getting more than once in a lot of problems and crises. The Western world clinched at the industrialisation and experienced mixed economies floating between all kinds of political thoughts. Even as the western world became less religious and the church got less of a grip on its citizens, the rich continued to control everything and did everything they could to maintain their power.

For Jared Stacy we have come into a Culture War Christianity where elections are consistently framed He looks at legislation, movies, businesses, etc. as affecting the survival of Christianity itself. For him such

hyperbolic rhetoric is typical. {What Are The Culture Wars?}

For him it is clear that Christ should be at the centre of Christianity. But he also expects something for those who call themselves Christian. He writes

When Jesus prayed,

“on earth as it is on heaven”

he was indicating his expectation and desire that the culture of Heaven becomes the culture of Earth by way of his Church. But does Culture War Christianity, the sort launched in the ’70s, contradict the nature of Jesus’ Kingdom? {What Are The Culture Wars?}

So many people had looked forward to the 20th century, hoping that because of all the new inventions, brought forward by the Industrial Revolution, they would be able to create a world where everything would be much easier and giving them more time to relax. The century opened with great hope but also with some apprehension, for the new century marked the final approach to a new millennium. For many, humankind was entering upon an unprecedented era. The English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian H.G. Wells’s utopian studies, the aptly titled Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (1901) and A Modern Utopia (1905), both captured and qualified this optimistic mood and gave expression to a common conviction that science and technology would transform the world in the century ahead.

Already before the seventies of the previous century there was something going wrong in the industrialised world. Even though many countries were allowed to offer independence back to their colonies, they continued to exploit people in their own countries. Even when churches wanted to present God in different ways over the years, people should know That God never changes. He will always be the same and keep to the same Plan He had already from the beginning of times.

The American pastor and current PhD candidate in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, Jared Stacy 
wants to call our attention to this basic theological ethic:

The work of God’s rule spreading throughout the world in individual lives and communities will never contradict who God is. {What Are The Culture Wars?}

We would have loved that, but reality shows something totally different. For centuries, the main Christian churches have chosen another path than the disciples of Christ. The majority of people preferred to keep to their heathen traditions and festivals and the Catholic and several Protestant churches followed them and made Jesus Christ (the Messiah) their god. As such, we must say there is a lot of contradiction in what people say God is. For many, He is not the God of Christ, Who is the God of Israel, but is a god who is part of a three-headed godship, the Trinity.

It is not just that difference of who God is and who Christ is that has brought division in the world of believers. The diversity of religious groups has also brought both confusion and discord. Coming closer to the 21st-century tension or strife resulting from a lack of agreement came to bring even more separation between the true followers of the Nazarene Jewish masterteacher Jeshua  ben Joseph (Jesus Christ) and the name-Christians who worship Jesus as their god and do not shy away from also worshipping all kinds of people they call saints, this while the One True God desires full recognition and worship.

We have the impression that the blog writer who also writes for platforms like NPR, the BBC, Current, and For the Church, does not see (or does not know) the multiple camps in Christendom. He only mentions two of them. He writes

To speak generally, mischaracterizations come from two camps. Let’s call one group “conscientious objectors” and the other, “vocal advocates”.

Some accuse conscientious objectors to the Culture Wars of believing that Christianity should have no influence in the public square. They slander these conscientious objectors as faithless & godless, or misrepresent them as conspiratorially hypocritical, secretly harboring a progressive political agenda.

On the other end of the spectrum, some conscientious objectors accuse vocal advocates of conflating Christianity with cultural power. This often leads them to slander vocal advocates as compromising sell-outs, or mischaracterize their advocacy & well-connected influence as grounded in an inherently complicit conservative agenda. No doubt, I believe there are instances of legitimate criticisms from boths sides in Christian spaces. But polarity abounds. {What Are The Culture Wars?}

For him the polarizing gap between vocal advocates and conscientious objectors reveals a vast “no man’s land” in American evangelicalism. This is why he believes his series has pastoral and personal implications for all of us.

Because either you or someone you know is wandering the no man’s land as a refugee from the Culture Wars. {What Are The Culture Wars?}

Many American evangelicals are proud that they (so-called) keep to The 10 Commandments, though all of them already sin against the first commandment, not keeping to The Only One True God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah of hosts, the God above all gods.

David Hansen correctly says

“The majority of Americans will tell any pollster that they believe in the Ten Commandments. But only a small percentage of those people could even recite the Ten Commandment; and even a smaller percentage have any genuine interest in following them.” {The 10 Commandments in American Culture}

Lots of North Americans should seriously think about their religion and their faith. About that faith Stacy says there is a danger.

On a day of hope, we need a fresh reminder of the danger inherent in an embrace of Christian faith. {The Danger of Faith}

He points out the trap many Americans have fallen into.

It is American consumer Christianity that invites us to “make Jesus Lord of our lives”. This pitch makes Christ a commodity, leaving us—the consumer—with control. The resurrection and ascension is a coronation that happens apart from our consumer choice & control. {The Danger of Faith}

1909 painting The Worship of Mammon, the god of material wealth, by Evelyn De Morgan

The great part of the US population, as well as in other developed countries, is that believers have deviated from Biblical truth as well as become wedded to matter and thus actually honour the god Mammon. Several denominations in the United States make clever use of asking people for money all the time, pretending that they will then have a better life. It has also become so ingrained in people that one can only be successful if one has acquired a lot of money. Consequently, many do everything possible to be as rich as possible (on the material plane) while completely neglecting spiritual wealth. Many have forgotten that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Stacy writes

It is hard to deny today that for many, the supposed downfall of America is synonymous with the collapse of Christianity. Jesus confronts this idolatry with his Kingdom. {The Danger of Faith}

Lots of Americans are even not aware of how they participate in idolatry, which they prove by continually clinging to pagan festivals such as Candlemas, Easter, Halloween and Christmas, to name only the main ones, and to cling to money and material gain.

He reigns over a Kingdom that cannot be shaken through the rising and falling empires of this world. {The Danger of Faith}

And throughout history, many kingships or kingdoms and principalities as well as republics have risen and fallen. Never before has man succeeded in creating a nation or empire in which everyone was comfortable and where justice was done to everyone. Several Christians, in imitation of Christ, have tried to make people understand how best to live in unity with fellow human beings, plants and animals.

The 1963 March on Washington participants and leaders marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, as mass protest movement against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern United States that came to national prominence during the mid-1950s.

When we look at the German culture struggle of the 1870’s (kulturkampf) it’s clear that the American Civil Rights movement was a “Culture War” too. King’s commitment to non-violence laid a distinct Christian foundation for the Civil Rights movement. But white evangelicals of the time either distanced themselves from King, or denounced the Civil Rights movement entirely, with calls to “just preach the gospel.”  {A History Of The Culture Wars}

writes Stacy.

But not many white Americans were really willing to go to preach what was really written in the gospel. They prefer just to take some phrases out of context to repeat them so that people come to believe them.

The forty odd years from this origin point until today witnessed the end of the Cold War and an insurrection at the US Capitol. Between these bookends, Culture War Christianity made itself known & felt in American society through movements. (See, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne; Stan Gall, Borderlines: Reflections on Sex, War, and the Church; Frances Fitzgerald, The Evangelicals; Tim Gloege, Guaranteed Pure; historical treatments on these movements) {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Stacy reminds his readers:

The arguments and relationships in the antebellum South were transported via Lost Cause theology 100 years into the future, seen in white evangelical responses to the Civil Rights Movement. But these leaders could not ignore the impact of King’s kulturkampf. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

He assures his readers that

Culture War Christianity started after the Civil Rights Movement, not before. It borrows the playbook of the CRM. Ironically, it thrives on a sort of “persecuted minority” mindset, borrowed from the Civil Rights movement, but not actually indicative of the communal experience in its main constituents: white evangelicals. A minority mindset is a prominent characteristic of God’s people in the Scriptures. However, this mindset is not characteristic of evangelical experience in the United States. Race relations and evangelical’s historic participation in the moral establishment offer two historical keys that present a necessary critique of modern Culture War Christianity. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

He believes it is impossible to understand the history behind Culture War Christianity apart from race relations in the United States. So, we begin where we left off, with this statement:

The Culture Wars began when white American evangelicals took the activist playbook from the very Civil Rights leaders they opposed, to advance a moral agenda they could support.

…

Some were overtly political, like the Moral Majority or Christian Coalition. Others would serve the notion of family values, yet retain political influence, like Focus on the Family or Promise Keepers. Local churches and expansive media (books, radio, television) formed the local grassroots communities made these movements possible.

While this all may seem quite familiar, especially if you inhabited spaces within white American Christianity during the last 40 years, a history of the Culture Wars would be best served by going back 2 centuries to look at the phrase “Culture War” itself. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

In his blog he then goes back to the 19th century, across the Atlantic Ocean where the Germans provide us with a glimpse into a framework upstream to both the Civil Rights Movement and “Culture War Christianity” at a time when a new world order was being born. In that era, he recognises the central position of the Catholic Church, facing new threats to its grasp on power.

From the political power of the nation- state to the intellectual frameworks of liberalism and Darwinism, the winds were shifting. In response, the Church produced a flurry of theological statements and denouncements meant to stem the tide of ideas that threatened its hold on the Old World Order. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Portrait of Pope Pius IX circa 1864

The Holy See under Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1864, brought an appendix to the Quanta cura encyclical, with a syllabus where the church wanted to have the people see that it was with the times and recognised 80 of the

“principal errors of our times.”

As the errors listed had already been condemned in allocutions, encyclicals, and other apostolic letters, the Syllabus said nothing new and so could not be contested. Its importance lay in the fact that it published to the world what had previously been preached in the main only to the bishops, and that it made general what had been previously specific denunciations concerned with particular events. Perhaps the most famous article, the 80th, stigmatising as an error the view that

“the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to and agree with progress, liberalism, and modern civilisation,”

sought its authority in the pope’s refusal, in Jamdudum Cernimus, to have any dealings with the new Italian kingdom. On both scores, the Syllabus undermined the liberal Catholics’ position, for it destroyed their following among intellectuals and placed their program out of court.

The Church denounced religious liberty, the nation-state, and other consequences stemming from the “threat of liberalism.” {A History Of The Culture Wars}

For some time there had been bumbling or difficulty in having a good relationship with the Catholic Church. More thinkers also came to speak out about the huge profits the Church was making on the backs of the faithful. Increasingly, there was also the idea of going back to the basics of Christ’s teachings where simplicity was preached and people were taught how to stand up for and care for each other. In the gospel, Jesus set a good example of how not only Christians should live, but actually every human being.

In the 1870’s, the German people, specifically within the Kingdom of Prussia, found themselves in conflict with the Catholic Church over their own Reformation roots and a rapidly secularizing order. This conflict had ramifications for both the Church and the separated German states. As a result of this conflict swirling around the German peoples, individual German States united along highly Protestant lines under Otto Von Bismark of Prussia. (See, Helmut Walser Smith, editor, The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History) This period of conflict and change was given a name: Kulturkampf, or “Culture Struggle”. This German kulturkampf shows us how struggles between competing visions for human existence are sparked by complex reactions between religion, politics, and power. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

It is the clash between people of the common people, as well as philosophers and political thinkers, with the church, that caused very animated conversations in several places in the German Empire about faith, church, and the way we as human beings should choose to arrive at a better world.

After World War II several American religious groups tried to have the power over the American people. They tried to convince them that they were the sole church which preached the truth. Some even went so far to tell the people they were chosen by God and that their church is the only one that can bring them in heaven. For those churches, it is certain that one can only be accepted by God if one follows their rules. Of course, such a saying is absurd, but a large majority of Americans follow that false statement. In the life of faith, it is also certain that no particular church by Jesus was ever designated as the only one to follow.

By studying German kulturkampf, we can begin to see the American Culture War’s false claim to exclusivity and authority by claiming itself to be the sole representative and defender of orthodox Christianity. When we realize this — that American Culture War Christianity is not the single defender of the faith —  it trains us to adopt a healthy critical filter every time a Christian leader describes the “very survival of Christianity at stake” as a smoke screen for unChristian agreements with power. On the other hand, conscientious objectors to Culture War Christianity would do well to consider how “culture struggle” might be a positive expression of Christian faith. There is space to consider positive “culture struggle”. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

King’s kulturkampf was rooted in Christian principles, and sought to dismantle the injustices of racial segregation, subjugation and discrimination within America. With the upcoming of the more conservative Christians, and/or conservative evangelicals, the position between coloured people worsened again and nationalism and (far) right-wing ideas came to the forefront in the States, the same way they did in the 1930s in Europe. Thus, from Europe, we could see the very dangerous development of right-wing rule and the glorification of such despots as Donald Trump, who is a danger to the world.

What would come to define and shape Culture War Christianity in 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s in the US is not at all what King and several serious preachers had in mind. The growing conservatism by the Americans brought forward people who are against equality and who find the white man is the pure race. Even Billy Graham came to criticise segregation but also denounced the non-violent demonstrations as contributing to further violence.

Others denounced calls for desegregation entirely. Back in 1960, Bob Jones Sr. took harder lines at Christians supporting an end to segregation by referring to them as “religious infidels”. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Several pastors of mega-churches, especially in white neighbourhoods, succeeded in shifting all the faults of the system onto the backs of the blacks and refugees who just’ came and invaded America’, without the government doing enough to stop them. One would think the religious leaders would have their moral reasoning to flow from a theological calculus, but it (for sure) did not come from Biblical teaching.

Stacy writes

Charles Ivory’s masterful Proslavery Christianity examines the white evangelical relationship with black evangelicals before the Civil War. He looks at how these interactions between white and black Christians, slave and free, actually came to shape the white evangelical theological defense of slavery. If we want to understand the Culture War Christianity of Falwell, and other white evangelicals, we need to examine their response to the Civil Rights Movement. I believe their response has its source in the theological calculus of white evangelicals in the antebellum South. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Ivory writes it was not uncommon for white and black evangelicals to worship within the same church. Indeed, the revival of the late 18th century did not discriminate on the basis of cultural background. But the theological conflict in evangelical churches pre-Civil War centered around conversion. Namely, does Christian conversion necessitate manumission? Today, Christians would argue chattel slavery is indefensible regardless of a slave’s conversion to Christianity. Humanity is not property. However, the historical context of the time made the question of conversion and manumission the frontline theological conflict regarding chattel slavery within evangelical churches. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

In West Europe the people had gone already through that process, knowing that slavery was something one could not accept in a civilised society. On this, several speakers came to draw attention to a system to bring more equality among all people. The road to socialism and communism was thus promoted by several enthusiasts.

Culture War Christianity has long since ossified into the de facto expression of faith for many white American evangelicals.

But those white American Christians have come to love themselves more than someone else and consider themselves as the only ones worthy to govern America. They do not have an eye at all for the indigenous people, because they consider themselves as the rightful founders and owners of America.

For 200 years, white evangelicalism has been an insider. No where has the minority mindset been more pervasive in our modern conception of Culture War Christianity than rhetoric. Phrases like “drain the swamp”, “make America great again”, and “take back America for God” in evangelical politics go right next to “that’s too political” and “just preach the gospel” in evangelical churches. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

We can wonder from who those evangelicals have to take back ‘their country’! Those evangelicals seem not to have any idea what the ‘founders’ of America had in mind and why they wanted religion and government separated.

While separation of church and state was federally enshrined in the Constitution, it did not play out in those strict terms in state and local governments. This changed in the early 20th century, when the Scopes trial, New Deal politics, and internal theological warring between fundamentalists and modernists left a vacuum in American society that evangelicalism used to fill in common culture. Neo-evangelicals like Billy Graham emerged in this vacuum. But for the long of American history, Christians have not only been influential, but privileged.

How can a privileged majority come to see itself as a minority? Culture War Christianity accomplishes this in part by dressing itself in the Biblical and theological concept of a remnant. A faithful few of God’s people who remain loyal to God and his ways in a foreign, godless land. But this theological adaptation does not line up with the historical participation of white evangelicals in the moral establishment of the United States. Yet, the drums of Culture War for white American Christians implied a greater enemy beyond its borders. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Though the big problem of those Tea Party and conservative or fundamentalist evangelicals is that they are not at all remaining “loyal to God and his ways in a foreign, godless land” they even have betrayed God and His son on several levels. They have created some three-headed god (or three-une being) and political leaders such as Trump as their gods, and consider their American flag as their religious symbol ^{even a Christian symbol}. For sure they can not belong to the faithful few of God’s people, because they do not believe in the Only One True God and because they do not act like People of God. They themselves are part of that ‘dark world’ the Bible is talking about. And now in those times that darkness and of gloominess can be seen everywhere, they also do everything to create division and spread hate, instead of spreading the love of Christ and his great message of a world full of peace. Those evangelicals with other name Christians have made it a sport to make fun of, blacken and curse true Christians. They do everything possible to get people away from those true worshippers of God. They also have some sort of paranoia and consider all people from abroad as dangerous suspects. They fear those coming from outside America would destroy their freedom.

Stacy remarks

the drums of Culture War for white American Christians implied a greater enemy beyond its borders. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

and also see what happened under the influence of certain political figures.

The Culture Wars of white American evangelicalism was not the reaction of the minority against the majority, but the majority against a imagined majority. It is hard to avoid this conclusion given overwhelming support for President Trump. {A History Of The Culture Wars}

Stacy continues writing

In the place of Jesus’ active reign today, we find American Christians given to other reigning power structures: nationalism, racism, misogyny, and bigotry. They are discipled by political—not resurrection—power. This is partly the reason why Culture War Christians took greater issue with Kaepernick’s supposed desecration of the flag than they might with his concerns over police brutality against image bearers. They operate in a power structure other than the Kingdom of Jesus. {A Theology of Culture War Christianity}

Stacys wonders

What if Culture War Christianity long ago bowed the knee to a nationalist, secular conservatism? One with its law & order politics, reticence on issues of race, and idolatry of country? {Beyond the Culture Wars}

Ans says that he has argued this in his series.

Long before white evangelicals told MLK to “just preach the gospel”, there has always been a Christianity domesticated by, and deployed in defense of, the status quo in this country. Frederick Douglass called it before any of us. And in this sort of Christianity, “make disciples” has too often been code for “make people like us” not “make us like Jesus”. {Beyond the Culture Wars}

There lies one of the biggest problems in American Christendom. The majority of Americans does not take time enough to seriously study the Scriptures. For most of them the Bible also only means the New Testament. Lots of those evangelicals also do not understand what that sacrificial offering of Jesus, letting himself be nailed at the stake, means. For them it is very difficult to grasp how a man of flesh and blood could give himself as a lamb for whitewashing the sins of many.

Some of those white evangelicals living in the United States of America are convinced they are the only ones who can  Make America Great Again and build up the most correct state. They forget how so many people before them have tried already to construct an ideal state. They should know it shall only happen under Jesus Christ that we shall be able to live in a perfect world.

Let us also not forget Niebuhr’s saying,

“any good worth doing takes more than one lifetime.”

According to Jared Stacy

This should give us pause before we entertain pragmatism to bring about change in our lifetime. It was Jesus who said,

“what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?”

This should give us pause as we count the cost of pragmatism to reveal the Kingdom of God. {Beyond the Culture Wars}

He ends his article series by saying

After all, the cross is not a symbol of cultural superiority for white America, but of surrender and sacrifice in the Kingdom of God. We must measure our motivations by the Cross, and our methods. Take it from me. A millennial. The generation who was born in and shaped by the ‘Jesus & John Wayne evangelicalism” in its prime. {Beyond the Culture Wars}

And recognises the problem

Culture War Christianity allows you to have a Christian worldview and reject the Cross.   {Beyond the Culture Wars}

By which he hopefully means: rejecting the ransom offering of that Jewish Nazarene master teacher, Jeshua ben Josef, or Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

It substitutes other, more pragmatic means to really get things done. But in the Kingdom of Jesus the only strategy available for implementing a Christian worldview is the Cross.  {Beyond the Culture Wars}

We have to do away with the false teaching in Christendom and have to go back to the Biblical teachings and keep to them, adhering to Biblical Truth and not human doctrine.

We should recognise the danger of that growing conservative evangelism.

For all it’s posturing about the morality of America, Culture War Christianity has stopped its ear to calls for ethnic & economic justice. Has tied its hands in response to sexual scandal and abuse in its ranks. Yet expresses incredulity when the world fails to take its sexual ethic seriously. Culture War Christianity can only provide more entrenchment, more combat, and more pragmatism. But crucified Christianity is growing the world over, and—as it has always done— turning the world upside down.  {Beyond the Culture Wars}

Writing from Scotland, the author of the mentioned articles, wants to suggest a simple but humble invitation to venture into the wilderness as an act of faithfulness. For him,

the wilderness meant stepping out of the American pastorate, and out of America. This was my move made in faith. An attempt to combat the rise of cynicism in my own spirit, channeling it into meaningful, faithful action.  {Beyond the Culture Wars}

From Moses, to Elijah, to Christ. Perhaps the wilderness is the place for those disenchanted and disillusioned, those disowned and disinherited from Culture War Christianity, to begin to see the Cross not as a symbol storming the US Capitol, but again as a place where our power grabs go to die. And where there is death to our ability to bring about change, God brings resurrection that changes everything.  {Beyond the Culture Wars}

The Austrian philosopher and Roman Catholic priest known for his radical polemics arguing that the benefits of many modern technologies and social arrangements were illusory and that, still further, such developments undermined humans’ self-sufficiency, freedom, and dignity, Ivan Illich illumines what it is to be in the world, but not of it — just like Jesus.

Jared Stacy offers his words as a simple reflection in the conclusion to his series:

It is astonishing what the devil says: I have all power, it has been given to me, and I am the one to hand it on — submit, and it is yours. Jesus of course does not submit…Not for a moment, however, does Jesus contradict the devil. He does not question that the devil holds all power, nor that this power has been given to him, nor that he, the devil, gives it to whom he pleases. This is a point which is easily overlooked. By his silence Jesus recognizes power that is established as “devil” and defines Himself as The Powerless. He who cannot accept this view on power cannot look at establishments through the spectacle of the Gospel. This is what clergy and churches often have difficulty doing. They are so strongly motivated by the image of church as a “helping institution” that they are constantly motivated to hold power, share in it or, at least, influence it.  {Beyond the Culture Wars}

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Please also do find to read

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3. My faith and hope
4. Utopian dreams
5. Are Christianity and Capitalism Compatible?
6. The Upbringing of Ideas and the Extrapolation of Capitalism
7. A famous individual by the name of Jesus of Nazareth
8. 19th and 20th Century Shifts in bourgeoisie
9. All that is solid still melts into air.
10. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
11. The New Imperialist Structure
12. Is Christianity a Greedy Religion?
13. Should church members question preachers about the doctrine that is not in the Holy Bible?
14. A History Of The Culture Wars
15. Unhappy people in empty churches
16. Gradual decline by American Christians
17. Christians are increasingly mixing and matching their faith in unexpected ways
18. Being Christian in Western Europe at the beginning of the 21st century #1
19. The decline of religion in the US continues unabated
20. Liberation, salvation and the Latin American voice entering the Vatican
21. Eyes on pages and messages on social media
22. Troubles testing your faith and giving you patience and good prospects
23. The Most Appropriate teacher and Scoffers in our contemporary age
24. Social media for Trumpists and changing nature of warfare
25. Blinded crying blue murder having being made afraid by a bugaboo
26. False teachers and false prophets still around
27. The Field is the World #4 Many who leave the church
28. Unhappy people in empty churches (Our World)
29. Hardships for choosing to follow the real Christ
30. Church indeed critical in faith development
31. Crises of Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic Money
32. International Proletariat
33. The killing of capitalism
34. The Principles of Communism – Friedrich Engels
35. Ability
36. Ability (part 2)
37. Ability (part 3) Thoughts around Ability
38. Ability (part 4) Thought about the ability to have ability
39. Ability (part 5) Thought about the abilities to be under God’s Spirit
40. To whom do we want to be enslaved
41. Compromise and accomodation
42. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
43. Not saying Jeshua is God
44. The 17th annual White Privilege Conference a militantly Christophobic conference held in Philadelphia
45. Faith, storms and actions to be taken
46. Christ’s ethical teaching
47. Obeying God rather than man & A Time to Act
48. Entering 2022 still Aiming for a society without exploitation or oppression
49. News that’s fit to print
50. Beyond the Culture Wars
51. January 6: A Failed Apocalypse
52. Hope For, But Not In, Evangelicalism
53. Presbyterians and Reformed Christians, membership and active involvement is part of a congregation’s DNA
54. The Guardian’s view on the world 1st week of June

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22. Cultural Amnesia
23. The Future of Governance
24. False American Dream
25. Thinking Critically about Marxism, Socialism and Communism (All in fewer than 1000 words!)
26. The Missing Faith Dimension of the Capitalism vs. Socialism Debate
27. A Broken system
28. Psychological Warfare
29. Humanities Retribution
30. Walk The Path
31. Reform or Revolution? A Debate (I)
32. Reform or Revolution? A Debate (II)
33. Editorial: what is humane socialism?
34. The virtues of good, enlightened, accountable elitism
35. The Radical Left Needs to Call into Question Existing Social Institutions at Every Opportunity, Part Four
36. End of capitalism as we know it
37. The Future is History
38. The true believer
39. Research Resources: Communism in America
40. “A Spectre is Haunting Europe…”
41. Finding the Ideal, Perfect Community
42. So You Think Capitalism Is Evil
43. Capitalism: The Ultimate Empowerment
44. Capitalism: Misunderstood
45. On the Current Conjuncture
46. The discipled political church
47. Veneration (Gilbert and Gilbert)
48. Christianity and Idealism (Van Til)
49. Brief Insights on Mastering Bible Doctrine (Heiser)
50. A Field Guide on False Teaching
51. Andrew McWilliams-Doty looks at evangelicals
52. Evangelical: Leave It or Love It?
53. How the term Evangelical has grown to blur theology and ideology
54. Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics – An Interview
55. Which Christians Actually Evangelize
56. Is it Time to Abandon “Evangelical?”
57. Warped Christianity
58. The 10 Commandments in American Culture
59. Communist Infiltration, What Did Bella Dodd REALLY Know – YouTube
60. German priest contradicts pope and backs pornography as sexual ‘relief’ for celibates | Catholic News Agency
61. Sports Star to Be Jailed 10 Months for ‘Transphobic’ Message
62. What is at stake in the buffer zone debate? | Isabel Vaughan-Spruce | The Critic Magazine
63. Win for Christian ministry after judge refuses to strike out discrimination case – Christian Concern
64. Watch the body language in this heated exchange yesterday between Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Chinese Emperor Xi 👀 | Not the Bee
65. Episode 21 – Stella(r) (Hypo)Creasy and the Gov Crackdown on Free Speech – YouTube
66. Senate advances same-sex marriage bill amid religious freedom concerns – Catholic World Report
67. America/Brazl – After 50 years, the mission of Cimi is still “to defend with courage and prophecy the cause of the indigenous peoples” – Agenzia Fides
68. The Christian Father -Conferences of the Men’s Group – YouTube

Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

 

Ryan Buesnel

A question was recently put to me by a reader who was curious to hear my thoughts on whether Hitler should be considered a “Christian” or an “atheist.” What had spurred this on was this reader’s consideration of the somewhat ambiguous topic of “Positive Christianity” — the allegedly Aryanized form of Christian doctrine that was to have served as National Socialism’s official form of religion.

Issues surrounding Hitler’s views on the person of Jesus Christ and the institution of the church are frequently obscured by prior ideological or religious commitments. On the one hand are those who have sought to restore the integrity of Christianity in light of accusations that it played an important historic role in the justification for anti-Semitism. This process of reconstruction required identifying occasions where Nazi ideology was opposed to the normative framework of Christian ethics. The suggestion was that the outcomes of Nazi policy were…

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It’ s not me. It’s the monster

Globalization and neoliberalism. They’ve become the explanations du jour for the decimation of industries and the devastation of lives, for falling wages and slashed public spending. And there is, of course, truth to the claim. But capitalism was chewing up and spitting out its victims long before the market was globalised or liberalism became neo’d.

One of the great novels of the Great Depression, of the wretchedness of poverty in 1930s America, was written half a century before those words were invented. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.  It tells the story of one family, the Joads, tenant farmers from Oklahoma, who are forced off their land by the banks, pushed into migrating to the promised land of California, and the even greater wretchedness they find in their Utopia. It is a story of the pitilessness of capitalism, the dignity of work, the horrors of migration, the disintegration of a family. It is in turns angry and tender, polemical and poetic, allegorical and melodramatic. Steinbeck does not ignore the history of the land and how it was acquired (‘Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away’), but he unquestioningly stands with the farmers in their bewilderments and in their battles. There are times, especially in the second half of the book, where the anger seems to overwhelm the writing. But, given the subject, and given what Steinbeck set out to do – to ‘rip a reader’s nerves to rags ‘, as he himself put it – that is, perhaps, both inevitable and necessary.

– Kenan Malik

This is an extract from Chapter 5, that tells of how those responsible for evicting the farmers justified their actions. ‘We have to do it. We don’t like to do it. But the monster’s sick. Something’s happened to the monster’. A passage and a book that feels as meaningful and vital today as it did when first published almost a century ago.

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From The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck,
Chapter 5

The owners of the land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for the owners came. They came in closed cars, and they felt the dry earth with their fingers, and sometimes they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The tenants, from their sun-beaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their cars to talk out of the windows. The tenant men stood beside the cars for a while, and then squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust.

In the open doors the women stood looking out, and behind them the children – corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner men. They were silent.

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank – or the Company – needs – wants – insists – must have – as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You’ve scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn’t fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land’s getting poorer. You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.

The squatters nodded – they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land.

Well, it’s too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that.

Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the bank.

But – you see, a bank or a company can’t do that, because those creatures don’t breathe air, don’t eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don’t get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can’t we just hang on? Maybe the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all the wars – God knows what price cotton will bring. Don’t they make explosives out of cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton’ll hit the ceiling. Next year, maybe. They looked up questioningly.

We can’t depend on it. The bank – the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can’t stay one size.

Soft fingers began to tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on the restless drawing sticks. In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and the toes working. Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four tires one after another. And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get the cleansing dust down to the skin. In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over the muddy remnants of the slops.

The squatting men looked down again. What do you want us to do? We can’t take less share of the crop – we’re half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We got no clothes, torn an’ ragged. If all the neighbors weren’t the same, we’d be ashamed to go to meeting.

And at last the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won’t work any more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him a wage and take all the crop. We have to do it. We don’t like to do it. But the monster’s sick. Something’s happened to the monster.

But you’ll kill the land with cotton.

We know. We’ve got to take cotton quick before the land dies. Then we’ll sell the land. Lots of families in the East would like to own a piece of land.

The tenant men looked up alarmed. But what’ll happen to us? How’ll we eat?

You’ll have to get off the land. The plows’ll go through the dooryard.

And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An’ we was born here. There in the door – our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.

We know that – all that. It’s not us, it’s the bank. A bank isn’t like a man. Or an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn’t like a man either. That’s the monster.

Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours. That’s what makes it ours – being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.

We’re sorry. It’s not us. It’s the monster. The bank isn’t like a man.

Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

No, you’re wrong there – quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.

The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we can kill banks – they’re worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep our land, like Pa and Grampa did.

And now the owner men grew angry. You’ll have to go.

But it’s ours, the tenant men cried. We –

No. The bank, the monster owns it. You’ll have to go.

We’ll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then?

Well – first the sheriff, and then the troops. You’ll be stealing if you try to stay, you’ll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn’t men, but it can make men do what it wants.

But if we go, where’ll we go? How’ll we go? We got no money.

We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there? And the owner men started their cars and rolled away.

The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were light. The women moved cautiously out of the doorways toward their men, and the children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What did he want?

And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories.

Where’ll we go? the women asked.

We don’t know. We don’t know.

And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust.

After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about – at the pump put in ten years ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the patent crib hanging in the rafters over it.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma? Where we going to go?

The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust – perplexed and figuring.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar.

Snubnosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.

The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractors, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor.

He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders – twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

At noon the tractor driver stopped sometimes near a tenant house and opened his lunch: sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, white bread, pickle, cheese, Spam, a piece of pie branded like an engine part. He ate without relish. And tenants not yet moved away came out to see him, looked curiously while the goggles were taken off, and the rubber dust mask, leaving white circles around the eyes and a large white circle around nose and mouth. The exhaust of the tractor puttered on, for fuel is so cheap it is more efficient to leave the engine running than to heat the Diesel nose for a new start. Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they watched. They watched hungrily the unwrapping of the sandwiches, and their hunger- sharpened noses smelled the pickle, cheese, and Spam. They didn’t speak to the driver. They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.

‘Why, you’re Joe Davis’s boy!’

‘Sure’, the driver said.

‘Well, what you doing this kind of work for – against your own people?’

‘Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner – and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day.’

‘That’s right,’ the tenant said. ‘But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?’

And the driver said, ‘Can’t think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don’t you know? Can’t make a living on the land unless you’ve got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor. Crop land isn’t for little guys like us any more. You don’t kick up a howl because you can’t make Fords, or because you’re not the telephone company. Well, crops are like that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That’s the only way.’

The tenant pondered. ‘Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it’s part of him, and it’s like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn’t doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he’s bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn’t successful he’s big with his property. That is so.’

And the tenant pondered more. ‘But let a man get property he doesn’t see, or can’t take time to get his fingers in, or can’t be there to walk on it – why, then the property is the man. He can’t do what he wants, he can’t think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he’s the servant of his property. That is so, too.’

The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. ‘Times are changed, don’t you know? Thinking about stuff like that don’t feed the kids. Get your three dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody’s kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you’ll never get three dollars a day. Big shots won’t give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three dollars a day.’

‘Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?’

‘And that reminds me’, the driver said, ‘you better get out soon. I’m going through the dooryard after dinner.’

‘You filled in the well this morning.’

‘I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I’m going through the dooryard after dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And – well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so I’ll tell you this. I got orders wherever there’s a family not moved out – if I have an accident – you know, get too close and cave the house in a little – well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet.’

‘I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with baling wire. It’s mine. I built it. You bump it down—I’ll be in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I’ll pot you like a rabbit.’

‘It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it. And look – suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but long before you’re hung there’ll be another guy on the tractor, and he’ll bump the house down. You’re not killing the right guy.’

‘That’s so’, the tenant said. ‘Who gave you orders? I’ll go after him. He’s the one to kill.’

‘You’re wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, ‘Clear those people out or it’s your job.’

‘Well, there’s a president of the bank. There’s a board of directors. I’ll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go into the bank.’

The driver said, ‘Fellow was telling me the bank gets orders from the East. The orders were, ‘Make the land show profit or we’ll close you up.’‘

‘But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe there’s nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn’t men at all. Maybe like you said, the property’s doing it. Anyway I told you my orders.’

‘I got to figure’, the tenant said. ‘We all got to figure. There’s some way to stop this. It’s not like lightning or earthquakes. We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change.’ The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut, and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded field, and the tractor cut through again; the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand. His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the tractor.

The images are all paintings and etchings from, and of, the Great Depression in America. They are from top down, Maynard Dixon, ‘Shapes of Fear’ (1930-32); Alexandre Hogue, ‘The Crucified Land’ (1939); Clyfford Still, ‘Gleaners’ (1936);  James Allen Lane, ‘Prayer for Rain’ (1938); Georgia O’Keefe, ‘Red Hills and Bones’ (1941); Mervin Jules, ‘Dispossessed’ (1938); Clare Leighton, ‘Bread Line’, (1932).

The image of The Grapes of Wrath is of the first edition in 1939.

the Soup will not be eaten as hot as it is served

“Are they really bringing people to workplaces to give them a better life?”

It was known or said that even if Jews were converted to the Christian faith, they remained “different” because of their bloodline. It was also known that many were jealous for the lifestyle and family feeling which could  be found in the Klal Yisrael or Jewish communities. Many goyim found the Jews separated themselves from the society, but they did not often see it were goyim who themselves gave enough reason not to mix too much with them.

Samuel Morgenstern was one of those shopkeepers who was one of the most loyal buyers of Hitler’s paintings in Vienna, by which Hitler could receive enough money not to be a tramp. Naturally there were also rumours Hitler could not stand Jews because he got a disease from regularly going to some ‘Jewish harlots’.

Portrait of Karl Lueger (ca. 1900), mayor of Vienna. He used anti-Semitism as a political strategy. Collection: Austrian National Library / painter: Alois Delug. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Rights: Public Domain

Mein Kampf, (German: “My Struggle”) political manifesto written by Adolf Hitler. It was his only complete book and became the bible of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany’s Third Reich. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1927, and an abridged edition appeared in 1930. By 1939 it had sold 5,200,000 copies and had been translated into 11 languages.

It perhaps were not just rumours that the politician, co-founder and leader of the Austrian Christian Social Party, and mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger (1844-1910), used anti-Semitism as a political strategy, and that he was also praised as “the greatest German mayor of all time” by Adolf Hitler (In Mein Kampf) who did not mind following his ideas.

The prejudices about the role of the Jews in the Great War were incorrect, but as with many rumours, it spread like a virus. Many Germans did not want to believe how more than one hundred thousand German and Austrian Jews had fought for their homeland, one of them being Otto Frank, the German-born merchant best known as the father of Anne Frank, who witnessed the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

In the 1920ies our family members could already hear how our brethren were compared with germs. It was as if our people had been infecting generations for ages. That Hitler never thought his people were not strong enough to live according to the wishes of their god or according to the mitzvot of the Only One True God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. Lots of our friends could not believe that those who said they were “Christian” and as such would, or should, be following the Nazarene Jewish rabbi who preached brotherly love, could do such atrocious things, as others told about them. Perhaps it was to set up Jehudiem against Christians, so that the goyim had all the reason to tell

religion is the cause of war.

The words spread that Hitler said that you cannot fight a disease without destroying the person who caused it, and as such according to him, the influence of the Jews would never disappear without removing the perpetrator, the Jude, from the midst of the Arian race.

Radical ideas paved the way for the mass murder of the Jews in the 1940s, but not many of the Bnei Yisroel or Chosen People of God wanted to believe the rumours at first.

In many families, like ours, it was the saying

“the Soup will not be eaten as hot as it is served”.

They heard about plans which would be taken, but they seemed so unbelievable that they could not be true or would have been exaggerated, as by a circling fire. Others were not so much at ease, and warned

“to be aware of a silent dog and still water”.

Should we look askance at him? Now we can easily say they had much better looked at him out of the tail of their eyes. By not believing the many rumours, lots were woken up with a start, when it was too late.

For a long time, many wondered if it was within the odds, whilst others said

“He is not likely to go.”

Others wanted to be a friend to all, forgetting that then they would be a friend to none. Many debates about what went on in Germany and Austria could bring lots of talks after the children were sent to bed. For sure that what was to be spoken about was not for children’s ears.

It was, and is still, known that there was and is, an existing prejudice that Jews associate with financial power and monetary gain. Many are also convinced Jews are “foefelaars“, who make their pile on the poor white people. Lots of Jews may be looked at as a ramay / nokhel, a fiddler or cheater whilst there was no oysnarn at all.

White movement propaganda poster from the Russian Civil War era (1919), a caricature of Leon Trotsky, who was viewed as a symbol of Jewish Bolshevism.

In many countries people also looked at the Jehudi as the originators or conspirators and spreaders of communism. The vast majority of the communist leaders at that time were Jewish. However, it is only a small part of the Jews that were communists, and what a lot of people did not see is that several Jews were promoting or aiming for social equality, this being considered by many liberals and capitalists a danger for the economy and consumption gain. During the war with the Soviet Union, from 1941 on, it will be the idea of the ‘Jewish communism’ (sometimes also called Marxian-communism or meant to be Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism) with terrible consequences. The population and the prisoners of war being brutally treated by the Germans.

When Hitler got into power rumours got stronger, but still many did not want to believe what went around. Others were smart enough to be at the safe site by sending their beloved far away from Germany and Austria. Some thought they would be safe in Holland, but how they were mistaken. Having gone to Holland luckily several managed to cross the channel and find a safe haven in the United Kingdom, but the others got taken and deported.

At the Schalkland, in the “Klein-Brabant” region, less than 25 kilometres from the centre of Brussels and 19 kilometres from Antwerp, to the south of the Dendermonde highway (Mechelen – Dendermonde) was build the “Willebroeck Fort” as a fortified defence to protect the port and city of Antwerp, which by Royal Order dated 12 January 1907 rechristened the fort “Breendonck Fort”. On september 20th 1940 Sturmbannführer Philip Schmitt brought his first victims to Breendonk. The Fort officially became the Auffanglager Breendonk, a transit camp; a major centre for the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst (SIPO/SD), the german political police.

Words spread that in Breendonk the kaze-the mats were to be removed from the earth in which they were covered. Three or four men had to push a railway carriage that was loaded with the earth. It was not the best marterial the prisoners had to use. Of these vehicles, the wheels were worn out, having to be pushed on worn-out rails, so that a person would have more than it is possible. Was it a rumour or was it true that the SS guards, with their weapons beated on the upper arms, the backs of the heads of the unfortunate ones until the latter were exhausted, but also fell dead?

Former working site at the camp of Breendonk. The regime set up here by the Nazis hardly differed from that of an official concentration camp. The undernourishment and the forced labour wore down the body and mind. The ever-present physical cruelty sometimes caused the death of prisoners. Initially, the camp was only guarded by a few German SS and a detachment of the Wehrmacht. In September 1941, the Wachtgruppe of the SD arrived as back up. This time, these were no longer German SS but mainly Flemings.

Some of the prisoners were to be buried up to the neck, after they were first on a ferocious manner, beaten. The S, S. jailers were there, then settled for the pitiful earth at the face of them. The game lasted sometimes for 1 or 2 hours, and when the victims were about to die, they did not stop to punch and to death. During the singing of the song of Breendonk, the text of which these words were placed on the grave:

” Wir werden nie mehr Breendonk vergessen, das Paradies-tier Juden…’.”

Sturmbannführer (majoor) Schmitt had created and placed a pulley on the ceiling in a folterbunker (torture bunker or blockhouse) of the camp, to make, that the victim’s hands at the back tied up would be drawn to the ceiling.

After that, it was a pizzle of the shot, he was then beaten with a bullepees (bullenpees: baton between a whip and a stick made from dried penis of a bull). When the hoist was released, the unfortunate person fell on two angular boards. Kachelpoken or stove pokers were glowed for immediate use,… because the Jews were not worth the bullet. They had to be sent to death during work and by torture.

When the words rang true for most of the Jews still living in the region, it was too late to find a safe place for their children and for themselves.

After the camps in Belgium or Holland as “Musselmen” (completely emaciated) thousands were deported to Germany to find an end to their unbearable suffering, either of starvation, giving up, or in the gas chambers.

The remaining Jews in Belgium were unable to follow the course of events that their fellow believers underwent elsewhere. Their own concerns were too overwhelming for this and contact with neighbouring countries was too incomplete. The seeping job tidings were considered exaggerated …

Commissioned by the notorious member of Heinrich Himmler’s SS, the Nazi paramilitary corps, Adolf Eichmann, the Sicherheits polizei in Berlin, wrote the following urgent letter, in which the word “Secret” is not missing (22 June 1942):

“From mid-July and early August this year, special trains of 1,000 people each day are planned, first of all about 40,000 Jews from the occupied French territory,
Send 40,000 Jews from the Netherlands and 10,000 Jews from Belgium to employment in the Auschwitz camp.
“The circle of persons to be included extends primarily to Jews who are skilled in work, insofar as they do not live in mixed marriages and do not have the nationality of the British Empire, of the U.S.A., of Mexico, from the enemy states, from Central and South America, as well as from the neutral and related states.

“I may request willing access and assume that there are no objections to these measures on the part of the foreign office either.
Commissioned get. Eichman “

On 12 July 1942 the last restriction on freedom before the local raids started was put visible on billboards. From the onward Jews were no longer allowed to visit cinemas, theatres, sports grounds or public institutions. In the trams they were only allowed to stand on the front platform of the trailer.

Such regulations still did not unbalance many of the Jewish diluted community. According to many the German measures only wanted to deprive the Jews of public pleasures … (Few will then have immediately known that the first nocturnal masses in Paris on Friday July 17, 1942 raffle had taken place.)

Pennant for Organisation Todt

Woman with Ostarbeiter OT badge at Auschwitz

The second Jewish labour team was also confidently leaving the civil and military engineering organisation “Organization Todt” to Charleville-Mèzières (18 July), until on July 22 the second deception beared its bitter fruit.(It was the day that the memorial of the destruction of the Temple took place in Jerusalem in the evening – Tischa be’af – -). Jews were arrested without any excuse! When that day the trains from Brussels and Antwerp stopped at Mechelen as usual, Feldgendarmen were on the platform. All the Jews, both men and women, were taken out. The same happened at the Antwerp and Brussels North terminus stations. (The Brussels-North-South connection did not yet exist.) Their freedom had ended. Some went to Breendonk. Most were sent to the 18^th century Dossin barracks, where between 1942 and 1944, 25,484 Jews, 352 Roma and Sinti were deported. Just over 5% returned from Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Kazerne Dossin, Goswin de Stassartstraat 153, B. 2800 Mechelen, where in the old barracks, visitors will find a memorial, which commemorates countless people who stayed there in despair and fear and who died later in unspeakable circumstances.

From the onward the Jews throughout Belgium were being seized by panic. Being an ode alone was therefore sufficient here to be arrested … The Jewish Council was powerless … followed by a reaction of partial sobering among the Jewish population. They forged new flight plans that were kept secret even from close acquaintances.
The panic mood was tempered after a few days. When  people received mail from the internees in Mechelen it all looked not as bad as the rumours went around.

They are not nearly as bad there … Fruits are missing … They may receive packages …

Faces from those who lost their life after being brought to the Dosin Kazerne in Mechelen

These days we remember all those who lost their life in a struggle to survive in a hatefull world.

Let us not forget how politicians can use disinformation and propaganda to mislead many and to create unwanted scapegoats.
We also may not let ourselves be fooled this time that it would not be as bad today with what was happening in the 1930ies. There are people who say

That can never repeat again

but after the Great War all people agreed also that such a horror should never take place again. Only a few years later the world found itself again in such time or terror.

This time let us be more careful, notice the signs of people bringing others on the wrong path, and react wisely to those who want us to believe we are ridiculous seeing ghosts or bad things in what are just jokes or carnavalesc activities.

 

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Preceding

Remembrance and freedom in the Netherlands – Dodenherdenking and Bevrijdingsdag

Niet te negeren gebeurtenissen rond Joden in België

The danger of having less than 25 000 Jews in Belgium

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Additional reading

1. The Great War changed everything
2. Reformed Churches Muzzled but Protest at Barmen
3. 2019 was #4 a Year of much deceit in Belgium and the rest of Europe
4. Signs of the times – “An object of scorn and ridicule”

Wanneer Joden uitschelden een routine werd

Sinds 2014 mogen we zeggen dat in Nederland, België en Frankrijk als het ware niet speciaal werd opgekeken wanneer Joden werden uitgescholden.

Mannelijke Moslims kregen niet zo veel opmerkingen als vrouwelijke moslims; Zij die te gesluierd rondliepen konden wel op reacties rekenen. Maar toch mag men zeggen dat zij in het algemeen minder last hadden dan de Joden. Joden kregen het niet alleen aan de stok met moslims, maar kregen ook haatwoorden van “mensen van hier”.

Vijf jaar geleden viel het oudere mensen, die de jaren ’30 hebben meegemaakt, al op dat wij in zekere zin terug naar die periode aan het gaan waren. Maar velen vonden erg genoeg ook dat de Jodenhaat vandaag de dag veel agressiever is dan voorheen. Het komt ook in een andere vorm tot uiting. Een soort vreemde macht.

In Nederland en België begonnen de oma’s en opa’s hun kleinkinderen aan te moedigen om deze contreien te verlaten. Ook al mocht Israël niet zonder gevaar zijn kon het daar toch beter zijn en kunnen wij er op rekenen dat de staat Israël voor ons zal zorgen. Vele Joodse gezinnen vonden het de laatste jaren dan ook veiliger om België te laten voor wat het was en hun intrek te nemen in het “Beloofde Land”.

Voor hen die in Nederland, België of Frankrijk wonen hangt de verhouding tegenover andere inwoners van die streken af van hun herkenbaar joods zijn en hoe zijt geloof al of niet uitdragen. Hoe minder herkenbaar als Jood hoe minder men met de Jodenhaat geconfronteerd word. Maar zij die zich als jood ben een ambassadeur van Israël voelen zullen echter ook meer weerstand vinden en verantwoording moeten afleggen voor wat de staat Israël allemaal aanricht.

Bij opperrabbijn Jacobs waar in 2014 te Amersfoort ruiten werden ingegooid en hij regelmatig uitgescholden werd valt het op dat uitschelden eigenlijk al routine is geworden. Hij zei

“Dat zie je van kilometers ver aankomen. Joden zijn daaraan gewend. Het is een realiteit waar iedereen mee leert leven. Daarom heb ik eieren voor mijn geld gekozen in plaats van blijven hopen dat de situatie verbetert.”

Hij schrok er ook niet van als er naar hem of zijn medebroeders

‘Dood aan de Joden’

werd geroepen in de Haagse Schilderswijk om dat dit al al jaren wordt geroepen. Hem stelt het hem niet zo teleur daar hij zich wel Nederlander aanschouwt, maar dat Nederlands zijn zijn identiteit niet laat bepalen. Hij zei

“Ik voel me ook Nederlander en heb liefde voor het land. Maar ik ben opgegroeid met het idee:

‘Ik heb een eigen land en dat is Israël.’

Omdat mijn Nederlandschap niet echt mijn identiteit bepaalt, ben ik nu niet zo teleurgesteld. Bovendien, als er sprake is van teleurstelling, is die al eerder bevestigd tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog.”

Voor hen die tijdens de tweede wereld oorlog zijn geboren of daarna, zijn er enkel de verhalen van onze ouders en grootouders. Sommigen behoren ook tot ouders die als kind waren opgevangen bij anders gelovigen. Dat maakt het dan weer zeer moeilijk hoe dat Joods zijn te plaatsen en geen verraad te voelen voor hen die onze familieleden in bescherming namen. Bij meerderen kan dit een zeer grote druk teweeg brengen. ook kunnen er opgevangen kinderen in een christelijk gezin opgegroeid zijn en zo met het christelijk geloof verstrengeld zijn geraakt dat het Joodse geloof op de achtergrond geraakt. Maar nu kunnen hun kinderen of kleinkinderen zich weer naar die Joodse wortels begeven of voelen zij zich toch sterk tot die Joodse wortels aangetrokken.

Van de kinderen of kleinkinderen van bij christenen opgevangen Joden, die sterk beïnvloed zijn door het christelijk geloof, zijn er dezen die wel aan nemen dat Jezus Christus de Messias is. Maar beseffen zij ook dat die Jezus een Jood was met de naam Jeshua die ook de God der Joden aanbad en niet zichzelf (zoals vele christen geloven). De nakomelingen van het Kindertransport zitten soms met een dilemma, vooral ook als er geen bewijzen meer zijn van de vroegere moeder of grootmoeder, mits deze in de kampen zijn omgekomen. De Joodse lijn lijkt dan zo verbroken of niet meer terug vindbaar. Maar diep in het hart is er dan wel dat Joodse gevoelen. Sommigen hebben gelukkig nog enkele aandenken aan hun Joodse voorouders en zoeken deze lijn weer sterk te maken. Ook al zou het voor hen inhouden dat zij nu Jeshua als de Messias aanschouwen en zo ook deel zouden kunnen uitmaken van de Christenheid. Echter willen zij duidelijk afstand nemen van het Christendom waar er christenen zijn die een Drie-eenheid aanbidden in plaats van de God van Abraham.

Voor deze die het Joodse verwantschap aanvoelen maar ook Jeshua als de Messias willen aannemen is het dikwijls nog moeilijker dan de Joden die nog uitkijken naar een eerste komst van de Messias. Als Messiasbelijdende Joden zijn die gelovigen die Jeshua als Messias aannemen in vele gevallen niet welkom bij andere joodse gemeenschappen. Maar bij vele christenen zijn ze ook niet welkom omdat zij weigeren Jezus als hun god te nemen. Dat maakt hun ergens wezens die nergens bij lijken toe te behoren en als eenzaten het langs nog meer kanten het te verduren krijgen, van Joden, Christenen en Moslims. Dezer dagen maakt dat het ook niet makkelijker.

Wij weten wel dat er rabbijnen zijn die zeggen dat het jodendom buiten Israël er is als een soort bijproduct van het hoofddoel: Israël. Maar als Messias belijdende Joden of Jeshuaisten beseffen wij dat Jeruzalem de hoofdstad zal zijn van het Beloofde Land Israël, maar dat Gods Koninkrijk zich ook zal uitstrekken naar alle landen van de wereld. Gods Koninkrijk zal plaatsgrijpen maar eveneens hier en wij geloven dat wij allemaal mogen uitkijken naar die komende vrede over de gehele wereld, en niet enkel naar een klein stukje in het Midden Oosten.

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Lees ook

1. Kritiek op Israël niet gelijkstellen met antisemitisme
2. Geïnstitutionaliseerde discriminatie
3. Wereld herdenkt Auschwitz met overlevenden
4. Islamitische terreur doet hulp aan Palestijnen verminderen
5. Geen groeiende moslimhaat in Europa, maar groeiende jodenhaat
6. Over de ‘normaliteit’ van antisemitisme in Europa
7. Jeruzalem en Joodse en Christenen hun angst voor uitsluiting
8. Amsterdamse Joden voelen zich steeds onveiliger.
9. Waarom vele van onze broeders zich stil houden voor de buitenwereld
10. Europees spilland en antisemitisme
11. Niet te negeren gebeurtenissen rond Joden in België
12. Prinsesjes en carnavalstoestanden #1 Aalst Carnaval 2019
13. Haat tegen verarming en tegen Israël nieuwe manier om Joden te haten
14. Gemelde antisemitische voorvallen neemt toe

The American democracy wasn’t built in a day, but it could be destroyed swiftly and imperceptibly

An American lady who felt compelled to write a novel of hope and who want us to keep our hearts open and act within love instead of reacting out of fear looks at her own country where some one pulls the strings in a dangerous manner.

She writes

Believe me when I tell you that living in the U.S. right now is like being on a nonstop roller coaster ride, minus the thrill. I don’t understand the mindset of those who think our current POTUS is America’s savior. Perhaps they’re not dependent on healthcare for their lives. Perhaps they don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck. Perhaps they’ve never experienced having the rug pulled out from under them. Or perhaps they’ve experienced all of these and are so desperate for change that they cannot see through all the lies.

One has only to read how Hitler came to power in 1930’s Germany to see the analogous framework already established here in the U.S. Denying this or accepting it as a benign trade-off is extremely dangerous. Our democracy wasn’t built in a day, but it could be destroyed swiftly and imperceptibly. However, I remain hopeful.

I know the old patriarchal world order is dying; and as with anything facing imminent death, it’s digging in its heels for a last stand. Conditions might even get worse before the beast takes its final breath. Yet I will not be daunted. I won’t allow the power elite to rob me of hope; or worse yet, scare me into questioning what I know to be true.

Humankind is skating on the edge of heightened consciousness. But in order to fully know and appreciate expansion, one must experience constriction. We are germinating in the rich soil of explosive growth. The challenge is keeping our wits about us while embroiled in chaos. Which brings me back to my reason for writing this.

Continue reading:  Chronic Illness Update

Seeds from the world creating division and separation from God

These days we can find more than one politician trying to sow division in his own country and in the world. The are very handy bullies who can keep their outlook unchanged like a good strong high quality wig. their periwig may be their trade mark, hiding what is underneath that peruke. Like postiches are fake people may not forget those words spoken by such politicians may also be fake.

We can hear those politicians, which claim to be Christians, picking on Jews, Muslims and immigrants, trying to hide the internal more important matters, and trying to please the people their tickling ears, who want to find a scapegoat for all the problems of their own country. The last few years our Jewish community already felt the pressure, having to face an increase of bullying, making that several Jews decided to leave Belgium and to go to Israel, where the violence seems to frighten them less than here in Belgium.

Shoebat asks why Christians, before they start ‘picking on Jewish, Muslim or immigrant dumpsters, are joining another dumpster instead of cleaning up the growing neopaganism in their own backyard?’

Fact is, so many, be they Catholic, Orthodox or Evangelical, are looking the other way, that for the sake of being anti-immigrant, they support the heathen. {The Greatest Abandonment Of Christianity In The West Is Happening And The Whole World Is Being Plunged Into Paganism As Biblical Prophecies Reveal}

He should know, like the whole world should know, that at this present day satan, the adversary of God, is throwing a lot of seeds on this globe which shall infect many other seeds wanting to grow up on this earth which is warming up for a less pleasant climate change and for bad times to come.

It are those seeds sown by the adversary of God, which are clearly no seeds of love, or seeds of peace, who by growing up, getting bigger than the slower growing seeds of godly people, that want to convince those who believe in the True God, that they are wrong and that they should believe in the god of the world, making that they shall have it much better than now as believing naive guys.

Those contemporary seeds want those who believe those very old books to come to see that the symbols they are carrying are the signs for better times. They are proud of their tattoos which should be a sign for the world that the world belongs to them. In a way, they are right. The world belongs to them. God has given the world in the hands of man. The adversary of God already for some time has the right to proof to the Divine Maker he can do it better than the Creator Himself.

In ancient times there where the idols of Egypt and it looks like we are gone back to them. We can see many carrying again those very well known symbols of the sun and pagan elements.

Europe and many of the slavs are veering away from Christ’s church returning back in masse to pre-Christian paganism, all with deities that honor “the sun” just as John predicted in Revelations. {The Greatest Abandonment Of Christianity In The West Is Happening And The Whole World Is Being Plunged Into Paganism As Biblical Prophecies Reveal}

At the closing times there will be division. People shall come to fight each other for many reasons, one of which religion shall taken as a point of discussion. The different religious groups fighting against each other, even Christians forgetting the agapé love of the preaching of Christ and his apostles, not willing to be open minded for people who have an other faith or come from other nations.

Isaiah 19 speaks of neopaganism spread from Egyptian mythology which will be the hallmark of the world prior to Christ’s coming. The ultra-nationalist movements from Europe all the way to slavic nations derive from Thor, the sun god in Norse mythology was also the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phœnician Bel or Baal, and it is accepted freely when slavic neopagans call upon the same God when they invoke Perun.

The American and European Alt-Right’s obsession with a mythical ancient Egyptian deity, Kek, is also Egyptian, while “the Hindus, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Celts have all yielded striking comparisons [to each other], and the Norse Gods display significant resemblances to members of other pantheons” (A History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press, P.p, 319). {The Greatest Abandonment Of Christianity In The West Is Happening And The Whole World Is Being Plunged Into Paganism As Biblical Prophecies Reveal}

In the previous years we could feel how the right wing movements became more into the light, not hiding any more, but shouting loud, wanting to get rid of Jews and Muslims. Again Christian churches where silent, in the same way a mosques did not come out to tell people ISIS and other  Muslim fundamentalists where not real Muslims but bringers of hate, not acting like a Muslim should do.

All over Europe we can see the right wing parties getting stronger, making people afraid of the Muslims, Jews and of those who come to look for refuge. The refugees and immigrants are not welcome for them. There is no place in their heart to foster for those in need or fleeing from the war regions in the East or South.

The Lambda. The symbol of identitarians and many neo-Nazis

Shoebat writes

The devil will use antisemitism, stupid, where every evil is blamed on the Jews. And this is currently brewing like never before since WWII. While critiquing Jews is valid, the evil is this unbalanced view that is sweeping western nations like a storm accusing Jews to supersede gentiles in doing mischief. And its coming from claiming Christians who do not consider that antisemitism in Christianity is a heresy, condemned by the church as mortal sin since it stems from ultra-nationalists leading their nations to commit genocide. Today, there is a tremendous rise in antisemitism. It has become a silent reality getting us ever closer to fulfilling Zechariah 12. {A Horrific Storm Of Evil Is Rising Up And Is Sweeping The World, It Is Leading Europe Into The Hands Of The Antichrist}

According to him

Saddam Hussein, also spelled Ṣaddām Ḥusayn, in full Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti whose brutal rule was marked by costly and unsuccessful wars against neighbouring countries.

The first phase began around three decades ago when the West declared war hailing Saddam Hussein as the major threat to the world. And when the true prophets warned “this is a bad idea” the prophets were burned alive. Then it took a decade or two to recognize the prophets were right all along.

Then the next evil phase began when a new spring gushed forth out of the bottomless pit declaring that Middle East dictators are the major threat to the world. The false prophets declare it “an Arab Spring” and they blessed it. And when the true prophets said “this too is wickedness” more true prophets were burned alive. The west then went full-throttle on pumping this Arab Spring to gush forth the waters which became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

The west, as it turns out, commenced an evil plan. Germany aided the Islamist evil dragon Turkey which spewed a flood of Muslim immigrants, locusts if you will, into the heartland of Europe. Now the European masters did not have to convince the masses to aid in the ultimate evil plan, the third phase. Instead the masses on their own declared and complained to their masters that aided and abetted this wormwood shouting that the Muslim immigration is the ultimate major threat to the world. {A Horrific Storm Of Evil Is Rising Up And Is Sweeping The World, It Is Leading Europe Into The Hands Of The Antichrist}

We can clearly see how anti-Semitism was growing in Europe and now has reached the United States of America as well. It is stemming not just from the typical anti-Israel liberals, but according to Shoebath from western conservatives who do not heed Zechariah’s warning.

Today the rise of neopaganism reveals a disturbing trend becoming the fastest growing religion globally and is also virulently antisemitic and contra-believers of God, be it Jews, real or non-trinitarian Christians or real Muslims. We should be alert that there are also groups who may see what is happening to the Jews but want to blame the followers of the prophet Mohammed, making people afraid of those believers of One God.

We must be careful, for those who are trying to frighten people for the worshippers of Allah. First of all those making others afraid of the worshippers of Allah, is that they forget ‘Allah’ is a title which denotes a god and the God. In Belgium and many other countries ‘Allah’ does not pose so many problems because it is a general title being used to denote a god or God, Who gets also other titles over here like ‘Ene’ or ‘Enige’ (‘One’ or ‘Only One’), Elohim, Dieu and Gott, el (not for the girl of female ‘el’) and El Shadai. I got the impression on the net (for the short time I’m presenting there my own ‘Immanuel site’ or blog) that English speaking people want all others to use the same word for God as they do and how many say the Jews killed Jesus and therefore should be punished and done with. (It would be the same as Jews now saying to a Caucasian “you killed my forefathers so I have to kill you’, though perhaps it could well be that this Caucasian’s father or grand parent really has Jewish blood on his hands, though Christ was long ago put to death not by Jews but by the Romans, which many Christians seem to forget.). Some even want that we all would speak English and use what is according to them the only valuable Bible ‘The King James Version’ as if God would only want to reach His people in English. The other-way round in some Muslim countries there are leaders wanting to forbid Catholics and protestants to use the general term for god or God ‘allah’ because they claim ‘Allah’ is only the God of Muslims. Both should know that Allah is the God of all. They also should know that Allah or God  has a name which is even Holy or set-apart, and which should be known all over the world. That Holy Name is Jehovah and is the Name given to the Most High Almighty God of gods, Who is a Spirit and not a human being or a being of flesh, blood and bones, like Jesus Christ was. He is also a singular God and Being One He wants all to worship Him alone and not having people bowing down in front of graven images or making any pictures or sculptures of Him or any other gods.

Today we can see that the pagan rituals are very much increasing again and that lots of people prefer to take part in those human rituals and pagan festivals, instead of holding to the festivals the Most High Elohim has given or demands His people to keep.

By having gone so far away from the mitzvah or commandments of God, man became ‘bewildered’ and has lost the North. Not having a good compass any more man has chosen for the wrong and more attractive paths.

Walid Shoebat seems not to believe that his American compatriots are also infested with the same pesticide as the European evangelicals. He writes

Most Americans think that Evangelicals are the same universality, believing that these are ‘Israel flag wavers’ just like them. The American evangelical being unique is the most ill-informed. When it comes to this issue, they do not realize that the bulk of what identifies itself as European Evangelicals are quite the different breed. Germany is exploding with Odin worship with a church in kahoot with it, while in the U.S. Evangelicals don’t say much fearing to appear as pro-immigrant. {The Greatest Abandonment Of Christianity In The West Is Happening And The Whole World Is Being Plunged Into Paganism As Biblical Prophecies Reveal}

and continues

While westerners are made to focus on “creeping Sharia,” they forget how Christians in Germany welcomed “creeping Nazism”. The rise of Nazism in 1933 upheld “Christian values”. Just as the Next News Network, Gary Franchi Jr, the Evangelical supporting the Soldiers of Odin for their good deeds, likewise, during Nazi Germany, Germans were persuaded by the statement on “positive Christianity”:

“We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state’s existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of view of a positive Christianity without tying itself confessionally to any one confession. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and is convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only be achieved from within on the basis of the common good before individual good.” (from Article 24, 1920 Nazi Party Platform)

And just as these deceived Europeans during Nazism, they are doing it again. Everything repeats, there is nothing new under the sun.

And just as it was in WWII, what they all have in common is “antisemitism” “ultra-nationalism,” and a “racialized” understanding of morality.

Kirchenratswahlen am 23. Juli 1933: Wahlpropaganda mit SA-Unterstützung vor der St.-Marien-Kirche am Neuen Markt in Berlin

And if one thinks it is the Catholic, or the Orthodox who were the main players, I remind, it was the Evangelicals in Germany who were the bulk of the masses deceiving while being deceived in the 1930s. These comprised of 28 regional churches or Landeskirchen, the bulk of German churches, that included the three major theological traditions that had emerged from the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed, and United. Most, the bulk majority, of Germany’s 40 million Protestants, were members of this church, although there were smaller so-called “free” Protestant churches, such as Methodist and Baptist churches that withstood Nazism.

Flag of the Deutsche Christen or German Christians 1934

During the 1920s, a movement emerged within the German Evangelical Church called the Deutsche Christen, or “German Christians.” The “German Christians” embraced many of the nationalistic and racial aspects of Nazi ideology, which is exactly what we see rising today. Once the Nazis came to power, this group sought the creation of a national “Reich Church” and supported a “nazified” paganized version of Christianity.

{The Greatest Abandonment Of Christianity In The West Is Happening And The Whole World Is Being Plunged Into Paganism As Biblical Prophecies Reveal}

Wandlung der DC-Embleme 1932 – 1935 – 1937

It is very clear for us in West-Europe that we can see a very similar situation as in the 1920ies –1930ies and that we similar dictatorial right wing figures rising up and misleading the citizens of their country. America being the first country in the series where the right wing weapon lobby has won and is going to do everything to get other coloured and other believers out of ‘their nation’. Soon we might see Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen following in the footsteps of the new dictator Donald Trump, who shall take care that all those who do not agree with him shall disappear from the stage of his theatre.

Europe and other countries should be aware how they should be careful not to fall in the trap of those bad seed, the weeds being sown all over America and Europe, not to become infested with a dangerous virus, which not only shall kill many of the ones not like by many, but worst of all, killing lots of innocent people and bringing horror all over the world.

We should be warned and better know our real enemy.

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Preceding

Seeds to be planted soon

Seeds of promise

Seeds, weeds and kingdoms

Unbelief, faith and mustard seed

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

Solstice, Saturnalia and Christmas-stress

 

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Additional reading

1. Hamas the modern Philistines
2. Religious Practices around the world
3. Unprecedented violence against protesters and social protest
4. Social media a destabilisation tool in the Middle East and Syrian conflict
5. Protest against Tzahal concert in Antwerp
6. Migrants to the West #6
7. 2014 European elections
8. 2015 In the Picture
9. Israel the Oil and Gas Opportunity
10. Foreign workers and immigrants
11. Silence, devotion, Salafists, quietists, weaponry, bombings, books, writers and terrorists
12. A world with or without religion
13. Knife-trust in democratic sore back
14. January 27 – 70 years ago Not an end yet to genocide
15. Nigel Farage called Donald Trump’s victory ‘bigger than Brexit’
16. 25 Orthodox rabbis issued a statement on Christianity
17. The American clouds of Anti-Semitism
18. French Muslims under attack
19. Declaration of war against Islam and Christianity
20. At the closing hours of 2016 #2 Low but also highlights
21. Bible sayings about God
22. Two states of existence before God
23. Disobedient man and God’s promises
24. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
25. You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone
26. Looking for answers on the question Is there a God #2 Pantheon of gods and celebrations
27. Picking Stones
28. Apple of Gods eye
29. Have no other gods besides Me
30. Sow and harvests in the garden of your heart
31. Bearing fruit
32. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
33. Improving the world by improving the Faith

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Further related articles

1. An Another Way
2. What Seeds Are You Planting? (365 Days of Daring Faith — DAY 293)
3. Sowing the Wind
4. We Do Not Save, Only Plant
5. our words matter…
6. Spread the Gospel
7. ignite hope…
8. The art of Love
9. The Harvest
10. The Apple Tree
11. The Orchard of Your Life, Tom Moore
12. Faith’s Checkbook: Pruning For Fruit-Bearing
13. Matthew 21:18-22: Withering the Fig Tree
14. Be A Fruitful Tree In Harsh Weather
15. Planted to Bear Fruit
16. You Shall Know Them By Their Fruits…But What is Fruit?
17. Bearing Fruit
18. Bearing Fruit for God – John 15:6-8
19. The First Year of Marriage: Being Spiritual is Not in Tongues-Speaking
20. The Thin Line Between Pride And Greed
21. Psalms of the Salter: Some Thoughts on Really Living for the Lord (Psalm 92)
22. Discernment and God – Philippians 1:9-11
23. What! No Fruit?
24. Cookie a day: Don’t Be A Tree That Gets Cut Down
25. Sanctification by God – John 15:1-4
26. Post-Truth Bears No Fruit
27. 4 Keys To Pleasing God
28. Through Christ – You Can Do All Things
29. Our Fruit Is Found In Christ
30. “Fruit Bearing”
31. Unity: Wisdom is Justified by her Children
32. Why Don’t You Feel Him With You?
33. Abiding in the Lord
34. Following the Leader
35. rise up and resist…
36. Restored faith in humanity
37. Was It Worth It?
38. What a “normal” day for God looks like
39. Life Transformation~ Starts with the Seed, the Word of God
40. Religious Pluralism and Common Sense on Trump’s Inauguration Day
41. Hate Still Great as Trump Administration Begins
42. Here’s What Dr. Seuss Thought About “America First”
43. David Icke and the meaning of Jewish power
44. To anyone who still supports Donald Trump
45. Mario Silva: Persistence of anti-Semitism shows world has yet to learn lessons of the Holocaust
46. What’s in a name? Identity in a reactionary age
47. Defend The Jews: We Must Never Forget The Holocaust
48. Tam Dalyell and anti-semitism
49. London Mayor Sadiq Khan: We Must ‘Redouble Our Efforts’ to Stop Anti-Semitism
50. Populism is breeding racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: UN chief
51. Never Forget… Unless You Are The Russian Usurper Donald Trump
52. Rachel Rozsa *************************** In memory of my grandmother on Holocaust Memorial Day
53. Remember the Shoah, Not Just the Holocaust
54. ‘You Get a Gold Star!’: Alt-Righters Celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Day
55. Alan Dershowitz’ Long Reach
56. After Trump orders entry ban, airlines bar Iranians from US-bound flights | The Times of Israel
57. Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Speech Doesn’t Mention Jews!
58. Lobby: Trump’s ‘America First’ slogan is antisemitic!
59. The anti-Semite with the Jewish wife
60. Anti-American & Un-Jewish (Jared Kushner)
61. Speak Out In Times of Great Moral Crisis
62. Redemption is sweet
63. Watch “What’s Holding the Arab World Back?” ~ PragerU
64. Hasbara is Desperate to stop David Icke (video)
65. Deepa Kumar: hating Israel, loving Hamas
66. Know Your Enemy
67. Nationalists’ approaches to Jews, Israel and Zionism: Complex relationships
68. United in Idiocy: Milo Yiannopolous vs the University of Berkeley Students
69. Next Week in Jerusalem
70. A former skinhead explains why it’s a mistake for the US to stop targeting right-wing extremists
71. United States Donald Trump news update

+++

 Related articles

• Warnings of rising xenophobia on Holocaust Remembrance Day
• Samantha Bee compares Trump ‘Muslim ban’ to a ‘shameful’ moment in US history
• Beautiful photo of Jewish and Muslim families bonding at protest will give you hope
• Faith leaders unite against crackdown
• Betraying Israel
• All Signs Reveal That Terrorism Is On The Rise, While Americans Remain A Divided Nation Heading The Way Of Europe Where We Will Soon See Violence On The Streets
• This Photo of Kids Protesting at an Airport Proves We Are All the Same
• A Break in the Search for the Origin of Complex Life
• ‘The President Went Out of His Way to Recognize the Holocaust’
• The Story Behind The Viral Photo Of Muslim And Jewish Children Protesting At O’Hare

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Darkest just before dawn

Marcus Ampe when looking over the happenings of 2016 told his public that when we should have to choose a colour for 2016 it probably would be ‘black’. Even the darkest black colour you might find.

Certainly here in Belgium and neighbouring countries we have seen many black moments caused by people living very close to us. Hundreds of people who lived in cities like Brussels (Molenbeek district), Verviers, Charleroi, Mons, just to name some of the most mentioned living quarters of those who killed many in Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt and further away many cities in Syria. A so called liberation of human race was on their lips by causing so much agony in name for their sort of Islam which has nothing to do with real Islam, a religion which has ‘salam‘ or ‘peace‘ in its name.

2016 may have been the year where Bad came over Good and brought with it Hate over Love. Though many still may believe in

Good over Bad. Love over Hate. {When it looks like hate is winning}

May we really believe that

“Good always wins”?

When we look around us it seems just the opposite. Those who do not mind to swindle and do whatever they can to make themself rich without taking care of others, seem to win. Marcus Ampe warns us for the political scene which is changing drastically almost everywhere in the world, not for the good. He warns for the populism which is going over Europe and the United States as a virus. As a Christadelphian he likes to look at what is prophesied in the Bible and by looking at that sacred book is not at all surprised of what is going on. In his eyes we can follow the notated signs of those old writings and see that we are heading to a third World War, though it may still many years before us. He likes to compare the last few years with the 1920ies and showed us also how the present days are very much related to the 1930ies, which should sincerely worry us.

He does not speak of an apocalyptic change like certain Christians may do, but likes to warn us to prepare ourselves and our kids for the coming period where very right wing politicians may gain lots of votes and even come into power.

Perhaps Jyoti Chauhan Singh, an Indian lady who reads Tarot cards and came to live in the United States, perhaps thinks on similar lines, saying the same as Mr. Ampe that

it is happening in every corner of this world. People around the world are bringing this change by their votes, by their say, and by their actions. Be it Brexit or current US election, or stimulated political environment in my home country India. This change is too much. Too much for us to handle and accept, and to adapt to. {When it looks like hate is winning}

Is that not the danger we shall have to face in the coming months?

Are not many politicians going to make use of and are going to instigate people against others and nourish the fear many already have?

For Mrs. Chauhan Singh the present President elect in the States was

not elected against a virtuous leader. It was not the fight between good vs evil. It was just bad and worse fighting with each other. You guess which is worse and which is bad. But, it was never a winning situation for USA, no matter who would have won. {When it looks like hate is winning}

speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I do not know why Clinton would have been so bad, because honestly her stupidity about the e-mails was not really a criminal act, like so many Americans would like us to believe. If they consider such stupidity already a crime or sin than the many frauds and bankruptcies of Donald Trump which many Americans never seemed to have remembered or noticed, would be “cardinal sins and death penalty crimes”

We also may notice that many people seem to have some nostalgia to some times they had it better, though at those times they ware hoping for better times and for having more material richness. But as we could know beforehand all those modern gadgets they can have today are not making them more happy. The opposite today lots of people are more lonely and feeling poverty more harsh than years ago, though we may see less poverty stricken people. Less tramps on the streets.

With a smiling or is it a sarcastic face Mr. Ampe may tell us that many people would love to go back to a time they are imaging there was, but which has never been so. Mrs. Chauhan Singh alsy pointing to the same fact

With this election, Americans have spoken very clearly that they want to bring back ‘good old days’. Doesn’t matter if those good old days are going to be good for rest of us or not. They want to go back. They want someone with traditional values, traditional promises. Although seeing the lifestyle of elect president I hardly think he is an epitome of traditionalism. {When it looks like hate is winning}

Mr Ampe analysed some body language of Mr. Trump and showed us how clever that man must be playing with his public. This cleverness should make us even be more alert. He also compare certain tactics with the way how Erdogan managed to come in his dictatorial position today. How he was patient enough to go from mayor of Istanbul, even having spent some years in prison after his mayorship to come stronger and more radicalised out of it, imposing the traditional Muslim values and going in against the civil state of the old creator of a dream state Turkey.

We shall have to wait and see  to know how Donald Trump is going to use his power and how Marine Le Pen is going to drive her wedge through France which seem to be the under the spell of Muslim extremism and Islam fear.

Mr Ampe, like Mrs. Chauhan Singh seems to do also says we may not loose hope and contrary to how lots of people are concentrating on their own self, we should look more to others and try to come up for the weaker ones.
Mrs. Chauhan Singh writes

Losing hope is never an option. If we are given this result, we must be hopeful that there must be something good coming out of it. Give him a chance. He has already shocked all of us; he may surprise us too. Do not lose hope. Instead hope for him to change his ways, his words, and his actions, for the betterment of this country. {When it looks like hate is winning}

One of Mr. Ampe his main teachings, also as a retired teacher of ballet history, is that we should learn from history and that we should make others aware of possible traps lots of people in the past did not notice but became victim of. According to him by knowing the past we can avoid the same mistakes, which have been repeated so many times, because people did not know their history.

We always shall look at things and would love to see things changed. Man is not easy satisfied.

One also can wonder when  our world evolves if/ when and how many people would be ready for such changes, and if they are for the better or for the worse. In most cases lots of people are just not ready for the changes taking place.

Problem is not in these major changes but our inability to accept them. {When it looks like hate is winning}

One might also ask whether we shall be able to find enough people who shall be really wanting to pursue peace. To find enough people who really want to “raise awareness that peace in itself,” and willing to take steps with which to motivate others to go that track of peace making is something we should go for. Too many may be very confused and may not be sure which dreams might be the best for them. Though according to Mr. Ampe we should come to work together towards mutual peace and to the broadcasting of hope and positive thoughts, trying to take away the confusion there is today and putting right the wrong ideas about some people, religions and ways of life. He believes the change must come from each of us and that we are responsible for the evolution of the day. According to him, we ourselves are to convey the message and have even to adopt a certain attitude and should form a shining example. According to him, there also should be peace as a base in our own daily lives.

This peace will also make the connection with the other and this will be like a snowball effect to be implemented on this world.

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Preceding articles about overviews for 2016

Donkere periodes en het uitkijken naar vrede

From Guestwriters 2015 in review

Pokémon craziness

++

Additional reading

1. Knife-trust in democratic sore back
2. Daesh hits heart of Europe
3. What Associated Press released on Wednesday 23 March 2016
4. Iranian media implicitly accuse Erdogan to have known of the Bruxelles’s attacks in advance
5. Hard questions
6. Terrorist attacks in brussels
7. Social media, sympathy & shocks
8. Europe unites to defeat terror
9. Silence, devotion, Salafists, quietists, weaponry, bombings, books, writers and terrorists
10. Declaration of war against Islam and Christianity
11. Is Europe going to become a dictatorial bastion
12. French authorities have shut down around 20 mosques and prayer halls
13. State of emergency and respect for human rights
14. Paris attacks darkning the world
15. Trump brand of migrant demonization
16. Trump brand of migrant demonization #2
17. Brussels-born Salah Abdeslam key suspect Paris terrorist attacks
18. Muslim Grooming (Rape) Gangs and Sharia
19. Amount of Muslims living in your country

+++

Further reading

1. Paris Attackers Had Already Appeared in the Islamic State’s Propaganda
   It has already been established that the on-the-ground leader of the Islamic State’s atrocities on Paris
2. Belgium knew in 2012 already that Paris suspects were plotting attacks
   Belgian authorities knew as early as 2012 that terrorists linked to the bloodshed in Paris were plotting attacks in the West. But little was done to disrupt the build-up of a network that subsequently became a cornerstone …
3. Fugitive Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam captured in anti-terror raid
   He was shot in the leg and arrested in a major police operation in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek
4. Paris Attacks Suspect Wounded, Arrested In Brussels Raid
   Salah Abdeslam, a suspect in the deadly Paris attacks, has been wounded and arrested, following a raid in the Belgian capital, Brussels, after four months on the run.
5. Hollande Chairs Emergency Security Meeting — France Determining Next Move After Arrest of Suspected Terrorist Salah Abdeslam, a French…
6. Muslims in Molenbeek are on the side of Salah against the belgian police. Take in more muslim immigrants so we enlarge the Salah’s Fan…
   The so called refugees are all muslims, I don’t see why we should let them in. Now that we know the destructive attitude of freemasonry we also know we mustn’t let them do what they ask.
7. One Paris attacker buried just a day before his brother was captured in Brussels police raid
   Brahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in November’s attacks, was laid to rest the day before his brother Salah was captured.
8. Top Lawyers of Belgium, France in Suspected Terrorists Abdeslam Case — Focus on European jihadists
9. How Recent European Terror Wins Led to Abdeslam’s Capture
10. ISIS Launches Coordinated Attacks in Brussels Airport and Subway
    Early reports from Brussels are that two coordinated attacks have taken place with the first being at the Brussels Airport Departure Terminal and the second within the Brussels Subway system.
11. J’accuse ! L’attentat que les services craignaient
    Avec colère suite aux événements de ce matin, j’accuse la Belgique d’avoir été attentiste depuis des années et de n’avoir jamais donné les moyens aux services de Renseignement de faire leur travail professionnellement pour tenter de prévenir ce genre d’attaques.
    … Outraged about the events of this morning in Brussels, I accuse Belgium of having endorsed a “wait-and-see” policy for years and having never giving to the intelligence services the means to do their job professionally to try and avoid this kind of attack. …
12. Leighton: Terror cells are a lot bigger than Belgium authorities anticipated
13. Terror attacks in Brussels kill at least 34, story developing
    Terrorist bombings at a subway station in Maalbeek and at Zaventem Airport have killed at least 34 people and injured another 170. Two bombs, at least one of which is believed to have been a suicide bombing, struck the …
14. Bombing in Brussels!
    Today, once again, Islamic terrorists have attacked the west. This morning, Brussels became the latest city to come under attack with a bomb detonating on a metro train …
15. Islamofoobikot pitävät terrorismin voimissaan
    Ennen kuin Brysselin terrori-iskuista oli kiirinyt tieto Suomeen, Helsingin Sanomat kirjoitti viime syksyn Pariisin iskujen tekijöiden jahdista. Belgiassa 18.3. kiinniotettu Salah Abdesalam piileskeli kuukausien ajan
16. Islamofoobikot pitävät terrorismin voimissaan
    Ennen kuin Brysselin terrori-iskuista oli kiirinyt tieto Suomeen, Helsingin Sanomat kirjoitti viime syksyn Pariisin iskujen tekijöiden jahdista. Belgiassa 18.3. kiinniotettu Salah Abdesalam piileskeli kuukausien ajan …
17. Het raadsel, Salah Abdeslam
    Op 13 november vorig jaar reed hij zijn vrienden naar de Parijse plekken om toe te slaan. Dood en verderf te zaaien, angst aan te jagen, het leven te vernietigen dat hij met hart en ziel haatte.
18. Del estupor al sopor: atentados jihadistas, habituación europea, y jamais vu liberal-progresista
    Creo que estoy progresando. Esta noche, alrededor de las 3am, fui despertado por el zumbido de mi teléfono celular que se encontraba recargándose, apoyado sobre la mesita de luz.
19. The Religion of Peace Strikes Again
    This morning we awoke to the news of a deadly terrorist attack in Brussels. Isis claimed responsibility for the bombings at the airport and the Metro station.
20. Why Belgium?
    ISIS has claimed responsibility for separate explosions in Brussel’s Zaventem airport and a central metro station that killed 34 and wounded over 200.
21. Don’t Blame Whitey!
22. Belgium’s approach to immigration and security again under fire
23. CAIR Cannot Be Trusted To Police Radical Muslims
24. Brussels
25. Molenbeek-Saint-Jean
26. After Brussels, Europe must abandon its safe space and face reality
27. Hidden in Plain Sight: Salah Abdesalam’s 120 Days on the Lam
28. Waking Up to the Brussels Bombs
29. Aboard the Eurostar to Brussels
30. Two belgian politicians elected in Molenbeek committed themselves to legalize Sharia in Belgium. That’s how Islam destroys Democracy when…
31. Molenbeek’s gangster jihadis – BBC News
32. Europe’s Muslims hate the West
33. CAIR Cannot Be Trusted!
34. Belgian Terrorism Suspect Salah Abdeslam Has Agreed To Provide Police With Full Information on Other Terrorists — “Turns Supergrass”
35. Brussels Suicide Attacks ‘Shocking But Not Surprising,’ Stanford Experts Say
36. The Muslim Problem and How Not To Solve It
37. Look at what I almost stepped in
38. We Are AfraidMerci, Thanks !Revolution: Jesus loves Every Jihadist
39. Perps of ‘Far-Right’ Hit-and-Run on Muslim Woman Were Muslims
40. Why Belgium is Ground Zero for European Jihadis
41. Een falend land, dát is het echte probleem, meneer JambonTerrorism From Brussels: A Report
42. Molenbeek and its cultural and creative dynamism – a (small) press review
43. A Close Look at Brussels Offers a More Nuanced View of Radicalization – The New York Times
44. «Il reste encore des éléments à neutraliser»
45. Europe: Suicide by Jihad
46. How Many Molenbeeks in France?
47. The truth about “no-go” Molenbeek
48. Open brief aan Jan Jambon door Selma Benkhelifa (advocate)
49. Getting Up Earlier.
50. Two Police Officers Attacked With Knife In Belgium, Unhurt
51. Knifeman attacks Brussels police
52. Tent Cities for questionable dwellers
53. L’Arc-en-Ciel presque au complet
54. Dec 16,
55. It has been an eventful year for me 2016
56. The Politically Correct Right
57. Bet you missed this #1
58. 2016- A Reflection
59. 2016 Recapped
60. Summarising 2016-Энэ оныг дүгнэх нь
61. 2016 in review
62. Christmas Countdown Blitz 2016 ~ Day 12
63. Not Goals. Plans.
64. Book Review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
65. What India Searched in 2016
66. Saturday 17 December 2016 – Some famous people who’ve died in 2016
67. My 2016: August.
68. Movie Review: Rogue One (2016)
69. Things That Need To End In 2017
70. History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump
71. Look East and Watch for the Light
72. Readjusting Expectations
73. revolutionary reflections | The Crisis in German Politics and the Rise of the Radical Right
    2016 has been a year in which right –wing and authoritarian agendas have been in the ascendant. With the French and German elections next year we will see if this trend continues.
74. Links for 16/12/16
    Black-White Earnings Gap Remains at 1950s Levels for Median Worker Donald Trump Should Know: This Is What Climate Change Costs Us How data maps are transforming the fight against malaria in Zambia South
75. Populist right – the mass appeal of “strict father” framing
    George Lakoff’s book, Moral Politics, popularised the idea that ‘rightwing’ politics stem from a particular moral worldview, which Lakoff called “strict father framing”.
76. What is Populism?
    Populism. It is everywhere in the news right now and it is one of those words that have so many vague meanings and yet describes itself so well. Populism is simply the revolt of the people against the political
77. Who do Western Australian populist voters second preference?
    Most draw support from across the spectrum when compared to the remaining small parties.
78. The Elites Are Fuelling A Backlash They Do Not Comprehend And May Not Withstand
    Accustomed to getting their own way and furious at being thwarted by mere democracy, the political elite are responding to recent setbacks by …The Future of Federalism in an Age of Populism
    Richard Eccleston, Helen Krever and Rick Smith explore the future of federalism in the 21st century.
    The two seismic political events of 2016, Brexit and the election victory …
79. The 3 Layers of Authoritarian Thinking
    There are three layers to unfreedom or authoritarian thinking that is sweeping the world today.
80. More than just populism: Renzi, the Italian Senate referendum and the perils of second chamber reform
    On 4 December Italians decisively rejected Matteo Renzi’s proposed constitutional reforms, which centred on reforming the Senate – leading to his resignation as Prime Minister.
81. Times of Uncertainty: The Rise of Far-Right Populism
    Uncertain times lie ahead. People have had their fill of neoliberalism and they’re looking for alternatives. So far, they’ve found dreadful ones. Trump was elected president of the US, Marine Le Pen
82. What is anti-establishment according to Donald Trump?
    People from Goldman Sachs, billionaires, top donors, Secretary of State from Exxon. It seems this is how the huge part of Trump’s administration will be established. What does it tell us about how Trump wanna
83. Policy corruption, vote buying and double standards
    The Constitution Drafting Committee has been hard at work hamstringing political parties to prevent them from ever “ruling.” Apart from simply being anti-Thaksin Shinawatra, the law is based on beliefs …
84. Cameron names his nemesis populism, but the Westminster set still refuses to accept that it was a rejection of self interest which was…
    As I stepped into the polling booth at a local church hall on the evening of 23rd of June and looked at the voting slip in my hands, the feeling that crossed my mind couldn’t have been further from the thought of
85. Why Did Trump’s Anticorruption Rhetoric Resonate? Three Hypotheses
    OK, I know I said in last week’s post that I would eventually get back to blogging about topics other than Trump, but not yet. After all, Trump’s election—a political and moral crisis on so many dimensions—
86. The Islamic and black populists of the Netherlands: a tyranny of the minority?
    DENK’s main representers. From left to right: leader Tunahan Kuzu, TV personality Sylvana Simons and co-founder Selçuk Öztürk. More than once, the Netherlands proved to be first in Europe to
87. The SNP is not like horror-show euro-populism. Mercifully.
    THE liberal Left hasn’t had much to celebrate recently, what with Brexit, Donald Trump and the rise of the alt-right. So there was understandable jubilation over the defeat of the far-right candidate …
88. On Populism
    It was Lord Acton who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But as citizens of a country and a nation, we have civic duties such as addressing corruption in government and empowering
89. Are France Next to Join the Nationalist Narrative?
    Last week saw Italy become part of the nationalist narrative in Europe after changes to their constitution were rejected. As a result the country’s Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi,
90. Brexit Britain turns against globalisation and modern technology, blaming it for low UK wages and inequality – The Independent.
    Post-Brexit Britain is in the throes of a major backlash against globalisation, blaming dwindling wages and rife inequality on the opening of the world’s economy, an exclusive poll
91. They Are All Populists
    ”Populism” is a loaded word and it is a rather strange one. It is used to express disapproval of certain forms of political activity, but unlike other such negative terms its basic reference would seem quite positive.

+++

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• Hillary Clinton’s Inaugural Address
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• On This Day – 18th Amendment
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• Happy President’s Day! What Our Forefathers Thought About Taxes
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