Free Book Excerpt #33 from Rev. Paul J. Bern: This time, from "Occupying America"

"Occupying America: We Shall Overcome",

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

 One of the most exhaustive, comprehensive books about the “Occupy Wall St.” and “We Are The 99%” Movements written so far, as well as why they are still relevant today (Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders, the Yellow Vests in France, etc.). Pro-Occupy; anti-government; very dissident. Watch the author's video at http://youtu.be/Z20l9ohORN4

 

Excerpt of chapter five, which forecasted the downfall of the Euro back in 2012, a process that has since gotten underway....

Overall, conditions are decidedly negative at a time financial markets are whistling past the graveyard. Expect reality to eventually outstrip hope. Continued wrongheaded policies assures train wreck unpleasantness and grief. For ordinary people, it means greater misery. Stronger economies will sink with weaker ones. In fact, world economies are now so interlinked that a shock in one spreads everywhere in short order, including among the strongest. It's coming but no one knows when. Today's economic fragility is a global event.

Eurozone, UK and US banks are broke but still operating, thanks to never ending loans from the Fed. However, any time they spend money or lend reserves, inflation is adversely affected. Now it's a matter of inflate or die. Decades of accumulated government debt approaches saturation. It's coming in a few years at most, possibly as soon as a few months. At issue is at-risk and unpayable government debt and zero interest rates benefiting bankers. As a result, expect greater crisis down the road. Since the early 1960's, financial excess assured crisis conditions too great to contain. It's been building for over 50 years. We are at the stage now that risk is growing exponentially, as central banks and governments aggressively intervene in markets, causing major distortions.

From inception, the Euro was doomed to fail. We just don't know when it will actually occur. It's been slowly disintegrating for years. Its demise will damage global economies in ways that may be nearly incalculable, not to mention inconceivable. Economic and financial dislocation is at hand. Delaying the inevitable only works so long. Reality eventually triumphs. Europe and America are sinking. Judgment day awaits. It could be 2012 or as late as 2016, but no later (2016 will be the year when China's economy surpasses America's if current growth rates remain the same). When disintegration arrives, expect harder than ever hard times. Ordinary people will be hurt most. Bankers and 1%'ers have stashed trillions in tax havens. Friendly governments infiltrated with 1%'ers do nothing to retrieve the money or help troubled households survive. Welcome to “Battleground America”, a class war of the have-it-all's versus the have-nothing's that could degenerate into a civil cold war, the likes of which has not been seen before. It's all downhill from here unless global protesters stay committed long-term against conditions too unacceptable to tolerate. That's the wild card world elites fear, and with good reason. It's because ordinary people can change the world. It's the only way beneficial social change ever comes!

People everywhere are coming to the same conclusion. A mass deduction is being formulated by the many disenfranchised, dispossessed and disillusioned American workers, the sum of which is that the 99% has been getting the shaft for entirely too long at the hands of the elitists who have enslaved us all by forcing us to work for bare subsistence wages while putting basic necessities and human rights such as access to health care and higher education financially out of reach. There are all kinds of ways that are legal and nonviolent methods to fight back against the rigged political and economic systems that stand in the way of our freedom. One such instance is detailed in the Web posting below.

Bank of America Gets Pad Locked After Homeowner Forecloses On It

Written by Kelly Heffernan-Tabor, CBS News, Jun 5, 2011

“Collier County, Florida -- Have you heard the one about a homeowner foreclosing on a bank? Well, it has happened in Florida and involves a North Carolina based bank. Instead of Bank of America foreclosing on some Florida homeowner, the homeowners had sheriff's deputies foreclose on the bank. It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn't owe a dime on their home. The couple said they paid cash for the house.

“The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn't owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay. A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners. The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on their house.

“So, how did it end?... After more than 5 months of the judge's ruling, the bank still hadn't paid the legal fees, and the homeowner's attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank's assets. "They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated," attorney Todd Allen told CBS. Sheriff's deputies, movers, and the couple's attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller's drawers. After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees....”

In the wake of Occupy Wall Street's successes, it's time for some more serious, organized direct action around the issue of debt. When I talk to people about what we could do that would really compel Congress and Wall Street to meet our demands or really alter the current system, we inevitably start discussing what non-cooperation with our own oppression would look like. What does it mean to stop cooperating with the banks? What we inevitably end up describing is some variation of a debt strike, simply ending our own participation in a system that exploits us. Are debt strikes, then, the next logical step in the fight against Big Finance's domination of the 99 percent? Debt really does tie the 99 percent together, it's everyone's least common denominator, mathematically speaking. Everyone who is under the 99 percentile saw a major debt increase in the 2000's. You can talk about the richest 1 percent making too much money, but part of what they're making is derived from our debts. Their wealth is a claim on the future income of the remaining 99%, and it is an indicator of a predatory economic system that exists solely to serve the top 1%. That debt was for many years a substitute for wages in the pockets of many Americans. As incomes stagnated or even shrank, credit cards and home equity filled the gap—until the housing bubble popped, leaving millions underwater on their mortgages, owing more than their homes were worth, and unable to get more credit cards or even make the minimum payments on the ones they had. In short, everybody found themselves caught in a trap.

Many have noted that what happened in 2007 and 2008, when the banks were handed billions in bailouts and secret ultra-low-interest loans, was essentially a capital strike. Finance essentially said that if they didn't get bailed out, they'd shut down the system — stop lending, jam up the works, and make life miserable for everyone. Yet those same banks, once bailed out, have flatly refused to do the same for a nation of borrowers thrown into crisis by their actions. Their argument seems simple — the borrowers knew what they were doing, it's their obligation to pay. Most borrowers agree, and struggle to make payments on credit cards with 20 percent interest rates, usurious student loans for educations that didn't help them find jobs, on homes that have plunged in value thanks to predatory lending, and on cars and trucks that often wear out before the owner can finish paying off the auto loan, keeping the “customer” locked into a never-ending string of upside-down auto loans. If someone wants to take an interrelation of violent extortion, sheer power and total domination, and then turn it into something moral, and most of all, make it seem like the victims are to blame, you turn it into a relation of debt.

There is power in numbers, and that's where the idea of an organized debt strike comes in. One person can be hounded, harassed, and scared into submission, but when enough of them work together, could the banks be pressed into backing down? I firmly believe that homeowners who are stuck with mortgages greater than the value of their homes should band together and refuse to pay their mortgages until the banks agree to negotiate. A kind of collective bargaining for homeowners whose wealth was wiped out by the financial crisis, those who cannot pay their bills, and those who can (for now) but still would benefit by spending that money elsewhere, would be an effective tool for us to use to retake control of our country and its government away from the New World Order elites. This would immediately cause a crisis for the banks, meaning they couldn't afford to ignore the issue and would then be forced to negotiate with homeowners.

There should be debt forgiveness, but these guys – the student loan profiteers – should eat it, not the government and taxpayers. The banks should pay because they destroyed the economy, they sucked 18-year-olds into predatory loans they are stuck with for life, accumulated well-meaning wage earners with mortgages they couldn't repay, and credit card debt whose interest accrues faster than the principal can be repaid, especially if you lose your job. Mother Jones magazine notes in a late 2011 issue that banks have already written off some $90 billion in credit card debt since 2008. Aside from the fact, of course, that we wound up with an $8 trillion housing bubble from just those sorts of bad loans, there is in the US one type of debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, that follows you for life and that has the full power of the US government behind its collection. I'm speaking, of course, of student loans.

The student debt bubble is officially over $1 trillion as of 2012, largely consisting of loans made to teenagers under the premise that education will help them earn enough money to pay off their loans. Yet the job market is terrible (and nearly twice as terrible for young people as it is for everyone else) and meanwhile cuts to public education, both ideologically motivated, from conservatives, and because of state budget crises caused by the economic crisis the banks created, have made that education much more expensive. The student loan bubble may not burst with a bang, but it is slowly suffocating us. The problem is that student debt is literally debt you carry for life. It has no statute of limitations, cannot be discharged under bankruptcy and the government can literally deduct it from your Social Security check.

As credit card and housing debt become unbearable, there’s a point at which they get written down. That point is currently too high, not only for credit cards, housing and transportation, but especially for student loans. Because of poor legal choices we’ve made, student loans stay forever, they are virtually impossible to discharge under hardship, they generate an avalanche of fees when they go bad, and creditors can get to anything, including Social Security, to get it repaid. Meanwhile, we have a Great Depression-like event that is throwing college graduates into a labor market that is far too weak. And defaults are up anyway. According to a Wall Street Journal report in August 2011, 11.2 percent of student loans were more than 90 days past due — and if it kept rising, could pass credit card debt, which is at 12.2 percent but is on a decline. Obama's new plan to help students with their loans will provide some relief, but only for current students. Those who have already graduated — the majority of the student loan bubble — are ineligible. Thanks a lot, Mr. President.

Occupy Wall Street has proven that a sizable number of Americans are in a mood to do things for themselves rather than waiting for government action. So a student debt strike might actually be the most powerful statement to make, as there are literally no other options for those stuck with the burden — many of whom form the backbone of the occupations around the country. I think the people who would be the first to strike would be the people who have already defaulted. Once your credit is already tanked, the idea of giving it another hit doesn't seem nearly as threatening. In many ways, the combination of online/offline activism is the hallmark of the Occupy Wall Street movement, organized with the help of hacker groups like Anonymous and promoted through citizen media like live-streams, camera phone videos and Twitter, but solidly grounded in real-world action.

American homeowners who are stuck in a negative equity situation with their homes and their mortgages are finding ways to fight back against the rigged capitalist profit-driven economic system that has them locked into what amounts to legalized loan sharking. For example, delinquent borrowers facing foreclosure are learning that they can stay in their homes for years, as long as they're willing to put up a fight. Among the tactics: Challenging the bank's actions, waiting to file paperwork right up until the deadline, requesting the lender dig up original paperwork or, in some extreme cases, declaring bankruptcy. Nationwide, the average time it takes to process a foreclosure – from the first missed payment to the final foreclosure auction – has climbed to 674 days from 253 days just four years ago. And while some borrowers are looking for ways to make good with lenders and get their homes back, many aren't paying a dime. Nearly 40% of homeowners in default as of the end of 2011 have not made a payment in at least two years. Keep up the good work, everyone!

Many of these homeowners are staying in their homes based on a technicality. There is rarely any dispute over whether or not they have stopped paying their mortgage. They're not in technical default. They're in default because they're not paying. That's because American homeowners have gotten wise to what the banks and other mortgage lenders have been doing, and they are collectively realizing that two can play that same game. Ironically enough, the banks have given delinquent borrowers some of the ammunition they need to delay the foreclosure process. For example, during the "robo-signing" scandal in 2010, it was revealed that bank employees signed paperwork attesting to facts they had no personal knowledge of. The lender's paperwork included many different papers signed by the same employee. The problem was that the signatures didn't match. In such instances the courts dismiss the lender's case against the borrower, although it can be re-filed. Because of this, borrowers are now routinely challenging that paperwork. Those who are doing so will remain in their homes for some time to come, while not making any payments. Sometimes just asking the bank to produce the paperwork that shows it is the legal holder of the mortgage note can stall or even stop a repossession. Since mortgages are often transferred electronically, the official paperwork often gets misplaced. In some of the more extreme cases, borrowers will file for bankruptcy in order to block a foreclosure. In these instances, courts order creditors to cease their collection activities immediately. Home auctions can be postponed as the bankruptcy plays out, which can take months. What really needs to be done is for lenders to work harder to find solutions that allow delinquent borrowers who can afford to make reasonable mortgage payments to keep their homes. Speaking as a minister of the Gospel, simply throwing people and even whole families out in the street in the name of profit is absolutely barbaric and utterly immoral. The fact that such things have taken place is exactly why the Occupy and the “we are the 99%” Movements are so successful, and that success will be greatly magnified in the coming months, of that you can be sure. In the meantime, there are plenty of industrious Americans who are joining the swelling ranks of those who are boycotting their debts, as selected excerpts from the following Web posting point out in stark detail.

50 Ways to Leave Your Banker: What Happened When One Man Just Refused to Pay $80,000 in Credit Card Debt

By Kimberly Thorpe, Mother Jones

Posted on November 1, 2011

“At last count, Steven Katz owed $80,000 on his six credit cards, and he has no intention of paying any of it off. In fact, he'd like to show you how to be like him—a "credit terrorist" in open revolt against the banking system. Debtorboards.com ("Sue Your Creditor and Win!"), a five-year-old online forum where he's collected countless tricks and tactics for evading and repelling persistent creditors. He's written how-to's on shielding your assets from seizure, luring collection agencies into expensive lawsuits, and frustrating private investigators looking for debtors on the run. He's even infiltrated the bill collectors' forums, where he's been tagged a "credit jihadist" and his site's been called a "credit terrorist training camp," a label he embraces. "Debtorboards is one of the biggest and most successful temper tantrums ever," the 59-year-old Katz boasts. The site has more than 10,000 members—double what it had in 2009....

“Katz wants the millions of Americans buried in debt to stop feeling guilty about not honoring their obligations. "People are brainwashed to think that paying a credit card is more important than paying for the necessities of life," he says. "Business and morality have nothing to do with each other, according to the bankers." One of Katz's mottos is "No one ever went to hell for not paying a debt...."

Beside walking away from their debts, exasperated and infuriated Americans are in some cases walking away from the whole damned unfair economic system, having come to the realization that the so-called “work ethic” is a lie and always was. Working long, hard hours in a futile attempt to save up enough money for a home, college, and “retirement” (another myth) will only get you one thing – TIRED! That's where the underground economy comes into the picture as an alternative to the status quo. Also called the shadow or informal economy, it's not just illegal activity like selling drugs or doing sex work. It's all sorts of work that doesn't get regulated by the government or reported to the IRS, and it's a far bigger part of the economy than most of us are aware. In 2009, the underground economy was nearly 8 percent of the US GDP, somewhere around $1 trillion. (That makes the shadow GDP bigger than the entire GDP of Turkey or Austria.) This doesn’t include illegal activities in this count – only legal production of goods and services that are outside of tax and labor laws. And that shadow economy is growing as regular jobs continue to be hard to come by.

The Young Women's Empowerment Project describes the “street economy” as any way that girls make cash money without paying taxes or having to show identification. Sometimes this means the sex trade, but other times it means braiding hair, babysitting, selling CDs/DVDs, drugs or other skills like sewing and laundry. A good number operate websites online that yield an all-cash income, all one needs to succeed is a Paypal account or a smartphone. This underground economy goes far beyond the homeless collecting aluminum cans or clogging day labor halls. It includes the working poor getting cash for all forms of recycling: giving plasma, selling homemade tamales outside shopping plazas, holding yard sales, doing under-the-table work for friends and family, selling stuff at pawnshops, CD, book and used clothing stores, and even establishing tiny one-person businesses selling all kinds of dollar-store-type merchandise at flea markets and sidewalk kiosks.

Since so may of us have patronized or even operated these micro-businesses at some time in the past, that means nearly all of us have participated in some way in the underground economy. Yet little is known or discussed about this area of our lives, even though it touches many of us as we try to make ends meet. People enter such arrangements because of their difficulty finding formal employment. Think of undocumented immigrants that work as home or office cleaners or in the construction or hospitality industries. Employers or consumers who use workers in this way are doing so to boost profits or lower prices. Of course documented workers also can end up choosing to work in the underground economy but that choice, like the choice for the undocumented, has the same basic driver – the inability to find formal paid employment that meets a worker's needs. I would compare the growth of the underground economy to payday lending; a typically undesirable practice operating in a legal gray area that develops and thrives because it fills a need created by the failure of public policy to address societal needs. The informal economy, though, does not only consist of low-wage workers. There is also an informal economy of creative professionals. By keeping creative professional work informal, these workers avoid the corporatist rigidity of creative work, maintaining their freedom to be innovative and self-sufficient.

Without solutions coming from Washington or local governments, it continues to be up to working people to find a way to negotiate today's rough economy. People shouldn't have to give up fundamental human rights like access to income in retirement, paid sick days, or safety on the job because they need work. But in a society like ours, which tolerates high levels of unemployment (which is inexcusable in the richest country in the world), the underground economy is often the next best alternative to starving. While some have been able to flourish working underground, it's important to remember that most workers are not off the books to dodge paying taxes or because they prefer it that way. As we see more and more people dropping out of the formal labor market in despair, the informal economy will remain a destination of last resort – and will keep growing. That, in turn, is a signal that people are giving up on the system. Why obey laws that prevent us from succeeding?

Unemployed Americans aren't the only ones who are giving up on this rigged economic system we are currently stuck with. A wave of discontent is beginning to build among those who work for the system designed to solidify the power and domination of the top 1%. In the past during uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, there are numerous documented cases of the police and the soldiers being sent to quell the demonstrations and quiet the protests, only to defect to the side of the protesters after being ordered by their government to fire upon unarmed civilians engaged in peaceful and nonviolent political and social activism. If you were a cop, a soldier or in the National Guard, and your commanding officer ordered you to kill innocent, unarmed civilians who posed no threat to anyone, would you do so? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I'm confident that there are multitudes more who would share my view if asked. The only remaining question to be answered has to do with the timing of the tipping point, and if the system will be totally upended by such an event, or will it be able to continue to function while repairs are made?

“In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers. . . . They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.” — Howard Zinn, from “The Coming Revolt of the Guards,” A People’s History of the United States

For those of us who have demonstrated and marched in the Occupy movement as I did at Freedom Plaza in Washington in early October 2011 (while selling a few books on the side as I gleefully participated in the underground economy), it is obvious that the police and the corporate press serve as guards. They act as buffers between the vast majority of the American people and the ruling “corporatocracy” (the partnership of giant corporations, the wealthy elite, their collaborating politicians and their armies of lobbyists). In addition to the police and the corporate press, there are millions of other guards employed by the corporatocracy to keep people obedient and maintain the status quo. Most guards also perform duties besides “guard duty.” The police don’t just protect the elite from the 99 percent; they also provide people with roadside assistance. And mental health professionals also perform “non-guard duty” roles such as improving family relationships. Guards certainly can perform duties helpful for the non-elite, but the elite would be foolish to reward us guards if we didn’t serve to maintain their system. 

 

Even a partial “revolt of the guards” could increase the number of protesters on the streets from the thousands to the millions. For example, many teachers went into their profession because of their passion for education, but they soon discover that they are not being paid to educate young people for democracy, which would mean inspiring independent learning, critical thinking, and questioning authority. While teachers may help young children learn how to read, they are employed by the corporatocracy to socialize young people to fit into a system that was created by and for the corporatocracy. The corporatocracy needs its future employees to comply with their rules, to passively submit to authorities, and to perform meaningless activities for a paycheck.

If you are comfortably at the top of the hierarchy, you reward guards to make your system work. In addition to the police, the corporate press, mental health professionals, and teachers, there are clergy, bureaucrats, and many other guards in the system, all of whom are given small rewards to pacify and control the population. Some guards have rebelled from their pacification and control roles, but at least as many have not. I will go out on a limb just a little here and predict that the revolt of the guards will occur when guards recognize that they are expendable. So, law enforcement officers, beware. Cameras and other surveillance technology are becoming increasingly inexpensive, and law enforcement labor costs will increasingly be replaced by inexpensive Orwellian surveillance. You see, the 1% will eventually come for you too.

To accelerate the revolt of obedient guards, I recommend two strategies: (1) create unpleasant dissonance about their role as guards; in other words, put guards in some pain for their unquestioning obedience that maintains the system, and (2) offer encouragement for even small acts of rebellion against their guard role; small acts of rebellion may well be major financial risks. For example, if you have social contact with off-duty law enforcement officers, you might ask them “Wouldn’t it be more satisfying putting the handcuffs on some billionaire tax dodger than arresting some small-time pot user?” I’ve asked police officers if they’ve heard of Jonathan Swift’s quote, “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” On-duty police will respond with “no comment” or a blank stare, but some off-duty cops will smile and even agree. And should off-duty police ever tell you an anecdote in which they ignored a law designed to catch a small fly, give them encouragement. For guards, it is not easy coming out of denial of their role and their fate. As Upton Sinclair once observed, “It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it....”

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Shame On All the Sex Predators! Out -- all of you, OUT!!

Humiliation and Shame for Sex Perverts is Deserved

by pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this on my website, click here :-)

I don't have to explain my topic for this week. Everybody has been watching or hearing about what has been going on in the halls of power in Washington as well as in Hollywood. Accusations of sexual assault, or lewd acts, or of randomly exposing oneself to whomever have suddenly started boiling to the surface. It started with former New York congressman Anthony Wiener, and he is now paying a very high price for his indiscretions in the form of a 21-month stint in federal prison. This was followed just a few months later by disclosure in Hollywood of producer-director Harvey Weinstien being accused of multiple counts of unwanted sexual advances and even outright assaults. Then several more Hollywood directors disclosed of their own sexual indiscretions, presumably to keep from being humiliated, followed by the flap over actor Kevin Spacey's allegedly uncontrollable sexual advances. While all this has been going on, president Trump has been accused by at least 20 women of unwanted sexual advances. Most recently, formerly popular Matt Lauer, the morning “Today” show host, was abruptly fired for his own incredibly poor judgment in failing to contain his own sexual appetites. On and on this goes, and where it stops nobody knows – except God.

My favorite book – the Bible – has plenty to say about sexual immorality. Everybody knows that, although not everyone believes in it. Allow me to name a couple of examples, and then I'd like to list a few bad things that can happen when we will not or cannot control our own sexual desires. First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 12 and 13 says, “'Everything is permissible for me' – but not everything is beneficial. 'Food for the stomach and the stomach for food' – but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.'” Having multiple sex partners in the times in which we live can be downright dangerous in a worst case scenario, particularly if your partner is already married or living with someone without telling you so. We think he/she is single but they're not, and next thing you know you-know-who comes home, and there you are. Some say, “Well, I don't care for the bar scene, so I use dating services to help me locate Mr. or Ms. Right so I can screen people first”. Let me point out that, according to data from the CDC located right here in Atlanta, 1 out of every 5 people on the dating websites have an STD. Out of those individuals, fully 80% don't bother to tell their new partners they are infected. You can imagine how that will turn out for everyone involved! The moral here is that, while we have the free will to do whatever we want, there can be an extremely high price to be paid when we abuse it.

Another example can be found further down in the same chapter of 1^st Corinthians, verses 18-20, which read, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, who you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” The word 'flee' means to turn and run away from something or someone who poses a clear and present danger to yourself or your livelihood – even your very life! What happens during mass shootings? People turn and run for their lives, and that's exactly what we should do with regards to sexual immorality. That hot new partner you just stumbled upon could end up slowly killing you slowly long after the lovemaking is over – very, very slowly, in fact – with some STD that the newly infected person probably never heard of.

One final example I feel should be mentioned on the topic of sexual sins and perversion can be found in 1^st Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 3, and I quote: “But among you there should not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.” OK, right here it is in black and white, everyone! God ranks having multiple partners right up there with the top 1% and all their insatiable greed. You know, they have 99% of America's wealth, while the remaining 99% are left with the remaining 1% – those people? Think of how much you likely despise those people, and that's how offended God is with our sexual immorality (Never mind how offended God is with their greed. I've already covered that topic extensively, and I will do so again, God willing!). This includes people – and particularly those who self-identify as 'Christians' – who hang out at nude or topless clubs, who look at porn, and in many cases even the singles bars should be off-limits to true Christian believers who are single. If anyone feels so lonesome that they would go to a night club and risk getting shot or stabbed just to find someone to love, I've got a news flash for those individuals – you won't find that special someone there. All you'll meet are a bunch of drunks, and who wants that? Those who truly desire a soul-mate should ask God to send him or her to you. Believe me, when the time is right, he will.

The apostle Paul, who wrote all the quotes I'm using today including this last one, said it best in this regard: “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” (1^st Corinthians chapter 7, verses 8-9) Anyone who is really burning up with that much passion should go ahead and find a spouse to keep themselves from sinning – there is nothing wrong with this at all. But none of us – I am single myself – will find our future spouses on-line, or in some bar, no matter how fancy or attractive they may seem. Moreover, you will never find him or her watching porn either! If anyone really wants a spouse, they should pray to God to send them one, because when we do, and those prayers are made with the utmost sincerity, God will answer that prayer. That's one thing I know for sure. The other thing that we have all seen for ourselves on the news and other media is that, when we cannot contain or refuse to curb our sexual proclivities – or if certain people think they can get away with their unwanted sexual advances because of their status, wealth, or both – those days just came to a sudden and dramatic end! I, for one, am glad this has occurred. It happened for the good of our country and for ourselves. This series of incidents has proven conclusively that sexual immorality, when carried to its extremes, will destroy the lives of the perpetrators. Chalk one up for gender equality, for mutual respect, and for Jesus Christ, the originator of gender equality.

Free book sample #10 from this Blog's author

Although I meant to publish this yesterday afternoon, a series of computer software problems on my desktop workstation have been keeping me from posting this until now. Monday was the 54th anniversary of Rev. Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Allow me to share a little something about that historic event from my first book title. The rest is self-explanatory....

I Dare To Dream

(excerpt from “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto 3rd Edition” by Pastor Paul J. Bern)

The march of economic inequality, from which springs the source of racism, poverty, crime, violence, and lack of access to healthcare and higher education, has become the new civil rights issue of the 21^st century. (I like to call it Rev. Dr. MLK, Jr. 2.0.) King's dream of unconditional equality throughout the country can finish becoming a reality when the economic barriers that we all face on a daily basis finally come down for good, like an economic Berlin Wall circa 1989. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to the masses during the 1963 civil rights march on Washington and said, “I have a dream...”. By writing and publishing these words it is my intent to help take up where King's Dream left off, and to do anything I can to help finish the job that he started. And so let me slightly change that to, “I dare to dream”.

I dare to dream of a world in which the gap between rich and poor is gone forever. We all deserve to live in a world where wealth has been redistributed in a peaceful and orderly manner and not by the barrel of a gun. I dare to dream of a country where wealth has been redistributed in 4 ways. First, every worker earns a living wage so poverty can be eliminated. Second, free higher education and vocational retraining must be available to every worker for life, including daycare available to all, that would be based on the worker's or student's ability to pay on a sliding scale, because everyone has the right to better themselves at will. Third, I envision an America where quality health care is available to every worker at nominal cost for life. Single-payer healthcare based on the current Medicare model must not be reserved only for those who can afford it, but it must be a fundamental human right for all ages. I dare to dream of an America where there will be no such thing as someone without health insurance, where every citizen will have lifetime healthcare and prescription drug coverage without qualification, and where there will be the fewest sick days for American workers and their children of any country in the developed world. Fourth, “we the people” demand the abolition of the federal tax code, including elimination of the despised federal withholding tax, which would give every American worker or business owner an immediate 18% pay raise.

I dare to dream of a new America with a robust and viable economy. That is why I have been insisting on a $14.00 per hour minimum wage since 2010. I dare to dream of a new America where education will be subsidized from the cradle to the grave so that the US develops the most formidable work force the world has ever seen. I dare to dream of an America where all workers have the right to organize, to a flexible work week and to paid family or maternity leave. Most other developed countries already do this. The US is the only exception and that has got to change. The only remaining question in my mind is whether we can accomplish this peacefully or otherwise, and it looks more and more to me like it will be the latter.

I dare to dream of an America where affordable housing is the law of the land, where home ownership becomes a right and not a privilege so we can wipe out homelessness, and where the price of a house is limited to the sum total of ten years income of any given individual or household purchasers. I insist on a country where home ownership isn't part of an exclusive club with the highest “credit scores”. It is, and must become, a basic human right. Even the cave men lived in caves of their own!

I dare to dream of a country with new public works programs that put an end to unemployment forever so the USA can have full employment all the time. America's infrastructure needs to be rebuilt, and its inner cities are in dire need of an overhaul. What a better way to accomplish this!

I dare to dream of a new America with an all-new public school and university system that has an Internet-based curriculum that can be updated at will, and that is second to none in the developed world, with a new and more intensive school year, and that has viable replacements for standardized testing, and where class size is limited by law. I dare to dream of a country where teachers make what their Congressional representatives make, and vice verse.

I dare to dream of a new nation where unconditional equality is the law of the land for every citizen without exception, and this will include economic equality. I dare to dream of a new America where there is no more income tax, no capital gains tax, no alternative minimum tax, no estate tax, no self-employment tax, and where families and businesses can have a tax free income unless they are very wealthy. In its place would be a national sales tax, such as a Consumption Tax, where everyone pays proportionately the same tax rate on only what they consume, plus an “excess wealth tax” for persons with annual incomes exceeding $3 million, and for businesses with annual proceeds exceeding $300 million, so America's budget can be balanced and fair.

I dare to dream of a better USA where personal privacy is the law of the land, where identity theft is a thing of the past, and where it will be illegal for employers to obtain the credit files or credit scores of any job applicant.

I dare to dream of a more compassionate America where children have the right to a challenging and progressive learning environment, and where kids will be legally guaranteed freedom from hunger, sickness and violence, and where all God's children will have the right to safe adoption, foster care and day care.

I dare to dream of an all-new voting system, including the abolition of the elitist Electoral College, that is Internet-based, paperless, and that can be accessed from any location using any computer or wireless device, instead of wasting our time and fuel and losing work time going to polling stations, and instead of using unreliable and unsecured voting machines.

I dare to dream of an America of integrity where all of the dirty corporate money and all the filthy lucre is abolished from our political process. I dare to dream of an America where the Wall Street shysters who crashed the US economy are brought to justice, and where the keys to all of the fraudulently foreclosed homes are returned to their rightful owners.

I dare to dream of the end to America's sinister war on drugs, where all convicted nonviolent drug offenders can qualify for alternative sentences for their offenses so they may obtain early release, and where all the currently illegal drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed by appropriate legislation.

Finally, I dare to dream of a world in which all this is easily financially achievable because all the money that is being wasted currently on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere will be redirected towards all these dreams that I have just mentioned. The money is already there, its just being budgeted in all the wrong places. Let me tell you why.

If the US military took all the money it spends occupying Afghanistan for just one day and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money available to send every American school kid from the first grade up to senior year in high school through 4 years of college fully paid for, including tuition, dorms, books, food, access to the Internet and to public transportation. Here's another example: If the US government took all that money set aside from one days worth of military expenditures in Afghanistan alone, there would be enough money to build a 2,500 square feet house, fully furnished and stocked with groceries, with all the utilities already turned on, for every homeless person in the US including all the homeless kids. That's how easily we can end homelessness in the richest country in the world.

Just as surely as there was an Arab Spring beginning in 2011 that is still ongoing in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Somalia, to name a few, so I am telling you that there will be an American Spring in her near future. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't already begun. Beginning in 2011 with the start-up of the “Occupy” and “99%” Movements, of which I am proud to be a part, this uprising of the American people against the top 1% will explode like an atomic mushroom cloud over the American political and economic elite, obliterating them all in a bloodless coup without anyone having fired a single shot – so that the remaining 99% of us can peacefully take back what has been stolen from us over the last 100 years. We can only accomplish this by uniting together as one and acting as one body to break free from the shackles of oppression that have us all enslaved. Who is with me today?

You have just read the end of chapter 9 of my book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” (Copyright 2011 by Paul J. Bern, 470 pages, print edition $18.95) To view a short video about the book recorded by the author, click here. To order your copy, go to pcmatl.org click the book link on the right and scroll to bottom! To order the Kindle edition, click here. Also available on B&N Nook. Thanks so much!

More on last week's message about retaking America (by popular demand)

A Follow-up to Last Week's Commentary

Last week for the July fourth holiday break, I published a warning stating that unless the American people organize and begin a campaign of passive resistance against the twin evils of Oligarchic capitalism and the Deep State that has enslaved us all (yes, I mean past tense), both ourselves and our children, plus and their children will find ourselves permanently enslaved. We will not be enslaved by the government because the government is little more than an arm of law enforcement whose paymasters are the mega-rich elite. And it is this Bilderberger elite who controls all the banking, which in turn funds the world's economies, who have hoarded 99% of the world's wealth, leaving us to scrap and skirmish for the remaining 1% of the leftovers. It is the super-rich elites who are the government's paymasters. It is with that thought in mind that I am posting this supplemental to last week's message, which you can find here or here. As you can see, this is an excerpt from my first book, which I published back in 2011. It is now in its third edition, which you can get on Amazon by clicking here.

The Battle Cry of the American People

(excerpt from, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” by Rev. Paul J. Bern)

When in the course of current events the constituency of the United States finds itself oppressed and hemmed in by that which governs us, and when the working people of this great country which I love so much finds itself with its backs against the wall due to circumstances and situations which are beyond our control, it naturally becomes the patriotic duty of every concerned American to stand up to and to oppose that which suppresses and restricts the God-given freedoms spelled out in our US Constitution. Moreover, we find ourselves forced to draw a line in the sand that guarantees the health, wealth and prosperity of us all against the ruling elites and their associates and family members, who are the real force behind all government funding including police, military and intelligence gathering. As peaceful and law-abiding citizens, we have been governed by the rule of law which is summarized in a document that working Americans continue to hold in highest esteem, the Constitution of the United States, in keeping with the time-honored traditions passed down to us by our founding fathers. But lately our sacred Constitution has been bastardized and prostituted not only by those in power within the federal government, but more directly by the armies of corporate lobbyists who have invaded Washington and seized control of our executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, for the sole express purpose of engineering a bloodless coup de etat that is being carried out not by bullets but by vast sums of money that are at once immoral, illegal, and a veritable avalanche of green and greedy corruption. The sole express purpose of this financial warfare is to forcibly liquidate the middle and working classes in this great country of ours. This is being done deliberately and with sinister calculation by the wealthiest Americans from Wall Street to a myriad of corporate boardrooms all across America, orchestrated by the unconstitutional Federal Reserve and its minions, for the sole express purpose of focusing and concentrating all available wealth into the top 1% of income earners and big business owners all across America. In fact, I further submit and assert that this is all being done at the expense of the US middle and working classes, the result of which is to force an ever-increasing number of working Americans from all walks of life into ever-increasing poverty from which there is no escape.

With mass unemployment, a veritable storm of foreclosures, increasingly unaffordable health care, and higher education rapidly becoming ever further out of reach for the US middle class and particularly for the poor and minorities, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the middle class and working people here in the good old USA finds themselves surrounded and besieged by an army of the usurpers of power in our country. As a direct result more and more working Americans, the people who are the backbone of the US economy, are forced into moving in with friends, family members and even strangers to stave off what would otherwise be a pandemic outbreak of homelessness and despair. And it's all because people can't find jobs.

In point of fact, the are now more college-educated people living in homeless shelters, under bridges or in their cars – if they are lucky enough to still own a vehicle – than at any other time since the Great Depression of the 1930's. And that is a social injustice and a moral outrage tantamount to class warfare! Indeed, the circumstances and situations that the middle and working classes in the US find themselves today are a series of gross social and economic injustices that demands a sharply focused and well-coordinated response from the entire populace, a rebuttal and decisive counterattack designed and intended to right, correct and re-balance US political power back into the hands of the overwhelming majority of American citizens to whom it rightfully belongs. There can be no doubt that class warfare has been declared in the US, perpetrated by the wealthy against the middle and working classes, for the sole express purpose of eliminating from society the constitutional majority of working Americans, with the end result being the complete and merciless liquidation of middle and working class wealth, general prosperity, and even our health. This has been accomplished by the largest transfer of wealth in all of human history, and it has been manifested in four different ways.

First, the employment of American workers has been decimated by closing down manufacturing facilities and shipping jobs overseas to the third world for pennies on the dollar. The result of this has been mass unemployment of many millions of American workers, and those jobs in the American manufacturing sector which was once the world's largest, and whose direct result was victory in World War Two, are very likely to never return. One direct effect this has had is the gradual elimination of labor unions in this country, and the US labor movement is now on life support as a result. All the wages of the blue collar sector of the US economy are now redirected into the pockets of the top 1% of the American populace in terms of net wealth, not to mention the benefits and retirement pensions of these same people who made these corporations into the mega-companies that they are today.

Second, the retirement savings of the middle and working classes have been severely compromised or even liquidated altogether by the crooked and devious manipulations of Wall Street bankers, the World Bank and the IMF, plus all the market speculators, hedge fund managers and corporate boards of directors who engineered the largest swindle in human history back in 2008. This criminal act resulted in the US government bailout known as TARP, an $850 billion bank robbery of the US Treasury conceived and carried out by the same Ponzi schemers who ran the US economy into the ground in the first place, with the Federal Reserve conveniently stepping up with a solution at just the right moment. The cost of this bailout has been put on the backs of the middle and working classes, their children and grandchildren, and has generated a federal government budget deficit that has exceeded $20 trillion dollars as I write this, a staggering sum that threatens to bankrupt the country and destroy the formerly good credit rating of the United States.

As a matter of fact, in only one generation our great country that I love so much has been transformed from the world's greatest lender to its greatest borrower, with the majority of this debt being financed by China and Japan. One of these days China is going to get tired of lending us money and will at that point call in the debt, which America will likely not be able to repay, particularly if China refuses to accept US dollars as a form of repayment – which is entirely possible. If the value of the dollar were to collapse for any reason, that is exactly what would occur. I shudder to think of what would happen next, with China taking large chunks of American collateral to satisfy this crushing debt load. This could even lead to Chinese troops on our western shores occupying whole cities in a worst case scenario. The final collapse of the US economy would inevitably follow, descending into another American civil war that will make the current conflicts in Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Libya look like a day care center in comparison.

Third, the largest transfer of wealth in human history is being enforced by runaway prices for food, utilities, housing and transportation, not to mention tuition for higher education. These tuition increases are being deliberately engineered by wealthy elitists for the sole express purpose of putting higher education financially out of reach for an increasing majority of Americans. And those who do make it into colleges or universities are finding themselves buried under an overwhelming pile of student loans, some of which are so huge that they end up well into six figures, larger even than some home mortgages. Some of these student loans are so enormous that an increasing number of graduates find themselves moving back in with their parents, or sharing living quarters with friends and acquaintances, when they finally do graduate. These same hard-working graduates are now increasingly finding that they can't find suitable employment upon graduation, or are winding up in menial jobs that pay so poorly they can't repay their student loans. This ruins their credit ratings, making it even harder for them to find employment. What good is a four-year degree if you wind up flipping hamburgers, selling shoes or digging ditches? Meanwhile, the best jobs, the best educations, and the best incomes are reserved for the top 1% wealthy and their families.

Fourth, the largest transfer of wealth in human history is being further reinforced by a health care system that has become so outrageously expensive that over 24 million Americans can no longer afford health insurance as I write this. An increasing percentage of working Americans are one accident or catastrophic illness away from bankruptcy, and all without remedy, even with Obama-care in force. Worse still, the average cost of medical care for US senior citizens from the time they retire until their death is $260,000.00 based on a report published in Money magazine. As more and more US workers find themselves unable to afford long-term health coverage, an increasing number of people are putting off doctor and/or dental visits and not refilling needed prescriptions for purely financial reasons, and the physical and mental health of these hapless and impoverished individuals slowly erodes away as a direct consequence.

There are tens of millions of formerly middle class people just like me all across the country who find themselves in similar circumstances to varying degrees of severity. Many have not been as fortunate as me. They have lost jobs or entire careers like I have, been forced out into the street due to the ongoing epidemic of foreclosures throughout America, had their cars repossessed leaving them with no way to get to work assuming that they are lucky enough to still have jobs, and are hounded by collection agencies for debts great and small. Too many still have no access to health care except to show up at the local emergency room with no way to pay the bill, putting them even deeper into debt than they already are. They have watched their pensions and their retirement savings evaporate due to market manipulations by unscrupulous “financial managers” who earn obscene bonuses whether they succeed or fail, and all at the expense of their clients. Either that or they have spent their savings during interminably lengthy periods of unemployment after their jobs were downsized or out-sourced overseas to the third world, never to return again.

The same goes for the best health care, the nicest cars and boats and even airplanes, not to mention the best retirement plans. All of this and more are systematically being procured by the top 1% income bracket at the expense of everybody else. It's steak for them and beans for the rest of us, and the portions for the remaining 99% are getting ever smaller each day. There is no question whatsoever that class warfare has been declared by the rich, powerful and well-connected, and all at the expense of over 99% of the rest of America. I think it's time to fight back, and that is why I began researching this topic back in 2010. My books, blogs and website are the new voice of protest and dissent in middle America. It is not right-wing nor is it from the left, but rather it is written from from the standpoint of middle America and from the vantage point of the oppressed multitudes who are crying out for relief and rescue from the perilous circumstances and life-threatening situations that working Americans from all walks of life find themselves in.

This book is a wailing civil defense siren ringing out across the land that I love. It is a warning buzzer on the basketball court of life signifying that a new American team of endless depth is now taking the court, sending the wealthy and powerful to the showers so that the stench of corruption can be washed from them, since they so desperately need it! It is the national anthem of true American patriotism being played before the start of a baseball game signaling that the new expansion team from middle America is about to take the field. This book is an air raid siren sounding out across the land of the rich and powerful as a warning that the middle and working class counterattack is about to commence. (My next book, “Occupying America: We Shall Overcome”, takes up where the first one left off, and predicts mass civil unrest in America in the near future.)

No more will we stand and stare or sit and grumble about having our houses, jobs, cars, savings, health, higher education and our retirements forcibly taken away wholesale while an ever greater portion of American wealth is concentrated into the hands of a small minority of multimillionaires. It is time for the middle and working classes to put our collective foot down and say “no more”! The time has arrived for us to take back our country by any and all means necessary. It is time for political power to be taken out of the hands of corporate America and their invading hordes of lobbyists and Wall Street bankers who would presume to take over our country by means of economic warfare, and to place it back into the hands of “we the people”, the true owners of this great country of ours. And we will do so knowing that history and our founding fathers are on our side, because they left us with a sacred document known as the Constitution of the United States that guarantees us that right. Our free speech and freedom of expression that are guaranteed under the First Amendment, as well as our right to keep and bear arms and to form militias that are guaranteed under the Second Amendment, will not be compromised or trampled upon. We will demonstrate in the streets, we will besiege government buildings, we will bombard our congressmen and women with phone calls and emails, we will form new political parties, we will organize and build new labor unions and worker-owned cooperative businesses, we will blockade wealthy neighborhoods, we will organize peaceful public events and non-violent sit-ins, we will call general strikes and consumer boycotts, and we will not stop until the balance of power in this country undergoes a paradigm shift back into the hands of hard-working Americans, particularly those who want full time jobs and can't find any.

We will fight from the highest mountains, from the lowest valleys, from the rooftops of buildings, we will fight in the cities and in the countryside, from the Jersey shore to the beaches of California, and from the Canadian border down south to the border with Mexico. We will not stop until we get our country back, and we shall never surrender. If the abusive government authoritarians label us as domestic terrorists, which we most certainly are not, then we will “remind” them that we are freedom fighters and American patriots. We shall fight with non-violent civil disobedience, we shall – so far as it is possible – demonstrate and march peacefully throughout the land, until we get our country restored to us, the workers of America, to whom it rightfully belongs!

Let there be no mistake – America is past being overdue for mass civil disobedience, and it is ripe for outright revolution if political and economic power are not restored to the people. If our First Amendment rights continue to be taken away, then we will fight back using our the Second Amendment rights instead. The conditions and circumstances in which the US middle and working classes find ourselves has become intolerable. President John Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful protest impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. Those words will soon come true, and the American people to whom this country rightfully belongs will make them so!

Personally, I am a very patient and thoughtful man. I work hard each day to be slow to speak and quick to listen because I know from experience that there is much wisdom to be derived from living my life this way. But by the same token, I am a Christian man and an angry minister whose patience is at its end. Just as surely as Jesus preached against the political and religious establishment of His day, in like manner I will do the same in the present day in order to emulate the man I regard as my personal Savior. So, if you truly care about the deteriorating state of our nation, if you are really concerned about the issues that we are faced with collectively as a people, and if you want to make a stand against social and economic injustice and outrageous inequality, then you owe it to yourself to join this movement and to read these books. It is my sincere hope that you will be inspired to take decisive action against the rich and powerful who have nearly finished enslaving us all.

My Deepening Concerns for America's Future

One Step Closer to Armed Revolt: My Deepening Concerns

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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The attempted assassinations of a handful of congressional representatives, senators and their staff members this past week confirms the suspicions of many, including myself, that the fabric of our country is coming undone. Senator Scalise remains in critical condition as I write this, and I understand senator Rand Paul narrowly missed getting shot in addition to quite a few others. Perhaps Rand Paul was the real target in yet another CIA/NSA engineered false flag operation – God only knows! If it was, their mission failed, the independent alternative media will share the news (since we already know the Main Stream Media would bury that story) with the whole world, and the blow-back from the American public will be nothing short of livid vehemence! The root cause of this will be the American public's increasing exasperation with the fight between the Trump administration, the Washington establishment and the Deep State – which president Trump is in the process of trying to dismantle. That's the real source of all the back-and-forth between Trump, the MSM, and the D.C. robber barons.

The American people – all but the top 1% – have found themselves caught in the crossfire with little to do except for ducking and dodging. But in the process we are finding more and better ways of fighting back, and up until this week that excluded arming ourselves against the government in general, and conservatism in particular since that ideology benefits fewer and fewer people at the expense of many, many more. Generally speaking, this is true for the way the whole country is being run. More and more people are being oppressed by the same government that was elected to serve them. Speaking as a Web pastor, I'd like to point out that the Bible has some things to say about those who are being oppressed and about oppressors as well. “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and you will be killed with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” (Exodus 22, verses 21-24) I like to quote verse 22 to all those who gripe and complain about “illegal immigrants”. The same thing goes for those who get played by the rigged economic and court systems, but this runs far deeper than even that. For example, under so-called “Trump-care” the mega-rich top 1% will get very large tax breaks, and 24 million lower income Americans will be dropped from the Obama-care rolls like so many hot potatoes in order to fund president Trump's AHCA, his version of national health care. You can be sure there will be retribution from the Lord for any who die as a result of losing their health insurance if “Trump-care” gets passed into law. For each of ours who die, one of theirs will die. On further thought, they will most likely die as crime victims from robberies of one kind or another. Although the word 'Karma' isn't in the Bible, I believe it would apply here.

“And the Word of the Lord came again to Zechariah; this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts, do not think evil of each other'.” (Zechariah 7, verses 8-10) What do we have instead? A federal income tax that is unconstitutional, wars being fought without a formal declaration of war as the Constitution requires, and the world's largest prison population!! Does this seem just, merciful or compassionate to any of you? It sure doesn't to me, and you can literally bet your next paycheck that God is outraged and infuriated at America because of all of the above! Not to mention the institutionalized racism, global mass murders being committed by our military and intelligence communities, and all the rampant gambling and criminal profiteering on Wall St. and in Washington! Keep it up, all you people who are hell-bent on serving only yourselves, and see what it will get you!! Don't you believe it will happen? 'What', you ask? 'I have nearly unlimited resources, I can defend myself against anything! What can all those poor slobs do to me? I can crush them all like bugs!'

What these obscenely rich people fail to understand is that “we the people” have a singular resource that people with lots of money don't understand and who refuse to see, as it is written: “He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9, verses 8-10) Not only will the Lord Jesus Christ uphold us during our times of trouble and turmoil, he will give us the means to throw off our oppressors and then deliver them into our hands (reference: the Book of Joshua, the American Revolution of the 1700's, and the Israeli 6-day wars of 1967 and 1973). One more thing the Bible has to say about this topic (among many) comes from the Book of James, and I quote: “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your clothes like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you.” (James 5, verses 1-5)

As you can clearly see from the above passage, the obscene amounts of wealth that has been hoarded “in the last days” – which is our current time frame – has been 'acquired' at the expense of everyone else. This closely resembles the “99% vs. 1%” paradigm that we find ourselves caught up in today. Moreover, there is much talk today about an impending economic collapse of one kind or another. As a result, there are many financial advisers today who are counseling people to cash in all their Wall St. investments and put it all in gold, silver, nonperishable food, weapons and ammunition. But the apostle James prophesied against that roughly 1,965 years or so ago when he prophesied against gold and silver in verse 3. The apostle James then prophesied yet again against the obsession of some people with wealth and financial gain when he wrote, “The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” What modern parallel with this do we have here in modern times? Just think about it for a minute – the wages the rich withheld from the poor and then pocketed themselves – doesn't this closely resemble the current battle for a livable minimum wage? Today in America, with only a few exceptions, the prevailing minimum wage is so low that wage earners must sign up for government benefits programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, child care benefits and Obama-care in order to have enough money for even the most basic expenses like food, shelter, clothing, transportation and medical care. For this to be happening in what is allegedly the “richest country in the world” is simply inexcusable! Here in Atlanta, GA where I reside, the minimum wage is still stuck at $7.25 an hour. In large parts of rural Georgia it is only $5.25 per hour. That works out to a net weekly paycheck of about $175.00 for a single individual. Try living on that, if you think you can! Does that not constitute theft, even if it's “legal”? It's tantamount to economic slavery and servitude, and the Bible condemns it!

“You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.” There is so much talk today about the obesity epidemic that is plaguing the entire developed world, along with much of the emerging one such as the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). There is no question in my mind that this single verse (and there are others throughout the Bible) predicted today's obesity epidemic with perfect accuracy. There is one last thing predicted for the End Times that we are currently living in which is stated in verse 5. “You have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you.” There is an ongoing effort to prove the innocence of men and women with life sentences or very lengthy ones, and particularly those who have the death penalty. In all these cases the convictions of these individuals were done with bias against the defendants, often because they are people of color. People have been freed from death row by way of DNA testing as a result of these efforts. But for every one who is found to be innocent after the trial was over and their sentences vacated by the courts, there are untold countless others on whom the death penalty was imposed who were convicted on what amounts to false testimony.

But is that the end of the story? By no means!! What about the lynchings, and the slavery that came before all that, right here in America? What about the two million civilian casualties the US military and the Pentagon are responsible for from the Vietnam war to Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, up until today? Although I'm no fan of president Donald Trump, at least he has the guts to come into Washington with a wrecking ball aimed directly at its corrupt core while attempting to replace what doesn't work with what does. I don't know whether he's going to succeed or not, but at least he's trying to buck the status quo. Whether Trump succeeds or not remains to be seen, but when things get heated to the point of US citizens attempting to execute an entire Republican baseball team, we are getting dangerously close to all-out revolt. Yet by the same token, it's looking more and more like a revolution may not be such a bad idea after all. The overwhelming majority of Americans have little left to lose. The only remaining question is – will it be armed or peaceful? From my observation point, I'd say let's pray that it will be peaceful but continue to prepare as if it will not.