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Friday 18 May 2007

Apocaholics revisited


A while ago I passed a comment on Gary Alexander's cryptic ad in The Journal about "Apocaholics Anonymous." I didn't know then that Alexander had set out his views over on Ken Westby's site. From raving conservative prophet of doom, Gary has become a conservative Pollyanna, convinced that nuthin is wrong and Global Warming is a myth. Thus swingeth the pendulum. He certainly hits the nail on the head, though, in retelling the stories of pessimism that swirled around Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome and other Jeremiahs that were exploited endlessly in The Plain Truth way back when. This anecdote comes from his article:

My final TV script for Garner Ted Armstrong came in 1975, when I was about to leave the cocoon of the Church of the Apocalypse for a more mundane job at the University of Southern California. He wanted a program on Global Cooling, or the Coming Ice Age. In 1975, there were several covers in major news magazines about the Coming Ice Age... One day in the control studio, Garner Ted Armstrong showed me a news clipping that pointed to the potential threat of carbon-dioxide emissions contributing to future global warming – a threat that currently assaults us in the daily media. He looked me in the eye, as his trusted researcher, and asked point blank, “Which is it – warming or cooling?” “With any luck, sir,” I quipped, “We’ll get both, and then they will offset each other.” He was not amused.

The world was a more complex place than the PT writers anticipated, and it's still a more complex place, I'll wager, than former PT writers can grasp (or thee or me for that matter.) Proof of that is in the continuing drive by crusty old curmudgeon Brian Knowles, also writing on the Westby site, to push right wing rhetoric somewhere north of Attila the Hun.

As our society lurches Left, Christians, especially conservative ones, come increasingly under fire. So do patriots, military officers, border patrol agents and others who are seeking to maintain a semblance of law and order. Incrementally, our freedoms are eroding as we morph into an increasingly socialist state.

Uh, is this America under George W. Bush that Brian is referring to? What is it with ex-PT journos? Knowles, Alexander, Dankenbring, Gentry... Has a single one of them managed to disentangle themselves from a monochrome mindset?

Oh hang on, there's always Paul Kroll... ;-)

24 comments:

DennisDiehl said...

"Incrementally, our freedoms are eroding as we morph into an increasingly socialist state."

Actually its morphing into facism and Right..that would be the results of George Bush, the man who will, no doubt, go down in history as the worst President in US history. It will be interesting to see what he pulls in his third term....Just like HWA, JT and JTJr, when you ask them to leave office over offenses or when the time is up, they just say "no."

Apocaholics can't help it. They all belong to On and On Anonymous and have to read the newspaper as if it were the Bible coming alive.

Listened to a local preacher who just knew more than all of science because he is a good Bible reader say.."I told you folks if you want to disprove that the oceans will rise and drown the east coast, just put some ice in glass, fill it with water and watch. It won't overflow..." Idiot...I sent him a not that the ice in question was on land and not floating in the ocean...No reply. But then again, I got no reply when I wrote Greg Albrecht and asked if his stated salary was true and if not how far off.

This is the same preecher who noted that one does not see half men and half monkey types walking around..so "Heeelllloooooo" we all come from Adam and Eve. No wonder most Europeans think we're nuts.

I do, however have to remind myself, I am in the SE US where "if God said it, I believe it, that does it for me" is part of the National Anthem and of course I am a short distance from Charlotte..I'd say 3-5 years at most..:)

Douglas Becker said...

As a technologist, I would not expect those devoid of structural visualization to have one whit of understanding about how the Universe works, the mechanisms of global darkening of global warming -- the profits of gloom, doom, destruction, devastation should stick to accounting, musty history books, lawyering, (gasp, choke) management and other non-scientific endeavors and leave the quantum mechanics, or just plain mechanics to mechanics who can do the job, uh, not that speculative technicians have done such a spiffy job so far, but at least they understand what went wrong with their predictions, whereas the "build a weekly sermon or telecast on a book cover I saw at K-Mart" set are as clueless as worms attempting to understand rainbows.

What's so amazing about the terminally deficient is that they don't really understand how incompetent they are, and that is to be expected after that research project with the two Yahoos who "proved" that the unaware are unaware that they are unaware. This, in particular within the church of gods has led to the particular stupidity of attempting to gain followers through opportunistic methodologies based on peasant science: If it sounds good, it must be right.

The results of this nonsensical pursuit of aggressively inappropriate incompetence is missing the realities of what is actually happening in the world. As the church of gods concentrate on the twin pseudo histories of the church and British Israelism, they completely missed the real threat of radical Islam. The Republican dog owner ministry has so focused on how horrid the liberals are -- attempting as it were to bring help to the poor, indigent, oppressed, the mentally ill [thanks, Governor Gregoire!] -- that they ignore the fact that two former CEOs of major big Oil Companies, one of whom was a member of the Yale Skulls, so very well connected to both the Illuminati and the Carlyle Group [hint: at Washington D.C. cocktail party for high Echelon [a pun in itself -- look it up on Wikipedia -- drop the phrase "Carlyle Group" just for fun and watch what happens], having the two top spot offices in the Administration of the United States, apparently both of whom are working hard to push up the price of gasoline to both create stupendous profits for the already oil rich Arabs and to push the average person into using public transportation [time does not permit the discussion of just how much public transportation ridership has jumped in the past month!]

No the mavens of absurd false prophetic profundities seek the nimnul mentality of those devoid of depth to push the agenda of manipulative dogma to exploit the fear of people who might be attracted to their ultraconservative extremist doctrines somewhere to the right of Ghengis Khan, while ignoring what every reasonable person is able to see. Their methodology is to create the distorted perceptions of problems that they seem to be able to fix to draw contributors to provide what is really important to them: Retirement.

Yes, friends, those of us who have had the privilege of listening to a certain senior pastor / evangelist for years really do know the important priorities of those who have happenstanced their way into power positions in the ministry: Retirement. It becomes rather obvious when you hear about concerns about retirement every single week in Sabbath Services. Little else mattered. The end justifies the means and sufficient retirement funds are what count most. The ministry has pretty much become Republican Dog Owners because it satisfies their agenda of having people in the church looking up to them and responding to every command [one minister actually wrote an article in a Sabbath flyer comparing Christians to dogs, as he was a dog owner / trainer], while holding to the conservative values of respecting and submitting to authority because it is authority. This is very convenient for people in authority. For the rest of us, not so much.

As we all march to disasters never even conceived by the apocaholics, one thing becomes clear: There's no sense even listening to them any more, except for purposes of entertainment, for those of us who are cat owners and particularly those of us cat owners who have high structural visualization and at least a fairly substantial vocabulary. Otherwise, those self-styled experts on every topic who manage to get the last word from their advisers just before they start their telecast are pretty much worse than useless.

Douglas Becker said...

Here's a challenge for the competence challenged ministry of the church of gods: I'm laying down the gauntlet. Let's just see how effectively you all can navigate the vagaries of the neural network realized model of Second Life.

Go buy yourself an avatar and establish your religion in the virtual space. Just see who and what you can attract. The CDC went out there and found that they had a greater impact than seminars, presentations, publications and any of the other traditional outlets by a factor of more than 5 times greater.

If I were a betting man, any of the maven apocaholic perpetuaters will be humbled in short order to find how little appeal they have and will fail miserably.

Nobody will be interested.

And why should they be?

The participants have a lot better and interesting things to do with their virtual lives.

Ajax Telegraph said...

The normally sane sounding Dennis writes: “George Bush, the man who will, no doubt, go down in history as the worst President in US history.”

And I couldn’t agree more, but not for the imagined reason of the US lapsing into Fascism, an idea I disagree with. Invading a country for a reason which turned out to be flat wrong seems to be his e-ticket to infamy. But that’s just on my scorecard.

Also on my scorecard is the number of times the world has been but 10 short years from global warming disaster unless we mend our ways RIGHT NOW. I first heard it when I was in high school in the 1970s. Then I heard it again in my environmental studies classes in college during the late 1980s. And now IT’S BACK. If anything it is now improved with irrefutable logic and truth. TEN YEARS. TEN YEARS AND WE ARE DEAD.

I don’t think any sane person is against clean air or getting rid of our dependence on gasoline. Can’t we just agree that those are good things in and of themselves and be a bit sparing on the scare tactics? Guess not. We have NO TIME for a staid approach or to await the cornucopia of technology to deliver us as per its odd clock as it always has. NO! Spoon me up some histrionics and heap them on with Retsin!

I don’t blame GTA for being confused. At least he was trying to keep his story straight. That puts him one up on the current crop of fear mongers.

There is statistically nothing wrong with the climate. To date, the warmest decade on record is the 1930s, a time before CFCs, a known ozone hole and all of the bad things we equate with massive rampant gas guzzling on the march. Of course there could have been—and were—other factors. You know, one good volcano could put all of our SUVs to shame. Not that blaming God for being the biggest polluter on Earth is going to get us anywhere. If only we could get a volcano to run on ethanol.

Also on the old scorecard is ethanol, making its umpteenth appearance as a global energy panacea. When last we checked, it took 1.7 gallons of ethanol to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. Has it improved? It takes 1.23 gallons of EA-85 to produce 1 gallon of EA-85. Seems like an improvement. Oh wait, EA-85 is only 82% ethanol. The rest of it is high octane gasoline. That’s the, um, secret additive. So it’s still really just a farm subsidy. One with an exponentially decreasing utility at that. How humorous.

As I sit here squinting under the light of curly bulbs where my trusty incandescents once were, I am wondering what will be killing me ten years from now. And what new way the farmers will come up with to slip my car a mickey.

But that’s just my scorecard.

Mark Lax

Ajax Telegraph said...

Good One, Mr. Becker.

What's so amazing about the terminally deficient is that they don't really understand how incompetent they are

I don't really think they care. As you said, it's all about retirement.

As opposed to Second Life, may I suggest City of Heroes, a much better game. Less sex but more actual good deeds.

Neotherm said...

I believe that global warming is very likely to happen. If it does happen, I believe that the consequences modelled by the scientific community will occur.

But whether it is in the offing or not, I believe we have an ethical responsibility to take care of our environment. This view takes me swiftly out of the evangelical camp. Evangelical leaders have been advising the Bush Administration that they can mistreat the environment on behalf of corporate America and it makes no difference. The evangelicals contend that Christ is going to return and fix everything anyway so any abuse is permissible.

The puzzle is whether the evangelicals developed this theory theologically or politically. My guess is that the theology was made to fit the politics and not the other way around. And it clearly shows the moral bankruptcy of the evangelical movement, a movement that has rejected God and sold out to the neo-conservatives, even though the average evangelical lay member is too naive politically to recognize this. To get a flavor of this, view the documentary "Jesus Camp". You will see a life-sized, cardboard image of George Bush in church services and the assertion that he is "a holy man appointed by God to return the United States to Christianity."

True Christians understand that mans original mission explained in Genesis is to dress and keep the earth. Respect for the Creation is something that evagelicals have abandoned in order to support the neo-conservative agenda.

Eschatology for Armstrongites is just grist for the money making mill. Using prophecy they can terrify people into abandoning their material wealth to the Armstrongite leaders. And these leaders can keep Armstrongite congregations in a perpetual state of zeal and tension because of the nearness of the "End of the Age". In short, it is a tool that permits them to exploit people.

For cult leaders, prophecy has everything. It is exciting. It is based on exclusive knowledge. It disconnects people form normal living and appropriates their resources for the cult. With some smooth talk it can be made to appear highly relevant to daily world events. It focuses people on the News rather than living a life of "love they neighbor", which may lead them away from the cult. Control and orderliness can be rigidly maintained because people fear the future and recognize that their only means of rescue is the cult.

If you are one of these leaders, what's not to like? So you predict doom and gloom all the way to the bank.

-- Neo

Douglas Becker said...

What's so amazing about the terminally deficient is that they don't really understand how incompetent they are

I don't really think they care.


And that is so appalling. I generally know when I am wrong [but I might not say anything publicly]. I am embarrassed, so embarrassed that I go forth and do what I can to rectify my errors.

Not so with the miscreants of the church of gods. They wallow in their incompetence.

Can someone explain it to me?

Why don't they have any shame?

DennisDiehl said...

Hey Mark,
I was of the global warming idea until recently when I read other studies that had better charts and info to me. Of course what we human beans are doing with fossil fuels can't help, but over the last 3 million years there have been relatively cold spells with shorter warm ones. It was seriously cold about 2.5 mya , 1.7 and 800,000 years ago. There have been around 20 glaciations over that time each about 100,000 years in length with warming times of about 10,000 each between them. 125,000 years ago it was warmer than today with rhino's hippos, lions and elephants into Northern Europe 18,000 years ago it was seriously cold and now we are in the interglacial again.

The point being that there are cycles. It's a crap shoot. The sun actually does get hotter in cycles which of course probably does more than anything.

So I am a bit indifferent to all the hype at the moment. A great animal painted cave lies 100 feet below the south coast of france and is accessible only underwater yet full of air yet and painting. That would be when there was much ice and water dropped. That was around the 18,000 year ago time. Obviously a lot of ice has melted since then to put it 100 below the Med.

Sometimes when literalist, who see only the Adam and Eve vegetarian times 6000 years ago, it's difficult to remember all that has really transpired before. Life does what it does.

I agree about the war. The crime is the lying and it has been done often and not even so well. Interesting times lie ahead I suppose. See the trouble we get into when God speaks to men through a Bush..:)

Paul said...

"Actually its morphing into facism and Right..that would be the results of George Bush..."

Oh really?? In what way?


Paul

DennisDiehl said...

"Fascism, especially in its early stages, is obliged to be antitheoretical and frankly opportunistic in order to appeal to many diverse groups.

Nevertheless, a few key concepts are basic to it. First and most important is the glorification of the state and the total subordination of the individual to it. The state is defined as an organic whole into which individuals must be absorbed for their own and the state's benefit. This "total state" is absolute in its methods and unlimited by law in its control and direction of its citizens.

A second ruling concept of fascism is embodied in the theory of social Darwinism. The doctrine of survival of the fittest and the necessity of struggle for life is applied by fascists to the life of a nation-state. Peaceful, complacent nations are seen as doomed to fall before more dynamic ones, making struggle and aggressive militarism a leading characteristic of the fascist state. Imperialism is the logical outcome of this dogma.

Another element of fascism is its elitism. Salvation from rule by the mob and the destruction of the existing social order can be effected only by an authoritarian leader who embodies the highest ideals of the nation. This concept of the leader as hero or superman, borrowed in part from the romanticism of Friedrich Nietzsche , Thomas Carlyle , and Richard Wagner , is closely linked with fascism's rejection of reason and intelligence and its emphasis on vision, creativeness, and "the will."

Seems a pretty good description of the GWB administration over the past 6 years. The British have allowed themselves to be the guinea pigs of 1984 and you just have to ask "are we better off now than when we ever heard of the Bush Family and associate handlers. Obviously a huge topic subject to debate. Endless actually. Let's just see what the man does in his third term:)

DennisDiehl said...

Paul's "command" submit to governing authorites, for there is no authority except that which God has establised..etc. And that he who rebels against the authorities rebels against God is BS because you always kiss up to those that can kill you.

Paul had no problem with bashing Jews as Christ Killers, or fools who don't even understand their own law (they did just fine). Paul could bash the Jews because they were little threat to him in reality. Paul would probably be the only "Pharisee of the Pharisees" in history who was also a Roman Citizen.

While a long story, Paul falsely represented who and what the Pharisees believed and did in history in his NT explanations. He often tried to reason and sound like a Pharisee but failed rather miserably at it. I personally don't believe Paul the Pharisee "above all his fellows" as reported in Acts, was the real Paul of reality.

All that to say that the NT admonitions to obey Government is Paul fearing the Roman consequence for not doing so and felt no real threat from the Jews upon which he inflicted his offensive, inaccurate and self promoting tirades and accusations.

Roman's 13 is probably a convenient encouragement to do what you are told and believe the best about human governments. The idealism found in Roman's 13 is simply not how human governments work, why they rule and how much they wish to serve their fellow man. It's idealistic blather promoted by Paul or maybe those after him to put a Christian obedience spin to existing governments for the convenience of the Church and it's survival.

Being all things to all men, it would be hard to ever pin Paul down on just who he really was and what he personally believed and was will to go to the wall over.

I also always found it convenient that we never quite know what really happened to Paul. We are told he died under the Romans but all we really are told by his apologist Luke is that he was under house arrest and got to still preach boldly and without hindrance. Then...nothing. No one ever quite seems to know what happened to the chief players of the NT church. It certainly wasn't inspiring enough to write into the text. I can't imagine "Luke" did not know what happened to Paul and why.

Of well..off topic.

Paul said...

"First and most important is the glorification of the state and the total subordination of the individual to it."

Turn on the news. Do you see, across, the board, from CNN to NPR, a total glorification of America? Do you see, across the board, the US population united in slavish nationalistic fevor?? Do you see, in the last few years, Americans becoming more and more devoted to the interests of the US, to the exclusion of their own wants and desires?? No, you don't.

"The state is defined as an organic whole into which individuals must be absorbed for their own and the state's benefit. This "total state" is absolute in its methods and unlimited by law in its control and direction of its citizens."

Does the US government have "absolute" "control and direction of its citizens?" No, it doesn't.

"The doctrine of survival of the fittest and the necessity of struggle for life is applied by fascists to the life of a nation-state. Peaceful, complacent nations are seen as doomed to fall before more dynamic ones, making struggle and aggressive militarism a leading characteristic of the fascist state. Imperialism is the logical outcome of this dogma."

Examples, please? Do you offer Iraq and Afghanistan as "peaceful, complacent nations?" Or are there other peaceful nations that have fallen to US imperialism in the past few years that I have been unaware of?

"Another element of fascism is its elitism."

Examples?

"Salvation from rule by the mob and the destruction of the existing social order can be effected only by an authoritarian leader who embodies the highest ideals of the nation."

Bush is "authoritarian?" He has saved us from the rule of mob and is bent on destroying the existing social order? In what way?

Bush is hardly the Ubermensch Savoir.



"Seems a pretty good description of the GWB administration over the past 6 years."

Examples???


Is this really true? Are we really living in a flowering Right Wing Police State?? Or are we living under a conservative/Republican President during a unpopular conflict? It seems to me that this situation will always produce hysterical cries of doom from the more liberal minded in our country.

Apply that same logic that allowed you to see the wrongs of the WWCG (a REAL fascist state..)and apply it to our country. Does reality bear out to your assessment???

Paul

Paul

DennisDiehl said...

A never ending discussion Paul. Many see an America that is more corporate than "of the people." Many see an administration that is above the law, elitist and bound and determined to fulfill it's will no matter what the people say. Many see a stubborness and arrogance unprecidented in our history in the current leadership. Can you imagine any other past Presidents who slaughter the language both in fact and in concept as this President does, or should I say "The Decider" or "Commander Guy" Many see a policy of unending war. We're never leaving Iraq. You don't build a Vatican size Embassy planning to leave. Has religious fundamentalism of the ilk that promotes that which delusion believes will end in a return of Jesus to reward the warmongers, ever "informed" a government as much as it does this one. I wonder if they know they are being played for fools and votes...

Nothing in this world is as you are being told still rings in my ears from my retired CIA client.

But it's endless and nothing we say to each other will matter or convince. I hope I'm just kidding about GWB's third term..:)

Rob K said...

I think a far better comparison for America today is Roman in its later stages. All most people really care about is bread and circuses. America is too balkanized socially and politically to ever succeed as a either a true fascist or socialist state.

Lussenheide said...

Whether or not we are moving to "socialism" or "fascism", nearly everyone can agree that we are becoming more "federalized" and "centralized".

Cities, Counties and States are increasingly marginalized to an ever burgeoning Central Federal beuaracracy. On the global level, there is a blurring of national sovereignity as well.

Another issue that Im sure all will agree upon is the vaccuum that the Bush administration has in projecting "the big dream", vision or even enjoyable rhetoric.

Missing is the manifest destiny statements of "We will have a man on the moon before the end of this decade" as Kennedy stated, or "Tear Down This Wall" ala Ronald Reagan, or the Roosevelt "Fireside Chats".

The best we have gotten from Bush is "we will persist in this un-winable strugle." This is not enough to stir the masses, nor is it a vision that "stirs the imagination".

I find this void actually across the globe in virtually all countries. A lack of frankness, vision and dream.

In fact, (although I am totally against him and his cause in all ways), "Ahmadinejad" seems to be the only one willing to risk, capitivate , tantalize and demand.

The world is coming to a place where it is vulnerable to a charismatic leader with some spunk. Buyers beware!

Lusssenheide

        AMERICAN KABUKI said...

People give up personal power and freedom in the present to avoid a fearful future.

Jewish apocalyptic thinking mostly ended after the Romans sacked Judea.

Christianity fell in love with the apocalyptic as a way of making sure the future didn't change their doctrines. Constantine the Sun worshiper united Rome with one Christian Religion. His qualifications for presiding over the Biblical canon? A death-bed conversion to Christianity. The state can't have anything change the power structure. How convenient it is to make predictions about apostate people in the future who will want change things as a way of preventing change.

Catholics even now argue over which Pope will be the "man of sin", Satan's tool who changes the Church. If xCGer's could only appreciate how similar their arguments about the apostate Tkach's are to the conservative Catholic struggles within Roman Catholicism. The similarity is spooky.

Not that I am fan of the WCG, I am not. If I had to summarize what went wrong with the reformation was that they thought they could worship God in an abstract sense separate from loving their fellow man. Precious little love was shown by all parties, but those that should have shown the moral high ground, did not.

Everything changes in time, or at least should. How arrogant to assume the present knows more than generations to come. They say knowledge doubles every year now, except in religion. There its a long slow slog through the seminaries and magesteriums and even then it gets left out every faiths catechism.

Jesus left behind an oral tradition adaptable to change. Religions with an oral tradition don't tend to fight over scripture. Jesus never wrote a line of scripture.

The final gun lap is always a good diversion to keep people focused on the place of safety or the rapture. They want anything but the people to be present in the moment and notice what is really going on. Its all slight of hand and diversion of attention, and what's that quarter behind your ear!

Religion is the ultimate life insurance policy. Pay and pray. The Church never will never have to make good on the premiums and its all tax free.

The 21st century brings us eco-religion carrying on the meme of a cast-down fallen mankind who is somehow a virus upon the planet. Mother Gaia will deal with the CO2 infidels by cooking them with global warming fire and brimstone and flooding them in water. You damm global warming denier! The Science is CONFIRMED! Al Gore said so!

The only jot and tittle ignored by these sorts is the practice of stoning false prophets. "Well we didn't really say 1975...." At least the Global Warming prophets haven't set a date yet.

brave anonymous poster said...

manmade global warming is a bunch of hooey....

here's one meteorologist willing to speak out:

The Myth Of Global Warming

Gary Alexander said...

Paul Kroll:

How are you? What are you doing these days? You have a very firm opinion about me without knowing what I really do, so let me help. For the last 28 years, I have been writing and editing investment newsletters. For fun, I write about music, history, sports, economics, philosophy, religion, science and politics. How mono-chrome is that? I still consider nuclear threats realistic, so I live on a remote island with my bride of 40 years, and we love our eclectic community of artists, musicians, farmers, hippies and retired engineers. How mono-chrome is that? Seriously, I believe it is easy to sit in the seat of the cynic and judge others by a single second-hand post, so if you have any particular Website or expertise in some area, I would love to read more about what you do and say without judging you based on a silly posting about how you think I think.
-- Gary Alexander

Gavin said...

First, Gary, nice to hear from you. To set the record straight, the blog entry isn't by Paul Kroll - I was taking his name in vain as much as yours. I'm sure he would be mortified to think my stuff was being associated with his name, particularly as last time I heard he was still pulling a salary from WCG.

Second, I hope I didn't make too many factual errors. If I did, please let me know and I'll adjust the posting. FWIW I enjoyed your article, even though I disagreed with some of the conclusions. And yes, I still have a copy of that booklet on "The Four Horsemen" filed away... at the time I thought it was excellent ;-)

Blogs are about opinions, and this one is no exception. If you place an ad in The Journal you expect to get a reaction, right? And as they say, any publicity...

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your comments on any other postings are very welcome.

Gavin

Corky said...

The Apocalypse is not for now, it was for then. It was a "must shortly come to pass" prophecy.

Shortly does not mean 2,000 years or more - not even in the bible.

The Apocalypse was "judgment day" for Israel and Jerusalem. It was at that time that the "rapture" was to take place (AD 70) and the saints rescued out of the great tribulation of the Judaic wars.

Since it was written after the fact, it hardly means anything. Heh heh, you'll just have to have faith that the resurrection happened at that time (it's invisible, ya know).

John Bowers said...

<<< I agree about the war. The crime is the lying and it has been done often and not even so well. Interesting times lie ahead I suppose. See the trouble we get into when God speaks to men through a Bush..:) >>>

Dennis, GWB has a lot to be held accountable for. Huge spending, porous borders, you name it. But if he was lying about the reason for going into Iraq, you should be aware that most of those politicians who are condemning him in 2007 were saying exactly the same thing he said in 2002. Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton (both of them), and the list goes on. The videotape doesn't lie, they all made the same case that Saddam had WMD and had to be neutralized. Those same critics even voted for the war (before they voted against it).

So...if you want to blame someone, blame EVERYONE, not just Bush.

John B.

KScribe said...

Lussenheide said...
Whether or not we are moving to "socialism" or "fascism", nearly everyone can agree that we are becoming more "federalized" and "centralized".
What is needed is to remove the federal governments power from over the states. This is being done with laws on medical marijuana. Yes the federal laws supersedes state laws if there is a conflict, but it is a start to (h'm, if you will) recapture true American values. The states should dictate to the feds, not the other way around! I always vote in such a way as to limited the feds power or even the local school board from achieving there goals. The feds want to dictate to the state and the school board (and the dreaded jackbooted thugs we have for police) are telling my kids that their parents have no rights to correct them through discipline. The parents cannot whack their kids back in self defense. I might add that the GTA way IS child abuse. But the opposite way of the extreme armstrongist is political correctness, which is nothing short of social engineering.

KScribe said...

John B said...

"GWB has a lot to be held accountable..."
You can see the video here. Paste it to your browser and give it a minute to load.

http://www.veoh.com/fullscreen_single.html?permalinkId=v194912ydYjbe6h

A new video that might remind all of you about the source behind the war, who we are fighting in Iraq may be of interest to you who love to bash GWB. Personally I do not like the guy. But the real issue is not Bush. The curse, the bane of all humanity. This threat is religion. Imagine, destroying all man has achieved to this point in time and replace it with a unholy crazy fascist religion of some middle east wacko cleric!
This second video is at the top of the page:
http://herbertwarmstrongvideo.net/

Anonymous said...

Interesting article, don't we remember the old days when the Plain Truth that Hitler was not dead, but escaped. In those days PT writers certainly knew how to give us a good conspiracy story.

Instead these days, the leaders in the Churches of God are NeoCons, who write admirable words in support of George Bush and his phony war on terror. When i heard a sermon tape by Ron Dart, telling us we should support the war against terror, that was it. I never listened to him again.

What is missing in the Good News, Philadephia Trumpet and Tomorrow's World? A thorough questioning of US policy, a report on the 9/11 commission, an article on the Real Id cards and giving us some useful tidbits on RFID technology and the verichip would be nice.

The days of PT writers giving us all some juicy conspiracy is gone, we just have to put up with a glossy magazine of how well they are doing.