Top 10 book list for Christmas includes "The Way, the Truth and the Sword"

My favorite libertarian Christian website on the web (aptly named LibertarianChristians.com--worth visiting regularly!!) put together a fantastic top-10 list of Christmas books for the liberty-loving reader.

I'm honored that Norman Horn, the fine webmaster of LibertarianChristians.com put The Way, the Truth and the Sword on the list (see #9 on his list below).

I've read some, though not all, of the books that Horn lists. I can recommend anything by Ron Paul and Thomas Woods as perfect for the novice reader. And Laurence Vance is my absolute favorite libertarian Christian writer, as he is a compelling voice against war. You can buy my book here or here if you would like a copy (e-book version, here).

I hope you all have a Christ-centered Christmas in support of liberty of conscience! Here's Horn's top ten list. (Also visit his original post to join the conversation in the comments and browse his great website.) LibertarianChristians.com's 10 Ten books for Christmas:

One of the most popular and commented on posts of this past year was my Top 10 Books for Christmas last December. I’m thinking it’s about time for another list, since the Christmas season is upon us and I bet you’re wondering what to get that liberty-loving friend, brother, or spouse. Now, although the title of this post says “Christian Libertarians,” plenty of these books are applicable to libertarians everywhere. Anybody can find something on here to enjoy and learn from. Check out some of these great books and see what you think…

1. End the Fed, by Ron Paul – The Federal Reserve banking system is corrupt and has devastated the world economy, and Ron Paul demonstrates in this great book just how bad it really is. A must-read for our current political situation!

2. Meltdown, by Thomas Woods – Here’s another essential book for you to know well. Tom has not only written a great expose of how the government has crippled the economy but also a great treatise in basic economics. This book even hit the NYT Bestseller list for multiple weeks!

3. The Libertarian Theology of Freedom, by Edmund Opitz – Most LCC readers are already familiar with Opitz since I have been in the process of archiving his essays online, but I want to point out that this book is back in stock again at Amazon (but probably not for long). Read my review of this book for more information. But for that matter, any book by Ed Opitz is well worth having on your bookshelf.

4. Christianity and War, by Laurence Vance – I’m going to keep pushing this book until every Christian I know is reading it. Laurence’s work is incredible and absolutely essential for getting the church at large to realize war is NOT the answer. (Don’t forget that you can get the audiobook exclusively from LCC!)

5. Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman – Does American “culture” sometimes make you wonder what on earth happened here? Neil Postman clarifies the problems we face on a regular basis in this classic book. Check out my book review here at LCC.

6. The Ethics of Money Production, by Guido Hulsmann – Guido is definitely one of my favorite scholars in the Austrian School, and this book is just one more reason why. His thesis is simple: money creation must occur on the free market, neither inhibited nor controlled by government, in order to be created in an ethical manner. Pretty great topic, eh? (By the way, you can get this book at Amazon, but it’s cheaper via the Mises Institute online store.)

7. The Cult of the Presidency, by Gene Healy – I met Gene for the first time this past October at the Students for Liberty Texas Conference, and am now an even greater admirer of his intellect and tenacity to hit the establishment hard. This book shows just how ridiculous statolatry has become, especially in the last eight years with Bush. Now, I think he could write a second book just about Obama. (Also, the paperback version runs a couple bucks cheaper if it matters to you.)

8. Faith and Liberty, by Alejandro Chafuen – I was really excited to find this book, which covers the history of the Late Scholastic thinkers and their writings on private property, trade, money, and the State – which were all written from theological perspective.

9. The Way, the Truth, and the Sword, by Scott Ritsema – You can get Scott’s great book either as an eBook or through Lulu.com. Either way, you’re in for a treat, as Scott has written a wonderful little book encouraging the church at large to reject the State and get back to the true savior, Jesus Christ. Scott is the webmaster at Civics News.

10. An Amazon Kindle filled with the Mises library and Christian Classics – This may be #10, but it’s probably #1 in my list. You know, almost every book the Mises Institute publishes (and much more) is available to download for free as a PDF on their website. You could easily fill a flash drive with liberty PDF’s from the Mises Library and tons of classic theological texts from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and Project Gutenberg. Now THAT would be a gift long remembered! (Hey Mom, hint hint?)

How the mainstream media are controlled

Here's a great analysis by Washington's Blog, which demonstrates (with links and sources that will keep you busy for a while if you doubt his claims) that to a great extent the mainstream media is controlled, particularly when it comes to the subject of war. Give it a read.

Also, check out the Media/Propaganda archive below. It's a good one.

Afghanistan is the good, moral war, right?

Little Known Facts About Afghanistan and Bin Laden
Washington’s Blog - Sunday, Dec 6th, 2009

Evidence which has come out over the last couple of years makes it clear that top Bush administration officials knew that Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction and knew that Saddam had no connection with 9/11.

It is now reasonably obvious that the Bush administration was looking for an excuse to oust Saddam, and – in the words of the Downing Street Memo – “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change long before 9/11 (one month after Bush took office).

Saddam’s Offer

Saddam allegedly offered to let weapons inspectors in the country and to hold new elections:

In the few weeks before its fall, Iraq’s Ba’athist regime made a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington, promising to hold elections and even to allow US troops to search for banned weapons. But the advances were all rejected by the Bush administration, according to intermediaries involved in the talks.

Moreover, Saddam allegedly offered to leave Iraq:

“Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion)”.

“The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President’s Texas ranch.”

“The White House refused to comment on the report last night. But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.”

According to the tapes, Bush told Aznar that whether Saddam was still in Iraq or not, “We’ll be in Baghdad by the end of March.” See also this and this.

Afghanistan Is Different

But Afghanistan is much different.

As President Obama said Tuesday night as justification for the surge in troops in Afghanistan:

We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people.

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban”, who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden.

Is that true?

The Taliban Offer

On October 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted bombing if the Taliban were given evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11.
Specifically, as the Guardian writes:

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban “turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over.” He added, “There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty” …

Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

“If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved” and the bombing campaign stopped, “we would be ready to hand him over to a third country”, Mr Kabir added.

However, as the Guardian subsequently points out:

A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.

For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said.

And yet, as with Saddam, the U.S. turned down the offer and instead prosecuted war.

Little-Known Facts About Afghanistan and Bin Laden

The government apparently planned the Afghanistan war before 9/11 (see this and this).

And the government apparently could have killed Bin Laden in 2001 and AGAIN in 2007, but failed to do so.

In fact, starting right after 9/11 — at the latest — the goal has always been to create “regime change” and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon and other countries. As American historian, investigative journalist and policy analyst Gareth Porter writes in the Asia Times:

Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions. Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.

Feith’s book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing “new regimes” in a series of states…

***

General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon].

***

When this writer asked Feith . . . which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, “All of them.”

***

The Defense Department guidance document made it clear that US military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to terrorism. The document said the Defense Department would also seek to isolate and weaken those states and to “disrupt, damage or destroy” their military capacities – not necessarily limited to weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Indeed, the goal seems to have more to do with being a superpower (i.e. an empire) than stopping terrorism.

As Porter writes:

After the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa [in 1988] by al-Qaeda
operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against bin Laden’s sponsor, the Taliban regime. However, senior US military leaders “refused to consider it”, according to a 2004 account by Richard H Shultz, Junior, a military specialist at Tufts University.

A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a “small price to pay for being a superpower”.

And recall that former U.S. National Security Adviser (and top foreign policy advisor) Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”.

Cynics argue that America is just the latest in a long string of empires trying to control the “crossroads” between East and West.

And people such as the former UK ambassador to Afghanistan argue that there are even uglier reasons for America’s involvement in Afghanistan.

This essay does not address such questions. All I’m asking is whether the U.S. refusal to accept the Taliban’s offer to hand over Bin Laden should be viewed as similar to its refusal to accept Saddam’s offer to go into exile for $1 billion dollars. In other words, we should ask whether the U.S. was hell-bent on going to war against Afghanistan and Saddam, without – contrary to official statements – really caring about the bad guys.

Looking Ahead

These questions are not just stale, historical questions.

The U.S. military is currently pursuing a strategy in Afghanistan that – according to some – will decrease national security and spend our nation’s blood and treasure, all for the sake of killing only 100 Al Qaeda fighters in the entire country, while we could spend much less to capture or kill those bad guys.

Christians: Let's Disavow Nationalism and Cease Praying to the God of War

A Response to Baptist Spokesman's Latest Comments Supporting American Militarism

December 3, 2009
Scott Ritsema
Civics News



Following Obama’s recently announced plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, stated the following:

“First, I’m nervous that the president has given our generals on the ground less than they’ve requested as the resources they believe necessary to finish the job of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and, jointly with Pakistan, the Taliban in that terribly important country as well.”

“Second, I am of course hopeful that the president’s plan will work. If anyone can make it work, it is our wonderful military with its tens of thousands of dedicated
patriots and citizens serving voluntarily to defend their country in difficult and dangerous places. I would encourage all Americans to pray for our commander in chief and for all of those who serve in our nation’s armed forces as they seek to defend our freedom in a dangerous and difficult world. We should also remember to pray for the families they leave behind and the significant sacrifices they make for our nation’s freedom as well.”

I offer my critique of his statements not to beat him up, but so that those who have the impression of Christianity as a violent religion can be given the opportunity to see another point of view—one that is faithful to Jesus’ teachings about non-violence and citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, which is a kingdom ruled by the supreme ethic of love.

Whenever a Christian speaks, he is representing Jesus and the body of Christ (the church). This is all the more true if said Christian is speaking in an official capacity as a church leader, as in the example here of statements made by this Baptist spokesman. Since a Christian, by default, speaks on behalf of Christianity/Christ/the church, then when he uses adjectives such as “us” and “we,” he is assumed to be talking about the church and Christ. In the present example, Mr. Land is speaking on behalf of the “ethics” and the “religious liberty” of the Christian church, and so when he says “us” and “we,” it is assumed that he is (or at least ought to be) speaking of his community—the Southern Baptist Church or Christianity more broadly.

My first point of critique relates to his use of the terms “us” and “we.” It appears that the people-group from which he derives identity and community is unfortunately not the church. Nor is it the second best group identity—the human race. Rather, Mr. Land, whom I love as a child of God and a brother, seems to be captive to the tribal identity of nationalism. Notice that each time he says “us” and “we” in the comments above, it is in reference to America, and more specifically, the American military. He refers to “our generals,” “our wonderful military,” “our commander in chief,” and he calls on Americans to pray (to the god of war?) for military success. His language is perplexing to the New Testament Christian who believes that we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is not to say that we should renounce citizenship in nations, but where in the New Testament are Christians called to identify so prominently with the military force of a worldly kingdom? Shouldn’t our group identity with 1) the community of Christ-followers, and 2) the common humanity of every image-bearer of God far supersede our identity in a tribal nationalistic community? This appears to be the nationalistic civic religion rearing its ugly head. [See Chapter 7 in The Way, the Truth and the Sword for more on this subject.]

The second point of critique that I would offer Mr. Land relates to the role of Christians in the world. Our central calling is the Great Commission, which is to show and to tell the world about the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. Our job is to spread the good news or “gospel” about what God is like. Given this fact, it is puzzling that Mr. Land considers “[finishing] the job of defeating the Taliban” to be a Christian cause worthy of our prayer and support. Mr. Land is so enthusiastic about killing these “enemies” (and so apparently accepting of the inevitable “collateral damage” of innocent lives) that he is even concerned that warrior Obama is not being aggressive enough! To Mr. Land, the role of Christians in the world is apparently not primarily to spread the gospel, but instead to defeat the enemies of the American empire. He is willing to even fore-go the opportunity to reach with the gospel those who will die in the escalated war in order to achieve his aim of military conquest. No doubt, he likely has good (though misguided) motives in seeking military victory; but, when such victory is placed ahead of the advancement of the gospel, then we have forgotten what our job is as Christians. We Christians must “finish the job” of loving our enemies to heaven, not “finish the job” of killing the enemies of the American military. If he is speaking for an ethics committee of a church denomination, then no doubt, he is familiar with New Testament ethics, which require that Christians love our enemies. Let’s pray that he recapture the vision of pure Christ-like love that Jesus taught us.

A third critique I should mention briefly is that there is a blatantly idolatrous statement in his comments. I hope this was an accident on his part, but he states that “if any one can make [the president’s plan] work, it’s our wonderful military…” It seems that his highest hopes are set upon the supreme power of the U.S. military. Where the Psalmist says “put not your trust in princes,” the way of this world is: “if anyone can, it’s our military.” That is very sad.

A forth critique relates to Mr. Land’s claim that in Afghanistan “our” troops are “defending our freedom.” In reality, there are only one hundred al Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan, and the Taliban forces want to rule Afghanistan, not America. Afghanis are not threatening to nor are they able to invade the U.S., take over our government, and take our freedom away. In contrast to this, I would think that a spokesman for the “religious liberty” department would be a lot more threatened by the U.S. Government as a danger to our religious liberties than Afghanis. Instead, Mr. Land identifies with (see critique #1 above) the very institution that poses the greatest threat to freedom of conscience in America. Instead of defending our religious liberties, the military in Afghanistan is endangering them, because it is stirring up hatred of the United States, and it is legitimizing the American imperial system that robs Americans of property and liberty on a daily basis, and which stands ready to enforce martial law domestically at any moment.

A final critique I have is that he calls on us to pray only for the Americans involved in this war. This betrays his nationalistic worldview. This is perhaps the saddest oversight of Mr. Land’s comments. His one-sided prayer dehumanizes the very people we are trying to reach with the gospel. Mark Twain once penned a revealing nationalistic “war prayer” that is relevant to the matter of praying for the success for your nation’s military:

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

I call on Christians to pray the following:

Pray that the military be unsuccessful in killing “our” enemies; but that instead these enemies will somehow come into contact with and experience the love of Jesus, and that their hearts will be changed.

Pray that especially the families of those millions who have been completely innocent victims of America’s wars would be comforted by the knowledge that those responsible for these evils are not from God, and pray that survivors, refugees, and potential victims would be protected and their needs cared for by angels and servants of God.

Pray that America's soldiers would be kept safe as well, and that they would have Jesus as their guide through the difficult moral dilemma that faces Christians in a nationalistic and militaristic world.

Pray that the leaders of the most powerful empire in human history will also come to know Jesus Christ, and that the once humble nation of the United States, which was founded on the relatively good principles of limited government and individual liberty, would be restored.

Pray that all Americans who worship at the altar of the god of war, and who love the idol of nationalism, will find the God of love incarnated in the person of Jesus.

Pray that violent ideologies on both sides of every conflict would give way to the grace and peace of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Pray that those of us who have received the light and truth in the Kingdom Way of Jesus would not boast about our knowledge, and that we would become aware of the idols in our own hearts; that we would not be captive to pride or a sense of spiritual superiority.

Pray that there would be a revival of enemy-love within the Christian church and that we would rend ourselves from the beast and throw ourselves into the loving arms of Jesus, who grieves to see his beloved ones captive to the empire of lies.

And in all of this, we are praying that God’s name be hallowed—that people in all nations will not confuse the American imperial “Christianity” with the true faith of Jesus Christ, and that the name of God will thus be restored in the world. And last of all, in all of this we pray that the will of God and the kingdom of God be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, we pray for an overwhelming victory of love. God is love. And so the burning desire of the Christ-follower is for the world to see the love of God manifested in every person.

Maddow on Bush...I mean Obama...war escalation

Rachel Maddow who first exposed Obama's Bush-like detention policy, has now come out strongly against murder in the form of Obama's Afghanistan escalation, arguing persuasively that Obama's plan is just another form of the Bush Doctrine of preventive war (a clear and obvious evil). I applaud her for showing on the graph how this "Peace Prize" imperialist has created a wider war than Bush did and at an even faster rate than Bush. How in the world does Obama have a reputation of anything less than being Bush on steroids? Also, good job, Rachel, for opposing the secret CIA and Predator Drone war on Pakistan that routinely and knowingly kills innocents. (Isn't it sad that the U.S. has become a "predator" nation?)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Americans skeptical of scientists and don't believe there's a "consensus"

Majority Of Americans Say Scientists Have Faked Global Warming Data
Rasmussen Reports - Thursday, December 3, 2009

Most Americans (52%) believe that there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.

While many advocates of aggressive policy responses to global warming say a consensus exists, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% of adults think most scientists agree on the topic. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.

But just in the last few days, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs seemed to reject any such disagreement in a response to a question about global warming, “I don’t think … [global warming] is quite, frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore.”

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s Very Likely. Just 26% say it’s not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data.

Fed Chairman on the defensive

It's amazing that Ben Bernanke has to write an Op Ed in the Washington Post to answer to Ron Paul and the uprising of the American people who don't want a secret pseudo-governmental bank to rob them through the process of inflation of the money supply and endless bailouts. Yes, the head of the Fed devoted ink in the Washington Post to oppose Ron Paul! This never would have happened just three years ago.

Jesse Ventura on Afghanistan and 9/11 Truth

I like his solution to end the wars. 1) Pass a tax that requires us to actually pay for them. 2) Pass a draft. 3) Pass a law requiring every Congressman to designate a member of his/her family to serve in the war.

Taxes and conscription are bad, but I can't disagree that his prescription is a sure-fire way to bring an end to the wars!

Humanity is the enemy: Environmentalist religion regarded as "the only compelling value-based narrative available"

Shocking UN Document Divulges Climate Cult Brainwashing
Kids coerced into performing global warming song as strategy document reveals plan to greenwash young minds by turning environmentalism into gaia religion



Paul Joseph Watson - Prison Planet.com - Monday, November 30, 2009

With the reverberations of climategate still echoing, it has now emerged that children are being greenwashed in public schools by being forced to sing climate cult ditties and hate their parents as part of a United Nations propaganda program aimed at capturing young minds, as the UN itself officially acknowledges the global warming mantra as a new religion.

A shocking new UN strategy document also reveals how elitists are recruiting members of academia from all over the globe in an effort to hide the “end-run” around national sovereignty that their program represents.

“When did global warming turn into a forced religion?,” asks the New York Post’s Andrea Peyser as she tells the story of how her daughter came home from school singing the words ” . . . You can hear the warning — GLOBAL WARMING . . . “.

“All the kids had been coerced into singing this catchy ditty, which we called “The Warming Song,” at a concert for parents. Further song lyrics scolded selfish adults (that would be us) for polluting our planet and causing a warming scourge that would, in no short order, kill all the polar bears and threaten the birds and bees,” writes Peyser.

That’s right, in the spirit of the Club of Rome’s 1991 resolution to make humanity the enemy in creating the contrived threat of environmental armageddon, children have been turned against their own parents in the service of a new gaia religion.

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.,” they wrote in a report entitled “The First Global Revolution”.

“Our children are on the front lines of the warming hysteria, a place where “experts” from Al Gore to the president leave no room for dissent or even the slightest skepticism, despite claims that are no more provable than the Earth is flat.,” says Peyser.

A newly uncovered document sheds some light on the genesis of how such brainwashing found its way into our schools.

A strategy paper for the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world’s would-be environmental watchdog, reveals how the global elite in charge of the green takeover resolved that, “Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion “as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity,” according to a Fox News report.

This approach follows a similar tack to the new methods adopted by Al Gore, who in his recent presentations has delivered his message as a kind of religious sermon, acknowledging, “Simply laying out the facts won’t work.”

The UN planning paper outlines a program of implementing a global system of governance based around environmental regulations and laws, stressing the agenda for the “evolutionary nature of strengthening international environmental governance.”

Participants included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen, Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, and Bulgarian academic Maria Ivanova, director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

A core element of the program includes, “an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to “children and youth”.

“Civil society, including children and youth, and the private sector will be reached through tailor-made outreach products and campaigns,” states the document.

The document discusses recruiting academia to further the power of UNEP, noteworthy in light of the recent climategate scandal where scientists at major universities were caught hiding evidence of global cooling.

As the Swiss paper puts it, UNEP “should pioneer a new style of work. This requires going beyond a narrow interpretation of UNEP’s stakeholders as comprising its member states — or even the world’s governments — and recruiting a far wider community of support, in civil society, the academic world and the private sector.” At the same time the paper warns that these groups need to be “harnessed to the UNEP mission without appearing to make an end-run around the member governments.”

This passage is fairly damning, as the UN is all but admitting that the program does represent an “end-run around member governments,” and that they have to do their best to hide the fact.

The goals enshrined in the document, a counterpart to the globally binding agreement the UN is seeking to achieve in Copenhagen next month, are “certain to remain a UNEP rallying cry long after the Copenhagen meeting is over — and while the other brainstorming ideas that went into the new four-year strategy, not to mention the strategy itself, go into effect,” writes Fox News’ George Russell.

This document represents yet another smoking gun proving that the climate cult movement is all about expanding the power of a dictatorial, unelected global government, diluting powers of nation states, seizing control of the global economy, eviscerating the middle class with a raft of new regulations and laws, and shutting down industry with impossible CO2 reduction mandates, while erecting environmentalism, which is really a thin veil for global fascism, as the new universal religion.

This has nothing to do with saving the earth and, as the climategate scandal has illustrated, nothing to do with the real science – but everything to do with a relatively small clique of globalists running roughshod over humanity itself in pursuit of their malthusian control freak agenda.

Have you adopted a terrorist yet?

This is brilliant. Pure Kingdom-of-God. (Thanks to Lynnae for the tip)

Jesus stated, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” So some wonderful Christ-followers are taking this command seriously. ADOPT A TERRORIST FOR PRAYER. Pick an FBI-listed terrorist, and pray for them daily.

Why? The Christian response to violence is love, grace, and mercy. Not violence, war, or hate.

For those not accustomed to viewing Christianity as a religion upholding non-violence, consider this very clear statement from the New Testament: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds" (2 Cor 10:3-4).

A Christian nationalist at this point might be planning to pray for a terrorist in a different sort of way--praying that "our"*** literal soldiers would be successful in killing all of them. Instead of praying nationalistic prayers, Christians should be praying prayers of blessing upon our enemies. In Luke 6:28, Jesus says to pray for those who mistreat us, and he also says "bless those who mistreat you." We must pray that God shower his blessings of love and truth upon terrorists, that in experiencing our kindness they would experience the kindness of Jesus.

If Christians are not known for loving their enemies, then there is no reason to have Christianity. If through our action we give the world a picture of God that portrays God as hateful and unforgiving then churches might as well shut the doors.

The reason I get up in the morning as a Christian is to show the world what God is like. God is love. Jesus commands us to love our enemies. This is the most beautiful worldview imaginable. It is at the heart of the very identity of Jesus' message.

----------------------------------------------------
***The Church does not have soldiers.

MSNBC Cancelled Jesse Ventura For His Opposition To War In Iraq

MSNBC Cancelled Jesse Ventura For His Opposition To War In Iraq
Veteran has a bet that his new show will be pulled at the last minute



Steve Watson - Infowars.net - Monday, Nov 30, 2009

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has revealed that he was effectively silenced for three years by MSNBC when the network cancelled his show in 2003 after learning that Ventura opposed the war in Iraq.

Ventura began the MSNBC show, Jesse Ventura’s America, in October 2003.
The show was originally planned to run five nights a week, but MSNBC executives suddenly changed their minds and it was only broadcast once a week, on Saturdays, before being ditched altogether.

The ex-Navy SEAL has now told the LA Times that he was forced out of the network and prevented from appearing on any other cable TV or news shows.

“It was awful. I was basically silenced.” Ventura comments in the interview.

“When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: ‘Is it true Jesse doesn’t support the war in Iraq?’”

“My contract said I couldn’t do any other cable TV or any news shows, and they honored and paid it for the duration of it. So in essence I had my silence purchased. Why do you think you didn’t hear from me for three years? I was under contract. They wouldn’t even use me as a consultant!” Ventura continues.

“When you live in Mexico, your houses all have names. I almost named my house Casa MSNBC because they bought it. I was paid like a professional athlete, and I got very wealthy. For doing nothing.”

Ventura also states that he has a gentleman’s bet that his new show Conspiracy Theory scheduled to air on Tru TV soon, will never see the light of day, a fact he first revealed on the Alex Jones show last week.

Chronicling the Climategate Saga

ClimateGate For Dummies
Core reading on one of the greatest scandals in modern history. How prominent scientists skewed the data on global warming



Steve Watson & Paul Joseph Watson - Infowars.net - Friday, Nov 27, 2009


On Thursday 19th November 2009 news began to circulate that hacked documents and communications from the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) had been published to the internet.

The information revealed how top scientists conspired to falsify data in the face of declining global temperatures in order to prop up the premise that man-made factors are driving climate change.

The documents and emails illustrated how prominent climatologists, affiliated with the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, embarked on a venomous and coordinated campaign to ostracize climate skeptics and use their influence to keep dissenting reports from appearing in peer-reviewed journals, as well as using cronyism to avoid compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Here follows a compendium of articles and videos on what was quickly dubbed as “ClimateGate”.

The Backstory:
CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to “hide” the real data on manmade climate change
Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’?

Hiding the Decline:
Hacked E Mails: Climate Scientists Discuss “Hiding Decline” In Temperatures
Mike’s Nature Trick
McIntyre: The deleted data from the “Hide the Decline” trick
Hide The Decline – Climategate
Bishop Hill’s compendium of CRU email issues

The Codified Smoking Gun:
Forget The Emails, Code Discusses “Artificially Adjusted” Temperatures
Climategate: hide the decline – codified
CRU Emails “may” be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story

Hijacking The Peer Review System:
“Climategate”: Peer-Review System Was Hijacked By Warming Alarmists
Climate Expert: “Compromised” UN Scientists should be excluded from IPCC, Peer-Review Process
UK Scientist: ‘Case for climate fears is blown to smithereens…whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed’
British climate change scientists ‘conspired to keep skeptics in the dark’

Calls For Investigations:
Call For Independent Inquiry Into Climategate as Global Warming Fraud Implodes
Global Warming On Trial: Inhofe Calls For Investigation Of UN IPCC
US Congress investigates Climategate e-mails: this could be the beginning of the end for AGW
Congress may probe leaked global warming e-mails
Government petition started in UK regarding CRU Climategate

Calls For Criminal Prosecutions:
Another Prominent Scientist Calls CRU Scientists “Criminals”
ClimateGate: People need to go to jail
Lord Monckton: Prosecute the Climate Change Criminals
Author Points To “Climategate’s Perry Mason Moment”
Denying Email Deletion

Skeptics Vindicated:
Climate Alarmists Finally Admit The Debate Is Not Over
The New ‘Deniers’
TV Environmentalist Goes Nuts Over ClimateGate
Global Warming Meltdown: Climategate!

U.S Fallout:
Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws

Australian Fallout:
Ripples of Climategate? Liberal MP’s desert Turnbull in Australia over emissions trading scheme
Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax

New Zealand Fallout:
New Zealand Climate Data Shows Clear Evidence Of Fraud
Climategate: the scandal spreads, the plot thickens, the shame deepens…

Woeful Mainstream Media Coverage:
BBC Climate Correspondent Was Forwarded CRU Emails Five Weeks Before They Were Made Public
Climategate: how the MSM reported the greatest scandal in modern science
Climategate: Monbiot makes it all suddenly OK through medium of satire
Climategate: BBC website still thinks it’s a story about computer hacking
Climategate: How Faine censored the skeptical news
CNN Sucks: Climategate Never Happened
CNN Finally Does Their Propaganda Piece On Climate Gate
NYT Tackles Damning Global Warming Emails, But Reveals Own Hypocrisy
NY Times reporter whitewashes Climategate story he is part of

Alex Jones Coverage of ClimateGate:
Emergency Viral: ClimateGate Fraud Exposes Dirty Tricks Agenda For Global Government
Alex Jones on Climategate: Hoax of all time a global Ponzi scheme
Alex Jones Tv:How to Expose The Climate Fraud!!
Alex Jones TV: Hacked Emails Show Blatant Climate Change Fraud
Dr. Tim Ball on Alex Jones Tv 1/5: Myth on Global Warming & The CRU Hacked Documents
Marc Morano on Alex Jones Tv 1/2:The Case For Al Gore’s Climate Change is Falling Apart
Alex Jones Tv: Climate-Gate ” THE E-MAILS ARE REAL!!!”

Colleague of the climate scammers calls UN climate panel meaningless

From the Watts Up With That? blog:

This is a surprise. Professor Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia suggests that the “I.P.C.C. has run its course”. I agree with him. We really need to remove a wholly political organization, the United Nations, from science.