Sunday, December 30, 2018

President Trump, the Washington Shutdown, and the Bible

Unlike Trump and the Government,
the One True God Never Shuts Down
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
For a website view, click here :-)



It has happened again. Usually when the federal government shuts down, it's because Congress and the president can't pass a federal budget on time. This time around the shutdown is all about money all right, but never before has there been a shutdown inside the Beltway over a single item within the overall federal budget like there has been over president Trump's border wall. I have seen photos of the 4 “sample walls” president Trump has had constructed along side one another in the southern Arizona desert. You can't even see through them! Some drug cartel could be building a ramp or a ladder on the other side, and the Border Patrol wouldn't be able to see that until people were already coming over the top. This is idiotic!


OK, so let's all visualize this for a minute. Two Border Patrol agents of the USDHS hypothetically spot several men climbing over the top of president Trump's 'wall'. But when they apprehend them, 25 or 50 more come over the top right behind them. The only sure way to stop all those people at once would be to shoot to wound a few, in the hopes of causing the rest to stop where they are out of pure fear of being shot themselves. Unfortunately for the Border Patrol, not to mention any Christian worth his or her salt, they're not allowed to do that unless they are fired on first by one of the migrants. As you may know, that rarely if ever happens.


Moreover, if I were a Border Patrol agent, I wouldn't be able to hold on to that job for very long, because I simply refuse to shoot anyone who presents no danger to myself, nor to anyone else. And I sure as hell couldn't shoot at children, nor could I allow a single one to die while in my custody like ICE and the Border Patrol have. And yet this is exactly what our government is doing. They're murdering children, and this has either got to stop or the American people will be forced to rise up against their own government. In that event, anyone who refuses to rise up against such evil make themselves complicit in these crimes against humanity.


The other aspect to Trump's government shutdown has been the 800,000 US government employees who have been left without a paycheck. Worse yet, some of them are compelled by law to work without pay in such circumstances as this. Imagine what this means to these federal workers! Employees are required by law to work without pay during a government shutdown. That means they can be arrested for not showing up to work unexcused, and the same goes for even trying to quit. So, it is quite evident based on these rather ugly facts that the federal government is not a very nice employer at all. On further thought, it makes me wonder why anyone else would want to work there in the first place. For the “benefits”? I find no 'benefit' whatsoever in being potentially complicit in the slaughter of innocent children who pose no threat to me.


What this means from the employees' point of view is their own government – their employer – can't be trusted to pay them on time because Uncle Sam can't keep his house in order. And, it's all because the government (allegedly) doesn't have enough money to go around. Maybe if the Pentagon wasn't spending all those trillions of dollars in all those clandestine wars being fought overseas, there would be money for a border wall. And even then, we don't want a wall, all we really need is a tall fence. We need border security, granted, but a $5 billion solid concrete wall really is way over the top. A fence made of aluminum bars 16 to 20 feet tall with razor wire at the top could be built for a fraction of the $5 billion president Trump is currently demanding, and I'm sure Trump knows that. He's holding out to see how much he can squeeze out of Congress, but I doubt that the Lord approves of the way the president is going about it.


By laying off 800,000 people, while causing another 400,000 to work uncompensated, Trump has essentially taken the country's workers and management hostage in an effort to gain a political advantage. To sum this up, then, president Trump is being unfaithful to those the government employs, and by extension to the rest of America. The Bible has a lot to say about unfaithfulness. Faithfulness is considered to be a virtue, as the prophet and Psalmist David wrote in Psalms 117:2 – “For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.” In comparison, president Trump's faithfulness to pay his workers on time is conditional to his political demands being met. Now that it's been established that Mexico isn't going to pay for the wall at America's southern border, Trump is trying to force his employees to cover the tab instead. This has got to be the ultimate in unfairness in the workplace. Don't get me wrong, president Trump, I admire and respect some of the things you've done or are doing, such as your recent decision to pull out of Syria. But engineering a mass layoff for political advantage really is way too much.


Contrast the government shutdown to what God has said through his prophet David regarding this matter: “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does.” (Psalm 145:13) Unlike president Trump, who has to run again in 2020 if he wants 4 more years – and if he wins at the ballot box – God never has to run for reelection. He has ruled and reigned for all eternity, and always will. Only once did 1/3 of the angels challenge his authority, everyone knows what happened to them. Moreover, God remains faithful to each one of us on a personal basis, as the apostle Paul wrote, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinth. 10:13) The word 'you' in this context meant the entire church at Corinth, but it was also meant individually to each member as well.


Again it is written in 1st Thessalonians 5:23-24, “23) May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24) The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.” As of this writing, with the partial federal shutdown firmly in place, Donald Trump is the last man on the face of the earth who could be called blameless at this point. Not only is he being unfaithful to his employees first, and his constituency second, he has put the entirety of his trustworthiness as Chief Executive into question. What has the Bible said about this? The apostle Paul wrote, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (1 Cor. 4:2) In its original context, the apostle Paul was writing about those in charge of churches being trustworthy people of good repute. These words were intended for what Paul called “bishops and overseers”. Interestingly enough, the titles 'pope', 'father' and 'pastor' aren't in the Bible anywhere, but that's another topic for another time.


Although I would be quick to agree that running a country's government is nothing at all like running a nonprofit, the person in charge of that charity – be it a church, a battered women's shelter, or whatever needs to be a faithful and trustworthy individual. This clearly extends to governments, which are supposed to be nonprofit entities but obviously are not (such as $21 trillion missing from the Pentagon, etc). One of the things that define faithfulness is those in charge being faithful to the positions they have been entrusted with by the electorate. This means, among other things, paying your employees on time. So this part of my weekly message is primarily directed at president Trump, but the shutdown in Washington is not all Trump's fault. The rest of the blame lands squarely in the laps of Congress, who have yet to show any willingness whatsoever to negotiate with president Trump in good faith. As of this writing, no such thing has happened, and the government will probably remain shuttered until after the first of the year. While resolve abounds in Washington DC, faithfulness is sorely lacking. Let everyone involved from the president on down get this country running again ASAP, and let's put an end to all this pointless posturing – on both sides!


Sunday, December 23, 2018

1 year after we fled the USA for Mexico

Merry Christmas -- to all the orphans

Happy Holidays to All the Orphans
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
For a website view, click here :-)





First of all, merry Christmas and happy new year to all the orphans, wherever you may be. You see, I'm an orphan myself, and I'm in my 60's. There are a lot of us out there. We're called “elder orphans” – people who have outlived most if not all of their relatives, who are estranged from their families, or who aged out of the foster care system like I did as a teenager. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, there are 22.6 million people in the USA alone who currently have this dubious distinction. Twenty two and a half million folks who ain't got nobody, and there is nothing any of us can do about it. It's a harsh reality, but sometimes life can be very harsh indeed. You either learn to roll with the punches, ducking and dodging as best as you can, or you get the living daylights beat out of you. It's all up to you. I know that's not a particularly nice thing to say, but that's the truth. And I love truth.


I am one of those who aged out of the foster care system as a teenager. I started out in life as an orphan, only to wind up in foster care. I was told as a child I was adopted, only to find out decades later that it was a lie. I was told I had been taken away from my birth mother as an infant because I was born “in jail”, to quote the woman who raised me, who I knew as 'mom'. But there came a time when I was in my twenties when I needed a copy of my birth certificate, and when it arrived in the mail I was in for a big surprise. According to my birth certificate, I had been born in a private home and then transported to a hospital. When I confronted my “mom” about this and demanded to know the identity of my birth mother, she refused, saying she and her late husband (my foster-dad died just after my 12th birthday) had 'spent their hard-earned money on me', and that it was “none of your business” who my real mom was. And you think you've got family problems??


So the woman who raised me and myself are permanently, and understandably, estranged. How do I cope with all this? How could anybody cope with even one out of all the things I just mentioned? I tried to find my original identity, but none of the people who lived in the house I was evidently born in were still alive by the time I checked, and the doctor who had attended me at the hospital was also deceased. I registered with a government database in Ohio, the state where I was born, just in case I had any siblings trying to find me, but I never heard back from anybody. So I have drifted through life all alone. I have tried marriage twice, but I was still alone and adrift despite being a head-of-household. My two marriages combined lasted a little over three years. My ultimate solution has been my faith. In fact, my faith is the only thing that has consistently worked for me over the years. That, and I published a book about my experiences in the form of a memoir back in 2014. It's called, “Sole Survivor”, it's still in print, digital or audio format from this link. Writing and publishing that book was very therapeutic for me. It helped me get rid of a lot of old baggage.


So I wrote this piece this week to see how many others I could reach out and help this holiday season. But I'm not going to limit this to just the orphans and those who aged out of the foster care system. If you know your parents and are on good terms with them, you are already ahead of a lot of people in terms of having family. If you have ever received an inheritance from a relative, you're doing better than many. In that case, I would advise that individual or family to use that inheritance to start a small business. In an economic climate where meaningful jobs are so hard to come by, it makes so much more sense to simply hire yourself.


But there are also a surprising number of advantages to being an 'elder orphan'. First of all, I have almost nobody to buy Christmas gifts for, excluding a few friends from the church where I play keyboards every Sunday. That's a major money and time saver for me and others like me. There is no one to cook for me, but I know exactly what I want something to taste like before I ever start cooking it, so everything I make on the stove or in the oven turns out perfect every time. There is no one's birthdays to remember, and there's no 'moochy' relative sleeping on my couch and eating my food. I get up when I want, usually around 8 or 9AM, and I go to sleep when I want, usually by 11PM or so. I know that's over 9 hours sleep per night, but since I survived a stroke I had back in 2006, my body seems to need 9 hours of sleep. I sometimes get up to an early alarm, but I can no longer do that on a daily basis. When I do get up to an early alarm, it's usually because I have a medical appointment or because it's a church or grocery day.


Another big advantage to being a 'senior orphan' is the independence. When you go through life without any family as I have, you wind up being a fiercely independent person somewhat like, or very similar to, myself. No one is nagging me about anything. Nobody bosses me around, and I don't take any crap from anyone, either. I've always functioned much better and was much happier when I was self-employed. Trying to work for somebody else always was a chore, and I never seemed to fit into the office work environment no matter how hard I tried. Orphans are like that, you know. A lot of business owners are orphans. Unfortunately, so are a lot of homeless people, and so are may of those who commit suicide. They have no one to help them through the pain of what they are experiencing, no one to ease their anguish. Without a Higher Power to turn to, they simply give up. This can happen in any number of ways. For example, here in Atlanta where I live, there are car wrecks involving wrong-way drivers on the interstate highways every so often. According to the CDC, at least one third of these head-on crashes turn out to be suicides.


I would urge anyone who is experiencing suicidal thoughts to call the national suicide hot-line at 1-800-273-8255. Seriously, do it right now if this is you. You can read the rest of this later. But for everyone I wish to say it's not so bad to be stuck being alone. Being alone and independent means you are free from many of the encumbrances of everyday life, especially family issues. It means you have no kids to raise. It costs $250,000.00 to raise a child from their birth until they finish the first 12 grades of school. Think about how much money you're saving. Another advantage to being an 'elder orphan' is not having a dangerous ex-spouse to obtain restraining orders against to protect yourself and your kids. That's all I'm going to say about that.


Survivors of foster-care and/or spousal or parental abuse do not get to skate away from such circumstances without a hefty toll being taken by life and that of living it. It is common for survivors to suffer from PTSD as I do. Trauma, especially during childhood, can be a trigger for mental illness, and I am a survivor of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder myself. But mental illness is something that can be managed with certain medications, and I am happy to report that I'm in my 12th year of recovery, and I never so much as looked back once. Nor do I regret being an 'elder orphan'. I relish my independence, go at my own pace, and I live the simple life. It's far from being a really prosperous one, but I've made a lot of money before, and riches tend to be a trap and a headache. But at the end of the day, for those of us who are the survivor of survivors like myself, the term 'orphaned elder' has a nice ring to it. To me at least, the word 'orphan' is the sound of freedom.

Sunday, December 16, 2018

I have no silver or gold this holiday season, but I have something much more valuable

Worried About Your Investments?

Place All Your 'Stock' In Other People Instead
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
For a website view, click here :-)



I stream videos on my computer in the evening when I'm not busy with the on-line ministry God has entrusted me with. I don't bother with cable or satellite TV, they want too much money for those subscriptions, especially the broadband providers like Comcast and Charter. One of the social media outlets I use is You Tube (not a plug or an ad here, OK?), where there exists a proliferation of survivalist and/or “prepping” channels, as well as many more devoted to hawking the benefits of investing in silver and gold instead of stocks, bonds, futures or commodities, etc. The common theme of all these videos is that the US dollar is going to crash due to its impending replacement as the world's reserve currency, most likely by the Chinese Yuan.


So the idea behind these videos I've watched (I'm not naming names) is to get out of the stock and bond markets altogether, which may not be such a bad idea. But their 'solutions' are not so hot, if you ask me. Take the money from the liquidation of your investments, they're saying, and put it all into silver, gold, and digital currencies, of which Bitcoin is probably the most well-known. Still other videos, who have these self-appointed doomsday specialists as their paid sponsors, urge their viewers to stock up on weapons, ammunition, water and nonperishable food, plus things like first aid supplies and barter items. It's not that I find anything wrong with their ideas, but what disturbs me about this is that most of these purveyors of gloom and doom are Christians. If they are in fact Christian, then why don't they read their Bibles? Yes, I know there is much written about the End Times, or Last Days, throughout the Bible. The Book of Revelation, the prophets Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah, the prophetic chapters of Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13 in the Gospels – all have much to say. The problem I'm having is that the above Scriptures are only a part of the story, and the remainder isn't being emphasized enough.


The gold and silver everyone is hoarding will crash, right along with the currencies that they are traded in, as it is written in Ezekiel chapter 7, verse 19: “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be treated as a thing unclean. Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs, for it has caused them to stumble into sin.” In times past when disasters struck, the first thing people would take as they were fleeing would be their silver and gold. It was the one thing they could use for a universal currency. But this time around, when the debt-based economies fail that set the price of precious metals and other related commodities (such as crude oil or natural gas), the value of any given commodity will also evaporate. The only thing that precious metals and natural resources and related commodities will be good for at that point will be for bartering purposes.


All right then, you may say, if gold and silver will have no value during the End Times, and assuming Ezekiel was right (which he was!), then what will be left? Food and water? Guns and ammunition? How about fuel, weapons, or tools? Granted, all of these have value during good times and bad, but these things are not all there is to life, nor to preparedness. There is one thing that is far more valuable than all of the above, and that is the human soul, as it is written in the books of Moses: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7: 6) Now the word “holy” means to be set aside, or to be held in reserve, for only the most special of occasions. That's how God views us – we are his “treasured possessions”!


Silver and gold have no value in God's sight, because God has already made them both. It would be like expecting Henry Ford to buy himself a Ford Model A when he already had a Lincoln or two. In a somewhat similar way, we can't expect God to value gold or silver more than the human soul, as the apostle Peter explained so well: “18) For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19) but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20) He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21) Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 22) Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1st Peter 1: 18-23)


Verses 18 and 19 explain what I'm trying to say here so perfectly that I will simply move on with little comment, except to say that instead of investing in silver and gold or digital currencies – all of which are tied to the US dollar, either directly or indirectly – should be supplanted with an immense investment in human capital. Square One of that people-investment should be the salvation of Christ, who gives us all our sense of worth by being purchased with his blood, which he shed on a cross. No silver or gold was required. “22) Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” We are to obey Jesus and follow his commandments because Jesus Christ is truth personified. We have been born again as imperishable, whereas before we had all received a death sentence.


I have one more thought about the fruitlessness of investments here in the Last Days, and it comes from the apostle Paul: “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.” (1st Corinthians 7: 23) If the blood of Jesus is the only real investment that will still hold its value after our lives are over, investing in gold, silver, Bitcoin, antiques, collectibles and anything else you can think of will ultimately turn out to be a waste of time and money. The only worthwhile investments are the giving of our hearts and minds, first to Christ because he has died for each of us, and secondly to each other. In both cases, they are to be done unconditionally and without reservation. That means we are charged with the duty of loving those who are unlike us, such as those with different skin color, or of a different religion. So if you aspire to be a big-time investor, let's start investing in the most precious commodity of all – the human soul.


Sunday, December 9, 2018

My 7 Reasons Capitalism is Done and Over With (with free book excerpt)

Seven Reasons Why Capitalism,
As We Know It, Has Run Its Course
Free book excerpt #33 from, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto 4th Edition” by Rev. Paul J. Bern
For a website view, click here :-)



As world trade continues its anemic 1.2% average annual growth rate, politicians in most industrial countries, and particularly in the US, have an incentive to make exaggerated claims about the alleged ongoing economic recovery. The government wants us to think the Great Recession is over, and that we're on "the road to recovery," while the American people and other nations look on skeptically. The ugly truth is that more and more people have lost confidence in – and consequently no longer trust – the federal government. To make matters worse, 2015 turned out to be the year when the American public lost confidence and trust in law enforcement (think Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Gardner in New York, and that's just for starters). The street protests in Ferguson, New York, Chicago, L.A., Atlanta, Baltimore and elsewhere attest to the authenticity of that mistrust, which continues to get progressively worse. Below are seven important social phenomena that point to a more realistic economic and political outlook for 2019. Let's start where it matters most by beginning with the economy.



My Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can't Recover



1) The Central Banks are clueless. The usual tricks that U.S. and European central banks use to keep their debt-based economies going are long-exhausted. Interest rates cannot get much lower. And because cheap money wasn't working, the printing press was turned up a notch, into what the U.S. federal reserve calls quantitative easing -- injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the world economy, escalating an emerging trade war. Most recently, the Fed is raising rates at the insistence of investors and retirees, who have been seeing zero income from their “investments” for many years. This is bound to end disastrously one way or the other.


2) Trump's Trade Wars. For a global economy to grow, global cooperation is needed. But in a major recession all countries engage in a bitter struggle to dominate foreign markets so that their own corporations can export. These markets are won by devaluing currencies (accomplished in the U.S. by quantitative easing), installing protectionist measures (so that a nation's corporations have monopoly dominance over the nation's consumers), or by waging warfare (a risky but highly effective form of market domination).


3) The Pentagon's Military Wars. Foreign war is a good symptom of economic decay. The domination of markets – every inch of them – becomes an issue of life and death importance. Wars have been unleashed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. America is fighting scores of clandestine wars in numerous other countries as well. "Containing" economies like China and "opening" economies like Iran and North Korea become more urgent during a major recession, requiring brute force and creating further global instability in all realms of social life.


4) The U.S. Economy is going nowhere in a hurry. The most important consumer market in the world, the U.S., is a nation of totally bankrupt consumers. Nearly 18 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, while further job losses are certain due to nearly every state's budget deficit. States are bracing for more painful cuts, more layoffs, more tax increases, more battles with public employee unions, more requests to bail out cities. And in the long term, as cities and states try to keep up on their debts, the very nature of government could change as they have less money left over to pay for the services they have long provided." (date 12-05-10; the problem with state government budget shortfalls has since gotten far, far worse – PB)


5) Bailout Capitalism Emerges. First it was the banks and other corporations that needed bailing out in 2008, and now whole nations want the same. Western nations bailed out their banks by falling into the massive debt that they are now drowning in. Greece and Ireland have been bailed out, with eyes shifting to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. With the emergence of “Brexit”, the entire European Union is being called into question as the Euro takes a beating in the bailout spree. If the EU is dismantled, the shock waves will quickly reach other economies globally.


6) Bailout Repercussions. All western nations -- starting with the U.S., Canada and Great Britain – are grappling with their own national debts. Rich bond investors are demanding that these countries drastically reduce their deficits, while also demanding that the deficits be reduced on the backs of working families instead of rich investors. This is tearing the social fabric apart, as working and poor people see their social programs under attack. In Europe mass movements are erupting in France, Spain, Portugal, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy, etc. Social stability is a prerequisite for a recovered economy, but corporate politicians everywhere are asking much more than working people are willing to give.


7) The Far Right Emerges. To deal with working people more ruthlessly, the radical right is being unleashed. In normal times these bigots yell furiously but no one listens. But in times of economic crisis they're given endless airtime on all major media outlets. The message of the far right promotes all the rottenness not yet eradicated by education: racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, violence, and a backward nationalism that fears all things "foreign." These core beliefs effectively divide working people so that a concerted campaign against the corporate elite is harder to wage. Meanwhile, labor unions, progressives, and other working class organizations are instead targeted.



America imports twice the dollar amount of manufactured goods than it does oil. Since 2000 the US experienced a rapid increase in the imports of advanced technology products. A country dependent on foreigners for manufactured and advanced technology products is not a superpower. When it comes to Americans ages 18-24, 63% could not locate Iraq, Iran or Israel on a Middle East map. Fifty percent could not locate New York City. Moreover, 30% of respondents thought US population exceeded one billion. Forty-seven percent of all urban school children do not possess basic grade level skills. Is there any doubt as to why the jury system is a sham? Despotism and dictatorship reign when ignorance and nonsense rule societies. Society will divide itself into exploiters and exploited. In the early 1800's, complex literacy in New England exceeded 93%. A small farm nation, without newly built schools, sport stadiums, and "prestigious" universities had a much better track record. They keenly observed the American ideal of independence while never watching TV or indulging in Virtual Reality.



A country that has too many lacking in native knowledge is not a superpower. Countless industrial plants have been closed as 3.5 million jobs in manufacturing have been outsourced in the last ten years. In that time 7 million less jobs have been created than what population growth required. The high tech jobs never appeared as touted. Information Technology, computer system designs, and telecommunications in fact lost 17%, 9%, and 25% of its work force respectively. Even wholesale and retail trade experienced job losses, mainly at the managerial levels. As several hundred thousand engineers languished in unemployment lines for years, salaries for law school graduates continue to skyrocket. Firms in Philadelphia and New York are offering newly trained ruling class members over $125,000.00 in annual salaries. A country that does not fully utilize and reward its productive citizens and instead caters to the parasitic and marginal sectors is not a superpower. A country whose populace has been reduced to chattel by the special interest-driven 'health care for ransom' system is not a superpower.



Unfortunately, lawsuits for unproven and astronomical monetary amounts are pursued as the main recourse. These acts obviously fuel the healthcare crisis. Senator Hillary Clinton, who received $4.6 million from a trial lawyer group, helped to block medical lawsuit reform during her 2016 campaign. This mild bill would have saved her constituents $800.00 a year in premiums. A country that allows legalized bribery to plutocrats to influence law and policy is not a superpower. A country in which 4-7% of its people are illegals who now choose to dictate terms is not a superpower. This is clearly a breakdown of law and order.....”



In closing, the various reasons for capitalism's impending failure I have just elaborated on do not happen in a normal economic cycle of boom and bust. These symptoms point to a larger disease in the capitalist economic system, a disease that cannot be cured by politicians who swear allegiance to this deteriorating system and to the wealthy elite who benefit from it. To ensure that the economic system is changed so that working people benefit, the ones who do the real work every day to keep things moving, large-scale collective action is necessary based on demands that unite the majority of working people. The ongoing fight for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage is one good example of large-scale collective action. What America needs is a massive job-creation program at the expense of Wall Street, an expansion of Social Security and Medicare, and a moratorium on home foreclosures. If the Christian community worked cooperatively with the unions in promoting these demands, working people could put up a real fight. After all, the Bible says, “The workman is worth his/her wages”.






Sunday, December 2, 2018

I wonder what Jesus would say about all those refugees at Tijuana?

America's Christian Hypocrisy Regarding

the Asylum Seekers at Her Southern Border
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
For a website view, click here :-)



The headline in this past Friday's Huffington post said it all: “Chris Cuomo Shreds Hypocrite Christians Who Celebrate Christmas But Reject Migrants”. In a timely article posted by David Barden on November 29, this journalist quotes the CNN host when he said earlier that same day that it is a, “....moral imperative for America to assist members of the migrant caravan”. With growing numbers of asylum seekers gathering just a stone’s throw away at the U.S.-Mexico border, the CNN host said that, “It’s not enough to say that we bear no responsibility because we didn’t create the problem. Our responsibility comes from the absolute fact that we have the power to provide a solution here,” he said. “There’s a moral imperative here, America does what she can.” With the holiday season in full swing, Cuomo then pointed out the hypocrisy of American Christians who celebrate Christmas yet shun migrants. 'No small irony that Christians are getting ready to celebrate the story of Christmas, which is the exact story that we are trying to block out here,' he said. 'The poor and unwanted who wound up bringing the Savior into this world in a stable, rejected. Just as we’re doing now. This is who we are now and it must be exposed.'”


Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Cuomo, and allow me to help expose this very thing about my country this holiday season. The truth of the matter is that Chris Cuomo was spot-on with that statement regarding the current state of the USA. For a man like myself born in the 1950's, the USA of the early 21st century is unrecognizable compared to the country where I grew up. We weren't nearly as spoiled as we are now, and yet we were happier for the most part. I grew up in a time when air conditioning was considered a luxury, and where women didn't work unless they wanted to. People made a lot less money than today, but the daily cost of living was far less than today, so that didn't make any difference. The first Ford Mustangs in 1965 had a base price of $1,995.00, ditto for the Volkswagen Beetles of that time period. The world used to run on commerce, but today it runs on debt. Commerce symbolized free enterprise back then, but today's debt is really just the new slavery. America actually never really ended slavery after the US civil war, she simply out-sourced it.


If we go back to the Book of Exodus in the Bible to the time when the ancient Israelite's were wandering in the desert – after leaving 400 years of slavery behind in Egypt – we find that God warned them about mistreating foreigners among them. “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt” (Exodus 22: 21). Foreigners being in the land in which we live goes back at least 3,400 years or more. All our ancestors were foreigners at one time or another in their lives, dating all the way to humankind's hunter-gatherer years. Taking that into consideration, that makes the rest of us either foreigners or the descendants thereof. Now you know why I have such a problem with those who stand against the asylum seekers, and particularly those haters who profess to be Christian by faith. Jesus taught us to “....love our neighbor as we love ourselves”, meaning (in this case) those who rail against immigrants and asylum seekers ultimately rail against their own fathers and grandfathers.


Yesterday's posting about this matter in Buzzfeed.com had this to say:
One Reason The US And Mexico Can’t Agree On Having Asylum-Seekers Wait In Mexico: The Trump Administration Itself Is Divided

The Justice Department wants asylum applicants turned away without any vetting of their claims. Homeland Security wants them screened for fears of staying in Mexico.


WASHINGTON — “Homeland Security and Justice Department officials are feuding over a controversial plan that would force asylum-seekers at the southwestern border to remain in Mexico until their cases are decided, according to sources close the administration. Department of Justice officials have been pushing for asylum-seekers at the border to be immediately returned to Mexico as they arrive at the border, instead of first undergoing screening for fear of persecution or torture if they are not allowed in. Department of Homeland Security officials want asylum-seekers screened for persecution, torture, and fear before being immediately returned to Mexico, to ensure that there are no serious concerns for their safety in Mexico. The dispute highlights the fact that key details regarding the plan are still up in the air.....


There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, right before your eyes. The reason for the infighting among members of the Trump administration, in one word, is fear. They're all afraid of a bunch of migrant workers who simply want to restart their lives, and who want to escape the rampant violence of the drug gangs in central and south America. They pose a minimal threat to ourselves, and those who do will be weeded out, one way or another. Few, if any, of these people will escape president Trump's dragnet, you can all be sure about that. Rather than be caught up in an irrational fear of one other, we're charged by God with the sacred duty to love one another. The apostle John wrote of this when he said, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: that we should love one another.” (1st John 3: 11) As things stand in 21st century America right now, there are too many Americans who have forgotten or cast aside this essential teaching of our Lord and Savior.


And so as America sings, “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men”, along with the rest of the Christmas carols this year, I wish a lot of people would do what used to be done up until about the 1970's or so. People used to go Christmas caroling door-to-door, mainly focusing on the elderly and disabled, and oftentimes the lonely and forgotten. It was a tradition that dated back centuries, and it needs to be brought back. Moreover, it needs to be brought to the border at Tijuana, Mexico where the asylum seekers are being held. If I somehow had the means, I would charter a plane to San Diego, California full of people. We would transfer to buses for the remainder of the journey to the border fence, get out and walk right up to it. Then, once we were all in place, we would start with ,”Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” and sing a medley of Christmas carols to all the refugees until we are all hoarse.


We could do an hour-long set of Christmas carols, like a song medley, to warm the hearts of all the refugees, and to let them know that there are Americans on the other side of that fence who view them as brothers and sisters in Christ. Never mind nationality and race, just forget about all that stuff. There needs to be a lot more “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men”, and a lot less rhetoric, bigotry and vitriol by certain Americans whose chief stock in trade is contempt for those who are different from themselves. This is particularly applicable to the wealthy. We have a “moral imperative” to replace contempt with compassion, to replace bigotry with understanding, and to substitute love for hate. Perfect love, the apostle James wrote, drives out fear. OK, since we know that hatred is based on fear, it is our moral responsibility as Americans – Christian or otherwise – to understand the origins of our own fears. Until then, we will be powerless to change ourselves. But if we consciously engage in love for one another, we can suffocate the fear right out of ourselves and kill it. So do that first, and you take the first step down the road to a happier and more fulfilled life.