The Midterm Elections: Why the American People No Longer Have a Voice

A Symptom of American Implosion:

Our Broken and Rigged Voting System

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

For a website view, click here :-)

Now that the mid-term elections have come and gone, we the people – the voting electorate – have been reminded once again of two inescapable facts about America's voting system. These two facts have existed for longer than I have been alive, and I can assure you all that 63 years is plenty long enough. The first fact I'd like to state is that nearly half the country simply never makes it to the polls. In spite of the fact that there was record voter turnout for a mid-term election this time around – and that's always a good thing – still in all, only 61% of eligible voters cast ballots. Thirty-nine percent of eligible voters either didn't bother, or couldn't.

First, let me give an honorable mention to those who couldn't vote because they had to work. The vast majority of these individuals would have voted if they could, but their employment kept them from doing so. That's the nicest way I can think of to put that at the moment, but let's be realistic. The reason these workers can't take time off to go and vote is because they'd lose their jobs, or, because they make so little money as it is that losing as little as one hour's pay is more than they can bear. That, my dear readers, is an economic barrier to voting imposed on the masses by the wealthy business owners, most of whom tend to vote conservative. Working class folks, by and large, are independent or 'blue' voters who vote for 'blue' or progressive candidates. What better way for the wealthy to keep their congressional reps in Washington than to keep their employees from voting for the opposition?

On the other hand, we have those voters, the rest of the 39%, who simply don't bother. They think their vote doesn't matter, that it won't make any difference as far as fixing a broken government is concerned. So they either stay at home and play games on their computers or gaming consoles, hang out with friends and family, and a few just sit home and party all night long. I guess they must think their stupid games and their equally stupid buddies are more important than the broken world that everyone should be devoting all our time to fixing. I guess they must think it feels better to get drunk and stoned than it does to be a part of the solution, to be a part of humanity that's on the rise instead of settling for being victims of their circumstances. America is a country that's in serious trouble from a number of standpoints, and people who won't help fix America's problems make themselves little more than dead weight to the rest of us who really care. People who don't care leave holes in time.

The second fact of life that America must reconcile herself with is our election system is being gamed by the candidates on both sides, and there are many candidates who cheat and get away with it. This is nothing new – stories like this have circulated for as long as I've been alive. It is now an established fact, for example, that Bernie Sanders got cheated out of the Democratic nomination back in 2016. The local elections can be even worse. Here in Atlanta where I live, we had a case back in 2004 where a man who got elected sheriff of DeKalb county, Georgia was assassinated by a hit man hired by the opposing candidate. The loser of that election got life without parole. And just days ago, again here in Georgia, Democrat Stacy Abrams lost the governor's race to Brian Kemp, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State who waited until after the election to resign his post. That's because the Secretary of State is responsible for Georgia's elections. So Brian Kemp used his position as Georgia Secretary of State to ensure his election to the governor's mansion. Nicely done, Governor Kemp, way to shoe-horn your way into the top job in the state! Bravo (not).

To call this disheartening simply doesn't do it justice. Brian Kemp's former opponent, Stacy Abrams, has called off her campaign, but understandably refuses to concede. Accusing the governor-elect of cheating his way into office, Abrams has vowed to file a federal lawsuit charging “gross mismanagement of the entire election”. The apostle Paul wrote about circumstances similar to this during his own time. “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?....” (1^st Corinthians 6: 7-9) In this instance, Paul wrote about lawsuits among believers, but the same logic still applies. Why not rather be the loser than to cheat and win? Why not rather be defeated in the eyes of men and women while being victorious in the presence of the Lord?

But cheating during the elections is exactly what's been going on in America for at least the last six decades or more, and the Georgia governor's race is only the latest example. If our elections are broken, the people no longer have a voice. That's the ugly truth facing Americans today. The voice of the people is being silenced, and I offer the following excerpt from Yahoo Money News, Saturday November 17th, 2018 as proof: “Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) appeared to endorse voter suppression during a campaign stop this month, saying efforts to undermine voting among liberals at certain colleges would be a “great idea.” “And then they remind me that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don’t want to vote,” Hyde-Smith can be heard telling a small crowd of young people outside her campaign bus in a video taken Nov. 3 and posted on online Thursday. “Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea.” Hyde-Smith, who was appointed to the Senate in April following the retirement of Thad Cochran, faces Democrat Mike Espy in a Nov. 27 runoff election. The Trump-backed Republican also came under fire last weekend for apparent racist remarks, joking with a crowd about attending a public hanging.....”

If recently-elected, or appointed, public officials are saying things like this, it makes me wonder what those who are well-established might be saying among themselves. With talk like I just documented above, there's no telling what's being said, but you can be sure it's contemptuous of working people. That's us. Because of this, the American people have a big problem on their hands. They are no longer in control of their country. The government has been in the hands of the Shadow Government, a.k.a. the Deep State, ever since the assassination of president Kennedy back in 1963. I was 8 years old when Kennedy was killed, and I still remember his assassination quite clearly even to this day. It was as traumatic back then as 9/11 was when it occurred. And the country hasn't been the same since.

We have got to figure out a way to take our country back from these Deep State operators. The prophet Zechariah mentioned this in his prophecy for Judah, one of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel. “The idols speak deceit, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false, they give comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like a sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd. My anger burns against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the Lord Almighty will care for his flock, the house of Judah, and make them like a proud horse in battle.” (Zechariah 10: 2-3) Those words were written nearly 2,600 years ago. Today, the 'lost tribes of Israel' are generally viewed by many theologians as the United States, which has the world's largest population of Jewish people. So these words can be just as easily applied to the USA today as they were to the ancient Kingdom of Israel back in Zechariah's day.

“The idols speak deceit” could be considered our televisions and computers (and let's not forget all those phones), and “diviners that see visions that lie”, could be all the phony preachers and bogus televangelists who preach the Word of God for profit. We also are stuck with a crop of leaders who lead for profit, putting their own self interests ahead of the country, as well as their own constituents. “My anger burns against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the Lord Almighty will care for his flock....” I warn you all solemnly as I have before, the United States of America is coming under judgment. The outrageous mistreatment of America's citizens by our leadership in politics, business and the clergy has infuriated Almighty God. The cries of those who just barely live from paycheck to paycheck have reached his ears, and He has, I am certain, much compassion for his people who work so diligently for so little. This situation cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, something's got to give. The only question remains, will our country survive what's coming? It won't take very long to find out. Pray for America!

Why cheating never pays off, and cheaters are losers

Hillary Clinton and Donna Brazile, the D.N.C., and the Bible

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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

By now nearly everyone who gets their news from the Alternative Media has heard or read yesterday's news release about former Democratic National Committee chairman Donna Brazile's new book about her career in the Democrat party, and American politics in general. The following quote regarding this topic is from a posting on thehill.com from this past Friday, November 3rd, and the complete story can be found here:

“The broadcast evening newscasts on three major networks on Thursday didn't mention bombshell revelations by former Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile. Brazile has written in a new book that she discovered evidence that she said showed Hillary Clinton’s campaign "rigged" the Democratic presidential primary. "ABC's World News Tonight," "NBC Nightly News" and "CBS Evening News" all didn't report the allegations by Brazile on Thursday evening despite it receiving considerable coverage on cable news and in print and online media. Brazile was also trending as one of Twitter's top topics on Thursday. In excerpts released to Politico Thursday, Brazile writes in her new book, "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House," that it “broke [her] heart” upon discovering evidence that she said showed the Clinton campaign "rigged" the Democratic nomination system.”

“By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart,” Brazile wrote about a Sept. 7, 2016, call to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who gave Clinton a far more serious challenge for the nomination than many had expected. Brazile also shares an arrangement between the DNC, the Clinton campaign and Clinton’s joint fundraising committee that indicated the campaign would “control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised.” She wrote the arrangement was concocted in an effort to address the mounting debt of the party in the aftermath of President Obama's successful 2012 reelection campaign. “The campaign had the DNC on life support, giving it money every month to meet its basic expenses, while the campaign was using the party as a fund-raising clearing house,” Brazile wrote. “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity," Brazile added.....”

There are two things we can keep from all this as lessons for further down the road of life. The first is one we've all heard before, but apparently some highly placed and influential people seem to have forgotten this – it never pays to cheat! And even when it does, those ill-gotten gains will evaporate at some point down the road – and always at the worst possible moment. That's just the way life works. The second thing is something few people have yet realized – the Democratic party's very existence is threatened thanks to Hillary's apparent cheating in the 2016 primary election. Moreover, the Republicans also have their party's existence threatened by the way Donald Trump has handled his presidency up till this point, making America the laughingstock of the entire world! So, it's safe to say that Ms. Brazile and her new book have dealt a severe blow to the US Republican-Democrat political paradigm. That in and of itself may be the best news of all for regular folks like ourselves.

What does the Bible have to say about cheating? Did Hillary Clinton sin by rigging the Democratic primary? Well, Zacchaeus the tax collector knew cheating was wrong, and said as much when Jesus told him he needed a place to stay and to have dinner, as it is written: “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.'” (Luke 19: 8) The apostle Paul used cheating as an example regarding the filing of frivolous lawsuits that should have been settled within the Church instead of in a court of law, and I quote: “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.” (1^st Corinthians 6: 7-8)

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both have a debt to repay to the American people. They both tried to buy their way into the White House. They both tried to cheat their way into the Oval Office. As we know, only one of them succeeded, but that is besides the point. Whatever the amount of money each of them spent getting elected – or trying to – they should reimburse the American people for rigging the system. And then there's the fact that Russian intelligence tampered with both sides during our election trying to rig the outcome. As before, Russia has also been caught cheating. But for now, let's focus on Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and the money they spent buying their way into the White House. According to CBS News, a total of $6.8 billion was spent on the 2016 presidential campaign. OK then, Jesus was evidently in agreement with Zacchaeus in Luke's gospel, the tax collector who had the bad reputation (see Luke 19: 1-10) among the people. As you read in the last paragraph, Zacchaeus told Jesus, “....if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount....”.

Jesus must have found those terms acceptable since he said nothing to the contrary, right? Then those terms are clearly also applicable to Trump and Clinton. What, they don't believe in Jesus the same way I do? They don't interpret the Bible word-for-word as I do? That makes no difference whatsoever since Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever!! All right, then, let's do the math here – $6.8 billion times 4 equals $27.2 billion – divided by 325 million people. My calculator tells me that works out to $8.3 million for every man, woman and child – right down to the sweet little babies. Eight million three hundred thousand bucks will buy a whole lot of groceries, that's for sure (guess I'd never run out of coffee, thank God!). Other than that, the best thing that could happen to America would be a third party candidate presiding in the Oval Office come January 2021. Until then, don't cheat. It never pays. Hillary Clinton has already had to relearn this lesson. Don't make the same mistake.

The Religious Right Just Got a Bloody Nose From the Same Man They Helped Elect

The 'Spiritual, Not Religious' Gospel of Progressive Christianity Grows as More Become Disenchanted With Traditional Religion

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this in a browser, click here! :-)

So-called “experts” call them “unaffiliated,” as in a recent Pew poll, or “nones” – or even just 'not very religious.' A 2013 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute divided these groups further into “unattached,” “atheists”, “agnostics,” and “seculars.” One thing is for sure; this ever-growing cohort of non-Church Americans made up, at 23 percent, the single largest segment of Barack Obama’s “religious coalition” that helped him win reelection in 2012 (compared to the 37 percent of white evangelicals who supported Mitt Romney). As a result of this, the unaffiliated clearly had their moment. Media analysis, however, did not go very deep – there was a story that went beyond these names and numbers.

I first published this website after I began to understand who the current crop of unaffiliated people are, what they believe in, and who or what inspires them. Yet we have precious little historical understanding of this critical and rapidly growing demographic. What are their roots? What religious, cultural, economic, demographic, and political processes shaped their sensibilities, habits, and makeup? In order to understand these still-believing nonreligious/unaffiliated/agnostics etc., we need to understand that much of the religious dynamism in the United States happens outside the church walls. Moreover, this has been ongoing for quite some time now. The “rise of the non-religious believers” is but the latest phase in the long transformation of religion into what we now commonly call “spirituality.” In my case and that of my peers, it is Christianity and the strongly held belief in Jesus Christ, not as a distant and mysterious god, but as the Son of God who we can develop a relationship with on a personal level. So if you want to get closer to God, just get one-on-one with Jesus. How do we accomplish that? By asking Him into your hearts, to come and dwell there forever. There is truly no other way to get to know him! By the same token, spirituality can mean many things to many people. The language of spirituality is used by traditional religious adherents as well as the religiously unaffiliated. But only the “nonreligious” have made it into a cliche: “spiritual but not religious.”

The history of American spirituality reveals that our commonplace understanding of spirituality — as the individual, experiential dimension of human encounter with the sacred — arose from the clash of American Protestantism with the forces of modern life back in the nineteenth century. While religious conservatives fought to stem the tide, giving rise to fundamentalism, religious Progressives like myself have adapted their faith to the 21^st century, often by discarding orthodoxies (such as my strict Catholic upbringing) in favor of maintaining one's mental health just as anyone would do for a physical ailment, combined with or as a supplement to a personal relationship with our risen Savior. It looks to me like the majority of today’s nonreligious individuals – those who claim no religion but still embrace some form of spirituality – are engaged in the same task of renovating their faith for a new historical moment of major awakening! I am convinced that this moment has in fact arrived in the form of resistance to the Donald Trump presidency. Because this has occurred, right-wing conservatism and the religious right are being dealt a blow from which it will take them a long time to recover, if ever. The Progressive Christians, as I have been calling folks like us (not “liberal”!), will get the football the first time something goes horribly wrong in the Trump White House (only time will tell). It will be up to us to score when that happens, so let's start planning now!

Today’s unaffiliated and nonreligious, like the liberals of previous generations, typically shun dogma and creed in favor of a faith that is truthful, genuine, practical, psychologically attuned, ecumenical and ethically oriented. Of course, Americans of all religious varieties have allowed themselves to be deeply influenced by consumerism, but media and markets are shaping the religious lives of those without formal institutional or community ties. The religiously unaffiliated might not attend services, but they “have” their religion in many other ways: they watch religion on TV and listen to it on the radio; find inspiration on the web; attend retreats, seminars, workshops, and classes; buy candles and statues, bumper stickers and yoga pants; take spiritually motivated trips; and, perhaps most significantly, buy and read books. Books have been the most important conduit for spreading the 'spiritual but not religious' gospel.

This dependency on the consumer marketplace, and especially books, has had significant consequences for the religious lives of all Americans, especially the unaffiliated. First, it has enhanced the tendencies within American religion toward a therapeutic understanding of life from a spiritual vantage point. The profit-oriented commercial presses that came to dominate religious publishing naturally pursued the largest market possible for their goods, and seized on the nondenominational, nonsectarian, and psychologically modern forms of faith advanced by the religious left as a common American Christian vernacular. These trends have only accelerated from the 1920s to the present, so that now the line between religion and self-help sometimes disappears in the spirituality section of Amazon. Second, spiritual consumerism has fostered books that allow some readers entry into religious worlds to which they have not been previously exposed. Since the invention of the printing press, the lines of denomination and tradition have gradually mattered less and less. This process has accelerated greatly with the relatively recent invention of the Internet.

Progressive Christianity's rise and liberal Protestantism’s organizational decline has been accompanied by and is in part arguably the consequence of the fact that the Republican party has recently won the White House and Congress. The cultural victory that is the anti-Trump backlash is happening now because more Americans have been driven away by conservatism in light of a Trump presidency. In other words, leftist religious values and sensibilities became more and more normalized culturally speaking. The recent chapter 7 bankruptcy of Family Christian Stores is only the latest example of the decline of “Religion, Inc.” Even as religious affiliations continue to decline, on-line churches combined with Christian but nondenominational book sales and TV shows are continuing to proliferate. In the process, Christianity is becoming as interconnected as the rest of the world, which can only result in more rapid growth. This is very encouraging news for people like me who wish to spread the Gospel as widely and effectively as they can!

Did America just avoid disaster? Only time will tell.

Did We Just Avert World War Three?

By Rev. Paul J. Bern

With the 2016 election new receding into America's and the world's rear view mirror, I find myself taking stock of the current political situation so I can get my bearings straight. We have just been through a tumultuous election that has changed the course of the entire globe. Two things remain certain – Donald Trump shocked everybody when he won the presidential election, and like him or not, he is determined to change the course of America. And, a change of course is not only what America needed, it has been long overdue. Having said that, let me quickly add that I was no Trump supporter. I was initially for Bernie Sanders, and when that didn't pan out, I ended up casting a protest vote for Trump. I was going to vote for Jill Stein, but she wasn't on the ballot here in Georgia. As far as I was concerned, she was the only remaining choice, and that's all I care to say about that. Debating who should have won the election is not this week's topic.

Although Barack Obama got a lot of good things accomplished during his 8 years in office, there were three things he did that I didn't like. The first was 'Obama-care'. It was not necessary to reinvent health care in America in order to have national health insurance. All we have to do is put the whole country on Medicare. Then let's take every citizen on Medicaid, Obama-care and VA Health Care and roll them over into Medicare. Once that is completed, we should simply defund all three of the latter, saving the country a total of about $3.5 trillion annually, give or take. Last but not least, as a budget-cutting measure, the people working in those bureaucracies will, for the most part, have to be let go. When all those government workers object to that, and they surely will, let's remind them that when they stand back and allow corporate America to export all the good middle class jobs overseas, they ultimately eliminate their own jobs.

The second thing president Obama did that I didn't like was his treatment of, and his relationship with, Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Obama treated Putin like they were still on the streets of Chicago, like a feud between gang leaders. Sorry to have to point this out to all the Obama fans, but it looks to me like Vladimir Putin is pretty much out of Obama's league. US troops on the ground in Syria, a ring of US military bases in eastern Europe near Russia's western border, adding US missile bases in Poland and Romania, and US naval incursions in the Baltic sea and elsewhere, are not the way to improve relations between America and Russia! This is one of the ways president Obama has taken the world closer to a world war. President-elect Trump has stated that he will renew and reinvigorate US relations with Russia. I am nervously watching to see if Donald Trump follows through on that promise. I sure hope he does.

The third thing I disliked about the Obama administration was his open dislike for Israel. By handling US-Israeli relations as poorly as he did, he isolates Israel, which is God's chosen land and people. This will undoubtedly escalate tensions in the Middle East that can result in World War Three as prophesied about in the Bible (see Revelation chapter 18, Jeremiah chapter 51 and other places for the actual prophecies). This has been reckless conduct on his part, which could tarnish his legacy as president after he leaves office. Only time will tell, but on these points, president Obama's apparent attempts to intimidate Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu have blown up in his face at the end of his presidency. As before, this could diminish his legacy as president after he leaves office.

But at the end of the day, America has elected an outsider, a troubleshooter from the business world and a successful businessman in his own right, to start running things in Washington. Being out of the political mainstream gives Donald Trump and America an opportunity for passing some badly needed reforms, a chance to reboot the country, and to do something about our economy, which is not in nearly as good a shape as the media portrays it. Barack Obama promised us “change you can believe in”. We got change all right, but not like the American people envisioned at all. Hopefully Donald Trump will take the opportunity God has given him to institute some real change for the better.

What kind of real change, you may ask? Trump has already named a few things that sound promising. Replacing Obama-care while keeping some of the best parts, congressional term limits, tight new regulations for the lobbyist 'industry' in Washington, vastly improved relations between Russia and America, ditto for Israel, labeling Red China a “currency manipulator”, and many others. By doing all these things, president Trump seems to be getting his new administration off on the right foot. But if he does this correctly, he can avert an all-out war between the US and Russia, which would be disastrous for the entire world. It's not hard to see why. If the US and Russia were to go to war, Red China would come in on Russia's side. That's because China and Russia signed a mutual defense and trade treaty just last year in the summer of 2015. If Russia and China were to attack the US simultaneously, America's survival would be in doubt. The only thing for certain in that case would be the world's population being cut just about in half, and the same goes for all the wildlife.

If Trump succeeds in normalizing relations with Russia like he has stated, he can reverse the course America is on with respect to its relations with Russia. He can turn Vladimir Putin from a suspicious rival into a friend and trading partner. In so doing, he would largely negate the threat Red China poses to America. In short, he would avert what was shaping up to be world war three. He could transform himself from a brash capitalist to a peacemaker. Jesus talked about that in his 'Sermon on the Mount': “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the 'sons of God'.” (Matt. 5: 7) Let's hope these words from our Lord and Savior can be fulfilled in a Trump presidency.

Our National Elections and the American People -- On the Same Page or Not?

One Web Pastor’s Biblical Argument on Why Sanders Should

Have Won, and What Would Have Happened If He Did

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

With both of the conventions that nominated America's next presidential candidates having concluded, I have already come to the conclusion that this year's choice for presidential candidates is really no choice at all. We the 99% have two candidates to choose from who are both from the top .1% in America's economic pecking order, candidates who are clearly bought and paid for by Wall Street, corporate America, and the military-industrial-incarceration complex. “We the people” have the worst choice of candidates since Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson way back in 1964! When Bernie Sanders ran for president he was hoping to initiate what he called a “civil discourse.” He has done far more than that. He inspired a cross-section of American generations who plainly see that our country can do far better than it is, and he inspired this Web pastor, published author and blogger to write this week's message stating such because I stand with Jesus Christ, and I also stand with Bernie Sanders. My biblical argument lies with two rather unconventional Jews. When I saw Bernie Sanders on stage, I saw someone akin to John the Baptist. I saw the wild-haired, roughly-clothed John the Baptist, eating honey and wearing camel’s hair, and crying out to the religious leaders, the Pharisees of his day, calling them corrupt and complicit with those who have all the power and all the money and all the wealth, and for abandoning the people that God loves, that God cares about.

 

Never mind that Sanders supports a woman’s right to choose, to have control over her own body, as well as supporting gay rights and cannabis legalization. Those evangelicals who would have others believe that that's what Jesus cared about most have simply have never read the Bible. If they had, they wouldn't dare say such things about our Savior. Sanders said: “The great irony is if you read the red letters of Jesus, there are no statements on abortion. There are no statements on gay marriage. Now, that’s not to say the Bible doesn’t speak about these things, but it certainly is to say that Jesus, founder and master of our faith, did not see fit to make these high-priority topics.” There is one thing — one major thing — that Jesus did care about. The Jewish prophet John the Baptist cried out in the desert to warn the Pharisees, “ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: 'A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, and make straight paths for him” (Matt. 3: 2-3) I have often tried, sometimes fruitlessly, to point out to the religious right that they have strayed far from the path, and the words, of Jesus. I make a point of bluntly confronting them with Jesus’ own words and have lately begun to equate that with Bernie Sanders’ words, or maybe vice-verse. Sanders said on stage during a speech at Liberty University, “I believe that my views are 100% consistent. And so I think that the shock value for that comes in beginning to appreciate that the Bible and Jesus, in my opinion and in my very moderate reading of the Bible and the words of Christ, leads us to a Progressive worldview.” The words of Jesus resonate in the words of Bernie Sanders. He quotes Jesus from the Book of Luke: “I have come to bring Gospel — good news — to the poor.” 

 

But there is more, so much more! Jesus taught in all four gospels, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” But He didn't stop there, he went after the religious leaders. “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 'The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them'.....'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.'” (Matthew chapter 23, verses 1-4; verses 23-24)

Those were the words that came to my mind when I watched Sanders on stage, calling out evangelical leaders for abandoning the poor. It was a trans-formative moment for American politics! We commit to the mental gymnastics necessary that allows us to abandon “the least of my brethren”, to abandon the poor, to abandon the immigrants, to abandon those who are in prison, to abandon those who suffer from mental illness or addiction. As I watched Bernie Sanders, he said he wanted to welcome the immigrants and give them dignity. He said he wanted to care for the sick children, and their mothers and fathers, who do not have health care. He said he wanted to decrease the amount of human beings who are corralled like cattle in our for-profit prisons. He said he wanted to end this extortion racket known as for-profit education, and make higher education freely available to all without qualification. He said he wanted to do justice for those who have nothing and live homeless. All these things are the things Christ would be doing if he returned today. The wonder for the rest of us may be that it has taken so long – not for an evangelical to come to this moment, but a Jewish gentleman to realize that the poor, the sick, the homeless are the true mission of Christianity and of America. “The first job of any government”, said Thomas Jefferson, “is for the care and well-being of its citizens.” But those layers of defense, those mental gymnastics that the faithful have labored under for decades are heavy and thick. It’s no wonder, after all the reinforcement from their so-called ‘leaders’, that the light of realization has failed to penetrate.

This kind of breakthrough and willingness to speak out are not only invaluable, but demonstrate the ability of Bernie Sanders to draw together a diverse base of support. That base had, and still has, one thing in common. Religious or not, its members have heart, and compassion, and want the country to be a compassionate, loving, and forgiving place. When we choose to follow Jesus we decide that the Kingdom of God, and the men and women and children of this world contained therein, are more important than the individual. Moreover, that accidentally makes us all Progressives. The day we decided to follow Christ, and the day we decided that we value other human beings more than ourselves, we accidentally became Progressives, or maybe social democrats like in Europe. Accidental perhaps, but we are all Progressive Christians as a result of our faith as well as our politics. It’s a concept whose time has most definitely arrived.

These rigged elections are the last straw. Should we go on strike?

Should The American People Go On Strike?

By Rev. Paul J. Bern

Osama bin Laden has been dead for about 4 years by now, maybe more. Meanwhile, ever greater numbers of our senior citizens are living into their 100's. America evidently is having an obesity epidemic, while 50,000 children ages 5 and under die from starvation globally each year. Imagine your child, grandchild, niece or nephew, and then multiply that by 50,000, and you get an idea of the scope of the problem. There's life and death, positive and negative, good and bad in all kinds of folks, circumstances and situations. One priest saves lepers, another abuses altar boys; one Nazi ran the ovens at Auschwitz while another hid the Jews, saving them from certain death (remember a movie called “Schindler's List”?). And when we marvel at those contradictions we have a ready explanation. There's good and bad everywhere, in all races, nations, and societies. We have yet to bridge our differences in race or culture or nationality or faith, but at least we can all agree on that simple truth while we continue to work on all the others. 

 

We live in a 'George Jetson'-like time of instant communication, jumbo jets, digital TV and all that goes with it, social media and even (thank God!) this blog, where I can pass on to everyone what God has put on my mind and heart in the hopes of helping someone, somewhere, somehow. Nations are beginning to blur; races, ethnicities and various nationalities are mixing, our globe has shrunk to an overheated marble, yet the world seems more fractured than ever. So much divides us. What unites us? Religion? It could, but having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ unites us all under his holy banner, meaning that Jesus, not religion, is the answer for me. The maximum number of plausible Gods is one (all you atheists may simply skip this sentence) as far as I'm concerned. Yet we've been waging wars for millennium over what to call Him and whether he wants his picture shown or not. But while religions can't agree on God, they're remarkably close when it comes to people. There is near universal agreement on what makes a good person.

Be kind to people, treat your neighbors well, be hospitable to strangers, love one another, live honestly, and a dozen other virtues seem to comprise some universal truth about humanity. And all societies agree on them. It's as plain as daytime in the Bible. Humankind has been speaking those words since the first philosopher carved cuneiform into clay. We must have an instinctive sense of goodness instilled into us, because we are not born that way. We also agree on what makes a bad person: The murderer, the rapist, the traitor, the manipulator, the cheat, the bully, the taker, the liar, the thief. “Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (Matt. 6:12 NLT) We know who we are. We don't like to hurt people. We try not to cheat, lie and steal and we're ashamed of ourselves when life drives us to those ends because we have a conscience. We believe in peace on earth and goodwill towards men. And for ten thousand years we've let the bad people push us around and tell us what to do and to whom to do it. We've let them because they were bad enough to make us and we were too soft to stop them until they did terrible damage – until they simply had to be stopped, usually involuntarily.

Bad people are very hard to ignore. You can't avoid a bad person if he or she happens to be your boss at work, for example. And that happens a lot, because bad people seem disproportionately to occupy corner offices. They're the bosses, and they know how to play the cold-hearted, cynical game of office politics. That can be rough on you if you work with them (been there, done that). But bad people also know how to play the high-stakes game of national politics, and that's rough on the entire population. Bad people hate, and they convince ordinary good people to hate the same things. Oh sure, there are always a few saints who rise above the evil that bad people do, and they usually die for it. We know about them posthumously from the Bible, starting with Jesus himself, and then with 11 of the 12 apostles, followed by the stoning of Steven in Acts chapters 6-7, plus part of chapter 8.

But those weren't good people, they were great people, and we can't count on them all the time because they don't come along every day. But there are always plain old good people around, because there's good and bad in all kinds. And so this is a call to arms for good people everywhere! We have to stop following the bad people immediately. Without us, bad people have little power, they're merely annoying. Good people everywhere, I'm speaking to you even as you read this. We need to go on strike against the bad people! Let's tell the bullies and haters to leave us alone, because we don't want to have to kill any more of them. After all, that's what it takes to stop one of them. Let's laugh at their rigged economy and crooked government, reject their poisoning our environment and pumping up our kids with drugs they mostly don't need, and refuse to be provoked by their aggression. Let's tell them we won't play their deadly games anymore; let's tell them it's over! We're not sending our sons and daughters off to fight their wars anymore. We're not going to tolerate any more FBI and CIA-instigated false flag terror attacks in our cities, such as what happened in Orlando last week (it turns out at least 4 or 5 of the Orlando shooting victims, up to as many as 10 or 12, were actually shot outside the club while the shooter was still inside. Hmmm...). Don't forget, these are agent provocateurs for the same people that assassinated the Kennedy brothers and Rev. Dr. King. These are the same people who've been slowly poisoning us and our kids by fluoridating our nation's water supply for the last 75 years. If the Dark Side, Satan and his forces of evil, will do this to our nation's finest, what do you think they would do to you if you gave them the chance? Or if they took it upon themselves to come after you or your assets, such as a law enforcement or IRS operation? The average American stands a better than even chance of being killed by the police in such situations!

Maybe what we should do is give all these gun-toting, war-mongering (war mongrels?) maniacal psychopaths a large island or land mass somewhere so they can fight it out to their evil hearts' content. Eventually they will all kill each other off, and die enjoying doing so. Let's see, I'm thinking Siberia, Antarctica or maybe Greenland if it's not too small. But you know, it would apply even there, that pet theory of mine, in this hypothetical land of the damned. Some evil SOB would do something nice for some other evil SOB, probably without even realizing it. Because there's good and bad in all kinds of people. But when God made us he gave us all a free will – freedom to choose our own destinies. Why do I choose God when others don't? Why do I place my complete faith and trust in Jesus Christ? Because, although I could just go my own way and take my own chances, although I could call my own shots and make my own way, I choose Christ. I'd rather believe in Jesus and take a chance on being wrong about it, then I would not believe and take a chance on being wrong about that. Because if I or any of us is wrong about that, if we refuse to believe only to discover our mistake later, there is redemption and salvation in the former choice, but neither in the latter. Please devote your week to thinking carefully about this ultimate choice we must make. Where we spend eternity after our physical lives end will surely depend upon it.

Our presidential primaries are a farce, they've been that way for a long time, and it's up to us to change it

The Day Democracy Died

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

It has come to my attention lately that this summer's presidential conventions are likely to turn into an all-out brawl. On the Republican side you have Donald Trump's supporters vs the “anybody but Trump” brigade, while on the Democrat side we find Hillary Clinton's supporters lined up against those who are for Bernie Sanders. Caught in the middle are the American people, who really have no voice at all anymore unless we step up collectively and change this for ourselves. Take a look around you and you will find no one standing in line behind any of us eagerly waiting to do us a favor. Life isn't like that, so just forget about it. If we want change, and the American people most definitely do, we're going to have to put it in play ourselves. Let the American people take the field, then, and let us play this government for a bunch of suckers just like they did us! Give them a taste of their own medicine and see how they like that!

But the ugly truth of the matter is that the US electoral system has been exposed once again as being rigged to the point of being completely fraudulent. The discrepancies between the final vote tabulation and the exit polls are huge, with several being in excess of 10%. The New York primary was a classic example, where Bernie Sanders won 50 out of the 62 counties that are in New York state, while Hillary won the other 12. And yet Hillary Clinton was declared the winner by 6 percentage points? This is just one example, but you get the idea (what happened in California almost a week ago is another good example). Dr. Ron Paul says the American electoral system is rigged to keep “independent thinkers” from succeeding. “I see elections as so much of a charade,” the former Texas congressman said during an April 11 appearance on RT America’s “The Fishtank.” “So much deceit goes on. I’ve worked on the assumption for many, many decades, that whether there’s a Republican or a Democrat president, the people who want to keep the status quo seems to have their finger in the pot and can control things,” he said in the interview. “They just get so nervous, though, if they have an independent thinker out there — whether it’s Sanders, or Trump or Ron Paul, they’re going to be very desperate to try to change things.” He suggested that the 2016 election is “a lot more entertainment than anything else” because none of the candidates “have answers” to modern political problems. Even so, Paul interprets the success of these outsider candidates as a sign that “more people are discovering that the system is all rigged and voting is just pacification for the voters and it really doesn’t count. I don’t think there’s an easy way out for the establishment or the parties,” he noted, explaining that Democrats and Republicans would both rather risk “further alienation of the people” than allow a candidate to succeed who could shake up the system. “I was upset about it but didn’t want to waste too much energy being angry because this is the way the system works,” he said. “It’s a rotten system.”

People have to understand that the United States is NOT a democracy. It never has been, and it never will be unless we change it ourselves. The United States is also not the constitutional republic it was originally founded as either, and hasn’t been since America became a corporation that serves an oligarchy with the Act of 1871. An oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which power resides in the hands of a small number of elites within a society. The United States of America is a corporation and an oligarchy that serves a political system that lacks anything resembling true legitimacy. The political system it serves is a handful of elite families and institutions using crony politicians such as Hillary Clinton to do their bidding. In what is known as the “Act of 1871,” the Forty-First Congress of the United States officially sold out our nation to the Illuminati (or the “global bankers” if the term global banker suits you better), because the U.S. had reached unsustainable levels of debt and something had to be done (notice a pattern?). The following is from the post titled, Proof: US Congressional Record Says US is Actually a British Crown Colony Run By NWO: “The 'Act of 1871' essentially destroyed our republic, and replaced it with the Corporation of the United States. Something not taught in any history books, and certainly not taught by common core, is that the original Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers, was written in this manner: “The Constitution for the united states of America.” The Act of 1871 altered that, and the newer version reads: “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”” The 1871 version is the Constitution’s “corporate replacement,” and what might seem to layman like no more than mere semantics is actually a far, far bigger deal.

Save the “Conspiracy” nonsense for another time. The Act of 1871 can be downloaded and read for yourself. What Congress did by passing the Act of 1871 was create an entirely new document, a constitution for the government of the District of Columbia, an incorporated government. This newly altered Constitution was not intended to benefit the Republic. It benefits only the corporation of the United States of America and operates entirely outside the original Constitution. Instead of having absolute and unalienable rights guaranteed under the original Constitution, “we the people” now have “relative” rights or privileges. One example is the Sovereign’s right to travel, which has now been transformed (under corporate government policy) into a “privilege” that requires citizens to be licensed. By passing the Act of 1871, Congress committed TREASON against the American people who were Sovereign under the grants and decrees of the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution. Not only that, but the Bible has some scripture that fits this very closely, such as Proverbs chapter 14, verse 31: “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” Deuteronomy 15: 4 says “there should be no poor people among you.....”, and again in Isaiah 61: 1 it reads, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners”. Who among us is “the poor and the needy”? Just about everybody these days. Are we being oppressed? Certainly, because we no longer have any say in our government, and because our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are being taken away!

This is a dangerous trend, and it must be reversed if what is left of our country is going to be preserved. Of course, election irregularities are nothing new in America. There was the Bush/Gore debacle of 2,000, which exposed the US electoral system as being like something out of the 1950's. But these same people are the ones who brought us endless wars in the 21^st century, Waco Texas in 1993, Iran Contra from the 1980's, the Watergate break-ins of the 1970's, and the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Rev. Dr. King from the 1960's. So, you see, we will never know who really won the presidential primaries, and it may not matter anyway. Today's American political candidates are selected, not elected. The whole electoral, economic and political systems are rigged against us in favor of the top 1%, or maybe the top .01%. At any rate, it's looking more and more like “we the people” will have to stop this by force. As I see it, we have run out of options. After all, was it not Jesus himself who said, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.” Got yours?