The Preservation of Peace in Syria Is of Prime Importance

The Disastrous Consequences of

a U.S. Military Attack on Syria

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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Lately I have been seeing or hearing the Trump administration telling the world that the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad government must be answered by other worse weapons, even though the results of satellite surveillance has not proven this allegation – just as the Bush administration refused to wait for the 2013 UN report by the inspectors who had been looking for WMD in Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed back in 2013 that the UN inspectors “can’t tell us anything that we don’t already know.” President Trump has said that any U.S. attack on the Assad government will be as punishment, not regime change. The strike will be “limited” — but tell that to the civilians who will inevitably die when military attacks take place. President Bush and his advisers either didn’t know or didn’t care about the probable consequences of their decision to invade and occupy Iraq in March of 2003:

• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 4,000 Americans dead;
• Millions of Iraqis and Americans wounded physically and psychologically;
• Legions of young men of the region now experienced in warfare and for hire moving from Iraq to Libya to Syria;
• And, the Iraqi “democratic” government unable to control the whirlwind of sectarian violence that now is killing hundreds each week.
• Although the U.S. invaded and occupied Afghanistan under a different rationale, I also want to acknowledge and empathize with the Afghan citizens who have been killed or wounded in the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

President Trump has not spelled out the possible consequences of a military attack on Syria, but U.S. military leaders are warning about the risks. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey wrote last month said, “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

General James Mattis, who is the retired head of the U.S. Central Command and Trump's Secretary of State, said last month at a security conference that the United States has “no moral obligation to do the impossible” in Syria. “If Americans take ownership of this, this is going to be a full-throated, very, very serious war.” As U.S. warships gather off the shores of Lebanon to launch Tomahawk Cruise missiles at targets in Syria, we can make some educated guesses of what the “unintended consequences” could be:

• Syrian anti-aircraft batteries will fire their rockets at incoming U.S. missiles.
• Many Syrians on the ground will die and both the U.S. and Syrian governments will say the deaths are the fault of the other.
• The U.S. Embassy in Damascus will be attacked and burned, as may other U.S. Embassies and businesses in the Middle East.
• Syria might also launch rockets toward the U.S. ally in the region —Israel.
• Israel would launch bombing missions on Syria as it has three times in the past two years and perhaps take the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria’s strongest ally in the region, Iran.
• Iran, a country with a population of 80 million, has the largest military in the region untouched by war in the past 25 years. Iran might retaliate with missiles aimed toward Israel and toward nearby U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar.
• Iran could block the Straits of Hormuz and impede the transport of oil out of the Persian Gulf.
• At this time of crisis, it is worth remembering another time, 35 years ago in October, 1983 when U.S. warships bombarded Lebanon, the country located next to Syria. Within weeks, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by a massive truck bomb that killed 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. The truck driver- suicide bomber was an Iranian national named Ismail Ascari, whose truck contained explosives that were the equivalent of 21,000 pounds of TNT. Two minutes later a second suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into the French military compound in Beirut killing 58 French paratroopers.

The U.S. and French military were in Lebanon as a part of a Multi-National force after the PLO left Lebanon following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, ostensibly to create a 40 km buffer zone between the PLO and Syrian forces in Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli invasion was tacitly approved by the U.S., and the U.S. provided overt military support to Israel in the form of arms and material.

Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the U.S. 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) deployed as peacekeepers in Beirut, said that the American and the French headquarters were targeted primarily because of "who we were and what we represented…” American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision.”

Some of the circumstances around the incidents in Lebanon in 1983 and now 35 years later in Syria are familiar. U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of potential trouble but did not report the problems in sufficient time for actions to be taken. Former President Obama said at the time that the U.S. had intercepted signals indicating the Syrian government was moving equipment into place for an attack, but the U.S. did not warn the Syrian government that the U.S. knew what was happening and did not bother warning civilians that a chemical attack was imminent.

On August 31, 2013, 13 former officials of the U.S. government, including Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Dan Ellsberg, retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, retired US Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson and former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote an open letter to General Martin Dempsey, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, asking him to resign rather than follow an illegal order to attack Syria. “We refer to your acknowledgment.... that a decision to use force is not one that any of us takes lightly. It is no less than an act of war.... It appears that the President may order such an act of war without proper Congressional authorization. Seasoned veteran intelligence and military professionals solemnly sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States have long been aware that it is one’s duty to never obey an illegal order. If such were given, the honorable thing would be to resign, rather than be complicit.”

Those words were written five years ago, and the situation in Syria continues to escalate. As I write this, the Syrian government under Bashar Al-Assad has largely prevailed against the various parties of militants, some of whom are backed by the US. and still others by Iran. Syria and Iran are allied with Russia, with the ever-present potential for a clash between Russian and American military forces. A disquieting thought, to say the least. But it was Jesus himself who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the 'sons of God'.” The flip side of that coin is that those who wage war are cursed. Meaning, if America doesn't cease and desist from her warlike ways, a military disaster will surely befall her. America's violence, killing and destruction overseas will come home to roost. Just let that sink in for a minute, and I'll see you all next week.

Inequality Keeps Getting Worse, and God is Watching

A Few Comments on Inequality and Its Consequences

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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If you want to solve a problem, start from the top down. We have been stuck in what are now antiquated concepts of representative democracy for 230 years. These days, we can go to Washington, DC via computer – the need to send other parties has become obsolete. Same goes for shareholder ownership of businesses as opposed to worker-owned or co-operative enterprises. Many people seem to believe that progress is getting other people to do more things for them, when quite the reverse is true. And I think that we’ve reached the point now where we’re stuck with a whole lot of unworkable concepts, so that when Michael Moore speaks about the number of people who make all this money and other people who don’t, it sounds as if we’re struggling for equality with them. Who wants to be equal to these guys? I think we have to be thinking much more profoundly, such as being on a higher plane of existence.

And I think that, talking about recovery, talking about democracy, we too easily get sucked into old notions of what we want. So we’re expecting protest. I don’t mind protests, and I encourage them at times. But what happened in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, or in Fergusom, Mo. In 2012 – when people gathered to say another world is necessary, another world is possible, and another world is happening, I think that that’s what’s happening. I was there in October 2011 for the commencement of “Occupy DC” in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, and I felt honored and humbled to have been privileged to be a part of that historical event. It inspired me to write my second self-published book, “Occupy America: We Shall Overcome” that winter and spring. It is imperative that we take matters into our own hands. Don't trust your government, they have already been lying to all of us for decades. Take the initiative! Take a look over your shoulder and you will notice that there is no one standing behind you to do anything or to take care of any business for you. It's all on you, and it's all on all of us.

People are beginning to say the only way to survive the early 21^st century is to batten down the hatches. So they are building underground bunkers and stocking them with non-perishable foods, water, firearms and ammunition. In so doing they have voluntarily devolved as human beings. Don't forget what Christ said about that, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword”. Otherwise all our time will be wasted by a mad scramble of those who compete with others instead of co-operating with them. All our efforts must instead be devoted to taking care of one another by recreating our relationships to one another. Let me point out a few examples.

In the first place, the US is still the only developed country in the world that has no comprehensive national health insurance (forget Obama-care, it's actually a new tax in disguise) and no family leave for workers. That's right, nobody but us. The very people who call these two basic human rights “socialism” are the ones who are profiting off the existing system the most. Thomas Jefferson once said, “The first and foremost duty of any government is to see to the needs of its people.” I think that sums it up perfectly.

The second example are wages, which are downright pathetic. Having been an IT professional for over 20 years, I clearly remember how wages began falling around 2000-2001 around the time of the dot-com crash. By the time I had left the business in 2012, the bottom had fallen out as far as wages were concerned. Jobs that paid $20-25.00 an hour were going for $12.00, and older workers like myself found ourselves shut out of the tech job market for good. Today as I write this, the minimum wage remains at a paltry $7.25 cents per hour here in Atlanta where I live. And what are these pitifully poor people supposed to do with $7.25 an hour? Buy lollipops? The minimum wage works out to a take-home pay of about $845.00 per month after taxes and Social Security, not counting state taxes. Go try to live on that for a month or even a week!

Many thousands of American families are being forced into into the streets due to circumstances beyond their control. In short, we are exactly where the government wants us: powerless! Take away every available resource we have and we're helpless. The solution is a realistic minimum wage that will also serve to jump-start America's economy again. Based on the cost of living for a family of four, which would include housing, utilities, internet access, transportation, clothing and medical care, that would work out to about $14.00 an hour for bare essentials. This should be something people are out protesting in the streets about. We want a living wage, now!!

As you can see, our problems can be fixed without having to re-invent the wheel. You don't have to be an economic genius – if indeed there is really such a thing – to figure out some basic, common sense solutions to get America's middle class back to work. Otherwise I fear that too many more formerly middle class Americans like so many of us will fall into the cracks in the sidewalk and disappear.

50. The 3 Coming False Flag Attacks

We can end poverty in 1 generation. So why aren't we?

How We Can Make God, and Each Other,

Happy by Ending Poverty

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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Today in the early 21^st century, and with 99% of the wealth in America in the hands of 1% of the population, the US has a bigger and wider gap between the richest 1% of American money earners and big business owners and the remainder of working Americans than there is in many supposedly “third world” countries. The widespread and systemic unemployment or underemployment that currently exists in the US job market (including those who have given up and dropped out of the job market) is no longer just an economic problem. It has become a civil rights issue of the highest priority. The US job market has been turned into a raffle, where one lucky person gets the job while entire groups of others get left out in the cold – sometimes literally. I am vigorously maintaining that every human being has the basic, God-given right to a livelihood and to a living wage. There is no such thing under God's laws that say any given person should be unable to support themselves and their families! Anything less becomes a gross civil rights violation. Based on that, I would say those jobless individuals are victims of systemic economic discrimination. And so I further state unreservedly that restarting the civil rights era protests, demonstrations, sit-ins and the occupation of government buildings, or whole city blocks, is the most effective way of addressing the rampant inequality and persistent economic hardship that currently exists in the US.

Fortunately, this has already started here in the US, with the advent of the protests for so many unarmed Black men being killed by police officers. But these protesters are actually somewhat behind the curve. Because, before them there was Occupy Wall St., “we are the 99%” and Anonymous. And before those there was the Arab Spring in Egypt, the summer of 2011 in Great Britain and Greece, plus Libya, Syria and Gaza in the Middle East. So from a political standpoint, the current crop of protesters here in the US have some catching up to do. And yet, that was before the rest of the world got on board protesting globally for the many murdered Americans in Florida, Missouri, New York and elsewhere. So now, like an echo from the fairly recent past, the protests over police violence has echoed across the globe and is still reaching a crescendo.

The least common denominator to all this rage in the streets is that of being economically disadvantaged. “You will always have the poor”, Jesus said, “but you will not always have me” (This was prior to his being crucified). Deuteronomy chapter 15, verses 7-8 state, “If there is a poor man among your brothers.... do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your brother. Rather be open handed and freely lend him whatever he needs.” People everywhere find themselves surrounded by wealth and opulence, luxury and self-indulgence, while they are themselves isolated from it. It is one thing to be rewarded for success and a job well done. But it's an altogether different matter to have obscene riches flaunted in your face on a daily basis in order to remind certain people of their alleged inferiority. I think what we really need to do is find a way to end poverty. I can sum up the answer in two words: Free Education. Otherwise those who are poor will always remain so.

Who’s responsible for the poor? Back in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth, English lawmakers said it was the government and taxpayers. They introduced the compulsory “poor tax” of 1572 to provide peasants with cash and a “parish loaf.” The world’s first-ever public relief system did more than feed the poor: It helped fuel economic growth because peasants could risk leaving the land to look for work in town. By the early 19th century, though, a backlash had set in. English spending on the poor was slashed from 2 percent to 1 percent of national income, and indigent families were locked up in parish workhouses. In 1839, the fictional hero of Oliver Twist, a child laborer who became a symbol of the neglect and exploitation of the times, famously raised his bowl of gruel and said, “Please, sir, I want some more.” Today, child benefits, winter fuel payments, housing support and guaranteed minimum pensions for the elderly are common practice in Britain and other industrialized countries. But it’s only recently that the right to an adequate standard of living has begun to be extended to the poor of the developing world.

In an urgent 2010 book, “Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South”, three British scholars showed how the developing countries are reducing poverty by making cash payments to the poor from their national budgets. At least 45 developing nations now provide social pensions or grants to 110 million impoverished families — not in the form of charitable donations or emergency handouts or temporary safety nets but as a kind of social security. Often, there are no strings attached. It’s a direct challenge to a foreign aid industry that, in the view of the authors, “thrives on complexity and mystification, with highly paid consultants designing ever more complicated projects for the poor” even as it imposes free-market policies that marginalize the poor. “A quiet revolution is taking place based on the realization that you cannot pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots,” the book says. “And giving ‘boots’ to people with little money does not make them lazy or reluctant to work; rather, just the opposite happens. A small guaranteed income provides a foundation that enables people to transform their own lives.”

There are plenty of skeptics of the cash transfer approach. For more than half a century, the foreign aid industry has been built on the belief that international agencies, and not the citizens of poor countries or the poor among them, are best equipped to eradicate poverty. Critics concede that foreign aid may have failed, but they say it’s because poor countries are misusing the money. In their view, the best prescription for the developing world is a dose of discipline in the form of strict “good governance” conditions on aid. According to The World Bank, nearly half the world’s population lives below the international poverty line of $2 per day. As the authors of Just Give Money point out, that’s despite decades of top-down, neo-liberal, extreme free-trade policies that were supposed to “lift all boats.” In Africa, South Asia and other regions of the developing “South,” the situation remains dire. Every year, according to the United Nations, more than 9 million children die before they reach the age of 5, and malnutrition is the cause of a third of these early deaths.

Just Give Money argues that cash transfers can solve three problems because they enable families to eat better, send their children to school and put a little money into their farms and small businesses. The programs work best, the authors say, if they are offered broadly to the poor and not exclusively to the most destitute. “The key is to trust poor people and directly give them cash — not vouchers or projects or temporary welfare, but money they can invest and use and be sure of,” the authors say. “Cash transfers are a key part of the ladder that equips people to climb out of the poverty trap.” Brazil, a leader of this growing movement, provides pensions and grants to 74 million poor people, or 39 percent of its population. The cost is $31 billion, or about 1.5 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product. Eligibility for the family grant is linked to the minimum wage, and the poorest receive $31 monthly. As a result, Brazil has seen its poverty rate drop from 28 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2008. Data released on December 15^th, 2017 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) shows that nearly fifty million Brazilians, or just over 20 percent of the population, live below the poverty line, and have family incomes of R$387.07 per month – approximately $5.50 a day USD. In northeastern Brazil, the poorest region of the country, child malnutrition was reduced by nearly half, and school registration increased.

South Africa, one of the world’s biggest spenders on the poor, allocates $9 billion, or 3.5 percent of its GDP, to provide a pension to 85 percent of its older people, plus a $27 monthly cash benefit to 55 percent of its children. Studies show that South African children born after the benefits became available are significantly taller, on average, than children who were born before. “None of this is because an NGO worker came to the village and told people how to eat better or that they should go to a clinic when they were ill,” the book says. “People in the community already knew that, but they never had enough money to buy adequate food or pay the clinic fee.” In Mexico, an average grant of $38 monthly goes to 22 percent of the population. The cost is $4 billion, or 0.3 percent of Mexico’s GDP. Part of the money is for children who stay in school: The longer they stay, the larger the grant. Studies show that the families receiving these benefits eat more fruit, vegetables and meat, and get sick less often. In rural Mexico, high school enrollment has doubled, and more girls are attending.

India guarantees 100 days of wages to rural households for unskilled labor, paying at least $1.25 per day. If no work is available, applicants are still guaranteed the minimum. This modified “workfare” program helps small farmers survive during the slack season. Far from being unproductive, the book says, money spent on the poor stimulates the economy “because local people sell more, earn more and buy more from their neighbors, creating the rising spiral.” Pensioner households in South Africa, many of them covering three generations, have more working people than households without a pension. A grandmother with a pension can take care of a grandchild while the mother looks for work. Ethiopia pays $1 per day for five days of work on public works projects per month to people in poor districts between January and June, when farm jobs are scarcer. By 2008, the program was reaching more than 7 million people per year, making it the second largest in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa. Ethiopian recipients of cash transfers buy more fertilizer and use higher-yielding seeds.

In other words, without any advice from aid agencies, government, or nongovernmental organizations, poor people already know how to make profitable investments. They simply did not have the cash and could not borrow the small amounts of money they needed. A good way for donor countries to help is to give aid as “general budget support,” funneling cash for the poor directly into government coffers. Cash transfers are not a magic bullet. Just Give Money notes that 70 percent of the 12 million South Africans who receive social grants are still living below the poverty line. In Brazil, the grants do not increase vaccinations or prenatal care because the poor don’t have access to health care. A scarcity of jobs in Mexico has forced millions of people to emigrate to the U.S. to find work. Just Give Money emphasizes that to truly lift the poor out of poverty, governments also must tackle discrimination and invest in health, education and infrastructure.

The notion that the poor are to blame for their poverty persists in affluent nations today and has been especially strong in the United States. Studies by the World Values Survey between 1995 and 2000 showed that 61 percent of Americans believed the poor were lazy and lacked willpower. Only 13 percent said an unfair society was to blame. But what would Americans say now, in the wake of the housing market collapse, the bailout of the banks and the phony economic “recovery”? The jobs-creating stimulus bill, the expansion of food stamp programs and unemployment benefits — these are all forms of cash transfers to the needy. I would say that cash helps people see a way out, no matter where they live. Not only that, the Bible condemns those who refuse to help the poor, as it is written in the Book of Proverbs: “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker” (chapter 14: 31), and again it is written, “Rich and poor have this in common: The same Almighty God has made them both.” (chapter 22: 2).

Rabbi Reveals Sobering Message From God About the Coming Feast of Trumpe...

Free book excerpt #29 from Author Rev. Paul J. Bern

Coming this fall from Author Rev. Paul J. Bern, the Fourth Edition of his landmark 2011 book, "The Middle and Working Class Manifesto", the book of  dissidence for all dissidents everywhere! Do you wish to become the change you seek, but don't know where to begin? Giving this book a good read first will definitely help clarify things for you!

(1st edition cover shown)

  I Dare To Dream

(excerpt from “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto 4th Edition” by Pastor Paul J. Bern, in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Rev. Dr. King's "I have a Dream" speech)

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

I dare to dream of a world in which the gap between rich and poor is gone forever. We all deserve to live in a world where wealth has been redistributed in a peaceful and orderly manner and not by the barrel of a gun. I dare to dream of a country where wealth has been redistributed in 4 ways. First, every worker earns a living wage so poverty can be eliminated. Second, free higher education and vocational retraining must be available to every worker for life, including daycare available to all who need it, because everyone has the right to better themselves at will. Third, I envision an America where quality health care is available to every worker at nominal cost for life. Single-payer healthcare based on the current Medicare model must not be reserved only for those who can afford it, but it must be a fundamental human right for all ages. Fourth, “we the people” demand the abolition of the federal tax code, including elimination of the despised federal withholding tax, which would give every American worker or business owner an immediate 18% pay raise.

I dare to dream of an America where there will be no such thing as someone without health insurance, where every citizen will have lifetime healthcare and prescription drug coverage without qualification, and where there will be the fewest sick days for American workers and their children of any country in the developed world.

I dare to dream of a new America with a robust and viable economy. That is why I have been insisting on a $14.00 per hour minimum wage since 2010. I dare to dream of a new America where education will be subsidized from the cradle to the grave so that the US develops the most formidable work force the world has ever seen.

I dare to dream of an America where all workers have the right to organize, to a flexible work week and to paid family or maternity leave. Most other developed countries already do this. The US is the only exception and that has got to change. The only remaining question in my mind is whether we can accomplish this peacefully or otherwise, and it is looking more and more to me like it will be the latter.

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

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

 

I dare to dream of a new America with an all-new public school and university system that has an Internet-based curriculum that can be updated at will, with a new and more intensive school year, that has viable replacements for standardized testing, and where class size is limited by law.

I dare to dream of a country where teachers, police officers and firefighters make what their Congressional representatives make, and vice verse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If the US military took all the money it spends occupying Afghanistan (don't forget we've been there for 17 years) for just one day and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money available to send every American school kid from the first grade up to senior high school, plus through 4 years of college fully paid for, including tuition, dorms, books, food, access to the Internet and to public transportation. Here's another example: If the US government took all that money set aside from one days worth of military expenditures in Afghanistan alone, there would be enough money to build a 2,500 square feet house, fully furnished and stocked with groceries, with all the utilities already turned on, for every homeless person in the US, especially all the homeless kids. That's how easily we can end homelessness in the richest country in the world.

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

You have just read the end of chapter 9 of my book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto 4th Edition” by Rev. Paul J. Bern. To visit my author landing page, go to www.authorrevpauljbern.com. Pre-ordering available starting in October. Thanks so much. Shalom!

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