CHAMBERS OF HORROR: “WITNESS” TO THE FUTURE

I have been rereading the classic tome “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers recently, using the new 50^th anniversary edition with wonderful forewords by the recently deceased Buckley & Novak. (It has had a foundational influence on American conservatives and traditionalists like Buckley and Novak and justifiably so.)

Although I have read it several times before, this is the first time I’ve read it since the election and the difference for me is astounding and eye-opening. Things have been leaping out of the pages at me this time. There is a lot I could talk about but for the purposes of this essay, there is one basic thing I want to mention. The point I want to make here is just how ‘Communist’ what Obama has said and done in regard to “Change” in the light of Chambers’ definition. [Is Obama specifically a Marxist or a Communist? That is another question which I cannot and do not presume to know as a fact. The points of similarity, however, I think, are obvious.]

First, for purposes of information, let me tell you a little bit about the book and the man. Many today have little idea who Whittaker Chambers is and why his book is so important, so some comment is owed to the reader.

“Witness” is Chambers’ attempt to explain his bearing ‘witness’ against Alger Hiss as a Communist spy in the famous trials and Congressional contests involving him in the late 40’s. He presents himself as a ‘witness’ but what kind of ‘witness’ is he? His answer has nothing to do with grudges, politics per se or even ideology. He even fails to fit into the classic ‘conservative’ mold. Basically, his answer is an existential one. He must witness against Communism not Hiss, against the experiential ideas not the Party. He MUST do it to be true to himself: “External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.… Hence every sincere break with Communism is a religious experience. (16).”

Whittaker (the name he adopted from his mother in the 1920’s) distinguished himself as a translator early on, notably for his rendition of “Bambi” from the German. To say his upbringing was problematic would be an understatement. As time went on, his troubled family life and experiences led Chambers to embrace Marxism and he did so with great ferocity. He was a bisexual aesthete who vehemently rejected religion and “associated God with ill-ventilated vestries and ill-ventilated minds. (82)”

Chambers radical bent was all-consuming; he became not only a Communist Party member but also went underground to be a Soviet operative, a total self-dedication. He ended up operating among the government circles of Washington, DC in a secret Communist cell based there (later known as the “Ware group”). He was alternately known as “Carl” or “Bob” or other aliases. He and his wife became close friends with a State Department official and his family that they met in that group; the friend’s name was Alger Hiss.

After ten years or so, he underwent a mystical conversion, his description of which might be said to resemble the “Confession” of St. Augustine. A key break came when the Party first tried to stop his marriage and then demanded they abort their newly conceived child. “Abortion, which now fills me with physical horror, I then regarded, like all Communists, as a mere physical manipulation. (325).” All that had apparently changed within himself.   He began to realize he was no longer what he had been and could not go through with what he had come to see as a horror. From that point on, he slowly began to plan, not only his break from the Party, but to begin his life-and-death war with Communism itself. 

He resurfaced using his own name at considerable risk. He comments at one point that he felt he was “joining the losing side”. Getting a job at TIME magazine probably saved his life, because one did not usually ‘leave’ the Soviet underground alive. He went on to become a major editor in most divisions of the magazine, having a huge impact with the use of his superior writing skills. His main theme was that Marxism was EVIL and that it was a matter of life-and-death for civilization to identify and resist it. This was something the liberal press of his day heartily mocked. Mao & his minions in China were harmless “agrarian reformers”; these liberals claimed to see the future in the USSR and that ‘it worked’. In order to come to these conclusions they had to ignore the purges and genocides, torture and death camps, but that seemed something many were quite wiling to do. Chambers’ marvelous writing kept prophetically and inconveniently pointing to such willful ignorance. Many of his editorials read as fresh today as when he wrote them. 

{By the way, there can really be no doubt that Hiss was a Soviet spy. He has been identified in their own files with the codename ALES, as confirmed by the bipartisan committee of Senator Moynihan (despite the baseless public absolution he received from NBC and others in the media). His influence at the Yalta conference, taking advantage of an ailing Roosevelt, might very well explain Stalin’s amazing success there. An example of a discussion on this is here:  http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Alger_Hiss}

Whittaker Chambers decided to cooperate against Hiss and the result was those famous trials and hearings that still incite strong reactions today. Among the highlights of those events was the famous set of microfilm that Chambers produced from his pumpkin patch for a young Richard Nixon.

He eventually became a Quaker and a small farmer. He resigned from Time after the turmoil of the Hiss trial and lived quietly on his farm. Chambers was pilloried and mocked by the liberal media of his time as he fully expected, and his eccentricity and intellectualism made him an easy target, but he was satisfied that he had been true to himself in giving witness to the truth.

Now let me go on to my main point. I noted in my reading this time that Chambers seemed to identify one major appeal that Communism has that makes it what it is: CHANGE. Action which becomes its own reason, freed from God and morality, finds its meaning in acting for its own sake.

“The revolutionary heart of Communism is not the theatrical appeal: ‘Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.’ It is a simple statement of Karl Marx, further simplified for handy use: "Philosophers have explained the world; it is necessary to CHANGE the world." Communists are bound together by no secret oath. The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to CHANGE the world. Their power, whose nature baffles the rest of the world, because in a large measure the rest of the world has lost that power, is the power to hold convictions and to act on them. It is the same power that moves mountains; it is also an unfailing power to move men. Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die -to bear witness-for its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it.

It is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.” [From the introductory “Foreword in the Form of a Letter to my Children”, emphasis mine]

Doesn’t this sound awfully FAMILIAR?!? This is true not only about Obama’s ubiquitous campaign slogans, but also in terms of his first hundred days. ACT quickly! Don’t think! No need to actually read those bills. Abortion fits right into this. The sheer radical nature of so MANY of his appointees on this and related issues fits the template. Don’t examine or reveal what abortion really is. Don’t complicate matters with moral conundrums about good and evil. It’s just a ‘physical manipulation”. Just DO it!

Chambers’ assessment of the relationship of government and business sounds eerily familiar as well:

It is surprising how little I knew about the New Deal, although it had been all around me during my years in Washington. But all the New Dealers I had known were Communists or near-Communists. None of them took the New Deal seriously as an end in itself. They regarded it as an instrument for gaining their own revolutionary ends. (471)

The New Deal was a genuine revolution, whose deepest purpose was not simply reform within existing traditions, but a basic CHANGE in the social, and, above all, the POWER relationships within the nation. It was not a revolution by violence. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking. In so far as it was successful, the power of POLITICS had replaced the power of business. This is the basic power shift of all the revolutions of our time. This shift was the revolution. (472) [emphasis mine]

What Obama and his Chicago radicals are doing makes the power-grabbing, government control and spending of the New Deal look like child’s play but the description above is just as apt.  Doesn’t it seem like Obama is trying to replace the power of business with the power of politics? Isn’t what he is seeking a basic change in social and power relationships? This would seem to be indeed “revolution by lawmaking”.  “Witness” has apparently foreseen exactly what a nation led by ‘Communist’-style CHANGE would look and feel like. This is a chilling realization. Maybe you are resisting this insight because you voted for Obama and you feel invested. Any good American wants his President to succeed. I submit this is a case when we should hope he fails not out of spite but for the sake of civilization.

When we grasp eternal truths they lead to amazing predictions. One does not necessarily need to be a seer to be a prophet. If you understand human nature and the divine dynamic, it’s amazing how well you can see what’s going to happen. It seems to me that “Witness” holds a timeless value which is particularly valuable at certain times. I propose that now is such a time. “Witness” has been a witness to the future.

How should we react? Chambers was actually somewhat pessimistic about the Free World’s chances; it seemed like he might have been wrong with the triumphs of the fall of the USSR and its satellites. With recent events, however, I’m wondering whether his pessimism wasn’t that far off.  Even if that is so, he was only a theoretical pessimist; he was actually a practical optimist. His sentiments about possible outcomes didn’t stop him from being an amazing witness indeed. We should follow his example, using whatever gifts we have to unmask this evil assailing us for what it is. Chambers has come ‘back to the future’ to warn us of the horror facing us. Let us echo that warning loud and clear.

 

“SILLY, SENSELESS DOVE!”

 

*pictures on mlajoie2.blogspot.com: right, an icon of the Prophet Hosea; left, a rock dove with a pin through his brain, a ‘pinhead pigeon’

This little essay is about a turn of phrase used by the prophet Hosea in regards to some mistakes being made by the leaders of his day; and it is about the similarity of the mistakes being made by our leadership right now.

In the mid-700’s BC, the chickens – or should I say, the pigeons - were coming home to roost for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They had been warned about the coming destruction by Amos earlier but they hadn’t changed. Hosea arrived on the scene to plead with even greater urgency, because now the horrible threat of the Assyrian Empire was becoming clear to everyone, not just prophets.

The Assyrians were the first great world empire, centered in Nineveh in Northern Mesopotamia. Their standard modus operandi was the use of intimidation and terror to cow their subjects; they were universally feared and hated and their cruelty was calculated and legendary. [They would eventually get their comeuppance at the hands of the Babylonians.] They were beginning to bully and hector the Kingdom of Israel. What were the leaders of Israel going to do?

Now, the advice of Amos and Hosea was to ‘turn to the Lord’. The cause of the nation’s problems was their lack of identity and social cohesion. Israel’s unity, uniquely, was not purely racial or ethnic; it was centered on a belief in one God and a moral code not mere genetics. In turning to the worship of the fertility gods and goddesses, they were also engaging in the immoral practices associated with them. Since those primitive religions were divorced from moral requirements and did not involve a sense of a personal relationship with their gods (using a magical or instrumental approach) the Israelites began turning away not just from their unifying belief in one God and their common set of moral values, but also from their personal obligations to the needy among them as emphasized so often in the Law of Moses. If what unifies you is weakened, the result is weakness, disunity and chaos.

“Without a vision, the people perish” is what the Book of Proverbs tells us. Even so, without the glue of their common beliefs, the Kingdom of Israel began to come apart at the seams. The Prophets describe a justice system that no longer worked: ever-rising violence, crime and fraud; what justice there was could only be obtained by bribe or government influence. The leaders in the capital Samaria were especially excoriated. They spent a lot of time lining their own pockets and did little to foster a sense of nation. Amos had mocked the character of the rich women there who abused the needy and overindulged their appetites as “cows of Bashan”.  Private charity withered on the vine and social solidarity was destroyed as the government in Samaria grew in size and power like in the time of Solomon. Those who had power took advantage of those who could not fight them.

In regard to our present topic, Hosea noted a response of the leadership to the coming crisis and mocked it as well. Israel apparently preferred the prestigious role-playing of high politics. They wanted to become one of the gang of nations, becoming mixed up with them: “Ephraim mingles with the nations”.  They apparently tried to ‘negotiate’ with the Assyrians to save themselves. From our perspective, the very thought is utterly ridiculous. The Assyrians had already made it abundantly clear they were the qualm-free terror agents of their day. To ‘sit down’ with them was desperate and futile. Israel, also (like their Southern sister Kingdom Judah later in the face of the Babylonians) tried to rely on alliance-building with the nations around them. They even apparently reached out to the Egyptian Empire for help. It seems they did everything BUT turn to their OWN God.

This is from the book of Hosea, Chapter 7: [By the way ‘Ephraim’ is one the sub-tribes of the tribe of Joseph which is often used to represent all of the Northern tribes.]

8        Ephraim mingles with the nations, Ephraim is a hearth cake unturned.

9        Strangers have sapped his strength, but he takes no notice of it; Of gray hairs, too, there is a sprinkling, but he takes no notice of it.

10      The arrogance of Israel bears witness against him; yet they do not return to the LORD, their God, nor seek him, for all that.

11      Ephraim is like a dove, silly and senseless; They call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.

12      Even as they go I will spread my net around them, like birds in the air I will bring them down. In an instant I will send them captive from their land.

Hosea 7:8-12 (NAB)

When you try to mix up an amalgamated ‘nations’ pancake and you forget to turn it over, what happens? It starts to burn and the smoke alarms go off. When you start making deals with all these other nations, and becoming just another one of the gang, you begin to imperceptibly lose your national identity and strength. Like the proverbial boiled frog, you don’t even notice how it’s slipping away.

And then, he calls them “a dove, silly and senseless”. Have you ever watched doves? The mourning dove, or turtle dove, has a tiny little head in proportion to its body, and, hence, a tiny little brain, and they act it. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed. But there’s another dove which might be more applicable: it’s the ‘rock dove’ more popularly known as the pigeon. We all know pigeons. Once again, not a whole lot brain power happening there. Hosea pictures Israel dumbly ambling along – duuhhh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duuuhh – totally clueless and oblivious to the fact that the Assyrian’s net is just about to be plunked down on them to capture them.

In 723 BC, this is what happened and the Israelites were scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire, becoming the famous ‘Lost Tribes of Israel’. {Descendants of all these tribes have been discovered and confirmed through DNA testing in places like East Africa, Cambodia, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Many of them have been returning to Israel recently, seemingly as predicted by the Prophets. This has caused some friction with Jews descended from the tribe of Judah, of course, but it sure is an interesting development!}

Now, we have a set of leaders in our country who apparently want to “mingle with the nations” in an unprecedented way, trying to be part of the gang to the point where other nations might be given power to control our economy, for instance. Obama seems to want to lose our uniqueness in the mixture of the cosmopolitan pancake.

Obama and company also want to sit down with people like Iran, N. Korea and the Taliban who make the Assyrians look nice. Future generations will probably look on in as much mystification as we do when we look back at Israel trying to ‘negotiate’ with the Assyrians.

He does NOT rely on our national identity but downplays it, saying we are not a Christian or Jewish nation; we are “citizens” indistinguishable from any other nation. Our national identity is a VERY similar thing to that of the ancient Hebrews. Yet it is this very thing he denigrates. (Tell me, is Turkey not a Muslim nation in its history? Is India not a Hindu nation culturally? Why is it that we only we are not allowed to acknowledge our undeniable Judeo-Christian heritage that makes us what we are?)

Obama is denying us our national vision, the glue that has held us together for all our history, based not on race or happenstance but on values which inform our moral and social conscience. He prefers, like a silly, senseless dove, to seek alliances and cheap approval while our strength and identity imperceptibly seep into the socialist soil. How can the results be any different than what happened before?

It’s time to call it what it is. This is betrayal of our national identity. This is silly. This is senseless. It is a mistake that has already been made that does not need to be made again.

I wonder, if a metal rod were driven through the brain of THIS leadership, would they just keep on going with their foolhardy policies? I suppose it wouldn’t matter - if the policies are brainless springing from dumb instinct or blind ideological fervor and not from reason. Let us pray and raise our consciousness prophetically like Hosea tried to do with the Northern Tribes.

Let’s not let our leaders move on with this course of action unchallenged. I’m going to a Tea Party April 15^th, are you?

They don’t think we can see what they’re doing. They don’t think we’re going to do or say anything. We’ll see about that. Silly, senseless doves!!

 

Sign The Petition!

 

 

I invite all of you to sign a petition protesting the University of Notre Dame inviting President Obama to speak there. When challenged about this, the University uttered platitudes about keeping the lines of ‘dialogue’ open. Steer droppings! Would the University be inviting ‘dialogue’ with Doctor Kevorkian? On the positive side, Bishop D’Arcy of  South Bend has pulled out and given a great statement.

Stop the madness. Sign the petition:

www.NotreDameScandal.com

 

OBAMA – FOOLISH SOLOMON RETURNS? 

We have probably all heard of WISE Solomon and the many references to the wisdom of the third king of Israel, the son of David. True enough, Solomon began with humility and asked for wisdom to serve his people and we are told that he was given it. There is much evidence given in the First Book of Kings for this wisdom of his. He wrote many proverbs and he promoted knowledge and arts. His shrewd insight into human motivations and character was revealed when he judged the case of the two women and the baby. He did oversee the creation of the First Temple, one of the most beautiful edifices ever created. He did build a seeming political peace with those around him. The Queen of Sheba traveled from far away to see this astounding wisdom for herself and was suitably impressed.

But there is more to the story than that. God warned Solomon ahead of time of TWO main dangers to him and thus to his people. He must avoid IDOLATRY and the immoral practices associated with it; and he must not OPPRESS his people or put unreasonable burdens on them. If he did not heed this warning, his kingdom would be split at his death.

You would think he would have studiously avoided any hint of these two dangers. But human nature being what it is, very gradual change can fool us. If you put a frog into boiling water, it jumps out, but if you simply put up the heat slowly by degrees, the frog will boil to death without realizing it. What was it that fooled Solomon into his fatal errors? Faith in the power of Government!

One way he began to expand his Empire was through the diplomacy of marriage. This meant not only the daughter of the Pharaoh, but the daughters of every small city or state in the area, assuming them into the Empire or making an alliance. We are told he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He brought them all to Jerusalem, built them palaces and temples to worship their own gods. As time went on, he began to join them in their temples ‘for company’s sake’ but, eventually, of course, he began to join in their IDOLATRY and immoral practices. (Now what was it that unified Israel as a nation? It wasn’t an ethnic unity but the uniqueness of their belief in one God and their morality very much like the United States today. What happens when that glue of unity is weakened by becoming “like the nations”? King Solomon was dooming the future identity of the nation.)

We’ve seen he was building many palaces for all those wives; well, he built many more, all with the most expensive materials and needing many servants to support them. He rejected the traditional tribal organization and artificially imposed a massive bureaucracy beholden to his government; this was very troubling to his people but he did not respect their wishes to keep the religiously significant Twelve Tribe pattern. He began to build more and more roads. For the first time, he established a large standing army (including the famed “stables of Solomon”). How was this enormous expansion of government going to be supported? You guessed it: TAXES and FORCED SERVICE! Farmers had to surrender large amounts of their produce and livestock to the government. Their sons and daughters were forced to give long parts of their lives to serve in the palaces, working on the roads or in the army.  He ended by crushing his subjects, something he was specifically warned about.

In I Kings 10:14, the author makes an offhand, seemingly innocuous comment that is actually very significant. He tells us the amount of yearly income that Solomon’s government took in: “SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX gold talents”. (One talent, by the way was an enormous amount of money in itself.) Now, I’m sure that wasn’t the exact amount every year. Why use that number? The perfect number is SEVEN, the number of the Covenant with God, where there is peace and wisdom; in fact, the Hebrew word for making a Covenant with God is literally “to seven”.   Six Hundred and Sixty Six will always fall short of ‘Seven’. This is a way of saying Solomon had fallen short of the Covenant and broken it. He was the very powerful ruler who turned to Apostasy, the seeming peace-maker who brought the dis-ease of massive social injustice.

[No doubt, you may have recognized this number from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. This verse in First Kings is what John was referring to. When trying to describe the future Antichrist or Man of Sin who will lead all to Apostasy, the seeming peacemaker who will bring Apocalypse, John could think of no one better than Solomon and that evocative number of his. The Antichrist will be very much like Solomon. By the way, I in no way am implying I think Obama or any of these people is the Antichrist! I don’t. I am comparing them to Solomon in what they have done and in their practical results. It’s the pattern I want to underline, not a conspiracy theory.]

After Solomon died, his young, inexperienced and arrogant son, Reheboam, refused to lighten the horrible government load and succeeded in splitting the Kingdom, just as predicted. The resultant fledgling kingdoms were doomed to be swallowed up by the Assyrians and Babylonians in future years.

There are too many parallels between this foreboding example and the present cabal’s behavior to list them all. The seizing of the Census, spending more money than has been spent in the history of the world, the biggest Government power grab in history in the ‘porkulus’ bill, ‘required voluntarism’, the diplomacy of go along to get along with no thought to future consequences, the looming threat of Universal Health Care and domestic militias: all of this points to the same kind of blind grab for power that seduced Solomon. Whatever they think they will get out of this, the power-grabbers should know that history does not lie; they will bring horrible disunity and injustice and suffering, if they do not change. Let us pray that they will be changed or thwarted in their deluded schemes. And let us all do everything we can to avoid these mistakes.

 

LEZ MIZ: Capitalist Whiz Brings Better Biz 

Here is a thumbnail sketch of this wonderful tale. Jean Valjean, a woodcutter, is imprisoned for stealing a piece of bread. Because of failed escapes he ends up being imprisoned for nineteen years; he reenters the world in a hell of hatred and desperation until the good Bishop of Digne ‘buys his soul’ back for him and commissions him to live for others the rest of his life. Taking a new identity, he becomes a prosperous business man in Montreuil-sur-mer and becomes a pillar of the community through his factories and private charity. Eventually, his secret identity is discovered by the maniacally legalistic public servant Javert. Javert pursues Valjean relentlessly through much of the rest of the story, but Valjean’s mystical moral depth triumphs in the end over the harsh legalism of Javert.

Hugo himself was a ‘liberal’ Bonapartist and that does come out in some places in his novel. However, I think everyone agrees that’s not really what he was pushing or talking about in his classic. Like Dostoevsky and Dickens in that time, he was making a spiritual and cultural point about our need for God in a secular age and how that affects how we treat each other.

As I was recently reading this great work, this was the thing that struck me quite hard. Jean Valjean in his first new incarnation after his escape is a CAPITALIST HERO! He comes up with a great idea. He reworks a marginal process into a truly useful one and sparks the growth of an industry. He provides jobs and prosperity for his town and the entire area. Far from being the stereotypical greedy magnate, he uses his private charity to build a non-governmental framework of community and social support. He promotes a spirit of solidarity while respecting the subsidiarity of all the small groups.  The respect and trust he earns propels him into the office of mayor, where he presents us the ideal ‘public servant’ very much in the traditional American model as opposed to the controlling bureaucrat.

In stark contrast to this is the all-smothering spirit of government control personified in Javert. To Javert, it is government and law which orders all, subsumes all; government is something he BELIEVES in and worships. In one scene he turns himself over to the mayor (Valjean) for dismissal because he feels he has filed a false report on him. He as an individual is unimportant in comparison to the all-wise government regulations and bureaucratic process. If he must be sacrificed for the sake of proper functioning of the controlling rules then ‘so be it’. He is willing to do almost anything in this story as long as it serves the letter of the law and the government; the ends justify the means.

After all, the socialism of the French Revolution was a massive experiment in cultural transformation where the government entered everything, going so far as to change the calendar and attempt to produce social results. The State and Reason became the Gods that were worshipped. (These trends continued even during the short-lived Monarchist ‘restoration’.) Despite the mantra of ‘Liberty’, intrusive control became the by-product of this precursor to Marxism and Communism. Javert’s misplaced ultra-sincere idealism results in oppression and suffering whereas the practical capitalism of Valjean brings concord and community.

[Parenthetically, it should be noted that Hugo believed the overall effect of the Revolution was positive, and I don’t think he’s all wrong. However, we, having the benefit of hindsight, can see things in his own writing that maybe he could not. His brand of ‘liberalism’ perhaps has much more in common with a ‘conservative’ today than the pseudo-socialists who now use the title.]

As we now watch the spectacle of a massive government takeover without any parallel, I see the fanatical stare of Javert fixing upon us all, determined to bring justice and order to us for our own good. His certainty is alluring; he promises high ideals. Misery and ‘les miserables’ is indeed the real result. I choose to look into the warm forgiven eyes of Valjean, shining with the light of the God of agape love. If Javert tries to give me something, I know there are hooks inside. I prefer Liberty in the classical American model. I think I’ll go to Valjean.  He’ll give me a job or help me start a business and he will respect my Liberty.

 

           

RWANDA’S LESSON ABOUT GOVERNMENT

Her story is a truly amazing one. She came from a fairly well-to-do, religious Catholic family in a small town in Western Rwanda. Her parents were educators, heavily involved in charities and community-minded. Then the horrible genocide of 1994 began. She got home from college just as the maelstrom of killing began. Her father sent her to the local Protestant pastor in hopes he would hide her from the machete-wielding Hutus bent on wiping out the Tutsis. The pastor did hide her with seven other women in a tiny bathroom (see the picture above) where she spent three months praying and becoming transformed in mind and heart. It is a story replete with miracles and palpable evidence of the Providence of God. Her entire family (save one brother) and most of her friends were wiped out and at several times she really should have met their fate, too. But she feels she was saved for the purpose of warning the world at large about the dangers she saw herself. Her remedy?: Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Fortitude. These are the most powerful forces in the world building a Kingdom that is unshakeable.

After reading her books, one fact struck me pretty hard: this was a GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED genocide. Some blame can be laid at the feet of the Belgians for the adversarial structures they purposefully left. For decades, the dominant Hutu tribe used government social policy and rules to marginalize the smaller Tutsi tribe (also known by some as the ‘Wahtusi’). Immaculee experienced this when she was forced to always show her tribal identification card at school, for instance. [Immaculee finds this quite ironic in that centuries of intermarriage have made the physical distinctions almost useless, much as the ‘Aryan’ ravings of the Nazis had little factual basis.] The government also co-opted media sources, making them into propagandistic hate sites. Tutsis were routinely labeled ‘cockroaches’ or vermin and were increasingly barred from access to knowledge and power. When the Hutu President was killed in 1994, the government officially closed everything so that killing squads, trained for years, could devote alltheir energy to implementing the ‘final solution’ of killing ALL Tutsis.

It’s amazing how powerful government and media can be. Immaculee’s own friends and neighbors, people she knew and trusted, were among those taunting her in the house where she was hiding, describing how they would slowly torture and gang rape her. About a million people were killed in ways so heinous it was like hell on earth.

And yet, partly thanks to people like Immaculee, a grass-roots movement (not a government mandate!) of forgiveness and charity has helped make Rwanda a re-born jewel of prosperity and peace. (The Benebikira Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns, which takes care of hundreds of orphans, is part of this general effort.)

There is certainly a lesson here for us in this country right now. It’s never a good thing to give any government too much of the power we the people have by right. What are this remarkable story and this remarkable woman trying to teach us?

I invite you to read what Immaculee has to say. And please spread the word. It’s too important to keep it under a bushel basket.

 

POPE POPS PELOSI OVER PERVERTED PRO-LIFE PROCLAMATIONS! 

This tack taken by the Pope is in obvious and conscious contradistinction to the very public & loopy statements of ‘theology’ put out by Pelosi on the topic of human life [e.g. http://www.catholicsinpubliclife.org/page2/page14/files/1908780af1e21f6b66f30772f8234fa8-14.html].

Way to go, Pope! This is the sort of things leaders are SUPPOSED to do! Now it’s time for the U.S, Bishops to follow up, because the media will obviously try to hush this result up. Let’s do our best not to let them, too.

And let’s pray for Pelosi or some other unforeseen stalwart to have a change of heart and step forward on this and all the other important issues. Whittaker Chambers was a sold-out undercover Soviet spy who had given up everything to destroy capitalism and democracy, the sort of fanatic who doesn’t get turned from their path. In his classic autobiography, “WITNESS” it was the party’s demand that he and his wife abort their child which began his slow Exodus to sanity. He was forced to think about what he believed. “I felt like I was joining the losing side,” he commented. Yet, he and others like him helped to turn the seemingly inexorable tide of Marxism. Maybe this meeting will be the sort of shock to Pelosi’s moral system that she needs.

This is another time we need to turn the tide. We need more ‘witnesses’. Can I get a witness?

 

 

THE MIRACLE INSIDE THE MIRACLE

 

Here is a story worth sharing from the Divine Mercy website:  [http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=3493].  Miracles are only pointers or signs indicating the real miracle of grace in human hearts.

By Felix Carroll (Feb 4, 2009)

A banker on a business trip in New York City, Fred Berretta had just checked into his hotel room. He had about 20 minutes down time before he had to meet his colleagues.

For some reason he decided to clean out his briefcase, something he hadn't done in a long time. As he emptied it out, he came across a booklet he had stuffed into a pocket years ago on praying the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy. He recalls having prayed it a few times years ago. But by Jan. 15, 2009, it was a good intention mislaid — among spreadsheets and quarterly reports and matters that seemed far more pressing.

Only two weeks prior, Fred had made a New Year's resolution to try to get into better spiritual shape. Here in this hotel room was an opportunity to fulfill it. So he followed along in the booklet and prayed the chaplet, a prayer our Lord gave to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s during a series of revelations that have sparked the modern Divine Mercy movement.

The time happened to be 3 o'clock, known as the Hour of Great Mercy, when Jesus died on the cross. Fred would consider that detail the following day — as he was preparing to die.

He would be among the 155 people to board a jet airliner at LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, N.C., his home town. Ninety seconds after takeoff, the jet would apparently hit a flock of geese, the engines would explode, and the plane would lose power at 3,200 feet. The aircraft would be out of reach from any airfield. It would lose thrust and altitude. Everything would become eerily quiet. Fred would cinch his seatbelt. His left hand would clutch the armrest, his heart would race, his face would be flush.

He would think about his family — his wife and four young children. He would think about God, about death, about trust, about an extraordinary promise made by Jesus that he read the previous day in that booklet.

"Prepare for impact," the pilot would say over the PA system.

What was the promise? Suddenly, it would come to him, the last passage he read before heading off to his meeting. Jesus said to St. Faustina, "This is the hour of great mercy. In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion (Diary of St. Faustina, 1320).

As the ground surged into view, Fred would look at his watch. It would be 3:30, the Hour of Great Mercy!

"I prayed with every fiber of emotion and sincerity I could muster, 'God, please be merciful to us,'" Fred would recall two weeks later.

'Miracle on the Hudson'?

You've probably heard about the crash landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on Jan. 15. No one was seriously injured. Politicians and news anchors quickly dubbed it the "Miracle on the Hudson." In the history of aviation no jet airliner had ever made an emergency landing on water without casualties.

Then, there were the news images of a US Airways Airbus floating gently down the frigid Hudson, like some sort of breaching, people-friendly, aquatic creature. The passengers stood on its wings, calmly awaiting rescue. Amidst all the news of economic collapse, of tens of thousands of layoffs on a weekly basis, of families in peril, of a reckoning at hand for a culture of greed, this plane, these passengers, its pilot, all served as a sort of restorative balm on our nation's collective conscious.

The story made you gasp, gulp hard, smile widely, and be thankful. Thankful for what? For good news. For heroes in the pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, and the rest of the crew. Thankful in the knowledge that in the panic-filled moments when the plane lurched to a stop it wasn't every man and woman for himself or herself. Thankful that humanity's better nature was on display. Thankful the incident wasn't terrorist-related, but apparently geese-related. Thankful that a guy like Fred Berretta, 41, would live to walk through the door of his home once again, hug his wife and children, and make sure they knew he loved them — that he always had and that he always will.

Vinny Flynn who?

For devotees of Divine Mercy, Flight 1549 serves as further proof that the Lord keeps His promises.

We may never have learned Fred Berretta's story if it weren't for Vinny Flynn. Following the crash, Fred felt compelled to send an email of thanks to Vinny, the former executive editor at the Marian Helpers Center, in Stockbridge, Mass. Though Vinny and his family are seen daily at 3 p.m. (EST) on EWTN singing the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy from the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Fred had never heard of Vinny until about two hours before he boarded Flight 1549.

Following morning meetings on Jan. 15, Fred found himself in the unusual position of having some free time on a business trip. It was noon. He stepped inside Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral. He stayed for the 12 p.m. Mass. Afterwards, he went into St. Patrick's gift shop. A book caught his eye — Vinny's 7 Secrets of the Eucharist (Mercy Song Ignatius, 2006), which, with citations from St. Faustina's Diary, gives a greater understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist. Fred also purchased a St. Michael's scapular.

In an interview with thedivinemercy.org this week, Fred explained what happened next:

"I got into a cab and went to the airport," he said. "My flight was delayed about 15 minutes, so I sat there and started reading Vinny's book. I was really taken by it. I boarded the plane and continued to read. Just as we were rolling out for takeoff, I put the book away and closed my eyes and began to reflect on what I had been reading. Then, I heard the impact, then the explosion, and the plane shook violently. I was sitting in seat 16A, which is behind the wing. I could see smoke coming out of the left engine. You could smell the jet fuel."

As soon as Fred, a private pilot, realized the second engine was also not functioning, he became tense, like everyone else around him.

He heard some cries from the cabin.

"Some of us looked at each other," he said. "There was nothing to be said. I knew that the only thing I could do was pray."

A Resolution

These were the other things he knew: This sleek, high performance jet airliner had suddenly and irreversibly become a 73-ton glider sinking fast above one of the nation's most densely populated regions. It would touch down somewhere, somehow, very soon, at a speed of about 120 mph. The chances of survival were almost nil.

He thought about his family, how hard his death would be on them. Indeed, that was the most painful part of the experience for him, his concern for them.

He thought about the very thing all these years that seemed to stand in the way of growing deeper in his faith. It came down to this: trust. He didn't have much. Ever. He had once fancied himself among the titans of commerce. He once trusted that money would bring security and peace of mind. This flight wasn't the thing that taught him otherwise. Rather, it was this past year. The bottom fell out of the economy, and with it, much of Fred's savings of the last 20 years.

By Christmas, the self-described "half-hearted Catholic" knew in his heart the only security in the world is the security found in God, which led to his New Year's resolution; which led to him praying the chaplet in a hotel room; which led him to buy Vinny's book; which led him to close his eyes in seat 16A, his trajectory heavenward, and reflect upon how God is real and He loves us and that He wants us to turn to Him in trust.

Which is exactly what Fred did when he suddenly realized it was the Hour of Great Mercy and he would probably be dead in a matter of seconds. He trusted, truly, for the first time.

All these fragments of thought seemed to piece themselves into place. The plane was going down, yet everything was making sense. He admits he was in shock. But he also felt at peace, a deep peace. God had allowed him to find the Divine Mercy booklet in his briefcase. God had steered him to Vinny's book. God did all this, he thought, to prepare him for death.

He hunched over in his seat to brace for impact. He prayed for God's mercy. Then he prayed two Hail Marys and one Our Father. He made it halfway though a prayer to St. Michael, the archangel, when the plane hit the water, came to a stop, and bobbed up and down like a toy in a kiddy pool.

'True Peace'

"Under the most precarious situations I could ever imagine," says Fred, "God taught me what true peace is all about — that it's found in accepting God's will. That we must try our best in this life, but not sweat the small stuff, and hand control over to God."

One more thing to mention. A couple weeks before the flight, Fred had prayed the Rosary for the first time in years. He had recently learned of the 15 promises that, as legend has it, the Virgin Mary made to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan to all who pray the Rosary with a faithful heart. Fred remembers thinking at the time, "Are those promises real?" He feels he recently received his answer.

"I still have my boarding pass from the flight," Fred said this week, "and I couldn't help but to notice all the 15s associated with the flight. We left on Jan. 15, from gate 15. It was Flight 1549, with 155 passengers. Also, it took off during the 15th hour, by military time, which is what the world of aviation uses. I smiled when it hit me later. There was my answer right there."

He's vowed to embrace the Eucharist, thanks to Vinny; the Rosary, thanks to all those 15s; and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, thanks to that booklet.

God was doing more than preparing him for death: God was preparing him for life.

 

SOMEONE PUT U.S. IN A PICKLE BARREL!

 

Joe was walking down the street, when who did he see walking toward him, but Good Old Uncle Sam with nothing on but a big pickle barrel held up by a pair of straps!

“UNCLE SAM!” cried Joe, “What in Sam Hill happened to you?”

He pointed up the hill toward a white house. There were a group of guys meeting in front of the house. “That O’bummer feller up there tricked me out of my clothes and took over my house, that white house up there.”

“You don’t say. How’d ‘e manage that?”

“Well, I can’t rightly figure it. I already had my suspicions. All’s I know is he came at me with a whole bunch of words and had me sign something. He was telling me I had to save all the people with no clothes and no house and before I knew it, my wallet was cleaned out and my clothes and my house were snatched up from right under my hook-ed nose. It’s the durndest thing. He keeps talking about a ‘stimulus’. Well, I don’t want the Liberty kids overstimulated.”

“And, Uncle Sam, who are all those strange people milling around up there with him?”

“Why, they popped up straight out of the woodwork, or so it seems. I had never seen hide nor hair of them until after all these shenanigans were done. From what I hear, a good number of them are tax cheats and scalliwags.”

“Who is that squirrelly guy using all that bad language?”

“Well, I heard them calling him ‘Bloggerovitch’ or some such thing. Maybe he’s a Russian guy from the World Web. All’s I know is he’s up to no good.  There’s the police coming for him now.

“Look at guy with the big glasses,  Sam. ‘Al Frankman’ I think he’s called. He don’t look ‘frank’ to me. Someone said he was stealing notes, I think. Yeah, they sure are an unsavory looking gang.”

“Sure ‘nough, but it worries me more that they look like the gang that can’t shoot straight. There’s some mean hombres out there and these small-timers won’t be able to charm, cheat and ‘change’ their way past them like they did nice old Uncle Sam. They’ll be looking down the wrong end of a gun barrel and then what’s gonna happen to my kids?”

“And what’s gonna happen to you, Sam?? You’re in a real pickle.....barrel, that is…..”

Just then the Liberty Kids came rushing down the street.

“UNCLE SAM! UNCLE SAM!” they screamed, “What happened?!”

“Hi, kids! I dun been hoodwinked.”

“Oh, no! What are you going to do now?”

“Well, kids, this isn’t the first time I’ve had the wool pulled over my eyes and it probably won’t be the last.”

“That’s sure right, Uncle Sam, they sure have and they sure will!”

“But has anything ever stopped me afore?”

“No, Uncle Sam!”

“And nothin’s gonna stop me now, nither. Slow and steady wins the race and I’ll ‘ventually take care of these rapscallions just like I dun all those others. You children, remember?”

“We sure do, Uncle Sam!”

“So, don’t you worry ‘bout me! All’s I need right now are some proper duds. This loaner barrel is just a trifle splintery and nippy for your Uncle. You kids are the ones that can always dress me up in proper Fourth of July red, white and blue stripey clothes.”

“We’ll take care of you, Uncle Sam!”

“Well, I know you will and I’m right thankful to you. When someone else gives me a dressing down, you all will be dressing me UP! And they’ll be OVER a barrel themselves soon enough. And once I get me a shirt I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and getting to WORK!!”

 

 

*published by Flopping Aces*

On the very first day in office, the new administration announced it would rescind the ‘Mexico City policy’ Thursday. (This banned tax dollars from going to non-governmental agencies that perform abortions.) See here: 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/21/obama-lift-ban-funding-groups-providing-abortions-overseas/.

Thursday is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, when thousands of Pro-Lifers annually descend on Washington for the March for Life.

So, it is “above his pay grade” to decide what human life is, but he can use MY TAX DOLLARS to kill human life without bothering his conscience a wit. That is the logic of Goebbels, not Lincoln or anyone else.

Further, how is this any big “change” from the same old confrontation we’ve always had? This is what Clinton did too with the same “in-your-face” timing. Obama had a great opportunity here. What a chance to be truly different. Sad to say, I knew this would happen. Obama tipped his hand early on that his mind and heart are the most radically pro-abortion of anyone who has ever entered the Office.

Poor John Adams! He said: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” It seems the noises Obama made about “change” and reaching out do not apply to me and so many like us, and, in my opinion, that is neither honest nor wise.

 

THIS SIDE IS DONE, TURN ME OVER!

 

We stand at a crossroads in America. The government seems to be proposing that all citizens basically lose their faith in capitalism and liberty. Let the government take over the wealth and make it fairer and easier for everyone. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Weren’t the liberal press in the Fifties urging us to follow the example of that benign paragon, the “agrarian reformers” of Communist China and the Soviet Union? Well, in my opinion, we need a hero – or two – or more! We need a lot of good people to step forward. We also need good examples to follow. A very proper patron for this pickle comes to mind: St. Laurence (or Lawrence).

Laurence was an archdeacon of the city of Rome during a time of great persecution for the Church. The original martyrology was lost early on, but his story captured the imagination of many great early reporters. [There is some dispute about certain details of his ordeal, but the reality and effect of his sacrifice are indisputable. He, along with Nicholas, in the view of some, became the paradigm saint of the early Church.] In short, the way he opposed the government and his ultimate triumph point to a pattern we can imitate.

The year was 258, we are told. Pope Sixtus had barely attained the Chair of St. Peter, and, in view of the longevity of Popes at that time, he could barely hope to survive for long under the fierce persecution of Emperors Decius and Valerian, when he called upon his good friend Laurence to take charge of the duties of record-keeping and organizing charity to the poor.

Predictably, Sixtus was captured and condemned. As he was being led away, Laurence came to be with him. Sixtus comforted the weeping deacon by reassuring Laurence that he would very soon follow his friend to eternal happiness. Sure enough, four days later, Laurence was captured and, in view of his role in the Roman Church, confronted with an ultimatum: bring the famous “hidden riches” of the Church within two days or he would die a terrible death. Laurence agreed. He came back with a crowd of beggars, widows, cripples and the poor. “This is the riches of the Church!” he declared.

Now, let’s just take a look at that action! His was not the resistance of bitter, pessimistic antagonism.  This showed the good humor that always results when one’s faith is girt under with a peaceful, brimming confidence. Show those who are in error where they err with gentle irony. (The response of McAuliffe at Bastogne to the German ultimatum comes to mind: “Nuts.” This is the very same dynamic.) Cut through all the hot air and pretension with something that exposes the truth of a situation for all to see.

The government propaganda was that the Christian Church was a weird group of incestuous cannibals who, though they seemed to love in a new, almost attractive sort of way, were actually greedy hoarders of wealth. (This was almost entirely either gross exaggeration or deliberate misrepresentation.) Further, they were way too preachy about what was wrong with the culture of death and sexual excess.

What did Laurence succeed in doing in this one public action? He showed what the Church was really about. It cared about individual people! The poor were not the faceless, exploited mob that the government saw. The ruling culture’s attitude was exposed! For the Church, every person had value and influence! ‘We will not directly oppose the master-mob ethic but we will show it for what it is and we will continue working beneath the surface for a new civilization of selfless agape love, of freedom and responsibility, respecting families and persons and standing in solidarity for what is right.’ Perhaps you recognize this ethic. It is the same basic approach that inspired our own Founding Fathers.

After the temerity of Laurence’s wordless lesson, he was condemned to a painful death. Ambrose among others says he was grilled to death on a gridiron. It is said that he told his torturers, “This side is done; turn me over and have a bite.” What a true sense of humor! ‘All you have is force and bluster’, he seems to be saying, ‘I have sublime, peaceful truth and I know it’. As Isaiah prophesied the Suffering Messiah will say in the midst of being tortured and beaten, “I have set my face like flint KNOWING I shall NOT be put to shame!” [This reminds me of Reagan’s remark to the doctor when he was shot: “I hope you’re a Republican!”]

Shouldn’t the conservative movement recapture this basic confidence of Reagan? Where did he get it? He got it, from the very principles displayed in Laurence’s actions. Will any of you out there stand up and show some confidence and humor in leadership? I think I see some of this in Jindal or Palin and I’m sure there are many others on every level and in many communities. How many of you will go through the hardship of running and governing or doing other things for the sake of the nation? You might get grilled over the coals, sure enough. Just smile and tell them: ‘You want a piece of me? Go ahead! Take a bite! But rest assured, I’m not done yet!’

 

Joan of Arc Was a Loser!

*published on Flopping Aces* 

Yes, Joan of Arc was a loser. Moses was a failure. Churchill was an outcast and then an outcast again. The Lord Jesus himself was - or seemed to be - defeated. This is an important thing to remember at times like this. The election has been lost. But even the defeated never lose - even when they do - if they preserve that core of self deep within that no one but our Creator can touch.

Yes, as we probably all know, Joan of Arc did have some success. [Her story is one of the best and well-documented of any medieval saint (save Francis of Assisi, perhaps) in historical terms and would be worth anyone’s time to investigate further. Mark Twain devoted 14 years of his life to research his version of her story under another pseudonym and considered it his best work.] By 1428, the Hundred Years War had been going on since 1337 and the social and moral effects were devastating to the country in countless ways as war usually is (mercenary war in particular!). Then along came this young girl from Domremy. Within a few months, she energized the ‘useless’ Dauphin, handed two major defeats to the English and Burgundians and got Charles crowned at Rheims. She accomplished more in this short time than had been done in a century, and with relatively little loss. This seems like success to us, but we have the benefit of seeing from afar and knowing what followed. Yes, by the end of the war, the ‘cowardly’ Charles would personally lead the conquest of the a city and help complete the eviction of the English invaders; and we can look back to what Joan did as the crucial turning point.

But in 1428, that was far in the future. What did it look like to those at the time? Joan’s influence at court was quickly undermined after her initial success and she was looked down on as an uneducated country rube, despite the fact she had just given the country a new start. A whispering campaign motivated by this disdain and jealousy, defeated her insights and probably prolonged the war for many years more. (By the way, I think there are parallels with Sarah Palin, who was despised by insiders for her appearance and demeanor and lynched in a media show trial. And Palin, unlike her persecutors, actually accomplished things worthy of praise and, I feel, has good insights for going forward!) In any further efforts to lead within the court, Joan was seen, and rightly so, as a failure.

Joan tried to keep fighting, with little support, and without the benefit of her supernatural directions, but she was betrayed and tragically captured by the Burgundians. She was the victim of a rigged, political show trial by the English and burned as a ‘heretic’, bringing shame and defeat to her name. Many in France did see her as a hero but her name would not be totally cleared, even by the Church, until the 20^th Century.

It may be that right now all the powers that be, the media, the educational system, etc.  seem to be arrayed in favor of things that we, the minority, can see are not good. Much of what we have seen has seemed ‘rigged’ against us, and we have been ‘defeated’ like the inner and outer enemies of Joan defeated her. In this time, we should remember we cannot possibly see with an infinite eye. We should leave that for the One who is competent to do so. It can’t be our goal to only ‘win’ arguments or technical victories. It is our job to live lives worthy of our calling, graced as that young woman was so long ago; we must show faith, hope & charity which are the true powers of this world as John Nash, Einstein and others have noted. If we do that, and leave the results for the future, it may be that our personal defeats may be, in fact, turning points for the general good. No good deed or good word is ever for nothing. Americans, don’t forget Joan of Arc!

http://mlajoie2.blogspot.com/   and   http://mlajoie2.blogtownhall.com/

 

 

Life – Taken For Granite

 [For pictures, see http://mlajoie2.blogspot.com/]
The following is a composite conversation based on several post-Election Day discussions with friends and acquaintances up here in the Granite State of New Hampshire. The Great Stone Face, The Old Man on the Mountain, was once a symbol of our fierce independence: Live Free or Die! We were a rock island of red sanity in a sea of blue madness. Now with our deficits, spending, new laws and liberal leaders, we are no longer unique; we are well on our way to becoming Massachusetts North, if we’re not there already. It seems we ‘lost face’ and our identity the past four years since our great symbol, the Stone Face, fell off the mountain.

Hearts of stone and heads of granite: O Lord may you take them from us and give us hearts of flesh and minds which no longer take life for granted.

“Isn’t this just great? The first black man has been elected President! What a great day! You can celebrate, right? You’re happy, right? ”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m not happy. I’m glad we broke the barrier, but, for me, this day is a like a tragedy.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I’m pro-life.”

“What’s that? Oh yeah, that has to do with being against abortion, right?

Yes, somebody actually said that. I found out that some people voted for Obama without knowing some bare basics about what he believed about this and other things.

“You mean Obama’s not ‘pro-life’? I figured he was. He seems like such a nice guy.”

“He’s an utter catastrophe for anyone like me.”

“In what way?”

“For one thing, do you know what bill he plans to sign first? Guess,”

“No idea, what?”

“Obama said, ‘the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act’ and Pelosi has said the same thing, so it’ll almost certainly be done.”

“What’s that, ‘Freedom of Choice Act’?”

“It’s a law that will get rid of any and all restrictions on abortion. ALL laws wiped off the books. There’ll be no more parental notification or anything and YOUR taxes and MINE will now be used to pay for abortions.”

“Whoa, I don’t agree with that, even if I’m not sure I totally agree on abortion. Why didn’t we hear about that?”

“Are you kidding me? You expected the press that was so in the tank for Obama to report anything?? Don’t you know how much they covered over for him?”

“Yeah, I know they were all in the tank for him.”

When I brought up the press coverage, people hung their head in guilty recognition. Several things I mentioned, like the Fairness Doctrine, the Mandatory Service Plan, the 2001 Share the Wealth Tape, and a host of others, they either hadn’t heard of at all or they knew little about it. They looked truly shocked.

“Well, I DO think we should stop that bill anyway.”

“It’s too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you figure you can call your Senator to ask them not to vote for it?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Who’re you going to call, Shaheen, who we just elected?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“She’s a former board member for Planned Parenthood that makes hundreds of millions from abortion. Do you think she’s going to stop it?”

“Well, aren’t there others?”

“Yesterday was our chance. Now it’s TOO LATE! What’s going to stop them NOW? NOTHING! The pro-abortion people now control it all and there is NOTHING left to stop them. And you want me to be happy?!”

“I didn’t know that about Obama, but he’s good on other things. He’ll be better on the economy, won’t he?”

“It’s too much like socialism to me.”

“I’m not quite sure, what’s socialism again?”

“Never mind.”

“He’s better than Bush. He’ll get us out of our wars…”

Most people spouted anti-Bush platitudes or comments on personality, symbolism and appearances or how great it will look to the world. The euphoria from the acceptance speech the night before was what was driving most of them.

“Listen, we’re friends, and I sincerely wish I could really be happy with you today. But, with everything I know, I can only feel really upset and scared for my country.”

“You’re just mad because you lost. Isn’t he your President now? Shouldn’t you support him?”

“He is going to be my President and ours and I will pray for him every day. I won’t be disrespectful. But I’m not going to be quiet anymore; if he does the wrong thing I’m not going to pretend it’s just great and say nothing. And I’m not going to ACCEPT things like the Freedom of Choice Act or other things that could mean the ruin of our country. I won’t go along and say it’s OK.”

“Wow, you really threw a wet blanket on my day.”

“I’m really sorry. You know I respect you and you’re important to me and this shouldn’t get in the way of our friendship.”

“The feeling is mutual. Well, gotta get to work. See ya.”

Every single one of the people I talked to remain my good friends or working acquaintances. I think my honest reactions gave them pause for thought. Now we’ll all have to wait and see what happens over the coming days. I don’t think these Granite State friends will ever take the life issue for granted again.

 We turn away to face the cold, enduring chill
As the day begs the night for mercy love
The sun so bright, it leaves no shadows 
Only scars carved into stone on the face of it
The moon is up over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes….  
I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky  
And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill

- U2, “One Tree Hill”  

Stand Up, Barack! Part Doh! My God, What Have We Done?

*published on Flopping Aces*

You’ve got to hand it to Joe Biden. Sir Gaffe-a-lot tried to warn us about this guy, Barack Obama. For whatever reason, subconscious guilt, knowledge that he had made a dreadful mistake or whatever, he guaranteed a “generated crisis” for Barack within six months. He hinted heavily at what he had said openly several times before: Obama is not ready and there is something very disquieting about him.

Well, that “Stand Up, Chuck!” realization is spreading like wildfire. [To see the original “Chuck” incident, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2mzbuRgnI4]. Take a look around. A record 10% post-election stock drop did not really match any new information except for Obama’s election. Chris Matthews looked like he was about to soil his trousers, this time out of fear. http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/06/chris-matthews-my-job-to-make-sure-this-presidency-works/. Newsweek’s brave investigators are suddenly squeamish about not knowing who Barack is or what he wants using the words “creepy” and “deeply manipulative”. (See what they had to say on Charlie Rose: http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/06/newsweek-editors-obama-a-creepy-deeply-manipulative-creature/). There are several other examples.

Obama chose Rahm Emmanuel for his chief of staff. Here is another corrupt Chicago politician who is known to have operated as a ruthless shark; this gives us a clue that our feelings of misgiving are well-founded. A never-before-seen stand-alone transition team is meeting in sealed secretive silence doing who knows what. There is talk of forced voluntarism, a hint at that Civilian Homeland Military. There’s a sinking feeling rampant. A lot are wondering aloud about what Obama really thinks and what he is really going to do.

Well, why didn’t anybody find out about any of this BEFORE the election beside the marginalized “right-wing crazies” among whom I must be counted by the press’s reckoning? Because the press allowed Obama to amass his huge sums of cash, prime the polls and cover his past with nary a whimper from our ‘watchdogs’, we must now face the consequences. 

Thanks, Joe Biden, for at least hinting at all of this before the election. Maybe there still is a Catholic conscience buried somewhere in that whirl of words that swirls around you. In the meantime, we feel the same anxious tension Joe threw out there last month. Will the real Barack Obama please STAND UP?!?

http://mlajoie2.blogspot.com/ and http://mlajoie2.blogtownhall.com/