Yes, I was born in 47. When I was old enough to work, each time I changed jobs my salary doubled. The health ins and retirement benefits were the same for us as the bosses. I lived in NYC for most of my life and there was a time I could move from apartment to apartment, easily affordable. I left NY in 1999 and my Avenue A apartment went from $450\mo to $2400/mo. Who can afford that. Yes, times have changed and here in Maine we fight our elected officials who sell our pristine water to Nestle, are trying to give away the Penobscot River to some Norwegian company to poison with farmed salmon, and who want to turn our National Treasure Sears Island into an industrial park for constructing gigantic wind turbines. It only makes sense to me when you realize the politicos who push this chit, will someday need a job, one where they do very little for lots of money. I can’t think of any other reason. Everything our governor does is counterintuitive…greed is a mental illness.
Maine is the last refuge of the America that once was. My Fatherland used to be a land of dairy farms, a local quarry, a watch factory, and shoe factory. Then the Military-Industrial Complex came to town and set up a huge factory to make vacuum tubes and another to make detenator fuses. Then came prosperity, the mall, and main-drag USA. And then the factories shuttered, and all the ancillary businesses gradually went bankrupt.
I'm sure the same story was repeated in many places from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Redwood Forests.
I started to write but my post seems to have disappeared. Anyway my grandkids 38,37 ,32,28 all rent and I don’t think they will ever be able to buy a home. My oldest granddaughter does have a home and mortgage only because she inherited from my son when he died. My youngest grandson and his wife are paying $2400 per month for a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. My oldest grandson, wife and great granddaughter live with mother in law because none of them can afford to live alone. Grandson & wife have good jobs but have the work crazy hours, 7am-3PM and his wife 3 pm till 9pm and every other weekend so they both have time with their daughter but tough schedule to be a family. At least they have jobs. But buying a home seems to be a pipe dream. And although he wants to inherit my home he will have to buy out the other 3. Hopefully there will be enough inheritance for each to buy a small home someday. Our country is in bad shape.
Your situation is all too sadly common, Nancy, as I'm sure you know. We have created a very bleak reality for our children and grandchildren. As Ross Perot predicted in 1992, we are the first generation in American history where our children will have a lower standard of living than us. That's a shameful legacy. Thanks.
Yes, this country is in very bad shape. I would suggest that all your grandkids move in with the oldest granddaughter, pool resources, and start a garden and a chicken house. One could cook, one or two could clean, and the rest do chores. The menfolk could find odd jobs to bring in income, and work to expand the dwelling, adding bedrooms and living space.
That is how my family thrived during the depression. The extended family must become a reality again.
"All people my age can do is hope they don’t steal our pensions, if we’re lucky enough to have them". I fear that The Great Taking as per David Rogers Webb is already underway.
All the money printing only makes it worse. It quickly finds its way into the hands of the 1 percent who don't realy need it so they speculate with it which drives up asset prices first, and eventually all prices thus impoverishing greater and greater percentages of the population.
Practically all the politicians on both sides are totally bought and paid for by this one percent.
After years as divorce industry slave, having to pay extortion for debt I did not incur - falsely called "child support", because Virginia unlawfully stole my 3 kids whom I'd been supporting, bankruptcy, loss of career, 9 months total jail time for civil disobedience, I had no desire to become slave to a mortgagor by buying a house at grossly inflated prices. So I built out a Nissan high roof cargo van that's solar powered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSBiK_vAPLQ
My hope is to live in it and save to buy a small piece of land.
"They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands."
Isaiah 65:22
I believe this is what our Founders envisioned: a free, self-sufficient People who would enjoy the fruits of their own labor on their own land. But greedy speculators and lovers of money, parasites who profit from exploiting other humans, have killed the American dream.
It's a matter of comfort v. freedom. You can throw money down a black hole each month on rent, or you can sacrifice some comfort, and work towards becoming independent of that slavery, and being self-sufficient and off the grid.
Only Humans have Rights: God-given Rights. Corporations are creatures of state with privileges that originally had to serve a public good for the people. It's upside down now, so that corporations own government. That's called fascism.
The Virginia legislature just passed several unconstitutional anti-2nd Amendment bills. The only reason they'd do that is because they fear The People. But that's the way it should be:
"When the People fear government, that's called tyranny. When the government fears the People, that's called Liberty." (often attributed to Thomas Jefferson).
“There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78
There are now 29 states that have passed constitutional carry laws upholding the 2nd Amendment.
The 2nd Amendment reflects our fundamental right to self defense.
What is tragic is neither the Constitution nor any Amendment give a person a fundamental right to own property, which can not be infringed upon. As material beings, property is essential to our survival and our sovereignty.
Nothing in the Constitution gives anyone any Right. We're born with our God-given = Fundamental = Natural Rights. The Bill of Rights simply affirms our God-given Rights, one of which is the Right to own property. The problem is our public servants ignore our Rights and violate their oath to follow the Constitution continually. Because people don't know their rights, they don't defend them, and believe government can take them away, ie., that Rights are govt. granted. Example: Trump's red flag order: first take the guns, then do the due process later = upside down/ in backwards order.
5th Amendment... nor [shall any person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
14th Amendment - Section 1...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"Poverty was common in the Middle Ages." Yes it was, but so too was happiness. But first off, let's start by defining those "terrible Middle Ages." For this Wolf, the "Middle Ages" ended in 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Cathedral Door at Whittenburg, and was called to a Diet at Wurms. (Not placed on a Diet of Worms; Claus Schwaub was still half a millennia in the future.) And for this Wolf, that was the beginning of the Revolution.
Not that Europe had not had, and had in Luther's time, plenty of Pope's and Bishops and Abbots and Kings and Dukes and Counts who were complete assholes. This Wolf, unlike many of his fellow Traditional Catholics, is not going to glorify or romanticize the days of yore. They certainly had their problems too.
That being said, the average peasant in those terrible Middle Ages had basically three choices: One, he could scratch out a living on a small parcel of land rented to the manor, or provisionally deeded. While private property was as rare as sage grass in an oak forest, laws and contracts were vigorously upheld, and the lords, even the bad ones, did keep up appearances. Back in those days the commoners voted not with ballot and script but with staves and pitchforks. (They had their version of the 2nd Amendment)
His other choice was to be an itenerant pilgrim. That was for those with wanderlust who wanted to see the world- at least the world from Portugal to Poland. A man could walk fifteen miles and come to a Monastery that would give him a meal and a bed. Monasteries back in the day were more common than Motel Six, and they did much more than leave the light on for you. Most pilgrims were sponsored by a Duke or a King, and had some coins jingling in their pockets they could plunk down for a donation, or to pay tolls. Otherwise, they could work a week or so at a Monastery, being paid with food and lodging and eventually a coin to pay the toll and cross the river or the mountain pass to the next adventure.
His other choice was to become a professed religious. Options in the Early Middle Ages were the Benedictines, Carmelites, and cloisters sponsored by the Local Bishoprics. By the 14th Century, those options had expanded to include the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Templars, the Hosplitars, and the Cistericians. A wide variety of charisms, education, and travel separated the various orders, but it was a great time to be alive.
Today, one has basically the same options: he can work on the plantation, eek out an existence on a Reservation, or go see the world, all while remaining basically dirt poor but not starving to death. The only difference is that the votiaries of the state will harass one every inch of the way.
Meanwhile, the "Dark Ages" was anything but. All those beautiful Cathedrals, Castles, bridges, and towers, along with their artistic decorations, were not built by overseas laborers, or imported from China. A significant middle class did exist, supported by the guilds. It is tragic that the scions of the Revolution have indoctrinated us to the point where we have forgotten the Glories of Christendom.
Yes, the Dark Ages was full of wars, looting, plunderers, rogues, pirates, marauders, burnings, sacks, and the clash of swords. But there were hardly any standing armies, no draft, and no building codes. And hardly any taxes. And by law no battles could occur during Sundays, Holy Days, Lent, Advent, the Rogations, and the Octaves of Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. It was possible for the Godly to stay out of trouble, and hoe their row unmolested for the most part.
You make good points, WW. The "Dark Ages" indeed may have been given an unfair reputation. Certainly, in the Middle Ages, the average peasant didn't have to worry about government invading their privacy or trampling on their liberties. Thanks.
Perhaps the Middle Ages were Idyllic, as long as you did not defy the "church". You just had to be terrorized into submission to it's false "christian" doctrinal traditions of men, or risk being tortured or becoming one of the 10s of millions executed by the church. And all those magnificent cathedrals were largely funded by the church extorting indulgences - bribes - for forgiveness of sins.
The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was about the people ending the tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity of the established Catholic "church". People were persecuted and mind-controlled by that system of "fake news" of the Middle Ages until after invention of the printing press eventually allowed people to copy and read the Bible for themselves. Knowledge of the Bible is the basis for Western Civilization and the American form of government. People realized they could bypass a priest and go straight into the Holy of Holies to Jesus, the Author of Liberty, thus the personal sovereignty referred to by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in the phrase "endowed by their Creator".
Okay, you are forcing me to do a theological deep dive, but let's dispose of the more laughable stuff first.
While I am not in favor of, nor going to carry water for, the Inquisitions, they were not part of the Middle Ages. The Spanish Inquisition was instituted by Queen Isabella about 1500- at the very, very tail end of what I consider the Middle Ages. The more general inquisition happened even later. And truth be told, the Protestants also had their own Inquisitions- or perhaps you never heard of the "Salem Witch Trials"? Overall, the Inquisitions were more or less run by Jews masquerading as Catholics, more or less. But the Jewish infiltration of the papacy and the Vatican is too huge a topic to broach here. I would recommend Michael Hoffman's The Occult Reniasance Church of Rome. Moreover, the Inquisitions did not kill "10's of millions". Not even a million. Bomber Harris killed more people in Dresden in a few hours than the Inquisitions had executed over the course of two or so centuries.
The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was not about people ending "tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity". It was about the Kings and Dukes in Germany taking advantage of an extremely corrupt Catholic Church and using that as a pretext to sack monasteries and confiscate ancient church properties. The same thing would happen under Henry 8th in England. The Blowback was an excuse for the Vatican and the "Most Catholic Kings" to magnify their power. The big losers were the people, who suffered under the newly manufactured "divine right of Kings" which only came into play AFTER the "Reformation".
Just for the record, the Peasants in England rebelled when "Cramner's Godly Order" took away their hallowed Rogation Days, where fields and crops were blessed.
Nobody needs a Priest to pray to God, nor to recite the Most Holy Rosary, which Our Lady of Fatima urged, by the way, to avert the Wrath of God. But you do need a Priest to Offer the only Sacrifice worthy of God, the Most Holy Mass, which is a representation- not a repetition!!!- of the Sacrifice of Calvary. And Our Lord Jesus Christ did make St Peter head of His Church, it is in the Bible.
The abuse of the system of Indulgences under Tetzel was to fund the building of the Modern Lateran in Rome. All those magnificent Cathedrals were erected by the Blood, Sweat, and tears of generations of peasants, some taking over two centuries to build and decorate. And, yes, the actions of Tetzel and the 15th and 16th century popes was reprehensible. Many of those 16th century popes were not fake but they were certainly ghey.
But please don''t confuse the human element of the church with the Magnificent Apostolic Faith, once for all delivered to the Saints. Get yourself a copy of the Roman Catechism and acquiant yourself with its grandeur and its sublime nobility. It contains all you must believe in order to be saved.
Protestantism has disintegrated into a babble of sects, some of which do not even believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was God. Protestantism is like a system of highways without maps or directional signs. Just be sure you don't take the wrong exit.
As for the numbers killed by the Inquisitions, not just in Spain, I may be way off. I’ve only seen or heard several times 10s of millions were killed. I’ll do more research on that. But whatever the figure, 10s or 100s of thousands including those who died in prison for heresy, the forced public executions: beheading, burnings at the stake, tortures, no doubt terrorized any who might express deviation from the teachings of the Catholic Church. Here are some discussions on possible numbers killed and dates it started (12th Century). https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39443/what-was-the-death-toll-during-the-inquisition
Here’s a good drama/documentary: The Dark History Of The Ruthless Inquisition | Secret files of the Inquisition | All Out History https://youtu.be/ogyRi8vMuH4
As for your statement, “The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was not about people ending "tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity", we’ll have to disagree. See the link to false Catholic teachings I posted above.
But I do agree that most Protestant denominations don’t follow the Bible on many topics and keep believers confused. But that does not mean Catholicism has it right. As a former Seventh Day Adventist, I still believe SDAs are one church that is fully Protestant, especially regarding the 4th Commandment on the Sabbath, the state of the dead, heaven and hell, and other important subjects. It was the Catholic Church that established Sunday worship around 313 A.D. when Christianity was legalized by Emperor Constantine, who brought in idol worship and other pagan practices.
See the 27 Bible Study Guides for concise teachings on many Bible subjects.
Whether it was claims of divinity by popes or kings, it was the same result: tyranny and subjugation of the people to their absolute rule by FORCE, and constant threat of death or torture for heresy against their powers or authority. That was counterfeit Christianity, because Jesus never used or taught use of force for conversion.
As for the pope being the purported vicar of Christ on Earth, I agree with the SDA view that the fact stated in Peter’s answer to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, is the rock upon which Jesus would build his church. MT 16:18
As for the human element, of course there are good and bad people in every church. I in no way mean to judge any Catholic or Protestant believer. Only God can do that. God calls us to worship in spirit and in truth. But false teachings serve to turn people from God. For example, the unbiblical view of eternal punishment for the wicked. Hell is an event with eternal results, called the lake of fire, not a place of eternal torture. https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4988/t/is-the-devil-in-charge-of-hell-
The SDAs provide a clear map to salvation and full understanding of the Holy Bible. www.amazingfacts.org
The websites you suggested are full of stunning inaccuracies. I will just give one example:
"The papacy is here saying that it 'changed' Sabbath to Sunday and that virtually all churches accepted the new holy day. Thus, the papacy claims that Sunday as a holy day is the mark, or symbol, of her power and authority."
From the days of the Apostles, Sunday was the New Sabbath, in commemoration of Pentecost, which occurred on a Sunday, and was the Birthday of Holy Mother Church. This was a decision made by Peter and all the Apostles long before there was a "papacy" and the Vatican. The True Church has four marks: It is One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic.
Did God predict such an attempted change?
Answer
Answer: Yes. In describing the Antichrist in Daniel 7:25, God said it would “intend to change times and law.”
Think about the fact that today, most places of the world are divided into Time Zones. Before 1870, every place had its local solar noon. Also, no such things as "daylights saving time" and "New Year's Day" existed.
The Catholic Church changed the 10 Commandments moral law. In its catechisms, the papacy has omitted the second commandment against veneration of images, shortened the fourth commandment on the Sabbath from 94 words to eight, made it the third commandment and divided the tenth commandment on coveting into two commandments to make up for deletion of the 2nd commandment.
I'm not going to nitpick about how Protestants changed the format of the commandments, making the first into two, and combining the last two commandments into one. In both versions, the entire substance of the commandments is there.
When God is forbidding the veneration of images, he is specifically forbidding giving any image Divine Worship, as in idolatry. Now, one can easily have an idol that has no image. Some men today worship money, others, science. Conversely, one can have an image which one venerates but does not worship. Perhaps you have a photo of your mother, or children? At any rate, absolutely forbidding images runs contrary to this part of the Bible: " Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. Upon which they came to Moses, and said: We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee: pray that he may take away these serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed." (Numbers Chapter 21 starting at verse 6 in my Bible.)
Now, I leave you with this challenge. Research the Apparitions of Fatima and especially what happened on Oct 13th, 1917 and Jan 25th 1938. If you can show me all of that is fake and ghey I swear on a stack of Bibles I will faithfully attend an the Protestant Church of your choice.
God bless you for bringing this up. To talk about "conservatives" or the laughable "free market" critically is to be a commie or Marxist or whatever. Anything but someone who is looking at what the country actually IS as opposed to what they tell us it is. Wave the flag, rah rah, thank you for your service. I just learned that my nephew who was in the Marines until recently, was making $160,000 a year doing logistics in the U.S. Thank you for your service, indeed. Explain that to a fireman.
My father delivered newspapers when I was little and was a Teamster. The Right goes on and on about unions, but without the Teamsters, my brother, sister, and I would never have had eye, dental or doctor care. Today, my father gets a pension from them. Unions were noble until they became corrupted. Maybe that's also an apt description of the United States of America.
I appreciate that, Cindy. Although often mistaken for one, I could never be a conservative. Even when corrupted by the mob and incestuous relationships between labor and management, unions for a long time helped raise wages and increase benefits for all workers, including at nonunion businesses. Thanks!
The unions, like just about nigh everything else in the Land of the Robber Barons, were controlled opposition. The early, authentic unions were mowed down by the president of the corporation and the president of the United States alike. The Molly Maguires, for example, started out with the right idea, but they were infiltrated with shills working for the corporations who advocated mayhem and succeeded in demonizing the organization. That has been the modus operandi since.
What Don Jefrries calls America 1.0 was a Grand Facade brought to us by the Military Industrial Complex to keep the proletariet fat and happy while they continued to build the infrastructure.
The right seems to be guilty of hypocrisy. The say:
-the family is important and the best way to raise children
-single mothers should have to get jobs and work outside the home
But the right is mostly right. It is right that only freedom and free-enterprise will lessen poverty in the long run. And the reason we no longer have free-enterprise in America is NOT because it doesn't work, but because leftists destroyed it, to replace it with government control.
We have crony capitalism in this country. As one of the founding fathers of the system, John D. Rockefeller, used to say, "Competition is a sin." All you need to consider is that when feminism resulted in women entering the workforce in great numbers, every married couple should theoretically have seen their family income significantly increased. Obviously, that didn't happen. I'm sure the economists can explain. Thanks, Rightful!
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Yes, and I would add the verse from the book of common prayer, "The service of God is perfect freedom."
God is the source of true freedom. The left and the right are not the same. The people who believe in freedom and love God are on the same side in a struggle against evil in this world. Hypocrisy, dishonesty, the misuse of power, as in the case of the Sanhedrin, were things that Christ actively attacked and opposed when he was in this world. IMHO we should also.
I think that you and I are of the same blood! These are the thoughts that weigh down my heart day after day in the America we see around us. The one thing that I hold on to as we see all this destruction coming toward us caused, literally, by the greed of the elites is the following Bible verse:
"Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
These utterly selfish and self-consumed individuals will soon meet the very God whose role they now seek to possess. He has been waiting to come and deal with this only out of his great Mercy and the desire for more human beings to be born so that they may ultimately have eternal life if they call on the name of the Lord. Just look at them in this verse! Cowering in their caves and their hideaways! Scared to death as they should be! I have to smile as I think of them hiding like this. The image of the elephant holding that little piece of fluff in Dr Seuss's book entitled :Horton Hears a Who" comes to mind. There is no hiding from this God and His Wrath on this tiny Blue Marble we call earth!. I consider my own sins daily and I Repent of them. I have thrown myself at his feet for mercy and if these people do not, they will find that all the pleasures and possessions that they stole from millions of other downtrodden people will be a very poor exchange indeed for what is coming.
PS. I love and thoroughly enjoy your writing! You touch my very spirit!
"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck. 30 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us. For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?" -Our Lord Jesus Christ while carrying His Cross on the Road to Golgotha.
Yes, it is one of my favorite meditations: Judgment Day. All the world will be dust and ashes beneath our feet. All we shall possess are Our sins and our good works. On Judgment Day, nobody is going to be worries about how many degrees you had, or what is your employment status, or how many houses you owned, or how many followers you had on Twitter, or what political office you had, or how many trophies you won. No, all the applaud of the world will have ceased on Judgment Day. And we will all have to come forward and give an account for every day we lived, and every word ever spoken. And our very thoughts will be laid bare before men, angels, and God.
"Listen Son, and remember thy last end, and thou shalt not sin."
As the masthead on ZeroHedge reads: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. We are all going to die, whether on a hospital bed or under a pine tree. So what are Henry Kissinger and Pope Benedict doing now?
You echo my thoughts and feelings! Lately, particularly after my fall, I have been contemplating the end of my own life and facing the fact that I must give an account to the great Lord! That is all that matters now except for people and their needs.
Yes, I was born in 47. When I was old enough to work, each time I changed jobs my salary doubled. The health ins and retirement benefits were the same for us as the bosses. I lived in NYC for most of my life and there was a time I could move from apartment to apartment, easily affordable. I left NY in 1999 and my Avenue A apartment went from $450\mo to $2400/mo. Who can afford that. Yes, times have changed and here in Maine we fight our elected officials who sell our pristine water to Nestle, are trying to give away the Penobscot River to some Norwegian company to poison with farmed salmon, and who want to turn our National Treasure Sears Island into an industrial park for constructing gigantic wind turbines. It only makes sense to me when you realize the politicos who push this chit, will someday need a job, one where they do very little for lots of money. I can’t think of any other reason. Everything our governor does is counterintuitive…greed is a mental illness.
Anyways, my say in the matter.
I appreciate you sharing your experiences, Nancy. America 1.0 was a different world. Thanks!
Maine is the last refuge of the America that once was. My Fatherland used to be a land of dairy farms, a local quarry, a watch factory, and shoe factory. Then the Military-Industrial Complex came to town and set up a huge factory to make vacuum tubes and another to make detenator fuses. Then came prosperity, the mall, and main-drag USA. And then the factories shuttered, and all the ancillary businesses gradually went bankrupt.
I'm sure the same story was repeated in many places from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Redwood Forests.
I started to write but my post seems to have disappeared. Anyway my grandkids 38,37 ,32,28 all rent and I don’t think they will ever be able to buy a home. My oldest granddaughter does have a home and mortgage only because she inherited from my son when he died. My youngest grandson and his wife are paying $2400 per month for a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. My oldest grandson, wife and great granddaughter live with mother in law because none of them can afford to live alone. Grandson & wife have good jobs but have the work crazy hours, 7am-3PM and his wife 3 pm till 9pm and every other weekend so they both have time with their daughter but tough schedule to be a family. At least they have jobs. But buying a home seems to be a pipe dream. And although he wants to inherit my home he will have to buy out the other 3. Hopefully there will be enough inheritance for each to buy a small home someday. Our country is in bad shape.
Your situation is all too sadly common, Nancy, as I'm sure you know. We have created a very bleak reality for our children and grandchildren. As Ross Perot predicted in 1992, we are the first generation in American history where our children will have a lower standard of living than us. That's a shameful legacy. Thanks.
Yes, this country is in very bad shape. I would suggest that all your grandkids move in with the oldest granddaughter, pool resources, and start a garden and a chicken house. One could cook, one or two could clean, and the rest do chores. The menfolk could find odd jobs to bring in income, and work to expand the dwelling, adding bedrooms and living space.
That is how my family thrived during the depression. The extended family must become a reality again.
"All people my age can do is hope they don’t steal our pensions, if we’re lucky enough to have them". I fear that The Great Taking as per David Rogers Webb is already underway.
If you are depending on a pension or the doles at this point, you are in a very bad place.
Exit strategies abound for those that realise
All the money printing only makes it worse. It quickly finds its way into the hands of the 1 percent who don't realy need it so they speculate with it which drives up asset prices first, and eventually all prices thus impoverishing greater and greater percentages of the population.
Practically all the politicians on both sides are totally bought and paid for by this one percent.
And it is the same all around the world.
Great observation, Duncan. Thanks.
At the end of the day, they are not printing money, they are expanding debt.
America now has a yoke of debt about its neck. The only political solution is a debt jubilee, and the complete collapse of the larger economy.
For those who can't afford to buy a house or pay rent, there is an alternative: a home on wheels
https://www.youtube.com/@CheapRVliving
https://homesonwheelsalliance.org/
After years as divorce industry slave, having to pay extortion for debt I did not incur - falsely called "child support", because Virginia unlawfully stole my 3 kids whom I'd been supporting, bankruptcy, loss of career, 9 months total jail time for civil disobedience, I had no desire to become slave to a mortgagor by buying a house at grossly inflated prices. So I built out a Nissan high roof cargo van that's solar powered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSBiK_vAPLQ
My hope is to live in it and save to buy a small piece of land.
I watch all those channels too! I think it may be in my future as well. Take care.
"They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands."
Isaiah 65:22
I believe this is what our Founders envisioned: a free, self-sufficient People who would enjoy the fruits of their own labor on their own land. But greedy speculators and lovers of money, parasites who profit from exploiting other humans, have killed the American dream.
It's a matter of comfort v. freedom. You can throw money down a black hole each month on rent, or you can sacrifice some comfort, and work towards becoming independent of that slavery, and being self-sufficient and off the grid.
100 Bible verses about rich people: https://www.openbible.info/topics/rich_people
Economic Depression By Design: http://issuesoutline.org/#economy
Only Humans have Rights: God-given Rights. Corporations are creatures of state with privileges that originally had to serve a public good for the people. It's upside down now, so that corporations own government. That's called fascism.
The Virginia legislature just passed several unconstitutional anti-2nd Amendment bills. The only reason they'd do that is because they fear The People. But that's the way it should be:
"When the People fear government, that's called tyranny. When the government fears the People, that's called Liberty." (often attributed to Thomas Jefferson).
Please urge Gov. Youngkin to veto those bills. https://www.gunowners.org/va03052024/
“There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78
There are now 29 states that have passed constitutional carry laws upholding the 2nd Amendment.
FOUNDING FATHERS VS. GUN CONTROL
http://issuesoutline.org/founding_fathers_vs_gun_control.htm
2nd Amendment = The Original Homeland Security System
Absolutely right, Mark. Thanks!
The 2nd Amendment reflects our fundamental right to self defense.
What is tragic is neither the Constitution nor any Amendment give a person a fundamental right to own property, which can not be infringed upon. As material beings, property is essential to our survival and our sovereignty.
Nothing in the Constitution gives anyone any Right. We're born with our God-given = Fundamental = Natural Rights. The Bill of Rights simply affirms our God-given Rights, one of which is the Right to own property. The problem is our public servants ignore our Rights and violate their oath to follow the Constitution continually. Because people don't know their rights, they don't defend them, and believe government can take them away, ie., that Rights are govt. granted. Example: Trump's red flag order: first take the guns, then do the due process later = upside down/ in backwards order.
5th Amendment... nor [shall any person] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
14th Amendment - Section 1...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
You are so over the target. Are any politicians or justices saying this?
"Poverty was common in the Middle Ages." Yes it was, but so too was happiness. But first off, let's start by defining those "terrible Middle Ages." For this Wolf, the "Middle Ages" ended in 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Cathedral Door at Whittenburg, and was called to a Diet at Wurms. (Not placed on a Diet of Worms; Claus Schwaub was still half a millennia in the future.) And for this Wolf, that was the beginning of the Revolution.
Not that Europe had not had, and had in Luther's time, plenty of Pope's and Bishops and Abbots and Kings and Dukes and Counts who were complete assholes. This Wolf, unlike many of his fellow Traditional Catholics, is not going to glorify or romanticize the days of yore. They certainly had their problems too.
That being said, the average peasant in those terrible Middle Ages had basically three choices: One, he could scratch out a living on a small parcel of land rented to the manor, or provisionally deeded. While private property was as rare as sage grass in an oak forest, laws and contracts were vigorously upheld, and the lords, even the bad ones, did keep up appearances. Back in those days the commoners voted not with ballot and script but with staves and pitchforks. (They had their version of the 2nd Amendment)
His other choice was to be an itenerant pilgrim. That was for those with wanderlust who wanted to see the world- at least the world from Portugal to Poland. A man could walk fifteen miles and come to a Monastery that would give him a meal and a bed. Monasteries back in the day were more common than Motel Six, and they did much more than leave the light on for you. Most pilgrims were sponsored by a Duke or a King, and had some coins jingling in their pockets they could plunk down for a donation, or to pay tolls. Otherwise, they could work a week or so at a Monastery, being paid with food and lodging and eventually a coin to pay the toll and cross the river or the mountain pass to the next adventure.
His other choice was to become a professed religious. Options in the Early Middle Ages were the Benedictines, Carmelites, and cloisters sponsored by the Local Bishoprics. By the 14th Century, those options had expanded to include the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Templars, the Hosplitars, and the Cistericians. A wide variety of charisms, education, and travel separated the various orders, but it was a great time to be alive.
Today, one has basically the same options: he can work on the plantation, eek out an existence on a Reservation, or go see the world, all while remaining basically dirt poor but not starving to death. The only difference is that the votiaries of the state will harass one every inch of the way.
Meanwhile, the "Dark Ages" was anything but. All those beautiful Cathedrals, Castles, bridges, and towers, along with their artistic decorations, were not built by overseas laborers, or imported from China. A significant middle class did exist, supported by the guilds. It is tragic that the scions of the Revolution have indoctrinated us to the point where we have forgotten the Glories of Christendom.
Yes, the Dark Ages was full of wars, looting, plunderers, rogues, pirates, marauders, burnings, sacks, and the clash of swords. But there were hardly any standing armies, no draft, and no building codes. And hardly any taxes. And by law no battles could occur during Sundays, Holy Days, Lent, Advent, the Rogations, and the Octaves of Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. It was possible for the Godly to stay out of trouble, and hoe their row unmolested for the most part.
You make good points, WW. The "Dark Ages" indeed may have been given an unfair reputation. Certainly, in the Middle Ages, the average peasant didn't have to worry about government invading their privacy or trampling on their liberties. Thanks.
Perhaps the Middle Ages were Idyllic, as long as you did not defy the "church". You just had to be terrorized into submission to it's false "christian" doctrinal traditions of men, or risk being tortured or becoming one of the 10s of millions executed by the church. And all those magnificent cathedrals were largely funded by the church extorting indulgences - bribes - for forgiveness of sins.
https://www.bible.ca/cath-overview-false-teaching.htm
The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was about the people ending the tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity of the established Catholic "church". People were persecuted and mind-controlled by that system of "fake news" of the Middle Ages until after invention of the printing press eventually allowed people to copy and read the Bible for themselves. Knowledge of the Bible is the basis for Western Civilization and the American form of government. People realized they could bypass a priest and go straight into the Holy of Holies to Jesus, the Author of Liberty, thus the personal sovereignty referred to by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in the phrase "endowed by their Creator".
Okay, you are forcing me to do a theological deep dive, but let's dispose of the more laughable stuff first.
While I am not in favor of, nor going to carry water for, the Inquisitions, they were not part of the Middle Ages. The Spanish Inquisition was instituted by Queen Isabella about 1500- at the very, very tail end of what I consider the Middle Ages. The more general inquisition happened even later. And truth be told, the Protestants also had their own Inquisitions- or perhaps you never heard of the "Salem Witch Trials"? Overall, the Inquisitions were more or less run by Jews masquerading as Catholics, more or less. But the Jewish infiltration of the papacy and the Vatican is too huge a topic to broach here. I would recommend Michael Hoffman's The Occult Reniasance Church of Rome. Moreover, the Inquisitions did not kill "10's of millions". Not even a million. Bomber Harris killed more people in Dresden in a few hours than the Inquisitions had executed over the course of two or so centuries.
The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was not about people ending "tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity". It was about the Kings and Dukes in Germany taking advantage of an extremely corrupt Catholic Church and using that as a pretext to sack monasteries and confiscate ancient church properties. The same thing would happen under Henry 8th in England. The Blowback was an excuse for the Vatican and the "Most Catholic Kings" to magnify their power. The big losers were the people, who suffered under the newly manufactured "divine right of Kings" which only came into play AFTER the "Reformation".
Just for the record, the Peasants in England rebelled when "Cramner's Godly Order" took away their hallowed Rogation Days, where fields and crops were blessed.
Nobody needs a Priest to pray to God, nor to recite the Most Holy Rosary, which Our Lady of Fatima urged, by the way, to avert the Wrath of God. But you do need a Priest to Offer the only Sacrifice worthy of God, the Most Holy Mass, which is a representation- not a repetition!!!- of the Sacrifice of Calvary. And Our Lord Jesus Christ did make St Peter head of His Church, it is in the Bible.
The abuse of the system of Indulgences under Tetzel was to fund the building of the Modern Lateran in Rome. All those magnificent Cathedrals were erected by the Blood, Sweat, and tears of generations of peasants, some taking over two centuries to build and decorate. And, yes, the actions of Tetzel and the 15th and 16th century popes was reprehensible. Many of those 16th century popes were not fake but they were certainly ghey.
But please don''t confuse the human element of the church with the Magnificent Apostolic Faith, once for all delivered to the Saints. Get yourself a copy of the Roman Catechism and acquiant yourself with its grandeur and its sublime nobility. It contains all you must believe in order to be saved.
Protestantism has disintegrated into a babble of sects, some of which do not even believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was God. Protestantism is like a system of highways without maps or directional signs. Just be sure you don't take the wrong exit.
regards in the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
As for the numbers killed by the Inquisitions, not just in Spain, I may be way off. I’ve only seen or heard several times 10s of millions were killed. I’ll do more research on that. But whatever the figure, 10s or 100s of thousands including those who died in prison for heresy, the forced public executions: beheading, burnings at the stake, tortures, no doubt terrorized any who might express deviation from the teachings of the Catholic Church. Here are some discussions on possible numbers killed and dates it started (12th Century). https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/39443/what-was-the-death-toll-during-the-inquisition
https://www.history.com/topics/religion/inquisition#sources
Here’s a good drama/documentary: The Dark History Of The Ruthless Inquisition | Secret files of the Inquisition | All Out History https://youtu.be/ogyRi8vMuH4
As for your statement, “The 16th Century Protestant Reformation was not about people ending "tyrannical, counterfeit Christianity", we’ll have to disagree. See the link to false Catholic teachings I posted above.
But I do agree that most Protestant denominations don’t follow the Bible on many topics and keep believers confused. But that does not mean Catholicism has it right. As a former Seventh Day Adventist, I still believe SDAs are one church that is fully Protestant, especially regarding the 4th Commandment on the Sabbath, the state of the dead, heaven and hell, and other important subjects. It was the Catholic Church that established Sunday worship around 313 A.D. when Christianity was legalized by Emperor Constantine, who brought in idol worship and other pagan practices.
See the 27 Bible Study Guides for concise teachings on many Bible subjects.
https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/read/c/2/t/bible-study-guides#studymore
Whether it was claims of divinity by popes or kings, it was the same result: tyranny and subjugation of the people to their absolute rule by FORCE, and constant threat of death or torture for heresy against their powers or authority. That was counterfeit Christianity, because Jesus never used or taught use of force for conversion.
As for the pope being the purported vicar of Christ on Earth, I agree with the SDA view that the fact stated in Peter’s answer to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, is the rock upon which Jesus would build his church. MT 16:18
As for the human element, of course there are good and bad people in every church. I in no way mean to judge any Catholic or Protestant believer. Only God can do that. God calls us to worship in spirit and in truth. But false teachings serve to turn people from God. For example, the unbiblical view of eternal punishment for the wicked. Hell is an event with eternal results, called the lake of fire, not a place of eternal torture. https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4988/t/is-the-devil-in-charge-of-hell-
The SDAs provide a clear map to salvation and full understanding of the Holy Bible. www.amazingfacts.org
Also See: Fox’s Book of Martyrs online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22400/22400-h/22400-h.htm
The websites you suggested are full of stunning inaccuracies. I will just give one example:
"The papacy is here saying that it 'changed' Sabbath to Sunday and that virtually all churches accepted the new holy day. Thus, the papacy claims that Sunday as a holy day is the mark, or symbol, of her power and authority."
From the days of the Apostles, Sunday was the New Sabbath, in commemoration of Pentecost, which occurred on a Sunday, and was the Birthday of Holy Mother Church. This was a decision made by Peter and all the Apostles long before there was a "papacy" and the Vatican. The True Church has four marks: It is One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic.
Did God predict such an attempted change?
Answer
Answer: Yes. In describing the Antichrist in Daniel 7:25, God said it would “intend to change times and law.”
Think about the fact that today, most places of the world are divided into Time Zones. Before 1870, every place had its local solar noon. Also, no such things as "daylights saving time" and "New Year's Day" existed.
Just WHO is changing times and laws?
The Catholic Church changed the 10 Commandments moral law. In its catechisms, the papacy has omitted the second commandment against veneration of images, shortened the fourth commandment on the Sabbath from 94 words to eight, made it the third commandment and divided the tenth commandment on coveting into two commandments to make up for deletion of the 2nd commandment.
https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4992/t/who-is-the-antichrist-
The papacy changed the times regarding the Sabbath.
https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4997/t/the-mark-of-the-beast
I'm not going to nitpick about how Protestants changed the format of the commandments, making the first into two, and combining the last two commandments into one. In both versions, the entire substance of the commandments is there.
When God is forbidding the veneration of images, he is specifically forbidding giving any image Divine Worship, as in idolatry. Now, one can easily have an idol that has no image. Some men today worship money, others, science. Conversely, one can have an image which one venerates but does not worship. Perhaps you have a photo of your mother, or children? At any rate, absolutely forbidding images runs contrary to this part of the Bible: " Wherefore the Lord sent among the people fiery serpents, which bit them and killed many of them. Upon which they came to Moses, and said: We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and thee: pray that he may take away these serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to him: Make a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed." (Numbers Chapter 21 starting at verse 6 in my Bible.)
Now, I leave you with this challenge. Research the Apparitions of Fatima and especially what happened on Oct 13th, 1917 and Jan 25th 1938. If you can show me all of that is fake and ghey I swear on a stack of Bibles I will faithfully attend an the Protestant Church of your choice.
To which website are you referring? Jesus kept the Sabbath, and the apostles all kept the 7th Day Sabbath long after Jesus' ascension. https://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/study-guide/e/4984/t/the-lost-day-of-history
God bless you for bringing this up. To talk about "conservatives" or the laughable "free market" critically is to be a commie or Marxist or whatever. Anything but someone who is looking at what the country actually IS as opposed to what they tell us it is. Wave the flag, rah rah, thank you for your service. I just learned that my nephew who was in the Marines until recently, was making $160,000 a year doing logistics in the U.S. Thank you for your service, indeed. Explain that to a fireman.
My father delivered newspapers when I was little and was a Teamster. The Right goes on and on about unions, but without the Teamsters, my brother, sister, and I would never have had eye, dental or doctor care. Today, my father gets a pension from them. Unions were noble until they became corrupted. Maybe that's also an apt description of the United States of America.
I appreciate that, Cindy. Although often mistaken for one, I could never be a conservative. Even when corrupted by the mob and incestuous relationships between labor and management, unions for a long time helped raise wages and increase benefits for all workers, including at nonunion businesses. Thanks!
The unions, like just about nigh everything else in the Land of the Robber Barons, were controlled opposition. The early, authentic unions were mowed down by the president of the corporation and the president of the United States alike. The Molly Maguires, for example, started out with the right idea, but they were infiltrated with shills working for the corporations who advocated mayhem and succeeded in demonizing the organization. That has been the modus operandi since.
What Don Jefrries calls America 1.0 was a Grand Facade brought to us by the Military Industrial Complex to keep the proletariet fat and happy while they continued to build the infrastructure.
it was fun while it lasted.
So true, White Wolf.
The right seems to be guilty of hypocrisy. The say:
-the family is important and the best way to raise children
-single mothers should have to get jobs and work outside the home
But the right is mostly right. It is right that only freedom and free-enterprise will lessen poverty in the long run. And the reason we no longer have free-enterprise in America is NOT because it doesn't work, but because leftists destroyed it, to replace it with government control.
We have crony capitalism in this country. As one of the founding fathers of the system, John D. Rockefeller, used to say, "Competition is a sin." All you need to consider is that when feminism resulted in women entering the workforce in great numbers, every married couple should theoretically have seen their family income significantly increased. Obviously, that didn't happen. I'm sure the economists can explain. Thanks, Rightful!
The Right is the Mirror image of the Left, and both labor under the illusion of "Progress".
"The Poor you will have with you always."- Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The road to prosperity is paved with the stones of the pilgrim.
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Thanks for your reply.
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Yes, and I would add the verse from the book of common prayer, "The service of God is perfect freedom."
God is the source of true freedom. The left and the right are not the same. The people who believe in freedom and love God are on the same side in a struggle against evil in this world. Hypocrisy, dishonesty, the misuse of power, as in the case of the Sanhedrin, were things that Christ actively attacked and opposed when he was in this world. IMHO we should also.
Mr Jeffries,
I think that you and I are of the same blood! These are the thoughts that weigh down my heart day after day in the America we see around us. The one thing that I hold on to as we see all this destruction coming toward us caused, literally, by the greed of the elites is the following Bible verse:
"Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
These utterly selfish and self-consumed individuals will soon meet the very God whose role they now seek to possess. He has been waiting to come and deal with this only out of his great Mercy and the desire for more human beings to be born so that they may ultimately have eternal life if they call on the name of the Lord. Just look at them in this verse! Cowering in their caves and their hideaways! Scared to death as they should be! I have to smile as I think of them hiding like this. The image of the elephant holding that little piece of fluff in Dr Seuss's book entitled :Horton Hears a Who" comes to mind. There is no hiding from this God and His Wrath on this tiny Blue Marble we call earth!. I consider my own sins daily and I Repent of them. I have thrown myself at his feet for mercy and if these people do not, they will find that all the pleasures and possessions that they stole from millions of other downtrodden people will be a very poor exchange indeed for what is coming.
PS. I love and thoroughly enjoy your writing! You touch my very spirit!
Beautifully expressed, JoJo. I appreciate the kind words- thanks!
I am sorry for all the grammatical and punctuation errors! I fell and broke my wrist and I have to do all of this by voice! Life is fun in old age!
It was fine, JoJo. Thanks!
"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck. 30 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us. For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?" -Our Lord Jesus Christ while carrying His Cross on the Road to Golgotha.
Yes, it is one of my favorite meditations: Judgment Day. All the world will be dust and ashes beneath our feet. All we shall possess are Our sins and our good works. On Judgment Day, nobody is going to be worries about how many degrees you had, or what is your employment status, or how many houses you owned, or how many followers you had on Twitter, or what political office you had, or how many trophies you won. No, all the applaud of the world will have ceased on Judgment Day. And we will all have to come forward and give an account for every day we lived, and every word ever spoken. And our very thoughts will be laid bare before men, angels, and God.
"Listen Son, and remember thy last end, and thou shalt not sin."
As the masthead on ZeroHedge reads: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. We are all going to die, whether on a hospital bed or under a pine tree. So what are Henry Kissinger and Pope Benedict doing now?
You echo my thoughts and feelings! Lately, particularly after my fall, I have been contemplating the end of my own life and facing the fact that I must give an account to the great Lord! That is all that matters now except for people and their needs.