Regeneration and Christmas

Now that Saturnalia is behind us …

“The ancient Roman seven-day festival of Saturn, which began on December 17.”

I’m comfortable writing a few words about Christmas.

The parties that many attend this year and every year … these are for Saturnalia. It’s an orgy of drinking and overindulgences in food, for some; and for other an excuse, at office parties, to speak one’s mind under the influence or with tongue’s lubrication by alcohol.

Each year a growing number of mislead people come to believe that Christmas was created to convert pagan masses during the Roman era, after Christianity became the singular sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire.  For these believers, Christmas is Saturnalia with a mythological Christ at its center. Thus, they often assert, the Church found a way to continue pagan traditions under a sanctioned roof, so to say.

Truly, Christmas is not Christmas without contemplation of the deeper mysteries of birth, death and regeneration.

Saturnalia was, in its time, a religious celebration designed to influence the Roman god Saturn, and came at the time of year when days were becoming shorter, and nights longer. One of two things would happen. Either daylight would diminish altogether some months in the future, or days would once again grow longer, and the warmth of the sun return. By honoring Saturn, Romans and others believed that their god was pleased and bestowed longer periods of sunlight upon the Earth, by which crops would once again flourish, and grapes for wine would likely grow aplenty. Drink up and be merry.

No matter how poorly we eat, humans will never be plants.

This is to say, the regeneration that Romans and others hoped for during Saturnalia was a regeneration of sunlight, the length of the day, and plants that sustained animal life, including of course their grapes. Timing of the festival worked in favor of those Romans. After the winter solstice around December 21 each year, their prayers were answered. Those who celebrate Saturnalia in this century also know this, and reasonably predict that daylight hours will lengthen, etc.

Just as many people these days don’t want to know what really happens in the world, or that the money they worship and cherish is bogus, or that the votes they cast are meaningless, or that the money they send to nonprofits to feed starving children is not spent to effectively end hunger …  people don’t want to contemplate the essential meaning of Christmas. That is, the contemplation of the deeper mysteries of birth, death and regeneration are largely taboo in this modern era.

There is a debate, if not a vehement argument ongoing about a war against Christmas.

Here is one view: War on Christmas?

And here is another: http: Fox Says War on Christmas has been won.

It appears obvious that this distinction is a moot point. The Christmas that is argued about is more of a non-Christmas celebration than it is a contemplation of the deeper mysteries of birth, death and regeneration. Why argue about Saturnalia?

The Government  policy is reflected her: Don't Say Christmas Soldier.

Santa Claus, most seasonal songs and a Yule tree are exceedingly banal and superficial. Enemies of true Christianity would have it no other way. And to argue over banalities pleases this group quite merrily, under both connotations. 

If Christmas were in essence a celebration of inanimate lumps of clay, salt water and minerals coming to life as a newborn human being, that would be remarkable. Such a life would be miraculous, and deemed precious. Who or what breathed life into that mixture would become the question of the year.  How it was done would be the scientific mystery of the century. Just as the code-writer for the human DNA molecule is an imponderable mystery, so is the mystery of human life in all its complexity. How and where did a human DNA molecule originate? 

We are those lumps of clay, salt water and minerals with an unfathomable essence of life "breathed" into us. "The Bru~ah, the Wind, did it." Hence, we should listen to that Wind because it has done so much more.

To me, the whole of Christmas essence is summarized in the title of a song,  Silent Night.

Real Christ Mass is, after all, one Holy Night

 

Regeneration and the Family Farm

Everyone knows that our bodies need food in order to survive. As science progresses we learn more about what defines real human food, and what qualifies as fake food.

The Free Dictionary by Farlex offers this definition: 

Material, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.

Whenever I make a journey up and down grocery store aisles I find many things other than real food that meets this definition. Processed and stripped of those essential life-giving ingredients. It’s filler but not food.

Of course the Federal Department of Agriculture permits a certain amount of once-upon-a-time real food material into processed foodstuffs. Cowing before big business, this federal agency doesn’t mind these substances being passed along as food simply because they determine, often with the help of businesses with vested interests, that those fillers do no harm in themselves. 

Reasons to cut out processed food

Read here about ten surprisingly processed foods

One of my favorite and enlightening quotes comes from Harvey G. Cox, Jr. in his book The Secular City. Written almost fifty years ago, Cox points out how human engineering was so advanced at that time that it is a matter of routine to manipulate masses of people to perform as organizations want them to. That is to say, thirty years after the Nazi propaganda minister, Paul Joseph Goebbels, rose to power with Hitler, propaganda advanced to near perfection as a means of controlling populations through desire and artificial rewards. The old carrot and stick approach works. 

Manipulation is easy. Television programs and movies do it all the time. The secret is in sound. It’s the soundtrack, Dummy.  Loud music stimulates emotions, and emotions stimulate appetite. Follow that manipulated emotional experience with images of double-bacon cheeseburgers and smiling faces, and you’re ready to consume. You might even want to crawl into your car at this point, to head for that drive-through window. Just the thought of it makes you warm to the idea of upgrading your vehicle. Then those images of shiny new cars and trucks flash across the screen, with more uplifting music filling the brief interludes between seductive verbiage. You’re ready to buy or lease that new vehicle … as soon as you drive away from the fast-food place.

What does this have to do with family farms?

The answer is also simple. Small family farms are generally the source of real food. Large factory farms are the starting point of mostly processed foods.

Emotional eating and feeding your feelings

The expense of processing food in factories, often requiring an investment of millions of dollars, necessitates large-scale production. Massive amounts of raw foods go in, and truckloads of processed products go out. If this system allowed for nutrition to be retained in those foodstuffs, it would be great for humanity. Large quantities of food would be produced and sold cheaply, yet still make a decent profit for the producers. And there would be enough to feed the starving in this world (there is actually more than enough). Another way to view this problem is: the foodstuff that comes out of those processing factories is so bad that it takes persistent manipulation of the population to keep selling the fake food. Because this fake food leaves eaters hungry for real food, they consistently reach for more, and undernourished appetites respond predictably to manipulation. Producers sweeten the deal, literally, with huge amounts of high-fructose corn syrup, the number one cause of obesity worldwide.

Gardeners who grow their own food know “how sweet it is” to eat from their self-assisted harvest. Small farmers who grow organically also understand how blessed they are to eat of their naturally processed soil; sunlight, water and mineral-rich dirt combine to process raw materials into wonderfully flavorful and highly nutritious edibles. Participants grow healthier bodies, not obese ones.

In a healthy body, regeneration of cells takes place readily. As long as the right ingredients are added in, new cells replace those used up. If the basic ingredients are missing, this natural regeneration is slowed or does not take place at all.  Cells die off or are used up but not replaced. When this happens in our vehicles, most people understand that parts have to be replaced or the car doesn’t function. It should be that simple when “driving” our bodies. Worn-out cells need to be replaced or the body fails.

Small organic farms are the key to regeneration of healthy bodies. We all need what these farms produce. Our lives depend on nutritionally loaded food, and the only source of nutritionally loaded food, containing all the essential minerals, vitamins and amino acids, is organic produce.

It should go without saying that health care is not something bought from an insurance company or a medical facility. Health care comes from what we eat and drink.

Goebbels wrote:

Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its "people's sovereignty" the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don't want to be recognized.

Rather than look to others for a solution to what ails you or society, contemplate these words from Harvey Cox:

What we are seeking so frantically elsewhere may turn out to be the horse we have been riding all along.

Regeneration Instead of Revolution

Tea Party members and sympathizers might consider themselves part of a "tax-revolt revolution" just as those who participated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 did. The Tea Party facts

We have seen others, such as Timothy McVeigh and his associates, who believed that his actions were revolutionary. Others, including the Wackos at Waco, Texas, have thought of themselves as religious revolutionaries.

Revolution as a religion has its various sects in America. Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Black Panthers, Aryan Nation, David Duke followers, Libertarians, the Coffee Party fellows, and Constitutionalists are but a few of these revolutionary sects. Most, if not all, are considered "terrorists" by the official federal government controllers.

One important thing to know about these sects is that they will never unite as one, or come together to fight a revolution against their common enemy, yet a common enemy they do indeed share.

Participants of the Ninety-Nine Percent, or "99%" protests had correctly identified its common enemy: the .04 percent (.04%) who own fifty percent (50% ) of all paper and hard assets in the United States ... most of which has been acquired at the expense of the 99.6% outside that inner circle of asset holders.

There happens to be a similarity between revolutionary sectarianism and the fractured community of Christianity, or Christian sects within Protestantism. Despite having a common "enemy" defined loosely as "the world," or the worship of any and all things material, Christian sects are divided by minutiae that has nothing to do with its purpose. Enemies of Christianity want it this way. And because of these disagreements on which approach, or set of rules, is most appropriate to achieve the common goal of freedom from corporate hegemony and increased participation of ownership in material resources, there will never be unity of purpose. There should be, in both "revolutionary" sectarianism and Christianity. Essentially, both are purposed to attain the same end.

Each group, or sect, has its particular Ego that defines it. Just as human beings are separated by ego, so are sects, whether religious or political, or economic.

Divide, with money, and conquer.

That infamous 04.% routinely floods each political and economic sect with sufficient funds to denounce its rivals in various media. It pays each to remain separate and competitive, and antagonistically divided. This assures there will be no viable, unified revolution to overthrow the status quo.

The well-funded, paid-in-full divisiveness precludes essential unity. and this unity is a product of timing -- reliant upon simultaneous events converging.

The one factor that would lead to achieving the aims of a successful revolution is spiritual awakening that unifies masses of people within a short time period. For decades, since the musical "Hair" burst onto the stage and "Consciousness scene" of the Nineteen-Sixties, millions of people have, at various times, believed in and anticipated the arrival of such a spiritual mass-awakening. The Age of Aquarius has been imminent for five decades. It was to be the event, or the turning point. Unfortunately, well-funded and paid-in-full mass-media campaigns have hijacked this spiritual awakening under the banner of New Age "enlightenment." A contradiction? Not at all. This New Age religion as mass-marketed (Oprah Winfrey has been a salesperson) emphasizes individual and group Ego in lieu of essential humility required of any genuine spiritual awakening.

It takes humility to achieve a unified goal of equality for all. New Age philosophy has, at its core, the proposal that each of us human beings can and should become our own god. Seven billion gods populating the "99.6%" is no way to conduct a spiritual revolution.

The simple truth is, none of us are gods and we cannot become one.


What we can do is recognize that each of us are the same, like trees in a forest. None is its own god, or superior to others, and all trees in the forest rely on the same basic circumstances to live, grow, and sustain life. A disease that enters one tree can kill the entire forest.

If we are ever to overcome the present conditions of inequality and lack of equal access to Earth's resources essential to sustaining human life on this planet, then we must take the humble approach, and recognize that this is a common fight shared equally by all. Everyone brings unique talents to the struggle, but none are so insignificant that we do not matter in the larger scheme of life and the struggle. In fact, each tree that dies in a forest yields its biological matter to billions of other organisms so that new life is regenerated from death.

Those who presently control the vast array of resources of this planet will not easily yield to a few scattered voices who scream for them to step aside and relinquish control. Those shrill voices are humorous to the few who hear them, and ludicrous.

Silence and death are weapons wielded daily by those in control. The masses, in disunity, are conveniently silent. For those who act out in desperation, death is the antidote to raising consciousness, and consciences. Money buys both silence and death every day, every hour.

Yet Truth cannot be silenced forever. Like life contained hidden within soil and seeds, it finds its moment to regenerate and spring to life. Regeneration is the essential factor in the revolutions that many anticipate and desire. It's a matter of time, and timing ... long anticipated and often postponed ... Truth will emerge from darkness, and many will realize that our fellow freedom fighter is not our rival, and that the way to attain our common goal is through humble service to each other.

     

Our Natural Inclination to Avoid Admitting We’ve Been Conned

Recent experience has reminded me that we all share a natural resistance to admitting, in spite of overwhelming evidence, to ourselves and to others, that we’ve been conned. We’ve been “had!”

We all know to be wary of used car salesmen. Lawyers have their own genre of jokes based upon a common dearth of honesty and integrity. These two words prompt snickers when associated with the legal professions. Still, millions of divorcing couples allow themselves to be emotionally railroaded into exorbitantly expensive divorce proceedings. Stimulated by the heat of negative passions, men and women are easily conned by their own lawyers. Their children suffer permanently; their banks accounts temporarily.

Advertisers are masters of the con. Trash dumps are filled with low-quality junk that seemed promising up to the time of purchase. Slick advertisers capitalize on knowing that the junk they sell won’t be returned by a large majority of disappointed buyers conned into believing “too good to be true” or ordinary sales diatribes. Millions of us have grown accustomed to putting our money, in the form of spontaneously purchased goods, into a trash bin rather than admit we were fooled and demanding a justifiable refund.

So prevalent is the con in our society that millions now resort to background checks for prospective dates.  

I’ve been given to understand, that those conducting job interviews, as a rule, assume that every resume contains at least one lie, usually in the form of exaggeration, and sometimes boldly outrageous.

Year in and year out, politicians con voters on a grand scale. Pretending that the whole electoral process is not an enormous con game, voters not only continue to head to the polls but also donate billions of non-tax-deductible dollars to perpetuate the con. The voters pay to con themselves rather than accept that the entire system is a scam … so strong is the natural inclination to deny we’ve been had.

So entrenched is our reluctance to admit the simple truth, that we are being fooled by experts and amateurs alike, we pay enormous sums of “good money after bad” to avoid eating crow.

Even journalism has had its share of cons. Some infamous writers include Clifford Irving and the Howard Hughes Autobiography Hoax. See this article about that: The Autobiography of Howard Hughes

Other journalists have ruined their careers in various ways through hoaxes. A listing of fifty-seven such personal debacles is found in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Journalistic_hoaxes

Included among those who confiscate money from victims through “confidence games,” a certain percentage is sociopaths. Some argue that most lawyers and all politicians are inclined to become one of this ignominious menagerie of human beings. Keep in mind, if you will, this is not “name calling” but rather technical labels invented by psychologists. It’s professional jargon.

The typical sociopath will often resort to habitual manipulation. Sometimes, as personal experience and observation teaches, manipulation by a sociopath becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end such as money or power. Successful manipulative ploys are carried out for their own sake because a sociopath accepts results as “proof” of personal superiority over the victim. 

{Some interesting videos on narcissism can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/samvaknin?feature=watch }

This is to say, for some “confidence gamers” the means becomes more personally rewarding than the prize to be gained, the profit from a sale or the power of an office.

This is the case with the only incidence I’ve personally ever known in which a man used manipulation, coercion, and threat of personal injury to gain control over a manuscript for a book he did not create. In the process he demanded that a copyright was altered to exclude the rightful owner, yet allowed it to be changed back before he went on to publish the book and profit from it. The process of obtaining complete control through those nefarious means was replete with bizarre theatrics that served no other purpose beyond delivering “narcissistic juice”  -- a chemical intoxicant produced by our brains – to the manipulating, narcissistic would-be author. Those theatrics were coincidental with his confiscation of the book, which itself was a prelude to what followed its publication. This man who had barely ever read a book wanted desperately to claim a new identity as “the author of …” Strip away all the “show” and “bluster” and we are left to perceive the naked narcissism for what it is. 

The moral here: it’s not always financial gain, or a seat of power, that motivates a person habitually drawn to fool, or con, others. Sometimes the biggest, most irresistible motive is the intoxication derived from fucking someone else over, and the pure, unadulterated dose of EGO that a narcissist perpetually and desperately needs.

This is why our society is overpopulated with confidence men and women. Aside from the typical politician or greedy scammer, there is that certain number among us who happen to be predators seeking boosts of narcissistic juice. For these, ego is more important than money or power.

And this leads us back to the beginning. We hate to eat crow and admit we’ve been conned. Perhaps six hundred or more people bought a copy of the purloined book in the example above. If or when they are given the truth, that the person claiming to be the book’s author was in fact an imposter … the chances are that they’ll prefer denial of this truth rather than accept that they were conned.  

Boy Scouting versus The Knockout Game

Change is in the air these days, and it isn't good.

Change is nothing new; neither is hope.Every moment, this universe is in flux. We change with every choice we make, with every breath we take. Life is perpetually in hope of continuation.

Some change is deliberate, and toward a definite aim or direction. Other changes are directionless, as most young people, or those under forty, are today. This too is indicative of major societal changes.

When my father was a boy he joined the Boys Scouts of America near this organization's Mortimer L. Schiff Scout Reservation national training center, which he said was "within walking distance" from his home in Plainfield, New Jersey. During the 1930s, so it seems, a ten, fifteen or twenty mile walk was common, and considered no big deal. Reading Kit Carson books and the early Boys Scout books were favored over school work; scouting activities in the wild were also more interesting than sports. Both had more appeal than academics because these learning activities were something that he could feel and sense his abilities grow as he took on new experiences. Learning new skills led to confidence in his abilities as a boy, then as a young man with direction and purpose. The Scout Oath made this purpose quite clear:

"To help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."

Based on these experiences, like millions of other American youth of his generation, my father entered the Second World War fully prepared for what he would face in Belgium and France, and later in Germany, Italy, and Austria. At the commencement of the Battle of the Bulge, on December 16, 1944, Sergeant R. M. Nagy was leading a patrol squad of ten soldiers and a corporal in the Ardennes region near the French border, in Belgium. Suddenly he found his unit behind advancing German lines as a full offensive cut him off from the main Allied Forces. Skills learned in Scouting were absolutely essential in keeping himself and his troops alive for two weeks of bitter cold and starvation in the dense forest, surrounded by enemy troops within hearing distance. Still, he had to witness several of those troops die from exposure, three from dysintery. Winter camping as a Boy Scout in New Jersey was key to survival. He found his experience of living from the land in winter camps, with a day's food, one knife and a hatchet had taught him what to do, and how to remain undetected for more than two weeks. Still, some things could not be avoided, such as frostbite; everyone who survived suffered from this during the nineteen days and nights beyond a safe line of friendly forces.

As a good friend likes to remind me often, "There are no atheists in foxholes." Reflecting on my father's expeiences in two wars, and in life, I'm reminded of these words of James West, an early Boy Scout leader ...

"Boy Scouts of America believes that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God."

Seventy years later, 2014 will see another war that is not declared, yet millions of Americans will be participcating. This war has begun, and it seems inevitable that it will grow.This is a much more a war than a game.

Commentary on the Knockout Game

This is another indication of a war on values, including those values espoused by Boy Scouts, as they once were famous for. Today's Scouts, so it seems, are far from those known by father's generation and my own. Rather than teach woodcraft and survival skills, it seems that Scouts have succumbed to pressures from Progressives and modernism to water-down moral values while opening their leadership to feminization of boys. For good reason, Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts had always been separated into different and distinct troops, in exclusive organizations. With recent changes in policy forced on the Scouts, despite a historic Supreme Court decision regarding memberships, Scouting is now open to allowing gay and questionable gender persons into many organized troops. [Will we see a merit badge for applying eye-liner and makeup in the near future?] The point to be made is that skills at video games and feminized activities for boys are far astray from the essential woodcraft and survival skills that are still quite important to know and practice in today's world.

In addition to many valuable skills and benefits of a wide variety of expereinces, Scouting teaches its practitioners to "Be Prepared." 

As this world becomes increasingly violent for no reason justifiable by common moral values, each person has this to be conscious of, the necessity to be prepared for nearly any eventuality. To survive on streets and public places in America, it makes a great deal of sense to be prepared for outbreaks of violence ... in a shopping mall, in a convenient store hit by a flash mob, or driving on a well-lit roadway. How a person does this will depend on one's moral values and accrued experiences. Most of us will not be prepared when danger, or a stranger, strikes.

Some might argue that these words are "hate speech," and that I should be more trusting of the goodness of human nature and our common desire to lead peaceful, prejudice-free lives. Typical delusions of many Progressives, this sort of thinking ignores the reality of this world while painting a idyllic picture of humanity that does not belong in anyone's collection of concepts. This is not to say that some, or most, of us are not peaceloving and kind at heart. Rather, it is to stress that random violence is now a part of life in society, and that everyone in our mobile, densely populated cities will be effected by random violence in some way, directly or indirectly.

When the Scouting movement was initiated in the early Twewentieth Century by men such as Lord Robert Baden-Powell, W. D. Boyce, Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard, Gifford Pinchot, Edward S. Stewart and Stanley D. Willis, and populaized by George S. Barton in Boys Life Magazine, this world was exceedingly different. These men recognized the need for young men to have positive direction and leadership in order to grow into outstanding leaders of the future. We are living in that future today. And this is a world that is adjusting to spontaneous violence against fellow citizens and neighbors, taking place in a moral vacuum created intentionally by modernists and Progresssives. Dominant media perpetually teaches populations to be complacent and to rely on government and corporations to provide economic and physical security rather than to develop skills taught by those men and women who founded the Scouting movement. Their answer, to depend on an increasingly militarized police network to provide protections that creep daily toward martial law. At the same time, we are expected to ignore the fact that moral leadership is dead within those who have taken control of our lives.

It follows that the death of moral leadership has been a major contributing factor to this recent development of flash mobs and knockout games. The inevitable result has been our devolution into a new Cold Civil War pitting neighbor against neighbor, Progressive against Conservative, native-born against immigrant, LBGT against anyone religious, and so on throughout the spectrum of divisions and divisiveness.

The less-than-glib Governor Rick Perry of Texas was right. We need to live more earnestly with Boy Scout values to work our way out of this mess we're in.

On My Honor by Rick Perry

Reflections on Thanksgiving/Black Friday Madness

Black Friday has overtaken Thanksgiving, which has become Black Friday Eve.

This is an exceedingly sad development.

Locally, a television news station reported that prospective buyers were staking claims in front of retail stores twenty-four hours before opening Thursday evening at 8 PM. This is nothing new in itself, the 24-hour stakeout for first buying privileges. What is new, that this occurred the night before Thanksgiving Day. Hard-core prospective buyers camped out rather than celebrate a day of giving thanks.

What, if anything did these people give thanks for, other than another opportunity to beat their neighbors out of first grabs at goods?

This is a positive sign of capitalism?

 Black Friday sales are triumph of capitalism 

Think abut this. Thousands of people stood in long lines overnight, a full day ahead of scheduled store openings throughout Thanksgiving Day. And some believe this is a positive indicator of the success of capitalism!

When I was a boy Thanksgiving meant giving thanks to God for our blessings. We were poor by the standards of our parish and neighborhood, and the private school we attended. We gave thanks for the food on our table, that our parents lived together and not separately. We said prayers of thanks for our health, and for our freedoms, and especially that we did not live under communism. We expressed our gratitude for those in our lives, and that we were among the privileged of this world. We were grateful for our opportunity to learn and attend parochial school, to learn about our world, and to dispel ignorance. We expressed gratitude for our friendships, if not person-to-person then privately in prayer. We gave thanks and we meant it. Thanksgiving Day was a day of sacred gratitude.

For us, there was no Black Friday shopping. It seemed absurd, and out of the question. Bargains would still be available the next day, on Saturday with far less rush, hustle and bustle. Friday after Thanksgiving was a day to be spent reflecting on the previous day’s feasts and parish community football games. The chances were our father returned to work that day, and our mother was emptying closets of stored Christmas decorations. That was our family tradition, and we all took part. It was a warm, blessed day in which to relax and enjoy our freedoms, and all that we had been grateful for in our lives. At the end of the day we enjoyed a simple family meal, and usually that transformed into a ceremony of decorating a Christmas tree together, until the last bulb was hung, an angel rested atop the tree, and finally the lights would be lit.

Obviously there are a great many of us that have much to be thankful for, especially those whose circumstances are such that they can choose to wait twenty-four hours in lines, in cold weather, just to spend money frivolously. As much as they have, it is not enough. Getting more takes precedence over being grateful for what is at hand, and what has been consumed since the previous year.

And I contrast this with those who spend Thanksgiving Day in service to others … without compensation that registers in the hearts or minds of the greedy. This is to say, volunteers who prepare and serve meals to strangers, whether homeless or well to do, in fact receive heartfelt compensation immeasurable in material perspectives.  There are no metrics to measure their reciprocity.

I’m convinced, those who choose to serve others understand the sacredness of gratitude; those who cannot give thanks debase humanity. An example: a flash of numbers on a network television screen indicates that, over the past seven years, four people have been killed and sixty-seven injured during Black Friday Madness. Is there a better way to debase humanity than by fighting to one’s death over a toy? And this week, another five deaths were added to that list, with more than eighty injured:

WalMart Employee trampled to death.

During the past two weeks there had been numerous articles expressing “outrage,” perhaps feigned and exceedingly disingenuous, posted on AlterNet regarding retail giants to be open during Thanksgiving Day. The retailers that opted to open, it now seems proven, merely anticipated how Americans really feel about Thanksgiving, and giving thanks: “It’s Black Friday Eve to avid buyers.” So why not give those people what they want?  

AlterNet exists primarily to promote atheism, thus in essence it holds nothing sacred. Condemnation and ad-hominem attacks are its forte. To criticize retail employers for scheduling employees to work on Thanksgiving has been contradictory of AlterNet’s historic themes, holding that sacredness is a sham. Especially taking a day to give thanks to a God they say does not exist. I believe that it’s been media like AlterNet that has helped to create this displacement of Thanksgiving by Black Friday. In promoting atheism, writing posted on AlterNet reinforces the self-centeredness that is displayed during Black Friday Madness. Selfishness is at its core, and AlterNet writers applaud and encourage that self-centeredness, that me-first attitude, and that delusion that we owe no gratitude to anyone or any Being but ourselves.

Some call it corporate greed, but is it?

The moral foundation that would preclude Black Friday Madness is scoffed at by AlterNet writers, and undoubtedly its readers as well. Blame it on retailers for not preventing the Madness, chaos and potential violence in their stores? AlterNet does. Yet at the same time they condemn religious leaders and churches for teaching moral standards that condemn the greed expressed voraciously by the mobs.

AlterNet itself is a paradigm of competitiveness, yet it subtly and insidiously condemns competitiveness. It publishes vicious and quite false, although sometimes quite clever, attacks on upon those who strive to raise moral standards in this society. It celebrates and promotes Progressivism in fierce competition with religion, religious beliefs and practices, prayer, pro-life advocacy, corporations, religious freedom, conservative politicians and political views, and the rights of others such as Boy Scouts to follow or adhere to traditions and moral principles that have guided them for more than one hundred years. AlterNet’s pretense is to be above criticism while being prolific in personal attacks upon those with differing views, such as Sarah Palin. Yet it’s “facts” are often quite shady, and its assertions are often blatantly false.

This is how and why Thanksgiving Day evolved to become Black Friday Eve. When people are led to believe in nothing, and that values that they once held sacred mean nothing, it is an easy transition to become just another greedy fool willing to beat someone to the ground over a plastic box destined to be obsolete in a mere few weeks.

And to see w what fools bargain hunters actually are, look here.  

To echo words from Oprah Winfrey, Eckhardt Tolle and many other false prophets of the New Age as espoused on AlterNet, “When you finally awaken and hold nothing and no one sacred … you are free to become your own god.”

And that’s the essence of the problem behind Black Friday Madness.  

Regeneration and Cannabis

There are few experiences worse in life than hearing the words, “You have cancer.”

Fortunately, I have not had that experience.

Yet a day does not pass, so it seems, before I learn of yet another of us indirectly connected to my circles who has been given these words to contemplate. 

From the American Cancer Society [apparently existing for the perpetuation and spread of cancer in America]

“About 1,660,290 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2013, and in 2013 about 580,350 Americans are projected to die of cancer, almost 1,600 people a day. Cancer remains the second most common cause of death in the US, accounting for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths.“

For most of us, the word “chemo” leaps into our consciousness as soon as we learn that an acquaintance has been diagnosed with cancer. If we know the person, images of them come to mind. Then we imagine how they will look during and towards the end of chemo treatments. Much of their hair will be gone. They are thinner, not having been able to hold food within long enough to digest. They’ve aged noticeably.  The radiation within takes its toll on healthy cells along with the cancerous ones. 

From the World Health Organization: 

"Cancer treatment requires a careful selection of one or more intervention, such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. The goal is to cure the disease or considerably prolong life while improving the patient's quality of life. Cancer diagnosis and treatment is complemented by psychological support."

Seven out of ten will die from this treatment.

And all this is unnecessary. Wasting away this way in an expensive waste, because there are numerous natural cures for cancer, including cannabis. 

By saying this I’m not offering medical advice to anyone, and in no way am I “practicing medicine. Just reflection on the facts revealed in this video:

How and Why does cannabis cure cancer

Then again, there is Rick Simpson, who claims to have seen fifty people “cured” or healed by using the famous cannabis oil sharing his name.

How to make Rick Simpson's Hemp Oil 

As I see it, Rick Simpson is not “practicing medicine” either. Rather, he is guiding people to make a life saving substance using natural plant material.

The process by which cannabis derivatives crush cancer cells is well known in medical science. It has been known for nearly four decades in medical and governmental circles. At any time since it was first known how and why these cannabis derivatives “suffocate” cancer cells, responsible people in the know had the option to speak out, or speak to the mainstream media. There is no record of anyone doing so, as far as I know. [Excluding the few who have advocated for limited use of “medical marijuana since the 1990s.] Rather than stepping forward with these truths, an untold number of fellow citizens chose to remain silent as millions of human beings were made to suffer and allowed to die.

Since 1950 the overall rates for lung and bronchus cancer deaths has risen by 217.9%. However, for those under the age of 45 these rates have decreased significantly. Coincidently, a higher percentage of persons this age admit to consuming cannabis compared with those aged 45 and over. For this latter group, each decade of life from 45 on to those over 85 increases dramatically. Percentages increase as follows: 29.5; 71.9; 281.7; 541.9; and 680.2 percent. Another way to look at this: the older the group, the less likely a higher percentage have consumed cannabis for a significant period, either simultaneously of independently with tobacco and alcohol consumption. Younger “stoner” generations are less likely to get cancer. Science explains why.

And these percentages translate into hard numbers. This year of 2013, approximately 7.6 million people are expected to die from cancer. Globally for all age groups, this is down a mere 12.1 percent for all age groups since 1950. Accumulatively, we find that more than 250 million people have died from cancer during this period, with an increasing annual death rate since cannabis was found to treat cancer effectively. The war against cannabis has been a government war against people, resulting in millions of avoidable deaths.

Anyone with half a brain should see that something is seriously wrong with this fact, that cannabis derivatives have been demonstrably known to destroy cancer yet 250-plus millions of humans were allowed to suffer and die as they have, and as many still do.

Consider, if you will, that cancer is only one of numerous known ailments treatable with cannabis derivatives. And, cannabis is only one of numerous effective treatments based on natural products proven to relieve suffering, including cancer cures.

Within our bodies, every day, regeneration takes place. New cells replace old, worn-out cells. This is how we live. Without regeneration we all die rather quickly.

For decades, activists have been “crying in the wilderness” for government agencies to “repent” of their crimes against humanity that have taken the form of cannabis prohibition. I applaud all of these fighters for the cause of human freedom. Some, like the late Jack Herer, have been outspoken on the need for regeneration of a global economy based on cannabis, or hemp. 

"Rag paper, containing hemp fiber, is the highest quality and longest lasting paper ever made. It can be torn when wet, but returns to its full strength when dry." Jack Herer.

Cannabis freedom is obviously a life and death issue. The longer it is postponed, the more people will die needlessly, and so many more will inevitably suffer for its prohibition.

Cancer is, on our bodies, a state wherein the natural process of regeneration of cells is prohibited. In our society, the prohibition of plants such as cannabis, and cannabis specifically, is a cancer within the natural economy of humankind.

Our global society is in dire need of regeneration, and cannabis freedom is an essential nutrient. 

Regeneration in preparation for a Christian Holocaust

About two years ago during a conversation with one brother, I was astonished, momentarily, by what he said. I shouldn't have been surprised considering everything else I'd recently learned from the man.

He said, if not exactly in these words then very near them, "Within a short time, the next five years at the most, the Catholic Church will be history. And that will be a very good thing for humanity." He was, as I'd also been, a "cradle Catholic." One of our late aunts had been a teaching nun until her retirement. Obviously, this brother had missed the point of his education in Catholic schools a long time ago.

My brother prides himself in being a progressive. Hence I should not have been surprised by his arrogance or its related hatred of the Catholic Church. While many readers might well consider me "brainwashed" for disagreeing with "progressives" regarding a necessity to abolish the Catholic Church and Christianity in general, I find that position ludicrous.


Faith, for everyone who has it, is deeply personal. In fact, it's a personal power in the sense that Carlos Castaneda wrote about personal power. 

My brother's statements, though, are best understood in the larger context in which we are placed.

Faith, and all other forms of personal power, are under attack by political powers that be, as well as economic powers wielded by corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit.

The present context is very much like that of Germany during the period 1928 through 1945 regarding attitudes towards Jews and Judaism.  Although the National Socialists, or Nazis, did not take official political power until 1933, they had real power within Germany from 1928 forward. The blame game they played cost thousands of lives before 1933. Many targets and victims were not Jews at all; any influential person who voiced outspoken disagreement with the Party, its agenda or philosophy would meet a violent death. This included Catholic priests and nuns, Lutheran ministers, other Christian leaders, mayors, police chiefs, military officers, local politicians, leaders within political parties, and just about any influential person who spoke out. A very small percentage of victims were communists or Jews; most were ordinary Germans.

Opposition was systematically culled. Thousands of unsolved murders muted voices and created a docile population. This set the stage for a coming Jewish Holocaust within the midst of a Second World War.

Although I don't agree with much of the official story regarding the Holocaust, or its official numbers, it is indisputable that an atmosphere existed targeting one group of people identified primarily by its religious beliefs, the Jews of Europe.

The same thing is happening today in this world. John Allen argues in his new book that  persecution of Christians is as virulent and widespread ever. 

Living Dangerously: Christian Persecution Around the World

Also noteworthy, that there will be No toy drive in South Carolina this year ... due to Christianity being the basis of Christmas.

Interference in the practice of Christianity in any form, and a concerted effort to eradicate any influence of Christian tenets on the behavior of individuals, especially children, is rampant in America and other developed zones of the world.

Another warning appears in England, coming from a government minister, Lady Warsi, Minster of Faith. "There are parts of the world today where to be a Christian is to put your life in danger. From continent to continent, Christians are facing discrimination, ostracism, torture, even murder, simply for the faith they follow." Baroness Warsi wrote for The Telegraph.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

Now we have the docile population of the United States passively accepting religious suppression without an audible murmur. It goes further than suppression when numerous individuals are prosecuted for "offending someone" within a military base for merely expressing a personal belief that happens to be based on religious teaching. Like a Christmas toy for a homeless child, it need only be a derivative of Christianity to invite persecution or suppression.

This is not the same country that my father and grandfather, and genetic predecessors going back to the American Revolutionary War, were fighting for in numerous wars to defend "freedom,"  including religious freedom.

Just as it happened in Germany during the years 1928 through 1945, there will continue to be an acceleration of religious persecution as its tolerance becomes more widespread. Poverty and the fear of  economic loss were driving forces in the rise of National Socialism in Germany. The same fears, the same descending economic conditions, are present in America, Europe, and other developed countries today. Yet today, there are estimated to be about two billion {2,000,000,000} Christians in this world compared to an estimated fifteen million Jews in Europe in 1930. The number of targets and the vehemence of persecution set a stage for unprecedented violence and inevitable bloodshed to come. We are but a few shorts steps away from total acceptance of the persecution of all Christians, a tragic development that my brother, raised in the Church, would likely welcome.

True Christianity teaches tolerance if nothing else: "love your enemy as you love yourself." Why is this deemed to be a threatening and intolerable belief?

The answer is found in other trends sweeping this globe, all under the banner of "Progressive adjustments to this modern world." Expounding on these trends must be reserved for future posts.

For now, it seems clear that we must re-energize and reconfirm basic tenets of decency for the benefit of all humanity, no matter what source those tenets of decency spring from, no matter whose writings, or which religions, if any. We need those seeds of civility and decency replanted in order to regenerate tolerance of all, and freedom of all to express and live their religious beliefs.

No engineer would deprive a house-builder a strong foundation for the structure. No person should deprive, or seek to deprive, another  person from building a stronger foundation for their life. For some, religious beliefs provide that foundation.

The persecution of Christianity is here in force. It will continue; it will become increasingly tolerated by docile masses living in economic fear if for no other reason. The persecution of Christians and Christianity will gain momentum in the future, and follow a similar path to that of the Judaic Holocaust of Europe in the Twentieth Century. Throughout the coming decades, this necessitates a continual regeneration of core values, and regeneration of the personal power provided by faith.

  

 

Regeneration and regressiveness

Since Obama began his occupation of the White House economic discontent has spread around the globe. A look at European Union unemployment statistics tells part of the story:

Unemployment statistics for the European Union

But wait a minute. Allow me to regress, as my mind is sucked backward to younger days, reading something from Marx. No, not Groucho, but Karl. What did k. Marx write about discontent of poor masses? Call them to revolt, did he?

It won't happen. At least, not the way Karl wanted it to. Or ... was it the people he worked for, writing on consignment? At the time, and for the duration of Marx's century, the oppressive collective rode in wooden carriages drawn by horses. They were highly accessible to those discontented yet mostly docile masses. Then the czar and his family were deposed and slain by New York-financed revolutionists. Since then only armed thugs connected with one government insider group or another has been able to pull off a coup.

John F. Kennedy's death fifty years ago is no exception.

We live in weird times since the rise of Obama simultaneous with unprecedented misery and growing impoverishment of middle classes. This is to say, I find it weird, or paradoxical, that this Prince of Progressive causes presides over crushing mandates that promise to, well ... end poverty by doubling it.

Affordable health care? By increasing rates for everyone, and by forcing millions of Americans to pay for something they could nary afford before, there is nothing affordable about his program. Governments could not afford the same coverage before these mandates, and governments cannot afford it now. And like every government program, it actually does the opposite of what it claims or aspires to do.

A Defense Department starts indefensible wars.

The Federal Trade Commission kills free trade. The Commerce Department suppresses free commerce.

The Treasury Department presides over escalating debt, and an empty treasury vault.

Karl Marx was among the original Progressives. A century ago, his followers called themselves Progressives, or Modernists. The Prince of Progressives occupies the White House today, when not on another exceedingly expensive vacation.

The Prince of Progressives lives more opulently, by far, than the czars family in 1917. He claims to lead opposition to the "One Percent." He claims to represent the Poor and Downtrodden Masses, the Uninsured, the Unemployed, the Underemployed, and those who want freedom from religion rather than freedom to practice religion. In all but the last he is disingenuous. 

To borrow from Karl Marx, "Government is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. Government is the opium of the people."

Yes, you can bet your ass it's been government, not religion.

"The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of government."

At least, government as we know it. [Although we don't know our government, really, for all its kept secrets.]

The Poor and Downtrodden Masses, the Uninsured, the Unemployed, the Underemployed, and those who seek freedom to practice their respective religions without oppression from government and atheists have no serious leadership. But they do have faux leadership, from false profits.

This is a global phenomenon, not merely an American one.

Seven billion human beings have been programmed to seek answers from the source of their opium ... government. It's like asking your drug dealer to put you in rehab.

Every day, more than 25,000 children die of starvation, lack of clean water and related diseases. Today will be no exception. Yet "Progressives" have deemed "gay marriage rights" more important than those starving, dying children. Recent achievements in courts and elections are celebrated as "Progressive victories." As usual, Progressives celebrate more government rather than less. More opiates, less moral conscience.

For society to develop a moral conscience would be regressive. And I'm all for that. Because it's the only way to work our way out of the global crises we face.

The message is worth repeating: we face a dire need for regeneration of values, ideas, and a respect for life. The only way this will happen is by regressing to a point in human history during which a unifying moral conscience prevailed ... at least for sufficient numbers of people so that wars were abhorred and not welcomed, starving children were cared for, and no one was sued for declining to provide flowers or cake, or take photographs at a wedding.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/karl_marx.html#t755ZqkRaFSVBlpU.99

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/karl_marx.html#t755ZqkRaFSVBlpU.99

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/karl_marx.html#t755ZqkRaFSVBlpU.99

A Dire Need for Regeneration

Forget those stock market statistics that tell tall tales of record highs. That hasn't really happened yet, considering hard-core inflation since 2008. When the markets had reached new heights in that year, I paid $3.59 for my favorite high-protein bread. When I go to a store now the same loaf retails for $4.79, or sometimes more. A friend tells me that he used to spend $80 every other week at Winco and walk out with four bags of groceries. Now he spends the same amount and leaves with three bags. Add these same increases in prices, between twenty-five and thirty-three percent, (25-33%) to the stock index and find that the market would have to reach a minimum of 17,600 to match inflation, and more likely that number would be 19,000 before a new record is set.

And so what if the market does soar?

What matters more, far more, are people at the base line. In earlier posts I wrote of setting a new paradigm to measure economic health of any society. Essentially, if anyone is involuntarily homeless within fifty miles of a city center or village hub, that community is not economically successful. If anyone, especially children, go hungry during the day or go to bed hungry, that community is not economically successful. If anyone within fifty miles of the city or village center suffers an illness that is not treated because of lack of money, that community is not economically successful. And it matters not how many millionaires or billionaires hang around to artificially and deceptively boost average net worth or income statistics.

Ten billionaires in a zip code with one homeless student negate the status of that community under this more compassionate paradigm.

So ... I'm a radical. I care about people.

Don't call me a Progressive, or progressive. Instead, I'm intentionally regressive, or a Regressive.

Because I care about people.

This is an example, from a news source I like to read:

Participation in labor force hits 35 year low 

This means that our active or involved workforce has regressed to a level last known thirty-five years ago, before large numbers of women opted to drop "housewife" as their occupation and seek work outside the home.

One reason that fewer adults are remaining in the work force, in general numbers, is reflected in a comparable and noteworthy article: 357000 fewer women held jobs October - Female participation rate hits new low

People smarter than me have figured out that it doesn't pay to go to work in jobs that cost a bunch of money to keep, in transportation to and fro, and wardrobes, and meals away from home. The net gain for many low-paying jobs is hardly worth the time and stress factors. Especially when those jobs are limited to part-time hours, and employers demand seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day schedule availability of every worker. Call those "associates" 24/7 Comrades.

It's those Twenty-four Seven Comrades who are expected to report to work this coming Thanksgiving Day, or lose the privilege of working for a company run by executives who will be taking four or five days off for the holiday weekend, and paid seventy-five (and more) times what the Comrades receive.

There is, within these statistics and factors, a dire need for a new paradigm in which no child in school has to be homeless or hungry.

There is a dire need for regeneration of ideas completely separate from government and corporate intrusion.

There is a dire need for human ingenuity to be unleashed on this body of circumstances so that economic society can be regenerated, and made healthy.

The power to bring about this essential regeneration lies within those who are in the forty-two percent (42%) of adults not currently included in the active/interested workforce. Even those who are retired and elderly have something to contribute. While it is true that a percentage of those 42% are incapable of making positive contributions, many more are. Add to these a good many of the fifty-two percent of workers limited to part-time hours (only 47% of all working adults are working full-time) and we find an abundant resource of solution-bearing human ingenuity.

And here's the kicker: to unleash this power is regressive, but it's exactly what we all need. We need to regress to an earlier age wherein people were allowed the freedom to create solutions to challenging circumstances without asking permission of government or corporate manipulators.

Call me radically regressive.  

ReGeneration Essentials

We live in a period of rapid and great change.

The past few years have proven to be unsettling for so many of us human beings. Lifestyles and lifelines have been disrupted and severed. While many people applaud these changes, others of us recognize that change does not necessarily bring improvement to personal or general quality of life.

Explosive growth in numbers of unemployed in Europe and America, along with significant increases in numbers of people dependent upon food banks and supplemental nutrition programs remain strong indicators of unwelcome changes. Millions who were not poor half a dozen years ago have joined the billions who have known poverty since birth.

 

A look at the growing poor phenomenon tells this story: Look at elusive definitions here

Recently published financial reports indicate that corporations are setting new profit records, as usual. The number of billionaires increases each year. These are, perhaps, meaningless statistics because the real value of the United States Dollar/Federal Reserve Note has decreased steadily with inflation. More important than anyone’s net worth in Federal Reserve Notes is the fact that the number of young lives lost each day to starvation, bad water and related diseases remains consistently close to 30,000 per day.

War munitions and machinery contribute an increasing proportion of corporate profits, leading to stock price surges, as civilian deaths from the same technology steadily increase. Death is an exceedingly profitable business. 

The human spirit is remarkably resilient. Our minds are capable of ingenious solutions to individual and collective problems. Freedom to apply innovative solutions is essential to human resilience and survival.

Freedom and creativity combined in individuals will provide seeds of regeneration for humanity, even as current destructive forces sweep across our landscapes, whether material and spiritual or social and economic.

The future of all life itself begins with regeneration.

Israel needs soldiers

Six years ago this week, my wife Marlen Ismalon took our six-year old son, Mathew Ismalon-Nagy, to Israel for a two-month visit combining personal and professional interests. Within two months it became apparent that she had no intention of returning to the United States. In July 2007, I filed a petition for my son’s return under the Hague Convention Regarding Internationally Abducted Children.

At the Office of Childrens Issues of the United States Department of State, indifference and incompetent communication was followed by cover-up and complicity with Israel in keeping children within the State of Israel in defiance with the Hague Convention Treaty. Israeli agencies, including its equivalent Office responsible for adhering to Hague Convention Guidelines, openly violate The Hague Convention Treaty. This has been my experience with both our State Department Office and communications directly with State of Israel employees in various offices.

In October 2010, after three years of failed communications with both offices, I filed two Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. One was for a complete copy of my own case file; the second was for statistics regarding the number of similar cases of a child or children taken to Israel whose left behind parent filed a Hague Convention petition for return, with outcomes. Neither request was ever fulfilled, in spite of federal regulations in United States Code defining a requirement that each request is to be answered within thirty days, or “twenty business days.” This lack of follow-through is consistent with all that led up to filing those requests: a complete black-out of information regarding communications between Washington’s Office of Childrens issues and Israel’s equivalent office regarding my petition. The blackout merely continued at a higher level involving the entire Office of Childrens Issues, if not the highest levels of the State Department.

At the very center of this case is the fact that all communications with my son were severed in 2007. Open communication, or “Access,” between a “left behind” parent and an abducted child or children is a central commitment to all parties to The Hague Convention Treaty. This same commitment to access and communication is written into Israeli Penal Code. Violation of this tenet is called “stealing a child” in translations of the Israeli Penal Code, and is a felony. Many people in positions of authority in Israel have been provided irrefutable evidence that this continual violation of The Hague Convention Treaty and Isreali penal Code is a constant; not one has taken a step to correct this grievous circumstance. Instead, persons in both the United States and Israel in positions of authority to take appropriate action do the opposite: they actively perpetuate the violation of laws.

This experience teaches one that all parents who are “left behind” in the United States ought to know as soon as it becomes necessary to file a petition under The Hague Convention: the Office of Childrens issues within the State Department is thoroughly corrupt. And, relevant to cases involving children detained within Israel, that office serves not the interests of left behind parents, but instead the axiom spoken succinctly by Israel’s Deputy Consul to the United States based in San Francisco, Ismail Khaldi: “We need soldiers.”

My personal commitment is to peace, not war. It is to helping others, and finding common ground by which to live in harmony with others who are different in culture and beliefs. My beliefs and personal commitments, then, conflict severely with a culture of war and exclusive privilege that Israel represents in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Hence, it is obvious why the State of Israel endorses and actively participates in this continual condition that precludes communication between Mathew and me, between a son and his father. I do not want my son to become the soldier that the State of Israel intends for him to become in six years, and is actively indoctrinating him to become. I do not want Mathew to learn hate or contempt for those who are different, or outside an exclusive group to which the State of Israel is presently teaching him that he belongs.

To be continued …