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TIME4TRUTH MAGAZINE>
THEY'RE HE-EERE!
On Election Night, I felt like the little girl staring at
the television in the movie Poltergeist. Little Carol Anne
announces the arrival of scary specters boding pending
disaster by uttering the movie’s most memorable line:
“They’re he-eere!” Of course, the pending disaster I saw
while staring at the television on Election Night had
nothing to do with scary specters, but everything to do
with scary socialists.
I’ve been convinced personally for a long time that the
biblically predicted one world system of the end time would
ultimately prove to be democratic socialism. Yet, I’ve
often wondered when and how America would end up adopting
European style democracy. Well, I’m not wondering anymore.
With Barack Obama’s election to the White House, Democrats
firmly in control of both houses of Congress, Nancy Pelosi
as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Harry Reid as
Senate Majority Leader, our nation’s courts packed with
despotic judges, and the nationalizing of our economy
already begun by the lame duck Bush Administration, I can
safely say with little Carol Anne of Poltergeist fame,
“They’re he-eere!”
SOCIALISM VS COMMUNISM
Socialism may be defined as the deifying of the state. The
state becomes all and all. Everyone does all that they do
to prop up and preserve the state.
Communists have been called socialists in a hurry. Instead
of incrementally capturing the educational system until a
whole generation of young socialists has been produced, and
instead of establishing socialism in the land by swapping
the populace benefits from the public treasury in exchange
for their rights and freedoms, communists attempt to
swiftly create the socialist’s utopia by using military
force. In place of slowly brainwashing the masses into
believing that the state is above all, atheistic communists
simply outlaw belief in God and declare that the state is
all that there is.
Socialism is different from communism. Whereas communism is
the involuntary subjection of the masses by a totalitarian
state, socialism is the masses’ voluntary coronation of a
benevolent state. Having been incrementally brainwashed
into believing that Big Brother can take better care of
them than they can take of themselves, the adoring subjects
of the socialist government gladly hand over to the state
the reigns of power. Granted, what is initially perceived
to be “a dream come true” inevitably turns out to be a
nightmare; still, the socialist’s promise of national
utopia always proves too strong a temptation for men to
resist.
UTOPIANISM
Most agree that socialism has its roots in utopianism.
Utopians are those who believe in mankind’s ability to
create an ideal civilization; in other words, utopians
believe in mankind’s ability to create a utopia or heaven
on earth. This idea is strewn throughout literature, with
the ancient Greek philosopher Plato being accredited with
the oldest serious examples.
In his Critias and Timaeus, Plato wrote of the mythical
Lost City of Atlantis, a highly intelligent utopian
civilization that sank into the sea “in a single day and
night of misfortune.” While some insist that the Lost City
of Atlantis actually existed, most concede that it was
fabricated by Plato for the purpose of adding credence to
his Republic, a work within which Plato proposes the
possibility of an ideal civilization ruled by a Philosopher
class, protected by a Warrior class, and served by a
Producer class.
Although the idea is generally believed to date back to
Plato, the term “utopia” appears to have been coined by the
English statesman and humanist Thomas More, who wrote an
essay by that title in 1516. More’s essay tells a fanciful
tale of a fictitious explorer’s discovery of a rationally
organized society. In a strange twist of irony, More’s
essay is attributed with the birth of modern utopianism;
despite the fact that it appears to have been More’s
intention to repudiate rather than substantiate utopian
thinking.
More constructed the term “utopia” from Greek words meaning
“no place.” His insinuation is unmistakable; there is no
place in this fallen world where utopia or heaven on earth
will ever be found. While many, such as Francis Bacon, the
author of New Atlantis, disagreed with More and continued
to maintain the possibility of a manmade utopia, others,
such as Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, and
George Orwell, the author of 1984, became dystopians,
writing of the hell on earth that would be created by
utopians’ pursuit of heaven on earth. Though the world
today would do well to heed the warnings of Huxley and
Orwell, the Bible foretells our unfortunate and ultimate
failure to do so.
The true roots of socialism have a much older and far more
ominous source than utopianism’s initial musings in the
mind of Plato. As any serious student of Scripture can tell
you, fallen humanity’s first attempt at manmade utopia was
the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). The Tower of Babel
represents fallen man’s initial attempt at glorifying
himself by building his own heaven on earth. That this was
the clear intention of Babel’s ill-fated tower builders is
made abundantly clear by their audaciously articulated
ambitions: “Go to, let us build us a city and tower, whose
top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest
we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
According to Genesis 11:2, Babel was located on “a plain in
the land of Shinar.” This region, later known as Babylonia
or Mesopotamia, has been called the “Cradle of
Civilization.” It was here that the Garden of Eden was
found and that human civilization originated, a fact
attested to by all reputable archeologists and historians.
As the site of man’s original sin and expulsion from Eden,
as well as the incubator of fallen man’s aspirations toward
manmade utopia, this strategic spot carries great symbolic
significance in Scripture.
With the lone exception of Jerusalem, Babylon is the most
talked about city in the Bible. It serves throughout
Scripture as the antitype of Jerusalem. For instance,
Jerusalem, which is called “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”
(Revelation 19:9-10), depicts the capital of the Kingdom of
God, whereas Babylon, which is called “the great whore”
(Revelation 17:1-5; 19:2), depicts the capital or center of
operation for the kingdom of this world.
The Bible describes Babylon in a number of ways. It refers
to it as “great” or the “great city” (Daniel 4:30;
Revelation 14:8; 16:19; 17:18; 18:2, 10, 16, 18, 19, 20).
It calls it “the jewel” and “queen of kingdoms” (Isaiah
13:9; 47:5). It identifies it as “the glory of the
Babylonians’ pride” and as “the praise of the whole earth”
(Isaiah 47:5; Jeremiah 51:41). Obviously, such glowing
descriptions are from the world’s perspective and not
heaven’s, which sees Babylon as evocative of fallen man’s
attempts at forging his own way to heaven (false religions)
and creating his own heaven on earth (one world
government).
Babylon’s symbolic significance may be further uncovered by
taking up one of Scripture’s most intriguing word studies.
The original name, “Babel,” means “confusion” or
“babbling.” It comes from God’s intervention at the Tower
of Babel to halt the tower’s construction by confusing the
languages of the builders, rendering ongoing communication
and collaboration on the project impossible. However, the
latter name, “Babylon,” means the “gate of god.” This name
comes from the Babylonian Creation Epic, which alleges that
the earthly entrance to the “celestial city” of Marduk (the
Babylonians’ chief deity) was found at Babel. Here, a
veiled, but vital truth of Scripture is uncovered for the
spiritually astute by a divinely inspired wordplay. This
truth—anyone suggesting the possibility of man making his
own way to heaven or creating his own heaven on earth
should be immediately dismissed as nothing more than a
confused babbler—should be taken to heart by us all.
“THE REVOLUTION WAS”
Our new president-elect is both a utopian and a socialist.
Although he and his political party will howl and wail at
the top of their lungs against being labeled socialists,
the evidence is irrefutable. When Barack Obama slipped and
divulged his desire to “spread the wealth” to Joe the
Plumber, he exposed the Marxism that forms the core of his
and his party’s political philosophy. Long before today’s
Democrats adopted this mantra Karl Marx artfully
articulated it in his famous axiom, “From each according to
his ability, to each according to his need.” Obama’s idea
of spreading the wealth is the very soul of Marxism.
While many Americans perceive their new president as a
modern-day Robin Hood, promising to use the tax power of
the state to rob the rich to give to the poor, he is
actually a Marxist who is painstakingly following the
playbook of Karl Marx. In his 1948 “Communist Manifesto,”
Marx taught that the implementation of socialism
necessitates “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
According to Obama, raising taxes to 40 percent on the 5
percent who already carry 60 percent of the U.S. tax burden
in order to give hundreds of millions of dollars to people
who pay no taxes at all is a mere matter of “fairness.” In
reality, however, it’s classic Marxism.
Not only is it undeniable that Barack Obama, along with his
political party, which is now in firm control of our
federal government, is socialist, but it should also be
evident to any open-minded student of history that
socialism has been incrementally advancing in these United
States since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
It was F.D.R., who during a time of national crisis,
namely, the Great Depression, proposed to the country that
the federal government become the caretaker of the
citizenry. A decimated and impoverished populace gratefully
acquiesced, granting to their beloved president an
unprecedented four terms in office.
With such loyal and unwavering support, Roosevelt, the
country’s perceived savior, attempted a brazen coup de tat.
He attempted to pack the Supreme Court and take over the
judicial branch of government. If he had succeeded, he
would have been able to redo the Constitution and set up a
rubber stamp judiciary for all of his socialist programs.
Gratefully, Roosevelt failed in his attempt to take over
the judiciary; and Congress, having witnessed the danger
posed by a four term president, past a law limiting all
future presidents to two terms in office.
As you are undoubtedly aware, our country is currently
facing another financial crisis, one that has resurrected
memories of the 1929 stock market crash. In response, our
current president, George W. Bush, appears to be
impersonating F.D.R. Bush has led the federal government to
seize the nation’s largest S&L (Washington Mutual), the
nation’s largest insurance company (AIG), and to
nationalize the country’s two chief mortgage companies
(Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). In addition, Bush has
presided over an unprecedented government intervention in
private financial markets, pumping hundreds of billions of
taxpayer dollars into a government bailout of Wall Street
banks and brokerages.
Unbelievably, and much to the consternation of many, it is
a Republican president, not a Democratic one, who has
actually started the ball rolling again toward the
nationalizing of our economy. With this socialist snowball
picking up steam, speed and size, there will be no stopping
it once Barack Obama occupies the Oval Office, Nancy Pelosi
resumes the Speaker’s Chair in the House of
Representatives, and Harry Reid once again assumes his
position as Majority Leader in the United States Senate.
With the nationalizing of our economy already begun by the
Bush Administration, with the mandate handed to Barack
Obama by the American electorate, with the Democrats now
firmly in control of the federal government, and with our
nation caught in the vice grip of a credit crunch, America
is finally facing the perfect socialist storm. As candidate
Obama often opined on the campaign trail and boldly
declared in his victory speech on Election Night, “This is
our time!” Indeed it is; it is the time that socialists
have dreamed of for decades—the time for the socialist
takeover of America.
As one of the most ardent opponents of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s New Deal, Garet Garrett wrote some ominous
words in his 1938 essay “The Revolution Was.” He predicted
a day in America when people would be looking “up the road”
for a coming socialist revolution that was actually “behind
them.” According to Garrett, “It went by in the night of
the Depression, singing songs to freedom.” I’m afraid that
the day Garrett predicted is today. Truly, what F.D.R. set
in motion Barack Obama appears poised to make happen.
“THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS”
Do you remember the cry of the sixties radical Allen
Ginsberg, “We’ll get you through your children”? Like
communists, the sixties radicals attempted to swiftly force
socialism on America in a single decade. Unlike communists,
once force failed, they switched to their backup plan.
After the fading of the flower-children’s fantasies of
political revolution, they changed their strategy to take
over America to what they called “the long march through
the institutions.” Defined by Herbert Marcuse as “working
against the established institutions while working in
them,” this new strategy called for the flower-children’s
infiltration of America’s institutions—government
institutions, institutions of higher learning, etc.—for the
purpose of destroying them from within in order to raise up
socialist institutions in their place.
Tragically, and unbeknownst to most Americans today, the
long march of the sixties radicals is almost over. To a
large extent, it is yesterday’s flower-children that are in
charge of today’s American institutions. Consequently, our
institutions have been slowly but surely socialized, our
future generation brainwashed and converted to socialism,
our courts hijacked by socialists to enforce upon our
nation their socialist agenda, and our citizenry led to
believe that Big Brother is the cure-all for all that ails
us. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” to Lyndon
Johnson’s “Great Society,” to the “nanny-state” ideology of
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, to George W. Bush’s taxpayer
bailout of Wall Street, to Barack Obama’s “spread the
wealth,” our country has been incrementally conquered by
socialism.
Many of today’s Americans are afraid that militant Islam
may someday take over our nation and destroy it. Islam,
though a dangerous threat to Western civilization, is not
the real danger to our nation’s future. The real danger is
within—democratic socialism. Furthermore, its take over and
destruction of our country is almost complete.
My wife asked me recently why so many people in our country
today count on the government for everything. Whether we’re
talking about food, shelter, healthcare, employment,
education, or a bailout from some financial or natural
disaster, most Americans seem to think that the government
owes it to them. This kind of thinking has been years in
the making. It is part of the “long march through [our]
institutions” and the socialists’ indoctrination of
America. By creating a populace dependent upon government,
socialists can create a socialist state, one in which the
state reigns supreme as caretaker of its citizenry.
Unlike communism, which is swiftly implemented by force,
socialism is slowly implemented by indoctrination. Do you
remember Hitler’s youth? If so, take a good look at the
current crop of college students on American campuses. Now,
I don’t mean to suggest that today’s college kids are
Nazis, but merely that they have been brainwashed into
believing that Big Brother is the answer to all of our
questions. This explains why they protest against the
government over the world’s unsolved problems—poverty,
AIDS, global warming, etc.—but still look to the government
as the solution to them all.
THE NEW GOLDEN RULE
You’ve probably heard the glib retake on Christ’s golden
rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.” Although a far
cry from our Lord’s, “Do unto others as you would have them
do unto you,” this glib revision of our Savior’s teaching
does address an unfortunate reality in this sin-cursed,
fallen world.
Our wily politicians are not ignorant of the fact that
whoever holds the purse strings controls the people. The
more dependent people become upon their government, the
more control the government can exercise over the people.
Once the people are totally dependent upon their
government, the government will have achieved absolute
control over the people.
Washington understands that it has to buy us before it can
own us. This explains an $11 trillion national debt and the
never-ending, out-of-control spending of our federal
government. It also explains the preposterous promises of
present-day politicians and why Washington is awash in pork
barrel spending projects, which are the sacred fetishes of
today’s Congress. Our government representatives understand
that they must bring home the bacon to their local
districts if they hope to be reelected to an office of
ever-increasing power over the American electorate.
All of this reminds me of a quote attributed to Alexander
Fraser Tyler: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form
of government. It can only exist until the voters discover
that they can vote themselves largesse [generous gifts]
from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits
from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy, [which is]
always followed by a dictatorship.”
Who can argue that our democracy is not now imperiled by
loose fiscal policy? We are told that our national debt has
now risen to more than $11 trillion. If you counted a
dollar per second 24 hours a day, it would take you 32
years to count a trillion dollars; 352 years to count $11
trillion.
With a trillion dollars you could: (1) Buy a $100,000 house
for every family in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma
and Iowa (2) Put a $10,000 car in each garage (3) Build $10
million libraries and $10 million hospitals for 250 cities
in these states (4) Build $10 million schools for 500
communities in these states, and (5) earn enough from the
interest alone on the money left in the bank to pay 10,000
nurses and teachers to man these hospitals and schools, as
well as give a $5,000 bonus to every family in these
states.
As frightening as it is to face up to the escalating figure
of our national debt, it is even more terrifying when we
tally up and total the additional moneys owed by our
government in other obligations, such as the money owed to
entitlements like Social Security and Medicaid. Once
unfunded entitlements are added to our national debt the
real amount owed by the United States Government balloons
to more than $60 trillion.
If every household in America agreed to pay an equal share
of our government’s debt, then each household would need to
come up with more than half a million dollars. Obviously,
our escalating debt has already reached unpayable
proportions.
If Alexander Fraser Tyler was right, then America’s
collapsing financial house of cards is now ripe for a
dictatorship. Though many Americans will balk at such a
notion, serious students of American history understand
that such a thing almost happened once before. As we’ve
already discussed, a despairing populace decimated by the
Great Depression unhesitatingly handed over to a past
president unprecedented powers. As the nation’s perceived
savior, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to
use those powers to transform America into a socialist
state. What is to prevent another American president from
doing the same during a time of economic disaster,
especially a president who has promised to be the caretaker
of the citizenry and is already perceived by the masses to
be the savior of the nation?
“THE ONE”
At a campaign rally in Orlando, one woman told a local
television station that seeing Barack Obama in person had
been "the most touching moment of [her] life.” When asked
why, she answered, “I never thought this day would ever
happen. I won't have to work to put gas in my car! I won't
have to worry about paying my mortgage! You know, if I help
him, he's going to help us."
It sounds to me like this lady is confusing Obama with the
Messiah and the government with God. One can’t help but
wonder how many other Americans share her misguided faith?
After all, president-elect Obama has promised to provide
healthcare for all of the sick, jobs for all of the
jobless, mortgage relief for homeowners and a college
education for all of our children. In addition, he has even
vowed to slow the rise of the oceans, lower the earth’s
temperature and heal our planet. And I thought that Jesus
alone could command “the wind and the sea” (Mark 4:41).
The rise of Barack Obama reminds us of another socialist
star’s meteoric rise on the world’s horizon years ago. From
obscurity he arose with no notable accomplishments to his
credit, apart from a corporalship in the German Army. Yet,
this unknown and unveted ascending star mesmerized the
masses with his rhetorical skills. Throngs came to be
infused with hope by his spellbinding speeches and
flamboyant verbiage. Afterward, they left persuaded that he
possessed god-like powers that enabled him to solve the
country’s every problem and to meet the citizenry’s every
need.
In the end, however, the faith of the populace proved
misplaced, for Adolf Hitler failed to transform the
Fatherland into the promised utopia of National Socialism.
Instead, Hitler plunged the world into World War II,
perpetrated the Jewish Holocaust, and penned what is
arguably the darkest chapter in all of human history.
Now, I’m not suggesting that Obama is another Hitler, but
merely pointing out the eerie similarities of these two
socialist stars’ meteoric rise on the world’s stage. Barack
Obama is an enigma. He is without doubt the least known and
least veted politician to ever be elected to the Oval
Office. In fact, one could argue that the media—whose job
it is to vet presidential candidates for the sake of an
informed electorate—deliberately kept the American people
in the dark during this presidential election by purposely
suppressing pertinent information about Barack Obama,
refusing to strenuously question him, and blocking any
serious investigations of him.
What was it that the Obama-friendly, mainstream media was
afraid of discovering about him or averse to divulging to
us? What secrets were kept under wraps or left undiscovered
in the life of this man who is soon to wield all of the
powers of the most powerful office on earth? Am I the only
one who is ill at ease about handing over such power to
someone about whom we know so little?
It’s not just all of the unanswered questions about Barack
Obama that make me apprehensive, but many of the answered
ones and so many unasked ones. No one seems to know who
Barack Obama is, much less what he’ll do or how he’ll
govern in the most powerful office in the world. Still, in
spite of this fact, he received more votes from the
American people than any other president in American
history. To me, this is an extraordinary and inexplicable
thing.
Only time will tell what an Obama Presidency will prove to
mean to this country. It may prove to be one of the final
pieces to the prophetic puzzle; a piece that helps set the
stage for the scripturally predicted end time scenario.
Whereas Franklin Delano Roosevelt failed to replace our
capitalist system with a socialist one, Barack Obama may
very well accomplish in one term what F.D.R. couldn’t
accomplish in four. One thing for sure, as Obama himself
has avowed, “Change has come!”
There is no doubt in my mind that America will never be the
same again. I’m just afraid that the change that has come
is not what Obama promised or the American people voted
for, but what the Bible predicts. If so, may God help us!
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