World War 3 Confirmed…Again

 

I have noted on this blog several times that we are already in World War 3. As have others wyo have been paying close attention to this war, of course, I am not the only one. The mainstream media on the whole is still hiding the fact, but it is becoming so undeniable now that some mainstream sources are admitting that we have been in World War 3 for some time,

“World War III has already begun. Battles are already being fought on the ground and are being coordinated across multiple countries,” Dimon said at the annual event in Washington, D.C., on October 24…

Dimon’s comments coincided with the conclusion of the BRICS summit, where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were able to deepen their cooperation with a group of non-Western countries such as Iran, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.”[1]

If a World War is considered to be a war involving a large number of countries, spread across the globe, fighting on multiple fronts, then this war has qualified for some time now. It began with the toppling of the Ukrainian government in a colour revolution in 2014, and went live in 2022, when Russia finally got directly involved in helping ethnic Russians in the Donbass fight against the attacks of the Ukrainian military. The involvement of the United States and its European and western allies in supplying, training, equipping, and fighting in Ukraine in various roles, showed that this was not a local war between Russia and Ukraine, but a global war of the were-West* verse Russia. The alliance of North Korea, China and others with Russia extends the stakes involved in this theatre of the war. The sides have drawn up for battle. 

The opening up of the Middle Eastern front in October 2023, and the escalation of that front of the war, showed that much more is going in between the declining US empire, and its satellites and opponents around the world. Just as World War 1 and 2 happened towards the end of the British Empire's reign, so too is World War 3 coinciding with the end of America’s dominance over the world economy and the waning of its advantage over all other militaries. When the hegemon get’s old and decrepit, everyone else comes out to play. 

The admission of one of the world’s leading banks that we are in World War 3 is simply another confirmation that those who have been making this case were right all along. After all, don’t they say all wars are bankers wars, so if this bank is saying we are in the World War 3, then don’t they know? The only question now is how long will it go on, and how bad will it get before it ends?

This is one of the reasons so many of Trump’s supporters are so happy that he won. Now, all we can do is wait and see how he handles this escalating situation. Biden’s stupid move of allowing Ukraine to use longer range missiles that can attack deep into Russia is clearly a move to escalate this war before the man who ran on an anti-war platform can stop it, or at least reign it in. If last time he was playing on hard mode, now he is playing on impossible mode. Pray for him, pray for peace and pray your country is kept out of any conflicts that come.

List of References

---

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/america-s-largest-bank-warns-world-war-iii-has-already-begun/ar-AA1uymmy?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=5e94ad87160e433da713e5c449308594&ei=9

*Vox Day's term. 

Has Standing With Israel Blessed America (Part 2)

 

Last week I began a new series examining whether or not standing with Israel has blessed America. It has gotten some response, much good, some negative, which is too be expected. This is a touchy topic for some people because many Christians have made this a pillar of their faith. For them it is a given: you stand with Israel, or you stand against God. This is why I am examining this, because I have looked in great detail at what the Bible says about who God’s people really are, but that is not the only way to challenge this idea. We can also look at whether or not the idea has real world tangibility.

Before we go further though, I should probably define what I mean by blessing. God says to Abraham in Genesis 12:

“1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

It should be noted that this is not a promise to Israel, but is rather a promise to Abraham, as God says, “I will bless you…” Who is he addressing? Abraham. Then he notes that he will bless those who bless Abraham, and he will curse those who curse dishonour him. This promise is clearly Abraham centric, there is no mention of Israel, the physical nation, in the passage, nor is there mention of the modern nation of Israel. Abraham has been told he will be made a “great nation”, but the blessing is not yet tied to this, and at this point this could refer to any number of physical nations that came from Abraham, and also the Church itself, the holy Nation of God. So, we should note this passage is not able to be used honestly to justify standing with Israel.

However, the promise of blessing is passed on through Abraham’s children,

“15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba” (Gen. 22:15-19).

This promise is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, as Peter demonstrations in Acts 3:25-26, where he directly quotes verse 18,

“25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts 3:25-26).

Peter applies this promise to Abraham, that blessing would come to all nations through his offspring, to his most significant descendant, Jesus Christ. The blessing of Abraham is fulfilled ultimately in him, and all who are blessed by turning from their sins to Jesus. Paul also demonstrates this in Galatians 3, when he says, “16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).

So, it is legitimate to see the promise of blessing to Abraham carried on through his descendants, or offspring, though ultimately it is a promise of the blessing of salvation brought through Jesus Christ. However, we see in both Abraham and his family’s line a shadow fulfilment of this promise. Abraham lied to both Pharoah and Abimelech about his wife Sarai, and both these men were placed in danger because of this. However, God enriched the man Abram through these interactions, and in the case of Abimelech we see this king was spiritually blessed, because God personally warned him not to touch Abraham’s wife, because he saw the integrity in Abimelech’s heart. Pharoah was similarly restrained, but through plagues. In the case of Jacob, we see how his presence on his relative Laban’s farm brought material blessing to his entire extended family. To such a point that Laban tried to keep Jacob there.

This gives us a metric for determining whether the promise of blessing is still in effect with the modern nation of Israel today, and whether, or not, the nation of America has been blessed by this connection. We see clear, measurable, material and spiritual blessings being bestowed upon those who blessed Abraham, and we see punishments from God, both spiritual and material on those who sought to harm him.  It’s important we establish this, so that those who make the claim that standing with Israel can’t have their cake and eat it too. That is, so that they can’t claim that America has been blessed, and then say but it does not matter if this is not materially or even spiritually observed, because blessing can be unquantifiable. This kind of assertion allows people to hold this position as a determined dogma, but then wiggle out of the necessity to demonstrate it. We need to hold a blow torch to this idea and test it.  

So, let’s give two examples in this article of America’s support to Israel correlating with what can only be viewed as lack of blessing. The first will be material, and the second spiritual.[1]

In my first piece on this issue I showed that America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war led to both causative and correlative negative flow on effects. I focused on the national debt and degradation to American industry, but that is simply two examples. If you look at America’s unemployment rate since 1973 it has tracked upward over time. It has not remained consistently up or down, but has trended towards worse employment numbers for Americans, as seen in this graph[2]:

Figure 1: US unemployment rate tracked over time.

In October 1973 unemployment dropped to 4.6% but as you can see it skyrocketed across the decade and only got back down to that level in the early 2000’s. This is hardly the sign of a blessed economy. If you look at the graph dating before 1970 you can see the unemployment rate went up and down but was on average much lower, and employment peaked in July 1953. People look back to the 50’s as a golden age for a reason. But when you factor in the fact that unemployment is not counted the same as it used to be, the picture is even worse than this.

The real unemployment rate is far higher than the official unemployment rate. The real rate takes into account the underemployed, the marginally attached, and discouraged workers, whereas the official rate accounts for those looking for work who do not have a job.[3]

Figure 2: The real unemployment rate, verse the official.

This shows that the situation for the American economy is far worse than the first graph even shows. This shows that over time, with some exceptions, American participation in the workforce has been declining. When Jacob was with Laban, the latter’s flocks increased and there was more work and more prosperity for all involved. But over time things have gotten worse for the American worker, though US support for Israel has increased. This is not even counting how real world wages have massively declined since the 1970’s. So, how can one argue that America has risen and been blessed since its very open international support for Israel began? There has been a marked decline across the economy. Americans are worse off.  

And, note this, there was a direct negative impact on employment as a result of that Yom Kippur war, as seen in the graph above. How could there not be? US energy prices skyrocketed. Of course this was going to lead to job losses across the country.

Someone might say, what about spiritual blessings? Has standing with Israel transferred blessings to the American Church? Well, look at US Church attendance going back to 1952[4]:

Figure 3: American decline in religious observance.

As the article notes,

“The resulting decline in religion stopped by the end of the 1970s, when religiosity remained steady. Over the past fifteen years, however, religion has once again declined. But this decline is much sharper than the decline of 1960s and 1970s. Church attendance and prayer is less frequent. The number of people with no religion is growing. Fewer people say that religion is an important part of their lives. All measures point to the same drop in religion: If the 1950s were another Great Awakening, this is the Great Decline.”[5]

So, support for Israel has not led to a revival in Christianity in America. How can the decline of the Church be called a blessing for a nation?

Today there are less than half the churches in America than there was 100 years ago.  This is just one of the startling statistics that reflect the state of the Church in America today there is no doubt that Christianity in America is changing and we will need to adapt along with it.”[6]

In my previous article I tied America’s support for Israel to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, that is not because that is when it began, it actually started before that, that was simply because that war was such a prominent event, its effect on the US was measurable. But no matter where in its history you tie US support for Israel to the American religious situation, Christianity has declined. Yet it has increased massively in other parts of the world. Think of a country like China, which does not have politicians making public statements about believing in blessing for military support for Israel, but there the church grows. Of course, China has its own issues, but a declining Church is not one of them.

But the picture is not all bad. Church attendance in some of the younger generations is increasing. For instance, between 2019 and 2022 Millennials went from having a weekly church attendance rate of 21% to 39%, which is a notable increase.[7] What makes this so interesting is that the younger generations who are increasing their church attendance are also less likely to have a favourable view of Israel.[8] 

 Figure 4: Generation support for Israel.

Of course, Boomers have the strongest support for Israel, next is Gen x, and after that Millennials and then Gen 7, whose support for Israel is in a marked decline. One might turn around here and note that well, Matt, the Boomers are the wealthiest generation in history, therefore, should not other generations follow their support for Israel, to receive the same blessings? All I would say in response to that is: look at the economy that Boomers are handing to their children, it is a far worse one than they ever experienced, and they are the first of the recent generations to hand their children less opportunities than they themselves were handed. So, is this a sign of blessing, or a nation being given over? I think the answer is obvious myself. Maybe if Boomers had invested that money for trips to Israel into helping their kids buy homes or pay for education, the number of Millennials in Church would be higher? 

So, as you can see by both a material and spiritual metric it can be demonstrated that support for Israel has not blessed America. It is harder for Americans to get jobs, and the church is in decline overall, with some positive movements in some of the younger cohort; a cohort that is less likely to support Israel. This idea that standing with Israel means blessing for America is bad theology, and as you can see this is also demonstrated in the figures. 

Till next time.

List of References

---

[1] Though I should say to some degree I see this as a false dichotomy. All good things come from God above, as Jame the brother of Jesus told us.

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/1316/us-national-unemployment-rate

[3] Kimberly Amadeo, 2022,  https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate-3306198

[4] Tobin Grant, 2014, https://religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/

[5] Ibid.  https://religionnews.com/2014/01/27/great-decline-religion-united-states-one-graph/

[6] Fifth Avenue Christian, https://www.fifthavenuechristian.org/u-s-church-statistics-over-the-last-century/

[7] Barna, 2022, https://www.barna.com/research/church-attendance-2022/

[8] Jordan Muchnick, Elaine Kamarck, 2023,  https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-generation-gap-in-opinions-toward-israel/

Trump’s Appointments

 

If you are like me you have been less than excited about many of Trump’s appointments. My biggest concern so far is how many Zionists that Trump has put in his administration. This was predictable, Trump did the same thing the last time round. He has taken big money from the Israel pro-war lobby in both campaigns, but this time he seems to have increased their preponderance in his team.

However, there is something to be said for people with my perspective that maybe we put too much emphasis on the Zionism of the people he is picking and overlook some of the advantages for other parts of his platform. RFK junior, Tulsi Gabbard, and Matt Gaetz all have the swamp freaking out over their selections, and even the radical Zionist Pete Hegseth has a history of speaking out against things like women in the military, so he has some big pluses.

This over-emphasis perhaps comes from this simple fact that I am not an American. So, my largest concern with the Trump election was regarding the ongoing world war that is happening as we speak in Ukraine, the Middle East, and with tensions heating up in East Asia. Because of this focus on foreign policy, and war, people like myself might put an inordinate amount of emphasis on the foreign policy positions of Trump’s selections. For instance, RFK is horrible on Israel and Gaza, but could do wonders for world health when he tackle the Pharmaceutical companies and their corruption. So, there is something to be said for looking at Trump’s picks as a whole, and not just looking at their foreign policy statements.

If you also have concerns, let me encourage you to listen to this debate between Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal and Revolver News founder Darren Beattie.[1] Beattie thinks we should give Trump every benefit of the doubt, because he earned it in his first term. He started no new wars and can be trusted to do the same this time around. Max is not so optimistic. Although, interestingly, both of them agree about the positives of many of Trump’s picks. There is no doubt that a lot of the right people are upset about the damage that people like Gaetz or Gabbard could do to many parts of the elite establishment, and this has to be at least a partial good.

It may be that Donald is simply seeking to work within the Zionist dominated American political system as best as he can, and he is determined to restrain the war hawks and focus on solving the border crisis, fix health, and rectify the American economy. If he does, this will be good for America and the world.

But it could be that Trump is committed to the Zionist cause, and is putting the right people in place to take control on the Middle East. His picks do not make this an impossibility. Hegseth’s past positions on war with Iran make him sound like he wants that war bad, as do many of the swamp creatures Trump once committed to stopping.

If I were to put on my Trump 4D hat, I might be able to make a case that Trump is playing the long game here and knows that he needs to have the Christian Zionist and Israel lobby on his side so that he can have the strongest position for his presidency as possible, but he is also using this as an opportunity to show the American people just how bad things can get with their involvement in Middle Eastern war. But at the end of the day Trump is a politician, he does not deserve trust, but scepticism and he needs to prove that he can fulfill his promise not to worsen World War 3 before I’ll give him that credit.

Of course, I am not an American, so my opinion does not have a major effect one way or another. But I am hoping that Trump is the man to stop World War 3, solve the border crisis, and inspire other nations to do likewise, and that he restores some prestige back to the western economies that has been squandered since 2020. He may not be that man, but one can hope and hope is never bad.

List of References

---

[1] Debate

Cash Payments Protected

 

As the article notes,

“Currently, there are no legal requirements for businesses to accept cash if they have another option that does not slap customers with a fee. The Treasury announced late on Sunday that the federal government was looking to mandate that businesses accept cash for 'essential items'.

'People are increasingly using digital payment methods, but there is an ongoing place for cash in our society under the Albanese government,' Treasurer Jim Chalmers (pictured left) and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones (Pictured right) said in a joint statement. 'The government will mandate that businesses must accept cash when selling essential items, with appropriate exemptions for small businesses.'”

They said the government was still fleshing out what constitutes an essential item. But broadly speaking, it would include things such as groceries and fuel, with supermarkets, basic banking services, pharmaceuticals, petrol stations, utilities and healthcare services. 'For many Australians, cash is more than a payment method, it's a lifeline,' the Treasury officials continued. 'Around 1.5 million Australians use cash to make more than 80 per cent of their in-person payments. Cash also provides an easily accessible back-up to digital payments in times of natural disaster or digital outage.'[1]

This is a big win for a lot of people.

Interesting that it's the Labor party, too, that is moving to protect cash payment.

I say this often and I know it's unpopular, but even bad governments are given for good order and can get things right. Kids off social media. Cash being protected. Let's hope they make Only Fans and it's like illegal next. You never know.

But this move to protect people’s right to use cash is a move in the right direction and against the globalist push towards making everything electronic. Just recently the inability for people to get access to payments because of power outages during natural disasters highlighted the importance of having a non-digital legal currency. But what is interesting is that the article notes that Norway has taken steps to protect cash usage because of security concerns about Russia. Showing that Russia’s opposition to the global world order encroaching on its borders has had knock on effects against that global world order that some did not except.

This is often the case with empire and globalist movements. One nation seeks to dominate all others, and this overreach causes a reaction against it from nations strong enough to resist, and this undoes all of the global pretensions of that power. We are seeing this at work with Russia and its allies opposing the Neo-Liberal order right now.

I do not think Australia’s move to protect cash payments is a result of this. I think it is more likely that lobbying behind the scenes and the clear threat to order posed by people not being able to access money during a natural disaster if everything is electronic, showed that so called digital future is far more fragile than people realized. This is good, let’s pray for more moves in the right direction like this.

List of References

---

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/anthony-albaneses-reveals-major-changes-to-the-way-australians-pay/ss-AA1ugQZY#image=3

The Agreement That Robbed Our Country

 

You were robbed. Stolen from. You had your heritage and your prosperity deliberately taken away from you, and it was done right under your nose and you were lied to about it.

You may have heard the myth that Australian car manufacturing died because of unions and because of high wages caused by those unions. This argument is attractive to many, because a lot of people can comprehend why that could be the case. But it makes no sense logically. Think about it: Australia is a massive country, with heaps of resources, and a small spread out population. We need cars to get places. Because we have a small population spread out over a large area, we have no choice, but for the majority of people to own cars to do everything from shop, to work, to socialize. So, we need cars and we need people to buy them. 

If those cars are built in Australia, by Australians, from Australian resources, and the workers are paid in Australian dollars, who spend their money in the Australian economy, you have a closed system, don’t you? The money flows through the economy. The unions will be able to push for wages which make living in Australia possible, but the production of cars will continue to be necessary, so car makers will be able to demand a reasonable premium to make cars, but the money they make from those cars will go back into the economy, and the system will sustain itself over time. Like other countries the government will subsidize the industry by making up government vehicle fleets of Aussie cars, and this will to go back into the economy and aid the production of the cars.

Of course, the system was not totally closed, that is not my argument. But, if only Aussie made cars are being made, bought and sold, then how can high wages bankrupt the car industry? They can’t. You need an outside competitor to achieve this. In a closed system you may end up paying higher prices, because of higher wages, but those wages will balance out within the wider economy, because that money is part of the same system. Higher paid workers spend more in the economy right? This is why people are still buying homes, even though builders are making wages that car manufacturers would have once dream off, because their services are in such high demand, they can command high wages. Therefore, high wages is not the problem, interference in the system is the problem.

When I mention interference in the system, some people might think I mean subsidies. But all countries with a car manufacturing industry subsidize that sector, and Australia’s subsidies to our car industry were modest compared to other countries. The problem was not the unions. Unions and collective bargaining are only a detriment if Australian workers need to compete against foreign labour which is far cheaper, and that is exactly what happened. This is what really killed our car manufacturing industry, along with much of the rest of our manufacturing, and this process was guided and deliberate. 

It is here where I ask you have you heard of the Lima Declaration?

The Lima Declaration was a 1975 United Nations agreement that many countries, including Australia, signed up to which had the express intention of moving western manufacturing to poorer developing countries. The stated aim was to bring equality to all countries,

“5. Recognizing the urgent need to bring about the establishment of a new international economic order based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence and co-operation, as has been expressed in the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, in order to transform the present structure of economic relations,…”[1]

The way this “equality” was meant to be achieved was by taking from the West and giving to developing countries so that they could catch up,

“36. That developing countries with sufficient means at their disposal should give careful consideration to the possibility of ensuring a net transfer for financial and technical resources to the least developed countries:

37. That special emphasis should be laid on the need of the least developed countries for the establishment of production facilities involving a maximum utilization of local human resources, the output of which meets identified material and social requirements, thus assuring a convergence between local resource use and needs as well as offering adequate employment opportunities;…”[2]

Notice that? The UN was asking for governments, including our Australian government, to transfer our own economic and technical resources to these countries so that they could do what our countries used to do, make things. Various measures were outlined to achieve this transfer,

“59. The developed countries should adopt the following measures:

(a) Progressive elimination or reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and other obstacles to trade, taking into account the special characteristics of the trade of the developing countries, with a view to improving the international framework for the conduct of world trade. Adherence to the fullest extent possible to the principle of the “standstill” on imports from developing countries and recognition of the need for prior consultation where feasible and appropriate in the event that special circumstances warrant a modification of the “standstill”;

(b) Adoption of trade measures designed to ensure increased exports of manufactured and semi-manufactured products including processed agricultural products from the developing to the developed countries:

(c) Facilitate development of new and strengthen existing policies, taking into account their economic structure and economic, social and security objectives, which would encourage their industries which are less competitive internationally to move progressively into more viable lines of production or into other sectors of the economy, thus leading to structural adjustments within the developed countries, and redeployment of the productive capacities of such industries to developing countries and promotion of a higher degree of utilization of natural resources and people in the latter;

(d) Consideration by the developed countries of their policies with respect to processed and semi-processed forms of raw materials, taking full account of the interests of the developing countries in increasing their capacities and industrial potentials for processing raw materials which they export;

(e) Increased financial contributions to international organizations and to government or credit institutions in the developing countries in 12 order to facilitate the promotion or financing of industrial development. Such contributions must be completely free of any kind of political conditions and should involve no economic conditions other than those normally imposed on borrowers;…”[3]

The UN was asking our government to lower tariffs that protected Australian manufacturing, so as to help foreign manufacturers compete in our market. They wanted us to become dependent on food from overseas, and also on other products and raw materials made or partially processed overseas. They also expected us to move our own manufacturing to these foreign countries, give advantages to foreign manufacturing, and then also to use our own sovereign money to increase this process.

This is what killed our Australian car industry. This is what killed many other parts of our manufacturing industry. It was not the unions, it was a deliberate top-down strategy to move money, resources, man power and even technology overseas,

“(j) The developing countries should he granted access to technological know-how and advanced technology, whether patented or not, under fair, equitable and mutually acceptable conditions, taking into account the specific development requirements of the recipient countries;

(k) Appropriate measures, including consideration of the establishment of an industrial and technological information bank, should be taken to make available a greater flow to the developing countries of information permitting the proper selection of advanced technologies;

(I) International conventions on patents and trade marks should he reviewed; and all aspects of the question of their revision, including inter a/ia additional provisions of special benefit to the developing countries, should be studied through the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), with appropriate contributions from UNCTAD and other interested United Nations bodies, in order that they may become an appropriate instrument to assist the developing countries in the transfer and development of technology;…”[4]

In other words, Australia, and all the other developed countries that signed the Lima Declaration, were being asked to agree to hamstring their own manufacturing industries and pour money, intellectual expertise, and more into third world countries so that they could compete with our manufacturing and run it out of business, under the shroud of "equality". The stated goals were the movement of our own manufacturing to these foreign countries. This was not a biproduct of the agreement, it was the intention. And our country over-delivered. This was clear theft from the West, by western leaders and businessmen, dressed up in social justice language. Isn't that always the way? 

They even stated their goals to push more women into the workforce to achieve their leveling of all societies across the world,

“30. That in order to render really effective the full utilization of their available human resources, conditions should be created by the developing countries which make possible the full integration of women in social and economic activities and, in particular, in the industrialization process, on the basis of equal rights…”[5]

Feminism was never about equality and justice. It was always about mobilizing the “human resource” potential of all nations so that those at the top could profit from all countries equally. That was the only equality they really cared about.

The whole document reads like a quasi-Marxist declaration of how the elites will achieve "equality" throughout the world. But you could also read it as a grand crony-capitalist strategy outlining how western elites could gain access to cheaper workforces around the world. Which is precisely what happened. Western countries lost a lot of their advantage over the rest of the world, and now if you turn on the Australian media on any given night, you are likely to hear about how China’s rapidly growing technology and industrial base creates security concerns for the United States and Australia. But the very elites who complain about this are the vert elites who created the problem, or at least their heirs. We gave that technology and knowhow to these countries, and are now falling behind as a result.

But now you know. Now you know how you were robbed, how every western country was robbed by its own leaders, and how our prosperity and intellectual heritage was given away. It was not an accident, it was a deliberate strategy of picking apart western manufacturing and technology and giving it to countries that are now leaping ahead of our own.

List of References

---

[1] https://www.unido.org/sites/default/files/2012-10/Lima%20Declaration%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Industrial%20Development%20and%20Co-operation_26.3.1975_0.PDF

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid. 

They Already Did

 

 

It is interesting how many prophecies that many people are looking towards the future for a fulfilment, the Bible says are already fulfilled, 

Zechariah 12:10, "10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn." 

John 19:36-37 - "36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

The Church, nor Christians, have any authority to add a future fulfilment where the scriptures say a prophecy was fulfilled in Christ. This is so for a few reasons. First, yes some prophecies have more than one fulfilment, but the previous fulfilment was before the coming of Jesus and pointed to him. Which leads to the second, more important reason; these prophecies all point to Jesus and his Church, and therefore, to apply them to some future kingdom in Canaan goes beyond what the Scriptures itself says. 

But there is a third reason, one of the most powerful apologetic tools the church has used in history to defend the scriptures is to point to these fulfilled prophecies as proof that Jesus would return, and the trustworthiness of his word. Adding future (to us) fulfilments to already fulfilled prophecies places your argument for the reliability of the word of God on sinking sand. Many bad readings of "prophecy being fulfilled in our day" have happened in the history of the Church, and they always led to massive disasters. But there can be no disaster for the one who sees these events as fulfilled in Christ, and builds people's faith on that foundation.

When it comes to whether or not the Jewish people need to look upon the one whom they pierced, the answer is they already did. It's is now time tor all who hear his warning about judgement to repent and trust in him. 

Has Standing With Israel Blessed America? (Part One)

Has standing with Israel blessed the United States?

The true test of any theology is in its fruit. Jesus indicates this himself. For instance in the gospel of Matthew he says,

“15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-20)

If the true test of a prophet is the fruit they bear, does it not stand to reason, also, that the true test of a particular biblical idea is the fruit that it bears?

As I heard one Trump pick for his cabinet say, “Zionism and Americanism are the frontlines of western civilisation and freedom in our world today.”[1] For many American and Australian Christians the idea that supporting Israel brings blessing to a country, especially America, is just a given, that is why an American solider and journalist would say this, because he believes that America’s highest priority is its alignment with Israel, for this is God's will. For many Christian Zionists Israel first is America first, because only in blessing Israel can another nation be truly blessed. These two things come hand in hand.

So, what I intend to do once a week for at least the next few weeks is examine the fruit of this idea. If this idea is even remotely true it should be testable. God’s word is not mythical, it is not ephemeral, it is built on real and tested wisdom and therefore should be able to be tested. After all, does not God say, “Taste and see that the Lord is good?” (Ps. 34:8). Is this not an invitation to test the application of his Word? 

For some of you reading this, the answer to this question is that of course this notion is unbiblical. It is simply untrue that supporting a secular, indeed, godless nation like Israel would bring any blessing to America. You already know the countless ways this has caused America to open its own borders, to get involved in wars around the world and more. You understand that throughout history whenever one nation has drawn too close to another nation and had its sovereignty subverted by that union it has been bad for both of those countries. You already know all this and need no convincing. 

However, there are people who are not aware of the manifest ways that supporting Israel has either damaged the United States, materially in the world, or correlated to social decline which in no way can be said to be the result of blessing. Some of these people may be open to considering a counter argument if it is laid out for them. So that is what I will do in this series.

The first example I would like to bring up is the 1970’s fuel crisis. You have probably heard of this, as Austin Powers jokes in one of his movies, it does not matter if you have missed the 1970’s all you missed was a fuel shortage and a flock of seagulls. At least he makes some joke along those lines. The fuel shortage and the harm it did to American manufacturing and culture are well known. But are you aware of what caused this fuel crisis, a crisis that extended even to Australia at the time? It was the United States standing with Israel:

“The Arab oil embargo of 1973 put the United States economy on the back foot, causing fuel shortages, a quadrupling of oil prices and long lines at gas stations. Several legacies of the resulting energy crisis have persisted decades later.

The spark of the embargo was the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. In that war, the Soviet Union resupplied its allies Egypt and Syria, and the United States responded with a massive airlift of supplies to aid Israel.

Members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) retaliated with an oil embargo against the United States and the Netherlands, Israel’s main supporters at the time. The resulting shock to the U.S. economy proved to be a vexing problem for American consumers and a string of U.S. presidents, who struggled to adapt. But it also led to important changes in energy efficiency, policymaking and building designs.”[2]

For its stance in supporting Israel America came face to face with one of the worst energy crisis’s it has ever faced. The actions of the OAPEC countries drastically cut down the supply of oil to America causing inflation and economic distress across the United States and its closest supporters.

One of the onflow effects of this was the expansion of the United States government, “In an April 1977 speech, new President Jimmy Carter proposed the creation of the Department of Energy, one of several policy changes he announced aimed at dealing with the challenge of a vastly changed energy landscape.”[3] Just consider that for a moment, a government caused crisis - America had no reason to intervene in that Yom Kippur war - created the very excuse the Democratic President needed to expand the size and reach of the US government. This was a direct result of the American support for Israel. 

Almost every Christian Zionist I know would agree that the expansion of the government is a net negative. They would also point to a litany of disasters that having increasing government causes. This is almost definitionally, according to most conservatives and most Zionists I know, not a blessing. The side effect of the creation of the Department of Energy was also to take power away from state departments that had previously been doing this job, increasing the size of the Federal government and therefore the centralization of power at the federal level. Another thing which is anathema to small government opponents, which many Zionists I know are. 

Another ongoing result of the support of Israel in this war was that Americans had to lower their standard of living,

“The energy crisis also forced U.S. presidents to make energy efficiency and conservation national priorities. Just two months after taking office, President Gerald Ford gave a speech  Congress on October 8, 1974, laying out his plan to curb inflation, which he dubbed Whip Inflation Now, or WIN. His message included urging Americans to conserve energy.

“To help save scarce fuel in the energy crisis, drive less, heat less,” said Ford.

In a 1977 fireside chat, Carter sported a cardigan sweater and urged people to keep their thermostats at 65 during the day and 55 at night to help ease a winter natural gas shortage.

In his April 1977 speech, Carter warned of a possible “national catastrophe” unless Americans were willing to make sacrifices that entailed curtailing energy consumption.[4]

Things Americans were free to do previously were suddenly restricted. Those like myself who are into muscle cars will know that these sanctions on America ended the muscle car era, and led to malaise era of car manufacturing. This itself should be all the proof we need to show that support for Israel has not blessed America; support for Israel ended the great American muscle car era for a couple of decades. 

During the malaise era of US car manufacturing  lower fuel using cars that were often much less reliable became the norm.[5] It was in this era when Japanese cars started to dominate the US market and overtake American cars in popularity. Largely because of the fuel efficiency of these smaller cars, but also because the Japanese had already been making smaller cars and were in the prime position to overtake American manufacturing when the new carbon emissions laws came into effect. America's stance on Israel made buying American cars unaffordable for many Americans. 

That is right, the decline of US car manufacturing and the increase in Asian manufacturing was a direct result of the United States support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war. That is not blessing, that is God directly taking from the US and giving to other countries, countries which compete dominantly with American and other western made cars today. In fact Japanese and Asian car manufacturing has completely killed the Australian car industry as well. The flow on effects of bad Middle Eastern policy have had generational effects.

Another side effect of the US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war was the western focus on renewables which has spiralled out of control in our era,

“Carter also took symbolic steps like installing solar panels on the top of the West Wing of the White House in 1979. Many experts agree that Carter was ahead of his time in his focus on renewable and clean energy.

“A generation from now,” Carter said, “this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people— harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil."[6]

Essentially Carter, and other US presidents, were forced to seek to spin what was a disaster for the United State's economy as an “opportunity to innovate”. And for sure some innovations did happen, some positive, some negative. But the ongoing effects of America’s support for Israel was to hamstring its own economy and entrench foreign manufacturing in its own country in such a way that American manufacturing was to progressively lose its dominant position. The rise of Japanese car manufacturing, which was better positioned to take advantage of the new government policies on energy efficiency and carbon emissions, is just one example.

So, the next time you are looking around the roads around you and you are lamenting how so many of the cars on the road are made overseas, remember this happened in large part because of America’s commitment to a Middle East policy that directly led to a massive shock in their own economy and ongoing decline because of that. Of course, there is more to the story of why American manufacturing and Australian manufacturing have declined, but support for Israel is at least a large chapter in that story.

This is a direct impact. But what about a correlative impact?

Well this chart[7] is very significant. Look at what has happened to US debt since the 1970’s as the nation drew closer and closer to Israel:

Since the era of America tying its foreign policy close to Israel’s foreign policy, Federal Debt has skyrocketed in comparison to American Gross Domestic Product. This is a correlative point of data that shows that economic prosperity - because debt is not prosperity - has declined markedly since the United States has been closely tied to Israel. And, in fact, the closer it appears to have acted with Israel, which it has done so increasingly over time, the worse things have gotten.

Again, my argument is not that this relationship with Israel is necessarily the cause of this, I think the causes are multiple. My argument is simply to show that alignment with Israel has not blessed the United States, at least according to these two metrics. And that is all we need to demonstrate is it not? We need not demonstrate a causal link between the US supporting Israel and blessing, we need only establish a correlative link, because the blessings to America for supporting Israel are meant to be general, not specific. In other words, the act of support is supposed to lead to unspecified, but still observable and experienced blessings. However, we have established both a direct and a correlational link between support of Israel and lack of blessings in this one blog. And this is just the start of our series.

Tune in next week for more evidence that support for a secular country called Israel cannot be measurably shown to have blessed America. Bad ideas need to be challenged, especially those that propagate war. 

List of References

---

[1] https://www.jns.org/trump-taps-pete-hegseth-for-defense-secretary/

[2] https://www.history.com/news/energy-crisis-1970s-innovation

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The term Malaise era refers to a period in the U.S. automotive industry from roughly the early 1970s through the early to mid 1980s, characterized by malaise: poor products and a generalized industry unease[1] — an era of profound adjustment as the U.S. automotive industry adapted to meet wholly new demands for more fuel-efficient, safe and environmentally responsible products.

[6] Ibid.

[7] https://www.macrotrends.net/1381/debt-to-gdp-ratio-historical-chart