What a massive civil revolt would require is to shut down the Corporate Owned News. As long as the propaganda megaphones are running 24/7, the US population will be too divided to take collective action. The oligarchs own the news and they make sure the public is divided and at each other's throats. It's why I have said for years, "People unite, left and right". Until the public gets over the manufactured hatred that they have been subjected to since the 1990s (when the news finally died for good) we will just have Red vs. Blue. The wealthy always uses divide and conquer as their primary strategy to maintain control.
Did anybody here at BV know that today ~ March 15, aka “The Ides of March” ~ is “International Day To Combat Islamophobia”?
In the event You didn’t, read Caitlin Johnson’s “Genocidal Psychopaths Celebrate International Day To Combat Islamophobia” at https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/genocidal-psychopaths-celebrate-international . And read what President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken have to say about Islamophobia today.
And keep a barf bag close at hand.
Caitlin concludes as follows:
“This is so creepy. It’s one of those things where the more you look at it, the creepier it becomes. They [Biden, Harris, and Blinken] are condemning Islamophobia and denouncing hate crimes against Muslims at the exact same time as they are helping Israel create a mountain of Palestinian corpses in a genocidal onslaught whose entire premise is that Palestinians are the wrong race and the wrong religion. They are proclaiming their love for the Muslim while plunging a knife into his throat.
“But that’s exactly who Democrats are. Their actions don’t matter, only their feelings matter. It didn’t matter that Obama expanded all of Bush’s most depraved wars and butchered Muslim populations using bombs and proxy militias throughout his entire administration, all that mattered was that he spoke eloquently and expressed compassion when the cameras were on. It doesn’t matter that Biden is directly backing a genocidal campaign which has probably killed far more people than the official death counts acknowledge, it matters that he condemns Islamophobia and that White House sources keep feeding the press stories about how privately ‘frustrated’ he is with Benjamin Netanyahu. The whole thing’s just a vehicle through which the more progressively-minded half of the American public can support the murderous agendas of the US empire while still feeling nice about themselves.
“REPUBLICANS ARE THE OPENLY FASCISTIC THUGS OF THE US EMPIRE, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE PSYCHOPATHIC PR MANAGERS RUNNING AROUND PHOTOSHOPPING SMILEY FACES ON THE FASCISM. REPUBLICANS ARE THE DOPEY GOON SQUAD, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE CRIMINAL MASTERMIND. REPUBLICANS ARE THE BLUNT INSTRUMENT, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE POISON SYRINGE. REPUBLICANS KILL MUSLIMS WHILE SAYING THEY HATE MUSLIMS, WHILE DEMOCRATS KILL MUSLIMS WHILE SAYING THEY LOVE THEM.
“DEMOCRATS ARE THE GRINNING PLASTIC MASK THAT SITS ON TOP OF THE SNARLING, BLOOD-SPATTERED FACE OF THE US EMPIRE. THEY PURPORT TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS, WITH MARGINALIZED GROUPS, WITH WOMEN AND WITH THE POOR, AND THEY CLAIM TO OPPOSE RACISM, INJUSTICE AND TYRANNY, BUT WHEN IT COMES RIGHT DOWN TO IT THEIR REAL PURPOSE IS TO PUT A NICE FACE ON THE MOST MURDEROUS AND TYRANNICAL REGIME ON THIS PLANET.” [EMPHASIS added.]
Any American who does not fear for the future of this Nation that they ~ and, more importantly, their Children ~ are about to confront will get exactly what they deserve.
The Real Question is: How can that Fear be most effectively transformed into Action to change that future before it is too late to do and/or change anything? And more importantly: What sort of Changes need to be made to America’s system of government and governance to prevent that future from happening?
Or is it already too late?
Again, yet, and still the ultimate Question remains: “Will America survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, 841 days from today? And if it does, will the American Peoples be in any mood or condition to celebrate anything?”
Or is there a better Question? As in “CAN America survive…?” And if so, How?
Or is the best Question “SHOULD America survive…?” And if so, Why?
Having grown up in Syracuse, where the Berrigan brothers had also grown up and where Dan had taught at LeMoyne College, and, like them an anti-war activist (but one lacking their remarkable courage), they've been an inspiration to me as well as to so many others. I'll look forward to reading this book. Looking further, I also see that there are a number of films made about the brothers that I will also try to see.
Reading the brief bios at WikiPedia, it's notable that while they were primarily known for their anti-war resistance actions and resultant jail time, they also held deep convictions about social justice more broadly. I recall that at least one of the nuns from my parochial school who went to Selma in 1965, to demonstrate for civil rights was inspired by them..
Telling little kids “I’m your God. You shall love me. If you don’t, I will torture you forever”.
Demanding kids that they must love somebody they fear. The very essence of sadomasochism.
"Jesus loves you" is incredibly hateful. Because the missing line after that always is, "and if you don't love him back, you'll pay for it by burning forever in hell."
Christians believe that when they get to heaven, they will know why, and be in agreement with their God about the people sent to hell. Thus, they will be either happy or indifferent about all their loved ones and friends that get sent to hell.
25 YEARS ON… HOW THE NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA LED TO THE U.S. PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA
“Twenty-five years ago in March 1999, the US-led NATO alliance launched a 10-week bombing campaign on former Yugoslavia.
“It led to the balkanization of Serbia and Kosovo. It also led to the further enlargement of the NATO military bloc and endless foreign military interventions in violation of international law.
“The NATO campaign to bomb Yugoslavia – only eight years after the end of the Cold War – invoked a humanitarian pretext but it did not have a legal mandate from the UN Security Council. It therefore was an illegal aggression perpetrated largely on the say-so of Washington.
“President Joe Biden, then a senator, was wholeheartedly in favor of the audacious military action in Eastern Europe.
“Alex Krainer, author of GRAND DECEPTION, contends that the NATO military aggression in Yugoslavia in 1999 was a strategic gambit by the US-led Western powers to pursue hegemonic ambitions of dominating Russia and any other geopolitical rival.
“The aggression 25 years ago fatally undermined international law and set a precedent for the next quarter century of endless US and NATO wars around the world, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, across the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere.
“THE CURRENT US-LED NATO PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE HISTORIC ASSAULT ON YUGOSLAVIA. IN ATTACKING YUGOSLAVIA, SAYS KRAINER, THE US AND ITS NATO VASSALS WERE SERVING NOTICE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE BOUND BY INTERNATIONAL LAW.
“IN MANY WAYS, THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE IS THE CULMINATION OF THAT HEGEMONIC LAWLESS MINDSET AND CONDUCT.”
Speaking of Religions and Gods and Prophets and Saviors and War Over What Is “TRUTH”…
The clearest, most complete and concise explanation of the relationship between Religion and War was what Mark Twain had to say in his epic “The War Prayer,” written in the immediate afterglow of America’s imperial victories and expansion in the Spanish-American War of 1898:
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism … on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun … nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. …
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …
…
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work….
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. … he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. …
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” …
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ … When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
For truly he did not take on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Wherefore in all things it was necessary for him to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted.
'The Buoyancy of ¨Psychopaths and the Genesis of the Great Asian War'
On the eve of the Great Asian War against China, In a rousing speech Biden assured the American people that the war was necessary because China was the most dangerous country in Latin America and didn’t have American values. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the US had the most advanced, lethal, best trained, hypergalactic and indomitable military the world had ever seen and the fact that it could not defeat annoyed goat herds with rifles had no bearing on the matter since the Chinese didn’t have goats.
Washington was astonished when the Russian fleet showed up in support of China. It hadn’t thought of this. Nor had it occurred to anyone in the Federal Bubble that if America fired on a Russian ship, America would be in a war with Russia. Not a proxy war. Not a regional war. Not a limited war. A war. Everywhere.
This didn’t worry anyone because Washington knew that America had the best trained, best armed, most advanced and hyper-galactic military in the universe. All recent military history supported this understanding, unless you read it, which nobody did. Further, the New York Times demonstrated that the Russians, then occupying Kiev, were badly trained, poorly equipped, suffered from poor morale, and wanted to overthrow their government and divide Russia into five countries under Washington’s control. The Times was famously independnet of government, so no further investigation was thought necessary.
, Washington had also forgotten Iran. Unfortunately for those in the Potomac Bubbylon, the Iranians, no fools, knew that Washington lacked the manpower, training, munitions, public support, and industrial base, to fight two major wars at once, and probably even one. The mullahs of course had huge stockpiles of missiles and an army not rotted by lgbt, affirmative action, lack of readiness, and impossibly inadequate logistics. So when the IRGC, Syria, Iraq, and all the militias that wanted the US out of the middle east attacked American bases in the region, Washington was sore amazed.
Congress as it turned out had forgotten that Russia had a large, combat hardened, experienced, well-trained and well-supplied army in, who would have thought it, Europe, along with a functioning military industrial base, massive artillery and air support. This Russia was also aware of the inadequacies of the American hypergalactic indomitable social-engineering aquarium that the military had become. Russia also had actual combat experience with hypersonics which America didn’t have, either the missiles or the experience, and Europe didn’t have tanks or ammunition because it had sent them all to the Ukraine where the Russians had blown them up.
Another revelation was that China wasn’t a backward sort of enlarged Guatemala where people manufactured pencils and maybe washing machines under European supervision. Nobody had thought of this. Part of the reason was that the House committee on China had no member who read, wrote, or spoke Chinese but this was not thought important, or thought of, because America was a democracy and thinking had nothing to do with it. It seemed China had a great many engineers of high quality who had spent decades readying China specifically to defeat America in China’s home waters. Simple arithmetic, apparently beyond Congress,none of whose members could calculate a binomial square, suggested that China could build, say, a thousand advanced satellite guided, maneuvering hypersonic antiship missiles, while Washington had at most ten aircraft carriers. A hundred swarm-launched missiles per carrier weren’t important, though. Why not wasn’t clear.............
What a massive civil revolt would require is to shut down the Corporate Owned News. As long as the propaganda megaphones are running 24/7, the US population will be too divided to take collective action. The oligarchs own the news and they make sure the public is divided and at each other's throats. It's why I have said for years, "People unite, left and right". Until the public gets over the manufactured hatred that they have been subjected to since the 1990s (when the news finally died for good) we will just have Red vs. Blue. The wealthy always uses divide and conquer as their primary strategy to maintain control.
Did anybody here at BV know that today ~ March 15, aka “The Ides of March” ~ is “International Day To Combat Islamophobia”?
In the event You didn’t, read Caitlin Johnson’s “Genocidal Psychopaths Celebrate International Day To Combat Islamophobia” at https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/genocidal-psychopaths-celebrate-international . And read what President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Secretary of State Blinken have to say about Islamophobia today.
And keep a barf bag close at hand.
Caitlin concludes as follows:
“This is so creepy. It’s one of those things where the more you look at it, the creepier it becomes. They [Biden, Harris, and Blinken] are condemning Islamophobia and denouncing hate crimes against Muslims at the exact same time as they are helping Israel create a mountain of Palestinian corpses in a genocidal onslaught whose entire premise is that Palestinians are the wrong race and the wrong religion. They are proclaiming their love for the Muslim while plunging a knife into his throat.
“But that’s exactly who Democrats are. Their actions don’t matter, only their feelings matter. It didn’t matter that Obama expanded all of Bush’s most depraved wars and butchered Muslim populations using bombs and proxy militias throughout his entire administration, all that mattered was that he spoke eloquently and expressed compassion when the cameras were on. It doesn’t matter that Biden is directly backing a genocidal campaign which has probably killed far more people than the official death counts acknowledge, it matters that he condemns Islamophobia and that White House sources keep feeding the press stories about how privately ‘frustrated’ he is with Benjamin Netanyahu. The whole thing’s just a vehicle through which the more progressively-minded half of the American public can support the murderous agendas of the US empire while still feeling nice about themselves.
“REPUBLICANS ARE THE OPENLY FASCISTIC THUGS OF THE US EMPIRE, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE PSYCHOPATHIC PR MANAGERS RUNNING AROUND PHOTOSHOPPING SMILEY FACES ON THE FASCISM. REPUBLICANS ARE THE DOPEY GOON SQUAD, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE CRIMINAL MASTERMIND. REPUBLICANS ARE THE BLUNT INSTRUMENT, WHILE DEMOCRATS ARE THE POISON SYRINGE. REPUBLICANS KILL MUSLIMS WHILE SAYING THEY HATE MUSLIMS, WHILE DEMOCRATS KILL MUSLIMS WHILE SAYING THEY LOVE THEM.
“DEMOCRATS ARE THE GRINNING PLASTIC MASK THAT SITS ON TOP OF THE SNARLING, BLOOD-SPATTERED FACE OF THE US EMPIRE. THEY PURPORT TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH WORKERS, WITH MARGINALIZED GROUPS, WITH WOMEN AND WITH THE POOR, AND THEY CLAIM TO OPPOSE RACISM, INJUSTICE AND TYRANNY, BUT WHEN IT COMES RIGHT DOWN TO IT THEIR REAL PURPOSE IS TO PUT A NICE FACE ON THE MOST MURDEROUS AND TYRANNICAL REGIME ON THIS PLANET.” [EMPHASIS added.]
Any American who does not fear for the future of this Nation that they ~ and, more importantly, their Children ~ are about to confront will get exactly what they deserve.
The Real Question is: How can that Fear be most effectively transformed into Action to change that future before it is too late to do and/or change anything? And more importantly: What sort of Changes need to be made to America’s system of government and governance to prevent that future from happening?
Or is it already too late?
Again, yet, and still the ultimate Question remains: “Will America survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, 841 days from today? And if it does, will the American Peoples be in any mood or condition to celebrate anything?”
Or is there a better Question? As in “CAN America survive…?” And if so, How?
Or is the best Question “SHOULD America survive…?” And if so, Why?
Having grown up in Syracuse, where the Berrigan brothers had also grown up and where Dan had taught at LeMoyne College, and, like them an anti-war activist (but one lacking their remarkable courage), they've been an inspiration to me as well as to so many others. I'll look forward to reading this book. Looking further, I also see that there are a number of films made about the brothers that I will also try to see.
Reading the brief bios at WikiPedia, it's notable that while they were primarily known for their anti-war resistance actions and resultant jail time, they also held deep convictions about social justice more broadly. I recall that at least one of the nuns from my parochial school who went to Selma in 1965, to demonstrate for civil rights was inspired by them..
Telling little kids “I’m your God. You shall love me. If you don’t, I will torture you forever”.
Demanding kids that they must love somebody they fear. The very essence of sadomasochism.
"Jesus loves you" is incredibly hateful. Because the missing line after that always is, "and if you don't love him back, you'll pay for it by burning forever in hell."
Christians believe that when they get to heaven, they will know why, and be in agreement with their God about the people sent to hell. Thus, they will be either happy or indifferent about all their loved ones and friends that get sent to hell.
Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin!
It’s called “Long-Range Planning”… :
25 YEARS ON… HOW THE NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA LED TO THE U.S. PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA
“Twenty-five years ago in March 1999, the US-led NATO alliance launched a 10-week bombing campaign on former Yugoslavia.
“It led to the balkanization of Serbia and Kosovo. It also led to the further enlargement of the NATO military bloc and endless foreign military interventions in violation of international law.
“The NATO campaign to bomb Yugoslavia – only eight years after the end of the Cold War – invoked a humanitarian pretext but it did not have a legal mandate from the UN Security Council. It therefore was an illegal aggression perpetrated largely on the say-so of Washington.
“President Joe Biden, then a senator, was wholeheartedly in favor of the audacious military action in Eastern Europe.
“Alex Krainer, author of GRAND DECEPTION, contends that the NATO military aggression in Yugoslavia in 1999 was a strategic gambit by the US-led Western powers to pursue hegemonic ambitions of dominating Russia and any other geopolitical rival.
“The aggression 25 years ago fatally undermined international law and set a precedent for the next quarter century of endless US and NATO wars around the world, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, across the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere.
“THE CURRENT US-LED NATO PROXY WAR IN UKRAINE AGAINST RUSSIA CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE HISTORIC ASSAULT ON YUGOSLAVIA. IN ATTACKING YUGOSLAVIA, SAYS KRAINER, THE US AND ITS NATO VASSALS WERE SERVING NOTICE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE BOUND BY INTERNATIONAL LAW.
“IN MANY WAYS, THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE IS THE CULMINATION OF THAT HEGEMONIC LAWLESS MINDSET AND CONDUCT.”
From Finian Cunningham’s interview with Alex Krainer at https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/03/10/25-years-how-tnato-bombing-yugoslavia-led-to-us-proxy-war-ukraine-against-russia/ ; EMPHASIS added.
Speaking of Religions and Gods and Prophets and Saviors and War Over What Is “TRUTH”…
The clearest, most complete and concise explanation of the relationship between Religion and War was what Mark Twain had to say in his epic “The War Prayer,” written in the immediate afterglow of America’s imperial victories and expansion in the Spanish-American War of 1898:
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism … on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun … nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. …
Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …
…
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work….
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. … he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. …
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” …
“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ … When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Source: https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/19-american-empire/mark-twain-the-war-prayer-ca-1904-5/
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
For truly he did not take on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Wherefore in all things it was necessary for him to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted.
Hebrews 2: 14-18
This satire should liberate everybody from fear.
'The Buoyancy of ¨Psychopaths and the Genesis of the Great Asian War'
On the eve of the Great Asian War against China, In a rousing speech Biden assured the American people that the war was necessary because China was the most dangerous country in Latin America and didn’t have American values. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the US had the most advanced, lethal, best trained, hypergalactic and indomitable military the world had ever seen and the fact that it could not defeat annoyed goat herds with rifles had no bearing on the matter since the Chinese didn’t have goats.
Washington was astonished when the Russian fleet showed up in support of China. It hadn’t thought of this. Nor had it occurred to anyone in the Federal Bubble that if America fired on a Russian ship, America would be in a war with Russia. Not a proxy war. Not a regional war. Not a limited war. A war. Everywhere.
This didn’t worry anyone because Washington knew that America had the best trained, best armed, most advanced and hyper-galactic military in the universe. All recent military history supported this understanding, unless you read it, which nobody did. Further, the New York Times demonstrated that the Russians, then occupying Kiev, were badly trained, poorly equipped, suffered from poor morale, and wanted to overthrow their government and divide Russia into five countries under Washington’s control. The Times was famously independnet of government, so no further investigation was thought necessary.
, Washington had also forgotten Iran. Unfortunately for those in the Potomac Bubbylon, the Iranians, no fools, knew that Washington lacked the manpower, training, munitions, public support, and industrial base, to fight two major wars at once, and probably even one. The mullahs of course had huge stockpiles of missiles and an army not rotted by lgbt, affirmative action, lack of readiness, and impossibly inadequate logistics. So when the IRGC, Syria, Iraq, and all the militias that wanted the US out of the middle east attacked American bases in the region, Washington was sore amazed.
Congress as it turned out had forgotten that Russia had a large, combat hardened, experienced, well-trained and well-supplied army in, who would have thought it, Europe, along with a functioning military industrial base, massive artillery and air support. This Russia was also aware of the inadequacies of the American hypergalactic indomitable social-engineering aquarium that the military had become. Russia also had actual combat experience with hypersonics which America didn’t have, either the missiles or the experience, and Europe didn’t have tanks or ammunition because it had sent them all to the Ukraine where the Russians had blown them up.
Another revelation was that China wasn’t a backward sort of enlarged Guatemala where people manufactured pencils and maybe washing machines under European supervision. Nobody had thought of this. Part of the reason was that the House committee on China had no member who read, wrote, or spoke Chinese but this was not thought important, or thought of, because America was a democracy and thinking had nothing to do with it. It seemed China had a great many engineers of high quality who had spent decades readying China specifically to defeat America in China’s home waters. Simple arithmetic, apparently beyond Congress,none of whose members could calculate a binomial square, suggested that China could build, say, a thousand advanced satellite guided, maneuvering hypersonic antiship missiles, while Washington had at most ten aircraft carriers. A hundred swarm-launched missiles per carrier weren’t important, though. Why not wasn’t clear.............
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/03/16/the-buoyancy-of-%c2%a8psychopaths-and-the-genesis-of-the-great-asian-war/16/