I've long found it interesting - if not tragically ironic - that most politicians and "religious leaders" who wear religion on their sleeves primarily invoke the Old Testament and treat the Book of Deuteronomy as a policy plan - rather than follow the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount.
Apparently we have more wars than we can handle. Curious since I have seen no Russians, Iranians, Syrians, Houthis, etc. attacking in my neighborhood. My friends and relatives in other states likewise report no wars there as well.
"Our opponents" fight "us" on the basis of something called SELF-DEFENSE. The UN Charter proclaimed such a right exists! Somebody send a memo to Hegseth on this?
All of this is just elementary (My dear Watson!). Illegal aggression is the only kind of war the USA engages in. BUT check this out: Struck by the beauty of a single sentence I'd seen quoted from Saint (?) Augustine's epic (c. 1100 pages) "City of God," I set out to absorb that tome. I'm being entirely serious. But I vowed in advance to draw a line in the sand. And the old boy sho' 'nuf crossed it. Discussing killing, he declared that killing ain't murder if the killer WAS ORDERED BY GOD to carry out his actions. (See numerous passages in Old Testament where that's precisely what Jehovah dictated to this or that tribe or individual.) So ol' Augie did a face plant at that point, on a crucially important issue, and I'll be damned (some day?) if I'm going to invest any more time in such pathetic twaddle!! Does anyone see where I'm going with this? The course for the future of our nation, which will affect all of Humanity, is being set by demented idiots who either sincerely believe they are making war and committing mass murder IN GOD'S NAME, or they're quite talented actors merely projecting a faith in such preposterous doctrines.
The country is suffering from a chronic condition, MMD – Multiple Munitions Deficiency. Vast infusions necessary to stem, if not reverse.
“Fascinating to me are the lack of moral arguments against America’s orgy of murderous weapons. The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Killing is immoral and a crime unless as a last resort in self-defense.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967: “[T]he greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.”
**************************************
“We always hear about a shared Judeo-Christian tradition—there’s a moral imperative here that demands fewer swords and more ploughshares.”
Verse 1 from “Onward Christian Soldiers”:
“Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See His banner go!”
*****************************************
“The Pentagon is sitting on nearly $118 billion in unobligated reconciliation funds, including more than $44 billion for procurement, as of April, according to the Senate Budget Committee.”
“The annual funding gap to reach a state of good repair for the nation’s public schools has grown from $60 billion in 2016 to $85 billion in 2021. Critical needs at school buildings include water upgrades to remove lead and installation of cooling systems amid increasing temperatures. A 2021 study estimated that 13,700 additional schools must add air conditioning, representing more than $40 billion in investment needs.”
******************************************
Maybe this was when America was great, though Irving Berlin most likely at pains now:
What a mere fraction of "a spit in the ocean" it would take to bring the nation's schools up to snuff compared to the War Budget!! Then there's the little matter of thousands of bridges that have deteriorated. Oops, sorry, no money to deal with that! Mebbe if the repair job was handed to Raytheon something would get fixed? At a dandy profit for the private sector, of course. Linda McMahon seems to have failed. She was given a mandate to literally shutter the Dept. of Education but as far as I know it lives on, severely hamstrung of course. Zombie-like. :-(
I was rather surprised at how relatively little it would take to get decent HVAC in schools, not even a rounding error of a rounding error when it comes to the Pentagon boondoggle. The overall ASCE estimate as to how deep in hole we are in across several categories of infrastructure is a far more sobering $9.14 trillion in present needs, with $5.45 trillion funded for 2024-2033, leaving us coming up short $3.69 trillion just seven years from now. Of course the way “we’ll” (meaning the political/financial levers of power) will deal with this is some sort of Rube Goldberg-like contraption involving a mix of a) heaping on the already disturbing level of the national debt; b) starving other government undertakings, e.g., research, environmental protection; c) kicking more people off Medicaid and other safety net programs; d) coming up with yet another take on the nonsense of “doing more with less” (while the rich manage to get by on more and more); and e) related to that, come up with another round of “public/private partnership” glib, smooth-talking, “this is modern public management” horseshit, which is a code for the private sector, i.e. Wall St., getting a cut of the action in order to enrich themselves further at the public trough in lieu of those bastards paying taxes to get the job done. Oh, let's not omit f), doing nothing at all, and essentially saying, "Let them eat crumbling concrete."
Note, and this should be obvious, but nonetheless – no mention of taxes whatsoever, at least not on the already have-mores; and whatever Israel wants Israel gets, keepa u hanz off.
Another tactic will be to shift the financial burden of infrastructure repair on to the states. So up, up and away will go local and state taxes. Connecticut has a really noxious tax of 25 cents a gallon on gasoline. These funds supposedly are earmarked to maintain our roads and highways. That's hilarious!! CT within past few years overtook Kansas--yes, Kansas--for the title of worst-maintained roads in the nation!!
"Another tactic will be to shift the financial burden of infrastructure repair on to the states."
Yes, very good point, I've seen that play out in terms of municipalities getting less state aid because they're getting less from the Feds or the Feds totalling eliminating programs that the states in turn have to pick up on. I was talking to the town administrator about this, as all this not only puts pressure on municipal finances, but also makes the political process more contentious, pitting interests against one another, rather than have a consensus. Property tax overrides become more necessary, less likely, and needed things don't get done. It's not pretty.
Keep in mind that a recent RAND Corporation study showing that over the 50-year period 1975-2025, $79 trillion in wealth was vacuumed up by the top 10% from the bottom 90%, so some are still partying on while the New Rome is approaching the flash point.
Good Day XK, Bill titled this article 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' and you introduced "Onward, Christian Soldiers" written in 1865 and published in the Church Times under the original title "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners".
No matter how often Establishment Religion calls The Bible The Word of God, it's only a Book that points to the Way, Truth and Life of the Living Word of God, Christ Jesus, who resides in the hearts, minds and mortal bodies of Humans who call on Him to take up residence within, conditional on implementing and practising the ways and attitudes, and values of Christ clearly spelled out in the Book as the Tutor until Christ takes up 24/7 residency.
The 1st recorded admonition by God 'thou shalt not kill' is in Genesis 4 with the 1st killing of a human by a human since expulsion from the Paradise Garden God created for Humans ON EARTH.
When Cain killed his brother, God said "What have you done? Hark! Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the earth."
Reading the record, Cain feared Capital Punishment but God said. "Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be wrought upon him seven fold," and the Lord placed a mark on Cain that no one who find him slay him.
That emphatically says THOU SHALT NOT KILL!
Eventually someone else killed someone else making it 77 times worse in the 6000 year Human Timeline from the Genesis to now.
Fast forward some 1500-1600 years of human history but only 2 chapters in Genesis, from Cain to Noah where it's written, 'And the Lord saw that the evil of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil all the time. And the Lord regretted that He had made man upon the earth, and He became grieved in His heart.
And the Lord said, "I will blot out man, whom I created, from upon the face of the earth, from man to cattle to creeping thing, to the fowl of the heavens, for I regret that I made them."
An interesting reality is, People's history all over this Earth, record a Great Flood, not only in The Middle East where the Jewish-Christian Bible started.
God did not destroy the Human Race, giving Noah and his Family the chance to start over with a clean slate. God promised the World would not have a great flood again, the Rainbow in the sky being the sign of that promise. Could the increasing number of flash floods the World is seeing, be a visible warning Sign of the Times of Wars and rumours of Wars?
It was some 800-900 years from Noah to Moses The Lawgiver presented the 10 commandments or 10 bits of Good Advice to follow if Humanity wants to expunge all the lying, cheating, stealing and killing from Human Realities in this Earth.
What I take note of, the structure Moses The Lawgiver institutes continues worldwide to this Day. Every Congress, Parliament and Legislature sits in Moses' seat framing Laws of all kinds.
It was some 700 years after Moses when the last major Jewish Prophet Isaiah, described the challenge of Christ's Christian Soldiers in our current World.
And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Most of the Peoples money is being diverted to weapons and War, away from the People's real needs and wants.
The Jewish Prophet Zachariah is more specific in 4:6 in the Book some 220 years after Isaiah, writing, 'Not by military force and not by physical strength, but by My spirit,' says the Lord of Hosts.
Getting back to you citing Onward Christian Solders XK, that moved me to write as I did, this is the record in the Revelation of Jesus Christ 19 describing those Christian Soldiers,
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. [...] And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations:...
He does not use the weapons of WAR humans use. His sharp sword is the Power of the WORD Made Flesh, a Power already within every Human using WORDS to communicate in whatever language.
Hello Bill Astore... Giving Israel a Blank Check after mid-2024 was irresponsible... The Munitions, and Funds should have been Given to Ukraine... That is a more important Theatre than Gaza for USA interests....
Hello Tom... I can see your Viewpoint, but in this interconnected World, no Country is an Island... Obama flinched in Syria in 2013, and in 2014 Putin invaded the Ukraine... Then Obama looked away....
Syria was a CIA-created horror show; one in a long line of imperial insanity since the end of WWII. For the origin to said insanity, read the link below.
As to Ukraine, I would highly recommend reading Scott Horton’s book, ‘Provoked’. Putin did pretty much exactly what the U.S. would have done had the roles been reversed. The history of the U.S. and NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall all but guaranteed the Russian military action.
And look at the morass the US succeeded in provoking Russia into!! There are liable to be Lost Generations in Russia as well as its centrally important region, the Ukraine. In the past, the Ukraine was considered the very heart and soul of "Holy Mother Russia"! But "some geopolitical manipulator" found it to its interest to encourage the Ukrainians to break away and declare themselves a sovereign state. Gee, who could that have been?? (Picture me scratching my head in mock befuddlement.)
I've long found it interesting - if not tragically ironic - that most politicians and "religious leaders" who wear religion on their sleeves primarily invoke the Old Testament and treat the Book of Deuteronomy as a policy plan - rather than follow the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount.
Apparently we have more wars than we can handle. Curious since I have seen no Russians, Iranians, Syrians, Houthis, etc. attacking in my neighborhood. My friends and relatives in other states likewise report no wars there as well.
Alex, as you know, we fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them here. :-)
Oh yeah I forgot. Thanks for reminding me. Presumably our opponents say they fight us over there so they don't have to fight us over here.
"Our opponents" fight "us" on the basis of something called SELF-DEFENSE. The UN Charter proclaimed such a right exists! Somebody send a memo to Hegseth on this?
My "like" is for the accuracy of your sarcastic comment, Colonel! :-)
All of this is just elementary (My dear Watson!). Illegal aggression is the only kind of war the USA engages in. BUT check this out: Struck by the beauty of a single sentence I'd seen quoted from Saint (?) Augustine's epic (c. 1100 pages) "City of God," I set out to absorb that tome. I'm being entirely serious. But I vowed in advance to draw a line in the sand. And the old boy sho' 'nuf crossed it. Discussing killing, he declared that killing ain't murder if the killer WAS ORDERED BY GOD to carry out his actions. (See numerous passages in Old Testament where that's precisely what Jehovah dictated to this or that tribe or individual.) So ol' Augie did a face plant at that point, on a crucially important issue, and I'll be damned (some day?) if I'm going to invest any more time in such pathetic twaddle!! Does anyone see where I'm going with this? The course for the future of our nation, which will affect all of Humanity, is being set by demented idiots who either sincerely believe they are making war and committing mass murder IN GOD'S NAME, or they're quite talented actors merely projecting a faith in such preposterous doctrines.
The country is suffering from a chronic condition, MMD – Multiple Munitions Deficiency. Vast infusions necessary to stem, if not reverse.
“Fascinating to me are the lack of moral arguments against America’s orgy of murderous weapons. The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Killing is immoral and a crime unless as a last resort in self-defense.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967: “[T]he greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.”
**************************************
“We always hear about a shared Judeo-Christian tradition—there’s a moral imperative here that demands fewer swords and more ploughshares.”
Verse 1 from “Onward Christian Soldiers”:
“Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See His banner go!”
*****************************************
“The Pentagon is sitting on nearly $118 billion in unobligated reconciliation funds, including more than $44 billion for procurement, as of April, according to the Senate Budget Committee.”
The annual Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil engineers gives the “Schools” category a grade of “D+” https://infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/schools-infrastructure/. A section from its summary report reads:
“The annual funding gap to reach a state of good repair for the nation’s public schools has grown from $60 billion in 2016 to $85 billion in 2021. Critical needs at school buildings include water upgrades to remove lead and installation of cooling systems amid increasing temperatures. A 2021 study estimated that 13,700 additional schools must add air conditioning, representing more than $40 billion in investment needs.”
******************************************
Maybe this was when America was great, though Irving Berlin most likely at pains now:
"From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home."
My home sweet home.
What a mere fraction of "a spit in the ocean" it would take to bring the nation's schools up to snuff compared to the War Budget!! Then there's the little matter of thousands of bridges that have deteriorated. Oops, sorry, no money to deal with that! Mebbe if the repair job was handed to Raytheon something would get fixed? At a dandy profit for the private sector, of course. Linda McMahon seems to have failed. She was given a mandate to literally shutter the Dept. of Education but as far as I know it lives on, severely hamstrung of course. Zombie-like. :-(
I was rather surprised at how relatively little it would take to get decent HVAC in schools, not even a rounding error of a rounding error when it comes to the Pentagon boondoggle. The overall ASCE estimate as to how deep in hole we are in across several categories of infrastructure is a far more sobering $9.14 trillion in present needs, with $5.45 trillion funded for 2024-2033, leaving us coming up short $3.69 trillion just seven years from now. Of course the way “we’ll” (meaning the political/financial levers of power) will deal with this is some sort of Rube Goldberg-like contraption involving a mix of a) heaping on the already disturbing level of the national debt; b) starving other government undertakings, e.g., research, environmental protection; c) kicking more people off Medicaid and other safety net programs; d) coming up with yet another take on the nonsense of “doing more with less” (while the rich manage to get by on more and more); and e) related to that, come up with another round of “public/private partnership” glib, smooth-talking, “this is modern public management” horseshit, which is a code for the private sector, i.e. Wall St., getting a cut of the action in order to enrich themselves further at the public trough in lieu of those bastards paying taxes to get the job done. Oh, let's not omit f), doing nothing at all, and essentially saying, "Let them eat crumbling concrete."
Note, and this should be obvious, but nonetheless – no mention of taxes whatsoever, at least not on the already have-mores; and whatever Israel wants Israel gets, keepa u hanz off.
America, America, God shed disgrace on thee.
Another tactic will be to shift the financial burden of infrastructure repair on to the states. So up, up and away will go local and state taxes. Connecticut has a really noxious tax of 25 cents a gallon on gasoline. These funds supposedly are earmarked to maintain our roads and highways. That's hilarious!! CT within past few years overtook Kansas--yes, Kansas--for the title of worst-maintained roads in the nation!!
"Another tactic will be to shift the financial burden of infrastructure repair on to the states."
Yes, very good point, I've seen that play out in terms of municipalities getting less state aid because they're getting less from the Feds or the Feds totalling eliminating programs that the states in turn have to pick up on. I was talking to the town administrator about this, as all this not only puts pressure on municipal finances, but also makes the political process more contentious, pitting interests against one another, rather than have a consensus. Property tax overrides become more necessary, less likely, and needed things don't get done. It's not pretty.
Keep in mind that a recent RAND Corporation study showing that over the 50-year period 1975-2025, $79 trillion in wealth was vacuumed up by the top 10% from the bottom 90%, so some are still partying on while the New Rome is approaching the flash point.
Good Day XK, Bill titled this article 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' and you introduced "Onward, Christian Soldiers" written in 1865 and published in the Church Times under the original title "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners".
No matter how often Establishment Religion calls The Bible The Word of God, it's only a Book that points to the Way, Truth and Life of the Living Word of God, Christ Jesus, who resides in the hearts, minds and mortal bodies of Humans who call on Him to take up residence within, conditional on implementing and practising the ways and attitudes, and values of Christ clearly spelled out in the Book as the Tutor until Christ takes up 24/7 residency.
The 1st recorded admonition by God 'thou shalt not kill' is in Genesis 4 with the 1st killing of a human by a human since expulsion from the Paradise Garden God created for Humans ON EARTH.
When Cain killed his brother, God said "What have you done? Hark! Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the earth."
Reading the record, Cain feared Capital Punishment but God said. "Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be wrought upon him seven fold," and the Lord placed a mark on Cain that no one who find him slay him.
That emphatically says THOU SHALT NOT KILL!
Eventually someone else killed someone else making it 77 times worse in the 6000 year Human Timeline from the Genesis to now.
Fast forward some 1500-1600 years of human history but only 2 chapters in Genesis, from Cain to Noah where it's written, 'And the Lord saw that the evil of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil all the time. And the Lord regretted that He had made man upon the earth, and He became grieved in His heart.
And the Lord said, "I will blot out man, whom I created, from upon the face of the earth, from man to cattle to creeping thing, to the fowl of the heavens, for I regret that I made them."
An interesting reality is, People's history all over this Earth, record a Great Flood, not only in The Middle East where the Jewish-Christian Bible started.
God did not destroy the Human Race, giving Noah and his Family the chance to start over with a clean slate. God promised the World would not have a great flood again, the Rainbow in the sky being the sign of that promise. Could the increasing number of flash floods the World is seeing, be a visible warning Sign of the Times of Wars and rumours of Wars?
It was some 800-900 years from Noah to Moses The Lawgiver presented the 10 commandments or 10 bits of Good Advice to follow if Humanity wants to expunge all the lying, cheating, stealing and killing from Human Realities in this Earth.
What I take note of, the structure Moses The Lawgiver institutes continues worldwide to this Day. Every Congress, Parliament and Legislature sits in Moses' seat framing Laws of all kinds.
It was some 700 years after Moses when the last major Jewish Prophet Isaiah, described the challenge of Christ's Christian Soldiers in our current World.
And he shall judge between the nations and reprove many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Most of the Peoples money is being diverted to weapons and War, away from the People's real needs and wants.
The Jewish Prophet Zachariah is more specific in 4:6 in the Book some 220 years after Isaiah, writing, 'Not by military force and not by physical strength, but by My spirit,' says the Lord of Hosts.
Getting back to you citing Onward Christian Solders XK, that moved me to write as I did, this is the record in the Revelation of Jesus Christ 19 describing those Christian Soldiers,
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. [...] And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations:...
He does not use the weapons of WAR humans use. His sharp sword is the Power of the WORD Made Flesh, a Power already within every Human using WORDS to communicate in whatever language.
Hello Bill Astore... Giving Israel a Blank Check after mid-2024 was irresponsible... The Munitions, and Funds should have been Given to Ukraine... That is a more important Theatre than Gaza for USA interests....
Sorry, but no. The munitions, as Bill notes, should have been turned into plowshares.
USA interests are domestic; until we clean up our own house, foreign entanglements are just that.
Hello Tom... I can see your Viewpoint, but in this interconnected World, no Country is an Island... Obama flinched in Syria in 2013, and in 2014 Putin invaded the Ukraine... Then Obama looked away....
Syria was a CIA-created horror show; one in a long line of imperial insanity since the end of WWII. For the origin to said insanity, read the link below.
https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/the-hemisphere-of-plunder-guatemala?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=4688565&post_id=202952816&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eov1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
As to Ukraine, I would highly recommend reading Scott Horton’s book, ‘Provoked’. Putin did pretty much exactly what the U.S. would have done had the roles been reversed. The history of the U.S. and NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall all but guaranteed the Russian military action.
And look at the morass the US succeeded in provoking Russia into!! There are liable to be Lost Generations in Russia as well as its centrally important region, the Ukraine. In the past, the Ukraine was considered the very heart and soul of "Holy Mother Russia"! But "some geopolitical manipulator" found it to its interest to encourage the Ukrainians to break away and declare themselves a sovereign state. Gee, who could that have been?? (Picture me scratching my head in mock befuddlement.)
FWIW, I just got this report today. It looks as if our warfughting situation is going to get worse. By design.
https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/congress-is-preparing-to-surrender?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true