Monthly Archives: September 2024

The Best We Could Do – Nuclear Armageddon

As I write this post, it appears the world is really close to the edge of the proverbial cliff and as a lot of observers and commentors are enunciating at an uncomfortable volume, it would only take a slight mistake or one false flag to initiate the nuclear conflagration we all dread. How did we get here? Of course there is no simple answer, but rest assured we all played a part.

I just watched possibly the greatest statesman and leader of the twentieth and probably the twenty-first century, Vladimir Putin being interviewed by a foreign journalist. He spoke as always, rationally and without the rabid venom to which we in the west have become accustomed from our frothing leaders. For his remarkable patience and wisdom, Mr. Putin deserves that new peace medal, The Tolstoy Award that is now being offered to replace the long-desecrated Noble Peace prize that was shown for its real value by its being bestowed on a recent purveyor of drone deaths upon Afghan peasants who had the audacity to talk on a cell phone. During the said interview he spoke of some dreadful things that are about to happen if the west doesn’t back off. As opposed to all western leaders and their spokespersons, I trust what he says.

We have existed as a species on this planet for a short time, geologically speaking. Our presence here on earth has been marked by inhumanity toward each other since Cain killed his own brother, and for the last several thousand years, and since then things have continued to go downhill. Today we, as creatures who purport to be civilized, possess enough nightmarish weapons to literally destroy the earth! Even the savage dinosaurs walked the earth for hundreds of million years. We might have been here a couple of hundred thousand, yet it seems we are on the verge of destroying our planet.

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If we could only project our thoughts onto what it might be like as a rare survivor of a nuclear holocaust, we might begin to explore ways we could possibly have helped to stave off such a horror. Just look at pictures of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and imagine that destruction across the entire landscape as far as you could walk on your feeble legs with whatever dwindling strength you might have left – being totally and absolutely obliterated. There are no words to describe the destitution, the terror that would overwhelm your heart.

At first, you consider yourself to be fortunate to have survived the horrendous bombardment of practically the whole nation, indeed, there are a few left who weren’t vaporized and haven’t succumbed to the agonizing radiation – yet, and those people naturally seek each other out to share their misery. Small groups of people, mostly with grotesque injuries, burned, broken, bleeding and scarred, begin to gather although they don’t have any idea where to go or even have much to say to each other – they’ve all experienced their own versions of the same terror. Among the scraggly and destitute groups of people, there can be heard moaning and wailing of common pain, both physical and psychological. Darkness gathers, both emotional and literal darkness of a kind never experienced by humanity. As the reality of where you are and what has happened begins to sink in, you start to realize that you aren’t one of the fortunate ones after all – the lucky ones died in the blasts.

What’s left of humanity, including your children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, grandparents, and your beloved pets are now microscopic particles of ash drifting around in the frigid wind, it hits you like a speeding train – you will never again see those you love; you will never even know whether or not they “survived”. A million “what ifs” swarm through your fading thoughts as you retch between your knees, vomiting up most of the poisonous water you drank from a noisome, dark puddle, so great was your need. What if we could have formed some kind of movement that could have worked together to depose the madmen who brought this about? Why didn’t we just remove them from power? What if we had not been afraid to speak out for fear of the corrupt leaders and their psychopathic law enforcement people who either didn’t care or weren’t smart enough to see this coming.

You finally realize, now that it’s much too late, that those people you considered to be (especially western) leaders were in reality the most corrupt of all people on the earth, and this was their plan all along. Their cognitive mediocrity would not allow them to understand the implications of where they were taking us and what the results would be. You see, oh so painfully, the results as you try to make out any semblance of civilization around you now. The truth is, and was, that they were wealthy people who, with their vast financial resources, literally controlled the world, and they were not about to give that power up. You can twist this basic truth any which way you like, you can dance around it, you can point into a myriad of other directions as to the causes of the world’s ills, but that little nugget is still the absolute truth – they were willing to destroy the world rather than give up their dominance, and that cop banging you on the head at the protest could never had less of an impact on events other than to help them along – he and his family are now most likely among those ashes flying around, but breaking up protests by well-intentioned people was all he contributed. Who knows, maybe he is one of the “lucky” survivors, sitting somewhere on an old five-gallon bucket with his skin hanging off – wondering what he could have done differently, but probably never would realize how he “helped”.

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The cop was a human being, just like everyone else, trying to survive and provide for his family. His part in all of this was foreordained long before it happened. The wealthy who brought all this about were the ones who decided who his boss would be. Somewhere up that ladder, I guarantee you, someone made a lot of money to support the interests of the wealthy, and the strategy was established whereby the methods of “law enforcement” were calibrated to benefit the elite by providing them protection. That protection was purchased in the form of things like civil asset forfeiture, whereby the cops were given permission to practice armed robbery on the citizens without ever charging them. You can bet the responsible legislators for such unconstitutional claptrap were paid handsomely to purchase the police to act as armed bodyguards for the wealthy. Police departments around the country were also gifted lavishly with tactical military equipment, drones, armored vehicles, etc. So much for Barney Fife and his corroded bullet. They were also gifted with a form of authority that was never intended by our founders, but the net effect was that the efforts of the elite paid off tremendously by effectively shutting down any type of organized resistance that might have averted this hell on earth you now witness.

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As you look around, all you can see is death and destruction. Along the muddy remnants of what used to be streets you see huge piles fragmented concrete with rebar sticking out in all directions. Closer to the “ground zeroes” even this stuff was vaporized. There are no birds, no animals of any kind. Those guys who used to brag about surviving by hunting and fishing – at least the few of them who are left – are finding out there aren’t enough game animals left to satisfy the needs of all the people who anticipated the same tactics. What few deer out there in the mostly burned-out forests are dying from radiation poisoning or starvation. This wasn’t a very good strategy, but neither was pushing Mr. Putin and Mr. Jinping until they had no other choice than to resort to this madness. They didn’t want to do it, but neither did they want their nations to be subjugated by mad men. Vladimir Putin, whether still alive or deceased, can rest knowing he did everything in his power to avoid this catastrophe. In your heart of hearts, you either already knew this about him, or by looking back at how things unfolded, you’re just now figuring it out.

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The world is dark now and it’s an impenetrable darkness in which no sane person wants to be. The nuclear winter that scientists warned us about is upon us. If there were any greenery, you wouldn’t be able to see it for the mind-numbing dark, but there is no greenery anyway. You don’t have long to live, and you realize it, but strangely that fear of death is no longer a bother for you – at this point, you would welcome the long sleep. At least now you don’t have to listen to those absurdly ignorant politicians and military guys talking about a “winnable” nuclear war. You knew as well as anyone that was sheer idiocy, but not enough people stood up when there was time, a group of people among which you are counted did nothing but watch football and go shopping while the minutes ticked away. Now you must live for whatever time you have in the agony of knowing you’ll never be with loved ones again. You’ll never again sit on the riverbank listening to beautiful songbirds in the exuberance of nature. There’ll never be another cup of coffee poured at your favorite cafe, and the people with whom you shared such times are gone from your life forever.

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We can sit by and let the servants of evil do this or we can speak up against it – it’ll be painful, but if we don’t act, it’s going to be too late. This terrible thing is coming folks, it’s just a matter of when. Mr. Putin is on the very edge of his patience. In all of our years on this planet as human beings it looks like our destruction is nigh. Is this the best we can do?

There’s a way to avoid, or to endure, the ever-nearing disaster. Get yourself baptized and get Jesus Christ into your life. Once you realize the hope He offers, you’ll be forever grateful you did.

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May God our beloved Creator protect and bless us all.

MK

Certainty Of Death, Taxes and the Hereafter

While strolling through the late-summer countryside yesterday, as I looked over the lustrous patches of early goldenrods, several thoughts simultaneously bombarded my aging senses, not the least of which were things us folks alive regard as certainties. Some of them are indeed certainties, but many we regard as being so may not actually be. As interesting as it would be to hop a ride on that train of thought, maybe for the sake of brevity it’d be better to stay with those we know to be things that will happen. For instance, we have every reason to believe the sun will set this evening, and every other evening for that matter, and as this autumn weather coalesces around the foliage in this holler, we’re going to see some beautiful colors. As most of the readers of this site already know, autumn is an event which stirs the affinity for this aging soul’s eternal attempts to describe nature’s botanical metamorphosis with my own version of insane prose, which as you know will also be forthcoming, although I wouldn’t categorize that obsession with subjects of the degree of certainty to which this post attempts to allude.

As surely as we know the deciduous hardwoods will turn into immaculate subjects of magnificent beauty, some of us also know that an event of even more grandeur, of indescribable splendor will soon grace our senses with an experience we’ve been blessed to KNOW shall transpire. That event will be the glorious return of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We can know this will happen because He has bestowed on us the faith to believe He’s coming back. When folks decide to believe in Him, the process of growing into that very faith begins – and will until we meet Him.

Before I started this post, I prayed that our Marvelous Creator would afford me with words, with thoughts that could accomplish two purposes. The first would be to encourage the brothers and sisters who might, as a result of the horrible, depressing events happening in the world, find themselves becoming discouraged in their own faith, seeing the rampant and overt injustice being perpetrated upon innocent folks, and just generally experiencing the hopelessness with which the stranger visits our souls. To those of you who find your hopes flagging, remember what He told us about having patience. [Rev 14:12] Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. and [2 Thessalonians 3:5] “Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.” Patience is therefore important for believers – those who choose to keep the commandments, and as hard as it is to practice, we must remain patient, otherwise we leave open another door to the machinations of Satan.

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The second purpose of this post is to speak a truth to nonbelievers, to encourage those who do not know Christ to look into that thing which we believers KNOW to be a certainty. The thing of which I speak is the return of Jesus Christ to gather His children and to take up His sceptre, that symbol of Kingship and justice which we anxiously await. To you I say He was here in human form performing miracles unheard of, both in His day as they would also be in ours today – that history of all the things He accomplished during His appearance alone should be sufficient to pique the curiosity of the staunchest agnostic, and give people cause to look into His teachings. Another aspect of His life’s experience is His unassailable wisdom – the human race could probably continue indefinitely just by practicing the humanity, the love and generosity He taught, as opposed to continuing as we are to the cataclysmic ending we can all see coming.

We plainly see the evil that has overtaken the world – we know it’s evil because one of the few decent human traits we all possess is that conscience that allows us to differentiate between good and evil. While it’s true that we as humans are by nature far short of attributes that separate us from spiritual virtuosity, if we but open our eyes we can still understand that human evil, greed, immorality, ad infinitum, are direct causes for our impending demise. Therefore, we should, simply as a matter of the continuity of our species, be able to comprehend the source(s) of our destruction and avoid those behaviors. But it goes deeper than that – without Jesus Christ in our lives we are forever bound to repeat those accursed things. They are the essence of human behavior – behavior that identifies that which we must strive to overcome, which is impossible without His guidance.

There are things we fear will happen that may or may not come to pass, things like the nuclear holocaust most of us fear that could indeed happen if we stay on this trajectory. Just plain conventional war on the other hand, may be one of the practices we humans can’t avoid, although I hesitate to say it has to be a certainty. This site has proposed before, and I see no reason to change that belief, that Satan is at the pinnacle of his power when there is war in our world. War breeds all kinds of sinful behavior – hatred, greed, immorality, and others. We often hear justifications for war – resources, and other forms of wealth, territorial disputes, etc., but these are incorrect – these excuses are among the many lies birthed to accommodate war. Such justifications get the means and ends of war swapped. The reason for war is war. Satan doesn’t need resources – he needs people to be killing each other. When you understand that people always lie to justify throwing a war, you see what the Lord was talking about because Satan was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Jesus had some choice words for such followers, [John 8:44] “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

War itself may not necessarily be one of the inevitable things this post is about, although in reality because of our human fallibility, it sure seems to be. We hear the old saw about death and taxes and for all practical purposes they may be correct, but one thing is for sure – Jesus is coming back for us. He said He would.

[Revelation 14:14-16] Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

Some of us are trying hard to stay on the leading edge of that sickle, making sure everyone knows they have an invitation to the Kingdom. To those who see themselves there, keep up the good work. To those who hear the invitation, don’t let it pass. RSVP now! Get to know Jesus, you’ll forever be glad you did.

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May God bless all.

MK

Deplorable Addictions in the World

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We get addicted to many things in the course of our lives, and I’m pretty sure not many people are aware of just what all kinds of things there are out there to get hooked on. We look with disdain on videos or pictures of tent villages in our inner cities full of people addicted to fentanyl or heroin, and those folks are indeed in dire straits, but there are countless other addictions which take more forms than one might realize.

If we’re not careful, us folks who write posts or do videos on social media can get ourselves hooked on views or clicks or comments on our work. I suspect this phenomenon is more widespread than we might realize, and although those who are monetized have good reason to want as many viewers as possible, it’s likely that we also enjoy being heard, watched, or read to an extent which we might not want to admit, simply because of our attachment to the world and a desire to be a voice in it. That’s just the beginning. I’m saying this because I’m not monetized, and I still relish views and comments more than you’d think should be normal, so I think there may be more than just the monetary reward at play for the “feel good” of view counts. Therefore, it seems like there’s some kind of compulsive behavior involved in being a voice in social media, I might be wrong, but it’s easy to get plagued with self-doubt when I go for days on end with no likes or comments on my posts so I could imagine what it might be like if money was involved, at least I think there’d be a difference.

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courtesy Clipart Library

I’ve known people in my life, and still do, who seem to have an inexplicable need to drive around. They like to go – anywhere – and seem to have an aversion to staying home. Some of them sit around trying to think of somewhere they need to go just to get away from home. I’m just the opposite and really enjoy being at home, in fact, maybe wanting to stay home all the time is an addiction of its own. Is that what agoraphobia is all about? For me, it’s a combination of liking my home environment and being with my four-legged family as well as a nagging discomfort of being around people I don’t know. God has blessed me immensely with the expectation to spend my remaining years out here in the country where it’s peaceful and I’m immersed in the wonders of His creation. That may or may not be an excuse, I don’t know.

The Folkpotpourri Leaf

One of the saddest of addictions is that of excessive eating. With almost all other forms of compulsive behavior a person can just walk away from their addiction, albeit with varying degrees of difficulty, but no one can just stop eating and survive. Thankfully to the Almighty, and from one who’s never suffered this malady, I can only imagine how hard it would be to try and moderate your food intake when every cell in your body is screaming for you to take another bite beyond what you know you should.

We all know those folks who talk too much. Seems like they always have something to say beyond what comes out of their mouths and that makes it really hard sometimes to decipher where they’re coming from. It’s almost inevitable if we’re not careful, we get to the point where we don’t even listen to them because of their incessant babbling, and that’s sad because lost in the yammering there’s always the possibility of a grain of something that’s important to them, and we often miss it. Excessive talking might be less of an addiction and more of a personality trait (or defect), but it would take someone with more education than myself in psychology to make that distinction. Maybe there is no distinction.

It was mentioned in the introductory paragraph, but drug and alcohol addiction are generally the most destructive to addicts and those around them. The severity of the addiction also varies from person to person, but there is an overwhelming need for endorphins or whatever chemical makes them feel good, possibly as a method of escape from the routines or the vagaries of life. Some folks have reasons to want to get away, but most of the ones I’ve encountered simply need endorphins, and again, I don’t know why this malady is so prevalent, but it’s a serious problem when it gets to a point where people no longer have the capacity to stay (or even to get) sober. Drugs and alcohol addictions have wreaked immeasurable devastation to people, to families, to entire cultures.

In my humble opinion, the greatest addiction of today is by far the addiction to one form or another of social media, but the cell phone in particular, and I believe this one has the propensity to destroy us as a society simply by enslaving our minds. Maybe it’s just me, but I get depressed to see someone walking down the aisle in the store with a phone stuck to their ear. I also get a bit concerned when I see someone trying to drive and text.

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I only see my grandkids once a year when they gravitate to the Ozarks for the Fourth of July. It’s one of the highlights of my life anymore – I love all of them dearly, but when they’re here, if myself or some other adult doesn’t guard against it, there will be a living room full of people, mostly kids, but some adults too, not talking nor visiting, all with their faces in their cell phones, not even talking to loved ones with whom they seldom get the opportunity to visit. Their families could be sitting right beside them or out in the orbit of the moon, and there would be no cognitive difference. I know I’m running the risk of sounding like an old geezer grandpa, but when I was a kid, the family sat around the living room getting to know each other. The fact that we already knew each other fairly well had no bearing on our ability and desire to be close, to form and maintain family bonds that have endured all of our lives. Of course, as we got grown and moved into different settings, we spend less time together, but as a result of those early experiences in family life, we still love each other and share fond memories when we’re together. Cell phones have the potential to completely destroy the family units of societies worldwide and we all need to reconsider our extensive use of – and terrible addiction to – our phones. They get my vote for one of the top couple of threats to society’s well-being, for even though they brough us great convenience, they are the number one tool being used (especially by young folks) to separate us all and cause us to maintain an unhealthy connection to the malevolence of the world. Wonder what kind of world we’d have if all those folks were walking around with a Bible in their hand instead of a cell phone.

There are other, better, essays in life we should be pursuing. The most important one by far, we have to make sure our kids learn about Jesus Christ so they will have His help to overcome the threat of addiction in all of it’s forms – for at the heart of the matter, most addictions are insidious weapons of Satan.

May the God of Heaven bless all,

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MK