Tag Archives: Wealthy

Reject the Drive-Thru Life of the Rich

When we look at the condition of the world today and how everyone – especially the rich everyones – are behaving themselves, all of them trying so desperately to get a leg up on everyone else, we get some notion of what it must be like for a bunch of scroungy vultures gathered around the skeleton of some rotting carcass with a precious few scraps of hard-to-get-at sinew left on it.

For all of my adult life, I’ve considered the wealth and means of the country to be like a big pie with enough shares for everyone, but there are always those who believe for whatever reason that they deserve more than the next guy. They fight like cats and dogs over – not just what might rightfully be due to them – every bit of the pie they can get their greedy claws on – using whatever means at their disposal to get as much of everyone else’s as they can lay claim to. They call it Capitalism but never doubt – it’s premised on evil [1 Timothy 6:10]: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Problem with these types is that while everyone else is out earning their pieces of the available resources, the greedy refuse to do anything to earn any of the pie, they slink into dark places and plot malicious schemes to steal whatever they can. They use their wealth to purchase lawmakers to legislate any and every piece of nefarious lawfare that can give them an advantage to get ahead. I remember when big insurance set out to make automobile liability insurance mandatory. When that garbage was going on, I remember being (uselessly) irate but found myself fighting against everyone – even friends and family – trying to get them to see what a travesty this was. Folks would argue about those poor people they heard about who got their car totaled in a crash by some (you name the minority) with no insurance. These people were the early iterations of Tea Partiers or MAGA types who were – and are – so easily propagandized, and readily jump on board any wagon which allows them an avenue to express their racism and/or stinginess.

I think it was the first time the government got away with mandating that citizens do business with private companies, and I still think it was and is wrong. See I felt, and feel, that if the state should mandate we have insurance, the state should provide it so the profits could be realized by the taxpayers and not some rich corporate political donors, but we all see what happened. By the way it’s not too late to fix that. I have three vehicles of which I can only drive one at a time, so why do I have to insure all of them? Why can’t I just get a policy on myself?

Big insurance is but one of a myriad of lobbies that purchase their own lawmakers (and thus laws), and there are some worse than insurance corporations. The one thing they all have in common is their insatiable greed for what has now become a very few remaining crumbs of the pie. They all see that there’s very little left; it’ll all be gone and there is a horrible battle shaping up for what’s left, but each of them only thinks of themselves and what they individually can get for themselves alone and to heck with everyone else, hence the vulture analogy. A big part of the problem is that each of them think this way and act as though they are unaware the others are all of the same mind as they are. They are getting set up for a frightful melee over the shrinking remnants!

What a miserable existence that must be for the greedy folks of the world! Some of them have connections to government officials like the greedy hedge fund manager who’s a buddy of Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury and found himself overinvested in Argentina’s stock market which was going under – no problem, Scott got Trump to cut a check to Argentina for around 40 billion dollars so his rich associate (and undoubtedly others of the same ilk) wouldn’t lose his shorts. American tax money (debt) going to cover private investors’ gambling debts because they have buddies in the administration! How is that legal??!! I wonder how much of that cash will end up in Scott’s account? Or Trump’s for that matter.

Us Christian folks can only watch on as these crooks dig themselves a dark tunnel into a dark place where they’ll spend their afterlife, so by no means envy them for their wealth! This stage of the journey is VERY temporary and it’ll come to a close way too soon for them. Ask Sheldon Adelson; ask Dick Cheney: for crying out loud, even the richest of the greedy, Jacob Rothschild, has come to a dark close! All for a few short years of having equally corrupt people fawning over them and their opulent lifestyles. And now for them it’s time to pay the piper. What I can’t figure out for the life of me is how on earth all of the ones that are still living can’t – or won’t – see what they are headed for. Such is the allure of Satan’s promises, but alas for them when their time in the flesh is over!

Those of us who put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ take a completely different approach to our choices. Jesus promises us an unimaginably joyous and magnificent afterlife, if we but forego the temptations of what we might otherwise (erroneously) consider happiness here on earth. We trade any and all desire for wealth and its attendant immorality in this life for Jesus’ love and what awaits us on the other side. Speaking for myself, I’ve come to realize that comfort and wealth in this life ain’t what it’s built up to be anyways. There was an old song a long time ago, “A Satisfied Mind” that had a line about there not being one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind, and I’d wager there’s an even lower percentage than that, but everyone has their own battles, and I guess there’s a way for them to just carry on and not think about the cost, the tab they’ll someday be faced with.

Jesus said [Luke 6:24]: “But woe to you who are rich, For you have received your consolation.” Whatever wealth, pomp, fancy ballrooms, or palaces they might enjoy for this short life, they have to make the most of it, because when the fat lady sings, it’s all over. And the enemy of mankind, who gave it all to them will be cast into the same lake of fire with them – for all eternity. Don’t be fooled, that evil enemy hates us for what we have waiting versus what he has in store.

I’m reminded of the story Jesus told of the souls of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus in the next life. [Luke 16-31] As Jesus described the situation, the rich guy was in eternal torment and Lazarus was in glorious comfort in the bosom of Father Abraham. The rich guy was begging and pleading with Abraham to send Lazarus to him with water, even just a drop that might ease his torment. Abraham basically reminded him of their situations in life and how he had lived in luxury and Lazarus had been a beggar so they each were getting what they deserved, and besides God had so arranged a great gulf between their locations no one could cross – NO ONE, NO HELP COULD EVER COME TO HIM FOR ALL ETERNITY! The guy was begging and pleading but it was too late! Never again to see or taste even a drop of water, forever! The unfortunate fellow did not avail himself of God’s offer of salvation and rid himself of his wealth and take up the cross when there was still time – now be honest – have you?

Another thing I thought was interesting about this story was that the narrator (Jesus) never mentioned anything specific that the rich man had done to deserve eternal punishment, just that he had been rich and “fared sumptuously every day” in his former life. It almost appears that being rich itself is damnable, but then when you stop to consider all the evil things that rich people do to get rich in the first place, it’s no wonder.

If you are a believer, just hang on. We have something wonderful waiting on the other side. Jesus has personally prepared our mansions! [John 14:2,3]: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. What an absolutely incredible promise!

Maybe y’all have seen some of the James Webb telescope pictures of the magnificent beauty of some of the stars, nebulas, novae and galaxies, but from the miniscule amount of celestial magnificence we are able to see, if Heaven is going to be anything like this, it’s gonna be a gorgeous place indeed. But according to the apostle Paul, we haven’t seen anything close the real thing yet. [1 Corinthians 2:9]: “But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Those beautiful pictures of the universe can’t even capture it! It’s going so resplendent as to be indescribable with human words! The president can keep that pathetic ballroom.

If you haven’t put your trust in Jesus, by all means, look into what He offers – it’ll be worth your time in the end. The time is getting short. Look at the signs – devastating wars loom which threaten be more destructive than anything in history. Volcanoes which have been dormant, some considered extinct, waking up all over the world. In fact a new one, dead for ten thousand years, just erupted in Ethiopia yesterday. Campi Flegrei in Italy is awakening ominously, and it could be a world changer! So many harbingers. Lots of big churches full of hypocrites are shutting down – only a few with true followers left. We find ourselves heading down that difficult road to the narrow gate where we’ll finally get to see our Shepherd Who waits for us. Time to get right with the Lord, folks, it’s almost over down here.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

Primer on the Evolution of Economics

When I was a kid, my old dad told me with all sincerity that he believed the “beast” mentioned in the Bible was what we know as communism. Rather than a heartfelt conviction, down through the years I’ve come to realize his belief was the result of our government’s propaganda. The propaganda battle against communism was still being waged after I grew up, the “powers that be” having learned newer and more deceptive ways to present their arguments thus were able to still deceive people even though we were learning how to see through the former, more obvious lies. Now I’m not promoting communism by any stretch, I’m just an old geezer who has spent a lifetime learning just how thoroughly we have been conditioned to regard the various economic systems of the world.

A long time ago when our ancestors were learning how to hunt and gather, somewhere in the process it became obvious that a system of bartering was needed. In the process of bartering, say you were a primitive farmer and you wanted to trade a basket of wild sea oats to your neighbor who was a skilled hunter, for a deer hide with which you wanted to make shoes for your kids. You had the grain ready, but Nimrod didn’t have a deer on hand, so y’all decided that since everyone liked seashells, your hunter buddy agreed to give you a certain number of his shells to hold until he could bring you a deerskin for which you’d return his shells; voila! Primitive currency was born!

As things progressed, people realized this worked for almost everyone and soon it became apparent that the more seashells a person had in his possession, the greater his influence and thus stature in the tribe. Now there were people around, even way back then who considered themselves to be above all this menial hunting and gathering, so they set about scheming ways to obtain a supply of seashells without putting out the effort of the other tribespeople, the tanners, the tool makers, and hunters had to exert to earn their own currency.

It quickly became obvious that keeping a stash of seashells required some effort, what with people, mostly those schemers mentioned above, stealing your shells while you were out hunting or gathering. Lo and behold, the do nothings “volunteered” to hold everyone’s currency for them. They would keep meticulous records of who owed who, and dutifully maintain these and thus alleviate Nimrod and the tanners of the “great burden” of keeping their currency secure, of course, there would be a cost for all their hard work, which incidentally would preclude them from doing their part of the real work that kept the village functioning. They also learned to complain incessantly of the hard work they had taken on so as to make their tasks seem overly burdensome, but due to their dedication to the success of the tribe, they would undergo such tribulation required to fulfill their tasks, but for only a small percentage of the transactions. Rudimentary banking was born.

In order to obfuscate and make their operations appear to be much more complicated than they actually needed to be, they continuously made new rules governing how the actual depositors would conduct business with them, and it got so that in order to qualify for their job, a person had to be taught in special schools exactly how to perform these unimaginably difficult and complicated tasks.. They also kept raising the required percentage of the deposits they would require. They found that they could loan other people’s currency and by of course, charging a wee bit of interest – which would go to themselves – Nimrod found that he could “borrow” some of the basket weaver’s shells, but the basket weaver didn’t get the interest on the loan – you guessed it – the “banker” reaped the profit from the loan of another man’s money. The interest rates exponentially got higher until the bankers, they guys who refused to do an honest day’s work to begin with, became the very wealthiest of the whole village. They never had to work again, but nevertheless complained incessantly about how hard their job was and always have been heard boasting bout how they “earned” their wealth.

Before this new banking arrangement came along, the various tradesmen and hunters used a bartering system that actually worked, Bill the blacksmith could turn out good horseshoes, but he wasn’t much of a fisherman. He traded his horseshoes to the farmer, who in turn traded baskets of turnips for fresh caught catfish back to Bill, and so forth. This was what we call today by the curse word “socialism”. This was also the economic system established by the early Christian church, whereby all of the brotherhood sold their goods and/or properties, and laid the money at the disciples’ feet to be distributed to the group as needed. They served each other’s needs in brotherly love. No bankers needed. Period.

Nowadays the bankers have evolved to essentially own everything and most all of the money – not because they earned anything, but because they learned how to get their grubs on other people’s money. Today they own governments, ever purchasing legislators who ever pass laws to enrich them ever more. Nimrod got lost in the shuffle. People still needed to eat, but the bankers bought up all of Old MacDonald’s property and their corporate farms produce GMO-laced poison that has glyphosate poison in the produce, but that’s another story.

When the economy fails, like in 2008, because the bankers kept stealing more and more and creating debt, the fault was laid on those poor people who were so greedy they actually wanted to live in houses! The crisis was economically horrendous, and completely the fault of the bankers, but guess who had to pay the tab? You got it, Nimrod and the basket weaver who weren’t “too big to fail”.

This is capitalism, folks. The people who benefit from it the most are the same ones who directed our propaganda system to make my old dad believe that any other system – in his case, communism – was utterly evil. It seems to have worked, but don’t forget what Jesus said about rich men. It certainly wasn’t that they’d become “too big to fail” – in the end, they will have been the greatest failure in all of creation. [Luke 6:24]:“But woe to you who are rich, For you have received your consolation.” Do not envy them, for their downfall and destruction will be unimaginable! No – pray for them.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

From Arizona to Gaza – There’s Much to be Done

I make no claim to the eagle on our national emblem. He’s under no obligation to represent the government of this country. I cannot in good conscience boast of forebears who conquered this land of abundance and drove away or slaughtered it’s rightful stewards. It was a most foul iteration of human behavior (was it normal?) to drive a people away from prosperous lands, to slaughter most of them and relocate the remainder into the desert, to barely habitable reaches on the very fringe of survivability – a bleak stratum of hostile existence devoid of forest and wildflowers wherein children vie with rattlesnakes and scorpions for piteous claim to those pathetic and arid habitations. Or worse yet, rather than displace, to eliminate them and their ways, as their cherished memories are inexorably erased; their songs forever silenced from a land they once called their home. As is being done today in occupied Palestine.

As I brood over news stories of today’s atrocities being levied against those equally helpless people in the forlorn Gaza Strip, I cannot but recall and regret that similar holocaust suffered by the American Indians which our own ancestors visited upon them with equal impunity, equal disregard for life, devoid of any Christian compassion. Knowing the historical truth of our ancestors’ malign behavior towards the Indians, do we then reconcile ourselves again to helplessly watch events unfolding in Gaza as the very human moral foundation of the whole world is obliterated? I for one, shall not cower in sheltered comfort as children are once again starved and murdered for sport! Though I’m aged beyond hope of military worth, at the very least I have a pen! We all have a prayer! Then let us pray fervently then for His intervention!

We have a sacred duty as human beings created by the Almighty to do whatever we can within Christian bounds to confound those demons from the pits of hell who once again rise to sacrifice children and infants on the bloody altar of Satan, and by the grace and with the succor of the Almighty we must rise to face them! We do not possess a privilege nor divine right to do otherwise. We must follow our hearts, our consciences, which plead with us to step up and do the right thing and do it expeditiously. We, at long last must cast off the shackles of fear and doubt that hold us in abeyance. These are tools of the enemy but they will be of no avail once we realize and acknowledge the power we collectively possess. The power bestowed upon us by the Almighty! And if the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, then may those of us who write emerge alongside the victors!

Streets of the world are truly become battlefields where stalwart people of conscience face mindless and soulless uniformed robots of the enemy who can and one day shall be defeated for the sake of the brotherhood of the world. These, as always, have chosen to take station with the enemy of mankind, just as it was in the day of Wounded Knee, the Warsaw Ghetto, Ludlow, Colorado in 1914, and on the streets of Chicago in 1968 and as it is today in countless protests on the streets of cities throughout the world. The true enemy is Satan and the wealthy barons who have already parlayed their souls for their stations in this temporary life. Those who choose service to them share that insidious desire to persecute and torment the indigent – the helpless. The wealthy oligarch hires the media to prevaricate; to weave his webs of deceit. He hires (and bribes) kings, presidents, and prime ministers to do his bidding, always at the expense of innocent lives, all the while flaunting the dark infamy that seals his dishonor – thus it was in the early days of America – thus it is now and has ever been.

His most effective weapon is his ability to turn simple “Christian” people, secretly his most feared adversaries, against one another. How is it possible for him to do this over and over? Why do the masses so readily take up arms against their brothers? Is the black, or brown, man truly your enemy? No, you say? Why then do you cheer so when you see the news that reports great numbers of migrant farm workers being deported from the US? These people are your brothers and in the eyes of God have exactly the same right to be here as you do so get off your high horse – you are no better than them. You have no more right to the fruit and water of God’s earth than anyone else, no matter what you hear on some Godless “news” medium or from some demented politician or perverted preacher. No more right, indeed than the Indian, whose stewardship of this land our forebears arrogated. When we get that through our heads, we might together become able to make progress against our real enemies, the wealthy of the world. Until then, we remain truly helpless – to repeatedly be taken down by those servants of Satan – as we have always been – perhaps even to the end – when the Lord returns at last and takes them down.

There will, after all, be a Judgement Day and people will have to give an account for why they supported the evil happenings of the world. Why they were all in for seeing the unfortunate aliens being persecuted, or the Indians massacred on bloody plains of yesterday, or why it was ok with them for kids in Gaza to be murdered? Racism seems to be the common denominator so if you are racist, you can either repent or plan to ride on the same train as the Custers, Trumps, and Netanyahus of the world.

Back to the great American debt. There are several charities which help out with Indian schools, and movements, one in particular, that is afoot in the US that is attempting to give a chance for those of us who would like to make amends to our Native American brethren for the longstanding grievances levied upon them by our ancestors. It is called NARF – Native American Rights Fund, which at this juncture is rightfully demanding that this government take whatever steps are necessary to comply with the legal requirement to ensure reservations have water, clean drinking water, for those barely survivable open air prisons to which they have been relegated and all but forgotten. As part of any effort we take to rise and try to correct our bearings toward the helpless of this earth, we Americans should do everything we can to support movement such as this one to help improve the Native Americans’ livelihoods. I’m pretty sure that for the price of just one F-35 fighter jet, the US government could provide water to all of the Native Americans on all reservations. Since we cannot go back and undo the wrongs they suffered, it’s the least we can do. Why should America deprive the Indians of life-sustaining water like the occupiers in Israel are doing to the legitimate stewards of Palestine? Or are we no better?

They sent me a pen and a keychain. I send them a pittance of financial help, tears, and prayers.
www.narf.org

Who knows? If we, the descendants of interlopers here in America can show conscience and start doing the right thing for once, maybe that noble eagle won’t be so ashamed of America after all. Those Indian kids need, and have a human right to clean water, just as the children of Gaza have a human right to sustenance and indeed, life. Together, men of good conscience can see it done – in Arizona and Gaza.

May the blessings of the Almighty find and keep us.

MK