500 years ago today: The birth of Protestantism

WND   October 31, 2017

On Oct. 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted 95 debate questions on the door of Wittenberg Church, which began the movement known as “the Reformation.”

In 1521, 34-year-old Martin Luther was summoned to stand trial before the most powerful man in the world, 21-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Charles V of Spain’s empire spanned nearly two million square miles across Europe, the Netherlands, the Far East, North and South America and the Caribbean.

The Philippine Islands were named after his son, King Philip II of Spain. The sun never set on the Spanish Empire.

At the Diet of Worms, Charles V initially dismissed Luther’s theses as “an argument between monks” and simply declared Martin Luther an outlaw. Martin Luther was hid by Frederick of Saxony in the Wartburg Castle, where he translated the New Testament into German. Charles V’s unruly troops sacked Rome and imprisoned Pope Clement VII for six months.

​This was the same Pope that refused to annul the marriage of Henry VIII and Charles’s aunt Catherine of Aragon, leading Henry break away from Rome and start the Church of England. (Catherine had been married for six months to Henry’s older brother Arthur before he died in 1502.)

Charles V oversaw the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and began the Counter-Reformation. He eventually responded to the pleadings of the priest Bartolomé de Las Casas and outlawed the enslavement of native Americans.

Gold from the New World was used by Spain to push back the Muslim Ottoman Empire’s invasion of Europe. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent’s Ottoman fleet dominated the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Suleiman conquered into Christian Hungary, Christian Serbia and Christian Austria, in addition to controlling the Middle East and North Africa. In 1529, 35-year-old Suleiman the Magnificent sent 100,000 Muslim Turks to surround Vienna, Austria.

Martin Luther wrote: “The Turk is the rod of the wrath of the Lord our God. … If the Turk’s god, the devil, is not beaten first, there is reason to fear that the Turk will not be so easy to beat. … Christian weapons and power must do it. …”

Martin Luther continued: “(The fight against the Turks) must begin with repentance, and we must reform our lives, or we shall fight in vain. (The Church should) drive men to repentance by showing our great and numberless sins and our ingratitude, by which we have earned God’s wrath and disfavor, so that He justly gives us into the hands of the devil and the Turk.”

In an attempt to unite the Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Muslims, Charles V agreed to a truce recognizing the Protestants, as Eric W. Gritisch wrote in “Martin – God’s Court Jester: Luther in Retrospect” (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983, p. 69-70): “Afraid of losing the much-needed support of the German princes for the struggle against the Turkish threat from the south, Emperor Charles V agreed to a truce between Protestant and Catholic territories in Nuremberg in 1532. … Thus the Lutheran movement was, for the first time, officially tolerated and could enjoy a place in the political sun of the Holy Roman Empire.”

As the Islamic threat intensified, reformer John Calvin wrote to Philip Melanthon in 154 (“Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts & Letters,” I: 373): “I hear of the sad condition of your Germany! … The Turk again prepares to wage war with a larger force. Who will stand up to oppose his marching throughout the length and breadth of the land, at his mere will and pleasure?”

Followers of the reformers who “protested” certain doctrines, were generally referred to as “Protestants.” Some Protestants refused to help Charles V who was defending Europe from the Muslim invasion. Finally, Charles V made a treaty with the German Lutheran Princes by signing the Peace of Augsburg, September 25, 1555, ceasing the religious struggle between Lutherans and Catholics.

A line in the treaty, “cuius regio, eius religio,” allowed each king to decide what was to be believed in his kingdom.

A month later, Oct. 25, 1555, suffering from severe gout, Charles V abdicated his throne and lived the rest of his life secluded in the monastery of Yuste, leaving his son Philip II to rule.

As different kings in Europe chose different denominations for their kingdoms, millions migrated from one country to another simply for conscience sake. Many of these Christian religious refugees fled Europe to settle colonies in America.

New York University Professor Emeritus Patricia Bonomi, in her article “The Middle Colonies as the Birthplace of American Religious Pluralism” wrote: “The colonists were about 98 percent Protestant.”

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, most were Protestant, with the notable exception of Catholic Charles Carroll of Maryland.

British Statesman Edmund Burke addressed Parliament, 1775: “All Protestantism … is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.”

Samuel Adams stated when he signed the Declaration of Independence: “This day, I trust, the reign of political protestantism will commence.”

Martin Luther, who died in 1546, wrote: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth.”

Catholic and Protestant leaders will stress their mutual bonds 500 years after the start of the Reformation

The Guardian  Tuesday 31 October 2017

Catholic and Protestant leaders will stress their mutual bonds 500 years after the start of the Reformation, a movement which tore apart western Christianity and sparked a string of bloody religious wars in Europe lasting more than a century.

A service in Westminster Abbey on Tuesday will mark the anniversary of the date in 1517 on which the German theologian Martin Luther submitted The 95 Theses to the archbishop of Mainz as well as nailing a copy to the door of a church in Wittenburg, lighting the fuse of the Reformation.

The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will present a text by the Anglican communion affirming a joint declaration by the Roman Catholic church and global Protestant bodies described as “a sign of healing after 500 years of division”.

Last week, Pope Francis said Catholics and Protestants were now enjoying a relationship of “true fraternity” based on mutual understanding, trust and cooperation.

He told Derek Browning, moderator of the Church of Scotland, who was visiting the Vatican as part of the Reformation commemorations, that the two traditions were “no longer … adversaries, after long centuries of estrangement and conflict”

The pontiff added: “For so long we regarded one another from afar, all too humanly, harbouring suspicion, dwelling on differences and errors, and with hearts intent on recrimination for past wrongs.”

The 95 Theses, written in Latin, was a backlash against increasing corruption in the Catholic church and, in particular, the highly profitable sale of “indulgences”. These promised a fast-track to heaven and were sold to fund the building of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Luther argued that salvation could not be bought or brokered by the church, but was a matter between an individual and God.

His challenge to the authority and elitism of the Catholic church was translated into German and other European languages. Thanks to revolutionary new printing presses, his message spread rapidly and was taken up by others, including the French theologian John Calvin.

Rome condemned Luther as a heretic and launched the Counter-Reformation, but by the end of the 16th century most of northern Europe was Protestant.

In England, Henry VIII, desperate to dissolve his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in pursuit of a male heir, launched his own, less clear-cut, separation from the Catholic church which involved the destruction of much of the country’s religious heritage.

In 1999, the Catholic and Lutheran churches agreed a “joint declaration on the doctrine of justification” that resolved many of the theological issues at the heart of the schism. This document has now been welcomed and affirmed by the Anglican communion.

A spokesperson for the Catholic church in England and Wales said: “The desire for reconciliation is such that mistakes can be recognised, injuries can be forgiven and wounds healed.

“We give thanks to the joy of the gospel we share as Christians, express repentance for the sadness of our divisions and renew our commitment to common witness and service to the world.”

But despite the warm words of reconciliation issued by leaders, there are issues blocking the prospect of a reunification of the two traditions, not least that of female priests.

Meanwhile, pockets of sectarianism remain in parts of northern Europe, including Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Last year, a document released by an evangelical Protestant group, Reformanda Initiative, drew a distinction between individual Catholics and the “unchecked dogmatic claims and complex political and diplomatic structure … [of the] the institutional Catholic church”.

It concluded: “The issues that gave birth to the Reformation 500 years ago are still very much alive in the 21st century for the whole church.”

The Father-Son relationship in the great controversy

In the City of God “there shall be no night.” None will need or desire repose. There will be no weariness in doing the will of God and offering praise to His name. We shall ever feel the freshness of the morning and shall ever be far from its close. “And they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.” Revelation 22:5. The light of the sun will be superseded by a radiance which is not painfully dazzling, yet which immeasurably surpasses the brightness of our noontide. The glory of God and the Lamb floods the Holy City with unfading light. The redeemed walk in the sunless glory of perpetual day.

“I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” Revelation 21:22. The people of God are privileged to hold open communion with the Father and the Son. “Now we see through a glass, darkly.”  1 Corinthians 13:12. We behold the image of God reflected, as in a mirror, in the works of nature and in His dealings with men; but then we shall see Him face to face, without a dimming veil between. We shall stand in His presence and behold the glory of His countenance.     The Great Controversy, Page 676

And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise.     The Great Controversy, Page 678

Lucifer was the third highest being in heaven

But there was one that chose to pervert this freedom. Sin originated with him who, next to Christ, had been most honored of God and who stood highest in power and glory among the inhabitants of heaven. Before his fall, Lucifer was first of the covering cherubs, holy and undefiled. “Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering.... Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” Ezekiel 28:12-15.       The great controversy page 493

Christ, the only being in all the universe that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God

Before the entrance of evil there was peace and joy throughout the universe. All was in perfect harmony with the Creator's will. Love for God was supreme, love for one another impartial. Christ the Word, the Only Begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father,—one in nature, in character, and in purpose,—the only being in all the universe that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God. By Christ the Father wrought in the creation of all heavenly beings. “By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, ... whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers” (Colossians 1:16); and to Christ, equally with the Father, all heaven gave allegiance.    The Great Controversy, Page 493

A mighty fortress is our God

Happy Sabbath

The Father-Son relationship found so consistently in the word of God

John 10:36 “Say ye of him whom the Father hath  sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou  blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son God?”
 

John 5:18 “Therefore the Jews sought the more to  kill him, because he not only had broken the  Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father,  making himself equal with God.”
 

Verse 19 “Then answered Jesus and said unto them,  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do  nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father  do, for what things soever he doeth, these also  doeth the Son likewise.”
 

Verse 20  “For the Father loveth the Son. . . .”
 

Verse 23 “That all men should honour the Son, even  as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not  the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent  him.”
 

Verse 26    “For  as the Father  hath life in   himself; so  hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.”
 

Verse 30 “ I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear,  I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek  not mine own will, but the will of the Father which  hath sent me.”
 

Verse 36 “But I have greater witness than that of  John: for the works which the Father hath given  me to Oinish, the same works that I do, bear  witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.”
 

Verse 43 “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye  receive me not: if another shall come in his own  name, him ye will receive.”
 

1 John 1:3 “That which we have seen and heard  declare we unto you, that ye also may have  fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is  with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
 

1 John 2:22-23        “Who is a liar but he   that denieth  that    Jesus    is    the    Christ?    He    is    antichrist,    that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever  denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father:  (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the  Father also.”
 

Verse 24 “ . . . .If that which ye have heard from the  beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall  continue in the Son, and in the Father.”
 

1 John 3:23 “And this is his commandment, That  we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus  Christ, and love one another, as he gave us  commandment.”
 

1 John 4:15 “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is  the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in  God.”
 

1 John 5:5    “Who is he that overcometh  the world,  but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”
 

1 John 5:10-11 “He that believeth on the Son of God  hath the witness in himself: he that believeth    not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth  not the record that God gave of his Son.”
 

James 2:19 “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”
 

Proverbs 30:4 “Who hath ascended up into heaven,  or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his  Oists? Who hath bound the waters in a garment?  Who hath established all the ends of the earth?  What is his name, and what is his son’s name, if  thou canst tell?”
 

John 11:27 “She saith unto him, Yea Lord: I believe  that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”
 

John 6:69 “And  we believe and are sure that  thou art that Christ the Son of the living God.”
 

Matthew 17:5 “And behold, they cried out, saying,  What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of  God?”
 

1 Corinthians 15:28 “And when all things shall be  subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself  be subject unto him that put all things under him,  that God may be all in all.”
 

1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I would have you know,  that the head of every man is Christ and the head  of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is  God.”
 

John 20:31 “But these are written, that ye might  believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;  that believing ye might have life through his  name.”
 

Matthew 16:17-18 “Thou art the Christ, the Son of  the living God. . . . Upon this rock I will build my  church.”
 

Galatians 4:6 “And because ye are sons, God hath  sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,  crying, Abba, Father.”

World leaders rehearse for a global pandemic that will come ‘sooner than we expect’

Washington Post    October 24, 2017

The government ministers were facing a new infectious disease outbreak. The mysterious virus was sickening and killing people with alarming speed. Some patients had to be placed on ventilators to help them breathe. The new virus seemed resistant to antiviral medicine.

Within a week, officials had closed a major hospital and schools and quarantined thousands of people. Fear and panic spread quickly as people in neighboring countries became infected and died.

That scenario was part of a pandemic simulation held during the World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington this month. It’s not the kind of event that people would typically associate with the World Bank. But it’s the fourth such exercise the bank has helped organize in the past year, reflecting what experts say is the growing awareness outside the traditional global health sector of the increasing threat and economic disruption posed by a global pandemic.

The chaotic and “horrendously inefficient” early response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people was the catalyst for the simulations, said Tim Evans, senior director for health, nutrition and population at the World Bank.

“We realized that people were just making it up as they were going along, including us,” Evans said, referring to the Ebola response. The bank wanted to “move from a history of panic and neglect to one where we’re going to start to prepare much more systematically to be ready for the 100 percent probability we will be dealing with this again,” he said. “Probably sooner than we expect.’”

Outbreaks of life-threatening infectious diseases are spreading faster and with more unpredictability than ever.

An unusually large plague outbreak in Madagascar has killed 106 people since August. About 70 percent of the cases are the more virulent form of pneumonic plague that spreads by coughing, sneezing or spitting and is almost always fatal if untreated with antibiotics.

In Uganda, officials are on high alert because of a recently reported outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus that has killed one person and may have exposed hundreds more at health facilities and during traditional burial ceremonies. Marburg is a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola and is among the most virulent pathogens known to infect humans.

For the World Bank simulation, organizers looked at the impact on travel and tourism of an outbreak of a mysterious respiratory virus in a hypothetical country. Participants included finance, health and tourism ministers from about a dozen countries, and officials from organizations including the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the International Air Transport Association.

The Global Food and Health Crisis: Monsanto’s Science Is Bogus

Globalresearch     October 19, 2017

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the new director general of the World Health Organization (WHO). With a $4 billion annual budget, WHO’s decisions affects us all and its decisions also affect the bottom line of some of the most powerful corporations on the planet.

Health is political. And health is big business. For instance, WHO makes dietary and nutrition recommendations that can affect the likes of Nestle, Unilever, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, General Mills and Kellogg’s. WHO devises a list of essential medicines that governments should stock for the health of their people, thereby affecting the sales of major pharmaceutical companies. It also helps other UN agencies procure billions of dollars of pharmaceutical products by vetting manufacturers to ensure they meet WHO standards and specifications.

WHO wants to place restrictions on the use of antibiotics in food and livestock production, and it also reviews scientific evidence to appraise the cancer-risk of agricultural chemicals, including Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup and Dow’s 2,4-D.

As you might imagine, WHO recommendations can have massive ramifications for big corporations, which can fight tooth and nail to attack and discredit any WHO decision that could damage their strategic market positions and financial bottom line. And this is exactly what we are witnessing right now as Monsanto battles to protect is multi-billion-dollar money spinner Roundup with yet another smear campaign, this time against US toxicologist Dr Christopher Portier. Given what happened to Seralini and his team’s study, it’s all highly predictable.

Rosemary Mason writes to the WHO

Due the pivotal role of WHO, Dr Rosemary Mason has contacted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus through an open letter expressing major concerns about role of transnational agrochemical/agritech corporations and the impacts of their products on human health and the environment.

With the focus clearly on Monsanto, Mason brings to the attention of Ghebreyesus the many lawsuits filed against the company alleging that Roundup causes cancer. These cases have forced Monsanto to reveal emails that show it employed ghost-writing, used scientists as paid lobbyists and targeted those that produced evidence that challenged the company in order to keep Roundup, its flagship herbicide, on the market by fraudulent science.

More than 250 lawsuits are pending against Monsanto in US District Court in San Francisco, filed by people alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto covered up the risks  (Roundup is linked to cancers of the bone, colon, kidney, liver, melanoma, pancreas and thyroid). Additionally, at least 1,100 plaintiffs have made similar claims against Monsanto in state courts, and US attorneys recently came to the European Union with two plaintiffs to support the Members of the European Parliament in their Public Hearing on The Monsanto Papers and glyphosate.

WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has declared glyphosate as a 2A carcinogen. As glyphoaste comes up for re-licensing in Europe, in a public hearing in Brussels this month, Dr Christopher Portier and Dr Kate Guyton defended IARC’s position. Dr Portier drew attention to the significance of statistically significant tumor findings that have not been discussed in any of the existing reviews on glyphosate. 

Portier concluded that as the regulatory bodies, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency’s analyses were scientifically flawed. These organisations had also used industry studies that were not in the public domain for ‘reasons of commercial confidentiality’ to support their case that glyphosate was not carcinogenic.

Mason presents a strong case to argue that the US Environmental Protection Agency and European regulators are colluding with Monsanto and the European Glyphosate Task Force: despite the evidence (see Mason’s fully-referenced document ‘Monsanto’ Science is Fraudulent’), they all deny that glyphosate causes cancer.

Corporate hijack of food and farming

Dr Mason goes on to discuss the ‘Green Revolution’ – chemical warfare on plants, soil and biodiversity – which has been a financially lucrative venture for Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and the other major agrochemical companies.

She identifies the now well-document links between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Green Revolution and how J.D. Rockefeller’s ‘philanthropy’ was instrumental in helping to destroy traditional health care practices  by having pharmaceutical corporations and allopathic medicine take over healthcare with chemical ‘cures’.

By referring to my recent article, Mason brings the director general’s attention to how powerful, unscrupulous interests have hijacked and redefined both food and agriculture to the detriment of human health and the environment. Global corporations have destroyed thousands of years of agriculture; an ongoing destruction that today rests heavily on the renewal of the license for glyphosate!

She also documents at length scientific fraud, corruption by regulatory agencies and collusion at the highest levels of government that have all conspired to destroy human health. In doing so, she presents a good deal of scientific evidence that highlights the deleterious impacts of various agrochemicals on health.

Pollution is killing millions of people a year and the world is reaching 'crisis point', experts warn

Independent   19 October 2017

Pollution is killing 50,000 people a year in the UK, according to a damning new report, which lays bare the toxic danger posed by contaminated air and water. 

The problem is responsible for more deaths in Britain than almost all of its Western European neighbours, the study says, and suggests a higher death toll in the UK from pollution than had been feared.

Experts had previously estimated that 40,000 people were dying in the UK from air pollution, which itself had led to calls for immediate action from the Government. The new findings, from a two-year project involving more than 40 international researchers, show the world’s air quality is reaching “crisis point” and must be dealt with urgently. 

Globally, nine million people died in 2015 as a result of air pollution. Many of those deaths occur in the developing world – but even among rich countries, a huge number of people are dying as a result of unclean air and other pollution.
The new research shows that people are in the grip of a “profound and pervasive threat” that is damaging human health and well-being, according to the scientists behind it. Not enough is done to halt one of the biggest killers of people in the world, they said.
The obvious solutions are available to governments in the UK and across the world, said campaigners. But they are failing to confront the challenge and further deaths will come, they warned.
The UK has repeatedly suggested that it will work on a new clean air act, but has been criticised for delaying many of the most important measures to tackle pollution. A tax on diesel fuel, for instance, would help bring cleaner air, the campaigners said.
Others urged the Government to work quickly to establish clean air zones and encourage people to use more environmentally friendly forms of transport.

Stress could be just as harmful to the human body as a nutritionally poor diet.

Rdmag  10/17/2017

A diet full of junk food isn’t the only thing that can have a negative impact on the digestive system.

Researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) found that stress could be just as harmful to the human body as a nutritionally poor diet.

The scientists discovered that when female mice were exposed to stress, their gut microbiota—the microorganisms vital to digestive and metabolic health—morphed to look like the mice had been eating a high-fat diet.

“Stress can be harmful in a lot of ways but this research is novel in that it ties stress to female-specific changes in the gut microbiota,” BYU professor of microbiology and molecular biology Laura Bridgewater said in a statement. “We sometimes think of stress as a purely psychological phenomenon but it causes distinct physical changes.”

The team performed an experiment on a large group of eight-week old mice and exposed half of the males and half of the females to a high-fat diet. After 16 weeks, all of the mice were exposed to mild stress over the course of 18 days.

Microbial DNA from the mice’s fecal pellets were extracted before and after the stress to test how the gut microbiota was impacted. They also measured mouse anxiety based on how much and where the mice traveled in an open field arena.

After analyzing the results, the researchers learned males on a high-fat diet exhibited more anxiety than females on the high-fat diet. Males on the high-fat diet also showed decreased activity in response to stress.

However, stress only caused the gut microbiota composition to shift in female mice as if they were on a high-fat diet.

“In society, women tend to have higher rates of depression and anxiety, which are linked to stress,” Bridgewater said. “This study suggests that a possible source of the gender discrepancy may be the different ways gut microbiota responds to stress in males vs. females.”

The study was published in Scientific Reports.  

Fluoride: Poison on Tap

Dr. Mercola  October 14, 2017

 Story at-a-glance

• Since 1945, it has been widely accepted in the U.S. that fluoride is “safe and effective” to prevent tooth decay, but many health experts and scientists disagree
• Rates of dental fluorosis among children and adolescents has spiked in recent years and, if fluoridated water is used, formula-fed infants are at particular risk for fluorosis even before their teeth are fully formed
• The Fluoride Action Network has brought a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeking to ban the deliberate addition of fluoride to American water supplies 

Today, 74 percent of Americans on community water systems receive fluoridated water.¹ Since 1945, it has been widely accepted in the U.S. that fluoride is "safe and effective" to prevent tooth decay. But is it really?

The 2015 documentary, "Fluoride: Poison on Tap," seeks to expose what may be one of the longest-running and most successful deceptions known to mankind — adding industrial waste, in the form of fluoride, to public drinking water. You may be shocked at the lengths to which corporations, industry and government have gone to make this industrial waste product appear beneficial to your health.

Fluoride = Health: How Did We Get Here?

You may be surprised to know the first American commercial use of fluoride, in the form of sodium fluoride, was to kill insects, lice, mice and other vermin. It was quite effective. In the 1930s, aluminum industry giant Alcoa was the largest producer of fluoride, releasing vapors into the atmosphere that crippled or killed farm animals and scorched crops and other vegetation. In those early years, many lawsuits were brought against Alcoa to recover damages from lost animals and crops.

Growing concerns about the seemingly negative effects of fluoride gas on human beings motivated the company to devise a means of recycling this potent industrial byproduct. The brainchild of water fluoridation was Gerald Cox, a researcher with the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. He received a request to look at fluoride's effects on teeth from Alcoa lab director Francis Frary, who was concerned about mounting lawsuits related to the fluoride pollution his plant produced.

Another motivation was the reality that disposing of fluoride waste from its aluminum plants was becoming increasingly costly for Alcoa. Previously, the Mellon Institute had been the leading defender of the asbestos industry, producing research showing asbestos was harmless and worker health problems were purportedly due to other causes. Using "science" as a smokescreen, the Mellon Institute was able to save the asbestos industry from financial catastrophe.

As a result of their success in using science to prop up the asbestos industry at that time, it makes sense Alcoa chose Cox and the Mellon Institute to craft a story around the perceived health benefits of fluoride. To ensure their success, Alcoa executives realized public opinion about fluoride had to be carefully and continuously manipulated.

In a bold move, they hired public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, who later became known as the "father of spin," to head the U.S. water fluoridation campaign. Using psychological principles targeted at what he called, the "mass mind," Bernays was quite successful in attracting public support for the widespread consumer use of fluoride.² 

England’s chief medical officer has warned of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse"

RT   14 Oct, 2017

 England’s chief medical officer has warned of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse,” calling on world leaders to address the growing threat of drug-resistant infections.

Ahead of a global conference in Berlin organized by the UK government to map out the threat of drug resistance, Professor Dame Sally Davies cautioned against giving patients antibiotics they “don’t need,” as the drugs will lose their effectiveness and “spell the end of modern medicine.”

She warned that the threat of infections posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) heightens the risk of carrying out operations such as caesarean sections and hip replacements.

“We really are facing, if we don’t take action now, a dreadful post-antibiotic apocalypse,” she said.

“I don’t want to say to my children that I didn’t do my best to protect them and their children.”

Around 700,000 people around the world die annually due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria.

If no action is taken, it has been estimated that drug-resistant infections will kill 10 million people per year by 2050.

“This is a serious issue that is with us now, causing deaths.

“If it was anything else people would be up in arms about it. But because it is hidden they just let it pass.

“It does not really have a ‘face’ because most people who die of drug resistant infections, their families just think they died of an uncontrolled infection.

“It will only get worse unless we take strong action everywhere across the globe.

“We need some real work on the ground to make a difference or we risk the end of modern medicine,” Davies added.

She also debunked the assumption held by patients that GPs will not prescribe antibiotics because they are “mean.” They are in fact “trying to save the drugs, so that they work when they are actually needed.”

While in the UK, one in four antibiotic prescriptions is not needed, Davis said “other countries use vastly more antibiotics in the community and they need to start doing as we are, which is reducing usage,” she said.

“Our latest data shows that we have reduced human consumption by 4.3 percent in 2014-15 from the year before.”

The new project which will map the spread of superbugs is a collaboration between the UK Government, Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Oxford, and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

The ecumenical agenda at Kairos 2017 event

Lighting a Flame - Light Unshackled

Artificial intelligence is helping google create other AIs

Futurism October 16, 2017

Back in May, Google revealed its AutoML project; artificial intelligence (AI) designed to help them create other AIs. Now, Google has announced that AutoML has beaten the human AI engineers at their own game by building machine-learning software that’s more efficient and powerful than the best human-designed systems.

An AutoML system recently broke a record for categorizing images by their content, scoring 82 percent. While that’s a relatively simple task, AutoML also beat the human-built system at a more complex task integral to autonomous robots and augmented reality: marking the location of multiple objects in an image. For that task, AutoML scored 43 percent versus the human-built system’s 39 percent.

These results are meaningful because even at Google, few people have the requisite expertise to build next generation AI systems. It takes a rarified skill set to automate this area, but once it is achieved, it will change the industry. “Today these are handcrafted by machine learning scientists and literally only a few thousands of scientists around the world can do this,” WIRED reports Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. “We want to enable hundreds of thousands of developers to be able to do it.”

Much of metalearning is about imitating human neural networks and trying to feed more and more data through those networks. This isn’t — to use an old saw — rocket science. Rather, it’s a lot of plug and chug work that machines are actually well-suited to do once they’ve been trained. The hard part is imitating the brain structure in the first place, and at scales appropriate to take on more complex problems.

Observatory detects extragalactic cosmic rays hitting the Earth

Scienmag  October 24, 2017

Fifty years ago, scientists discovered that the Earth is occasionally hit by cosmic rays of enormous energies. Since then, they have argued about the source of those ultra-high energy cosmic rays — whether they came from our galaxy or outside the Milky Way.

The answer is a galaxy or galaxies far, far away, according to a report published Sept. 22 in Science by the Pierre Auger Collaboration. The internationally run observatory in Argentina, co-founded by the late University of Chicago Nobel laureate James Cronin, has been collecting data on such cosmic rays for a more than a decade.

The collaboration found that the rate of such cosmic particles, whose energies are a million times greater than that of the protons accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider, is about six percent greater from one side of the sky than the other, in a direction where the distribution of galaxies is relatively high.

"We are now considerably closer to solving the mystery of where and how these extraordinary particles are created — a question of great interest to astrophysicists," said University of Wuppertal Prof. Karl-Heinz Kampert, spokesperson for the Auger Collaboration, which involves more than 400 scientists from 18 countries. "Our observation provides compelling evidence that the sites of acceleration are outside the Milky Way."

Massive section of Western Wall and Roman theater uncovered after 1,700 years

Times of Israel 16 October 2017,

Archaeologists are one step closer to solving the riddle of what took place in Jerusalem following the destruction of the city by Romans in 70 CE.

Israel Antiquity Authority archaeologists announced Monday that for the past two years they have been excavating and exposing a massive eight-meter deep section of Jerusalem’s Western Wall, unseen for 1,700 years.

And in the course of their work, which has been quietly proceeding directly beneath Wilson’s Arch — the area immediately adjacent to the men’s section of the Western Wall — they unexpectedly discovered a small Roman theater. The dig has not encroached under the Temple Mount.

During the two years of excavations, a new reinforced floor was constructed so as not to interrupt daily worship at Judaism’s holiest site for prayer.

The work is set to continue for another six months, and the expectation is that First Temple-era findings will be uncovered. When the work is completed, the site will be opened to the public.

Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology

Marketwatch  Oct 22, 2017

When Coco Layne, a Brooklyn-based producer, meets someone new these days, the first question that comes up in conversation isn’t “Where do you live?” or “What do you do?” but “What’s your sign?”

“So many millennials read their horoscopes every day and believe them,” Layne, who is involved in a number of nonreligious spiritual practices, said. “It is a good reference point to identify and place people in the world.”

Interest in spirituality has been booming in recent years while interest in religion plummets, especially among millennials. The majority of Americans now believe it is not necessary to believe in God to have good morals, a study from Pew Research Center released Wednesday found. The percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 29 who “never doubt existence of God” fell from 81% in 2007 to 67% in 2012.

 

Meanwhile, more than half of young adults in the U.S. believe astrology is a science. compared to less than 8% of the Chinese public. The psychic services industry — which includes astrology, aura reading, mediumship, tarot-card reading and palmistry, among other metaphysical services — grew 2% between 2011 and 2016. It is now worth $2 billion annually, according to industry analysis firm IBIS World.

Melissa Jayne, owner of Brooklyn-based “metaphysical boutique” Catland, said she has seen a major uptick in interest in the occult in the past five years, especially among New Yorkers in their 20s. The store offers workshops like “Witchcraft 101,” “Astrology 101,” and a “Spirit Seance.”

“Whether it be spell-casting, tarot, astrology, meditation and trance, or herbalism, these traditions offer tangible ways for people to enact change in their lives,” she said. “For a generation that grew up in a world of big industry, environmental destruction, large and oppressive governments, and toxic social structures, all of which seem too big to change, this can be incredibly attractive.”
 

Czech president calls for self defense against international terrorism

Breitbart 12 Oct 2017 

Czech president Miloš Zeman has said Europeans should “have the courage to invest in our own guns” in order to guard against international terrorism, like millions of U.S. citizens have.

The elder statesman — a veteran of the Prague Spring uprising against the old Communist regime as well as the Velvet Revolution which finally brought it down — made his comments in an address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental forum which predates the quasi-federal European Union by several years.

Saudi king to fight terrorism by hunting down 'extreme' interpretations of the Prophet

RT 19 Oct, 2017

Saudi Arabia will monitor interpretations of the Prophet Mohammad’s words to counter extremism, King Salman said in a decree issued Tuesday.

The King will establish the “King Salman Complex” in Medina where elite scholars will monitor and examine religious teachings to “eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts.” the Saudi Press Agency reports.

An assembly will be created in Medina with a council of the world’s Hadith scholars, appointed by royal decree.

The Hadith is the words and actions of Mohammad, as recounted by others, and is the second Islamic text after the Koran. Both are used as guidelines on how Muslims should live their lives. A number of the thousands of hadiths contradict the Koran and other hadiths. ISIS and other extremist groups use particular hadiths to justify and encourage violence.

Scholars echoing the great allegorizer Origen

“Is it not quite apparent that the problem texts  become problems only when one assumes an  exclusively literalistic interpretation of such expression as ‘Father,’  ‘Son,’ ‘Firstborn,’ ‘Only Begotten,’  and so forth?  Does  not such  literalism  go against the mainly  figurative or metaphorical meaning that the Bible writers use when referring   to the persons of the Godhead?”    Whidden, Moon, Reeve,  The Trinity, p. 106, Review and Herald, Hagerstown, MD. 2002

According to these scholars there is no such thing as literalism in the bible. The Bible must be interpreted in a metaphorical sense. This echos Origen: "The Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them  as they are written.” 

But what does the spirit of prophecy say regarding Jesus? Was He only pretending to be the Son of God?

“Christ, at an infinite cost, by a painful  process, mysterious to angels as well as to men,  assumed humanity. Hiding His divinity, laying aside  His glory, He was born a babe in Bethlehem. In human flesh He lived the law of God, that He might condemn  sin   in   the   flesh,    and   bear   witness   to heavenly intelligences that the law was ordained to life and to  ensure the happiness, peace, and eternal good of all  who obey. But the same infinite sacrifice that is life to  those who believe is a testimony of condemnation to  the disobedient, speaking death and not life.” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 915
 

“Was the human nature of the Son of Mary  changed into the divine nature of the Son of God? No;  the two natures were mysteriously blended in one  person—the man Christ Jesus. In Him dwelt all the  fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 926
 

“Only humanity could reach humanity. He  lived out the character of God through the human  body which God had prepared for Him. He blessed the  world by living out in human flesh the life of God,  thus showing that He had the power to unite humanity to  divinity (RH June 25, 1895)” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 924
 

“This was not done by going out of Himself  to another, but by taking humanity into Himself. Thus  Christ gave to humanity an existence out of Himself.  To bring humanity into Christ, to bring the fallen race  into oneness with divinity, is the work of redemption.” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 927
 

“How wide is the contrast between the  divinity of Christ and the helpless infant in  Bethlehem's manger! How can we span the distance  between the mighty God and a helpless child? And yet  the Creator of worlds, He in whom was the fullness of  the Godhead bodily, was manifest in the helpless babe  in the manger. Far higher than any of the angels,  equal with the Father in dignity and glory, and yet  wearing the garb of humanity! Divinity and humanity  were mysteriously combined, and man and God  became one.” Bible Commentary Vol. 5 p. 1130
 

“Satan in heaven had hated Christ for His  position in the courts of God. He hated Him the more  when he himself was dethroned. He hated Him who  pledged Himself to redeem a race of sinners. Yet into  the world where Satan claimed dominion God  permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe, subject to  the weakness of humanity. He permitted Him to meet  life's peril in common with every human soul, to fight  the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at  the risk of failure and eternal loss.” Desire of Ages p. 49
 

“In Christ were united the divine and the  human—the Creator and the creature. The nature of  God, whose law had been transgressed, and the  nature of Adam, the transgressor, meet in Jesus—the  Son of God, and the Son of man.” Bible Commentary Vol 7 p. 926
 

“Christ lived and died as a man, that He  might be God both of the living and of the dead. It was  to make it impossible for men to lose eternal life if  they believe on Him.” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 926
 

“He became subject to temptation,  endangering as it were, His divine attributes. Satan  sought, by the constant and curious devices of his  cunning, to make Christ yield to temptation.”  Bible Commentary Vol 7 p. 926
 

“Jesus Christ laid off His royal robe, His  kingly crown, and clothed His divinity with humanity,  in order to become a substitute and surety for  humanity, that dying in humanity He might by His  death destroy him who had the power of death. He  could not have done this as God, but by coming as  man Christ could die.” Bible Commentary Vol. 7 p. 925
 

“The Captain of our salvation was perfected  through suffering. His soul was made an offering for  sin. It was necessary for the awful darkness to gather  about  His  soul  because   of  the   withdrawal of the Father's love and favor; for He was standing in the  sinner's place, and this darkness every sinner must  experience. The righteous One must suffer the  condemnation and wrath of God, not in  vindictiveness; for the heart of God yearned with  greatest sorrow when His Son, the guiltless, was  suffering the penalty of sin. This sundering of the  divine powers will never again occur throughout the  eternal ages (MS 93, 1899).” Bible Commentary Vol 7 p. 924

In these statements we can clearly see that there is nothing about pretending or role playing idea.  Christ together with His Father really suffered for our salvation. Unfortunately, we have allowed men to tell us what to believe. My prayer is that we allow Jesus and His word speak to our hearts and not men so He can direct us to the Father.  L.

God could not express greater love than he has expressed in giving the Son of his bosom to this world

“Nature and revelation alike testify of God's love. Our  Father in heaven is the source of life, of wisdom, and  of joy.”  Steps to Christ p. 9

“The Lord God of heaven collected all the riches of the  universe, and laid them down in order to purchase the  pearl of lost humanity. The Father gave all his divine  resources into the hands of Christ in order that the  richest blessings of heaven might be poured out upon  a fallen race. God could not express greater love than  he has expressed in giving the Son of his bosom to  this world. This gift was given to man to convince him that  God had left nothing undone that he could do, that  there is nothing held in reserve, but that all heaven  has been poured out in one vast gift.” Youth’s  Instructor, October 17, 1895.

And that greatest gift is the Son of His bosom,  Jesus.

Lift up the trumpet

The healing power of nature

By Rebecca Lawton

The longer the trip, the more healing occurs,’ says the geologist Peter Winn, who has been leading expeditions down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon since the 1960s. ‘Healing happens for people almost without exception.’

The most dramatic transformations that he’s observed have been in disabled military veterans on 16-day kayaking trips organised by a group called Team River Runner. ‘One army communications expert came home from Iraq so full of shrapnel, he’d lost his ability to do even simple math, and would only say “ !@#$%^&* you.”’ By the end of the trip, he spoke eloquently and at length, in appreciation of both the Canyon and his fellow boaters. ‘Later his wife wrote to thank the crew and the river for getting her husband back.’

Another Team River Runner veteran, a helicopter mechanic and co-pilot in Iraq with shrapnel in her brain that couldn’t be removed, came to the river with suicidal tendencies. ‘She’d been in and out of hospitals and therapy for three years,’ Winn says. ‘She didn’t want to kayak, so I taught her to row my raft. She ran all the rapids without flipping, then went home and got into competitive road bicycling. She just won a major women’s race in Europe.’

I too was a Grand Canyon river guide in the 1970s and ’80s; I saw the universal changes on the 14-day trips we led. Passengers made the trek to our rafts at Lees Ferry in Arizona, escaping deadlines, responsibilities and overflowing voice- and (back then) paper-filled inboxes at home. In a matter of days, they forgot about life above the rim while they plunged through legendary whitewater and hiked to hidden grottoes and waterfalls.

‘After three days, the passengers and the crew could really be on the river,’ recalls Louise Teal, an author and Colorado River guide. ‘People not only heal physically down there, they sometimes change their lives. They get or quit jobs, marry or divorce, become river guides themselves.’

Teal and I were both passengers before we took up guiding – as she says, because we found the river ‘beautiful and intense, a completely fulfilling place to be’. With its soul-stirring sunsets, hypnotic rock walls, and endlessly flowing river, the Canyon provides the backdrop for restoration. Guides know that they only have to get passengers to the river, earn their trust, and take them deep into what Teal calls the ‘zillion-year-old rocks’ where, as she says, ‘the rest is cake’.       More

Ten shocking facts about the vaccine industry that the mainstream media refuses to report

By Mike Adams

The mainstream media is largely funded by drug companies and vaccine manufacturers, exhibiting extreme conflicts of interest in their reporting. Perhaps that's why they refuse to report the following ten shocking facts about the vaccine industry that are all provably true.

FACT #1) Mercury is still used in vaccines, and the CDC openly admits it. There is NO safe level of mercury for injecting into a human child. Not even "trace" levels. There is NO evidence of safety for mercury at any dose whatsoever. Any doctor who says the level of mercury in a vaccine is "safe" to inject into a child is only demonstrating their outrageous ignorance of scientific facts.

Mercury is arguably the most neurotoxic element on the entire Table of Elements. It is used in vaccines for the convenience of the vaccine manufacturer at the expense of the safety of the child. Any doctor who injects mercury into a child -- at any dose! -- should be immediately stripped of their medical license.

See the list of studies on the neurotoxicity of mercury at SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, now the largest relational research resource for chemicals, health, nutrients and drugs:

http://science.naturalnews.com/M/Mercury_and...

Those study titles include:

Lactational exposure to inorganic mercury: evidence of Neurotoxic effects.

Neurotoxic action of inorganic Mercury injected in the intraventricular space of mouse cerebrum.

Neurotoxic effects in workers of the clinical thermometer manufacture plant.

Neurotoxic risk caused by stable and variable exposure to methylmercury from seafood.

Additional FACT: There is no "safe" form of mercury as is often ridiculously claimed by vaccine pushers. Both ethyl and methyl mercury are extremely toxic to the human nervous system. Neither should, under ANY circumstances, be deliberately injected into a human child at any dose whatsoever.

FACT #2) Injecting any substance into the human body makes it orders of magnitude more potentially toxic because it bypasses the protections of the digestive tract or the respiratory system. Injecting mercury into a human being -- at any dose -- should be globally condemned as a criminal act. That it is currently considered an acceptable act in the field of medicine only condemns the true destructive nature of modern medicine. Under the vaccine doctrine, "First do no harm" has become "Poison children for profit."

FACT #3) For decades, polio vaccines injected into tens of millions of people actually contained hidden cancer viruses (SV40 and others). This was openly admitted by a top Merck vaccine scientist named Hilleman. The CDC recently scrubbed its website of this information in a "revisionist history" purge. Up to 98 million Americans were exposed to hidden cancer viruses in polio vaccines. This is an historical fact. Read more at www.sv40foundation.org

FACT #4) Top virologists working for Merck have blown the whistle and gone public with shocking revelations that claim the company routinely fabricated lab results to claim a 95% efficacy rate of its mumps vaccine in order to continue receiving government contracts on a vaccine that didn't work.

See the False Claims document these scientists filed with the U.S. government here:
https://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents...

FACT #5) In nearly every outbreak you hear about these days, the majority of the children affected by the outbreak have already been vaccinated against the virus! For example, outbreaks of whooping cough routinely involve children who have already been vaccinated against whooping cough. This is yet more proof that vaccines do not confer real-world functional immunity.

FACT #6) The claimed history of vaccine "successes" against polio and other diseases is a pure fabrication. This is discussed and exposed in great detail in the powerful book, "Dissolving Illusions" by Dr. Suzanne Humphries. Click here to see the book at Amazon.com, or click here to visit the website (and view the charts).

As these charts show, measles was almost completely eradicated before the arrival of the measles vaccine. Why the decline? Mostly due to improvements in public hygiene and sanitation. It's no exaggeration to say that good plumbing saves more lives than vaccines ever did.

FACT #7) The vaccine industry refuses to conduct scientific tests on the health outcomes of vaccinated children vs. unvaccinated children. Why? Because these test would no doubt show unvaccinated children to be healthier, smarter and far better off than vaccinated children in terms of behavioral disorders, allergies and even autoimmune disorders. Check the people you know: Don't you routinely find that the most heavily-vaccinated kids are the ones who get sick all the time? Meanwhile, groups like the Amish who largely refuse to vaccinate their children have near-zero rates of autism.

FACT #8) The U.S. Supreme Court has already declared that the secret "vaccine court" is a higher power than the Supreme Court. The so-called "vaccine court" is granted extraordinary powers to operate utterly outside the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and completely outside the rules of due process and law.

The vaccine court itself -- which isn't even a court of law -- is a violation of law and a violation of basic human rights. It must be abolished like Apartheid.

FACT #9) The mainstream media receives a significant portion of its revenues from the very same drug companies selling vaccines. This financial influence results in the media refusing to cover stories about vaccine-damaged children for fear of losing advertising revenues.

This is why the mainstream media frequently features guests and authors who ridiculously claim that all the vaccine damaged children across America do not exist or are "mere delusions" of their parents. These despicable vaccine apologists are intellectual bullies who, like Hitler's minions, relish in aiding and abetting a real-life holocaust that's harming millions of children around the globe.

FACT #10) The CDC openly admits that vaccines contain additives which are known to be potent neurotoxic chemicals. Those additives include:

• Mercury (still used as a preservative)
• Aluminum (used as an inflammatory adjuvant)
• Formaldehyde (used to "deactivate" live viruses)
• MSG / Monosodium Glutamate (used to caused immune system inflammation)

All of these substances are toxic to human biology when injected. All of them are still listed on the CDC website as vaccine additives. There is no rational doctor or scientist in the world who can say they believe injecting infants and children with mercury, formaldehyde, MSG and aluminum is somehow "safe," yet doctors inject children with these substances every single day in the form of vaccines.

Doctors who inject children with vaccines are delusional. They are practicing a medical holocaust against humanity while fraudulently calling it "immunization." For the record, vaccination does not equal immunization. Click here to see the book of the same title.        Natural News

UN: conflicts, violence, and persecution have forced over two million people to flee as refugees this year.

Oct 2, 2017 

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says conflicts, violence, and persecution across the world, including in Myanmar, South Sudan and Syria, have forced over two million people to flee as refugees this year.

Speaking at the UNHCR’s annual Executive Committee meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday, Grandi called for more international cooperation and support to address the crisis.

“The despair of millions of men, women, and children driven from their homes, cast adrift into a life of uncertainty, is a stain on our collective conscience,” he said.

The UN refugee chief also pointed to the dire needs of more than half a million persecuted Rohingya Muslims who have fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 25.

During the same period, 50,000 refugees had flooded out of South Sudan and another 18,000 had fled clashes in the Central African Republic, the UN official pointed out.  

The ongoing foreign-backed militancy across Syria also continues to account for the world's largest number of forcibly displaced people.

The head of the UN refugee agency went on to say that resettlement was vital to addressing the growing refugee problem.

"Close to 1.2 million refugees need resettling globally," he said, voicing "major concern that fewer than 100,000 resettlement places are expected to be available this year, a drop of 43 percent from 2016."     Press Tv

The Globalists Are Systematically Destroying America’s Middle Class

By Michael Snyder, on October 1st, 2017 

When people are dependent on the government they are much easier to control.  We are often told that we are not “compassionate” when we object to the endless expansion of government social programs, but that is not how the debate should be framed.  In America today, well over 100 million people receive money from the federal government each month, and the number of Americans that are truly financially independent is continually shrinking.  In fact, only 25 percent of all Americans have more than $10,000 in savings right now according to one survey.  If we eventually get to the point where virtually all of us are dependent on the government for our continued existence, that would give the globalists a very powerful tool of control.  In the end, they want as many of us dependent on the government as possible, because those that are dependent on the government are a lot less likely to fight against their agenda.

Back in 1992, the bottom 90 percent of American income earners brought in more than 60 percent of the country’s income.  But last year that figure slipped to just 49.7 percent.  The wealth of our society is increasingly being concentrated at the very top, and the middle class is steadily being eroded.  Surveys have found that somewhere around two-thirds of the country is living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time, and so living on the edge has become a way of life for most Americans.

Earlier today, I came across a Business Insider article that was bemoaning the fact that the U.S. economy seems to be rather directionless at this point…

• We do not have a real plan for health care, and costs continue to gobble up American wages.
• We do not have a plan for dealing with globalization and economic change, but that change continues to shape our economy.
• We don’t have a plan to update our decrepit infrastructure.
• The one plan we did have — the Federal Reserve’s post-financial crisis program — is about to be unwound, marking the end of the last clear, executable plan to bolster America’s economy.

Ultimately, the truth is that we don’t actually need some sort of “central plan” for our economy.  We are supposed to be a free market system that is not guided and directed by central planners, but many Americans don’t even understand the benefits of free market capitalism anymore.

However, that Business Insider article did make a great point about globalization.   Most people don’t realize that our economy is slowly but surely being integrated into a global economic system.   This is really bad for American workers, because now they are being merged into a global labor pool in which they must compete directly for jobs with workers in other countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.

Even down in Mexico, many autoworkers are only making $2.25 an hour…

Most of the workers at the new Audi factory in the state of Puebla, inaugurated in 2016 and assembling the Audi Q4 SUV, which carries a sticker price in the US of over $40,000 for base versions, make $2.25 an hour, according to the Union.
Volkswagen, which owns Audi, started building Beetles in Puebla in 1967 and has since created a vast manufacturing empire in Mexico, with vehicles built for consumers in Mexico, the US, Canada, and Latin American markets.
Volkswagen, Ford, GM, or any of the global automakers, which can manufacture just about anywhere in the world, always search for cheap labor to maximize the bottom line.

Would you want to work for $2.25 an hour?

Over time, millions of good paying jobs have been leaving high wage countries and have been going to low wage countries.  The United States has lost more than 70,000 manufacturing facilities since China joined the WTO, and this is one of the biggest factors that has eroded the middle class.

In a desperate attempt to maintain our standard of living, we have gone into increasing amounts of debt.  Of course our federal government is now 20 trillion dollars in debt, but on an individual level we are doing the same thing.  Today, American consumers are over 12 trillion dollars in debt, and it gets worse with each passing day.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and most Americans have become debt slaves at this point.  This is something that Paul Craig Roberts commented on recently…

Americans carry on by accumulating debt and becoming debt slaves. Many can only make the minimum payment on their credit card and thus accumulate debt. The Federal Reserve’s policy has exploded the prices of financial assets. The result is that the bulk of the population lacks discretionary income, and those with financial assets are wealthy until values adjust to reality.
As an economist I cannot identify in history any economy whose affairs have been so badly managed and prospects so severely damaged as the economy of the United States of America. In the short/intermediate run policies that damage the prospects for the American work force benefit what is called the One Percent as jobs offshoring reduces corporate costs and financialization transfers remaining discretionary income in interest and fees to the financial sector. But as consumer discretionary incomes disappear and debt burdens rise, aggregate demand falters, and there is nothing left to drive the economy.

This debt-based system continuously funnels wealth toward the very top of the pyramid, because it is the people at the very top that hold all of the debts.

Each year it gets worse, and most Americans would be absolutely stunned to hear that the top one percent now control 38.6 percent of all wealth in the United States…

The richest 1% of families controlled a record-high 38.6% of the country’s wealth in 2016, according to a Federal Reserve report published on Wednesday.
That’s nearly twice as much as the bottom 90%, which has seen its slice of the pie continue to shrink.
The bottom 90% of families now hold just 22.8% of the wealth, down from about one-third in 1989 when the Fed started tracking this measure.

So how do we fix this?

Well, the truth is that we need to go back to a non-debt based system that does not funnel all of the wealth to the very top of the pyramid.  Unfortunately, most Americans don’t even realize that our current debt-based system is fundamentally flawed, and it will probably take an unprecedented crisis in order to wake people up enough to take action.         Economic Collapse