REALITY CHECK? From the WHITE HOUSE?

I just listened through the eight speeches at the "reality check" link my friend sent me, that purport to correct what the White House labels as misinformation about the Health Care Proposal. The gist of the messages is that it's just bad people making stuff up against the good Health Care proposal, just "the same old people" who don't want to see Health Care reformed.

Why anyone would not want Health Care reform isn't mentioned -- what's the motivation? but nameless bad people are accused of simply just not wanting it for no good reason. Oh, maybe because they have some meaningless idea about "socialized medicine."

Who are the stupid ones here?

Obviously reform is needed, but people are concerned about THIS health care reform, and it seems to me they are RIGHTLY concerned.

The WH representatives are insinuating something irrational, when it sounds to me like there are many legitimate questions AND THEY ARE BASED ON WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRITTEN IN THE HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL.

Yes, people could be getting things wrong about it, but THE WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMEN SPEAK IN GENERALITIES, TELLING US WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE COME OUT OF THIS HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL, THEY DO NOT SHOW US WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN THAT PROPOSAL. THEY DO NOT QUOTE IT. THEY'RE GIVING US ALL RHETORIC, NO ACTUAL FACTS.

GO LISTEN TO IT YOURSELF, FIND A FACT IN IT FROM ANY OF THEM. THERE AREN'T ANY. There are plenty of DECLARATIONS that such and such is fact, but no actual facts themselves. (If you aren't sure what's a fact and what isn't, run it by me, I'll happily explain it to you).

If people are wrong about this proposal, we aren't going to find that out through empty rhetoric, and this note of accusation of the PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES for raising meaningless objections, that is coming out of this Reality Check page, only adds to the reasons to distrust them.

They promise us everything: They promise Medicare will not be cut; they promise Vet benefits will not be cut; they promise that the elderly will not be deprived of necessary care; they promise doctors will be paid in accord with their expertise; they promise you can keep your own insurance plan if you like it, etc., etc., etc. They promise you everything, but, again,

There is NO discussion of the actual written provisions in the bill that would demonstrate whether these things are ACTUALLY spelled out in it, or how it's going to be financed, OR if it's even POSSIBLE to provide for all that, given economic and medical realities.

EVEN WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS IN THE WORLD, SOME THINGS ARE SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE. Why do we have a health care problem anyway? PARTLY because some things are simply not possible economically, not because "some people" don't want us to have decent health care.

They are certainly right to point out that the current health care situation is not as good as we'd like it to be, BUT THEY ARE NOT GIVING EVIDENCE THAT THIS PARTICULAR REFORM IS GOING TO BE BETTER FOR ALL OF US. Maybe it will be better for some, but much worse for others. How is this going to be discovered when we aren't given the actual facts?

IT'S ALL EMPTY RHETORIC, ALL WISHFUL THINKING.

DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT A FACT IS ANY MORE? WHAT EVIDENCE IS? IS THERE A SHRED OF RESPECT FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY LEFT? FOR GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE?

Here's the White House Reality Check link again.

Health Care Reform and Big Brother continued.

I sent an email out about my experience of having a news video removed from my blog post the other day, which said roughly the following:

Anybody out there experiencing mysterious internet interferences lately? I've heard of others -- conservatives -- who have been. A few days ago I couldn't access my Yahoo email account and kept getting a strange excuse for an explanation, but I think it is very possibly because I had just emailed something about this healthcare insanity and am now on Big Brother's list. OR maybe it's just a technical glitch but . . .

I just embedded a perfectly mainstream (CNN) video at my blog -- no hidden information there but they only want THEIR view of it all to be reported? -- and it won't function, appears to have beeen removed, leaving a big red square in its place. A couple paragraphs I wrote after it about how American freedoms are being trashed disappeared too. Maybe it's just a technical glitch but . . .

COULD just be a technical glitch, sure, but we conservatives know that we have REAL enemies out there who don't believe in American freedoms and are very willing to censor and oppress ordinary American citizens.

I think people could very well start disappearing soon. Yep, I think this government is that evil. Those swastikas going up here and there are no doubt bad form, certainly in bad taste, and they are being misrepresented against us too, but they do represent the mentality of these thugs.

Maybe you won't begin to see it UNTIL people start disappearing, but I sure hope there are still liberals out there who can and will yet wake up.

I'd love to find out that this is merely paranoia, and of course "they" would make it out to be that in any case, but there have been threats of an internet crackdown on conservative blogs, blog servers actually threatening to shut some down. People are being told to report hostile remarks about the healthcare mess to the President against every tenet of civility and specifically against the US Constitution, but they don't care about American freedoms. We're almost a third world dictatorship now, so NOTHING should be put past them. At least one conservative blogger on my list couldn't access her email at all for a couple days

If they are red-flagging certain words that occur in emails you can bet this one is going to be red-flagged. Never thought you'd be living under the KGB or the Gestapo in America, did you?

COULD all just be rumors and glitches. How can one find out?

I got some emails in agreement but also got this back from one friend:

I haven't read the proposal -- if I did I wouldn't understand it well enough anyway -- so I can't offer any critique (I wonder how many of us can). At any rate, here it is [the White House's debunkery of the arguments against it]:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

This is my answer:

I don't understand it either, all I know is that conservative blogs are buzzing about how the government is not telling the truth about what the healthcare bill will really do, and this is what is causing the protests at the town meetings. The protestors are being falsely called a "mob" although their behavior is perfectly orderly, and also misrepresented as simply wanting to hold on to the status quo, a rather strange accusation since medical care isn't in such great shape now either, but people don't want to lose whatever benefits they do get from it compared to what the new bill may take away from them. But this misrepresentation is repeated at the link you give. It doesn't look like they are doing any more than repeating the party line.

The fact is many honest citizens believe they have good reason to protest an economically and medically dangerous proposal. There is also supposedly a hot line for people to complain to the President himself about anyone who speaks against the bill, which if true is a very sinister development, and some bloggers have also complained that their blog servers have been threatening them over their political content on this subject. It's true I haven't researched this myself and I hope the facts will sort themselves out eventually.

The extreme rush and the bullying that is going on in the drive to push this enormous unwieldy bill through before anyone has a chance to assess it properly is also a very bad sign.

All I know personally is that when I used the CNN-supplied code to embed a standard news video at my blog, of a man complaining at a town hall meeting, it was jerked away from my blog never to reappear, leaving a big red blank in its place, and its removal also took out a few paragraphs of my own about violations of American freedoms I could find absolutely no way of reinstating. That was an extremely disconcerting experience.

I'll pass your link on to those who are more embroiled in this than I am, however, and see what they have to say.

Thanks for taking the time to look it up.

I've now looked at more of the "debunkery" information at the link. Yes, it's just the party line. They accuse the "health industry" of trumping it all up etc. My experience is that it's just ordinary people getting upset about what they understand to be in the bill. And even if some of it is from insurance companies, and particularly doctors, shouldn't their input matter? The White House's simply telling people they're wrong without a careful discussion of the facts is NOT going to reassure them and it shouldn't. The complaints against this bill do involve apparently objective information. And it is a huge bill. Time should be taken to be sure it is what it should be.

WHAT'S THE BIG RUSH?

The rush itself is reason to be suspicious of it.

Wow, Big Brother's breathing down my little neck

How interesting. I used their own code to embed the video in the post below but it appears they have decided to exercise their Leftist-rationalized censorship of dissent to remove it and also prevent me posting anything else in that box. ("They" = CNN and friends)

Let's see if this will post.

Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech, Freedom from tyranny, HA!

Could be a technical glitch I suppose. But then wouldn't the embedded video reappear?

Outrageous Obama-led destruction of American freedoms over the Health Care Reform

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. -------Thomas Jefferson

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I gave up thinking about and commenting on politics some time ago, but I want at least to register here my solidarity with the protest against the healthcare proposal coming out of the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, in the mind of this administration it is no longer a Constitutionally protected American right to voice dissent to the government's actions. What they are calling the ordinary people who are protesting is outrageous. They speak of these orderly demonstrations as a "mob." People boo speakers at a political gathering and it is treated as unruly mob behavior. If the LEFT does such things, and they do far worse -- just ask conservative speakers such as David Horowitz -- that's just dissent, but let the Right say a word and it becomes an unruly "mob." They are turning the Constitution on its head, treating this orderly citizen dissent as if it were something criminal.

This has always been the mentality of the Left. We've objected to it for years. Now it has the power to enforce its outrageous anti-Constitutional behavior.

I do have the question whether they are really so delusional that they sincerely do not recognize their own injustice and anti-American attitude, but do regard dissent as criminal behavior, thanks to their blind allegiance to their own partisan politics; or it's calculated, just part of the typical cynical consciously anti-American fascistic program to discredit the opposition. I really do have this question. I can think of some for whom it must be sincerely misbegotten, the product of a leftist-twisted education, others I wonder about.

Since I did say I was staying away from politics I'm not up on this enough to say much more. I've seen the news here and there and checked some conservative sources, but that's about it. I'll try to get some links up to fill in the gaps soon.

=========================

Here's What seems like a fair article on the situation:

LEBANON, Pa. - They booed and taunted Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.), calling him a tyrant, as anger at the Democrats' proposed overhaul of the health-care system boiled over yesterday at a pair of town-hall meetings.

"This country is turning into Russia," one man said in a common refrain, standing toe to toe with Specter in a hall at the Harrisburg Area Community College campus here. Chants broke out - "You work for us!" and "Read the bill!" - as the senator tried to answer questions.

Later in the day, Specter faced similar frustrations from skeptical voters in Lewisburg in an auditorium at Bucknell University. In both places, most of the questioners stayed civil but accused President Obama, Specter, and other congressional Democrats of trying to force a government takeover of health care that would violate their constitutional rights as well as the character of the nation.

...Several speakers at both town halls said they resented how Democrats had branded them as "mobs" whipped up by special interests.

And here's a video showing your "angry mob," an American citizen who wanted to speak but was made to leave.

Embedded video from CNN Video

12:49 AM HOW INTERESTING. I used their own code for embedding the video and they seem to have decided to prevent me from displaying it. Do they have no respect for anything or anybody any more? That video was put out there by their own henchmen; it's all over the place by now. Oh but I guess if the KGB wants something to disappear it will disappear.

Have their partisan preoccupations so overtaken their reason that they allow themselves to be the very tyrants the fathers of this nation tried to protect us from? Afraid so, folks. Freedom of the Press, ha! The Press is now merely an instrument of the big fat oppressor Government the founders tried to limit. Oh and they get SO upset if you call them Nazis, after years and years of calling our side Nazi. Can dish it out but can't take it. Ah, but it's worse than that. Their tyrannical Big Brother Agenda is showing.

But finally, conservatives have been pushed far enough to make use of our Constitutional freedoms to some extent, I hope not too late.

Yet Another New Blog

Now I'm starting to collect more information about end times prophecy, and it seems to need a place of its own, so welcome to END TIMES MONITOR.

The Symbols of the Council of Europe

Stumbled on the Council of Europe recently, because of its declaration against creationism (there's a post on it at my blog, Fantasy of Evolution), and found it to be an even more interesting sign of the last days than the European Union. Here's their official website.

The symbols associated with this organization are very interesting, starting with their Flag of Europe that has a blue ground with a circle of twelve stars on it. I immediately thought of the woman in Revelation 12:1:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:

This passage is understood by Protestants to refer to Israel (sometimes the Church) as the mother of the Messiah, the stars representing the twelve tribes...

Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

...but the Roman church interprets it to refer to the Virgin Mary. And I thought of Alexander Hislop's conclusion that the Image of the Beast will be this Catholic notion of "the Virgin Mary" which has been making demonic appearances here and there over the last century.

The symbol makers for the Council of Europe have other ideas about its meaning, but the flag's designer admits that the image in Revelation -- as understood by the Roman church -- was part of his conception:

The circle of stars bears a striking similarity to the twelve-star halo of the Virgin Mary seen in Roman Catholic art. The flag's designer, Arsène Heitz, has acknowledged that the Book of Revelation (which is where the twelve-star halo of the Virgin Mary was first mentioned) helped to inspire him.

Of course anything that reflects the uniting of European states suggests the common Protestant interpretation of the ten toes of the great image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream interpreted by the prophet Daniel, along with the ten horns of the fourth beast of Belshazzar's dream in Daniel 7 (The Council began with ten members).

Dan 7:23 ¶ Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. Dan 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom [are] ten kings [that] shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

The first dream describes the rise of four empires starting with Babylonia under the figure of the great statue made of different metals, the second dream symbolizes them as different beasts. The fourth beast is the Roman Empire, and Europe is regarded as the ten toes or ten kings to arise from that empire.

Another symbol I find interesting is this coin which was issued in Armenia to commemorate that nation's joining the Council in 2001. I couldn't find a discussion of its imagery but I have to suppose that the ten curved strokes that fan off the logo of the twelve stars with the e for Europe represent the first ten states of the Council at its formation.

Then there is the Council's Anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, based on the poem by Friedrich Schiller.

It's kind of the Romantic Classical period's version of Michael Jackson's We Are the World, We Are the Children, which could be the anthem of the reign of the Antichrist with its world worship, self-salvation and brotherhood of fallen humanity. I'll leave your taste in the music itself up to you but I have to say that once I grasped the meaning of the words the music might as well have had all the beauty of the Corpse Flower. (Well, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? The music remains beautiful, but the words do spoil it for me, celebrating the antichrist view of happiness as they do. Kind of like that proverb about the pig with the golden ring in its snout).

The Corpse Flower ought to be the CoE's National Flower.

Anyway, here's Beethoven's Ode to Joy, with English subtitles, conducted by a very elderly and pain-wracked Herbert von Karajan .



Here's Part Two, the ending of that performance, in which we are exhorted to "seek the Creator, far above the starry vault." Jesus Christ does not figure in the account, it is truly an ode to "joy," not to God, and the "divinity" mentioned is not the true God. This is a deistic and universalistic message that blasphemes God by denying the Son. (1 John 2:23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.)

And here is Michael Jackson's "We are the World, We are the Children" with a huge cast of pop luminaries:



(Hm, listening to this again a while later I noticed the line that says God turned stones into bread. But God didn't do that. Not that He couldn't have, but in the Biblical context it would have been a cheap self-serving trick. The devil tempted Jesus after His forty-day fast in the wilderness, to turn the stones to bread to satisfy his hunger, and He refused. Just kind of interesting that that sort of mistake would be in this sentimental man-exalting song).

Exhortations to watchfulness in the very last days

Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Luke 21:34-36 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Acts 20:28-32 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

2 Thessalonians 2:3-16 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

Revelation 3:1-5 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.