Survival

Most of us have known for some time (at least, those of us with two perkinje cells still functioning) that there is no way this republic can survive unless changes are made in government. I am not talking about the “change” such as the Sunni Muslim in the White House talked about, he has only made the situation worse. He has increased the national debt more in two years, than all previous presidents combined, George Washington to George W. Bush. I am talking about crawling out from under the overload of duplicity and extravagance of government, as shown in Senator Tom Coburn's report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that there is $100 billion of wasted government spending just in duplicity of services in agencies (Link - http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11318sp.pdf).

There are many glaring examples of the stupidity and phoney boloney attitude of the federal government. You get dizzy just looking at the report, books could be written about it, especially when you think of the pickpocket attitude of government taxation. Those of us who live frugally, economize in every way possible are sickened by such economic decadence. We vote for representatives, locally, state-wide, nationally who promised to “clean out the barn”. Instead, because they know to whom bureaucrats will vote, more and more government workers are hired to do less and less, and as it has been revealed, at double the pay of the private sector. We actually think that these politicians and bureaucrats have our welfare in mind as they limit their lunch tab for $100 at the finest, to half that at a less expensive place. Of course, as my friends who work in the congressional “slave market” have told me, the average congressional assistant never spends any money on food or entertainment because there are too many lobbyists just waiting to pay their way. In the mean time, Joe, average citizen, is just trying to survive.

I will never understand the fact that a corporation like Ebay, online auction house, with millions of users worldwide can keep up with everything, down to how often an item is viewed. I have owned an online auction store for many years. One of my assistants makes a photograph, puts the photograph online with a description and in a few seconds it can be seen all over the world. We know the next day, the interest in the item, know the highest bidder, and can answer email questions about the item. This company handles millions, of transactions every hour, yet our government cannot keep up with anything...not even nuclear weapons, not even duplication of services (18 domestic food assistant programs, 52 federal programs funding entrepreneurial efforts, 82 programs pertaining to teacher quality). The entire federal government is very much a morass, stupefied fire ants in a hole, all going in different directions. One thing we do know about this big plate of uncontrolled spaghetti, every employee will vote in the democrat primary and every employee draws a large paycheck with all its benefits.

I cannot erase from my mind the poverty I have both seen and experienced, poverty all over the world, and I can associate myself with the poverty I saw because I lived it. I will never make enough money to get over, as a university student, reaching my hands into the bottom of overstuffed chairs to find coins that had fallen out of someone's pocket. How well I remember talking with Dr. W.C. George, faculty at UNC School of Medicine about the hard times I had witnessed and seen as a child. Like yesterday, I remember him saying, “just think...living on a farm, eating berries off the ditch bank, fresh vegetables grown in the good earth, fresh well water, you will probably live to be an old man.”

As an army medical officer, like most officers and men of my time, we were taught survival skills at the time of WWII, the Korean conflict, and after. Bomb shelters were set up in every community to help the survival rate of citizens. Citizens were taught survival skills, stocking up food, essentials for survival in time of chaos, such as a knives, matches, containers for water. You never hear about these things anymore, although the need is greater now than ever. There is only enough food in a city to last three days. Grocery stores no longer have warehouses, the large trucks on the highways are their warehouses, they depend on everything being hauled in, stocked on shelves. In a time of national duress, whether from nuclear or biological warfare, there will be no trucks on the highways, no gasoline stations open. Water treatment facilities will be shut down, with no water in the pipes. Like those people in the snow drifts, there will be no need to call 911. The law enforcement officers, firefighters, hospital workers will all be at home trying to protect their own families. Perhaps too late, citizens will get in the “survival mode.”

In Leningrad, Russia, an old man told me about his surviving the WWII blockade of Leningrad by eating rats. Books have been written on this subject, surviving via plants and animals in your area. It is a known fact that there is more nutrition in an acre of oak trees than an acre of corn, about 1/5 of oak trees produce acorns that are edible and nutritious, elm leaves are also edible and nutritious, fresh pine needles are an excellent source of vitamin C, and so it goes.

In order to save the republic from those intent on destroying it, it is time to go into survival mode. So easy to stock extra cans of food, fill your empty plastic bottles with water, old water is better than no water, and you cannot survive without water. One drop of bleach to the gallon will take care of most microbiology.

Every day, when you get off the bed, ask yourself this question, “what am I going to do today to save the republic?” The most pressing need, every day, is to pray that God in His infinite sovereignty will place some people in government with common sense. The most uncommon thing you could find.

Iron Pockets

“Iron Pockets” was a name given to me during my college years by roommates and friends because of my stinginess. These young men had never seen frugality, knew nothing about budgeting, preplanning for everything. I am glad that most young people, then and now, can live life totally at ease. I came from parents, ancestry who had survived hard times, they knew what it was like to be careful of every nickel they spent, preplanning everything. My friends had never seen anyone write down every penny spent, and for what. To this day, I still keep a day-sheet, a daily log (a loose-leaf notebook) right by my bed, where I enter everything spent that day.

I expect my accountant, my stock broker, to keep up with everything that comes in, to keep accurate records of all receipts in my businesses and the expenses of those businesses. I had in my possession, until I sold it, a similar notebook from the Civil War, showing the expenses on one combat unit, food, armaments, clothing etc. You see I believe that much is expected of those who have received much (Luke 12:48). I have been given much, a good mind, good health, outstanding ancestry, election by God, and He expects me to do much with what He has given me, all pre-planned.

King Solomon, the world's wisest and richest man, spoke about thriftiness: He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich (Proverbs 10:4). It is hard to relate King Solomon to the common man, a man with 1000 wives and 700 concubines, 40,000 horse stables which were trimmed in gold, but everything we find in God's Word encourages thriftiness. Even when Jesus fed the thousands, baskets of scraps were taken up and saved.

Going shopping is as foreign to my thinking as going to mars. I hear of people just walking through stores, buying something which they think they want, but do not need. I have been with people in restaurants who just order the most expensive food on the menu and then do not eat it. Perhaps because of my peculiarities, I do not have the occasion to take many out for meals. One time, one of my cousins came by with her nephew. I always order the least expensive items for myself, but since their rich cousin was taking them out, they each ordered the most expensive thing on the menu (I ordered a sandwich for myself). When the nephew's food came, he decided that he did not want what he had ordered. She said, “that's alright, just order something else.” This happens over and over with relatives, they get some sort of thrill in antagonizing a man of wealth and frugality, never realizing that he has his wealth because of his frugality.

My only child's wife, ordered steaks for my grandsons, they did not want steak. I will never forget the ordeal, I said nothing, but she had the pleasure of antagonizing me. The money you spend can never be invested, it is gone forever. You only make money with money; blessed money, money left over after you have given to God. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (Psalm 37:25)

Physically and spiritually, there is no nation as blessed as America. Many of you think you know something about poverty, but you have never seen poverty. India, a nation of 1,600,000,000 people, the poorest nation on earth, even poorer than Bangladesh. There, I saw families living in cardboard boxes, children eating trash off of the dirty streets. There, as in the Philippines and many other places, mothers search trash cans everyday in order to feed their children.

I heard of one Hollywood movie star who always wears a new pair of socks, every day. I have never had a new pair of socks, except perhaps some that were given to me. Every article of my clothing comes from a thrift store, every piece of furniture in my house comes from a second-hand store, every item on my grocery list is on sale. I have a nice home, I wear nice clothes, and I certainly eat well, thanks and glory be to God, I have learned to care for myself and give most of my income for His service.

Now, this probably seems strange, from poverty as a child to an adult multi-millionaire. You and you alone, will establish your parameters, your values, your ideals of life, your vision for your future. Where there is no vision, the people perish... (Proverbs 29:18) The cell phone which most children own contains more technology than the moon module. We live the information age...excessive information about everything. Just think what this writer, a scientist of 100 years ago, legislators, businessmen would have accomplished with a computer. But they took life seriously, made great accomplishments with what they had.

I have investigated for years, why in every field of endeavor we are not proactive instead of reactive. With our knowledge nations should not be at war with one another, hunger should have been conquered, every child should have clean water to drink. Christian churches should be running over with people anxious to worship a God of grace and glory Who has not only given us every good thing to enjoy, but on top of it all, eternal life in splendor.

A 1964 movie, Dr. Strangelove, starring among others, George C. Scott, tells the story of trying to put the bullet back in the gun...trying to recall a nuclear strike on Russia. Not having thought out the consequences of the action. The 1959 movie, On the Beach, gives us an unforgettable glimpse of what a nuclear strike, anywhere, would do the world, there is a definite need for thinking, planning. Most of our problems comes from stinking thinking.

In 1948, the year I graduated from high school, the founder of Douglas aircraft established the RAND corporation. The RAND corporation, existing to this day, employing thousands, is a think-tank. Their mission is to explore every attitude, every model of human existence, such as the effects copay has on medical expenses. So simple, when one has a copay expense, one is not as likely to go the doctor. The RAND corporation, and its famous thinkers: Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, ideas and directions after John Kennedy and McNamara had taken over the Pentagon.

The RAND corporation is truly a strange phenomena, mostly from it's systems analysis, research and investigations must reach a certain level of rationale. President Harry Truman objected to many ideas in the RAND philosophy because it was smeared with Christianity. The corporation is financed by the US government plus private finances. RAND aims to solve problems of economics with a heterogeneous look at every area of national and international life. Of course, since 1950, survival from a nuclear catastrophe has been uppermost, strategic contributions towards all space systems, and now involved with energy and intelligence which may keep the world from destroying itself.

The present war on terror has the symptoms of escalating into WWIII...over 1 billion Muslims, over 1 billion Catholics. A treacherous economy in every area of the world, the America dollar will be devalued this year. China expects to determine the global currency rate and we already know there are international efforts towards one world government and one world money. It is time for every man, every government, to do some preplanning for survival. In Christianity, there is a new doctrine of “universal restoration”...that no one will go to hell, all will go to heaven. Do you have an iron-clad risk policy, have you preplanned?

Adventures of War

Checkpoint Charlie was located in the wall dividing East and West Berlin.  The Berlin Wall was 96 miles long, dividing the Eastern-Russian section of Germany from the Allied-Western section of Germany. Checkpoint Charlie was an opening made famous by movies and the media, because it was a symbol of the Cold War. In going from the western side to the eastern side through Checkpoint Charlie, I was amazed at the security measures involved. There were dogs sniffing everything, large mirrors were put under the vehicles to make sure people or contraband was not being moved, everything was searched. The amazing thing, no one from the western side would possibly want to escape to the eastern side and escape from the eastern side to the western side was extremely rare.

Before the division of the city, these people, speaking the same language, enjoying the same history and culture, had fought together under Hitler. It was almost unthinkable that those captured and aligned on the eastern side with the Russians, where life was a bleak struggle for existence would “synapse” with the Russians against their countrymen on the western side of the wall. (Perhaps this was the case of the Stockholm syndrome, where captives become friends with the captors). Western Berlin, not that long after WWII, was one of the most prosperous places I have encountered, in spite of the damage of warfare. Of course, since the “tearing down” of the Wall in more modern history, after a time of cultural problems, the East and West Germans have formed a good union.

King Arthur, a legendary British leader, led the defense of England against the Saxon invasion. In one great battle, hundreds of men were lined up on Arthur’s side ready to go to battle, a short distance opposite, the Saxons were lined up ready for battle. Two front lines of healthy, well armed men who had no knowledge of one another, yet ready to kill each other with the command of their leader. Arthur, seeing the futility of such action, as well as the “waste of war” decided to have a meeting with the opposing commander. Sitting together with their aides, they had worked out a peaceable solution to their problem. When a poisonous snake attacked one of the aides, the aide took his sword to kill the snake. The sun reflecting off the sword was interpreted by both sides as the signal for war, a tremendous battle ensued and only four men of all the hundreds survived, hundreds were dead for no apparent reason.

There will be few survivors after a nuclear blast. All it will take is one deranged person near a switch on a nuclear silo, a coup d’éta in a third world country with nuclear weapons such as Pakistan. A nuclear cloud from just one weapon, and there are thousands, can wipe out civilization.

From ancient history to modern times, there have only been three years in the history of man when a war was not taking place. During the past 500 years, England has been to war 75 times, France has been to war 63 times and Russia 62 times. There was only 21 years between WWI and WWII. During that time, over 4,000 peace treaties were signed.  It cost America $20,000 dollars for each opposing person killed in WWI, it cost America $200,000 dollars for each person killed in WWII. Can one even imagine what it is costing today for each person killed on the opposing side? And can one even think how much it is costing America for each of our finest killed, as well as the thousands who are wounded and must be cared for, for life?

During WWI, one newspaper had the following headline, “Great Battle Fought, Only One Man Killed.” It was only one man for the country, but it was a father, a husband, and a son for one family and a valued member of one community. The grief of such a loss, although only one, was almost unbearable for this one man’s four children, this one man’s wife, and this one man’s parents. Such is war. Many live with war everyday of their life, the blind, the amputee, the mentally inflicted.

You wear your uniform proudly, but you never recover from military service. In a VA hospital, I saw a large sign, “We honor our veterans”. Any veteran who has had the experience of the ineptness and callus service at a VA facility knows, that like the advertisements on TV and radio concerning veterans, that it is just so much talk, and talk is cheap. The only truth from any of these Public Service Announcements: “Freedom is not free.”

War has always been romanticized. In European history, very much like a family dispute, very few people realized that, WWI when England was at war with Germany, Queen Victoria’s grandson was the Kaiser of Germany. Conglomerate corporations on both sides, continued to do business with one another. People of wealth in countries at war just travel to expensive resorts in nations not at war and just “sit the whole thing out”. It has always been the sons of the disenfranchised who have paid the price of war.

Hypocrisy has always been a way of life. Military orders can be changed with the right political influence. I still remember the very handsome, articulate, wealthy, young doctor who had the political influence to get his orders changed so he got my assignment and I got his. In war, as in everything else, it is not what you know, but who you know.

I employed a housekeeper for a long time, a black woman, member of a large black church, she amazed me with details of church activity, the most gruesome. The pastor felt it was his obligation to visit the “widows” and other single women in the church and extend to them sexual attention.

Perversion has become glorified, particularly among young people. The glorification and acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, increased popularity of a president who did not hide his perversion, has led the entire nation down the path of promiscuity, permissive parenting, and total anti-Christian behavior. The everyday chant and dance, “anything goes” and so has gone the integrity of a blessed nation.

In 1949, a reporter asked Dr. Albert Einstein, “What is the future of nuclear energy?” He said, “If we are still around, ask me in 20 years.” The great preacher Dr. R.G. Lee said, “Most people want to live, but we have produced a generation intent on death.”

Trust, Verify

#550

A lost word in most vocabularies, is the word “trust”. You want to trust your child but you are smart to verify the trust. You want to trust employees but you are smart to verify the trust. I have never hired an employee with which I did not impress the importance of trust. I would always say, without exception, “you know you are working for a totally blind man, and I must be able to trust you.” My house is full of nice things, expensive objects, but it is all junk compared to your immortal soul. Much to my sorrow, even though I have never had one who did not express their trustworthiness, it has not worked out that way. One employee, Sherrie, on another floor of my house, would have her husband on the outside taking things to the car which she took to the front door. Just about all my silver disappeared. I just have the “blessed assurance” of knowing that they will get what is coming to them. Both were former Jehovah Witnesses and evidently, mad with the world.

A famous president, Ronald Reagan, was known for his expression, “trust, but verify”. Most Americans do not understand how devastating a nuclear war can be. In an area of a nuclear explosion, you cannot re-enter the area for 50 years. Most of us cannot comprehend the horror of the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the first atomic weapons were used in 1945. Just imagine, a city of 100,000, everyone there just evaporating in an instant.

For a long time, America was the only nuclear power, keeping everyone in line, ourselves protected, just by the thought of having this superior power. Then, Russia came along with it's nuclear weapons. Russia had the intentions of fighting a war and winning the war. It's strategic placement of nuclear weapons, it's intensity of bomb shelters, showed it's desire to survive nuclear attack. America, just the opposite, placed it's nuclear silos in the Midwest with the intention of having the silos destroyed without having it's cities attacked. Our fallout shelters have all disappeared. As far as I know, the only Americans who would be protected at a time of a nuclear attack would be the congress and bureaucrats in Washington and military experts elsewhere who would go into tax payer provided, underground bunkers. I understand there are extensive underground facilities on most military bases. More important than nuclear conflict between the great powers, the ones who own most of the bombs, U.S. (owns 90% of all nuclear weapons), China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, is the chance that a rogue nation such as N. Korea or Venezuela...one with the money and bizarre intentions to cause real harm, might acquire on it's own, or one of the famous, so called, suitcase weapons stolen or sold by Russia, from Russia during the bleak days of the Russian economic struggle. It only takes one to start up a holocaust across the world through unintended consequences such as a nuclear cloud. The intrigue of nuclear weapons is a matter of conjecture among the conspiracy crowd but, it is pretty well known that Israel has an umbra of nuclear protection, probably from nuclear submarines, always on the ready. Yesterday, Mr. Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a nuclear arms agreement that will shrink the nuclear arsenals to the levels of the pre-1960s arms race. The agreement signed yeaterday will shrink the nuclear war heads 1/3 to 1500 from the previous 2200.

The agreement signing means nothing unless approved by the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama, wanting to get some world attention as a peace-nick jumped ahead and got this agreement before the Senate had a chance to act. Surely, there are some senators who well remember how long and how far you can trust the Russians. Surely, there are some military historians who know about the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. Surely, there are some in congress who know that there are probably already nuclear items available to terrorists in this country. Anyone, who has ever traveled in Russia, China, Korea, Pakistan or any of these nuclear countries know the integrity of their leaders and just how much trust you can put in them. It is just the grace of God that Pakistan and India have not already thrown nuclear weapons at one another...with their long disputed borders and religions. Anyone who has seen the treatment of Russian and Chinese citizens, by their own government, Godlessness, control freaks, “the end justifies the means”, know that a country that so devalues it's own citizens care nothing about the welfare of the world.

I was crossing Russia on the Trans Siberian Railroad. The accommodations for tourists, foreigners, was sparse at best. Accommodations for their own citizens on that train, and I saw them, would make hog traveling, crated trucks seem comfortable. One day, I saw some soldiers pull a citizen off the train and beat him senselessly in full view of everyone. There was a Russian artist on the train, who painted a marvelous scene as a gift for me. He said to me, “I understand in Christian America you believe in Hell, we live in it every day of our life”.

Any time I think of America's relationship with foreign governments I evaluate how difficult it has been for us to win any military conflict with which we have been engaged since WWII...Korea was a standoff disaster, Vietnam was a loss any way you look at it, Iraq is a loss any way you look at it, Afghanistan will be a loss. We seem unable to even protect our ships from pirates. Just this week, a large U.S. Tanker with 36 men aboard was captured by pirates. If America had the backbone it had in WWII, as soon as the pirates made an approach there would not have been a greasy spot left...so fast would have been the shots fired from the tanker.

Congress has had the attitude of mutually ensured destruction involving nuclear warfare...we have such a plurality of warheads that we can wipe away any attacker. The problem is identifying the attacker. It is difficult to identify natural from man made earthquakes. It was learned long ago, that earthquakes can be forced just by drilling down, as if drilling oil and putting a nuclear charge in the ground from which you would normally withdraw oil. Earthquakes are so numerous now, that they are seldom reported unless disastrous. Along the San Andreas fault, the line which runs from South America to the Aleutian Islands, there were several this month...Chile, Mexico etc. Underground nuclear activity is the most dangerous of all because of the tsunamis involved and the ever increasing importance of the world's oil and water supplies.

We think we can determine a controlled demolition. We have reason to believe that the Oklahoma City destruction (Murrah) and even the 9-11 destruction (World Trade) in New York City was a controlled demolition. Explosions, natural or man made, are a result of the release of pinned up energy. Most Americans want to believe that their fellow human beings are too decent to destroy one another. Most Americans, in fact, most citizens of the world, are too much in love with the world, the things of the world, to think that anyone would want to leave it. It is time to realize that the world is a very cruel place and those who do not know, should learn that there is a better place. There was an old song, “This World Is Not Our Home, We Are Just Traveling Through”.

Don't dwell on this nuclear warfare, earthquakes, man's inhumanity towards man.

One of my very elderly friends, had a recording of her husbands funeral, the music, the message, etc. She would play it real often and continue to talk about him, his life, his death, and her loss. One day, I said to her, “perhaps listen to that recording once a year, that is enough”. You no longer have to verify your trust and love for your husband.