I will exalt You, O Lord, for You have raised me up, and You have not allowed my enemies to rejoice over me.
O Lord, I have cried out to You, and You have healed me.
O Lord, You have brought my soul from the grave; You have revived me from my descent into the Pit.
Sing to the Lord, His pious ones, and give thanks to His holy name.
For His wrath lasts but a moment; life results from His favour; in the evening, weeping may tarry, but in the morning there is joyful singing.
And I said in my tranquility, “I will never falter.”
O Lord, with Your will, You set up my mountain to be might, You hid Your countenance and I became frightened.
To You, O Lord, I would call, and to the Lord I would supplicate.
You have turned my lament into dancing for me; You loosened my sackcloth and girded me with joy.
“What gain is there in my blood, in my descent to the grave? Will dust thank You; will it recite Your truth? Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me; O Lord, be my helper.”
So that my soul will sing praises to You and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will thank You forever.
I took refuge in You, O Lord; let me not be shamed forever; rescue me with Your righteousness.
Incline Your ear to me, quickly rescue me; be a rock of strength to me, a stronghold to save me.
For You are my Rock and my Stronghold, and for Your name’s sake, You shall lead me and guide me.
You shall free me from this net which they have hidden for me, for You are my stronghold.
In Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.
But I trusted in You, O Lord; I said, “You are my God.”
Cause Your countenance to shine upon Your servant; save me with Your kindness.
How great is Your goodness that You have laid away for those who fear You, that You have worked for those who take refuge in You, in the presence of the sons of men!
Love the Lord, all His pious ones. The Lord guards those who believe [in Him] and He pays with a bowstring him who works with haughtiness.
The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want
He causes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake
May only goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days.
I have greatly hoped for the Lord, and He extended [His ear] to me and heard my cry.
He put a new song into my mouth, a praise to our God, so that many may see and fear, and trust in the Lord.
Praiseworthy is the man who made the Lord his trust, and did not turn to the haughty and those who turn to falsehood.
Praiseworthy is the man who made the Lord his trust, and did not turn to the haughty and those who turn to falsehood.
You have done great things, You, O Lord my God. Your wonders and Your thoughts are for us. There is none to equal You; were I to tell and speak, they would be too many to tell.
You desired neither sacrifice nor meal offering; You dug ears for me; a burnt offering or a sin offering You did not request.
Then I said, “Behold I have come,” with a scroll of a book written for me.
O God, I desired to do Your will and [to have] Your law within my innards.
I did not conceal Your charity within my heart; I stated Your faith and Your salvation-I did not withhold Your kindness and truth-to a great assembly.
All US Politicians are obligated in most Christian America to end their speeches with ‘God Bless America!’ President Biden limits that to ‘God Bless OUR Troops!’
The US is the biggest ARMS MERCHANT in the History of Nations, and US Christian Leaders remain BLIND and OBLIVIOUS to this Vision in their Bibles, “‘Not by Military Force, and not by physical strength, but by my Spirit’ says the Lord of Hosts. Mirroring the US government, there are more weapons in private hands than for any other People on Earth reserved unto that Day of Judgment when they will be used by Americans against Americans
Red-white-and-blue chauvinism is running wild. Yet there are real diplomatic alternatives to the collision course for war
Fifty-nine years ago, Bob Dylan recorded “With God on Our Side.” You probably haven’t heard it on the radio for a very long time, if ever, but right now you could listen to it as his most evergreen of topical songs:
Oh, my name, it ain’t nothin’, my age, it means less The country I come from is called the Midwest I’s taught and brought up there, the laws to abide And that the land that I live in has God on its side
Oh, the history books tell it, they tell it so well The cavalries charged, the Indians fell The cavalries charged, the Indians died Oh, the country was young with God on its side
The Spanish-American War had its day And the Civil War too was soon laid away And the names of the heroes I was made to memorize With guns in their hands and God on their side
The First World War, boys, it came and it went The reason for fightin’ I never did get But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride For you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side
The Second World War came to an end We forgave the Germans, and then we were friends Though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried The Germans now too have God on their side
I learned to hate the Russians all through my whole life If another war comes, it’s them we must fight To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide And accept it all bravely with God on my side
But now we’ve got weapons of chemical dust If fire them we’re forced to, then fire them we must One push of the button and they shot the world wide And you never ask questions when God’s on your side
Through many dark hour I been thinkin’ about this That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss But I can’t think for you, you’ll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side
So now as I’m leavin’, I’m weary as hell The confusion I’m feelin’ ain’t no tongue can tell The words fill my head, and they fall to the floor That if God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war
In recent days, media coverage of a possible summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin has taken on almost wistful qualities, as though the horsemen of the apocalypse are already out of the barn.
Fatalism is easy for the laptop warriors and blow-dried studio pundits who keep insisting on the need to get tough with “the Russians,” by which they mean the Russian government. Actual people who suffer and die in war easily become faraway abstractions. “And you never ask questions / When God’s on your side.”
During the last six decades, the religiosity of U.S. militarism has faded into a more generalized set of assumptions—shared, in the current crisis, across traditional political spectrums. Ignorance about NATO’s history feeds into the good vs. evil bromides that are so easy to ingest and internalize.
On Capitol Hill, it’s hard to find a single member of Congress willing to call NATO what it has long been: an alliance for war (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya) with virtually nothing to do with “defense” other than the defense of vast weapons sales and, at times, even fantasies of regime change in Russia.
The reverence and adulation gushing from the Capitol and corporate media (including NPR and PBS) toward NATO and its U.S. leadership are wonders of thinly veiled jingoism. About other societies, reviled ones, we would hear labels like “propaganda.” Here the supposed truisms are laundered and flat-ironed as common sense.
Glimmers of inconvenient truth have flickered only rarely in mainstream U.S. media outlets, while a bit more likely in Europe. “Biden has said repeatedly that the U.S. is open to diplomacy with Russia, but on the issue that Moscow has most emphasized—NATO enlargement—there has been no American diplomacy at all,” Jeffrey Sachs wrote in the Financial Times as this week began. “Putin has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. forswear NATO’s enlargement into Ukraine, while Biden has repeatedly asserted that membership of the alliance is Ukraine’s choice.”
As Sachs noted, “Many insist that NATO enlargement is not the real issue for Putin and that he wants to recreate the Russian empire, pure and simple. Everything else, including NATO enlargement, they claim, is a mere distraction. This is utterly mistaken. Russia has adamantly opposed NATO expansion towards the east for 30 years, first under Boris Yeltsin and now Putin…. Neither the U.S. nor Russia wants the other’s military on their doorstep. Pledging no NATO enlargement is not appeasement. It does not cede Ukrainian territory. It does not undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
Whether or not they know much about such history, American media elites and members of Congress don’t seem to care about it. Red-white-and-blue chauvinism is running wild. Yet there are real diplomatic alternatives to the collision course for war.
Speaking Monday on Democracy Now!, Katrina vanden Heuvel—editorial director of The Nation and a longtime Russia expert—said that implementing the Minsk accords could be a path toward peace in Ukraine. Also, she pointed out, “there is talk now not just of the NATO issue, which is so key, but also a new security architecture in Europe.”
Desperately needed is a new European security framework, to demilitarize and defuse conflicts between Russia and U.S. allies. But the same approach that for three decades pushed to expand NATO to Russia’s borders is now gung-ho to keep upping the ante, no matter how much doing so increases the chances of a direct clash between the world’s two nuclear-weapons superpowers.
The last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union before it collapsed, Jack Matlock, wrote last week: “Since President Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.”
But excluding Russia from security structures, while encircling it with armed-to-the-teeth adversaries, was a clear goal of NATO’s expansion. Less obvious was the realized goal of turning Eastern European nations into customers for vast arms sales.
A gripping chapter in “The Spoils of War,” a new book by Andrew Cockburn, spells out the mega-corporate zeal behind the massive campaigns to expand NATO beginning in the 1990s. Huge Pentagon contractors like Lockheed Martin were downcast about the dissolution of the USSR and feared that military sales would keep slumping. But there were some potential big new markets on the horizon.
“One especially promising market was among the former members of the defunct Warsaw Pact,” Cockburn wrote. “Were they to join NATO, they would be natural customers for products such as the F-16 fighter that Lockheed had inherited from General Dynamics. There was one minor impediment: the [George H. W.] Bush administration had already promised Moscow that NATO would not move east, a pledge that was part of the settlement ending the Cold War.”
By the time legendary foreign-policy sage George F. Kennan issued his unequivocal warning in 1997—“expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post-Cold War era”—the expansion was already happening.
As Cockburn notes, “By 2014, the 12 new members had purchased close to $17 billion worth of American weapons.”
If you think those weapons transactions were about keeping up with the Russians, you’ve been trusting way too much U.S. corporate media. “As of late 2020,” Cockburn’s book explains, NATO’s collective military spending “had hit $1.03 trillion, or roughly 20 times Russia’s military budget.”
Let’s leave the last words here to Bob Dylan, from another song that isn’t on radio playlists. “Masters of War.”
Let me ask you one question Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could?
Time is flying! I was surprised and held in Wonder, AWE, and Rapture unexpectedly being BORN AGAIN on February 1, 1975 when I was 31, a babe in starting to learn the ways of the Christ Spirit. I start my 82nd Year Wednesday, May 21 and my Personal Faith is stronger than ever.
As a World Citizen, Child of God at 77, and a Canadian, I sent the same Message to all 100 Senators November 5,8,15 &16, not as Representatives of Local Parochial interests, but as National and International Leaders, but giving NOTICE of the US-Russian WAR over Ukraine in NATO that started 2 months later.
It took that long finding an address and ZIP code in all 50 States since the Senate email system has no provision to hear opinions other than from the Constituents of their States.
Identifying myself as a Canadian in the 1st sentence & using my actual name and email address in the Senate forms, a Senate majority sent me their computer generated Newsletters without addressing anything in the November Message concerned with US Domestic Developments as if whoever opens the email didn’t read it.
Senators have equal influence collectively as the Executive Branch. I could only hope and pray saner heads would prevail, although from what I see on CNN, MSNBC & FOX, that seems unlikely to reduce International tensions, but increase them.
Putin doesn’t want War. No sane person would want MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION unless there is a subconscious desire for SUICIDE BY NUKES.
All Putin wants is NATO to stop advancing to Russia’s border just like Americans didn’t want Soviet missiles that close to the US in Cuba. In 1962, the US actually starsted Armageddon/WWIII over Russian missiles in Cuba with the US Navy blockade of Cuba, a VIOLATION of International Law. Russia was reacting to the US putting their missiles aimed at Russia in new NATO Member Turkey.
President Kennedy didn’t want WAR either seeing how close it came to be from the inside during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. He wanted to start a genuine reconciliation and accommodation that would lead to a real PEACE with Russia.
This is how he described the alternative to undertaking the sincere, in good Faith;
Kennedy uttered the essential TRUTH that can keep us alive today in 1963: “Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.”
He was killed a few months later, I believe, because his Intention to make Peace with Russia infuriated and displeased the America 1st the US Establishment Neo-Con WAR mongers. The excerpt above he gave April 10, 1963, known as the PEACE SPEECH is what got him killed.
Americans aren’t exceptional.
Like the US did in 1962, Putin correctly sees the steady incremental advance of NATO to the border of Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the Military Warsaw Pact opposite NATO, is not defensive, but offensive. I see that leading indicator Independently watching from CanaDa.
US/NATO claiming Russia wants to re-constitute the Soviet Union is US hype to sell more Weapons of Death & Destruction preparing Americans for the FINAL WAR to End ALL WARS, WWIII/Armageddon.
Vladimir Putin, “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
New York Times 20 February 2000;
Putin is following that 1962 US playbook. If it was Good when the US did it, is it EVIL because Putin is drawing his red line exactly like the US already did in 1962?
US paid Propagandists use words like, “since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.” That’s how subtle Propaganda is.
Trucks on Russia’s side of the border, covered in snow and parked for weeks, is aggression? What is aggressive, is the US pouring $Billions of weapons into Ukraine, with NATO troops already in Ukraine, with more possibly on the way, inflaming the situation on the ground.
US proxy NATO announced they will not commit troops to Ukraine, but are transferring $BILLIONS in weapons for Ukrainians even though all Western ‘Military Experts’ say Ukraine doesn’t have a chance of defeating Russia. What that exposes is the US/NATO is using Ukrainians as Sacrificial lambs in the War the US started with Russia since the end of WWII, now at the final stage on the Path of Destruction.
This confirms in Putin’s eyes it’s the US as the hegemon beating the War Drums, leading to Armageddon/WWIII the US put on the table in 1962.
According to CNN & MSNBC News reports, the Ukrainians themselves are not worried about a Russian invasion. This is a US freak out to distract from the increasing Domestic problems and Divisions I wrote about in November.
This is more interesting for me to watch unfolding from CanaDa because of this 1 line among so many more in my Curriculum Vitae, as recorded by The Kansas City Times September 13, 1976,
“He wanted to bring to the Public’s attention “an idea being put out subtly and deceptively” by the government that we have to get prepared for a War with Russia.”
That 1976 FUTURE is NOW with the Revelation of the details GENERALLY unfolding in the spirit of the letter.
With the benefit of 45 years hindsight, the last 8 years of intensified Military, FBI and Intelligence “experts” on TV constantly, unanimously, demonizing Putin and Russia since the 2014 US orchestrated Coup/regime change of the Russian friendly government, installing an Neo-Nazi anti-Russian government, the American People have been prepared as the majority of comments in all Washington Post articles on the US-Russian Tug of War over Ukraine prove beyond any doubt.
As a further Sign of The Times The Kansas City Times did a followup on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976, publishing this Historical Newspaper record:
You may imagine my Surprise and Wonder when the TV movie ‘THE DAY AFTER’ Kansas City was incinerated in a Nuclear Holocaust was shown 7 years to the month later, on November 20, 1983?
Most probably, I was the only person on Earth watching it that night to NOTE at THE END, the movie pauses at the same picture frame The Kansas City Times published on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976, this being the TV screenshot:
The fact TV movie THE DAY AFTER appeared 7 Years to the month later, on November 20, 1983 pausing at the exact same spot as the Kansas City Times picture above, is a SIGN OF THE TIMES this World has arrived at these 49 Years later.
Those Historical records are Signs of the Times of where this World is at Today. They can dismissed as being of no consequence, but the Historical Record cannot be changed.
Only Time will tell. Reading about and watching the hyped up US News Today, that Time may be sooner than most People dare think?
Obviously, I had nothing to do with those Historical FACTS come into being other than being a Messenger. Then and Now!
I thank God I’m still alive at 77 able to point to the Historical Records, now in my 82nd Year
At this posting, a total of 14 Senators replied to that Message, and I answered them all.
These are my answers to Senators Dianne Feinstein (D) of California and John Cornyn (R) of Texas.
Good Day Senator Feinstein,
Thank you for your ‘U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message’ answer to my Message sent to all US Senators 2 weekends ago. It took 3 days because as a Canadian using my actual Canadian address, the Senate embedded Office email system for all Senators with the exception of only 3, would reject it. It took Time to find 50 local addresses and ZIP Codes.
To date, only 5 Senators or their Staffs responded. Senator Lindsey Graham responded within 2 hours of sending the ‘Signs of The Times’ Message, followed by Senator John Kennedy, replying through his actual email. Senator Robert Casey followed, then Senator Mike Braun and you yesterday.
In the 1st half of November I sent a Message to all US Senators concerning the troubling leading indicators I see with the increasingly Divided Developing American Domestic Political scene, and the American Carnage President Trump introduced in his 1st Presidential speech now showing up on American Streets.
Not one Senator replied to those concerns. Even though I identified myself as a Canadian in the opening sentence, a Senate Majority replied with their Newsletters with variations of this line, ‘Thank you for contacting me. It is an honor to serve as your U.S. Senator.’
What can I deduce from those Facts? Are Senators and their Staffs sleepwalking into the Abyss?
Senator, this is the underlying reason the US is hyping an imaginary Russian invasion of Ukraine, “Under Trump, there was a concerted US effort to get Germany to kill the Nordstream 2 project before it was completed. It’s now complete and ready to open the taps to provide Germany and Western Europe with a steady supply of Energy at a fair price as Russia has done reliably for Decades.
Even after the 2014 US orchestrated Coup/regime change of the Russian friendly government, putting an anti-Russian government in place, Russia continued to pay Ukraine about $2 BILLION every year in pipeline transit fees. Russia has reliably supplied Western Europe with it’s Energy neesd for decades without any problems
If Nordstream 2 goes online, Russia will stop those payments and the US Taxpayer will have to make up the difference. Ukraine knows that, and it’s a consideration when President Zelensky tells the US it’s overreacting with MSM hype mirroring the Official line, and to cool it.
It’s obvious the US is trying to pressure Putin to react Militarily to the increasingly strident threats of more Economic Sanctions, even preemptive sanctions, which are Acts of War according to the Rules Based Order of International Law.
The objective is to give the US leverage to pressure Germany to have Nordstream 2 killed so Europe buys more expensive US LNG.
Putin is too smart to fall for that US trap, so the US will continue to howl and flail, exposing itself to the World as the major threat to Peace.
War is always over money and resources, sold to the People under the false cover it’s over Human Rights!
Senator Feinstein, a correction. You forgot the 1st War in Europe since WWII was the NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 AFTER the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As for the US allegation of a Russian “invasion” of Crimea, you have succumbed to US Propaganda with the delusional belief in America 1st exceptionalism.. Russia did not send troops from the Russian mainland to invade Crimea. Russian troops were already in Crimea by Treaty, and came off base only AFTER the 2014 US Coup changing the Elected Russian friendly government for a Neo-Nazi anti-Russian government headed by the man US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said she wanted to head the regime changed government even before it was changed. That’s no co-incidence!
What kind of an invasion is it when no one was killed, unlike the close to a MILLION People killed by the US War on Terrorism brought out within 2 weeks of 9/11 to change the regimes of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and at THE END, Iran.
All US Politicians are obligated for Political expediency to say ‘God bless America.’ President Biden has narrowed that to ‘God Bless our Troops’ notwithstanding the OT Biblical Prophecy, “Not by military force and not by physical strength, but by My spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.”
The God of my Faith led me to the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City. The Kansas City Times chronicled my visit publishing 2 Historical Records, the 1st on September 13, 1976, with a follow up on November 2, ALL SOULS DAY.
This is the ALL SOULS DAY picture they chose to publish on the Day they chose.
You might imagine my Surprise and Wonder when, 7 years to the month later, on November 20, 1983, the movie ‘THE DAY AFTER” Kansas City was incinerated in a Nuclear Holocaust was broadcast. Up to that point the Official US government Propaganda said ducking under a desk would save you in a Nuclear attack. That movie exposed that lie.
Watching the movie that night, most probably I was the only human on Earth to note at the End, the movie pauses at the same frame The Kansas City Times published 7 years earlier on ALL SOULS DAY, this being the TV screen capture,
As I stated in the Message, it is not Russia making that come to be, but US Arrogance and Hubris. Those links are SIGNS from God of where this World is at these days if the US pushes it that far, as it was ready to do in 1962.
For behold, the Lord shall come with FIRE, and like a tempest,
His chariots, to render His anger with FURY, and His rebuke with flames of FIRE
For with FIRE, will the Lord contend, and with His sword with all flesh, and those slain by the Lord shall be many.
The US put FIRE and FURY on the table in 2017, and it’s still there.
This is the form that FIRE and FURY Trump threatened in his 1st Term will take:
Peace
RayJC
ps: During the 15 months I hitch hiked through some 45 US States seeking the Spirit of ’76, I spent Time in Venice of your State. These are 3 articles in my Blog describing 3 different incidents in my Curriculum Vitae in California.
