2974-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

While this is a ‘read’ filled with interesting and thought-provoking info, as is Rebecca Solnit’s article that the author references, neither writer, to my surprise, seems to see the larger picture: This is an effort to lay heavy taxation on the people of the planet for something that is nothing more than a hoax. All they can seem to see are the very real problems created by the energy we are now being forced to use, but using it is not necessary; there is free energy available, but not until we free ourselves from our controllers. ~J

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/02/the-paris-climate-talks-dont-matter/

The COP21 climate talks began on Monday in Paris. Leaders around the world are seeking a legally binding restriction on emissions, hoping to save future generations from near-certain environmental collapse and catastrophe. But these talks won’t change a thing.

“Can the earth be saved by bureaucrats in long meetings, reciting jargon and acronyms while surrounded by leaning towers of documents?” Rebecca Solnit asks in a compelling piece for Harper’s. She’s right. Long talks and testimonies bear little fruit in making steps to achieve climate justice and combat climate change. What’s important is what happens in the crowded and sweaty streets. Solnit was writing before the November 13 terrorist attacks claimed 130 lives in Paris, before the government declared a state of emergency, before this state of emergency led to a ban on all public organizing.

The revolutionary fervor so pined for, the radical democratic politics of climate activism and mobilization, can no longer be realized under French law. The government has banned public protests, marches, and rallies. What started as a means of achieving peace and security has culminated in the total destruction of dissent. As of 27 November, at least 24 major climate activists had been placed under house arrest.

The conference is located outside the city of Paris itself, and is secured by over 2,800 police. An additional 8,000 police guard the border. In this way, climate change really is the great security issue of the new millennium. The dialogue is so securitized, that nearly all oppositional voices have been quashed.

Already, Parisians are finding ways to sidestep the rules. Protestors left out 10,000 empty pairs of shoes to signify the space of the march that would have been. Shoes were donated by the likes of actress Marion Cotillard, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, even Pope Francis.

According to reports, feet did fill some of the shoes in the streets on Sunday. Around 5,000 protestors faced off against hordes of riot police amidst the abandoned loafers. Some protestors hurled “projectiles” – those empty shoes, candlesticks honoring those killed in the attacks. I like to imagine the the Pope’s shoes, smashed up against an oversized riot police helmet. Pushed and crowded and intimidated, it was an act of desperation and self-defense for activists. Police saw it as aggression and outright hostility. There was tear gas, and about 200 arrests – even though even French officials admitted that only a small proportion of the crowd created any kind of trouble.

Art, too, occupied the streets of Paris in the absence of people. Brandalism, an art collective, hoped to reclaim the space traditionally occupied by corporate sponsors advocating endless consumerism. In this case, more than 600 pieces of art helped fill in the empty space created by the state. One ad for a French airline reads, “Tackling Climate Change? Of Course Not, We’re an Airline,” another, “New & Improved: GREENWASH”. But Parisians are encouraged to stay in their homes. No one dwells the streets to see the exhibits.

Heads of state and wielders of power will not act against their own self-interest. Change entails a new bottom line, something different than economic growth. It entails hearing the voices of those without power. Yet again leaders will seek cheap policies driven by technological advance. Yet again we’ll end up with piecemeal reform and empty words of promise.

It is in the streets that new forms of democracy, organization, and inclusion are enacted, that new ideas are tested and voiced, that risks are taken. Around the world, people are gathering and marching. They are voicing their dissent and their discontent.

But things won’t change in Paris. Not unless the French government eases its restrictions on organizing, and abates its abuse of public fear and paranoia. Or unless the people can show that they have a stronger will and reach than the state. COP21 will go the way of the rest of them.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/3/2015 6:18:54 PM
	Pakistan Hangs Four Convicted of Taliban Massacre at School By Reuters 12/2/15 at 8:19 AM An army soldier stands in the Army Public School, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen, in Peshawar, December 17, 2014. Pakistan authorities hanged four men a year later for involvement in the massacre of 134 children.Zohra Bensemra/Peshawar Pakistan executed four men on Wednesday for involvement in the massacre of 134 children at an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar last year, media and security sources said. The hangings were the first executions of civilians convicted by Pakistan's military courts, which were set up after the massacre through a constitutional amendment. The executions were confirmed by three security sources, two of whom are based in Kohat, where the men were hanged early in the morning at the city's civilian-run central jail. Hazrat Ali, Mujeeb ur Rehman, Sabeel and Abdus Salam had been convicted on August 13, according to a military statement sent on that date. All were identified as members of the Toheedwal Jihad Group (TWG), a previously unheard of faction of the Pakistani Taliban. Three others were also sentenced to death for involvement in the attack, according to the same military statement, but death warrants have not yet been issued for them. All nine attackers were killed in the siege on Peshawar's Army Public School, which killed 151 people in total on December 16, 2014. It was the worst Taliban attack on Pakistani soil. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/3/2015 6:29:03 PM
	The Paris Climate Talks Don’t Matter Posted on December 2, 2015 [by Jean]by Jean While this is a ‘read’ filled with interesting and thought-provoking info, as is Rebecca Solnit’s article that the author references, neither writer, to my surprise, seems to see the larger picture: This is an effort to lay heavy taxation on the people of the planet for something that is nothing more than a hoax. All they can seem to see are the very real problems created by the energy we are now being forced to use, but using it is not necessary; there is free energy available, but not until we free ourselves from our controllers. ~J http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/02/the-paris-climate-talks-dont-matter/ The COP21 climate talks began on Monday in Paris. Leaders around the world are seeking a legally binding restriction on emissions, hoping to save future generations from near-certain environmental collapse and catastrophe. But these talks won’t change a thing. “Can the earth be saved by bureaucrats in long meetings, reciting jargon and acronyms while surrounded by leaning towers of documents?” Rebecca Solnit asks in a compelling piece for Harper’s. She’s right. Long talks and testimonies bear little fruit in making steps to achieve climate justice and combat climate change. What’s important is what happens in the crowded and sweaty streets. Solnit was writing before the November 13 terrorist attacks claimed 130 lives in Paris, before the government declared a state of emergency, before this state of emergency led to a ban on all public organizing. The revolutionary fervor so pined for, the radical democratic politics of climate activism and mobilization, can no longer be realized under French law. The government has banned public protests, marches, and rallies. What started as a means of achieving peace and security has culminated in the total destruction of dissent. As of 27 November, at least 24 major climate activists had been placed under house arrest. The conference is located outside the city of Paris itself, and is secured by over 2,800 police. An additional 8,000 police guard the border. In this way, climate change really is the great security issue of the new millennium. The dialogue is so securitized, that nearly all oppositional voices have been quashed. Already, Parisians are finding ways to sidestep the rules. Protestors left out 10,000 empty pairs of shoes to signify the space of the march that would have been. Shoes were donated by the likes of actress Marion Cotillard, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, even Pope Francis. According to reports, feet did fill some of the shoes in the streets on Sunday. Around 5,000 protestors faced off against hordes of riot police amidst the abandoned loafers. Some protestors hurled “projectiles” – those empty shoes, candlesticks honoring those killed in the attacks. I like to imagine the the Pope’s shoes, smashed up against an oversized riot police helmet. Pushed and crowded and intimidated, it was an act of desperation and self-defense for activists. Police saw it as aggression and outright hostility. There was tear gas, and about 200 arrests – even though even French officials admitted that only a small proportion of the crowd created any kind of trouble. Art, too, occupied the streets of Paris in the absence of people. Brandalism, an art collective, hoped to reclaim the space traditionally occupied by corporate sponsors advocating endless consumerism. In this case, more than 600 pieces of art helped fill in the empty space created by the state. One ad for a French airline reads, “Tackling Climate Change? Of Course Not, We’re an Airline,” another, “New & Improved: GREENWASH”. But Parisians are encouraged to stay in their homes. No one dwells the streets to see the exhibits. Heads of state and wielders of power will not act against their own self-interest. Change entails a new bottom line, something different than economic growth. It entails hearing the voices of those without power. Yet again leaders will seek cheap policies driven by technological advance. Yet again we’ll end up with piecemeal reform and empty words of promise. It is in the streets that new forms of democracy, organization, and inclusion are enacted, that new ideas are tested and voiced, that risks are taken. Around the world, people are gathering and marching. They are voicing their dissent and their discontent. But things won’t change in Paris. Not unless the French government eases its restrictions on organizing, and abates its abuse of public fear and paranoia. Or unless the people can show that they have a stronger will and reach than the state. COP21 will go the way of the rest of them. Prove me wrong. Please, somebody show me I’m wrong. Nick Mott is a freelance writer, activist, and educator based in Fort Collins, CO. He has an MA in Anthropology/International Development. He worked as a journalist for the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, and, most recently, he’s published in The Denver Post.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/3/2015 6:41:42 PM
	30.11.2015 Author: Phil Butler Putin, Syria, and the UN: Is America the Biblical Babylon? News that the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to adopt a French resolution to eradicate ISIL is sobering and paradoxical. Even as the UNSC deliberates on the best course to defeat what the body called “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security,” the United States and other members still double deal on Russia’s initiative to solve for terror in Syria. One has to wonder what it will take for the insensitive, even thickheaded American administration to acquiesce. It’s as if we’re all watching America melt down into a mud puddle of mindless mediocrity. Watching the world unite, and America falling by the wayside, we must question policy in an almost biblical sense. “History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.” – Karl Marx The French are on board, as are China and the rest of Europe, in fact all nations who’ve lost something are. But the United States of America, with guilt written all over the faces of our leaders, bangs its head against an invisible wall to our cell in the insane asylum of humanity. I’m once again gob smacked. I feel my head wobbling side to side, like Scooby Doo, whimpering his famous “Ruh roh Raggy, we’re doomed.” McCain rants on, South Carolina’s Senator Graham plays at being America’s Hitler, and insiders in the White House say Barack Obama is closed minded, closed off to clear evidence his administration is and has been supporting the world’s worst terrorists. My country is about to spin out of control, it’s leadership capacity not even able to remain awake at this point. Vladimir Putin’s armed forces televise the destruction of ISIL resources that should have been destroyed from the onset of US led coalition strikes, on YouTube for Christ’s sake, and my countrymen sit goofy eyed, Tweeting their NBA tweets, sharing their Facebook cat videos, gazing into the idiot box at a bleached blonde FOX News bimbo… It’s the end… that’s all I can think of. Don’t take my word dear readers, use your own intellect to discover how deeply disturbed the world’s great democracy has become. This article at the WND Christian network by Leo Hohmann lays it all out fairly well. The writer cites an interview conducted by Sharyl Attkisson with Steve Malzberg. Attkisson, who’s resignation over mainstream media ethics indemnify her credibility, is cited discussing Obama’s current state of mind: “I have talked to people who have worked in the Obama administration who firmly believe he has made up his mind, I would say closed his mind, they say, to their intelligence they try to bring him about various groups he does not consider terrorists even if they’re on the U.S. list of designated terrorists. He has his own ideas. There are those who’ve known him for a long time that say this dates back to law school. He’s not necessarily going to listen to the people with whom he disagrees. He seems to dig in. And I would say that’s because he thinks he’s right.” This leaves all of us outside the White House gates with the startling possibilities before us. The first possibility is, the western world is led by a thick headed narcissist, or garden variety psychopath. The second possibility is, Obama knows his advisers are hard wired into the corporate elite, and he does not trust them in anything at this point. In the latter case, we may be seeing an Obama ready to be thrown under the proverbial bus by his backers. I alluded to this happening in an article entitled “Obama’s Syria Indictment,” some days ago. This is what I think is taking place, Barack Obama is just riding out a tidal wave of power brokering for the last 7 years, about to close out with one wipeout victim. The man is all done, he looked it with Putin at the G20. David Kupelian, author and managing editor of WND contends Obama is, and has almost always been a Marxist. While he is not alone in this assessment though, I think the American president’s ideology has less to do with his curious and often crazy behavior than who put him in office, and for what. Kupelian gives Obama too much credit, attributes too much power and intellect to a completely mediocre play actor, at least in my view. Obama is no Richard Nixon, but he is propped up by the same elites who have run every White House. Turning back to Sharyl Attkisson briefly, she’s a prime example of how the Obama White House has served to virtually eradicate American freedoms and liberties. She quit CBS after 21 years of stellar reporting, over the network essentially covering Obama’s behind. The Wikipedia entry lays her allegations out so: “She accused CBS of running advertorials and of protecting the Obama administration by not giving enough coverage to such stories as the 2012 Benghazi attack and slow initial enrollments under Obamacare.” So let me sum up for you who is running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now. Does Barack Obama own CBS? Before the election in 2008, what exactly did Barack Obama have to pay CBS and the boards of 100 corporations in order to “force” them to put him in power? Or, was he put there by these elites? You know the answer, let’s not be naïve enough to think Karl Marx is reborn. Beside the fact Karl Marx would not even shake hands with someone like Barack Obama, what is happening is America is Satan worship compared to genius theories like Marxism. In fact Obama is the antithesis of Marx’s utopia of classless society. Right wingers are delusional here. But you’ve not time, and I’ve no space for deliberations on political theory. Our American obsession with supposedly democratic politics, it’s a dog and pony show, a fallacy, a shell game we’re too lazy or stupid to revise. We’re on a special kind of narcotic in America, the imminent psychotherapist Carl Jung framed us all with: “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.” Outside our phony idealism, all of us can know for sure now is, whoever owns the mainstream media is misleading us. Atkinson hammers today’s news to pieces on a daily basis, and for good reason. A free press is one foundation of a free society, and America is supposed to be the most free. But it is not any more. Do you like Donald Trump? The people who backed Obamadon’t. Have you seen the YouTube videos the Russian Ministry of Defense broadcasts via showing Putin’s air forces obliterating ISIL oil supplies? Did you read a report asking “how come Obama did not stop ISIL oil deliveries?” Not on CBS, or NBC, or ABC, or in the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or anywhere in the mainstream, you have not. Isn’t the American military flying air cover for the world’s worst killers a story? Isn’t corruption and collusion of epic proportions a scoop? Isn’t the fall of Rome worthy of a headline like “An American ISIL: Terror as a Tool” a Pulitzer potential? Well it is, but as a journalist I can prove it’s a headline no mainstream media outlet in America will ever accept a draft on. I know, because I’ve offered similar ones. The fear, the monetary need, and the idiotic and droning mindset of publishers out there it makes one stammer, it evokes a stunning revelation, our idealistic innocent hits the concrete wall of reality – the American way is dead as Julius Caesar. The signs are neon flashing, but Americans are used to too much flashy lighting, too much hype to notice. I am reminded of my college professors, of a quote from the great French philosopher JJ Rousseau: “Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.” Turning back to this morning’s crisp dilemma, I sit here wondering why it has taken so long for leaders in Europe and elsewhere to come to their senses. It took French lives, and French society being stricken for the EU to be shaken awake! 50 million refugees would not have sufficed. 143 million dead Russians would not budge a German from his slumber. Now I shudder to think what it would take to pull Britain’s leadership into the daylight. As for my countrymen, all Obama has to do is throw out a feeble first pitch at a MLB game, or call for a sing along of “Take me out to the ballgame,” and a thermonuclear terror event in St. Louis would be forgotten before the 3rd inning. It’s pitiful. In my country the atmosphere is primed and ready for a social catastrophe. On Facebook and Twitter, realms me and my team essentially dominate in, the tone is ghastly coming from Denver or Dallas, Washington to Atlanta. If you are Muslim in the United States, you are the enemy. The land where being “different” was a badge of honor, has become Nazi Germany in 1937, or an Orwellian nightmare habituated by the criminally stupid. People blame Allah or Mohammad, but not Jesus or Moses even, for the heads being chopped off in Syria. There is only mock sympathy, for small children blown to pieces in Donbass or Gaza, those damned Russians or Hamas caused all that, “it serves them right,” the Baptist preacher whispers under his breath before the prayer meeting. In the trailer park, one side or the other of the raw sewage flowing down the center, CNN echoes in the ears of the cable guy, paid to come and turn back on the god of American idealism, Comcast service or else. Yes, the intelligent among you grasped it, I am an America, and I have seen you all. Your kiss ass school superintendents, the soccer mom determined that “little Johnny will win, whether he wins or not,” this old southern boy knows you well. And now you are in really, really big trouble. Almost time to pay the proverbial “piper” it is. The image I have provided is of a simple Google search. Russia bombs the hell out of ISIL’s money train, after a year of America missing it, and our media only reports once Obama is forced to follow suit? There is your lie folks, if you even care any more. I apologize for the edge in my invective here, for those of you wondering “Where did that come from?” Well, it’s a plea my friends. You see, unless we wake up to what is going on here, we’re going to be a footnote in history 100 years from now. The ideals our mommies and daddies taught us from birth, that dream the world had of absolute liberty ushered in by the red-white-and-blue, that concept for Romanians or Czechs, even Russians who really love America, it will reside right alongside mentions of Carthage, Hitler’s 1000 year Reich, Alexander’s greatest conquests – a footnote for a repetitive humanity – Earth’s dominant species unable to break free of its ignorance. My grandfather and father are rolling over in their graves in Charleston, SC. Maybe you never considered that yours are too? A Russian president is needed, in order to set American policy on the straight and narrow – and even then our psychopaths cannot follow? Is America the “Babylon” of Revelations? That is for your heart and mind to decide. I leave you with the lament for Babylon to ponder over: ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more — cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble.” *Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine* *“New Eastern Outlook”*.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/4/2015 12:08:24 AM
	Egypt opens Gaza border crossing for first time in months By FARES AKRAM9 hours ago Palestinians wait near their luggage to cross the border to the Egyptian side at the Rafah crossing, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015. Egypt has reopened its border with the Gaza Strip in both directions for the first time in months. Thousands of Palestinians are lining up at Rafah border crossing to leave the isolated enclave. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) View Gallery GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Egypt on Thursday opened its border with the Gaza Strip for the first time in months, drawing thousands of Palestinians who crowded the Rafah border crossing in hopes of leaving the coastal territory. It was not immediately clear if the two-day opening of Rafah — the main gateway for Gaza's 1.8 million residents and the only terminal without Israeli control — is tied to an agreement last month between Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The deal bypassed the authority of the militant Islamic group Hamas, which seized control of Gaza from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in 2007. Egypt and Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza when Hamas seized the strip, and over the past two years Egypt has moved to shut down border tunnels that Hamas relies on for cash and smuggling. On Thursday, Hamas police guarded the Gaza side of the crossing and turned back those who had not applied for travel in advance. At best, 500 people can exit Gaza through Rafah daily, and people with humanitarian needs, along with students and dual nationals, were given priority. One of those who waited in vain was Samira Al-Najjar, 65, who wanted to travel to Egypt to treat a tumor in one of her legs. "Unfortunately, I was not allowed to travel today and maybe I won't succeed tomorrow," she said, standing next to her bags and holding her papers in one hand. This year, the crossing was open for traffic in both directions for 19 days, according to the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, compared to 123 days the previous year. Few Gazans are permitted to travel through the Israeli border to the north, though Israeli crossings are used to transfer cargo into Gaza.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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Pakistan Hangs Four Convicted of Taliban Massacre at School

The Paris Climate Talks Don’t Matter

Putin, Syria, and the UN: Is America the Biblical Babylon?

Egypt opens Gaza border crossing for first time in months