THYME Magazine American Renewal Edition I

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XXII

Threats to America's Foundations
By Donna Lou Shickel - © 2013 Donna Lou Shickel Publishing Co. Distribute freely with permission

Most of us are well aware of the war on Christianity. Our Founder, Jesus Christ, promised us that from the beginning. And that through these attacks we will be given the call to choose God’s way or the world’s. But what we may not be aware of, are the ways we Christians today have compromised and cooperated with the decline and decay of Christian Judeo values in our society by trying to choose both ways. And in the process, are we jeopardizing our own standing before God by consenting to laws that oppose His? Welcome to A Place of Grace, I’m your host, Donna Lou. You may not be aware that socialism, which is without exception in human history the final and necessary step leading into communism, is in fact a pagan religion. The socialist religion was founded primarily on the teachings of the pagan Greek philosopher and writer Plato. His book “The Republic,” written 400 years before the time of Christ teaches a "World Republic" led by a royal prince, a "World Philosopher King". Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Marx and Mao were great followers of Plato, Frederick Nietzsche and Charles Darwin and they all shared the same vision of a world prince (whom they all hoped would be themselves) who would solve all human ills and reign over this new utopian world. The foretelling of this prince was also given us by Jesus Christ. This prince is better known as the anti-Christ, the man of Satan. We’re going to talk about the indoctrination of Satan’s religion in our schools today.

Well friends, if you thought that the economy and radical Islam are our only problems, you might be surprised to learn that there are more members in the Communist Party worldwide and in the U.S. than ever before. Most are no longer using the name, “communist,” but rather they now describe themselves as Progressive. If you go to the Communist Party websites, you’ll find that all of the policies they support are now labeled, “progressive.” And if you compare the goals of the Communist Party USA, over 150 chapters in America, not counting their offshoot groups, with the goals of the NEA, the National Education Association, you’ll see that they, whatever they call themselves, have been incredibly successful. These people have an agenda and that is the destruction of our children’s Christian faith and morals to replace with the religion of socialism and immorality. And what is so deceiving about these people is that they claim to work toward fairness and reform, but take what is good to infiltrate it with something evil and call that social justice. And anybody who cries foul is attacked as intolerant, unjust and uncaring. Teaching God’s Commandments has been labeled a hate crime. And teaching early sexual behavior, anti-patriotism, and group consensus rather than individual reasoning have been openly stated goals of Communists who hate Christians for holding civilization back with our outmoded theology.

 Noah Webster, early Father of American Christian Education said, “The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed.” Of course, our students today won’t find that quote in their textbooks. Because John Dewey, father of modern US education, who completely transformed it said, “There is no God, there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion.” John Dewey, in his 1934 essay, “The Great American Prophet,” claimed capitalism imposed a restriction on freedom, and “socialized industry and finance” would be the vehicle by which people would reach their full potential. And Dewey decided that American schools would condition children for the desired "social order". In the 1930’s he promoted that teachers must stress "mutually helpful living" in order to indoctrinate children in collectivism. Deemphasize facts, knowledge, and real-world skills to create a generation who could become totally dependent on government, thus ushering in the religion of socialism. John Dewey, known communist, changed school curriculum, discipline and class structures. Our “father” of modern American education said, “The kids don't need to understand "economic value. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent."

Dumbing down our children was a prime goal in the Communist party USA, to raise generations for the collective whose only salvation would be big government. Even though a slight increase in student SAT scores is released now and then, they are still LOWER than they were fifty years ago, because this open agenda has been in effect now for sixty years. Only one in ten high school graduates believe there is an absolute right or wrong. Those who hate American Christian Judeo values and founding principals have been writing school curriculums containing hatred and revisionist history, and pushing laws denying parental rights and we regurgitate their lies that say we can do nothing about it. See, we’ve been dumbed-down over the last 60 years too. We’ll watch a liberal news broadcast, where they no longer report news, but rather opinions as facts, and swallow whatever they feed us and regurgitate it at every opportunity. How could this happen in Christian America, you ask? Well again, these plans were begun over a century ago. They’ve been patient and dedicated to their religion for over a hundred years! After last week’s show, a listener wrote to say that our government “tried” abstinence education in the schools “for two years” and it didn’t work. It didn’t work! How many others said the same thing regarding this or other Biblical values? God’s way doesn’t work?! Being brainwashed to even THINK that a certain child would have been better off if they never had lived, let alone say it, has led many a young person to agree and take their own lives. When we know, that according to Jesus, contributing to the harm of ANY little one would leave US, not that child, but US better off if WE had never been born! So let’s look back a century or so. In the 1920’s, John Dewey, along with others from the Communist Party USA and the National Education Association, traveled to the Soviet Union to study how the communists succeeded so well in educating their children as to make them a generation of puppets, and to bring their method back home to America. The Bolsheviks admired Dewey and his work so much they translated his books into Russian. But as part of his goal to transform the US through education, Dewey co-authored and signed the Humanist Manifesto in 1933.

 Humanism is a worldview that focuses on human wisdom and denounces God’s Divine Wisdom and refers to itself as a religious movement to transcend and replace previous religions. See, separation of Church and State (as now interpreted) only applies to Christianity. Dewey said it would be necessary for American teachers to promote the Theory of Evolution to further humanism and remove God from the minds of children. He also implemented plans for children to be re-educated away from the traditional values of the parent, get them into government schools at birth if possible, which remains another goal of the National Education Association. They say this would make kids better citizens for the new world order. Dewey promoted the redistribution of wealth and called for universal socialism, as all progressives today say, for the cause of social justice. Again Dewey wrote, “You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.” And now it’s here. Among his many continuing honors, John Dewey was the first honorary president of the NEA. Think about their goals – federalized standardized testing and groupings of desks for the collective, not individual thought. Teach to the test, bypass individual reasoning and logic, tell them that three times four equals eleven (that fact was at least reported by liberal media last year!) and kids will grow up to believe whatever they are fed. Even I thought it was wonderful when I saw they had little groupings of desks in our sons’ elementary schools, until I found out this was part of the socialist plan to dumb-down our kids. Not by these wonderful teachers, most of whom love our children and commit their lives to providing them with a good education, but by communists and socialists who’ve set out to destroy our Christian Judeo values. See, even communists know that faith comes by hearing. How many parents “make” their kids go to church on Sundays, but throughout the week spend no time in family Bible study or even have a conversation about their faith, but will get behind their children to do their best in sports, make good grades without taking a look at their assignments, never miss their kids games or favorite TV shows, but can’t get to a parent teacher conference once a year?

A few weeks ago I spoke to a frustrated mother who said her nine year old son had been given a low grade on a school project. The mother said he was so upset, because he knew the right answers but the other three students insisted on the wrong answers, so all four were given a “collective” low grade, in a system that has replaced the Ten Commandments with “the pillars of character.” Another local mom I spoke with a few days ago said her fifth grade son had come home from school so upset about his fifth grade sex education and begged her that he not have to take it, and said, “Mom, if I want to know about that stuff, I’ll ask you and Dad. It’s just weird.” Now there’re some involved parents who have set a foundation of godliness and trust for their children. But how many of us church-going parents can say that? Home-schoolers, who continue to be demonized in our culture, are out-testing everyone, and they’re turning out to be very successful taxpayers which will come in handy when the average child in Virginia entering kindergarten today can expect to cost us taxpayers over $136,000 by the end of high school! So why this maniacal effort to prevent parents from having school choice and vouchers to save over a hundred thousand per student? You do the math. Opponents who say vouchers erode public schools by taking away money and teaching jobs (what?) violate the separation of church and state only want our tax dollars to promote their own religion. And they’ve been very successful, with the majority of Christian children denying their faith by the time they leave college and only one in ten high school seniors believing there is such a thing as absolute right or wrong. Let’s look again at some of the 45 Communist Goals updated in 1958 which I shared with you two weeks ago on part one of “God or Government”:

Goal #28 – Eliminate prayer in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “Separation of Church and State.”

Goal#40 – Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

Goal #17 – Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism…soften the curriculum. Get control of teacher associations.

Goal #24 – Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech and free press.

Goal #25 – Break down cultural standards of morality by pro-moting pornography in books, magazines, motion pictures and TV.

Goal #26 – Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural and healthy.”

Goals # 20, 21 are to – Infiltrate the press. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

Goal #27 – Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible.

How have we permitted this indoctrination of our children? There was an offshoot of the Fabian Society, in accord with Communist goal 42 which states: Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems, founded groups like Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. There were chapters popping up at nearly every American University. When I was a student at Old Dominion University I was invited by my English professor to attend a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society. This professor had given us as a reading assignment, “The Feminist Mystique,” by the lying Betty Friedan who confessed later she was only doing her job as a member of the Communist party USA in destroying America, and another book by Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals.” Students for a Democratic Society was a radical communist/socialist group begun in the 1960's by the Fabian Society and spread throughout US Colleges, and it became one of the main representations of the New Left, now progressives. I thought it was only what it advertised: “The most powerful collaboration of American college students with America’s most powerful leaders to help the poor and disenfranchised. It also promised that working with these powerful figures in government, education, and the media had gotten thousands of college students high ranking jobs right out of school! Wow, a means to fight for minorities and the have-nots AND get connected with a good job when I graduated? Hey, I was in. And I would have stayed in, but for a few things that made my first meeting my last. Yes, they delivered what they promised. The meeting room was filled with students just like me, and lots of professors, including the English professor who had personally escorted me to the meeting. But there were so many older professional men who looked out of place schmoozing young college students like me. It gave me a really creepy feeling, and in their speeches, these men seemed to be fueled more with hatred of what they claimed was wrong with America than they were with love of the down and out. They promoted lifting up minorities by tearing down the white capitalists; elevating women by degrading men; by capitalizing on every individual failure of members of “the establishment” and, this really got me - to never underestimate the influence one person has to take down the “autocratic” Church with mockery and division. Promote divisions wherever they arose to divide and conquer. No, they didn’t seem to be very nice people. Afterward, my professor insisted I meet the speaker, and I remember asking him about the organization’s name, “Students for a Democratic Society - Worker-Student Alliance.” I thought Students for a Democratic Society was just like Young Democrats, but what was the Worker Student Alliance about and how were they connected. But I didn’t hear what the man said, because while he was talking I saw behind him, on the other side of the room, a man, about 60 or so, in a suit wearing an armband, and I thought I was seeing things, but the emblem was a Nazi swastika. Someone else looked to be arguing with the man about the armband and that’s when I started feeling sick. When I got back to my apartment I called my Dad to tell him about the meeting. He lost it. Dad knew all about this radical group, its goals and its roots in the Fabian Society and Communism. Dad said, “I didn’t sacrifice all those years to give you girls a Christian education and pay college tuition just so you can get involved with communist groups who hate God and America!” My Dad’s name was William A. Foster, and that’s when I learned about William Z. Foster, General Secretary of the American Communist Party in the thirties, forties and fifties, who ran for US president in 1924, ‘38 and ’32. William A. Foster ordered me to the campus library to check out a book by this Stalinist called “Toward Soviet America.” And here’s a quote: "Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are...[a] National Department of Education...the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society."

So that was my first and last meeting of Students for a Democratic Society, which has over a hundred chapters throughout our Country today – including Virginia, filled with unsuspecting young people who are taught that to eradicate injustice you have to destroy whoever enjoys justice. And to do so, you must transfer all individual rights to the government who will see to it that everyone is taken care of in a just manner. Remember, a child’s nature is to trust those in authority, and we’re warned we won’t enter Heaven without this childlike trust in God’s ways, not man’s. But now the vision of federal government control is precisely the plan of “Common Core” – which violates the Constitutional rights of States and local boards to govern education and transfers them to the Federal Government. Our Constitution was framed so that this immense power could not be placed in the hands of one dictator! But these standards, promoted by the NEA without the input of state legislators, local school boards, teachers or residents level all schools to one, low national standard. Federal bureaucrats set the test standards and federally redistribute education funds among school districts. Fortunately, Governor Bob McDonnell pulled us out of Common Core, along with a few other states. But this socialization of education is precisely what the National Education Association lobbies for every election. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2009, the NEA collected over $377 million dollars in 2009, mostly from unsuspecting teachers around the country who believe the NEA has their best interests at heart. These beautiful teachers, who have to pay out of pocket for supplies and special projects, paying dues to the country’s biggest “progressive” union touting itself as a professional employee organization. But they put little of their money toward teacher professional development and most on lobbying for goals from a Communist Manifesto and padding their own salaries. Union statisticians and the Department of Labor list over 450 officers and staff making six figure incomes, with their executive director making $492 thousand a year. Go to the NEA Website and look up Professional Development. where teachers can learn about the importance of unions, how to identify students who can be groomed as activists, how to engage others in politics, assertiveness training which teaches how to move to “an assertive mode of behavior.” Look up the NEA “diversity day” calendar. They’ve added Oct. as a day to celebrate the founding of communism in China by Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. And for many years, they’ve promoted and sold a book by Saul Alinsky as recommended reading for ALL teachers, called “Rules for Radicals.” That was the other reading assignment from my college English professor. By Communist Saul Alinsky in 1971, it sets forth plans of action that I plead with you all to look up. At least look at the opening dedication in this book, where Alinsky wrote: “Acknowledgement to the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively, that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” Again, look up Saul Alinsky and see for yourself who in our administration today embraced and even taught his plan to others. This book was the inspiration behind the Cloward-Piven Strategy, or “Crisis Strategy” which seeks the collapse of America by providing financial entitlements beyond its means, making people so dependent on government, that they will turn to the very people they trust the least to rescue them in a time of crisis, and gladly submit to marshal law, giving up their weapons of self-defense, stop standing for whatever it was they were standing for before, like the unborn. Alinsky wrote, "Make the enemy (that’s us!) live up to their (sic) own book of rules," When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, . . . human agencies (like our churches) inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. So, for example, even if the majority of the country is opposed to paying personally for unlimited abortions, sterilizations of women (not men, just women), giving your hard earned dollars to pay for contraceptives and Planned Parenthood’s pornographic propaganda (which is given out in elementary schools without parental knowledge or consent) and say the majority is opposed to any language in a health law that could even remotely be interpreted to deny your elderly grandparents health care, Alinsky-ites say that when the finances of such Christians are affected, we’ll abandon our own “book of rules”, (like the Bible, the Constitution and Bill of Rights) and those we elected to stand for us. John Adams, America’s second President wrote at the time,  

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation [that is, hypocrisy] towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

So beloved in Christ, what say you and I join hands for the sake of our children and future generations before it’s too late? And under the sovereignty and power of Christ our King, grab that whale by its tale, before he makes it all the way through, and fling him back to hell where he belongs?

A Reading from 'The Crossing' by Jack Levin

Overwhelming Obstacles Faced Washington's Men


Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851. Oil-on-canvas painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. The painting commemorates General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the first move in a surprise attack against the Hessian forces at Trenton, New Jersey.

Last night, Dr. Mark Levin challenged the gloom in the Conservative community with a reading from his father's book: The Crossing [click to read] Beginning with Washington's humble acceptance of his commission to command the Continental Army, Jack Levin then goes on to detail the string of setbacks and overwhelming odds against which Washington and his soldiers struggled.

Bootless men tied rags around their feet and still their blood stained the snow. Crossing a river full of ice flows, they went on to become a part of history!

I was in the studio listening intently to the reading, challenged by the faith and courage that Dr. Levin and his father so vividly brought to life. Faith and Courage! We need those stunning Virtues now more than ever.

If Washington felt unworthy for the task, my own unworthiness is greater. Yet, these are the times that call for such as us to keep up the good fight. Washington sought help from the Divine, and His Grace and Mercy are "New every morning!" -- Lamentations 3:23 They are available to us!

"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." -- Galations 6:9

THYME Magazine: Looking to the Future

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XXI

Motivated by the Hope Unseen

"Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but G-d, and I care not whether they be clergyman or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon the earth.” -- John Wesley

Consider for a minute the amount of energy expended worldwide to persecute people of Faith. Organizations like Voice of the Martyrs [1.] report that it is at an all time high. Christians and Jews seem to often find themselves in the cross hairs of world opinion. Why should this be? Could it be that those who want to set up earthly kingdoms or earthly Utopias know better than the Saints the true power of the Kingdom of G-d?

In his book Under the Influence [2.] Alvin Schmidt lays out a compelling case for the positive influence those who have pursued the Kingdom of G-d have had on the world. Far from being of "no earthly good," people of faith have revolutionized healthcare, care for orphans and the poor and generally improved the welfare of the places they have been carried to, in fulfillment of the admonition in Jeremiah 29:

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the G-d of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;

Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;

Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.

And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace."

Generally the abuses so quickly cited as reasons for limiting the influence of the church occurred as kings and clerics misappropriated the language of faith in pursuit of earthly power. The National Socialists in Germany may have artfully spun the language of the church, but why then did they find men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer [3.] so dangerous? In earlier times men like Meno Simonsz [4.] stood in opposition to what they saw as the church succumbed to the culture around her.

Presenting a clear alternative to the prevailing paradigms of the culture, men and women of faith serve an unseen kingdom and in doing so influence the world. William Wilberforce eliminated the vile institution of slavery [5.] in England. George Müller changed the way society viewed orphans [6.] along with Charles Dickens [7.]. Florence Nightengale and Dorethea Dix [8.], inspired by faith, worked tirelessly to improve the human condition.

Which brings me back to the original question: Why should a society so diminish those institutions and people who have contributed so much? Perhaps it is time to take another look at the power and place of faith... especially the place it has in one's own life. To that end Billy Graham, one of America's most prominent spokespersons for faith, presents: My Hope America [click to view]. This series of programs, culminating in November of 2013, offers a foundation of hope to a nation who's moorings have been deeply shaken.

Journey to Jesus Framed for Church Nursery

The Original Mural Reduced for a Smaller Space


The Journey to Jesus painting is originally 82 feet long. Here it is reduced to six feet of framed image. Mural by Kristina Elaine Riley and Bob Kirchman

Greenmonte Fellowship's newly expanded infant and toddler nursery will soon feature a framed print of the Journey to Jesus painting. The painting depicts children from the world's nations coming to the Saviour and their names (along with their meaning) make an interesting lesson for young people.

The Epic of Human Civilization: Isaiah 60, Rev: 21


Click Here for larger image.


Click Here for larger image.

THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Edition IV

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XX

America's Obama Problem

The 'other' weekly news magazine last week featured an interesting cover on their Overseas Editions [click to read]. Michael Bloomberg may aspire to be "Mayor of the World," but Barack Hussein Obama seems to be more intent on conquering his own country's Tea Party than asserting the cause of stability, peace and freedom around the world.

Edward Klein, in his book The Amateur [click to read]  has some harsh criticism for the President, presenting us with: "a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency -- while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House."

"On issue after issue, President Obama remains his insular self, refusing to seek counsel or input from others with more experience. Critics believe he has made a mess of foreign policy precisely because not only does he have a dearth of experience in this area, but because, under our system, foreign policy is one of the few areas where a president enjoys almost unlimited power. Thus, he is free to formulate his own agenda regardless of the views of others and the damage these policies cause."-- Ed Lasky

Indeed it is Obama's inability to deliver the sort of openness and constructive dialogue he promised in his campaigns that is dogging him now. Seeking to "fundamentally transform" this country, he and his fellow Progressives pushed their unpopular healthcare law through Congress in spite of strong and reasoned opposition. Rather than listen to less disruptive ways to deal with The Preexisting Condition Problem [click to read], Obama insisted that the ONLY solution was to create a massive government driven solution encompassed in a 2000+ page piece of legislation which was merely the outline of a structure to be designed later by bureaucrats. Indeed, the scope of the legislation seems driven by the desire of Progressives to eventually arrive at a Single Payer system, though that end is clearly unpopular.

As the Manhattan Institute's Roy Avok points out: "Obamacare’s approach to pre-existing conditions helps a small number of people gain coverage in the short term, but the law makes the fundamental problems worse by driving up the cost of health insurance and requiring employers to sponsor health coverage for their workers, even when workers would be better off owning their own policies."

So, Obama wrestles with a Congress essentially doing its job. "Legislation by Appropriation" is nothing new. Already scores of Obama friends in business have received waivers from the "employer mandate," the exchange website is beset with glitches and in spite of a fawning media there is no way to gloss over the fact that this legislation is wreaking havoc on the system. Costs are rising, employers are shifting thousands of employees to 'part time' status to control their budgets. When the dust settles it is estimated that there will still be thousands uninsured and projections do not show that there will be funds to care for them.

As Obama fiddles, the world burns. The President is missing the opportunity to speak forcefully into the Iranian nuclear crisis and his generally weak and ambiguious foreign policy leaves a gap that nations like China, who DO aspire to world leadership, are moving to fill. Thankfully there are leaders like Binyamin Netanyahu who are not afraid to assume the authority American Presidents once possessed in world affairs. It is THEIR leadership that will have to carry us through this present time of crisis.

John Bunyan Inspired Board Game

The Game of Pilgrim's Progress


1875, McGloughton Brothers Manufacturers, New York, from the John Bunyan Collection of Erskine Seminary.

THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Issue III

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XIX

Taking the Narrative Back

Blogger Bill Evans Writes in a piece entitled NPR and the Power of Narrative [click to read]:

"Most of the government is shut down.” So we repeatedly hear from mainstream news outlets like National Public Radio (NPR), as they continue to hammer the narrative that American wellbeing and the interests of the common person are threatened by a small group of selfish “Tea Party extremists” who have seized control of the Republican Party in order to subvert the Constitution and representative democracy.

Of course, the reality is that the facts don’t support this narrative. According to informed estimates, 83 percent of the government continues to operate. And this, in turn, explains why lots of Americans don’t seem particularly worried, despite mainstream media efforts to portray the situation as apocalyptic or worse."

Dr. Evans continues: "Moreover, the Republican Party is, in fact, a splintered and messy conglomeration of main-street business interests, neo-cons, libertarians, cultural conservatives, religious conservatives, and yes, Tea Party types. And for the record, despite the whining of the current President, in this instance the government is working exactly as the Founding Fathers envisioned."

Dr. Evans goes on to point out that a body of citizens who possess little knowledge of how our government was designed to work look to the narrative as they form their opinions and make choices. He who controls the narrative controls the discussion. Using the example of the Matthew Shepard murder in 1998, Dr. Evans cites NPR host Rachel Martin's interview with author Stephen Jimenez about his book: The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard (Steerforth, 2014).While the narrative surrounding the murder was that it was undoubtedly a "hate crime," Jimenez' own investigation proved otherwise. Jimenez is a gay man himself, but his honest investigation and NPR's airing of the interview are laudible.

Still, the narrative of the "hate crime" became the driving force behind President Clinton's push for the subsequent Hate Crimes Legislation. Even as Jimenez, who admits wrestling with this confrontation of the truth, determined that the truth was what really mattered.

To be perfectly honest, all of us resort to the narrative. I recently considered a purported Bill Cosby quote that underscored MY narrative for inclusion in THYME. There was a problem though, my research pointed to the strong possibility that Cosby didn't say it. The quote was dropped. Another wonderful story hit my desk about NASA scientists "discovering" a "missing day," thus corroborating Scriptural accounts. The problem here was that there was no reference to any actual paper or research.

Truth matters. Sadly Mr. Jimenez is a rare force in journalism. Many in the mainstream media will continue to reinforce the narrative that "the government is shut down," but how many of them will consider the plight of those outside their narrative: "So the next time you hear NPR journalists talking about how “most of the government is shut down” (when it’s not) don’t be surprised. And the next time you notice NPR and the rest of the mainstream media studiously ignoring the people whose health insurance costs are skyrocketing because of the now ironically named Affordable Care Act, and at the same time paying no attention to part-time workers whose hours are being cut or who are losing their jobs due to the quite predictable impact of Obama Care (as anybody would have known if they had bothered to read the bill), don’t be surprised."

Taking Back the Narrative

Conservatives OUTSIDE the political process, ironically, are masters of the narrative  on their home court. (If you are reading this, you probably are Conservative or Libertarian; or one of my colleagues just being nice). Creating beautiful publications like American Conservative [click to read] and City Journal [click to read], we are great at telling a more complete, more truthful story. The problem is who we're NOT reaching.

If anything, the current government shutdown offers us a great opportunity. Our friends and family who are furloughed government workers have time on their hands... dare I suggest we give them some THYME? As self-serving as that may be, it behooves us to attempt at every turn to create provocative presentations of beauty and truth and share them. Hopefully we can insert solid dialogue and reason into the narrative.

THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Edition II

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XVIII

"What Happened to America?"
A Conversation with Donna Lou Shikel
© 2013 Donna Lou Shickel Publishing Co. Distribute freely with permission

(This is a transcript of This Broadcast [click to listen] of Donna Lou Shickel's program: A Place of Grace. It is a very well researched beginning to a series she is presenting on this program. Here is presented a very concise, but thorough picture of what has happened to our nation. This is essential information for those of us who wish to reclaim it).

A Decline by Diabolical Design? 

What has happened in America in the last half a century? How have the foundational blocks of a Judeo-Christian society, dissolved so quickly? How has the greatest country in all of the world’s history moved toward the brave new world, right under our noses? And are we, without even knowing it, part of her decline? Welcome to A Place of Grace, I’m your host, Donna Lou. I used to think people who spoke of what I’m about to tell you were conspiracy theorists. Back when I didn’t want to listen because somewhere, in my heart, I knew if I did, I would be compelled to investigate, and then do something about it. And regret that I had other matters more pressing – family, faith, and freely sharing that faith even at state sponsored events. Matters which will all play out very differently for my children because I figured someone else would take care of it. This is America. But ever since beginning this program, I have had countless letters from listeners, especially our World War II generation, wanting to share their fears over where America is headed if we as Christians do not stand for America’s Judeo-Christian values and founding principles. I once dismissed people who spoke of America’s decline as alarmists, sky is falling chicken littles. Because that’s what they were so commonly labeled. Today we call them haters. As I’ve researched this progression for the past six months now, in preparation for today’s show, I have been struck by just what one person with an ordinary background can accomplish through lies for the sake of evil. And today, as a Christian, I am convicted that with G0d, as a disciple and ambassador of Christ Himself, how much more can one person do in His Love for the sake of Truth?

You may know, more people were slaughtered in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined. According to the Congressional record, one hundred and thirty-five million - martyred for the cause of Communism, which says there is no law higher than the state – the government. And in order to achieve that end, they must create new types of human beings who would conform to the blueprint of a world in which they have great faith they will one day control. The Communist Party operates by infiltrating and subverting social institutions like the churches, schools, mass media and government. And according to Vladimir Lenon, founder of the Soviet Union, the first and necessary step toward Communism is to implement socialism – socializing every institution under the nation’s government. And the main thrust of this philosophy is to first destroy all Judeo-Christian culture and values. No longer by force, because that hasn’t worked, but by subverting from the inside out. But we thought Communism was dead. The Berlin wall came down! No, Communism is alive and deadly for one and a half billion people in South and Central America, six countries in Latin America, Africa, China, Cuba, North Korea, Viet Nam, Russia, Eastern Europe, and proponents of its philosophy serve in governments and universities all over the world. How can this be? Well as Whitaker Chambers, former Soviet spy and member of Communist Party USA said after his conversion: “Communism succeeds because most people who promote Communist causes are not Communists—the useful idiots, as Lenin called them—giving an air of legitimacy it would never have if it were identified with communists or Communism.” So are well-intentioned people becoming useful idiots? And why would anyone be in favor of promoting socialism that without exception always leads to communism and the mass murder of more people in times of peace than all of the wars of history combined?

Denying a Divine Design for Society

History has proven that the free society of a Judeo-Christian nation best benefits all people. In my research in trying to be fair and see both sides, I discovered that Socialists and Communists have no hidden agendas. They are wide out in the open, and despite changing their label from socialists to progressives, they are not ashamed not too complacent to promote their agenda. But without having knowledge of this agenda, today in America, have many good people, including the targeted Judeo-Christan populace, cooperated with socialist/communist goals? Do we follow Jesus, Who came to serve? Do we claim the words of the Apostle Paul, 10 I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ (1 Corinthians 12 verse 10) Or have we bought in to the notion that we are entitled to be free from hardship and deserving of being served? All ideologies that set aside God’s plan to “make life fair” for mankind by man’s plan only succeed by devaluing and destroying certain groups of human beings first, then eventually, everyone but those in power. Dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro all came to power by claiming to bring change and make life and the world fair and just for all people. But facts show that there is no example in history that big government does NOT prepare the platform for just such an evil dictator, even using well-intentioned predecessors to prepare the way, that’s what’s so scary, and it’s the reason our Constitution is set up the way it is. But the Constitution, the law, is being broken time and time again, to use against the very Christian faith of DIVINE justice it was founded upon. And we just shake our heads. Because like the nations before us, no one dared even suggest that such wonderful people as their country’s leaders could have anything but the best plan in mind for them -even as they were promised justice for all in the process of having every individual freedom stripped from them to create greater dependency on the state.

Frogs in the pot? No, I don’t think so. Had the frog been told he was the frog in the pot he would have had the sense to at least fight to get out of the pot. Socialism, the first necessary step, is taking things by force, not godly charity and justice, from one person to freely give to another. Up front, it may look fair and just. Most people in our country don’t see the evil behind this at all because it’s the utopian vision that will finally bring world peace and justice. So many good people in our country, and government, are sincere in raising up the down and out. But before you can get people to the place you can take by force, you have to demonize certain groups, elevate others, create divisions between them and by the time they are in so much fear (also part of the plan), all they can think of are their own personal interests, and others are dehumanized. No longer compassion and love of neighbor, but disconnected and even repulsed by certain other groups of human beings. Because as is in their open agendas, socialists know they must get citizens to dehumanize others in order for the plan to progress. History shows us that whether it was Hitler’s National Socialism or Stalin’s Soviet Socialism, the people eventually revolt, and the government, who has already prevented its people from being armed with their own weapons of self defense, responds with mass murders. Could never happen here? Not in civilized Germany either. Ever hear the story of the cattle cars full of Jews that would pass behind a certain Christian church, and in the middle of their worship they would hear the train and the cries for help? The good people, what could they do at this point, would pick up their hymnals and sing as loud as they could to drown it out. People would be too afraid to even make such associations. And not a one of us can judge a person’s heart, or whether their motives are good or evil. Or some of both, we don’t know. We don’t know who is a well-intentioned pawn and who is the wolf in sheep’s clothing. But we do know that what is happening in America is evil. And we have to call evil, evil. Because the nest phase of this evil plan is to create chaos, then government steps in as the solution. Because by this point, in the midst of fear and chaos, people will turn a blind eye to the demise of others while bowing to those in authority. They will cooperate with the very leaders they trust the least to come to their aid!

First, they must destroy family, law, productivity, prosperity, and methodically eradicate individual freedoms. Degrade the culture. Infiltrate education, media, call it political correctness, but it’s really cultural Marxism, then it becomes traditional Marxism which is socialism then it becomes outright communism, where the government controls every institution and individual. But if we remember history, why wouldn’t we look at this and take a stand? Well, much of this history has been removed from our children’s textbooks, and replaced with a vilification of our free market system as evil, along with the magnification of all of America’s social ills while removing her legacy of charity and heroism. And the influence of Christian Judeo values, which once was acknowledged as at the heart of every American victory over evil, for G0d and fellow countryman, has been taught to an entire generation, that now the CAUSE of every civilization’s problems and wars, is religion. You even hear this propaganda from pulpits. We’ve been too brainwashed to cry foul over being stripped of our religious freedoms, we’re the bad guys now. We can only turn the other cheek and convince ourselves that Jesus will return next weekend. Problem is, in doing so, we’re unwittingly cooperating in the destruction of the many souls Christ sent us to reach. A generation has been raised on this, and its founders are tenured, ordained and in public office.

Friends, none of us wants injustice in our world. But few of us want a real leader, because a leader is someone who leads the people to become involved in their plan to move forward. We’ve gotten too complacent to even educate ourselves on the issues, as we see with our government Health Care Plan. (Although no one was allowed to read the bill until it was passed, and if we did? We’d read what it proposes, and say, yea, but that’s a scenario that could never happen.) Most people decide who they will vote for not by doing research, but by “charisma” and charm, and slants from their misleading advertising and the secular media. We’ll go by emotions, not facts. That takes too much time and trouble. Again, the mission of socialists, or progressives, always sound like a good thing. But the agenda, which we’re going to talk about, is a nightmare. In 1992 the Communist party USA split over differences in how to take America down. One side wanted outright revolution. But the other side recognized that all of those efforts throughout history have failed. They saw that the best plan was to infiltrate America from the inside. Because a people united in faith in God and in sacrificial love of their fellow citizens could not be brought down and ruled by government no matter what you do to them. But if you destroy the human will and character, if you work to rot away the sacrificial life of those who would give their lives for the greater good, then people will become so dependent that they will want you to rule and reign. If you can break down individual integrity, destroy and degrade the family, then you can penetrate the culture with a cultural revolution. Precipitate and actually create crisis and government can step in and once the chaos comes, people are very eager to step aside and let the government step in. The more this happens, the more dependency on big government you can create, the more quickly people will compromise their G0d-given values. This is so evil, and contrary to everything we stand for as children of G0d.

 The Forty-five Goals of the Communist Party

If you look up the Communist Party USA, which has chapter members in every state and growing, once you read past their opening mission statements of helping the poor and disenfranchised, you will easily discover their agenda consists of something entirely different, and outrageously evil. And very much in effect in our country today. Their goals, which originated in Europe, were reaffirmed after their split in 1992 and were confirmed in a book called “The Naked Communist” written back in 1958 by Cleon Skousen, a former FBI agent investigating communist activities. The book outlines 45 goals set forth by Communists in the 1930’s, which were updated from the original Communist goals outlined back to the 1880’s in Europe. The first two goals require U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war and U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. Number three says: “Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.” The goals continue with promotion of alliances, free trade and aid to Communist countries. Number eleven says: "Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces because (it says), (some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. 

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party. 
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths (like the Pledge of Allegiance). 
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office. 
15. Capture (infiltrate) one or both of the political parties in the United States. 
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights. 
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. (If you look up the National Education Association’s agenda, you would be shocked to see how effective they’ve been.) Put the party line in textbooks (promote communist ideals in US textbooks, and we have many individuals with connections to communist organizations who are in the highest ranks of education – just compare the history books of today with from when you were little . 
18. Gain control of all student newspapers. 
19. Use student riots . . .. 
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of (book-review) assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions. 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures. (that was easy) 

Number 22: Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. Eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms. Again, people in these government positions are connected to Socialist/communist organizations. 
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art. 
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press. 
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. 
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy." 
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch." 
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools (again, this from 1958!) on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state." 
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. (Again, a generation indoctrinated would agree with this statement.) 
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man." 
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." (again, just pick up one of the textbooks) #32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized (government) control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc. 
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus. 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities. (abolished in 1975) 
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI. 
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions. 
37. …and of big business. 
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat]. 
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals. 
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. 
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. 
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems. 
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal. 
 45. Repeal the Connally Reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike."

That is from the 1958 book, “The Naked Communist.” As I said, most socialists and communists, other than the Communist Party USA chapters, are now labeling themselves “progressives”. They’re even getting rid of the label of “liberals.” Many of whom probably don’t realize they are cooperating with the open agendas of Communism, or if they do, think it’s an acceptable compromise for change. But in any case, the first attack is on all of our traditional Christian Judeo, moral values - the traditional family. These Communist Agendas begun in America in the 1930’s and in Europe in the 1880’s, ratified in the 60’s, 90’s, and you’ll find them when you look up the Fabian Society, from 1880’s still alive and growing, or the Students for a Democratic Society, later the Weather Underground Organization, busting at the seams, ACORN, well you get the point. On our own soil, under our noses, calling members to work to promote infidelity, divorce, co-habitation and sexual immorality and immodesty. Fuel the women’s liberation movement, promote discontent and anger between the sexes. Belittle and degrade the father as head of the family and get women into the workforce to remove children from parental influence and into government programs as early as possible. To increase governmental power, destroy business and the free markets, demonize business owners, both large and small, as “the wealthy and privileged” - enemies of the poor, despite their being the largest source of remedy for underprivileged, I mean 10 percent of nothing is still nothing) and paint businesses as the enemy of the environmental movement which the socialist/progressives in the organizations I cited, state is “as essential to the destruction of capitalism as was the legalization of the birth control to getting women to abdicate their own children” who were then ripe for indoctrination, and to destroy the traditional, bourgeois family, as they labeled it. Discourage business growth with new laws, taxes and red tape. Didn’t business majors at James Madison University (along with other schools) just get singled out to pay thousands more in tuition to make life “more fair” for the other majors? I couldn’t compare the work business majors had to do compared to me as a liberal arts major. The news release called this singling out of business majors as a means to “even the playing field”. Not for science or engineering majors, who generally make higher salaries - no, just business majors. One more link in the chain of imprisonment to make independent business the villain and government the hero.

Class Warfare as a Part of Their Agenda

Another important part of their open agenda is to destroy unity in America by igniting class divisions. Promote hatred between the races, the rich and the poor, men and women, the young and old, between the North and the South, within religions, get behind any discontent and fuel it and vilify anyone trying to heal divisions. Use political correctness to demonize anyone and everyone in your way. Take your biggest swing at the Church, and promote vilification of Christians, and anywhere there is division between Christian entities, jump in and promote it. One method of openly degrading morality I discovered in a Students for a Democratic Society meeting I attended in college, and I’ll have to tell you about that bone-chilling experience next time, but the statement was actually to incite hatred against any churches teaching the virtues and sacrificial life. To promote sexual immorality and the traditional, archaic Christian values, you can accuse anyone who teaches a life of virtue and sanctification of promoting a “salvation through works” theology. Christians just look for reasons to hate each other,” the speaker said. And people laughed. But all these groups call members to incite prejudice and bigotry after maligning and slandering us to the extend that those activists sincerely believe they are crusaders in a cause for what is right and what is good. I’ll tell you also next time of some of the radical, socialist leaders who’ve infiltrated our education system, government, news media, Hollywood and churches to dismantle Judeo-Christian values, morality and to fuel any divisions and prejudices that ordinary people like you and I can participate in and see as “harmless”. Am I being dramatic or alarmist? Or a hater? Well, no one decided one day to simply start throwing Jewish families into ovens.

No soldier with a conscience would participate with a Communist leader forcing starvation on millions of their own countrymen. And no civilized American would tolerate health care that jeopardizes their grandparents or anyone else who can’t speak up. It starts with an insidious plan in which the majority who cooperate with are well-intentioned but blind to. And you can and must do your own research and decide how successful they have been, and consider which of these trajectories we have compromised with that started so small, the lesser evil, but now we see how far from the Truth that we profess, they have taken us. And don’t fear. If you’re involved, praying, believing G0d, and standing firm in His Truth, Who is Christ, you won’t fear. But if you’re doing nothing, if you won’t even take the time to go to your children’s parent teacher’s conference, or you’re too chicken speak to an errant pastor, or take the time to even cast an informed vote, well then, trust me, fearing is all you can and will do. Burying your head is a scawy, dark place. But who feels afraid in the Light? Come on, beloved! As I said in the opening, in six months of researching this topic which we’ll continue with part 2 and 3 if we have to, I’ve been AMAZED at just what one person with an ordinary background can accomplish through lies for the sake of evil. But as a Christian, I am convicted that with G0d, as a disciple and ambassador of Christ Himself, with two thirds of the hosts of Heaven and countless saints cheering us on, how much more can just one person do in His Love for the sake of Truth? Join the battle for Truth and Divine Justice. And know at least, if we go down, we’ll go down on the winning side.

THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Edition

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XVII

Taking Washington Back

Bob Owens [click to read] writes: "We’re cursed with a President and Senate that seems determined to use the law (when it suits them), or ignore the law (when it suits them), or descend into outright criminality (when it suits them), in order to fundamentally pervert this nation’s core beliefs.

Barack Obama has proven useless except for one thing: he has been able to bring the proverbial frogs to a boil and has imposed blatant socialism without spurring a popular rebellion so far.

If the Republicans will stick to their guns—and Obama keeps showing his arrogance to a public that has willfully buried their heads in the sand until now—there is a chance that the rising tide of anger could sweep this administration away.

Keep doing what you’re doing, Barack, and may it spell the beginning of the end of all the crony socialism you hold dear."

As the government shutdown enters its second week, some things are becoming quite clear. We've seen what can only be called pettiness on the part of an administration that is determined to assert how essential it is to our collective well-being.

Flights of Honor bring WWII veterans to Washington to visit the monument, constructed with private donations, in their honor. Can you imagine their feelings when they arrived only to find an open air monument barricaded and patrolled by more park rangers than are seen there on a normal day? The troops, who had stormed places like Omaha Beach and fought heroically to liberate the European continent, broke down the barricades.

The image of elderly gentlemen in wheelchairs taking back THEIR monument [1.] is one of the first memories we take from the current struggle. The Vietnam memorial was barricaded too, along with the Marine's Memorial across the Potomac River. While veterans struggled to get into their monuments and PXs on military bases were closed, President Obama's favorite golf courses remained in operation [2.]... not a great lesson in 'shared sacrifice.'

Park Service personnel admitted to having been ordered to 'make things difficult' for visitors [3.], even going so far as to block private businesses [4.] that had to be accessed from roads like the Blue Ridge Parkway. They even tried to shut down Mount Vernon, which is run by a private foundation. They did so by closing a parking area they maintain for Washington's home. They tried to deny access to Mount Rushmore [5.], forgetting that the STATE owns the road from which one views it!

Terror at Talladega, Government Gone Wild [click to read]: Angie Creswell McGhee has her own tale of bureaucracy run amok. At Talladega, government officials endangered the safety of riders and horses and ignored reasonable pleas from riders in an event that, ironically, was a BENEFIT for a camp in the National Forest! The forced evacuation of their campground sounds like something from Germany in the 1940's! The exhausted riders were TERRIFIED!

Congress, mandated by Congress with control of the public purse, passed individual bills to fund government operations all would consider necessary. Harry Reid and the President refused to consider them. The National Institute of Health was shut down and Congress passed legislation to fund it specifically. Harry Reid found himself opposing clinical trials [6.] that would help children with cancer.

When asked why he wouldn't want to "help one child with cancer?" Reid snapped back: "Why would we want to do that?" Do we REALLY want these people in charge of our healthcare?

Thomas Sowell [click to read] writes: "If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government."

Sowell continues: "When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the history of other examples of "legislation by appropriation" as it used to be called."

Which brings us to the core of the struggle. President Obama and the liberal factions used every trick in the book to "pass" the "Affordable Care Act" over reasonable opposition [7.] The "Cornhusker Kickback" and the "Selling of Stupak" were just a few of the tactics employed to pass the bill that Nancy Pelosi said: "we had to pass... so that we could see what is in it!"

Turns out Ms. Pelosi was telling the truth. The 2000+ page legislation was nothing more than a framework for bureaucrats to flesh out into actual operations. It provided mandates and fines, but did far too little to address actual reforms that would help people with pre-existing conditions and cut medical costs.

Budget projections that exceeded promised limits, unpopular mandates and general confusion led to scores of companies seeking exemption. The administration's 'signature legislation' simply wasn't ready for 'prime time.' As the stalemate continues, Congress' move to delay 'Obamacare' seems far more reasonable than the hysteria the administration seems determined to display in protecting it.

Give us This Day Our Daily Scolding [click to read]
Chaplains "Non-Essential?" [click to read]
Amber Alert Website Closed while Mrs. Obama's Open [click to read]
Park Personnel Ordered to 'Make Life Difficult' [click to read]
Obama's Golf Course Spared in Shutdown [click to read]
Illegal Aliens Can Have Mall During Shutdown [click to read]
NPR and the Power of Narrative [click to read]
Even More from THYME [click to read]

Terror at Talladega, Government Gone Wild

'Government Shutdown' Creates Dangerous Scramble


After orders by federal officials to leave, a dangerous exodus ensues. Photo by Angie Creswell McGhee

Guest Commentary by Angie Creswell McGhee

Talladega: Insane day and night dealing with psycho government federals. Imagine doing a fast 50 in very hot, humid conditions over rugged trails. Some were still on trail finishing up the 75. You've all been up since 4 AM. At 10 PM the federals showed up and said "EVERYBODY OUT NOW!!" 100 big rigs backed in all around tricky pine tree parking areas, DARK, your stuff is scattered everywhere, horses are tired and need to rehydrate. We said, "FIRST thing as soon as it's light". NO NOW!! or you will be ticketed, prosecuted, towed." "TOWED WHERE WITH WHAT? What could even get IN these parking places at night?" More threats. Now there’s a traffic jam building up through camp with long trails of red tail lights at a standstill. "What about the people who came from Texas and Louisiana, came in off the trail and had a few drinks, this is insane! None of these people are really safe driving a big rig on the road at this time of night after a day like this!"

This is where I saw what government healthcare will be like. You have a local official who is probably a nice person who agrees with you, but he has this boss, who has a boss, who has a boss, and they don't get it...and if HE doesn't carry through with orders HE will get a huge fine. They would love to stand up for you but when it comes to your family or his well, sorry. This ride is actually a BENEFIT ride for the Talladega National Forest. They stood to make thousands. It has to be closed down because the person who empties the kiosk with the money in it was on forced furlough. Actually, that person came out to visit with us all day because these volunteers help him do his job every day of the year. The management from this ride literally is the maintenance crew for this trail system and donates hundreds of hours labor per year. Actually, this ride is the reason this camp is as large as it is since they got the grants, and did much of the work to build it. HERE'S THE KICKER...the officials say,"Ok, you can stay till morning...OVER THERE." WHERE??" The day parking area on the other end of camp that doesn't have a kiosk. "You are kidding, right?"

Nope, that was the sort of logic you get from a far removed government official (the kind that will be making your healthcare decisions). There is a day parking area just as you turn in off the road into camp. There is no gate between them, it’s just a different designation. An entire over crowded horse camp with over 100 rigs and exhausted horses and riders was supposed to hook up, load it all, back up around a bunch of pine trees on the sides of hills in the dark, and shift your rigs about 100 yards crammed into a tiny parking area for the next 5 hours or so, then try to get everyone turned around and back out in the morning. The insanity of it was so frustrating. I know that in Washington they all imagined us furious at those who shut down the government. They were WRONG. I really didn’t hear anyone talking about either party, we were talking about a federal government that is inept and out of control.

Personally, it made me see how much WASTE is involved with the federal government and that they are too far removed and cumbersome to be logical about anything. Think about it, because they needed to save the money to pay one person to empty a kiosk, thus would lose a couple of $100 in fees, they lost thousands of dollars that the riders who were already on site were going to donate to the forest. In order to ENFORCE the closure, though they couldn’t afford one man to empty the kiosk, they spent thousands in overtime to send a CREW from Montgomery to work all night with marshals to throw us out! The amount of money spent not to spend money was insane, but the federal government probably does it every day of every week. Rather than risk some psycho physically forcing us to leave our horses, or haul them with our rig off to what…a holding yard where nobody is allowed to touch them because they’re under forced furlough?

We loaded up and pulled out of camp headed for home near midnight. We had been up since 4. The horses were tired and dehydrated. It was NOT good for them and I worried until we unloaded them save at home at 3:30 AM. It was NOT safe for us to be driving. We had a car and a truck there, 3 drivers, so fortunately when Josie started nodding off at her wheel I was fortunately able to take over. Don’t know what anyone who was alone and no place to take a horse would do, maybe pull over but what do you do with horses? I talked to several people including quite a few who are furloughed and the mood was not “Oh well, they’ve made it so unpleasant for us, let’s give in.” The mood was, “These people are out of control and somebody’s got to stop them. Now is as good a time as any.” Having some faceless person several safe levels away from the action making life and death calls for you is an awful situation. I just hope that those naive people who have pushed for it will feel the consequences in time to turn this country around.

Rockingham Springs Arboretum

A Great Walk at Massanutten Resort's Hopkins Park


Just inside the mountain side of Massanutten Resort, this wonderland awaits.


Cherry bark, as seen along the arboretum trail.

A Taste of the Relief Sale

Mennonite Relief Sale at Rockingham Fairgrounds


Chicken Barbeque begins early in the morning.


Making ice cream.


Cooking apple butter.

Government's Constitutionally Defined Function

National Security Should Be the Overriding Priority


The Hiroshima Prefecture Hall of Industry near the site of the world's first atomic bomb attack on a populated city...

The government shutdown, in my mind has created an overwhelming argument for keeping the government totally out of healthcare management. Consider this, if Harry Reid has no problem denying cancer patients access to possibly lifesaving trials in order to keep the bad old conservatives from scuttling the "Affordable Care Act" with it's religious liberty offending contraception mandate and it's generally liberty offending individual mandate; what is to keep future conservative administrations from shutting everything down in order to remove all abortion? Now personally, I would love to see abortion removed from our healthcare system as my view is that the procedure is killing an unborn person. I would also love to see people of faith free to exercise their conscience in choosing heathcare and insurance. Still, if you are pro-choice, I hope you can see the logic of my argument. In a pluralistic society government solutions are often cumbersome one-size-fits-all solutions that are at best is a poor fit. At their worst they violate basic liberties in a way that a free people should not be willing to accept. Whoever you see as to blame for the current shutdown, it makes sense to consider the weakness of mandatory public systems in that they never operate in a moral vacuum. They will always be potential political pawns. This argument alone begs the abandonment of the "Affordable Care Act."

Single-payer systems, which the "Affordable Care Act" obviously creates a structural framework for, work better in fairly homogenous small nations such as those in Europe. They are still quite controversial. Tourists rejoice that they get treatment for a few dollars while elderly residents of the country report waiting years for such things as artificial hips. The wealthy leave the country and purchase care where a "private option" exists. The poor simply wait. Government certainly may have a legitimate roll as the safety net of last resort and no one would argue against its underwriting the new technology in hospitals, but government has no role in a person's personal healthcare decisions. Whatever role you see for the state, it works better as a supporter of other institutions and worse as a direct agent in people's lives. This week's issue of THYME [click to read] has more thoughts on this controversial healthcare bill that many feel was pushed through to law in defiance of strong and well-reasoned opposition.

Congress does have a Constitutionally mandated duty to originate and authorize spending. They have exercised this responsibility by crafting legislation to fund essential spending on a case by case basis. A return to this level of budgeting might just do wonders in reducing waste and redundancy in government spending.  Hopefully the civics lesson sprung upon us will not be in vain. Scores of companies have already requested (and received) exemption from the corporate mandate. Others are switching large numbers of employees to part-time status to avoid it. The President's "Signature Piece of Legislation" still leaves thousands uninsured while driving up costs for people like myself who have to purchase individual policies. It is time to put this Constitutionally questionable boondoggle out to pasture and create real solutions at the point of actual need.

Our government has another clear function, and that is the defense of our nation. Earlier this week Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu [click to read] was doing our own President's job for him. In addressing the UN he clearly and concisely detailed the very real threat of Hassan Rouhani's soothing rhetoric diverting our attention from Iran's yellow-cake and heavy water production efforts. Mr. Netanyahu pointed out the fact that Iran is now developing long-range ICBMs similar to the ones the US and the Soviet Union possessed in the 1960's.

I respectfully suggest that the President show some firmness to our nation's real enemies outside our borders and embrace honest discussion from the citizens within. Allow the government to be funded, as Congress is empowered to do, and work with all Americans to create targeted and reasonable solutions to the problems that face us.


...The U. S. Capitol, soon within range of Iranian missiles?

What's Happened to America? [click to listen]. Here is a very interesting and informative podcast from Donna Lou Shickel. This is the first of a series broadcast on her program: A Place of Grace.

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XVI

"A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason, and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason it is said to be an unjust law, and thus has not so much the nature of law." -- St. Thomas Aquinas

The 'other' weekly news magazine this week presents a crossed-out Majority Rule [click to read]. Indeed, polls show that a majority of Americans do not want the intrusion of the "Affordable Care Act" [1.] into their healthcare decisions. Many citizens were there protesting the legislation from the beginning. These photos are from a rally at the Senate on April 15, 2009!

The administration pushed this 2000+ page legislation through in spite of the strong opposition [2.] "Elections have consequences," and the President made sure his signature piece of legislation, placing one third of the U.S. economy under government oversight was one of them.

"Cornhusker Kickbacks," Bart Stupak [3.] and a host of other shenanigans were employed in the passage of this bill. Virginia's two Senators turned a deaf ear to overwhelming opposition. We paid our own way to Washington to protest this bill, only to be lectured by Mark Warner staffers.

We were not surprised by the actual projections of the financial impact of the bill "we had to pass so that we can see what is in it," according to Nancy Pelosi. Mandates for contraception and abortion coverage [4.] overrode real concerns for religious liberty. Major corporations shifted scores of employees to "part time" status [5.] in order to remain fiscally viable. Congress exempted itself from the program [6.] and the President has quietly created exemptions [7.][8.] for big corporations. If the program is so good, why do they not want in?

The Constitution clearly places revenue decisions in the hand of the House [9.] and it is not unreasonable for the representatives to exercise this authority. Congress has sent legislation to the Senate that would fund government functions that all would agree on. Obama and Harry Reid resist negotiation. To hear them talk, the "Tea Party" is a greater threat to this nation than 17 Trillion dollars in debt [10.] and a nuclear-armed Iran!

If an unpopular piece of legislation was steamrollered into passage, and is now beset by delays because it "wasn't ready for prime time," [11.][12.][13.] can you really cry "foul" if the "People's House" votes to delay it?


This little girl only owes $39,339...


...Please Senators, don't make it worse!


The 'Freedom Czar...'


...and the 'Freedom Czar.'


This D.C. Resident had already had his fill of Marion Berry way before the Obama administration.


Capturing the moment.


Yes, I am!


I question Obama's 'self grading' myself. I give him an 'incomplete' at best.

Update: Could Republicans be Winning? [click to read], thoughts from the WSJ

"Obama and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid have taken tough stands against the two most villainous groups: WWII veterans and kids with cancer." -- James Taranto

A Time When America Faced Her Real Enemies

The Debt We Owe to the Defenders of Liberty


The World War II Memorial.

There was a time, in our recent past Century, where the world faced the ugly fact that there was a great evil set to overtake it. The Greatest Generation stormed Omaha Beach and fought long and hard to turn the tide. America's survival was NOT inevitable. Indeed, the Axis powers stood ready to dominate the planet.

After Pearl Harbor our fleet had been battered, and our resolve would be well-tested by the years to come, but our fathers pressed on to take the high ground. Does such resolve still exist in our time? Indeed the news that WWII Veterans [click to read] refused to allow their Memorial to be shut off from them proves that great men still walk our land.

Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

As America's President  talks tough about honest opposition to his unpopular healthcare legislation and refuses to allow Congress to fund government operations all would agree on, compare and contrast his rhetoric with the straightforward message of Binyamin Netanyahu. The world has seen the likes of Hassan Rouhani before. Netanyahu, an astute historian, knows how to address them.

America's leadership needs to take a lesson from that of Israel. With Rouhani, "Distrust and verify" is a wise option, but Americans who have pointed out real flaws in the President's "Affordable Care Act" are reasonable and should be negotiated with. The American people have real concerns about this legislation. Holding government services hostage is the worst sort of grandstanding.

Indeed many Americans long for leadership that will take Rouhani to task while opening real constructive dialogue about the problems we face at home.