Monday, March 8, 2010

One World Government and a One World Currency: Is This a “Sign” of the END Times?

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Have Christians unwittingly embraced and promoted the concept of a one world government and one world currency based on what they perceive as being the fulfillment of end time prophecy? When does a belief lend itself to self-fulfillment separate and apart from other contributing factors? Have tyrants sought to take advantage of those holding to such end time beliefs in order to advance, prematurely and selfishly, their own agendas possibly millions, billions, or trillions of years ahead of this much anticipated event? 

Do some Christians seem a bit over anxious in throwing in the financial towel and justify not accepting personal responsibility for their financial situations because they think the end is “nigh”? How does this attitude affect financial stewardship? How does this attitude affect the stewardship of our natural resources? How does this attitude affect our relations with our neighbors across the street or around the world? Would the belief that the end times is imminent lend itself to individuals being more savings oriented or less savings oriented; better stewards of our natural resources or worse stewards; and more loving of our neighbors, at home and abroad, or less loving? How do our beliefs of end time prophecy impact our daily decisions? Are we even aware of its potential impact on a conscious level or is the awareness operating in the realm of our subconscious?

Many Christians claim that a one world government and a one world currency are associated with the evil and wickedness to be destroyed during an apocalyptic event associated with the second coming of Christ. Christians often warn of this impending doom upon mankind and many truly believe it is a “sign” of the times. They often close out their warnings and proclamations of doom with phrases such as, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”

What if - we somehow knew this momentous end time event was going to be over 999 trillion years into the future? Would that change how we would respond and react to those attempting to exercise tyranny over us in the here and now? Would we be behaving like scattered and fearful sheep or wise but harmless serpents? Would we tend to be a bit more personally responsible for our own outcomes knowing our lives and the shaping of the community and the world around us consist of the individual and unique choices we each make on a daily basis?

Hasn’t there usually been some “thing” or some “event” happening in the life cycle of practically every generation of human beings, since the beginning of time, which could conceivably be laid squarely at the doorstep of 
end time prophecy? Why are we often so centrist in our outlook on this topic? In other words, what makes us so special to think we are the chosen ones to witness such a momentous event and that Christ will come in our lifetimes? Anyone out there have any ideas?

We will soon be announcing the release of our book titled 
The END TIMES Hoax and the Hijacking of Our Liberty. In this book, we explore this very interesting topic of end time prophecy and the implications it has had and continues to have on our liberty. We expect readers to find this book very compelling and the ideas presented intellectually stimulating.

The purpose of this article, however, is to examine readily available evidence in considering the probabilities and likelihood of a one world government and currency being successfully implemented. We will tell you on the front end of this discussion that our biases negate any such concern that a modern day 
financial Tower of Babel could enjoy any greater probability of success than did the Tower of Babel spoken of in the Bible. That doesn’t mean such a dream won’t be considered or attempted, but simply that the dream will meet with a similar fate and for similar reasons.

We offer, as a very compelling exhibit, the European Union (EU) as a micro model of a failed attempt at one world government and a one world currency.

The EU, at its inception, was purportedly formed for the purpose of allowing free and unrestricted access to goods and services among the member states. This was a lofty and worthwhile goal as the free flow of goods and services, along with cross border employment opportunities, with our neighbors, is much more preferable to the alternative of trading bullets and bombs with each other.

The bureaucratic barriers to the free flow of information, ideas, commerce, personal travel, and cross border employment were effectively stripped away by the adoption of a common currency, the Euro, trading freely among EU member states but with each state maintaining a significant degree of political autonomy and sovereignty within their own borders. The EU blossomed under this economic model and tremendous wealth was created in the process.

As with most free market endeavors, the tremendous wealth that was created as a result of this EU endeavor attracted societal parasites consisting of bureaucrats, central planners, and their beneficiaries – the welfare state and the warfare state – who began sniffing around the corners of the EU tent looking for an entry point to insert their collectivist noses.

The central planners and bureaucrats, particularly in Brussels, were not satisfied with simply having sustained economic growth, as an off-shoot of free market activity, but greedily wanted to centralize and hoard political and military power for themselves by consolidating such power in Brussels and usurping individual state sovereignty. In an EU member state vote, in 2005, the proposal to consolidate political and military power in Brussels, by ratifying a single EU constitution, was an embarrassing failure much to the dismay of socialist minded central planners and bureaucrats in Brussels and elsewhere. There were simply too many separate languages and unique cultures to harmonize. Absent the harmonization of these many distinct cultures and languages, the centralization of political power, under a single EU constitution, had about as much a chance of success as a gigantic bird of prey would have in attempting to herd cats in the rain. This failure was cheerfully applauded by lovers of liberty all over the globe. It was an outright rejection of centralized political power in favor of a continuance of state sovereignty. Even in the U.S., where cultural and language challenges are much less pronounced than in the EU, we are seeing movement afoot, by individual states, to secede from the United States of America because of the federal governments constant and ever increasing encroachment into our personal lives and businesses through abusive and self-serving administrative laws, tons of onerous and bureaucracy expanding regulations, and burdensome taxation. So, it was back to the drawing board for the European central planners and bureaucrats who continually yearn to subsist off the energies of others and consolidate political power for questionable objectives.

The success of the Euro and the tremendous wealth creation it spawned eventually became a viable threat to the U.S. dollar remaining the reserve currency of the world. Keep this thought in the back of your mind as we move forward in this discussion.

Currently, the EU is literally coming apart at the seams and the Euro currency has been raided. There are Federal Reserve generated rumors floating around that Goldman Sachs may have been involved with purposeful reckless lending to the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) only to turn around and short these markets with sophisticated derivative products in much the same fashion as they were accused of doing to the real estate securitization market, in the U.S., in a slick pump and dump scheme that made them billions of dollars in profits, on both sides of the trade, from the disaster they conceived, promoted, and carried out with a little help from their political cronies in Washington and the Federal Reserve. Another rumor is circulating that Goldman Sachs executives have armed themselves. Are their consciences speaking to them and telling them they have every right to be afraid of the millions of Americans and Europeans who are now losing their homes and livelihoods to their greed and overindulgences?

What about the PIIGS? Are they too big to fail? Will the EU bail them out in one form or another? Or, will the U.S. Federal Reserve covertly begin bailout efforts, at the U.S. taxpayer’s expense, to hide the collective shenanigans of Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve in what could’ve have been a strategic national effort to destroy the Euro which was increasingly perceived as a threat to the U.S. dollar’s hegemony?

Why have many former Goldman Sachs alumni such as Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, and Stephen Friedman previously integrated themselves into key governmental positions related to finance? Where do their loyalties truly reside? Who are their protégés? Who did they mentor to continue their questionable and suspect legacies after their departure? Why would someone like Henry Paulson, having a net worth into the hundreds of millions, take a low paying job with the federal government?

What about the number of former Goldman Sachs alumni working for news media outlets? Did you know that CNBC host Erin Burnett, Guy Adami of CNBC’s fast money, and CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer are all Goldman Sachs alumni? 

What about ex-Goldman Sachs employee Robert Zoellick who later worked as a United States Trade Representative, a Deputy Secretary of State, and a World Bank President? What about ex-Goldman Sachs employee Neel Kashkari who was the former Assistant Secretary to the Treasury for Financial Stability? What about ex-Goldman Sachs employee Rubin Jeffery III who formerly served as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, in the Bush Administration, and who was replaced by ex-Goldman Sachs employee Robert Hormats, under the Obama Administration? What about former Goldman Sachs employee Romono Prodi who has been the Prime Minister of Italy twice and was formerly the President of the European Commission? What about former Goldman Sachs employee Mario Draghi who ended up being the governor of the Bank of Italy and former Goldman Sachs employee Massimo Tononi who became the Italian deputy treasury chief? The list goes on and this list is relatively transparent. How many other ex-Goldman Sachs types have been integrated into key governmental positions that are less famous? Do you feel, as a world observer, taxpayer, and consumer of financial news that you’ve possibly been taken for a ride?

Let’s return to the PIIGS for a moment. What options are available to the EU in dealing with this most pressing financial crisis? For lovers of liberty, the options are equally joyous. If the EU kicks these spendthrifts out of the EU, to save its currency, the chance for a future political union under a single EU constitution is nixed forever. If the PIIGS are too big to fail and they are bailed out at the expense of the Euro and their more productive EU members, they risk insurrection and the possibility of secessionist movements by those more solvent countries, within the EU, who will become sorely displeased with carrying the financial load of their slothful southern neighbors. Either way it goes, it is good news because it will serve as a continuing reminder, for years into the future, that collectivist socialist schemes serve no practical purpose other than sowing the seeds of financial upheaval along with extra helpings of strife, discord, and injustice. The EU has a doubtful future. It is unraveling at warp speed.

We find it extremely interesting that the Federal Reserve recently turned on Goldman Sachs suggesting that Goldman Sachs may have intentionally set Greece up with an overabundance of credit for the purpose of intentionally shorting Greek debt with sophisticated derivative products also known as financial weapons of mass destruction. The Federal Reserve has taken a lot of heavy body blows in Congressional hearings for their lack of transparency when it comes to sharing the names of those entities they’re suspected of secretly funding here and abroad. Could the Federal Reserve rolling over on Goldman Sachs be the escape hatch that takes the heat and attention off the Federal Reserve transparency issue? What if Goldman Sachs has more incriminating information to reveal about the Federal Reserve’s operations than the Federal Reserve has to offer up on Goldman Sachs? Could these budding combatants begin throwing rocks at each other from their respective glass houses? Could the corporate-government honeymoon be showing signs of fraying around the edges? Grab some popcorn, grab a safe seat near the exit, and let the show begin. There is nothing but long-term good that can come from the unraveling we are witnessing on multiple fronts.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently slammed the U.S. hard when consoling Greek President George Papandreou, by saying, “As we all know, the global economic crisis started neither in Greece, nor in Russia, nor in Europe…it came to us from across the ocean.”

Putin was correct when he implied the world financial calamity had its origins in the United States. What he didn’t say was that what started here will also end here. And, as painful as it will be watching these financial chicks coming home to roost, one-by-one, there will be some consolation in knowing that it will be quite some time into the future before the American people, once again, become so easily disinterested in what’s going on around them that they let themselves be taken in and so easily fleeced by government and corporate con artists who’ve made bread and circuses an art form and management of perception their stock and trade.

The Internet has provided us a wonderful tool of communication and commerce to form various alliances of trust independent of abusive nation states and corporatism. These alliances transcend national boundaries and unite individuals in cooperative endeavors promoting peace and goodwill independent of 
institutionalism and centralized forms of government.

The illusion of government power is sometimes deceiving. As governments begin intensifying, in earnest, their resistance to the inevitable decentralization of power rapidly spreading to all corners of the globe, via technology, they unwittingly provoke individuals to regain their lost sovereignty and liberty.  The government's desperate effort to squash this global decentralization of power will only serve to illustrate their obvious impotence and true dependence upon those they’ve previously abused, pillaged and plundered. Likewise, those individuals currently dependent upon government welfare and warfare schemes, for their sustenance, will finally recognize that the source of their false prosperity has dried up. Faith and trust in statist regimes and tyrannical governments will then be at an all time low. This will represent a cyclic turning point away from tyranny and towards liberty.

We welcome and embrace this positive turning point as representative of yet another failed statist attempt to replicate a modern day equivalent of the Tower of Babel rather than it being representative of a more ominous and apocalyptic “sign” of end time prophecy.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am glad to see someone writing on this important topic.

I believe the Bible is being misinterpreted to support this kind of end-time theology that you speak of. I am concerned to see that the end result of this faulty theology is that people are becoming complacent about opposing the current abuses taking place by many governments around the world. Although, they all agree that such abuses are evil, believing as they do that these are "signs of the end times" they do little (or perhaps less than they should) to oppose this evil because such "signs" as they see them are believed to be foreordained by God as inevitable pre-cursors to their ultimate salvation.

As a result, many evils that would otherwise be oppose are being allowed to continue.

Such signs may accompany any number of potentially apocalyptic events past or future but, as you say, there is no necessary reason to believe that this one is THE one (indeed, all the apocalyptic signs and events in the Book of Revelation - with the possible exception of post-chapter 20 verse 11 - can be easily aligned with events that took place in first century Rome / Jerusalem and therefore represent events that already have taken place).

Hence all people should continue to oppose abuse wherever they see it, with all their God-given strength.

I look forward to reading your book and more of your blog.

~ said...

Anon,

We are glad you enjoyed our article and we thank you for your generous comments.

Our latest blog posting Opt-out Ode to the Beltway TSA and Their Airline CEO Cronies: Take Your Planes and Shove ‘Em is moving up the popularity ladder very fast. Its popularity suggests there may be, collectively, a small light at the end of a very long tunnel. We’re hoping it is a fast moving freight train that will be propelling society to that tipping point of actually taking some action even if it means a bit of inconvenience in choosing alternative travel options.

The most important consideration, however, is that we, individually, can benefit tremendously from withdrawing our consent to such outrages regardless of what anyone else does. Freedom is not contingent on the masses taking collective action anymore than the invention of the aeroplane was contingent on the collective action of the masses. If Wilber and Orville were the only two people in the world who enjoyed the idea of flying through the air in a motorized machine, it was no less of an achievement. Freedom from tyranny and the expectations of others is for anyone who seeks it. And, it is probably not so much a requirement to oppose tyranny as it is to simply withdraw our consent and not lend it our energies and reverence.

Christians are often taught to reverence authority which creates a very fertile field to sow the seeds of tyranny. The mainstream view of end time prophecy has many Christians eating out of the palms of tyrants. It need not be so.

Thanks for buying the book. Please feel free to send us, via email, any comments or questions. We would like to cultivate more than a casual relationship with those who read the book and offer comments.

Kind Regards,

Steven and Debra