The World is What We Make It!

 

Our world is at a threshold and a divergence and at this time nobody appears to be driving. Islam desires to tame the developed world and slam it forward to the seventh century which will result in starvation for the majority of the world. Meanwhile the developed world is humming along ignoring every warning sign concentrating on more glitter, better slogans, merchandising, and every distraction they can find to avoid addressing anything real. The world now has a good idea of what the future holds if the United States withdraws within the hard shell of her borders and decides isolationism is preferable to dealing with the problems in Europe and especially in the quicksand of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). President Obama claimed the world was messed up because of the meddling of the United States. He saw the United States as the source of the problems as the United States was everywhere where there were problems. Perhaps that was because the United States was attempting to deliver the solutions, not causing them. If what President elect Trump stated during the campaign, we can expect him to keep things close to the vest, which means, unless it becomes unbearable, we can expect the United States to expend all their resources to repair and jumpstart their economy. One hope is that a President Trump Administration chooses as their economic advisors people who are intelligent enough and of the correct preference so as to not start a trade war with tariffs as threatened in speeches and they keep the promise to avoid at all cost anything resembling in the slightest of means Keynesian economics, which was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes during the 1930s in an attempt to understand the Great Depression. President Obama used it with his repeated stimulus programs as had President Bush before him and further was behind their Quantitative Easing (QE) where they electronically invented funds they pumped into the economy to prop-up the stock markets. The thing that makes for hope is that President elect Donald Trump promised change and drastic change at that and with that there is hope that the United States will redirect itself in a more hopeful direction.

 

The problem is the world may not want to wait until January 20, 2017 to start and seek a new direction and move forward on that path. There are leaders in Europe who have made humane decisions without considering the consequences of those actions. They took in refugees in numbers without any vetting or other considerations and then attempted to cover-up the resulting waves of violence and sexual assaults including a massive wave across German cities at train and other transportation and assembly points on New Year’s Eve. France, England, Sweden and other European countries have had similar problems and similarly covered them up even when it was general knowledge that native girls were all subject to being abused regularly by the new immigrants. This is the divergence and unless it is spoken of and identified it cannot be opposed and steps taken to ameliorate the situation. There need be alternatives to the leadership who when presented with their mistakes decided to double down. They were looking at a demographic challenge of an aging population and negative population growth and rather than alarm the public and challenge the people and alter their habits through tax incentives to have children, something lacking in most European nations as they practice take all the funds and then dole it back to the public sparingly for little items such as housing, transportations, food etc. The Europeans have spent a long history attempting to perfect socialist engineering and government programmed social engineering. They have failed but refuse to admit their errors because their lives, the elites, have it pretty good deciding how the little people live and they keep the little people diverted, fat and happy, as the saying goes. The problem is their social engineering forgot to plan for a future which had been guaranteed by that other controlling factor of European history, religion.

 

 

The governments refused to share the people and insisted on total control without sharing and they targeted religion for extinction. They succeeded and religion died, and with it the future of Christian Europe. Now Europe will face a different future, the one it had fought for fourteen-hundred years and now are handing their continent over on a pewter platter, they cannot afford silver. Their leaders have surrendered and hardly appear to care as long as they get to age without a care and remaining fat and comfortable. One can only imagine what guarantee of a retirement resort and other guarantees from the coming masters of the new Europe, the Mullahs’ Europe. The people of Europe have been conditioned to being a kept people and they can only hope that they are not challenged to convert or die as the Quran demands the Islamic conquering armies to demand soon after conquest, and that is what is coming under the current European leadership with a few choice exceptions. The lucky nations know who they are and have choice leaders they should treasure and support as they may have saved some of European culture. The best way to support these leaders is take in any fleeing European Christians and start having children. If Europe is to survive, it needs to reverse the population decline when it is all said and done. Perhaps there is a core of Europe which can survive and even a chance that the whole of Europe can revive its culture but first the people, particularly the youth, need to choose life, particularly new life, children, many children and the first step to reaching this new utopia is revamping governance and returning the means to choose the life they desire to the people and allow them to keep their hard earned money and not dole it out as government chooses.

 

The next decade will show what direction the world is heading towards. The choices are stark as they are troubling with only a slightly better than even chance that Western civilization, as we currently know it, will survive. Currently the world is hurtling towards another great conflagration and the possibility that it will result in nuclear attacks is far too high for comfort. The genie might be put back in the bottle but recent events simply make that a difficult path which is strewn with obstacles. Still, principles and a strong base of belief in the freedoms and core beliefs upon which western civilization was and need be based must become a central part of life and return as the basis. This does not mean that everybody must return to being church or synagogue goers but the moral basis and the need for a future which must include children is and must be a necessity. The choice belongs to the youth more than the elitist leaders who have had their time and now need support families even if such takes from them their control of society, the control they may have misused with great danger for their peoples. There is always hope, always.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Why the European Union Will Die

 

After our Brexit article some inquired why we claimed the European Union would die, or more aptly, implode, as we had stated at one point. A few expressly pointed to the fact that there were signs of economic recovery and that the steps taken by the European Union were working to bring the troubled nations, especially Spain and Italy, back from the brink. While it would be quite a blessing should the European Union make a recovery of unparalleled dimensions resembling the great periods of the post-World War II era but the likelihood is slender as there is not about to be another Marshall Plan as the United States too is facing lean years and will be working on their own recovery for the immediate future. The challenges to the Western World are mounting and if not addressed and some mitigation found the refugees flowing into Europe and North America on top of the brutal effects the refugees are placing on Turkey and more so on Jordan threaten to topple leaders as the strains on the economies will be extensive.

 

The challenge for Europeans as well as Turkey and Jordan will be to alter the manner in which they treat refugees and those who come from foreign extraction and to integrate them into their society rather than all but forcing them to live in autonomous zones separate and anything but equal. The French produced a 2,200-page report, “Banlieue de la République.” The report had numerous suggestions and goals which could be enacted which might alleviate some of the difficulties but are unlikely to see the light of day. The challenges listed in the French report can easily be applied to the other nations, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Britain and other nations will be a test of whether Europe can adapt and commit to integrating those who are unlike the native population as unless the Muslims are integrated and have opportunities the probability of rioting and radicalization rises. We are not equating lack of work and the other poverty and similar tags which have often been blamed for terrorism as not even claiming that their frustration and lack of address of grievances by government will produce terrorism, we are identifying such as a drain on the finances and budgetary balancing will be a factor which may tip the scales from an affordable situation to a destabilizing financial drain. Such situations can also be exploited leading to rioting and lawlessness. The same is true for Turkey and Jordan as their economies are not so vigorous such that they can integrate the thousands upon thousands of refugees which are streaming across their borders. Jordan has the added problem of refugees streaming in from Iraq as well. Even Israel is feeling some financial effects as she is called upon increasingly to provide medical treatment both for refugees as well as injured fighters from the various factions in the Syrian war zones, many of which are bordering the Israeli Golan Heights which makes Israel the best place to get emergency treatments. 

 

What will come about is the death of the European Union as a super-governance or providing a standard currency and economic plans as it has been the disparate rules and economic plans which are not universal which has caused much of the problems. With the work week standard being a 40 hour week we find that those who do work from national average to another are surprising in the numbers we were able to find from 2013 with Greece leading at 42.0 and the Netherlands with a mere 30.0 (see below).

 

European Average Hours Worked by Those with Employment

 

The next important, actually vital, statistic is the unemployment rate by nation. We found records for 2014 and 2015 graphed (see below) where the lowest recorded at 5% for Austria followed closely by Germany and with Greece and Spain hovering at about 25%. During our researching we found that Youth unemployment usually ran from half again to around double the figures for population in total.

 

European Unemployment by Country for 2014 and 2015

 

Another measure of the health of an economy is the debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement where the lower the percentage the healthier the national economy. The percentages range from Sweden at 38% all the way to Greece at 157%. (see below) The one regularity which one has seen consistently was that Greece and Spain are at the end of the figures which are least desirable and Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian nations tend to be the most desirable positions which also explains why these nations rated amongst the happiest of nations in Europe. The main rational behind these numerous graphs and statistics was to generate the vast disparity between many of the European Union nations and to point out why the sharing of a singular currency, the Euro, places strains and limitations on the necessary monetary policies each individual nation has at their disposal as well as economic policy restrictions. For those at the disadvantaged end of the scales their not having their own adjustable currency means that they must make allowances in policies to the largest economic powers as they drive the European Union’s viability but while doing so they imperil the lesser economies.

 

Debt Expressed as % of GDP for European Nations

 

The difficulties the European Union is facing goes beyond the individual national monetary and fiscal policies and the single currency enforcing economic policies of the strongest power nations upon the least national economies thus perpetuating their difficulty and in most cases condemning them to deficit spending and an ever rising debt load with little if any recourse. The financial difficulties are aggravated further by the bureaucracy in Brussels which continues to grow and demand more and more treasure be skimmed from the economy of the entirety of the European Union nations. This results in an ever more drastic effect upon the economically weaker nations sending their finances ever further into the red. The European Union regulation are simply one more drain on every economy throughout the European Union and once more the effect is disproportionally more dramatic on the weakest once again. When one observes the growth of the European Union Legislation and Legal Action Surge one starts to realize exactly where and why the European Union will eventually legislate itself out of existence.

 

Growth in European Union Legislation
And Legal Action Surge 1973 to 2008

 

The vote next month will tell the story and will very likely be the last chance for the Western World to finally start to turn away from socialism and its guaranteed outcomes instead of simply providing a guaranteed equality of opportunity and a level playing field. Initially when the precursor of the European Union started, the European Common Market, it worked well as it basically created a low or no tariff zone within Europe for its member states. By the time it had grown and transited into the European Union it was already showing signs of becoming a super governance which was obviously heading to becoming the central power over the entirety of Europe. This was made all the worse by the fact that many of those in positions of influence and power were unelected individuals who need not report to any individual nation as they were employed to look out for the European Union and not babysit or hold the hand of any one country. From this humble beginning the European Union began to write large edicts. Many were about certain levels of pollutants one might put into the air, water or ground and also writing the procedures for handling and disposing of poisonous chemicals. Many of these regulations were quite important such as where to store spent nuclear fuel rods safely. The European Union also set standards for each nation on pollution control due to agreements entered into either by the nations or the European Union. Soon the European Union has become a super government which rules in a dictatorial manner with the individual European nations being incapable of altering their relations once a decision has come down from on high in Brussels.

 

This is part of what has galled many British voters and it is only the youth who have graduated within the past decade and probably left university knowing less than they went in but are now assured that they know everything and it will be their charge to come out and teach those out in the workforce what is the only approved manner of performing any work. They will expound regularly the complaints about income inequality and how it is not fair that older people receive higher salaries just because they have proven their ability, which, they will tell us, is a form of ageism except this particular time it is the youth at a disadvantage. Once the youth of today become a majority, be prepared for their instruction in college to come to the fore in our society and Capitalism will disappear and Socialism will become the new perfection of society and our national problems. They will address the income inequality by setting a maximum wage one will be permitted. Let us assume we have two people, one making 35,000 Euro per year and another making 250,000 Euro per year. Without even addressing how these two individuals came to be making such different amounts but will defer to the one making the higher wage and simple make the difference far less. Their newly adjusted salaries after the equality of worth standings are applied result in the first gentleman going from making 35,000 Euros per year to making 95,000 Euros per year and the gentleman who once made 250,000 Euros per year will now be making 135,000 Euros per year leaving the government with 55,000 Euros in redistribution fees. This will be the future when the youth get to make all the decisions across Europe and then slowly the rest of the Western World. Between an economy teetering on the point of exasperation and a flooding of refugees who are largely seeking the government relief and expecting the government to feed, clothe and house them and pay them salaries as they were told was their right upon arrival. The refugees seeking such as this will be the lesser of the problems as there are those who upon arrival disappeared into the woodwork and have yet to be found and it is these individuals who are most likely terrorists planted within the midst of the Europeans and the Americans and Western nations as ticking time bombs primed and ready to detonate at a moment’s notice.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Shoah and Anti-Semitism

 

Today was Yom HaShoah here in Israel where the nation comes to a halt at ten in the morning and the nation stands while the sirens blare. It is a moment of reflection and solemn meditation as well as remembrance both of those who perished and those who survived scarred for life and those who survived and partly due to that adversity not merely survived but thrived. There was one thing I noted from the limited numbers of Holocaust survivors that I was privileged to know or meet, the most successful were slim, fit individuals with great amounts of energy and others were more lethargic and usually heavier than most as if they were eating to make up for the near starvation they faced in the camps. It was as if the experience in both left them with a hunger, one group for the thing they hungered for in the camps, food, the others for life and engaging in everything they did with a ferocity that seemed to eat up every morsel of life as if it needed to be savored before heading to the next. Both were reacting to the same deprivations and horrors in very different ways and are significant as the same dichotomy exists in how most Jews face anti-Semitism even when it is staring them in the face.

 

The majority of Jews remaining in Europe and the United States are those whose first, second and even third reaction to increasing anti-Semitism is to dismiss it as either irrelevant or as happening to those other Jews, not to the kind of Jews I know who are comfortable and integrated and of course accepted as equals in the society and not seen as anything different. They keep sticking to an old Jewish belief when struck upside the head with anti-Semitic hatreds thinking that “It can’t happen here. Not to me or those I know. We are all assimilated and no different than anybody else. We are accepted. We are safe.” Others feel even more threatened than is warranted as they read a single article and they start using their dead-bolt, read a second article and keep their window shades drawn and the windows locked, another article and they get extra latches for the windows and a second dead-bolt in every door. Eventually they start seeing shadows behind every object and have paranoid feelings that they are being targeted and jump if touched out in public at the grocery store or the bank or wherever.

 

 

Wailing Wall with Soft Pale Blue Star of David Writ Large

 

The reality for both is somewhere inbetween as extra precautions are always a good idea these days even if one is not Jewish and a healthy awareness of surroundings is advised for all, but paranoia to the point of stark terror if outside at night is something beyond reasonable. Of course there are those places where the stark terrifying paranoia is warranted such as Sweden, Malmo in particular, and in France and soon to be areas in Britain and eventually throughout Europe. The answer for the growing anti-Semitic hatreds growing across Europe both emanating from the immigrant communities coming from countries where anti-Semitism is infused into the blood and Jews have become an extinct people or very close to so with perhaps a dozen or two very old Jews who refused to heed the signs and even the forced evictions, some even resorting to residing in their Synagogue where the authorities left them seeing them as harmless and a foil they could trot out as the happy Jews still living the good life, in the shadows trembling, in their fair and multi-cultural nation. Many of these same nations have a small and vulnerable Christian community which is an empty shell of its former self and equally endangered. When facing excessive threats, one is usually facing leaving; but the question is always where to flee. Should one flee to the United States where things are so different or to Israel where we will need to stand no matter the threat. Fleeing to Israel always has seemed like the place of last resort and if one is more an assimilated Jew, Israel becomes a threat in some manner as it is viewed as being too Jewish and is under threat more so than anywhere else; they are just more adapted and capable of minimizing most threats. The United States has always been the nation for those huddled masses yearning to be free, which these Jews honestly believe this includes freedom from anti-Semitism. Unfortunately they would be wrong as the ugly face of anti-Semitism has been lifting its head and snapping at the easiest targets. The latest was a graffiti spree where anti-Semitic phrases and references including swastikas were drawn on a pair of buildings, one being a school, in Rockville, Maryland about ten minutes outside of Washington D.C. on Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike. This is in the middle of a number of heavily Jewish neighborhoods and from what we have gathered has been hushed up in the Capital City area likely not to upset the Jewish communities or blemish the nation’s Capital with such events being publicized.

 

Europe, on the other hand, had had a rising and bordering on vicious wave after wave of ever increasing anti-Semitism with France, Britain, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and others growing more antagonistic each and every day. The current spate of Ministers, former Minister, former Mayors and the head of the Labor Party all coming under suspicions of anti-Semitic outbursts leading to the suspension of around a half dozen pending hearings could eject them from their positions as Ministers and possibly from membership in the Party itself. These have simply been the most flagrant episodes which lie just sufficiently under the radar to be ignored by the media. Still, many Jewish neighborhoods have become aware and sensitive to the threats being faced and have already had the initial emigrations with half heading across the Atlantic to the United States with the remainder heading straight to Israel. Those heading to the United States may have chosen well, but time will tell. Those moving to Israel are very likely more traditional orthodox or religious and secular Zionists. The secular Zionists are most likely to take up residence in one of the various communities in and around Tel Aviv most likely to choose one fairly close to their new employment or in a neighborhood where the majority speak their native language. Perhaps those choosing Israel were fully aware of the statistics which combines terrorism with normative criminal activities giving a complete view of the dangers of each society, those in Israel against those in the United States. The immediate result between the two which becomes obvious was that in either nation one can avoid criminal victimhood one need only avoid certain areas where criminal activity is the highest. What surprises many people is that even with the terror statistics included, an individual is measurably safer in Israel.

 

 

 

 

The growing levels of anti-Semitism are notable in two main streams. The first is the same type of hatreds as has been seen over the centuries. This is largely the type of anti-Semitism as found in the developing nations. The second type of anti-Semitism is evidenced in Europe and the rest of the modern world and has spread to the rest of the world due to its apparent acceptance in the modern industrial nations, and that is anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism. This style of anti-Semitism basically stated claims that the Jew does not need their own nation as they can be a Jew anywhere they choose just as they have for centuries. The claim is that only the Jew may not have a nation they may call their own. The argument often goes that no other religious groups have their own nation. This ignores all the Islamic nations, Christian nations, Buddhist nations and targets solely Israel. It also ignores that every other religion has at least one nation where they are the majority peoples of the main religions and even Shinto has the Japanese Isles. This demand that only the Jew be forced to reside throughout the world an accursed minority and be denied a nation of their own is simply anti-Semitism. The claim that only the Jew be seen as never having existed as having their own nation ignores the nation of Judea which was the last independent Jewish state, and many well point out that the Jews came exactly from Judea and that before the split into Israel and Judea there was no Jew goes that last step in realizing that the Jew is really a Judean with it shortened to one syllable for lazy convenience. Still, whether we wish to call anti-Semitism what it is because it denies Jews their own state as Israelites, of which the Judeans were but one tribe’s worth, or demands that any and all former Israelites be forced to live dispersed as they are the true people damned by Hashem to forever walk nationless accursed amongst the peoples of the earth, either way it is anti-Semitism and holds the Jew as separate and reserved for hatred, lack of acceptance and scorn.

 

Lastly, how does the Shoah, the Holocaust fit into anti-Semitism. The manner in which the Shoah fits into modern anti-Semitism is when it is claimed that the only reason the Jews received their state of Israel was because of the Shoah and due to the guilt felt by Europe who punished the Arabs, later becoming the Palestinians, for the evils in Europe. This claim also ignores that half of Israeli Jewish population are Arab Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and arrived in Israel as a direct result of anti-Semitic pogroms. Then there are the classic anti-Semitic tropes where Israel is directly threatened in a manner of claiming that the Holocaust never existed and that there will be another Holocaust when Israel is to be wiped from the map. How you can have another Holocaust while denying the former Holocaust is beyond logic. These Holocaust deniers who promise another Holocaust are a truly frightening sort as they claim there is no break in their logic and at the same instance claim that if only the Nazis had completed the task and followed through on their promises to the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Hussein there would be no need for another holocaust.

 

Those claiming to be the final hand against the Jew further demand that they are serving the same deity as do Christian and Jews despite their name of Allah. Their claim goes even further astray in that they claim they follow the god of Abraham, Ishmael and Mohammad and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Where they claim to be an Abrahamic religion, which is undeniable, their matron was not Sarah making theirs a separate Abrahamic religion not of the same lineage of Christianity and Judaism. This places the Islamic anti-Semitism on a different track of all other forms of anti-Semitism in that it claims the branch of Abrahamic religions as impure to be those from the lineage from Sarah and that the chosen religion comes from Abraham through Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden. This would further make Christianity as false a religion as Judaism and we see that Islam does hold Christianity as a false religion just as it does Judaism. This should give pause to all the Christian groups who saddle up next to the Muslims as they see them as allies against the Jews but ignore their near equal hatred of Christianity. The one other note that both Christianity and Judaism need take of Islam is their current claims that Moses, Jesus and all the other main pillars and greats throughout the ages after Abraham as their prophets as well and their love of them is a matter of convenience and a method through which they hope to coopt both religions and take from them the weaker and less knowledgeable and plan that once they have eradicated the Jews and later the Christians they will drop these prophets of convenience and claim those believing in these as actual prophets of Islam to be heretics and apostates who need to be crushed and put to the sword and that will be their final treatment of the false Jews and Christians whose faith was so weak they gave up their rightful religions for the protection, temporary as it will be, of those who never wished their company but accepted it as a convenience when it was necessary. The Jews should recognize such as we have seen it time and time again be it the Hellenistic Jews to Jews for Jesus. But history has taught that there is no anti-Semite as hateful as the former Jew coopting Judaism in order to save their lives at the expense of their brethren Jews. That is truly the world’s worst and most persistent and second oldest form of anti-Semitism with the idolaters who served Ba’al amongst others who were the original anti-Semites as the Jews have witnessed many a varied sort of anti-Semite with the Jew turned against their own being the worst as it is their weakness and lack of faith and love of Hashem which has pained us the most throughout the ages. As the old adage claims, “Save me from my friends as my enemies I can take care of myself.” These are the wolves in sheep’s clothing which are the most scary as they attack from within our gates.

 

 

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

 

Beyond the Cusp