"Chrislam" - Europe Folds To The Islamization Of Christmas

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as "Chrislam," is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

• A school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school"s action was "an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam" and amounted to a "cowardly injustice" toward non-Muslim children.


• "The word "Christmas," a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone"s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected." — Milan politician Samuele Piscina.

This year"s Christmas season has been marked by Islam-related controversies in nearly every European country. Most of the conflicts have been generated by Europe"s multicultural political and religious elites, who are bending over backwards to secularize Christmas, ostensibly to ensure that Muslims will not be offended by the Christian festival.

Many traditional Christmas markets have been renamed — Amsterdam Winter Parade, Brussels Winter Pleasures, Kreuzberger Wintermarkt, London Winterville, Munich Winter Festival — to project a multicultural veneer of secular tolerance.

More troubling are the growing efforts to Islamize Christmas. The re-theologizing of Christmas is based on the false premise that the Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus (Isa) of the Koran. This religious fusion, sometimes referred to as "Chrislam," is gaining ground in a West that has become biblically illiterate.

In Britain, for instance, the All Saints Church in Kingston upon Thames recently held a joint birthday celebration for Jesus and Mohammed. The "Milad, Advent and Christmas Celebration" on December 3 was aimed at "marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed and looking forward to the birthday of Jesus." The hour-long service included time for Islamic prayer and was followed by the cutting of a birthday cake.

The prominent Christian blog "Archbishop Cranmer" rebuked the church for its lack of discernment:

"Note how this event is "Marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed," but not looking forward to the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mohammed gets his prophethood, while Jesus gets neither his prophethood nor his priesthood; neither his kingship nor his messiahship. It"s the exalted Prophet Mohammed along with plain old Jesus, because to have added any of his claims to divinity would, of course, have alienated many Muslims (if they hadn"t already been alienated by the haram [forbidden by Islam] celebration), which wouldn"t have been very interfaith or sensitively missional, would it?"

The blog added that exalting Mohammed in churches effectively proclaims that Mohammed is greater than Jesus:

"Every time a church accords Mohammed the epithet "Prophet," they are rejecting the crucifixion, denying the resurrection of Christ, and refuting that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, for Mohammed denied all of these foundational tenets of the Christian faith."

Previously, a passage from the Koran denying that Jesus is the Son of God was read during a service at a Scottish Episcopal Church in Glasgow on Epiphany, a festival commemorating the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the Queen"s chaplains, Gavin Ashenden, referred to the Koran reading as "blasphemy." He added that "there are other and considerably better ways to build "bridges of understanding"" with Muslims.

In London, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, a parliamentary group composed of members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, issued a report, "A Very Merry Muslim Christmas," aimed at drawing attention to the "humanity" of Muslims during Christmas. The report states:

"Too often, Muslim charities come to our attention because of negative media coverage... What we hear even less about is the "Muslim Merry Christmas." The soup kitchens, the food banks, the Christmas dinners, the New Year clean-up — work Muslim charities will be busy doing during the Christmas period."

In Scotland, the regional government was accused of "undermining" Britain"s Christian heritage by promoting "winter festivals" for ethnic minorities while ignoring Christmas. Scotland"s International Development Minister, Alasdair Allan, pledged nearly £400,000 ($535,000) to fund 23 events during the winter months. He described them as "key dates in our national calendar" and said the "exciting and diverse" program would help Scots "celebrate everything great about our wonderful country during the winter months." None of the events, however, has any connection to Christmas. A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said:

"It is deeply disappointing that the Scottish Government has chosen not to recognize the religious reality of Christmas in its Winter Festival events. Over half of the population stated their religion as Christian in the last census. Catholics, and other Christians, may quite rightly wonder why this publicly-funded Festival does not include any events designed to help Scots celebrate the birth of Christ which is undoubtedly the most significant celebration in the winter months."

Gordon Macdonald, of Christian charity CARE, added:

"It is part of the general secularization that has been taking place within the Scottish Government for a number of years where our Christian heritage and value system has been undermined as a direct result of government policy."

In Denmark, a primary school in Graested cancelled a traditional church service marking the beginning of Christmas in order not to offend Muslim pupils. Some parents accused the school of having double-standards: it recently held an event called "Syria Week" in which children immersed themselves in Middle Eastern culture. Ignoring parents, the school board sided with the school:

"The board backs the school"s decision to create new traditions [emphasis added] that involve children and young people."

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who attended the school as a child, said the decision should be reversed. Health Minister Ellen Trane Norby added:

"Danish primary schools have a duty to spread education — and teaching the cultural values and knowledge connected to Christmas is an essential part of that."

In France, the annual Christmas market in the Croix-Rousse district of Lyon was cancelled because of exorbitant security costs associated with protecting the event from Islamic terror. The city"s annual festival of lights did go ahead this year. The military governor of Lyon, General Pierre Chavancy, said that, because of the "sensitivity" of the event, 1,500 soldiers and police, backed up by dogs, river brigades and mine-clearers, would be deployed to provide security.

In neighboring Belgium, the head of the Red Cross in Liège, André Rouffart, ordered all 28 offices in the city to remove crucifixes to affirm the organization"s secular identity. Critics said the decision was part of a broader effort to "modify certain terminologies" and to "break with our traditions and our roots" in order to appease Muslims. "We once said Christmas holidays, now we say winter holidays," said a local Red Cross volunteer. "The Christmas market in Brussels has been renamed "Winter Pleasures." Let things remain as they are."

In Germany, a school in Lüneburg postponed a Christmas party after a Muslim student complained that the singing of Christmas carols during school was incompatible with Islam. The school"s decision to reschedule the event as a non-compulsory after-school activity generated "a flood of hate mail and even threats against school management and school board," according to Focus. In an effort to appease angry parents, Headmaster Friedrich Suhr said that "non-Christian" Christmas songs such as "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" would not be banned. Alexander Gauland, the leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the school"s action was "an unbearable, involuntary submission to Islam" and amounted to a "cowardly injustice" toward non-Muslim children.

In Munich, ads for a multicultural "winter market" depicted a snowman covered in a burqa. The chairman of the AfD in Bavaria, Petr Bystron, noted the irony: "A burqa snowman as a tolerance symbol?" In Halle, the Christmas market was renamed "Wintermarket."

In Berlin, the traditional Christmas market was protected by walls of concrete barriers to prevent a repeat of last year"s jihadist attack in which 12 people were killed and more than 50 injured. In Stuttgart, a 53-year-old man was arrested at the Christmas market after he claimed to carrying a bomb in his backpack. In Potsdam, the Christmas market was closed after a nearby pharmacy received a letter bomb. In Bonn, the Christmas market was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

In Italy, a school in Milan removed references to Christmas at a party and renamed the holiday as "The Great Festival of Happy Holidays." Writing on Facebook, local politician Samuele Piscina accused the school of implementing "a politically correct leftist policy" that deprives Italian children the joy of Christmas:

"After the nativity scenes and the crucifixes, now even Christmas parties are hindered in schools. The word "Christmas," a symbol of our faith and our culture, does not discriminate against anyone. Striking the emblems of Christmas does not guarantee anyone"s respect, does not produce a welcoming and inclusive school and society, but fosters intolerance towards our culture, our customs, our laws and our traditions. We firmly believe that our traditions must be respected."

In Bolzano, a cardboard Christmas tree was ordered to be removed from the town hall because "it could have offended the sensibilities" of Muslims. A local politician, Alessandro Urzì, expressed outrage at the decision: "The bureaucratic rigor with which the tree was removed to avoid the risk of annoying someone reflects the barbarization of the cultural climate."

In Norway, a primary school in Skien announced that its Christmas festivities this year would include not only the usual reading by pupils of verses from the Bible but also two verses from the Koran which refer to Jesus. The inimitable Bruce Bawer explained the implications:

"Stigeråsen School"s Christmas plans provide yet another example of dhimmitude: craven European submission to Islam. This year, there might be a couple of Koran verses in a Christmas show; next year, a yuletide event at which both religions are celebrated on an even footing; and not too many years after that, perhaps, a children"s celebration at which there is no cross and no Christmas tree, only prayer rugs, benedictions in Arabic, and hijabs for the girls."

In Spain, the Madrid City Council replaced Christmas festivities in the capital with a neo-Pagan "International Fair of the Cultures." According to Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena, a former member of Spain"s Communist Party, the express purpose of the month-long event is to de-Christianize Christmas to make it more inclusive:

"We all know that Christmas is a festival of religious origin, but it is also a celebration of humanity, solidarity. Therefore, the Madrid City Council wants to do everything possible so that everyone who is in this city, from wherever they may be, can enjoy Christmas."

Breaking with tradition, the Madrid city hall also refused to place a nativity scene at the Puerta de Alcalá, one of the city"s most iconic monuments. Local politician José Luis Martínez-Almeida accused Carmena of "enthusiastically collaborating in the celebration of Ramadan" but "trying to hide all the Christian symbols of Christmas." He added: "We want to reclaim our cultural and religious roots."

 

Swamptalk: Failing POTUS, The Art of the Squeal, and Lady Liberty Weeps

It wasn’t the best of weeks for Donny Boo Boo, nor for Lady Liberty.

Donny’s on a losing streak that might rival his six bankruptcies for overall failure and futility. He also has gone into full Ned Beatty ‘Deliverance’ mode, squealing like a pig on Twitter for his inbred base.

On the plus side---call it sweet lemon---he does seem to be a uniter, as this week all of the adult Republicans turned against him (though little boy Paul Ryan is still wearing out his kneepads). Also on the plus side---at least for Fascists---Donny gave them much to Heil this week, in the form of police brutality and civil asset forfeiture.

Regarding the latter element, in a speech before cops at Suffolk County Community College, Donny told the assembled police ‘Don’t be too nice’ when arresting suspects. ‘Don’t worry about covering their heads when you toss them in the back of the cruiser’. That won him applause from many, but also polite rebukes from the Suffolk County PD, the Gainesville, FL PD and the International Association of Police Chiefs.

Civil Asset Forfeiture---where a cop can simply take cash or other assets from any citizen for any reason---got a whole lot easier as the Imperial Wizard of the DoJ, Billy Bob Sessions, pushed through Donny’s demands to allow much greater leeway for police to seize things.

Stopped for a bad tail light? Now a cop can legally ask you how much cash you have, and if in the cop’s judgement the amount is ‘suspicious’, the cop can collect it for his precinct’s Christmas Party, Friday Night Kegger, or whatever. Warning: if you are black or Hispanic, it might be best not to carry more than twenty bucks on your person from now on, because you know this is going to be abused.

Ahhhhh….4th Amendment, we hardly knew ye. Of course Donny’s newest kneepad-wearing love muffin, Da Mooch, might say, ‘Hey, what did them Founders know from real patriotism, eh?’

Now for Failing POTUS himself and his Washington Week in Review:

Bone Spurs Coward Donny, rather than actually fire his Attorney General and first Senate supporter, Jeff Sessions, tried to shame the AG into quitting. Not only did it not work, but Senators from Lindsey Graham to Chuck Grassley came out shooting at the Failing POTUS. “There’ll be Holy Hell to pay (if Sessions is fired)”, said Graham, who added, “If he fires Mueller, that is the beginning of the end of the Trump Presidency”.

Yo, Donny, that was from an ally! Maybe ya want Da Mooch to fire Lindsey or send him into the corner with Stevie Bannon to suck his own cock?

Also, in case you missed it Mr. Failing POTUS, an open microphone caught a Republican saying what every other Senator is saying away from electronic devices: You are crazy.

Elsewhere, both the Senate and House put some handcuffs on Failing POTUS by passing an enhanced Russian/Iran/North Korea sanctions Bill that Donny cannot go around---nor even veto. With a score of 98-2 in the Senate and 419-3 in the House, no Failing POTUS veto could stand. Chalk that up in the loss column, too, Donny.

In a wholly transparent and amateurish attempt to deflect from his other failures, Trump tried to make policy by Tweet, announcing that serving transgender troops would be barred from military service, kind of like if they all had Bone Spurs.

With that bizarre, out-of-nowhere affront to people who actually dare to serve, Failing POTUS lost any members of the senior military ranks who still might have supported him out of habit or the desire for another star. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dunford told service people that all still had their jobs and had the full support and respect of the senior ranks. The Secretary of the Navy not only said serving transgender troops would remain in their positions, but their medical needs would continue to be covered (Note: the total budget for transgender specific issues in the entire US Military is less than two Failing POTUS weekends at Mar-a-Lago, and not even 7% of what the military currently budgets for erectile dysfunction medications.) That’s your third loss this week, Donny.

Failing POTUS also shared blame for the Senate’s failure to do anything about healthcare. Donny never even began to acquaint himself with the House Bill nor with anything related to healthcare---even though he repeatedly tossed out his usual pabulum about how he’d deliver ‘an incredible, unbelievable, great and affordable healthcare better than you could imagine. It’s easy’. It wasn’t, and Failing POTUS, because of his intellectual laziness, had a major (small) hand in its failure.

A normal and less mentally vacant POTUS would have studied the issue and at least pretended to have some ideas, but Failing POTUS is too busy Tweeting and watching Fox & Friends. As is his usual MO, he blames others for all failures, and takes credit for pluses with which he had no involvement. That’s Donny.

His Dumb Demographic, who seemingly are unfamiliar with the old adage “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”, still actually believe Failing POTUS has both real plans and a desire to do something other than pretend to be a monarch. To them one might paraphrase the boy in Sixth Sense: I see Darwin Awards.

Thus healthcare reform failed, leaving Donny with a pen in one hand and his dick in another…and the pen is undoubtedly mightier.

Sasquatch Hucksterbee rolled out of her West Wing cot, staggered into the Press Briefing Room, and tried to put lipstick on the squealing pig by saying how wildly received Failing POTUS was by the Boy Scouts this week (in a campaign stop in West Virginia) but that fails to provide the true picture. The writer George Will referred to Donny’s performance as trying to ‘harangue some Boy Scouts about his magnificence and persecution’. Not only would Miss Piggy likely have gotten an equal or greater ovation from the polite Scouts, Hucksterbee ignored the fact that the Boy Scouts of America had to issue an apology to all Scouts and their parents over Failing POTUS’ appalling behavior, inserting politics into the Jamboree. That was a first in the history of the BSA, which is to say another loss for Failing POTUS.

In another bizarre bit of performance art, Sasquatch spent most of a shortened presser reading a handwritten scrawl from nine-year old ‘Pickle’, who professed his love of Failing POTUS in the same obsequious manner Donny’s ostensibly adult Cabinet---save for Gen Mattis---did in an unctuous videotaped meeting in the Roosevelt Room a while back. That earlier Love-In made the Last Supper look like a get-acquainted meeting for a new bowling team. Note to Sasquatch: when all you’ve got left to hold out as supporters are Boy Scouts and a Pickle, it ain’t good, though Fox will probably poll them to juice Donny’s numbers.

Da Mooch was unlikely to have ingratiated himself with anyone other than Failing POTUS, as he offended just about everyone inside and outside the Beltway. He accused Steve Bannon of impersonating Ron Jeremy. Around the West Wing he referred to the now-former Chief of Staff as ‘Rancid Penis’. He even dissed two Star Officers when he said, ‘The fish rots from the head down…only two people in the White House don’t stink: me and the President’. One suspects that did not sit well with decorated Generals Kelly and McMaster. Da Mooch might be getting fitted for cement scuffies now that General Kelly has replaced RP.

For those keeping score at home, the Failing POTUS has now lost the intel community (whom he called Nazis). He lost traditional Republicans such as George Will and Charlie Sykes. He has lost most of the Republican Congress, in particular the Senate. He lost the senior ranks of the military. He lost the Boy Scouts. He is in the process of losing the Far Right.

On the other hand, he solidified his two key demographics: The Dumb and the Neo Fascists. He’s got a solid lock on both Crackerville as well as Berchtesgaden. He has the full embrace of the American Taliban, those Flat Earth, Man-and-dinosaurs-living-together so-called Evangelicals, who somehow see the Second Coming in a serial philandering, willfully ignorant, self-absorbed, pathologically lying, racist and misogynistic Narcissist, who daily violates most all of the Seven Deadlies. All he need do is yell ‘Jeebus’, and the fleeced flock screams, ‘Praise da Lawd!’

He also seems to have Goldman Sachs, as he has stuffed his Administration full of GS alumni, but truth be told, they do not so much follow the wind as initiate the tornado. They would have been flies on Hillary, too, if she had won, as that Swamp is forever and nearly omnipotent. Failing POTUS has merely added a Cesspool to the Swamp, and he and Anthony ‘F-Bomb’ Scarabunga share lifeguard duties.

While Donny still remains a participle---as in ‘Failing’---he’s full speed ahead for past tense. He was effectively neutered this week, even though the junkyard dog Scarabunga is running around behind everyone’s house tipping over trashcans. It’s noisy, but it’s really little more than that old sound and fury, signifying nothing. As bizarre as this national tragedy already is, it will likely get more silly as the wounded porcine flails away at his ever-increasingly list of enemies.

Squeal like a pig, Failing POTUS!

Mystery Surrounds NATO Auditor General's Suspicious Death

Police in Belgium are probing the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a high ranking NATO official - the auditor general, whose responsibilities included probing terror financing - after his body was discovered in his car with a gunshot wound to the head.

As SudInfo reports, troubling elements accumulate around the death of Yves Chandelon, a senior official of the NATO based in Luxembourg, who lived in Lens, near Tournai.

The man was found dead on Friday in Andenne, with a bullet in his head. An autopsy was performed on Tuesday. The family does not believe it was suicide as many have reported.

Did Yves Chandelon have any enemies? Was he threatened in the course of his work in NATO? Was it an odious crime made to look like suicide, or did the man go through a troubled period? For his relatives, the incomprehension is total.

The 62-year-old auditor general of NATO was found in the Belgian town of Andenne, 62 miles away from his home and office in Lens on December 16. As The Express reports,

As Auditor General, Mr Chandelon was responsible for internal accounting at NSPA as well as external investigations into money laundering activities and terrorist financing - and more bizarrely it has been reported locally that the gun which killed him was found in the glovebox of the vehicle.

According to local newspaper reports Mr Chandelon was the registered keeper of three weapons however the gun found at the scene did not belong to him, it has been claimed.

Police are currently probing whether he had received any threats that could be related to his work and highlighted that the gun used was not registered in his name.

According to Flemish newspaper "The Morning", Mr Chandelon"s relatives said he attended his office Christmas party the night before he died.

Reporting gets even more confusing as LaMeuse carried two reports with additional facts about Chandelon’s death. The first stated that a “farewell letter” was found in Chandelon’s car. The second stated that the gun used in the apparent suicide was found in his right hand, despite the fact that Chandelon was left-handed.

It has been reported that the former director of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Luxembourg had complained of getting strange telephone calls before he died and "felt threatened".

We are sure the facts will all come out and this "strange" episode will be brushed under the carpet - like the mysterious deaths of various senior European bankers over the past few years.

Guest Post - Americans Play Their Trump Card (And Why the System Always Deals Us a Bad Hand)

Guest Post - Americans Play Their Trump Card

(And Why the System Always Deals Us a Bad Hand)

By

Joe Withrow

(We are so inured to the present day socioeconomic system of exploitation and control that it has become seamless and mostly invisible to "We the Walking Wounded". Passed off as just the way things work, nothing to see here so move on, we sooth our crushed soul with the ego saving lament you just can"t fight city hall.

It rarely occurs to us there is no need to actually fight at all, that what we dimly perceive as the enemy, the thorn in our paw, is doomed by its own dominance of an industrial age soon to be left behind.

Please welcome back Joe Withrow (aka joegalt here on ZH) a long time Two Ice Floes guest author, with another insightful and timely article outlining what is happening and how to navigate the fall of the industrial age and the Rise of the Individual.) 

Cognitive Dissonance

www.TwoIceFloes.com

We wait anxiously in our seats as the orchestra finishes tuning, the lights dim and the curtain draws signaling the commencement of Act Two - The Trump Triumphant.

Act One - The Campaign offered an amazing display of political strategy and showmanship! The tried and true hero vs. villain narrative was perfectly established and relentlessly repeated, drawing all of us in. Evidence of Hillary"s dirty dealings were constantly paraded for all to see - the Podesta emails, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, the paid speeches to Goldman Sachs – much of it delivered directly to the people via Twitter leaving us all to wonder: will a Hillary indictment come? 

Our hero stood tall and fearless on television, staring corruption directly in the face. "Remember, the election is rigged...” he warned us, implying the villain would do anything, including cheating, to win.

America was listening.

Middle class citizens all over the country had their pitch forks and torches arrayed and at the ready; enough was enough! Even a portion of working class people on the "left", most of whom enthusiastically supported Obama in the previous two elections, threw their support over to the Trump camp.

The mainstream media made it clear a Trump victory was nigh impossible. But that only succeeded in invigorating supporters and enlisting new recruits. After all, the narrative of America is the ultimate underdog story. If George Washington and the colonists could do it, so can Team Trump!

Yet poll after poll came back with the villain comfortably in the lead. Enthusiasm remained, but hope began to ebb and teeter...then BOOM!

The crescendo was queued and Trump stood victorious against all apparent odds on election night.

Initially stocks sold off and gold skyrocketed on uncertainty as the vote tally came in, but then something very curious happened. As if a testament to the sheer power of our hero"s will, the markets completely reversed course in after-hours trading. By the time the financial markets geared up in the U.S. the next day, stocks were in the green and gold was in the red.

It was morning in America.

The opposition paid rabble-rousers to foment unrest in a handful of cities on the coasts, as well as on many college campuses. But by and large Middle America rejoiced. Away went the pitchforks. Away went the torches. Out came the baseball caps - a true symbol of American greatness. Their hero would be the next president of the United States; they had won and all was right in the world! The swamp would be drained, jobs would be returned, and prosperity would be restored. America would be great once again!

Just a masterful display!

We watch enthusiastically as the curtain draws to reveal our hero as he addresses supporters and the nation. First he speaks of the villain: "We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.” he informs us. A few timid voices can be heard from the back of the auditorium: Wait a minute... didn"t you just say she should be in jail?

Those voices are immediately hushed. Quiet down! It"s just political talk, don"t you know anything?

Next our hero expresses his gratitude to a number of his high profile advisors: Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, Jeff Sessions, Mike Huckabee, Gen. Mike Flynn, Gen. Kellogg, Reince Priebus, the RNC...

To the ire of many, several apprehensive voices can be heard from the back of the room once again. Hold on now. Those are the same old political hacks who have been living high on the hog from the status-quo for decades! I thought you were supposed to drain the swamp... not embrace it!

Once again their voices are immediately hushed. Can it! It"s just political maneuvering. He has to play nice to get anything done.

Next our hero proclaims his vision: "We will embark upon a project of national growth and renewal..." This project, we learn, is to be a $1 trillion spending plan for infrastructure. The crowd cheers:  It"s about time we take care of our country! And think of the jobs!

Those tentative voices just can"t help themselves: Wait a minute... that sounds an awful lot like FDR"s New Deal. I thought we opposed the New Deal. Not to mention, that"s a lot of government spending...which is how the swamp got to be so darn big in the first place. I thought we opposed government spending? I thought we opposed deficits and public debt?

The crowd is getting pretty fed up at this point. Stop being a sissy... just wait until you see how he is going to pay for it! You don"t know anything about economics or geo-politics!

As Act Two plays out, our hero continues to announce the people who will serve on his cabinet and staff... more Beltway insiders... more Wall Street insiders... more swamp creatures.

The crowd doesn"t care very much... the only thing that really matters is they got "their guy" elected.  They can finally "get their licks in" at the annual Christmas party for the first time in eight years. The crowd claims to want the swamp drained, but observation suggests they simply want to be part of the winning team.

Such is the nature of politics; it is a zero-sum game. The crowd understands this perfectly well, but they think the game is "our side" vs. "their side". Left vs. Right... Liberal vs. Conservative... Working Class vs. the Rich... Main Street vs. Wall Street... Our Nation vs. Their Nation.

Those are all false paradigms. The zero-sum game is always Politics vs. Humanity.

It"s always Politics vs. Humanity. 

Always!

Politics proclaims hope and change, yet foments anger and hatred. Politics poisons the mind and pits otherwise good people against one another. Politics is the venom that encourages neighbors to actively hate one another, despite the fact they mostly share the same values, culture, and interests. Politics is the greatest engine of theft, coercion, violence, misinformation, lies, death, and destruction the world has ever seen.

Yet the crowd remains glued to political news programming and faithfully shows up at the ballot box every four years ready to enact political change. They are always trying to get the "right" people into office. They never seem to understand the things they wish to change have very little to do with the people in office, and everything to do with the structure of coercive government. Without the structure of institutionalized force, coercion, theft, and violence, it would not matter much who claimed to be the ruler.

This has been going on for hundreds of years now, ever since "representative democracy" convinced people they themselves own their government and that politics is all about civil service. Prior to this, people understood that they were "subjects" to their government, not "citizens", and they did their very best to avoid it whenever possible. That"s why the tax collector was once the most reviled of professions.

Here"s the thing: even if the crowd understood they were "subjects" to the structure claiming dominion over them, there is very little they could do to change it. You don"t get to vote for the structure or even for the fundamental components comprising the structure; you only get to vote for a public overseer. That is the great democratic deceit - the illusion of governmental ownership and control by “We the People”.

The crowd will continue to be preyed upon for as long as they fail to recognize this. But that doesn"t mean you have to be a victim.

The world has undergone a massive change over the past several decades – the type of change from which there is no return. This change has been the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age; a transition still in its infancy.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-to-late 18th century, has lifted more than a billion people from the shackles of poverty, raised standards of living exponentially and created the world in which we live today. In the developed world, even people of the most modest means enjoy far more comforts and luxuries than the wealthiest kings and nobles of the pre-industrial era.

Commerce was the driving force behind industrialism and the market system was spawned from enterprise and trade. But for all of its revolutionary and wealth-creating qualities, the Industrial Age carried one major limitation; it required highly rigid centralization.

Centralized institutions require a certain degree of administrative bureaucracy in order to function. This applies to corporations just as it applies to governments, and it is why corporate organizational structures fundamentally resemble government hierarchies.

All of these institutions employ pyramidal hierarchical structures: there are a few people at the top who send orders down to the people comprising the chain below them who pass those orders on down the hierarchy. Each successive chain is progressively larger as you work your way down the organizational chart.

Old or new, all legacy institutions employ failing pyramidal hierarchical structures.

The problem with bureaucracies is that they are slow, inefficient, and carry conflicting incentives and disincentives across the various chains of authority. These problems become magnified as the bureaucracy grows, and the one consistent incentive present in all bureaucracies is the desire to expand. As an institution grows, its focus becomes less on innovation or wealth-creation, and more on suppressing competition.

This is why the very institutions responsible for empowering individuals and enriching civilization on a mass scale always seem to stagnate and become parasitic over time.

So many institutional systems of the Industrial Age began (and I paint with a broad brush here) as liberators and innovators. These systems grew to encompass most of the globe, and they came to be thought of as permanent. For many, perhaps they still are.

Francis Fukuyama penned an essay back in 1989 titled The End of History? which suggested that humanity may have reached the end of its socio-cultural evolution with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Francis made a number of good points in his essay, and overall it made perfect sense at the height of the Industrial Age.

But God has a sense of humor and the Universe is unequivocally characterized by change and paradox. The Information Age was beginning its ascent precisely as Mr. Fukuyama was proclaiming the supreme permanency of western regulatory democracy and its established institutional systems. Little did the Establishment know that a new disrupting force was rising from the ether.

In fact, Timothy C. May had already penned and presented his powerful manifesto a year earlier at the Crypto 88 conference. History may very well point to Mr. May’s manifesto as the definitive beginning to the Information Age. Here’s May:

A specter is haunting the modern world… Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other…

Reputations will be of central importance, far more important in dealings than even the credit ratings of today. These developments will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions, the ability to keep information secret, and will even alter the nature of trust and reputation…

Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions…

That day has arrived; we are living in the early stages of the Information Age. Most people may not know this yet, but they can feel it.

The institutional foundation of the industrial world is crumbling around us. Governments are bankrupt. Social welfare program costs are growing exponentially. Unions are broke. Pension plans are severely underfunded. National currencies have been trashed. Blue-collar jobs in the developed world have been lost to low-wage countries. Low-wage jobs have been lost to robotics and automation. Many of the jobs just disappeared entirely. Everyone"s retirement account is propped up by the constant creation of money out of thin air required to keep the financial markets afloat.

Welcome to the Information Age!

The Information Age is still in its infancy.

In truth, these are all great things. The seeds of a second Renaissance for human civilization have already been sown. These seeds will blossom as civilization continues to move away from the Industrial Age model and its centralized dominant/submissive paradigm.

Think about it this way: technology is conquering scarcity and reducing the need for centralization.

It required 40% of the U.S. population to work in agriculture in order to produce enough food to meet demand in the year 1900. Today that number is around 2%, and food is more available than ever before. You can find milk, eggs, meat, fresh fruits, vegetables, and all kinds of other items at your local grocery store year-round. This has enabled people to focus their time, energy, and labor on more advanced endeavors which in turn has led to an explosion of technological innovation.

As a result of this drastic reduction in scarcity, the average person today is far wealthier in standard of living terms than the wealthiest people alive one hundred years ago. Take a few minutes to walk around your house and catalogue your furniture, appliances, electronics, gadgets, widgets, and stuff. Most of what you take for granted every single day was not available to your forefathers a mere one hundred years ago.

Here"s the point: the world is not going to hell in a hand basket; the institutionalized industrial model is.

I don"t know whether or not the centralized structure of coercive government was a necessary evil on the way to building an advanced civilization, but I do know this: politics is 100% obsolete in this digital age we now find ourselves in. We are living with space-age technology, yet we still employ the structure of bronze-age rulership by means of force, coercion, theft, misinformation, and violence on a mass scale.

We have been conditioned by this model to view ourselves as a victim always in need of a savior. Yet we humans are engines of creation. We can imagine and envision, then turn our imaginations and visions into reality. I mean that quite literally. It is just a choice. We are astonishingly capable beings, but we have been conditioned to focus on manifesting conflict and negativity.

This is why I am so saddened when I see politics, and the dark forces behind it, trick wonderful people into spending all of their time, energy, and thoughts on political abstractions. I see this every day in my own life. I see people whom I love and respect get sucked into the political game; I see them elevate politics to religious levels and willfully ignore those things that are most important in their own life. I watch as the twinkle vanishes from their eye, the pep disappears from their step, and the anger slowly poisons their psyche.

And I understand. I was there myself not too long ago.

As best I can tell, western civilization is a tale of two cities at the current point in time.

The people in one city are confused and angry because they do not understand why their industrial institutions are failing them. The 2016 U.S. election cycle made it obvious the people living in this city reside on both the "left" and the "right" side of the modern political spectrum. They know it’s broke and they want it fixed no matter what it takes, and no matter whose rights are trampled to do so. They are looking for a hero, and they see politics as the solution.

The people in the other city are much less concerned about the devolving industrial model because they are leveraging the budding trends of the Information Age in their favor. These are the people learning how to operate in the digital economy that bypasses industrial borders. They are learning there"s a whole lot more to the money story than what they were led to believe.

They are learning how to build collaborative networks utilizing digital technology and secure communications. They are actively creating superior alternatives to literally every civil service function currently provided by industrial institutions. They see politics as the problem, and they see decentralized networks as the solution.

I lived in that first city several years ago. I was angry and depressed all the time. I thought the answer was to fight the trends; fight the world. I was stressed to the max, and terribly unpleasant to be around...just ask my wife.

When I eventually got tired of being angry and depressed my mind switched gears, and I moved to the second city. It"s much more pleasant here, and the people are friendlier. The people in this city aren"t trying to change the world - that"s a win-lose proposition. Instead, they are building an alternative world based upon participatory networks and voluntary association utilizing modern technology.

Never before has this been possible in recorded human history.

While the crowd is focused on fighting the existing status-quo on the macro scale, a growing number of individuals are focused on building a better model on the micro scale. The new model is not fixated upon enacting "social change", it is geared towards empowering individuals. In fact, it"s not much of a model at all in the traditional sense. It is not about replacing the old structure with a new one. Instead, the new model is a perspective paired with an understanding of the economic trends, digital technologies, and financial tools necessary to build a life of freedom, wealth, and fulfillment to the fullest extent possible.

This is the theme of the third edition of my book titled The Individual is Rising: Transcending the Industrial Order and Prospering in the Digital Age.

Pick up a digital copy absolutely free at http://theindividualisrising.com/.

The book is available in both paperback and Kindle format on Amazon. But at the moment I’m not terribly interested in selling copies as much as I am in distributing copies. Anyone interested can pick up a digital copy absolutely free at http://theindividualisrising.com/.

If you are tired of politics and its associated corruption, this book is for you. You see, in every developed industrial country there is a glass ceiling of-sorts over the middle class. When you add up all of the taxes across all levels of government, the middle class pays at least half of their income to their governments each year.

In addition to taxes, the middle class is also subjected to the whims of their rulers almost entirely. They just don"t have any other options - they are stuck. And truthfully very few in the middle class even think about it. After all, the rat-race consumes the bulk of their time and energy.

But what if you don"t want to participate in any of their political programs? What do you do when you just want to be left alone to experience this life in a meaningful way, but politics and its supporters are hell-bent on forcing you to play their games and participate in their schemes? What do you do when the moral busybodies are determined to keep you corralled within their systems of taxation and surveillance? What do you do when your logic is met with anger and condemnation?

Historically, the answer has been to fight; to use force - politically or even physically - as a means of instituting change. This is a losing proposition, and it is completely unnecessary in the digital age.

In the old days, the dreamers, visionaries, philosophers, and wayfaring souls were forced to meet secretly in the back rooms of taverns, inns, and speak-easies to discuss their radical ideas. Today, they can all connect with one another to share information and ideas instantaneously on the Internet, in total privacy thanks to encryption technology, from the comforts of their own home.

What this means is individuals can create their own future independently; they no longer need to fight to reform society in accordance with their own ideals and preferences. As systems theorist Buckminster Fuller pointed out, fighting the System only strengthens it. Here"s Bucky:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

For perhaps the first time in history, the Information Age and its digital economy are enabling individuals to build and experiment with new models on a global scale in relative peace and freedom. I don"t think the significance of this is well-understood or appreciated as of yet.

This dynamic is unprecedented and absolutely revolutionary. And it is irreversible. The rulers can certainly build censorship and misinformation into popular social media sites, search engines, and top-level domains, and I suspect they will. But they cannot censor or shut down distributed networks designed to decentralize the Internet and all of its applications by bypassing third parties entirely.

The rabbit is out of the hat, and it won"t be going back in. It is the Gutenberg Press all over again, except on a much greater scale. Fundamentally, the encryption technology driving decentralization is just a branch of mathematics. No matter how much legislation is passed, and no matter how many guns are drawn, the rulers cannot alter mathematics. 2 + 2 will always equal 4.

This presents the disenfranchised individual with a unique opportunity.

Most aspects of our society are digital today. Information is digital. Communication is digital. Vital records are digital. Money is digital. Wealth is digital. Transactions are digital.

I don"t think this dynamic is well understood, nor do I think it is particularly welcomed by those of us who came up according to the rules of the Industrial Age. But those who understand the trends and the available technology can organize their affairs to bypass the abusive structure to the fullest extent possible to enhance their quality of life. Further, they can build alternative networks geared towards any desired purpose; they can construct better alternatives to the existing model which is based on centralization, hierarchy, monopoly, coercion, and political power.

Now this doesn"t reduce the need for basic resiliency - food, water, shelter, and gold... but those are chaos hedges. My experience is that a fixation upon chaos hedges tends to foster an unpleasant and rather defeatist perspective. I am not sure that fulfillment can ever come to those with a defeatist mindset. Simply, a focus on negativity necessarily crowds out the inner genius capable of building a custom-tailored life.

Einstein once mused: "I think the most important question facing humanity is, "Is the universe a friendly place?"."

If we come to the conclusion that the answer to Einstein"s question is no, then we are doomed to a Hobbesian life of scarcity, struggle, and subservience. But if we decide the answer is yes, then a whole new world of opportunity opens up to us. As to what, specifically, that opportunity is - that is up to you.

It"s all just a choice...

Joe Withrow

aka joegalt here on ZH

There are always Jokers in their deck. The only way to win is not to play their game.