At least one person was appeared to have been shot, apparently by Cuban police, videos posted on social media show.

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Source: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article315052027.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawQlGyFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeZ4sMqTqeo6Bp-mYWXySr1iIu3EmxHDJaZQ-JzRJR2y7UnVWTcsHy-SeebRI_aem_psIu-rYsUmlliczidyXj1A

The post Protesters in Cuba set fire to Communist Party building; one person shot first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

For years, we’ve been on a slow steady path toward the same communist society as China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and other repressive regimes have. Many in academia, media, and politics have worked to indoctrinate our young people and others with the idea that socialism is compassionate and makes everyone’s outcome in life equal through legislation.

As Lenin once stated, “The goal of socialism is communism.” Socialism inevitably leads to communism. People are continually stripped of their rights until all that remains is a tyrannical, totalitarian regime with total control over the people.

Socialism uses “political correctness” to attack basic moral discernment and force everyone to be the same. This has come along with the normalization and legalization of all manner of anti-theist and profane speech, sexual perversions, demonic art, pornography, and drug use.

This flies in the face of anyone who believes in God and aspires to a higher moral plane. This is done with the goal to marginalize and eventually get rid of anyone who disagrees with them.

Our younger generations have been the ones to view socialism most favorably and participating in protests and riots aimed at destroying our cultural heritage. Meanwhile, many in our society have come to support the idea that the government should provide health care, education, guaranteed income, and perhaps eventually the entire cost of living.

Perhaps knowingly or unknowingly, we’re gradually trading our traditions and freedoms for a system that controls people. Socialism and communism claim ownership over all property and people. Big tech, media, Hollywood, billionaires, and politicians should all take note.

This has all come to a head with the results of the 2020 presidential election with the credible allegations of election fraud. The nation that stands to gain the most from the results of the election is China. Also Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. Communist China has ruthlessly ruled for over 70 years, resulting in the unnatural deaths of at least 65 million people.

America is in a battle between good and evil. Communism teaches people to replace belief in God with atheism and materialism and as a result, good and evil have been inverted. Righteousness is cast as wickedness and vice as compassion.

I didn’t vote for President Trump because I liked him. I voted for him because he was and is the only person I can think of that would stand in the way of a movement designed to tear down and destroy our nation. One that is the greatest on Earth, and one that so many people sacrificed for and died for over the years to make it that way, and one that I love and hold very dear. May God bless Donald Trump and the United States of America.

Bill Fullen Sr. lives in Galveston.

Source: https://www.galvnews.com/opinion/guest_columns/article_09a3a693-7a07-513a-ad1c-39d5518b1cf5.html

The post US passing through socialism on way to communism first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Has the United States not gone to WAR, sent battle groups, ships and airplanes, not to mention America’s sons and daughters, to keep foreign nations from falling under the communistic or murderous intentions of their tormentors?  Ever heard of Iraq?  How about Korea or Viet Nam?  Did the U. S. not deploy all manner of weaponry and troops to avoid having others, halfway around the world, come under the DOMINION of communists, terrorists or dictatorial autocrats?  Did you ever consider the definition of that word in all caps?  It’s the name of the company that supplied the technical apparatus used to “tabulate” the results of the contested election.

Communism has always been a hateful ideology as far as most Americans are concerned.  But suddenly, in the wake of a glaringly corrupt election, we’re supposed to accept whatever the ‘experts’ say to the mainstream media?  Much of the land of the formerly free is under LOCKDOWN.  These governors are not fooling around.  They’ll send law enforcement to shut down any business whose owners think they have some Constitutional right or other.  Cuomo, Brylcreem, and Whitmer, among others, have determined that the only safe place to be is at home, where the news will brainwash you with fear.

In New York, Governor Cuomo has threatened to shut down synagogues, “once and for all” for having disobeyed him. Please don’t notice that two weeks has elapsed, and now it’s been ten months.  If you’re not out of business just yet, maybe another four to six months will do it.  That’s what Bill Gates says anyway.  Apparently he’s the “expert” nobody dares argue with.   The news tells you 1000 times a day you should be frightened half to death by COVID-19.  It’s killing thousands a day, they tell us.  Better not visit with family, or venture out to eat!  Dr. Fao Chi will not be amused!

What they will not report is how the dreaded Wu Flu has wiped out the death statistics from every other known cause.  No one dies of a heart attack, stroke, internal bleeding.  Nope.  Those have all been eradicated.  If somebody dies, it must have been the new cause of all suffering and death.  Did no one ever tell these vain officials about the American Constitution?  Who do they think they are, issuing “orders” for which they have limited authority?

There are some just judges remaining on the job.  Lawsuits take time.  Governors can exercise considerable muscle immediately, assuming they have the cooperation of law enforcement.  But getting governor’s “better judgment” overturned in a court of law isn’t an immediate proposition.  A judge in San Diego did slap down the tyrannical Gavin Newsome (aka governor Brylcreem) this week.  It turns out that dining establishments can open after all!  Brylcreem probably can’t get to sleep over this one!  He’ll have a hard time getting over the fact that his word is not necessarily law.

The dreaded virus was the mechanism (and excuse) used to overthrow the United States of America, with all the “lock-downs” and hastily approved rules for “absentee voting.”  It’s been described as “death by a thousand cuts.”  It appears as though every conceivable method of cheating was employed under the logic that, even if some irregularities were exposed, they wouldn’t have been sufficient to “overturn the results,” and therefore no courts are interested.  Never mind that the Communist Chinese seem to have helped elect someone whom they might very well OWN.  If you read up, you’ll find that they’ve got a major stake in the companies that own and operate tech systems that have been used to decide who the next president will be.

We’ve found out that most of the shenanigans were courtesy of judges, governors, secretaries of state and rule-making entities other than state legislatures, none of which are authorized to change the law without legislative action.  That’s what the Constitution says,  but so far no court seems concerned.  Not even the Supreme Court, which refused to take any evidence into account.  In fact NO COURT is interested in VIDEO PROOF, or eyewitness testimony, or the hundreds and hundreds of legal affidavits on file.

Overnight, we’ve learned that the United States has come under a massive cyber-attack, and even that our nuclear protocol has been intercepted.  By whom?  What, if any, will be the response?  President Trump has been mighty quiet lately.  CNN has a spy in the White House that claims he’s raging and throwing temper tantrums “about having to leave.”  If he’s throwing a fit, he’s not the only one.  Maybe it’s nothing to do with “having to leave.”

How corrupt is the government?  Are judges in on the corruption?  How deep is the Deep State?  Is there no floor to the swamp?  Will President Trump have any allies in government agencies if he should determine to fight?  Or will he just quietly get into a limousine and leave America to its Chinese captors?  Here’s hoping and praying for national redemption.  Otherwise, we’ll be in captivity.

Mark

The post Weekly Update – 18 December 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Socialism is the 1st Stage Towards Communism – Filmed April 1969 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Despite every news report pumping viral fear, we’ve got a few other matters to discuss.  One is that Tehran has experienced its third major explosion in as many weeks.  The latest is said to have blown up a missile storage warehouse of the Revolutionary Guard. The blast was said to have caused widespread panic.

Other explosions and fires are attributed to oxygen tanks in one instance, and gas tanks in another.  One explosion occurred in an auto manufacturing plant.  Then for some reason, power was knocked out in a large segment of the city, without explanation.  Israeli sabotage is suspected, but no one seems to know for sure.

In the wake of China’s new “security law” being enforced in Hong Kong, both Australia and Canada have canceled their extradition treaties with Hong Kong.  China’s leadership is not amused, as you might expect.  It is now a crime to criticize China in Hong Kong, and the penalties are extreme.  It seems that both Australia and Canada are expecting major financial businesses and manufacturing concerns to want to move operations out of Hong Kong and into their countries.  China accuses both Australia and Canada of “interfering in Hong Kong’s internal affairs,” and has warned both that they will pay a heavy price.  We hope it’s the other way around.

Brexit is scheduled to finally take hold at the end of September.  Angela Merkel is advising companies in Germany to start planning for the possibility of reaching no deal with the UK as Brexit finally becomes a reality.  It’s leading to lots of internal strife within Germany and Europe as the deadline approaches without agreements on trade.  Merkel herself is receiving criticisms from German publications and politicians, as the rest of Europe is suspicious that some deal may be struck on Germany’s behalf that won’t apply to the rest of the EU.  She is said to be “shunned” by EU leaders.

And then there is the dreaded virus.  The news is reporting record cases, record deaths and worrying that everything isn’t shut down.  Some people are going in public without wearing masks!  An article this morning reports that a suburb south of Denver will begin issuing fines for going in public without one, and will see that recalcitrant mask-refusers spend one year in jail.

It’s hard to know what to believe about these reports.  Too bad the news media has made such a habit of lying to us, particularly over recent years.  We’ve watched them freaking out about global warming, ready to shed tears over the fact that they haven’t been able to foment large scale panic.  For decades they’ve been pedaling the “existential crisis” narrative and experienced total frustration at our lack of concern.  Now that they’ve got the COVID pandemic, they’ve given global warming a much-needed rest.  But don’t despair, it will be back front and center as soon as the virus panic begins to wane.

People are asking us what our plans are for the Feast of Tabernacles.  We tell them that we have contracts with the venues and expect to fulfill them without any last-minute “mandates” or cancellations.  Powers are being exerted that we never knew existed, and there seems no end to it.  Governors, mayors, judges, and county commissioners apparently have the power to issue orders in complete opposition to Constitutional guarantees.  Those powers are now the subject of dozens, maybe hundreds of lawsuits.  But as we know, EVERYTHING on earth is now a subject of political importance.

We are going to discuss current events, particularly when they apply directly to the rights that come from our Creator.  That, after all is the whole idea underlying the United States.  Rights conferred upon all humanity by God are not to be trifled with by human beings who are temporary officeholders.  But everybody’s rights are being trampled under the ideology that we must be protected from ourselves.  Since we have no sense at all, officials need to place us under one MANDATE after another, whether or not their mandates upend Constitutional freedoms.

Incalculable damage is being done to the national economy, and we don’t yet know the half of it.  Whether the United States survives the Chinese virus or the communist revolution that it made possible, we’ll have to wait and see.  We have an internal war going on, but only one side is fighting.  They’re determined to abolish the family, abolish the police, abolish safety and security for Americans, and anybody that says “boo” will be targeted.

Thankfully, Christians look forward to a future without communist tormentors.  But that includes troubled times for the United States and for the world.  May God have mercy on those who abide by His Laws, keep His Commandments, and refuse to play by the ever-changing rules being thrust upon us.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 10 July 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Communist party supporters carry portraits of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, left, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during a demonstration marking the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. Thousands of Communist demonstrators marked the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution Tuesday by marching across downtown Moscow. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A band of political radicals seized the reins of power in post-tsarist Russia a century ago this week, installing Vladimir Lenin as their first leader and setting in play some of the forces that made the 20th century the bloodiest in human history.

The post Los Angeles Times: Russian Revolution still echoes 100 years later first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

When the Nazi iconography was discovered this summer in Herxheim am Berg, some called for the bell’s removal, others for its protection as a relic of a shameful national history. The village is still deciding what to do.

Germans have a word for coming to terms with the past: “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” The word, coined after World War II, has no equivalent in the English language, no analog that might inform the American debate over Confederate monuments — whose defenders include not just torch-wielding neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., but also President Donald Trump.

On a continent riven in the last century by two world wars, genocide and a battle of ideas waged across the Iron Curtain, European nations have accepted the burden of curating the tortured landscapes of their past. Symbols — insignia, flags, monuments — have become explosive at moments of regime change, as shifts in political power alter the cultural currents of the day. East-west friction particularly marks the conflict over remembrance in Europe, from de-Nazification in the Cold War era to contests today over commemoration of communism’s past.

“To some extent, Germany is an exceptional case,” said Arnd Bauerkämper, a historian at the Free University in Berlin. “Only the abandonment of Nazi ideology, and the clear break with the Nazi past, enabled integration into the West — membership in NATO, German reunification. There never was such a decisive break with Confederate ideas in the United States.”

But addressing monuments to people, parties and movements that have fallen into disrepute has not been simple in Germany, or elsewhere in Europe. And while memorials to victims now predominate, particularly here in the former capital of the Third Reich, continuing strife over names and symbols illuminates the continent’s enduring divisions.

A statue of Franz Joseph I again occupies a prominent position in Prague, a century after Czechoslovak independence made the commemoration of an Austro-Hungarian emperor unthinkable. Other figures remain unpalatable. For years, Czech officials have debated what to do with the plinth once supporting a statue of Joseph Stalin that weighed 17,000 metric tons, destroyed in 1962 as the communist party line turned against the Soviet dictator.

Jirina Siklova, a Czech sociologist active in the dissident Charter 77 movement, said the site remained indelibly linked to Stalin.

“It is stimulation for an explanation of this man,” she said. “Without this statue of Stalin, and without the liquidation of this statue, the new generation and tourists wouldn’t remember this period.”

Hungary has removed Communist-era statues from their pedestals and placed them in Memento Park, an open-air museum outside Budapest. Lithuania’s Grutas Park is similar.

This has not quieted dispute over public memorials, however, particularly as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has pursued nationalist politics. A monument unveiled in 2014 to mark the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s invasion by Nazi Germany was dedicated to “the victims of the German invasion.” Critics said it obscured Hungary’s involvement in the annihilation of its Jewish citizens.

This year, activists threw paint-filled balloons at a Soviet memorial in Freedom Square in Budapest, in protest of perceived lingering Russian influence in Hungarian affairs.

Jakub Janda, deputy director of the Prague-based European Values Think-Tank, said Russian influence was inseparable from a new effort by Czech communists to commemorate Communist-era border guards, who once policed the country’s frontier with West Germany and Austria. Josef Skala, vice chairman of the Czech Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, said memorializing the guards was part of an effort to demonstrate that Czechoslovakia, in addition to the Soviet Union, was a victim in the Cold War.

“I, personally, and the party I belong to do not like rewriting history,” Skala said. “We did not initiate the Cold War. We made mistakes, yes, but we were defending our interests.”

Antipathy to Russia in Poland’s ruling nationalist party, Law and Justice, has created a new row over Communist-era monuments in the former Soviet satellite state. The Polish government has set out to remove 500 Soviet monuments, as Russian senators call on President Vladimir Putin to respond with sanctions.

Statues of Stalin and Vladimir Lenin have also been toppled in Ukraine, as part of pro-Europe revolutionary activity that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

Still another approach is that of Romania, which last year unveiled a new sculpture — depicting three wings pointing to the sky — that honors those who died fighting Communist rule in Romania and Bessarabia.

The German capital is a tableau of conflicting impulses. An underground transit station was renamed for Karl Marx in 1946 — not in the communist east but in West Berlin. Parts of the Berlin Wall remain in place, including at Checkpoint Charlie, a major tourist destination. Two years ago, the head of a giant Lenin statue was exhumed and exhibited in Berlin.

The European Union dropped in 2005 proposals to ban both Nazi and communist symbols, due to concerns for freedom of expression as well as disagreement over the scope of the prohibition. Still, many European nations bar the use of totalitarian symbolism. In parts of Eastern Europe, bans expressly extend to communist iconography. In Germany, only the prohibition on Nazi symbols and signals is unambiguous; tourists from across the globe have recently learned that giving the Nazi salute is forbidden.

Many sites associated with the Nazis stand today as haunting museums. Other structures have been demolished to thwart neo-Nazi pilgrimages. A prison that housed Nazi war criminals was razed in 1987, its materials ground to powder and scattered in the North Sea.

But purging Germany of Nazism was not as swift as severe legal codes might suggest. Nor were the country’s motives as pure, said Jacob S. Eder, a scholar of German history and Holocaust memory at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena.

“It’s important to avoid making the mistake of thinking that now because every German city has some kind of memorial or museum to the Nazi past, that this was an easy process,” Eder said. “It’s actually quite the opposite.”

Certain debates, he said, still confound the public. Parade grounds in Nuremberg where Hitler held massive rallies lie in disrepair. “The question is what to do with it and whether to let it just decay,” Eder said.

Controversy in the 1990s and early 2000s marked the conceptualization of the Holocaust memorial in the heart of Berlin.

“People considered it a mark of shame,” Eder said — an argument revived this year by Björn Höcke, a state leader of Alternative for Germany, a far-right party poised to enter the German Parliament for the first time in elections next month. “It was the government of Helmut Kohl that pushed for this monument, not out of a sense of moral responsibility but much more a political necessity, to improve Germany’s reputation abroad.”

From the beginning of the postwar era, as West Germany rebuilt under the Marshall Plan, external pressure guided de-Nazification.

“Our deliverance from the Nazi period wasn’t a development within Germany, but we were forced by the Allied forces to become a civilized nation again,” said Volker Beck, a Green Party lawmaker who heads the Germany-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group.

The process was faltering, as ex-Nazis sometimes found their way into power, said Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, author of “The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism.”

“But the thing that kept West Germany in the American orbit — and committed to de-Nazification — was fear of the Soviet Union,” he said. “There was no such fear in the American South.”

Aid to reconstruct Western European economies hinged on strict conditions to adopt democratic policies.

By contrast, a decade after the Civil War, as federal troops were withdrawn from the South, the decrees of Reconstruction went unenforced.

Luisa Beck contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/in-a-german-village-the-bell-still-tolls-for-hitler/article_33cae76b-3629-5ad8-9648-1adba16f2903.html

The post In a German village, the bell still tolls for Hitler first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.