Barack Obama’s much touted campaign cries for “Change We Can Believe In” and the response of the everyday citizens of Europe to the recent “no” vote from the Irish are raising the same questions on two continents. What are the questions? 

Average Americans are not fully aware of the machinations of their own political system so when it comes to European politics they are largely in the dark. Admittedly most Europeans feel they are in the dark now too since the Irish vote to ratify the Lisbon Treaty was shot down on June 12, 2008. 

The short version is that the Lisbon Treaty would set the pace for national elections in the EU that would get them a pres and vice pres etc and thus be governed more uniformly. This of course is not the only provision of the treaty but it is the one that eschatologist and some US political pundits would be most interested in. It is out of the first few rulers or presidents over the EU that the bible’s Antichrist will emerge. 

Oddly the cry following the Irish “no” vote to the treaty has been a call for more passion and boldness and of course change. Across the board Europeans are demanding change and some think the change will positively affect not only the EU but the entire world. Some EU citizens have voiced their opinions which run relatively parallel across the board in news and blogs sites to those found in America.  Typical are the comments found in news sites like the EU Observer. 

“Whatever the result of the Irish referendum, the fact remains that a substantial number of EU citizens are unhappy. The root cause is the EU’s democratic deficit and the solution could be a European Movement for Democratic Change, argues Peter Sain ley” Berry. EUO June 13, 2008 

“The succession of crises that the world is currently facing should encourage members of the European Parliament to develop new political philosophies to move Europe and the world along a more sustainable path.” EUO May 23, 2008 

In America Sen. Obama’s stand for same sex civil unions and his support for Roe V. Wade are running right along side the impassioned promise from Brussels that it will provide strong no sexual orientation discrimination measures for the continent and its satellite members. In fact those measures and abortion rights are now already entry requirements for new members to the EU. 

Besides gearing up for the planned blockade of truckers around the city of Brussels to protest high gas prices it seems Europeans don’t want any intervention from the government regarding their sexual preferences, habits, proclivities or outright perversions. America may be a few paces ahead of Europe in the common-hood of all that is raunchy but the EU and America are more tag partners than competitors. 

With Hollywood leading the way with new all gay TV offerings and programs that flaunt everything salacious like “Sex and the City” not to mention the “Lifetime Achievement Award” to be awarded to Playboy’s Hugh Hefner; it would seem America should be checking the world’s supply of latex for condoms instead of oil for our cars. 

It is impossible not to hear the echoes of Billy Graham’s now legendary proclamation that if God doesn’t judge America he will have to resurrect Sodom and Gomorrah and apologize.Judgment; now there’s a word America has all but forgotten. But that’s not all America has forgotten.  

Obama’s rallying cry for change may be sweeping the young blood of our nation to a heart that is choked off and undergoing a cardiac arrest just as it did in Mao’s China or Hitler’s youth movements. The now generation can hardly be expected to remember the dangerous conditions that prevailed over five decades ago. They are busy fighting germs, stains, and odors or dealing with the new trendy maladies the drug companies have informed us about like E.D. or America’s collective national sexually bent O.C.D. If there is any time left after that we might be found watching American Idol or attending a lively Obama campaign rally. 

With plenty of attitude those who only recently broke away from mom will muster the mood, momentum and misinformation that drives the wave of “change” along its inevitable course. Forget that all waves eventually dissipate or crash violently to the shore. Give us buckets for our slaughtered unborn babies and freedom for our sexual deviance in all its forms and forget the invisible forces of gravity and the waxing and waning of the moon that pulls the ocean around like a dog on a leash.  

The most highly educated generation in American history fully understands how unseen, undetected and voiceless gravity moves the mighty ocean around like water in a bottle. But they can’t discern that they are being led willingly by the hidden Prince of darkness pulling the tide of humanity to a day of reckoning. Forget the warnings of the Bible thumpers, preachers and prophets who would interrupt the dance before the music is gone. Change is the keyword, the rallying cry, the secret catch word that when heard calls the crowds to break from the milling and dull repetitions of the slow and tiresome past. 

Much like the waves of the ocean are the tasteless repetitive, derogatory and wholly tiresome jokes and allusions to Sen. John McCain’s age on late night comedy shows. Unlike the EU, age discrimination is not much of a problem in the US but it should be. Maybe its time the cowardly purveyors and philosophers of PC let the O word catch up to the N word. It is time to understand that time is still the most powerful teacher known to man and if hindsight is truly 20/20 then McCain comes out as the visionary not Sen. Obama. 

In thirty five years of teaching the Bible tenants of the second coming of Christ (eschatology) I have heard the question “do you think he could be the Antichrist” asked thousands of times about dozens of people. Now I see the question being asked about Sen. Obama on blogs and websites and in fellowship halls more than any other name to date. 

I don’t believe that he is the Antichrist because according to scripture the Antichrist comes from and rules over Europe. But since the false prophet who aids the Antichrist comes from a completely different nation I am watching Obama’s meteoric rise with that fact in mind. 

We who love America and its constitution and original purpose are disgusted beyond measure with what is happening to our nation. We who love God and trust his word are seeing prophecy unrolling right before our eyes. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow but we are always thankful that warnings were part of Gods grace to us so we wouldn’t be easily deceived or overcome. Christ comforted those who were to see the ugliness of the last days bring the world to its knees with a saying that calls the big cry for change for the sake of change what it really is; a cunningly attractive deception. 

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.  MT. 24:24 

Rev Michael Bresciani is an author and columnist for several online sites and magazines. His articles are now read throughout the world. For more articles, news, movie reviews and more visit The Website for Insight at http://www.americanprophet.org

The last time oil and gasoline consumption were covered in this space was four years ago, when a gallon of gas was selling for two dollars twelve cents and Americans were out of their minds from righteous indignation.  The more outraged among us were scheduling fruitless boycotts, mass-forwarding barely readable, thirteenth generation conspiracy theory emails, and screaming at the top of their lungs about how little the Bush administration was doing to stem the tide.  But as was concluded here at the time, “… if the goal [of protests] is to make a financial statement, then conservation at and beyond the gas pump should be your first consideration, and will be your best bet.” 

Reader reaction back then often said that conservation was beside the point; some of the objections were so long and twisted the Unabomber was seen convulsing with jealousy.  Most lost upon the majority of those doing the screaming was the concept of conservation beyond the gas pump – if you really wanted to move as freely in 2004 as you did in 2001, and your finances didn’t otherwise allow it, sacrifices would have to be made.  Sacrifice is not part of the modern American character.  The thought seemed to be that prices should just be lower, even if they achieved at the point of a bayonet.  Anything except using less.

We needn’t wonder whatever became of those radical nonconformists.  Once gas prices started looking and feeling more European, the radicals did what they should have been doing in the first place.  The Department of Transportation reports that between November 2007 and April 2008, Americans drove thirty billion fewer miles than normal, the biggest decline since the late 1970s, which is encouraging, but much too late to make any real difference, as we see.

Substitute hosting Glenn Beck’s television show Thursday, Michael Graham asked a question that didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved: If there were suddenly a mass shortage of bread, someone in a position of authority would say, “Make more bread,” and that would be that.  Why isn’t this the case with oil?  Putting aside the obvious regulatory gymnastics and ideological entanglements that stymie any such process: If you started building the appropriate infrastructure fifty miles off the Florida coast today, five to ten years would pass before a drop of that oil would be available for consumption.  Obviously this is a process that should have gotten underway many years ago.

 The Left’s answer to demands for increased oil drilling is uniformly, “The United States cannot drill its way out of its energy problems.”  Actually, yes it can, and could have been doing so for over a decade now if only Bill Clinton had bothered to exercise the prescience we were assured lingered, as if somehow in-born, with the very fabric of his soul.  (Or something.)  We can’t drill our way out of this problem quickly, which is a turn-off for a country that expects everything to be done with a sort of fast food efficiency.  We absolutely can drill out way out eventually, if only certain elements would stand down and allow progress to be made. 

Those opposed to new drilling could make a better, more logical, and modern argument if they would accept the reality of the moment and say, Yes, America must be energy independent and must drill for oil of its own, to fulfill its own needs, but it cannot only drill for oil.  Concurrently, those insisting only on drilling must also meet the reality of our times.  The strides we’ve made toward alternative fuels et cetera must continue, but at this stage it would be unrealistic to say alternative fuels must be the only game in town.  More oil is a no-brainer, if only we can muster the moral courage to move forward.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bloggers are being arrested more and more as the importance of the Internet is realized by governments across the world, at least so warns the BBC. It seems an alarming report where community activists and democracy advocates are finding themselves being oppressed by government, arrested, and maybe even tortured because of their blogging. But, one little fact of the story is never really focussed on in this alarming BBC report on the release of the WIA report from the University of Washington. The fact that bloggers aren’t threatened much in democratic nations has been glossed over by this report.

Unfortunately, a cursory reading of this piece would leave the reader with the vague feeling that people all over the world are being arrested merely because they are blogging, but that isn’t quite the case. The way this report is written serves as a perfect example of a PCism more concerned with upsetting the tender sensibilities of tyrannical, undemocratic governments, than in reporting the oppression of its citizens. It’s a PCism gone so far that it makes the report uninformative at least to the most important aspect of the reason these bloggers are being arrested.

Here is how the BEEB starts their almost whitewashed report:

More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.

The BBC also gravely informs us that, “Citizens have faced arrest and jail for blogging about many different topics,” and that “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task.”

The report goes on to explain why this new threat to bloggers has arisen.

The report said the rising number of arrests was testament to the “growing” political importance of blogging. It noted that arrests tended to increase during times of “political uncertainty”, such as around general elections or during large scale protests.

But one thing the BBC report does not do is fully explain what sort of nations are making all these arrests. Now, to the BEEB’s credit, they do include one little line to let us know were some of these arrests have been carried out.

More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.

But, still, the reader could easily miss the fact that this threat to free speech is, for the most part, occurring in nations of a certain nature, nations that are not free and open societies.

In fact, out of the 64 noted arrests since 2003, only 6 were in various western, democratic nations. The WIA report notes the arrests in the west as follows:

• 2004-France- comments about public policy = 1 arrest
• 2006-USA- violating cultural norms = 1 arrest
• 2006-Canada- no reason found = 1 arrest
• 2007-USA- no reason found = 2 arrests
• 2008-UK- violating cultural norms = 1 arrest

However, the reasons for these six arrests don’t seem to rise to the same egregiousness as the arrests in the Middle East and Asia which were done far more often to stop criticism of the government and to squelch advocacy of democratic reform.

(Via the Christian Science Monitor)

4 unexpected countries showed up on the list: Canada, France, the UK, and the US. The French case was for “posting a blog about his local government’s waste and mismanagement.” The Canadian example was for “taking pictures at a conference for his blog.” The British blogger allegedly incited racial hatred. And the three American arrests were for 1) terrorism, 2) child pornography, and 3) videotaping a burning police car during a G8 summit.

While some of these arrests in the west are still unsettling, they pale in comparison to the arrests in places like Iran, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Asia. Some of them don’t really even belong on the list when held up to the arrests in despotic nations. The U.S. case of Josh Wolf (imprisoned for 226 days), for instance, was less a tale of blogging than it was his refusal to reveal a source of information, the same charge that has been leveled at other journalists. And the child porn case bears little comparison to the cases in Saudi Arabia and Iran where bloggers were arrested for criticizing the government. The other western cases didn’t even seem to result in jail time or convictions of any sort thus far.

By adding the seemingly ill-fitting western cases to their list, one gets the feeling that the WIA folks also succumbed to a PC desire to find faux problems in the west to add “balance” to the outrageous oppressions of the Middle East and Asia.

Speaking of trying to seem “balanced,” in true PC fashion, the BBC ended their piece on a ridiculous note.

The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US.

It is laughable to add the U.S. to the list of China, Pakistan and Iran where it concerns worries of oppression during a time of “elections.” No Americans will be arrested for blogging about the elections, but the same cannot be said of bloggers who chronicle political strife in Pakistan, China and Iran!

The fact is, the largest number of arrests will occur and will continue to occur in nations that are not free, open societies and are not democratic. To obscure that is to mislead readers from the true differences between the west and those nations that oppress their peoples.

Unfortunately, however, we continue to see this moral equalizing of the democratic west with the murderers and tyrants in non-democratic nations all in an effort to strike a faux balance and to avoid seeming to say to the reader that the west has a better way of life. But the simple matter of fact is that the west truly is better. China, Iran, Pakistan, et al, are horrible places filled with oppressors and murders instead of conscientious public officials. The democratic west IS a better place to live and for reports like this from the University of Washington and news coverage from organizations like the BBC to act as if that is not true is a disservice to us all.

Iran, China and their ilk are not just as good to their people as is the west. It’s just that simple.