In 1918, on the 11th hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a truce was declared between the warring parties in the Great War.
Because it was a truce, it was called Armistice Day. Neither side had “won” the war but all agreed that it was a horrible one, too terrible to contemplate further sacrifices in order to ensure victory (however defined).
Personally, I believe that the Great War was one of the greatest tragedies known to history. It was completely unnecessary. I say this as a man whose two grandfathers served in that war. I will write more about the injustice of this war –on both sides–in due time. For now I will state that the terms imposed on the Germans at Versailles ensured that another, more horrible war would inevitably rise in Europe.
In 1954, President Eisenhower officially changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day, to honor all those who have served in the armed forces. And in this spirit, I will reiterate the words of General Douglas MacArthur, which he spoke to the cadets at West Point in May of 1962:
“The solider, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training –sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.”
It is not enough to honor our honored fallen by monuments or holidays –though we must certainly do so–we would honor them even more if, going forward, we were more parsimonious in spending our blood and treasure. And make no mistake, the reelection of Donald J Trump as Commander-in-Chief, portends a return to America-first principles. I fervently believe that further military expeditions will be questioned more vociferously than they were in the past.
Let us hope that this indeed the case. In the meantime, if you know a veteran, please thank him for his service.
Brendan says
Another one goes down…
* ‘Best interests of the Church’: Justin Welby quits over abuse scandal *
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gvpyzxvjpo?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb
‘ The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced he will step down from his role following a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church of England.
The review found that Justin Welby, 68, “could and should” have reported John Smyth’s abuse of boys and young men to police in 2013.
In a statement, Mr Welby said that “it is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility” for his response after he was first told about the abuse.
“I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England.”
“I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church,” Mr Welby said.
“As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse,” he added.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he “respects the decision that has been taken and his thoughts remain first and foremost with all the victims”.
Last week’s report concluded that Smyth “could and should” have been reported to the police when Church leaders including Mr Welby were presented with details of his abuse in 2013.
Inaction from the Church represented a “missed opportunity to bring him to justice,” the report said.
In his resignation statement, Mr Welby said he was “told that police had been notified” at the time and that he “believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow”.
He also spoke of his “profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures” of the Church over the days since the report was published.
“For nearly twelve years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done,” he said.
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the Church had made “real progress” in safeguarding under Mr Welby’s leadership but added: “There is much further to go.”
He told the BBC the Church was “a bit polarised and divided” but said “facing up to failure is the way to bring healing and reconciliation”.
The Church’s lead safeguarding bishop, Joanne Grenfell, said the failings identified in the report meant it was “now necessary for others to take up the baton”.
She said Mr Welby’s resignation “does not absolve any of us from bringing about the wholesale changes in culture and leadership that are essential in every part of the Church”.
The archbishop had been facing mounting pressure to resign in the days since the report’s publication.
The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, told the BBC on Monday that Mr Welby’s position was “untenable” after the report.
Three members of the Church’s parliament, the General Synod, had accused the archbishop of “allowing abuse to continue” between 2013 and Smyth’s death in 2018.
They launched a petition calling for Mr Welby’s resignation, which had been signed by more than 13,000 people by Tuesday afternoon.
Speaking after the archbishop’s resignation, one of the Synod members who started the petition said: “I think it’s sad that it’s taken so long for meaningful action to take place.”
The Rev Dr Ian Paul added that he hoped that Mr Welby’s resignation would be the first step towards “cultural change in [the Church’s] senior leadership”.
Clare MacLaren, Canon Provost of Sunderland Minster, told the BBC Mr Welby’s resignation was “not before time”.
“It’s something that’s been brewing for the last 24 hours at least,” she said. “It would have been good if he’d done it immediately.”
The review said that from July 2013, “the Church of England knew, at the highest level, about the abuse that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s,” naming Mr Welby specifically.
It found that “several opportunities were missed” to formally report the abuse to police.
One survivor of Smyth’s abuse told the BBC the archbishop and the Church had effectively been involved in a “cover-up”.
The archbishop himself, in his resignation statement, said the report had “exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth”.
Smyth was a prominent barrister as well as a lay preacher – a member of the congregation who delivers sermons but is not ordained – who ran summer camps for young Christians.
The report accused him of attacking up to 30 boys he had met at the summer camps during the 1970s and 1980s.
He singled out boys attending the camps and in sessions at leading public schools, including Winchester College, before taking them to his home and beating them with a garden cane in his shed.
The report by Keith Makin described Smyth’s abuse as a “clearly sexually motivated, sadistic regime” of beatings.
Smyth then relocated in the 1980s to Zimbabwe, and later South Africa, where he is alleged to have abused a further 85 to 100 “young male children aged 13 to 17”.
It was not immediately clear when the archbishop would leave his post.
“It is my duty to honour my constitutional and Church responsibilities,” he said. “So exact timings will be decided once a review of necessary obligations has been completed.”
He said he would meet victims and delegate his current safeguarding responsibilities “until the necessary risk assessment process is complete”.
Mr Welby was educated at Eton and the University of Cambridge.
He spent 11 years in the oil industry before retraining as a priest.
He was ordained in 1992 and became a vicar in Warwickshire, a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, the Dean of Liverpool, and the Bishop of Durham before being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013.
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell told the BBC the ordination of women as bishops and his work in racial justice were key parts of Mr Welby’s legacy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England, who leads 85 million Anglicans in 165 countries around the world. They also have a wider constitutional role in the UK.
The process for choosing Justin Welby’s replacement reflects that.
A nationwide consultation will be held asking people in and outside the Church of England what they want from the next archbishop. That is expected to take several months.
Church and government officials will summarise those views, along with feedback from the Church representatives in Canterbury, the area the archbishop technically oversees. That information will form the basis of creating a longlist of suitable candidates invited for interview.
No one applies for the role. Those chosen for interview don’t have to be from the Church of England and they don’t have to be bishops, although they are likely to be.
The candidates will then be interviewed by a committee of 17 people. The chair is appointed by the prime minister and the members will include representatives from around the global Anglican Communion, the General Synod, or parliament, as well as at least one bishop.
At least two-thirds of the committee members must agree before a decision is made.
The process of choosing his successor is likely to take at least six months. ‘
Gail Sheppard says
Well, this is going to negatively impact the pope’s and Bartholomew’s plan to unite the churches next year.
George Michalopulos says
Good news/bad news: https://sonar21.com/we-will-avoid-war-with-russia-and-china-but-iran-is-still-on-the-table/
I would have preferred Doug MacGregor as National Security Advisor.
Rubio doesn’t bother me. He has softened his neocon views considerably. (He voted against further funding for the Ukraine.)
While I realize that neocons are like bad pennies that always show up, neoconservatism is a spent force.
Brendan says
The Battle Continues – and Viganò says it far better than I can
How I wish that he were the Orthodox Patriarch of the West:
* Archbishop Vigano: Some Considerations After the Election Victory by Donald J. Trump
by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Nov. 10, 2024 1:20 pm *
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/archbishop-vigano-some-considerations-after-election-victory-donald/
A few days ago, on the eve of the U.S. Presidential Election, the arrogance of political commentators in the United States and all vassal nations had reached unexplored heights. Kamala Harris had already organized the celebration of her own victory by inviting all her usual spokespeople. Singers, actors, philanthropists, public figures, and journalists went so far as to threaten to leave the United States if Donald J. Trump was elected, and in truth many today expect them to fulfill their promises. Even Jorge Mario Bergoglio made a gesture, with his trademark politeness, traveling in a wheelchair to the penthouse of radical Sorosian activist and abortionist Emma Bonino with white roses and chocolates, as if to issue a final, desperate plea to American Catholics not to be too skeevy and to vote for Harris, who shares with Bergoglio the woke religion. The mainstream media, owned by the usual big investment funds, shamelessly endorsed Kamala and ridiculed, indeed criminalized Donald Trump. And the more rude, the more transgressive, the more obscene, the more profane Harris supporters were, the more space they were given on television and social media.
Trucks with millions of already-voted ballots were ready to reach Pennsylvania and those states where the votes of deceased, relocated Democrats and illegal immigrants were not enough to skew the election result. Insidious algorithms embedded in the State Election Commission’s voter registration databases were uncovered by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D. These algorithms allowed false voter registrations to be printed and concealed, which could be used in various election fraud schemes, including counting absentee ballots cast by nonexistent voters. By exposing the scheme, Dr. Corsi prevented the creation of millions of fraudulent votes for Kamala Harris. In multiple states in the Union, computer reports revealed that electronic voting registration machines allowed votes to be changed remotely, and in one case access passwords were even leaked online.
On the morning of November 5, in short, it seemed that everything was settled. Everyone thought so: some with the arrogance of those who believe themselves to be superior merely because they are progressive, woke, green, resilient, inclusive, sustainable, gender-ideologized; others with that fund of trepidation of those who find themselves like the young David fighting the giant Goliath. Yet in a matter of hours, that whole immense house of cards, that whole mighty electoral machine sagged like a circus tent.
THE GLOBALIST METAVERSE
The most remarkable element of this presidential campaign, in my opinion, consists in the manifestation of the pride and conceit of the self-proclaimed “good guys”; a pride that has made them deaf and blind to the true, real demands of the people; a conceit that places them above the miserable daily affairs of the vulgar and places them in a virtual world, in a surreal metaverse in which normal people are not allowed. It is the metaverse of the globalist world, with its agenda, its religion, its high priests, its prophets, its rituals, its dogmas, its holy books, and its idols. The only thing Kamala had to do was make this dystopia irreversible by making it the official religion of the United States of America and its ideological colonies.
Bergoglio, the Jesuits (with their U.S. leaders, Thomas Reese and James Martin), the U.S. Cardinals in the line of McCarrick, and the entire Bergoglian episcopate were waiting for nothing else, replicating in the ecclesial sphere that irremediable rupture between Hierarchy and faithful that in the civil sphere has been consummated between the ruling class and citizens. On the other hand, even the exponents of the “synodal church” are under blackmail no more or less than the clients of Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Combs. It is not surprising that the outcome of the elections has outraged the exponents of the deep church, which for decades, with the support of the deep state, infiltrated the Catholic Church and worked for her demolition. The Jesuits together with “their pope,” accomplices of the globalist subversive plan, ought to soon suffer the same cancellation that in recent years they have inflicted – also making use of the political support they enjoy – on those who have denounced their betrayal.
“Yes, we can,” Obama said years ago. And we’ve seen it: the deep state has indeed been able to do everything it promised, from protecting the pedo-satanist elite to covering up the most scandalous cases of corruption; from imposing the insane green policies and climate fraud to administering a poison designed to exterminate the population; from genetic engineering to the systematic destruction of agriculture and animal husbandry; from the energy crisis provoked to destroy the economic fabric of the nation to the war in Ukraine and the Middle East. All of this has been done by transferring billions from the pockets of citizens to the offshore accounts of multinational corporations, pharmaceutical companies, arms manufacturers, and “humanitarian” organizations that are always headed by the well-known families of the world’s usurious high finance.
THE DISCONNECTION FROM THE REAL WORLD
Those who marvel at the resounding failure of the globalist metaverse show by their surprise that they are totally disconnected from the real world, where men and women literally fight to get to work, and not just to get a job, because our streets are dumps of derelicts and criminals; where parents have to protect their children from the perversions and obscenities of their teachers, or where a woke judge can take your child away from you because you don’t call him or her by the pronouns he or she has “chosen”. In the real world we worry about the cost of living, rising energy prices, the ever-lower quality of large-scale retail products, and the difficulty of finding healthy food. In the real world, the farmer has to think about how to survive after paying taxes and being crushed by unfair competition from multinational corporations, and the rancher feels helpless when the government requires him to cull his cattle for bird flu or because his cows produce CO2.
To hear a fake African-American posing as a former McDonalds server talking about homo-transphobia, white supremacism, abortions up to the ninth month and beyond, the abolition of gasoline cars and green transition in the face of the destruction of the Nation at the hands of the globalist Left is grotesque and mercilessly shows the classism of an élite that exists and thrives only by exploiting the masses and trampling on the basic rights of the people. And this shameless arrogance of the powerful is also common to Canada, Europe, and Australia. A few days ago, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, emphatically evoked the report “The Limits to Growth” published fifty years ago by the Club of Rome, in which it theorized that world population decline and economic degrowth were needed to save the Planet, or rather: to save the criminal monopoly of big investment funds. The herd led to the slaughter realized that the fine words about environmental friendliness and net zero are colossal lies that hide a terrible truth: the emissaries of the World Economic Forum in the Western governments want to exterminate the population through mass sterilization, wars, famines, droughts, pandemics, abortion, euthanasia, and gender ideology; and that this criminal project was started fifty years ago by means of indoctrination and propaganda work worthy of the worst dictatorships.
Silencing dissenting voices with the smear of being “conspiracy theorists” has not helped; on the contrary, it has been the fierce censorship, ever since the pandemic farce, that has awakened that healthy instinct that makes anyone suspicious of a narrative that contrasts obscenely with reality. A reality that is not perception, when merely because you have white skin, wear a cross around your neck or have the Stars and Stripes flag flying in your backyard someone feels entitled to consider you inferior and therefore deserving of being attacked or killed.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS VICTORY
This round of elections shows us not only the unchallenged victory of Donald Trump. It makes evident a plebiscite vote of the majority of Americans in favor of a worldview completely antithetical to and irreconcilable with the globalist, woke dystopia that we now know is supported by a minority of the nation despite the disproportionate deployment of means and resources to support it.
The result of the polls makes clear the disconnect between the political class of the Radical Left and its electorate, but also and especially that lack of empathy that distinguishes psychopaths. On the other hand, only psychopathic criminals devoted to the worship of Satan can adhere to a neo-Malthusian ideology that theorizes the extermination of one part of humanity, the sterilization of another, and the recurrence of chronic cancers and diseases for the survivors. Only psychopathic criminals devoted to the cult of Satan can claim that destroying agriculture and animal husbandry and producing GMO foods will save nature; or that cutting down trees and replacing them with carbon dioxide-absorbing machines will protect the environment. Only psychopathic criminals devoted to Satan worship can send billions to the most corrupt government in the world – Ukraine – deluding themselves that they can win a war that they provoked and fomented. And there are those among self-styled conservative intellectuals who would like to perpetuate U.S. hostilities with the Russian Federation just to avoid being proven wrong in their self-interested warmongering predictions. Only psychopathic criminals dedicated to the cult of Satan can organize ethnic replacement by indiscriminate immigration, knowing full well that impossible integration is the premise for civil war, especially when citizens are treated as enemies in their homeland. Only psychopaths devoted to the worship of Satan can take children from their families and entrust them to people convicted of pedophilia, or corrupt their innocence with the propaganda of perverted teachers.
We could say that there is no Commandment of God that is not being broken: woke ideology creeps into every aspect of daily life to kill the body and soul, to offend Our Lord, to deny two thousand years of Christian civilization. But this is precisely what they do, and what many have let happen without protest.
THE PEOPLE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF WOKISM
But then November 5 came.
What happened, then? What any “normal” person – but we know that to Dems normality is horrifying – could have foretold: the people are tired of being hostages of a subversive Mafia, of perverted criminals for whom there is never conviction or jail time, of corrupt people who flaunt their dealings in the persuasion that they are untouchable, of people devoted to evil. The people are tired of being trampled on daily, of being humiliated for their honesty, of being mocked for their Faith, of being criminalized because they love their homeland.
In its blinding, the globalist élite has underestimated the strength of that flame that burns in every man, that reminds him that he is called to Good, that admonishes him to avoid Evil, that points him to a destiny of eternal happiness in Heaven. Because the globalists do not know how to love, but only how to hate; and because the hatred in which they are consumed against God and against the man He created in His own image and likeness is sterile, destructive, deadly.
The people who have elected Donald Trump – a number that is far greater than the official figures, if we consider the voter fraud that nonetheless took place – first and foremost have affirmed their right to remain human. That people is not reactionary, does not hate progress, does not fear freedom. Rather, it does not accept the reversal of the world and reality, it rejects the hell on earth in which the deep state would like to lock it up, and it does not desire to call evil good and good evil (Is 5:20).
ONE NATION UNDER GOD
Each of us has been able to see how the most sophisticated plans of the New World Order have been thwarted by seemingly random events. Providence has dismantled a global threat with small moves, showing us that God is truly all-powerful, and that the destinies of the world are in His hands. It is now up to us not to squander the opportunity we have been given, to draw lessons from the recent past, and not let our guard down. The élite now fleeing to their lairs will regroup so that they can launch a new attack more tremendous than the one we have witnessed in recent years. But in this phase of awakening consciences and retaking the Nation under God, we must not forget that the battle between God and Satan, between the children of Light and the children of darkness continues. Nor must we forget that Our Lord comes to our aid only when we recognize our weakness and His power, and that His help is all the more effective the more we cooperate with God’s plan. This is the true “greatest reset”: to recapitulate all things in Christ — Instaurare omnia in Christo (Eph. 1:10) — because it is to Christ alone that universal Lordship belongs. Christ is King. And he is King not only of individuals and families, but of all earthly societies, of all nations.
The four-year term that will be inaugurated in a few weeks may mark a turning point in the history of the United States of America and of all humankind, and this will depend on the firm determination with which President Trump will roll the heads of this Leviathan, knowing that with the Enemy of God and humankind there can be neither dialogue nor compromise. It will depend on who the President chooses as his collaborators, among whom traitors and opponents will certainly try to creep in. It will depend on how the President will be able to conform his actions to God’s Law, mindful of the grace that was granted to him by escaping multiple assassination attempts.
Donald J. Trump has recognized that above him is the Lord. Let him not forget this when he uses the international clout America enjoys to promote peace with Russia and an end to genocide in the Middle East, so that the concord of peoples is founded on the Common Good and is no longer threatened by the deep state’s thirst for power. He must not forget that the defense of life, from the first moment of conception to natural death, must be a priority goal. And in this grand and ambitious project of restoring institutions and society, it will be essential to involve those world leaders who, like President Trump, know the threat of the subversive elite and intend to oppose it. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and other heads of state and government will certainly be his most valuable allies in fighting the globalist agenda. And I believe the time has finally come to promote an Antiglobalist Alliance, through which the healthy forces of the peoples hitherto hostage to the servants of Davos can be united.
The success of the “greatest reset” represented by the election of Donald Trump and the defeat of the radical Left will also depend on how well the people and their rulers can conform to God’s will. Our prayers have reached the Throne of the Divine Majesty and have been heard: let us make ourselves worthy of God’s Mercy by exemplary living and bear witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ by a life consistent with the Gospel. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21).
Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America
November 8, 2024
George Michalopulos says
If only he were the Patriarch of the West.