Editor’s Note: In this exclusive interview, Dr. Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute discusses his new book The Alternative Manifesto as well as economics and politics in the UK and the U.S.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Your new book is The Alternative Manifesto: A 12-Step Programme to Remake Britain.  An American who reads it would be quick to notice the similarities between the situation there and in the United States, both economically and politically, but the situation there does seem worse.  Do you agree?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. There are no formal, constitutional checks and balances as there are in the US. It’s like cricket – the system depends on people just ‘playing the game’ with its unwritten rules. Unfortunately, the 24-hour media demand and other changes have made our system more ‘presidential’, where most attention is focused on the prime minister, rather than on the government as a team. Charismatic leaders, like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, have taken more and more control to the centre, and because our executive (around 120 ministers) also sits in the House of Commons, Parliament rarely votes against executive policy. So there has been nothing to stop this centralization. So our state-funded services – healthcare, education, welfare, police, the justice system and much more – have ended up being run from the centre, in top-down, Stalinist fashion. Not surprisingly the public services just consume more and more money without delivering results, while police and justice officials have become agents of the state rather than guardians of the people. Equally, though, with our system we can reverse things quickly too, as Margaret Thatcher reversed our social and economic decline in the 1980s. So an enlightened government can change all this. But it means giving up power and devolving it back to the people – which no politician is really very good at.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: One common theme in particular seems to be the debt load in each nation.  Right now there are people rationalizing this by comparing today’s debt to the end of the Second World War.  Does this have any validity?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Yes. Our deficit and our national debt are the highest they have ever been in piecetime. They were higher during the Second World War and during the Napoleonic wars, but at least then we were fighting to save Europe from despotism. Right now, we have just run up new debts to pay off our day-to-day overspending.

The UK has more chronic overspending than the US, believe it or not. Gordon Brown, who became our finance minister in 1997, and then prime minister, always claimed to be ‘prudent’ with the public finances, but in fact taxation has increased by over 50% over the past 13 years, and increased state spending and borrowing even more. Indeed, he doubled the national debt and planned to double it again, before he was thrown out in the general election three weeks ago. The new government, a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, promise quick action to reduce the annual borrowing. But nobody’s talking about actually reducing the debt total in the foreseeable future.

Remember also that most of the UK’s trade is in Europe, and although Britain retains the pound, the Euro seems to be spiraling round the drain. That is actually bad for us because it undermines Europe’s demand for our goods and raises uncertainty, which depresses markets still further. London is the only truly international financial centre in Europe, and our banks are heavily invested in Euro-zone countries, so that is not good either.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Another theme that you describe is the debt addiction politicians seem to have.  In prosperous times everyone wants to spend money on new programs to buy votes, but then during hard times, Keynesian philosophy dictates spending even more money, regardless of ability to pay.  Can the political class in either country be convinced that any time is a good time to make real and substantial cuts?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: I don’t think the Keynesian ’spend to earn’ policy really convinces anyone anymore. Certainly not the public. When things are just down a little bit, you might get away with it. But when people are suffering the real pain of falling house prices, business closures, layoffs and pay cuts, they really don’t see how boosting the budgets of state employees is going to help them. Indeed, they think that government programmes should share in their pain. They know full well that new spending can only be funded out of higher taxes or more borrowing – or perhaps by inflation. But they know that higher taxes are already killing their jobs, that more borrowing is ridiculous when the country is already up to its ears in debt, and that inflation simply makes their money worthless.

Sure, politicians think it is their function to spend more and more, and the democratic system – you vote funds to me and I’ll vote funds to you – does not help to restrain them. And no politician likes going into an election saying that government spending, and the programmes that particular members of the public benefit from, should be cut. At least in the UK we only have elections every four or five years, whereas US politicians always seem to be running. But that democratic lack of restraint on budgets is why I and the Adam Smith Institute are promoting fixed limits on government spending, borrowing, and debt.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Similarly, another commonality seems to be that none of the major parties seem willing to really stand up for the taxpayer and be a good steward of the people’s money.  We have had our struggles here with the Republican party, most notably in the years leading to its defeats in 2006 and 2008.  Is there any hope for the Conservatives under Cameron?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: So far so good. Cameron has had to make concessions to his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, but they seem to be in perfect agreement that the first requirement in getting the UK economy back in shape is to balance the government’s books. Government right now is more than half the UK economy, but your economy cannot be fit and healthy when half of it is bloated and lethargic. They have also proposed a fixed-term, five-year government, so they have plenty of time to take all the nasty decisions early on in the hope that they will show benefit before the election scheduled for May 2015. They have already announced £6bn in immediate cuts – only about 1% of what the government spends, but a clear demonstration that they need business. There is little more they could do immediately, since it would mean tearing up contracts and wage bargains. But everyone in the government services is expecting far deeper cuts next year and in the following years. So I think they have the prescription right, and they do seem to be giving out the medicine.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Speaking of specific politicians.  Daniel Hannan, who is mentioned numerous times throughout the book, appears to be a hero at a time when, to quote Yeats, “the worst are full of passionate intensity.”  Is there a realistic chance he might be Prime Minister at some point?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: I would like to think so; he is a great believer in economic and personal freedom, but the chances are slim. He is presently in the European Parliament in Brussels, but his face does not really fit with the leadership of the Conservative Party in London. They regard him as too outspoken. And they decide who is chosen as a party election candidate. But he is doing no more that speaking the same truths that Margaret Thatcher, a small shopkeeper’s daughter, took for granted – that governments, like any family or business, have to live within their means, and that ours has grossly overspent. We should have been caulking the hull and fixing the rigging, as he put it, when the weather was fine, so that we are in good shape for the storms we are in now. But of course we did not. So our hull is full of holes and our sails too full of patches to pull us out of recession very quickly. But equally, people in Britain see the wisdom of Dan Hannan’s message, and if a dose of nasty economic medicine does indeed restore us to health, they might well come to conclude that he is right.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Frightfully, the loss of individual liberty in Britain is of paramount importance.  If it dies there, the place where it was born, there may not be much hope for the rest of the world.  How is it that some of the most basic rights of the accused have gone by the wayside while criminality appears to be on rise?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Those who kill our freedoms do not come like thieves in the night, but openly and brazenly. Terrorism is a real and significant threat, and many politicians believe that they need sweeping powers to counter it. Mrs. Thatcher started that trend during the troubles in Northern Ireland, detaining terrorist suspects without trial. It may have spared innocent people from bombs and bullets, but at what cost to the rule of law? Mrs. Thatcher, of course, was a great champion of personal freedom and the rule of law, but even she was prepared to suspend it like this. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown went even further, removing trial by jury for certain complicated cases, seeking to detain suspects for up to 42 days without trial, putting terror suspects under indefinite house arrest, removing the right to silence in some cases, ending the double jeopardy provision for serious crime, collecting millions of DNA samples from anyone arrested for even the most minor offences, expanding surveillance powers, and much more. Politicians think it is OK to have these wide powers, because they are decent people and can be trusted. The problem is that if they give way to politicians whom you cannot trust, those people have at their fingertips all the instruments necessary to enslave us.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Specifically, one of the scariest things in the entire book had to do with antisocial behavior laws.  Could you go into more detail here about what those are?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Tony Blair was fed up with people like problem families on poor housing estates who make life unbearable for everyone else, but who are not necessarily committing crimes other than perhaps rowdyism or threatening behaviour. So he introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders as a sort of fast-track mechanism to tell disagreeable people that they had to behave. Local authorities issue the ASBOs, which can be for anything – one family was told that it was not to allow its canary bird to sing so loud – without needing any judicial process. But if you breach one of these Orders, you can be sent to jail In other words, we have effectively given unelected officials huge powers that once belonged only to judges and juries. Of course, in English law we already had plenty of ways of dealing with these offences – Breach of the Peace rules, for instance. But the attempt to make the system more ‘efficient’ actually made it less just.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: One depressing thought that occurred to this reader is that it took an American Revolution and a war to cut a runaway government with runaway laws down to size in the 18^th century.  Though your book is full of all the best ideas of the 21^st century, far more than twelve by the way, is there the political will to implement them?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Political will? I’ve never seen it. All I’ve seen is political won’t. No, the pressure for reform has to come from the citizens themselves. Politicians will follow their lead…it’s not the other way round. Fortunately, with the Internet the ’silent majority’ are at last finding their voice. So I am optimistic.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Along these same lines, everything here, at least until November, is moving in the opposite direction toward more central control and higher taxes to keep pace with the spending of Obama’s first year and a half.  The VAT or value added tax has been mentioned—a national sales tax upwards of 20%.  England has this, but how is it that EU rules make it impossible to repeal?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: VAT is the tax that effectively funds the European Union, so although it is not official, everyone knows that it is the price of membership. In fact, taxes on consumption, like sales taxes or VAT, are much better for an economy than taxes on work, like income tax. Tax work, and you get less of it, unfortunately. The trouble with VAT is that, while intellectually it is better than sales taxes, it is very complicated to work out. You have to add up all the VAT you have paid on your purchases and then deduct it from all the VAT you have charged on your sales. And there are different rates for some items – no VAT on books or children’s clothes, for example. So small stores have real problems with it. We are used to it, and it works reasonably for us – though if it goes up to 20% I am sure that people will trade even more in cash rather than have sales and purchases go through the books – but I certainly would not recommend it for the US.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: As for the big picture, the party line in America in 2010 is that the recession is over and that despite the unemployment number there is nothing really wrong with the economy.  Is the worst behind us, or is the worst yet to come?  Is Greece just the beginning of a new, darker level in the world economic condition?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: This could be a jobless economy, indeed. Firms have had to find economies to survive, and often that means doing things with machines that used to be done by people. The economy could be recovering for quite a long time before firms start hiring again in large numbers. But then, yes, on the horizon are other worries like Greece. Greece basically tricked its way into the new European currency, the Euro, by fiddling its budget figures to prove that it was a sound economy. And once in, it basically had AAA status because everyone knew that the rich countries – Germany, principally – would have to do whatever it took to protect the Euro. So Greed, government debt securities – rather like subprime mortgages – suddenly went from junk to ’safe’ investment status, and other countries’ banks bought them up. But as the Greed government ran out of cash, the true and dire state of its finances became clear. Now all our banks are exposed to that risky debt too. Germany and the others have done what they can to shore up Greece. But it is questionable whether they can shore up other risky countries like Spain, whose banks are riddled with bad debt, and Portugal, even Italy. I would not be surprised to see the Euro breaking apart. One part of me will smile and say ‘I told you so’, but most of me thinks this is very choppy water for any country with an internationalized banking system like the UK or US.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: On a lighter note, as we may well be two peoples separated by a common language, please give the official British to American translation of the following terms:  quango,  barmy, toff, throwing sickies, and budgie.

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Cor blimey, guv! Let me think. A Quango is quasi-autonomous non-government organization. It is all those boards, panels, and committees that are effectively agencies of government – and some have the right to prosecute and fine people – but whose staff are not officially ‘civil servants’. Politicians like keeping things off the books. And they don’t even keep records of what these bodies do, how much their officials are paid, and so on. Or at least, they don’t tell us.

Barmy is a sort of combination of daft and crazy.

A toff is a member of the upper classes, like David Cameron, who went to Eton and Oxford. The newspapers love reproducing the picture of him at Oxford, in his white tie and tailcoat.

Throwing sickies is the traditional British pastime of getting a day off work by phoning up and saying you are unwell. UK employment law contains such generous provisions for absence that there is almost no downside to this national sport, except in terms of our economic efficiency, of course. The public sector has roughly twice the absences of private business, naturally.

A budgie is a budgerigar, a small colourful bird rather like a lovebird. It is also the name of the helicopter in a series of children’s books written by Price Andrew’s ex-wife, the Duchess of York. Since the Duchess, who is always pleading poverty, was recently filmed offering access to the Prince for £500,000, some people think she should be doing a different kind of ‘bird’ but most of us want to see her left free to add to the general gaity of the nation.

ALL RIGHT MAGAZINE: Finally, is The Alternative Manifesto available in the U.S., and how can people get a copy?  How can people follow your work at the Adam Smith Institute?

DR. EAMONN BUTLER: Yes, go to Amazon, put in my name and you will see it there along with the prequel, The Rotten State of Britain, and lots of other things by me on a wide range of different subjects. Or click http://tinyurl.com/2wo4bcj to go straight to it. And you can follow the Adam Smith Institute blog at www.adamsmith.org/blog – and at http://tinyurl.com/39n4jex you can follow the RSS feed. Then there is our Facebook group at http://tinyurl.com/39mgcrf and at http://tinyurl.com/34fh7o2 you can follow our Twitter feed. Everywhere, really!

By Rev. MICHAEL BRESCIANI

Since my articles entitled Prophecy 2008 and Prophecy 2009 were the most read articles of each respective year I have undertaken this piece with much care and forethought. The prophetic message has changed little in the last two years, but the country has changed significantly; unfortunately the changes have not all been good.

What has not changed one whit is the prophetic charge I was given almost forty years past. In no uncertain terms I can say that our economy will plummet because our dollar will begin to fail across the globe. The current flush of spending by the government and the health care proposals now in the Senate are the single greatest threat to economic security the nation has ever had to face. It will not end well. I make no apologies and I seek no one’s support nor do I care what the naysayers have for arguments; this is foregone. This is revelation not mere prediction.

It is only natural that when hard times are looming that we seek some form of preparation to stave off the worst. Survival garden seeds, investment in gold and arming to the teeth and finding places in remote areas of the country to hide or take a sort of last stand are all being touted as real and reasonable responses to the coming difficulties.

I can safely say that gold will fail you. Gold is as worthless as money when there are no goods to be purchased. Survival gardens are not a bad idea but they are vulnerable to marauding hungry people who have no garden. Hiding in the mountains may seem like its safe but it is still just running away. Arming to the teeth may lead to harming others which is the opposite of the biblical teaching and will not remove anyone’s culpability and they will still have to answer to the law of the land.

We will have to grow up, stand up and put up, as every true American has done before us in tough times. Each person’s solution will be a separate story but hearts and minds will change for the better with or without lots of the creature comforts we have come to take for granted.

What I see beyond the shadow of a doubt is a nation that is coming to a fork in the road of its national life. It is the most serious decision its people will ever have to make in these modern times. It will indeed decide the future of the nation until what we who are versed in eschatology or have a prophetic charge call the last days. By the way the last days are not the end of the world, it culminates in the battle of Armageddon but even that does not end the world. There will be a worldwide power shift after Armageddon but that is a subject for another time.

Changes are happening at breakneck speed today. If there is any doubt witness that in only two months after the final vote on the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish, there is a permanent first President in the EU. Why didn’t you hear of a long and illustrious campaign to elect him? How about a secret ballot that America was too busy to note and has shocked many Europeans as well, not to mention a foreign secretary, Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has not held a political office in her entire life.

In America we have a President and Congress that is spending money faster than we can print it and seems to think if we don’t hurriedly pass a new healthcare bill that costs more than a mountain of gold the nation will fall headlong to its eternal demise. This administration is in a race to make change like it was the holy grail of our future. It may be, but it will hardly be seen as holy if they are successful.

The campaign of Barack Obama touted the slogan “change that we can believe in” but only one year into his administration America is bombarded daily with reports of change that no one can believe for trying. Complaining about political developments is as American as country music but what we are seeing today is more like social shock and awe. We ignore the warnings of statesmen, prophets and the shepherds of what’s left to the true church in the land. We treat the messengers like they are meddling knuckle rapping over enthusiastic school marms trying to keep us from just having a little fun.

We think they are supposed to tell us to cut it out like the over anxious parent of a teen or a professional counselor who is paid to tell us we are taking the wrong path. We have learned to dismiss, deny and tune out the common droll of the voice of reason. The preachers’ assertion that a nation’s economy, defenses and its domestic tranquility are all hard connected to its morality are as welcome as a wet dog on a clean carpet.

It is easy enough to block our ears but it is almost impossible to block our eyes from seeing what any daily news cycle has to offer. We see a President on his way to Oslo to pick up a Nobel peace prize even though he has brought no peace to any place in the world including his own back yard to which thousands of recent tea partiers can attest.

We see California’s U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer has found a way to equate abortion with the use of Viagra. We see the appointment of a school safety Czar who backs literature promoting sex acts between preschoolers. We see more filth and debauchery spewing forth from Hollywood and media in general than the rupture of a major waste treatment facility. But who is making the connection between all of this and the warnings now mostly unheeded?

It is our conscious decision to ignore what we see that is bringing us collectively to a fork in the road. The messengers don’t create the fork; it is our own national behavior that creates the divide in the road. We are a nation of people that knows how to plot a course to the moon but can’t see we are about to drive our own little buggy smack into a tree.

Between 2010 and 2012 America will be forced to decide between restoring herself once again to her constitutional roots, conservative politics and her Christian foundations. That’s a lot to hope for without some kind of national upheaval. Perhaps the twisted and frightening direction the present administration has taken the country will be all that it takes to renew the push toward recovery and no more. Time alone holds that answer.

The first fork in the road will appear in the elections of 2010 and if the House and the Senate see a shift to the conservative side then at least balance may be restored for a while. The Dems are stepping in line with Obama rather than honestly representing their constituents at the moment and a shift back to conservatism will be a welcomed sign that the people still want representative government and not something slightly short of a dictatorship at worst, or a non-benevolent constitutional monarchy at best.

The great fork in the road naturally extends through to 2012 when America must decide something far bigger than the simple question of who will win an election. In 2012 the nation will decide how it will face the calamities that the entire world is about to encounter. The choices of 2012 will affect every man woman and child because if the nation returns to its foundations or its original course it will have to face the rest of the world almost alone. If America retains its sovereignty it will insure its isolation. This is not a bad thing but it will be extremely costly in many ways.

Only two scenarios are possible. First, if we stay on our present course we will simply fit into the coming world changes without a hitch or a glitch. We will become an arm of the emerging glob of nations now being formed in the EU. This is not religious hokey pokey and even as America debates its own internal problems the largest political, military and economic block of nations in the history of the world is being formed.

The EU has three times our GDP, controls almost fifty percent of the worlds shipping, and has the most stable currency on earth. Now politically joined at the hip with America, these nations have a combination of military clout including nuclear capability that in many areas already exceeds anything America now has but with one huge exception, the EU is located strategically and geographically in the world where huge mobilization efforts are not needed to put force almost anywhere it is needed in short notice.

Under the banner of our shared history, the global warming fiasco, NATO treaties and the elusive but eternal quest for world peace we may just jump on board and ride this train to Armageddon or we could opt to stand as a sovereign nation as we always have. America’s willingness to fly off with every new kid on the block is evidenced by her penchant for pop culture and idle preoccupation with everything new and change just for the sake of change. We are more like the Apostle James’ “a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6) than a nation haply heading for the brave new world.

The second scenario might play out like the elements of the now fairly well known prophecy of our first President.  Said to have occurred during his campaign in Valley Forge, George Washington’s vision of three great portents that will befall America is well known and while its veracity may still be debated the scenario it depicts can, with or without the vision, easily become a fact of history if our present course is not altered.

Washington is said to have seen the times of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and then a time much further into the future when we were invaded by a great pact of Eurasian nations and for a while it looked like America would be overcome. America did prevail and was able to drive back the invaders in Washington’s vision, but at great cost.

Whether Washington’s vision is true or not is hard to say for sure but the result is very likely if we return to our former state instead of careening down this road of socialism, big government and wholesale and unbridled licentiousness. The Biblical record says that the kingdom that forms in the last days in the same geographical location as the old Roman Empire will not tolerate any nation’s dissent from its purpose to provide a central leadership and an economy for the entire globe.

Although most of the world will ignore the prophetic warnings as just the beating of the same old drum the repercussions and the end result will be more like a cannon retort when the world sees it has gone to a place where no recovery is possible. No, all of this does not kick off right at the start of 2010 but more likely it will come into full view at the start of 2012. There will be a time of preparations, posturing, and political shifting. What we decide as a nation will play a major part in the outcome both nationally and globally, but it is a fork in the road unlike any we have ever seen before, or will ever see again.

I could lace these warnings with hundreds of scriptural passages that outline the course of events but even that would not be heeded by some. Suffice it to say that for the moment the power of choice is still in our own hands. May God help us to choose wisely?

Even though one of the darkest prophecies of those days says the church will lean towards apostasy (falling away) it also promises that a contingent of the faithful will continue to present the gospel of salvation mixed with warnings of nearing judgment. The effort to proclaim the message will be met with fierce resistance but even at the point where it is almost completely snuffed out God faithfully sends yet someone else to give the final warnings.

Two special evangelists (Rev 11:1f) who cannot be stopped by any means are engaged for three and one half years to call America and the entire world away from blindly following the newly risen leader of the EU and the world. The two are finally stopped (killed and resurrected before the cameras and seen globally) by the intervention of that leader himself (name yet unknown) but it doesn’t end there.

When every mortal messenger has been silenced God yet provides a witness, his love for all mankind goes on calling to all, so none might be lost. I would to God that I could report that everyone will heed the call but that is not the case. In the absence of any terrestrial witnesses God sends a few celestial voices.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. (Rev 14: 6-7)

The judgment spoken of here is not the eternal separation of the sheep and the goats but it is the judgment of nations. The power shift will be permanent and Christ will set his feet on the same place they last rested, yet once again.

Don’t worry, we won’t be dodging meteors or trying to stop some guy with 666 tattooed on his scalp in a physical battle in the vestibule of some Catholic church in the Bronx. We won’t be debating how the second coming will take place and you can be sure it is not some all new messiah or one of the choice of religious leaders or founders who did not give his own life for the sheep. (John 10: 1-11)

Here is what we will see, but rest assured, this is the short version. The events of the last days take a full seven years to reach their height but Christ himself repeatedly concurred with all of the ancient prophets and the Apostles that it would end exactly like this, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Mt 24:30)

http://www.americanprophet.org has since 2005 featured the articles of Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.

By Rev.  MICHAEL BRESCIANI

The EU has confirmed Herman Van Rompuy as the first permanent President of the emerging United States of Europe. He has clearly stated that the first order of business for the EU will be to solidify the economy and answer the social changes the 47 member states are facing.

No doubt the plight of homosexuals is on the top of the list of social problems perceived in the EU because this week a meeting is taking place in Europe to address the fact that not everyone is getting onboard with the gay agenda. Homophobia, transphobia and other forms of sexual orientation discrimination is said to still exist in the EU on a larger scale than the Union wants to see.

Some sixty countries around the world are not on the same page as the EU including Catholics across the globe that are lead and or tutored by the Pope. Some countries not only don’t think it is a big issue but they would prefer not to promote the gay lifestyle in any way. While they are generally disregarded by most members of the G-20 they nevertheless are not moved by the EU concerns or the recent vote at the UN General Assembly by some 66 countries. The world is clearly split over these kinds of social concerns.

President Obama is firmly committed to the homosexual agenda and recent promises made to the LBGT and others have caused some in the conservative movement and the evangelical and Pentecostal churches to shudder. It is also clear that the church’s concerns have little bearing on the President’s position to throw the doors open for the gay agenda by closing the steel doors around those who make so much as a whimper against the gays. Signing the untested and highly suspect Matthew Shepard act is the latest evidence of that.

Religious freedoms and the gay agenda are on a collision course in America and this is a speeding train no mere mortal can stop.

The test will be based on whether gospel preachers, ministers, evangelists and teachers will be able to say what the Bible clearly says without being fined or imprisoned. If they are inhibited in any way, then the question becomes constitutional because the congress is bound by that document to refrain from making any laws to inhibit or promote any religion, Christian or otherwise. For the Bible and faith based churches that would spell the end of their faith not just some minor adjustment. The Bible is central to the beliefs of almost all conservative historical protestant denominations and to most of Catholicism as well.

Neither the Pope nor the leaders of most evangelical, independent and Pentecostal churches are going to stand idly by while their churches are wrecked by a social upheaval based on a sexual orientation. Whatever tests must be applied, whatever price must be paid we can be assured it will be paid.

The church could see what was coming early on in the Obama administration when he declared that the passages in the book of Romans (Ro 1:24f) penned by the Apostle Paul were only an obscure passage that needn’t be taken seriously. At that point he was bucking the fact that these passages are at the very heart of the gospel message for almost every bible believing Christian in the world. They are considered reliable and are seen as the edicts of God.

Even as Van Rompuy is proclaiming a newer, kinder, socially softer Europe, and President Obama is promising a happier sexual climate for the orientation-ally confused, the church is taking one smack on the jaw! That these portents were predicted, forecast or fully prophesied seems less astounding than the complete aloofness that the new social engineers have about it all.

It’s as if the commonly accepted notion that millions of homosexuals remained closeted until the time was right and the social climate had changed is actually the real answer to the modern rise in homosexual activity. The bible says that it is the rampant immorality that prevails in the last days that draws out every kind of unbridled deviant behavior. Gays in the advanced nations didn’t exist in the millions as they do today; in fact there were practically none by comparison only a hundred years ago, but let’s not ask history to back up the bible because that too is being re-written as well by today’s social engineers.

Oddly prophecy doesn’t ever apologize even if some believers are perfectly comfortable with the slide into apostasy and feel the need to condescend to the emerging social tendencies of a world plunging into reprobation. Prophecy just goes on to its final destination which is complete and total fulfillment.

It took almost 40 years for me to finally ascertain the meaning of one prophecy without any doubt to its complete meaning. The passage is found in the book of Daniel. This prophet was contemporary to the weeping prophet Jeremiah and is one of only a very few Old Testament figures Jesus openly commended.

Unlike many of his contemporaries Daniel does have the distinction of having almost all of the major prophecies in his message given to him directly by the angel Gabriel. You will recall that this was the same celestial being that announced the virgin birth to Mary the mother of Jesus Christ.

Daniel had an unusual level of details revealed to him on the social climate and general activities of people in the last days. Daniel was almost 3000 years early with his prophecies but not a minute too late. He saw that knowledge would be increased and that worldwide travel would see men and women traversing the globe in ever burgeoning numbers.

One of the most unusual conditions Daniel describes in the last days speaks of the failure of a modern world to socially engineer a society where everyone is on the same level just because they decide it’s going to be that way. The failure of communism and other playing field levelers will once again be ignored and society will be forced by universally mandated laws and rules to accept all behaviors in all places equally. But sadly in one single declaration the prophet proclaims the utter failure of this attempt.

Describing the nation that was once in the same geographical area as the old Roman Empire being revived in modern times Daniel said “And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” (Da 2:43)

Mingling the seed of men has nothing to do with genetic engineering but it refers to social engineering of the sort that forces a one size fits all across the board. That includes religion, race, sexual orientation and every other social aspect of civilian life. It raises a huge question that very few are listening to and very few have answered. Yet, the question and its answer are almost too easy.

The question of whether it works or not is answered with an unequivocal, no. The reasons for its failure are also brutally apparent. “…they shall not cleave to each other” indicates that the human heart is the problem not the social landscape. Here is what the bible says about that inveterate deceiver known as the human heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart; I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”  (Jer 17:9-10)

Men have rejected the heart transforming and life changing power of the gospel for 2000 years but man thinks he can legislate and enforce certain social conditions in the last few years of time as we know it and that it will actually work.

Laws will prove quite ineffective to change the narcissistic, self serving stronghold known as the human heart. Only the complete and utter abandonment to the grace of God and a full repentance from a life of sin can do what the evangelists have been calling for since the days of the early church, which is to transform the heart by the renewing of the mind.

Oddly we must return to that book our President described as obscure to discover the key to the whole matter. Once again we hear the apostle Paul say “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

In the end trying to legislate social behavior will turn out not to be the welcomed change everyone is clamoring for but only a new form of chains no one will be able to live with for very long.

The only question remaining is why would a nation exchange the beautiful ring of freedom for the dreaded clinking of chains and fetters for her once noble citizens? Samuel F. Smith penned the song ‘My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’ in 1831 and in it he called for a sound to come forth from our every mountainside. Is this the day to muffle these chimes and bells for the rattle of chains?

My country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing;

Land where my father’s died,

Land of the pilgrims’ pride,

From every mountainside,

Let freedom ring!

http://www.americanprophet.org is the place for news, articles, movie and book reviews and other insights for life. Rev Bresciani is a columnist for online and print publications and has over three million readers and counting.

By Rev. MICHAEL BRESCIANI

This week in America three celebrities passed away without warning. Reviews on the life of pop culture icon Michael Jackson was at the top of most news programs along with some questions about the manner of his death. Does our penchant for this kind of story indicate anything about our national state of mind?

While we reel from the loss of our celebrities and pop icons a Washington based organization known as the TVC (Traditional Values Coalition) is fighting almost a lone battle against the passage of a hate crimes bill that could effectively protect a pedophile but punish a preacher. Finding news about that organizations fight would be very hard to do in the mainstream media. The interest in one story over the other is proof positive that the entire direction and purpose of the nation has changed.

The culture war is no longer a war between the neo socialists and PC advocates who think the war of ideas is won by just being nice and conservatives who don’t like America being tinkered with. It has heated up to the level of a social civil war where even though no shots are fired and no blood is shed there are nevertheless real victims and casualties wounded and laying around the perimeters. The saddest thing is that we are too busy following the latest pop craze for it to get to us.

Throughout history the one universal deterrent to the rise of any nation is civil war and strife. It can stop a nation’s growth but conversely it can bring it down from the lofty heights of power. In America both our national life and the churches are divided almost to the point of no return. Where is this going?

Some of my articles have ended up on astrology and religious web pages but I did not intend for that to happen. I have put them before the general public in the best online and print publications I could find and purposely declined to submit them to all but a few religious or prophetic sites. This fulfills the calling of my ministry but it also brings the message to the civilian population. It is in that sector that the fate of America will be determined.

I have wasted little time by entering into the church’s debate about true and false prophets. Reams of material is available on that subject, but unfortunately the church is so busy labeling and putting down the false prophets they have failed to tell the nation who we should be listening to. In that process some certified ministers and their ministries have been hurt, ignored or completely destroyed. God doesn’t call any of his prophets to play the role of sheriff in the kingdom of God.  A true prophet is sent to proclaim not disdain.

False prophets can be cunning and deceitful charlatans, but the average American is not easily fooled by them. Those who speak in God’s stead for ulterior or spurious reasons are like an eighteen wheeler coming down the road with all the night lights blazing. You can see and hear them coming from miles away.

Some are more subtle than others, but certain things remain the same about all of them. The false prophet wants something from you and is very upfront about what that is, usually. How many wonderful offers of new information regarding America have been touted as the deepest, the most shocking and the only legitimate inside info there is, only to be offered to you for the introductory price of $39.95 or more? Is God’s message for sale?  In a word, never!

Yet sometimes it isn’t remuneration that is sought but only mere reaction. Pay attention to me, follow me, come to my church or read my materials are the motives. I wouldn’t make it an ironclad rule, but my experience has shown that real prophets could care less whether you pay attention to them personally or not.

The single most effective form of false prophecy is not based on a lie but overemphasis on a truth. If I can show you chapter and verse where God wants you to be prosperous and happy I have told you no lies. If after weeks, years or perhaps a lifetime you hear me saying only that, you may need to find another minister.

In a time of deceit, upheaval or encroaching national danger the message of the happy and prosperous life is a distraction that if not brought into balance with other admonitions of equal importance becomes the grand lie of omission. No lie has any genuine prophetic quality even if it is popular.

Many legitimate prophets would prefer to live their own life outside of the public eye. Rather than being anti-social or indifferent it is the knowledge that people are going to approach what they say with skepticism and an attitude of I’ll take it or leave it if I want to. Many of the Old Testament prophets actually argued with God about doing the prophet thing.

Some prophets claimed speech impediments, said they were too old, too young, had farms and trees to dress and a plethora of other excuses were offered. One prophet pouted and got mad with God because after preaching the need to repent to one city, (Nineveh) they surprised the prophet Jonah by repenting! He was so reticent to speak to them in the first place that he had his heart and imagination peaked only with the thought of their destruction. A thought he was not ready to let go of easily.

The litmus test of a true prophet is provided in detail in the Bible but two items stand out above the rest. The first is that they will never say anything that God did not say, for any reason. The second is that if the perceived message does not line up with or adhere to the prior revelation (The Bible in its entirety) they will reject it out of hand.

As for the personalities or social standing of the real prophets it is safe to say they come in all sizes and models. Their most basic commonality is that they are ‘no respecter of persons.’ They are not swayed by dignitaries or the basest of all civilians. Arguments about their message are fluffed off because they realize they are in greater danger if they refuse to tell the message than from the naysayers who may not like the message.

The question that is far more important than true v. false prophecy centers on heeded versus unheeded prophecies. Most legitimate messages aren’t rejected they are simply ignored. Even after healing the sick, the blind, the deaf and the dumb and raising some from the dead Christ was forced to say “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” (Jn 5:40)

There are as many reasons for rejecting true prophecy as there are people. Near the end of time it is the collective reasoning born out of the pop or common wisdom of the day that is the most commonly accepted reason to reject the message. When the right stuff is replaced with fluff and the rap pulls the ear to the trap you can’t fool with the cool; that’s the pop illusion. The real picture is more like once pop gets to the top, the cool of the cool, is the cool of the fool. Kno-m-sayin?

In a world that has decided that we have evolved from lower forms of animals and we are now on our way to the stars, all appreciable accountability to God has been seriously deferred. Oddly, this too is prophecy. The extended time between the first and second coming of Christ is one of the reasons along with the pride of a bit of new found knowledge about our world that emboldens unbelief in the prophetic promise of God’s ultimate intervention and judgment of mankind.

These two reasons coupled with a predicted rise of deviant and prurient interest worldwide are said to close the ears of many millions of unsuspecting victims of the last day’s demise of man. The Apostle Peter warned “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” (2Pet 3: 3-4)

In America the new penchant is to claim that the messengers and their message is socially harming or defaming certain people, groups and their respective behaviors. Even while no prophet can actually physically harm another person under the commandment of Christ they feign character assassination, social rejection or as in Canada they need only claim their feelings have been hurt. Poor babies!

Many warnings are now emerging about the rise of the dreaded antichrist and they should be given attention. Unknown by many is that the Bible predicts that the spirit of antichrist long precedes the actual revealing of the man. It doesn’t take rocket science to discern what comes from the antichrist spirit. As the word implies it is anything that is opposed to Christ, his gospel and the words and admonitions of his apostles and prophets.

Our President may not be the antichrist, but when he claims that the teachings against homosexuality found in the Bible are merely obscure verses that need not be taken seriously, that is the spirit of antichrist. The compunction or the inspiration that guided the nine justices of our Supreme Court to put Roe v. Wade in place against the warnings of scripture that clearly says all life is sacred is antichrist.

When Europe decided to give abortion and virtually every sexual orientation a wide open field and subsequently to disallow membership into the Union if nations didn’t comply, that is antichrist. The list is too long to complete here but the result is sure. When enough antichrist inspired rules, laws and popularly accepted notions are in place the only thing left is the actual appearance and seating of the antichrist himself.

To borrow a phrase from the commercial world of free enterprise “you get what you pay for.” To use a phrase from writ that even better defines the outcome of the trend toward the antichrist spirit, check out what the Apostle Paul had to say about it. “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:” (2Th 2:9-11)

How convenient is the latest trend among Christians reported by pollster and writer George Barna. Reports are that many are now giving up not only faith in Christ as the one and only way but the belief in a literal satanic personality the Bible refers to as the ‘god of this world.’ Just in time for the big push toward Armageddon and acceptance of every backward trend civilization can conger.

In America we have grown tired of our prophets and we set aside their warnings that no amount of tinkering with the market, the economy or health care concerns can offset the damage that is being done by America’s obsession with sex, pop culture and interests that can only be driven by the oncoming spirit of antichrist. No nation in history ever fell into conflict with God over its economy; it was always their morality. The two are inextricably linked but that may be deeper prophetic utterance than most can bear.

The prophet Jeremiah warned the ancient Israelites for an entire generation that their idolatry, prurient interests and preoccupation with material things would be their demise. In one of his final warnings to them as a few of them tried to escape from the Babylonian (Iraqi) King Nebuchadnezzar they protested his prophecies with the retort that they had it pretty good while they were doing all the things Jeremiah said they shouldn’t be doing. (Je 44:1f)

They actually could not believe that God would take away all their goodies for what they were doing but associated their behavior with their former economic good fortunate. The very end of their nationhood was dismissed as some sort of bad luck, poor planning, relentless enemies or economic misfortune. Sound familiar?

No perversion is more perfect than to think it is our worst behavior that gets us our wealth and economic standing. The Bible is replete with warnings that only God can bless a nation with wealth and prosperity and only God can take it all away.

In forty years of hearing God speak through the scriptures and through revelation one of the most serious prophecies I was ever laden with has to do with America’s economy. I could summarize it in a word, collapse. Poverty will come on this nation as sure as the sun rises, in increments that are in equal and direct proportion to our immorality. Whether I appendage this description with kno-m-sayin or an amen the question remains, is anyone listening?

http://www.americanprophet.org is the place for news, articles, movie and book reviews and other insights for life. Rev Bresciani is a columnist for online and print publications and has over two million readers and counting.