A Nation Stands at the Crossroads: Upon the Very Heels of a Highly Significant Death, The U S Commandeerer-in-Chief Rushes to Appoint Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Successor to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, In a Decisive Move Which If it Transpires as Expected Will Bring the Entire (Dis)United States of America to the Very Precipice, to a Veritable Knife-Edge (in the Memorable Words of the Lady Galadriel to the Nine Companions/'Fellowship of the Ring' in Peter Jackson Et Al's Cinematic Reinterpretation of JRR Tolkien's Epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy), From Which, If and As It Unfolds, The 'Slightest of Movements' Either Way May Well Signify Whether Its Original Aims and Objectives Ultimately Prove Successful or Otherwise: It's Make or Break Moment, Folks, It Really Is...

But Does That Mean the Entire Covid-19 Saga - Whether Globally or New Zealandwide - Is Perfectly 'Above Board' and 'On the Level' (so to speak)? Well, actually...yes - and no!

What, you're telling me (yep, I'm speaking pejoratively and in the shoes of an onlooker acting as devil's advocate regarding Yours Truly) that I'm in the ranks of the loony-tunes, of the conspiracy theorists and other associated 'nutters'? Well, once again - to repeat myself - no, and yes...

To take two examples/instances taken randomly from this afternoon's RNZ National News bulletins, the latter repeated often throughout the day...

On the 4 p.m. News we were told about a major protest *today/overnight in London over the Covid-19 (lockdown) measures, in which protestors believed/claimed the whole thing was a (global) hoax being used surreptitiously for clandestine purposes, as in to control the (world) population...

Okay, I happen to - completely - disagree in terms of it being any sort of a hoax, let alone a conspiracy as such, but what I most definitely/certainly do believe...

apart from what I specify in intricate detail upon my fifth blogsite,

http://IRYMN.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/),

in two or three blogposts posted three to four or so months ago...

is that the entire pandemic has set in motion such legal and other precedents which are not only being presently milked rather shamelessly and shamefully by various governments around the world, but moreover that even if not at present being at all evil or underhand are nevertheless putting in place 'stuff' (for want of a word to order) that future far less scrupulous political administrations 'here, there and everywhere' (i.e. worldwide) may well, and indeed will - at some unspecified date/time 'down the line' in the 'unforeseeable' (i.e. future) - choose/deign to use as an all too convenient pretext for furthering far less benevolent and far more nefarious purposes/agendas... 

One reason, in fact, that this very day I've - despite ever and only really subscribing to the tenets of one particular political party (in God's Own/Godzone), i.e. (what was once known as) the Social Credit Political League, these days simply known as 'Social Credit' - that is, alongside its onetime contemporaneous, and virtually **identical party - minus Socred's social conservatism - the Values Party) - and I still intend to support Social Credit by ticking the box of the local electorate candidate...

- determined this very afternoon I'll pretty certainly be giving the Advance/Public Party combo my party vote in Aotearoa-New Zealand's upcoming general election...

-and that despite my real and rather serious reservations about and even objections to some somewhat extreme elements to their Covid-19 policy plank... 

The second (news) item? On RNZ National's 8 p.m. (and Midday etc) news bulletins today we were told that 'There are repercussions for [disobeying] the [covid-19] laws [vis-a-vis] German sailors 'deliberately flouting' these (i.e. in New Zealand's own territorial waters, I presume)...

Really? Then what are the repercussions for the New Zealand Government apparently likewise flouting the law (of the land, you know, the sort they spend every waking moment writing and rewriting) according to New Zealand's Supreme (or Appeals) Court('s fairly landmark decision) recently? 

Hey, I'm only asking, please don't start stoning me for being disloyal to our globally-feted leader...

Or is it, as Eric Blair's (i.e. George Orwell's) brilliant oft-repeated refrain in his classic 20th-century fable Animal Farm expressed it so very aptly...reworking this, you understand, for the NZ context...

Some ****sheep are equal, but some ****sheep are {just a tad] more equal than others. 

*For the meantime bear with a few of my (alternating) specifics, frankly they matter not one whit or iota.

**A thing I always found rather curious, and indeed received my answer a decade or so ago (following my own brief electoral stint in NZ's 2008 General Election) from a local 'Socred' party official seeking to ***enrol me (free of charge, as well) as a member of said party...

that the Values Party had effectively 'stolen' Social Credit's policies...which, to look at another way - disregarding valid/legitimate charges of (political) plagiarism, no doubt - was actually paying Socred the highest form of flattery...

***Something which, despite his evident generosity, I  regretfully declined, seeing belonging to any merely (if necessarily) 'worldly' (as in earthly, as opposed to profane) political party to be a form of (implicit) treason to my One and Only Lord and Master Who brooks no rival for one's allegiance... 

****Substituting the traditional export-earning farm animal once 23 times more populous than our people for the popular, 'iconic' kiwi... 

COVID-19/The Coronavirus: Look, Folks, It AIN'T a Salvation Issue

So, yes, by all means feel free to comply with (the various edicts/orders and associated admonitions of) 'the authorities appointed by God'...

except insofar as you simply cannot in all good conscience do so, and believe in so doing you would be inevitably transgressing/breaking God's eternal, everlasting (Moral) Law of love and liberty...

 Hygiene/hygienic practices - including the likes of quarantining - quite frankly could not be more biblical, it/they really couldn't (be)...

-see, for instance, Leviticus 13:1-15:33, a 'section' of (Older Testament) scripture comprising fully 1/2 % of the entire Bible...

...and also my own blogpost on the matter, on my fifth blogsite, i.e.

http://irymn.blogspot.com - 'I Realize You Might Not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See It Anyhow'...

...in March or April I believe, right at the start of the nationwide New Zealand lockdown...

Making oneself a 'martyr for the Lord' is oftentimes, I would (very respectfully) suggest, simply a convenient pretext for giving the authorities that be *'the fingers', emotionally satisfying, admittedly, but so often productive of no real much less longer-term good...

Indeed, the biblical admonition (given in a wholly different context altogether) in Romans 12:18, but a few short verses earlier (as a matter of coincidental fact), of, as far as possible - 'as much as it lies in you(r keeping)' - be(ing) [i.e.living] at peace with all men [i.e. people], is only too applicable here.

Yes, the apostles John and Peter (in two recorded incidents) in the Acts of the Apostles certainly didn't avoid declaring the absolute necessity 'under God' of rendering implicit (and explicit) obedience to God over against mere humanity - that is, when(ever) the two classes of duty happened to conflict; but of course that was never meant to serve as some sort of catch-all 'get out' (of jail free) clause much less excuse to thumb one's nose at the powers that be when(ever) it happened to suit one('s particular sensibilities, prejudices or political/ideological biases/agenda)...

No, as Jesus Himself said on one occasion (in a scripture seldom quoted): Judge righteous judgment...not according to mere appearance. 

And in another two/three contexts (but again wholly relevant and apposite, as it so happens), since said authorities 'stand in Moses' seat'[i.e. of (in this case secular rather than religious) authority] **do as they say...but not as they [so often] do... 

Elsewhere advising Peter to pay the requisite temple tax 'lest we ***offend them' [i.e. selfsame authorities] and otherwise 'giv[ing] to Caesar what is Caesar's'...responses which baffled his critics and enemies no end in their profound simplicity and incontrovertible wisdom...

...i.e. enjoining the duty of compliant citizenship upon all citizens within a(ny particular) jurisdiction... 

*The two-fingered salute that one-time U S President George Bush (Senior) gave Australians back in the day, intending to indicate victory but unfortunately signifying something else altogether...

**As New Zealand's own (former) health minister, the local M.P. and one-time 'honourable' David Clark, might well have been accused of.

***And that's the reason - alongside sheer cowardice, I'd wager, simply not wanting to get into any unpleasant contention thereabouts - that I've 'positively' avoided this topic up till now, that I've taken so long to write and post this particular blogpost...

But it needs be stated/placed upon the record once and for all, so that when the coming Sunday Law crisis - emanating from the USA, but doubtless 'helped along' by the 'Mother Church''s earnest little helpers and undercover agents (the ancient order of) the Jesuits - comes into its own/pushes front and centre in the 'Time of Tribulation such as never was, no, nor ever will be [again]',

honest-hearted people everywhere will take due heed and may know for a certainty that the then charges of disloyalty and disaffection  to the powers that be are of absolutely no validity whatsoever. 

It's - Long Past - Time: "Let's Close the Gap, Let's Bridge the Divide, Let's Reconcile the Churches": (The 700 Club's) Gordon Robertson is Right On Vis-a-Vis the Long Overdue Need for American Churches (Of the Evangelical Persuasion in Particular) To Walk Out in Their Everyday Church Experience the Plain as Daylight Imperatives of Jesus' Teachings

Yes indeed, as Mr Robertson mentioned it had so often been stated (by various others), 11 a.m.-12 p.m. on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America(n life)...

Confirming or simply validating the experience of my own (long deceased) Dad, who himself noted to his deep disgust and dismay all those many years/decades ago (before he and Mum moved to my *birth (and breeding) home country of Aotearoa-New Zealand in 1960), the **other churches in his/their own proximity/visitation were ***'segregated'.

*As in the common descriptive idiom 'born and bred', that is...

**As in the three he happened to deem acceptable, to even consider as options to attend, I'd gather, i.e. the (Roman) Catholic Church and the Baptist Church, and the Religious Society of Friends (otherwise known as the Quakers); which actually comprise a tiny number/proportion of U S churches by any standard...

It pretty well goes without (needing) saying that it was the last of these three which comprised black as well as white Americans in its 'congregation'...

***Or words to that effect.

Bloodymindedness Gets You Everywhere, Every Time...I Mean, Nowhere Very Fast: Some Thoughts About the Maori Party's, and In Particular Former Co-leader Tariana Turia's UNEQUIVOCAL, UNILATERAL Policy Push to Quite LITERALLY Rename ALL Aotearoa-New Zealand's Places by their 'Original' Maori Names...

Please spare us, folks...your singleminded determination is worthy of a far better object...

But to explain further...   

As Heather Du Plessis-Allan said, after discussing this election proposal with the aforementioned well-respected (not least by Yours Truly) Dame Tariana, on her weekday afternoon Newstalk ZB Drivetime Show this very afternoon,

*why not allow for a combination Maori-European nomenclature for each and every such site?

Knowing full well that to do such a thing (i.e. the aforementioned) would undoubtedly 'get the backs up' of a large percentage of the population...

But sadly, as Ms Turia well showed in her one-time **'antics' with a former Prime Minister of the Labour Party persuasion - which otherwise I would hardly serve with even an iota of criticism -
as with so many it's either 'her way or the highway'...

...and so, as Du Plessis-Allan herself so well put matters today - actually echoing  my own every thought as she did so - doing thus and so, while helping political/electorally the Maori Party in the forthcoming election with its own voter base (there'd be little doubt at all), could well lead to greater racial disharmony, one of the very objects, presumably, she and her party would be most keen to avoid - and like the proverbial plague (or Coronavirus these days)...

*Which incidentally is the precise practice of Yours Truly over the lifetime of my various blogs (far as I can remember), i.e. I've pretty well used Aotearoa-New Zealand as often as New Zealand in referring to my beloved homeland in the Antipodes...

**I.e. the escapist episode via a taxi or the like (as she lowered herself with Ms Clark looking on approvingly) after the two had publicly fallen out bigtime over the Foreshore and Seabed Law...though admittedly I'm yet to make hide nor tail of that particular rather oddball incident!

Je Suis (PORTLAND) Oregon...

For Once Ye Mainstream Media are Verily SPOT ON: Yes, the Scenes We are Viewing Throughout the American West are Indeed APOCALYPTIC, Straight Out of the Book of the Apocalypse Itself In Fact...

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God...

I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire, and vapour of smoke...

...before that great and notable day of the Lord come...

And to my *beloved would-have-been 'sister city' of Portland, Oregon no less...

...and withal eerily reminiscent of the reddish skies we here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and in my hometown of Dunedin, no less, experienced over the past summer, on the very morning of New Years Day, 2020 in point of fact...

*Yes, as I've often ruefully reflected in years and even decades since leaving America in mid-1995, Portland (as in Oregon rather than Maine) was far and away my personal pick of the (larger) city I'd have been more than at home moving to and living in, as I indeed did for awhile (two-three months) in late 1992.

Incredibly and unbelievably it now (as of today or yesterday or whenever) 'boasts' the unenviable distinction of having the world's most polluted air...

...though come to think of it, like its 'sister city' Seattle in Oregon's state neighbour to the north, Washington, back around 1980 following the eruption of Mount St Helens it perhaps likewise had some fairly marginal air quality...

Good On the Aussies...for Having the Gall, the Gumption and the Guts, to Stand Up to the Peoples' Republic of China, or Rather the Self-Appointed 'Representatives' Thereof

P.S. And 'Scomo' is right on vis-a-vis a person's intrinsic, inalienable right and even responsibility to attend the dying moments of (and 'funeral rites' for) their beloved, their nearest and dearest...

No ifs, buts or maybes - get a heart, ye (self-appointed) 'Masters of Covid'...

Grace Virtue: Shown No Grace by her Merciless Assailants and No Justice by a Judge Without Virtue: May You Rest in Peace...and May Your Own (Lifetime) (Good and Gracious, Virtuous) Works Follow You...As Indeed They (Doubtless) Shall

Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings...

Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake[-] us...

And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter...

Yet Without GENUINE, HEARTFELT, BIBLICAL REPENTANCE Nothing, No, Nothing in the U S of A (Or Anywhere for That Matter) Will Ever - REALLY, TRULY - Change...

And such repentance is ever and only a gift from God, and issues (i.e. results in) or produces works which reflect the same...

And so Bishop Harry Jackson (I believe) is right on in his calling attention to the lack of such repentance (over the years and decades, even centuries presumably) evidenced by white Americans over their mistreatment of their *black compatriots...

Something in point of fact that any serious reader of this and my other (original) blogsite would be only too well aware has been understood and advocated by myself for quite some considerable time.

When I've reflected at times over recent years and decades upon the ongoing invidious plight of Blacks in the States what has especially struck me has been how so many of those who once so vociferously and vehemently (and vigorously) denounced the desegregationalism so powerfully advanced through both legislative enactment and societal changes from the Civil Rights Era on now so almost nonchalantly act as if actual equality as such were such an obvious and unquestionable 'thing'...

...despite many of them having (in decades previous) done their level best to thwart and frustrate and bring to nought any and all such social developments within their nation...

...and in saying so I most certainly do not include the likes of the once notorious segregationist George Wallace, who, it seems to me anyhow, experienced a genuine Road to Damascus experience, unlike so many of his contemporary (especially Republican Party) fellow-travellers.

*And of course other races, such as the Japanese in WW11, but - far more significantly, for obvious reasons - native Americans (American Indians), who experienced virtual genocide in centuries past.

"Not On My Watch!" is a Sentiment , Even 'Fighting Words' (It's Awfully Hard to Argue With) of My Very Own Namesake (Once Previously Alluded to, Upon My Utter Astonishment At Learning of Such) in the Trump Administration, No Less,...i.e. Interior Secretary DAVID BERNHARDT's 'Take' Upon the Out-of-Control 'Cancel Culture' Now Spreading Like an Insect or Rodent Infestation Of/Approaching Biblical Proportions Throughout the Length and Breadth of the States

In particular, vis-a-vis such attempts in the nation's capital, Washington D.C., of late...

As D J Trump has himself said - of which I'm in total agreement on this occasion - this sort of lawless attempt to rewrite America's history and destroy its cultural heritage...

must be stopped (dead in its tracks; ipso pronto; no ifs, buts or maybes)...

*/**Having said all of that, unlike some rather reactionary folk I'm personally of the view that an accommodation of sorts could potentially be made between the various warring factions in such matters, i.e.

such cultural artefacts of undoubted and undisputed historic significance and value could certainly - upon agreement and broad consensus within the body politic - progressively be removed, with due care and sensitivity, and relocated in various museums and the like and in such settings have a more thorough and balanced portrayal presented of all the various major perspectives upon such individual figures of note...

Just trying to be helpful, you understand, which in our day and age of over-the-top implacable bickering, rancour and dogged political partisanship surely couldn't be such a bad thing, you'd think...

But as I've said on other occasions, in a somewhat cynical vein, 'dreams are free', or (more optimistically, if way less realistically) one can only hope that such commonsense might one day prevail...

*Even just qualifying my preceding uncategorical assertion, I well realize and fully concede, doubtless seems to pretty much nullify that (previous) point. Accepting such an assessment as quite legitimate, I nevertheless - being the complicated and nuanced fellow I likewise am - choose to do so anyway, yet also wish to add another important caveat (or qualifier), namely

**That I simply find it impossible to question much less oppose whichever black Americans consider confederate statues (and associated publicly displayed Civil War 'memorabilia') to be outright offensive and worthy of only one possible fate, i.e. public humiliation and destruction...

...basically because those who have been so long downtrodden in such a despicable and appalling manner - as a watching world has looked upon with horror and unbelief and its own sense of outrage over recent years (as the systematic and systemic police violence against black - in particular, but certainly not solely - Americans throughout the lengths and breadths of the United States has been exposed time and again for all to see) - ***can hardly be blamed for finally rising up and declaring: "Enough is enough!"...

***Though I have always heartily 'endorsed' (for want of a better word) the nonviolent road of civil disobedience so ably and effectively articulated by and practiced by the likes of Martin Luther King Junior, when studying a paper in American History (from the Civil War era through the Carter years), I recall being so appalled by the treatment of blacks for so very long I could briefly see the sorts of 'arguments' advocated by the likes of Malcolm X and, if my memory serves me aright, Stokely Carmichael in simply wishing to have the (basic human) 'right' to defend themselves and their families upon being, for example, attacked without reason in the sanctity of their own homes...

Although I wish their (in my view often patronizing and condescending, and moreover gratuitously virtue-signalling) fellow-travellers...such as for instance some prominent (especially foundational) members of the Black Lives Movement...would 'cease and desist' forthwith from what to myself anyhow are rather disingenuous attempts (unfortunately overly 'successful' thus far) to hijack the holding police to account (and now also statue-dismantling) movement for their own ideological agenda and political ends...

effectively using it even, I would argue - ****as others have (and much more ably than myself, I'll readily concede) - as pretty much a Trojan Horse...

****Such as *****the 700 Club's articulate and measured, ever mild-mannered, reasoned and reasonable, Gordon Robertson...

*****As occasionally seen upon New Zealand's Shine TV weekday evening Newscast (from 6 p.m.).

George Orwell (I Mean Eric Blair), Secular Seer of the 20th-Century (and Well Beyond), Once Again Proven a Prophet of Rare Insight...As the Dilettantish Standard-Bearers of 'Our' (English) Language Go to Town Yet Again in Their Incessant Attempts to Turn 1984's 'Newspeak' into Rather Vivid Reality...

Squandering a Superb and Unprecedented - and Undoubtedly Un-(Readily) Repeatable - (God-Given) Opportunity: To Re-set U K Politics for Good: Boris Johnson Et Al's Going AWOL Sadly, if Predictably, Betraying the (Great, Unprecedented) Trust Traditional (Mainly Working-Class) 'Laborites' Throughout the United Kingdom (Especially England and Wales) Reposed in the Brexit-Delivering Government Handed a Whopping Landslide Victory and Mandate in Last December's History-Making Election...as ('Gender-Challenged') Newbie Labour Leader Keir Starmer Goes from Strength to Newfound Strength...