Please send this to any fundamentalist Christians you may know

[viguy007]

Please don't think I'm crazy but I have a serious question to ask you. You are more schooled in fundamentalist Christian doctrine than I am. I have never devoted much time studying the Book of Revelation. I believe you have. Recently, someone told me Mitt Romney is the Antichrist. The situation in the Middle East between Israel and Iran with the bomb has always been worrisome, and I just became aware of something called the "White Horse Prophecy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Prophecy ) so that possibility now seems less crazy. If I am not mistaken, the Antichrist will be a great deceiver who has a pleasant facade, bur really does not care about people. Please look at the following videos and you will see what I mean.

Mitt Romney Is Assessed By His Fellow Republicans

Mitt Romney - Protector Of The American Middle Class Worker ?

Mitt Romney - In His Own Words

So Which Mitt Romney Would You Be Voting For?

Even before I became aware of the "White Horse Prophecy" I had read something on the website http://www.CommonSenseFor.US called an American Nightmare, and it follows:

I am a life-long Republican, but I fear a nightmare scenario if Mitt Romney is elected President. I believe it is a realistic scenario so I will not be voting for him.

First, a truism: Capitalism is driven by the simple supply and demand equation. If there is no demand, any supply of widgets will just sit and rot on store shelves. To the extent that widgets are rotting on store shelves, no more widgets will be ordered or produced. The Demand for things must always be there first. However, people can have a want or demand for widgets, but if people do not have money or credit to buy these widgets, in economic terms, there is no demand. Moreover, to the extent people are not able to afford and satisfy their wants or needs for these widgets because they have no money, they will be frustrated and perhaps even angry.

I assume Mitt Romney will implement the Ryan budget plan, as he said he would. It will cut taxes mostly for the "investor class" (aka the rich). At the same time it will shrink government spending by cutting programs that mostly benefit the poor, working and middle class families. Since money knows no nationality, and owes no loyalty but to itself, most of the tax cut the rich receive will be invested in emerging market countries, where it will get the greatest return. It might also be deposited in secret bank accounts in "offshore tax havens", or hidden away in gold. This is especially true in difficult economic times. This money will not move through the American economy, and by creating demand, help it grow. Unless there is demand first, no business will expand to produce items (widgets) that will just rot on store shelves.

Since Mitt Romney promised not to increase the deficit, to pay for the tax cut, the budgets would be slashed for programs across the board. These would include: crop insurance, disaster relief, road and bridge repair, unemployment insurance, “Pell Grants”, food stamps, job training, "Head Start", and so forth. Cuts in federal grants to state and local governments would mean the layoff of policemen, firemen, teachers, and all types of government workers. This means that requests to the local government, for the permits that any business needs, would now take longer to process.

In economic terms, all these things and people consume "goods and services," and produce a demand which will employ other people to meet this demand. Those people in turn create their own demand. In this way the whole economy is intertwined. With the Romney budget cutbacks, to the extent demand is now lessened, employers will also cut back. This will cause factories to close, and jobs will be lost, so the unemployment rate will rise. Instead of the slow but steady economic growth we presently have, the economy will once again begin to shrink. We will be in a "double dip" recession.

As the economy shrinks and people lose jobs, their ability to make their mortgage payments will decrease. Once again bank foreclosures on homes will increase. Families will lose their homes. They will be looking for help, but they will get none from Mitt Romney, since he believes "don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom." Perhaps in economic theory this would a solution to a financier, practical, like strapping a pet dog to the roof of a car during a 12 hour family road trip.

But we must always keep in mind that, the statistics we read about unemployment and foreclosures are not just numbers. They represent real men, women, and children who, maybe for the first time in their lives question: Will I eat tonight and where will I sleep? They are more afraid than they have ever been before in their lives. Without any help from the government, what will those families be forced to do in order to survive? Prostitute themselves, steal, become criminals in order to put a roof over their head and food on the table, for themselves and their children. Is this what Mitt Romney wants, because in some cases, this is what he will get.

But the nightmare continues. Mitt Romney has said, "I have indicated, day one, I will issue an executive order identifying China as a currency manipulator. We'll bring an action against them in front of the WTO (World Trade Organization) for manipulating their currency, and we will go after them." Sounds good until you read the warning that same WTO gives on their Website. "The short-sighted protectionist view is that defending particular sectors against imports is beneficial. But that view ignores how other countries are going to respond. The longer term reality is that one protectionist step by one country can easily lead to retaliation from other countries. (For example), the trade war of the 1930s when countries competed to raise trade barriers in order to protect domestic producers and retaliate against each others’ barriers. This worsened the Great Depression."

Will Mitt Romney's actions towards China ignite a fire he may not be able to control? Europe is already economically frail, since many countries are in a recession because they adopted budget cutbacks which are the equivalent of the Romney-Ryan budget. Austerity in those countries has only caused the financial condition of the people to worsen. It has caused political instability and rioting in the streets. At this point, the possible starting a trade war between the world's two largest economies would be an unwarranted risk. This would create the perfect economic storm. A trade war, when combined with Europe's fragile economy, and the downturn in the economy caused by the Romney budget, would result in another depression, not just a severe recession.

I will now assume those reading this are not aware of President Nixon's "ENEMIES LIST". This was a list which was used to harass ordinary American citizens who Nixon felt were his enemy. This was one of the reasons he was impeached in what is now known as the "Watergate" scandal. The official purpose was described by Nixon's White House Counsel, John Dean. It was "how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies". I fear Richard Nixon and Mitt Romney are cut from the same cloth.

The only negative things we knew about Nixon before he was elected president were: he worked as an aide to Senator Joe McCarthy and he gave a hokey speech about his dog "Checkers". My fear about Mitt Romney may be baseless, for no man can see into another's man heart. But Mitt Romney's has many red flags about his character. His ruthless actions in the primaries. His offshore bank accounts and other indicators he is a tax avoider. His secrecy and attitude when questioned about his finances. The lack of compassion and empathy indicated by his teen-age bullying and tying his dog to the roof of his car for 12 hours. And his seeming lack of core values in an endless chase for political power. These all add up in a very troubling way.
While the preceding facets of my nightmare are based on facts, what follows is INFORMED SPECULATION. You will not understand the political part this nightmare unless you fully take into account the changes the Romney budget and his program will produce. Mitt says he wants to do away with "burdensome regulation" of the financial industry and slash "welfare" type programs. Most of these programs and regulations which Mitt wants to change date back to the "Great Depression" so it might be useful to first look at why they were put into place.
The "Great Depression" truly was a time of no hope for the future. Desperation ruled as the stock market crashed, and banks closed never to reopen their doors. In the time it takes the eye to blink, or the heart to beat, a lifetime of savings was wiped out. Businesses failed, jobs were lost, homes and farms were foreclosed, and dreams were swept away. For many years the unemployment rate was over 25%.

The old and disabled literally died in the street from starvation, too weak to wait for hours on breadlines at soup kitchens for a meal. World War One veterans, who had lost their homes, set up an encampment in Washington. They were calling for the bonus they had been promised after the war. But instead of being honored, they were brutally attacked and expelled by other soldiers. Hundreds of thousands homeless men, women, and children traveled from town to town, in open boxcars on the rails, and falling apart jalopies looking for work. Any job, at any wage, just to put a scrap of bread on the table and end the relentless hunger that consumed them. Fear and hopelessness lurked throughout the land.
The radio was filled with talk of revolution, and esteem for the Nazis who seemed to be solving their problems. Other politicians were talking endlessly about the need for fiscal responsibility, and a need to cut the budget. And in the middle of this time of crisis, this great test of the “American Dream” and democracy, three years after the "Crash of 29", there was an election. This was a time to renew the dream with a vote. Perhaps a last chance for that dream that is America.

His campaign theme song was “Happy Days Are Here Again”. On his first day in office, after he had just been sworn in, he said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". This was a man who could not walk without help from others, yet he chose to carry a whole nation on his back, to a new day of hope. Perhaps the secret of his greatness was he knew what it was like to depend on others, and how interconnected we all are. His name was Franklin D. Roosevelt, but in the hearts of this fellow Americans he was just FDR, and to many, savior of the “American Dream.
Some of the wealthy elite called him a Communist. Others said he was a Socialist. He called himself a Democrat, but he really was a Pragmatist. His ideology and program was to try something, if it does not work, try something else. He greatly increased the role of government in the economy. He had programs to provide jobs, and create a social safety net. His public works program built roads, schools, bridges, Dams and docks. He pushed for and got laws which would regulate the financial industry and banks. Laws were passed that helped workers to form Unions, thus ending the downward spiral of wages. The economy did not zoom ahead, but people had more money in their pockets. They had a greater sense of security, and renewed hope about the future. Slowly but surely, the American Dream was once again revived. It took eight long years from the time FDR was elected, and finally the “Great Depression” was ended after a total of eleven years.

The Romney budget and program take the exact opposite approach from FDR to addressing the economic downturn. It will have increased economic inequality, in that, it gave significant tax cuts to the rich while cutting benefits such as unemployment insurance, student financial aid, food stamps, "Head Start", school nutrition programs, "aid to dependent children" etc, mostly used by the poor. It will tear the heart out of the "social safety net" FDR constructed. The common perception will be the government adopted programs that made the rich, richer; and the poor, poorer. This will revive and reinvigorate the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, perhaps to the extent where the frequency and size of its demonstrations will match those against the war in Vietnam.

Romney's policies will be seen as causing the economic downturn. This will be unlike Obama who was seen as inheriting the bad economy from the Bush administration. Therefore the demonstrators will be angrier then they were in the first wave of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. Some of the demonstrations may deteriorate into riots and civil disorder, as they have done in London, Greece, and Spain. These will only be splinter groups but media reports will focus on them. America has not seen mass violent demonstrations and riots in many years. Yet, they have occurred, for example, the riots and burning of cities like Detroit and Watts.

President Obama was "hands off" regarding the first wave of "Occupy Wall Street" movement. He also appeased them by using a more populist tone in his speeches. But Mitt Romney will not do that. He will be pressured by his "hard right" supporters, into declaring the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators are terrorist because of the riots. He can then evoke the "Patriot Act." We must bear in mind, many of the illegal actions in regards to the anti-war movement for which Nixon was impeached, would today be perfectly legal under the "Patriot Act."
The "Occupy Wall Street" encampments would then be swept clear and destroyed by soldiers, like what happened under President Hoover, to the encampment of the "Bonus Marchers" in 1932. At that time, soldiers with fixed bayonets and hurling tear gas destroyed an encampment of 10,000 people. In this raid, two babies died and nearby hospitals were flooded with casualties.

America would be bitterly divided, this would reach an extreme degree if any demonstrators were killed by soldiers, as they were at "Kent State" during an anti-Vietnam War protest. Some violent radical groups may form, similar to the "Weathermen" during the Vietnam War, with their slogan "The Elections Don't Mean Sh^t—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street." It should be remembered that although the vast majority of anti-war protests were peaceful, some radical groups were bombing buildings, burning down ROTC armories, and robbing banks.

At this time, we would have as president, a man who is closely tied to Wall Street. A man who was ruthless in the way he handled his business (Bain) and political campaigns. A man who has no problem being deceptive, to either us or the SEC as to when he left Bain. A man who for many years did not disclose a Swiss bank account on government financial disclosure forms. A man who is completely opaque and secretive in whatever he does. In sum, a man whose attitudes and aloofness more closely resembles that of an aristocrat, a king, rather than those of a "man of the people". With this combination no one could know what would happen next. How will Mitt Romney, a man whose authority has never been challenged, react to this challenge?

The election of Mitt Romney, and the enactment of his budget, may very well lead to civil unrest and rioting in the streets. People will revolt against the hardships imposed by perceived unfairness of the budget and rising inequality. This will lead to cries for "law and order" and a completely polarized society. We may very well end up having the every day activity of ordinary Americans subject to surveillance. Now, either the genius of our democracy kicks in, cuts in the budget are rolled back and compromises are reached, or we travel down a much darker road. A road I hesitate even to think about, but one that I must admit possibly exists, no matter how unlikely I hope it is.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said "We must never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." Hitler in a time of political unrest and economic distress, was elected to office in a democratic process. He then claimed he needed additional power, in order to achieve “law and order”, and so he became a dictator. We say it could never happen here, but as the little known "plot against FDR" shows, it is not unthinkable.

The plot against FDR was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization. They would use it in a coup d'état to overthrow President Roosevelt. Butler was to be the leader of that organization. In 1934, Butler testified to the “Special Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities” on these claims. In the opinion of the committee, these allegations were credible. When the committee's final report was released, it said the committee's "two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true."

Thus my nightmare ends.

You may think I'm paranoid, and I can only hope you're right. However, many economist believe that if Romney does what he says he wants to, in regards to the budget and China, the economic portion of my nightmare will become a reality. As far as the political portion of my nightmare, the very fact that I can make a coherent, cogent and credible scenario, is scary enough to keep me up at night. It should do the same to you.
I read this before I found out about the "White Horse Prophecy" and now this nightmare has become much, much darker.