Tuesday, December 25, 2018

A welcome bit of news..Iraq officially makes Christmas Day a national holiday

Iraq officially makes Christmas Day a national holiday

Being Christian in Iraq after ISIS 02:08

(CNN)The Iraqi Cabinet approved a law to mark Christmas Day, December 25, as an official holiday across the country "on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ," according to a statement released by the Iraqi government.

The Cabinet voted on an amendment to the national holidays law in the country that Christmas Day is a holiday for all Iraqis, and not only for the Christian community, as it had been for decades.

"Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world," the Iraqi government said on Twitter.

Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were about 1.4 million Christians in the country. However, their numbers have dwindled to roughly 300,000 after hundreds of thousands fled the country following violence and attacks by various armed groups over the years.

A religious statue vandalized by ISIS stands outside Mart Shmony Church in Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

A religious statue vandalized by ISIS stands outside Mart Shmony Church in Bartella.

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About 300 Iraqi Christians traveled by bus, mostly from camps in the city of Irbil, to their hometown of Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

About 300 Iraqi Christians traveled by bus, mostly from camps in the city of Irbil, to their hometown of Bartella.

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ISIS attacked the Iraqi town of Bartella in 2014, burning and damaging the Mart Shmony Church.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

ISIS attacked the Iraqi town of Bartella in 2014, burning and damaging the Mart Shmony Church.

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A plastic tree outside the Mart Shmony Church marks the return of Christmas to battle-scarred Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

A plastic tree outside the Mart Shmony Church marks the return of Christmas to battle-scarred Bartella.

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Clergymen hold Mass on Christmas Eve for people who returned to Bartella, Iraq, after ISIS militants had been driven out of the town.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

Clergymen hold Mass on Christmas Eve for people who returned to Bartella, Iraq, after ISIS militants had been driven out of the town.

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Former residents return to Bartella for an emotional Christmas Eve Mass.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

Former residents return to Bartella for an emotional Christmas Eve Mass.

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US and Iraqi security forces were on hand to protect churchgoers after ISIS reportedly made threats to attack Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

US and Iraqi security forces were on hand to protect churchgoers after ISIS reportedly made threats to attack Bartella.

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Father Behnam Lalo, left, and another clergyman pray during Christmas Mass held in Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

Father Behnam Lalo, left, and another clergyman pray during Christmas Mass held in Bartella.

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A religious statue vandalized by ISIS stands outside Mart Shmony Church in Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

A religious statue vandalized by ISIS stands outside Mart Shmony Church in Bartella.

Hide Caption

5 of 8

About 300 Iraqi Christians traveled by bus, mostly from camps in the city of Irbil, to their hometown of Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

About 300 Iraqi Christians traveled by bus, mostly from camps in the city of Irbil, to their hometown of Bartella.

Hide Caption

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ISIS attacked the Iraqi town of Bartella in 2014, burning and damaging the Mart Shmony Church.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

ISIS attacked the Iraqi town of Bartella in 2014, burning and damaging the Mart Shmony Church.

Hide Caption

7 of 8

A plastic tree outside the Mart Shmony Church marks the return of Christmas to battle-scarred Bartella.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

A plastic tree outside the Mart Shmony Church marks the return of Christmas to battle-scarred Bartella.

Hide Caption

8 of 8

Clergymen hold Mass on Christmas Eve for people who returned to Bartella, Iraq, after ISIS militants had been driven out of the town.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

Clergymen hold Mass on Christmas Eve for people who returned to Bartella, Iraq, after ISIS militants had been driven out of the town.

Hide Caption

1 of 8

Former residents return to Bartella for an emotional Christmas Eve Mass.

Photos: Iraqi town liberated from ISIS holds Christmas service

Former residents return to Bartella for an emotional Christmas Eve Mass.

Hide Caption

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US and Iraqi security forces were on hand to protect churchgoers after ISIS reportedly made threats to attack Bartella.

Most recently, the rise of ISIS in Iraq forced many of the remaining Christians to flee the country or be killed, as CNN has documented.

In 2016, the ancient Iraqi Christian town of Bartella celebrated Christmas for the first time in two years after being liberated from ISIS.

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Saul Alinsky's
Rules for Radicals

(or understanding current Democratic tactics)

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy.

Rule 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

Rule 5: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag.

Rule 8: Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period.

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself.

Rule 10: Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

Rule 11: If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.

Rule 12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

Communist Manifesto 10 Planks

10 Conditions For Transition To Communism

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.