SocietyWatch
Opioids: a crisis within the pandemic
A record 94,000 people died in America in 2021 from drug overdoses; about 80 percent of these were caused by opioids. While media executives focus coverage on COVID-19 details, the largely ignored opioid crisis has become one of the most devastating health problems in United States history.
Idleness, isolation and despair have likely resulted in increased drug usage. Expect the opioid crisis to get a lot worse. Galatians 5:16 warns against succumbing to the “lust of the flesh,” and the Bible elsewhere describes indulgence in intoxicants as slavery. Verse 20 lists pharmakeia as one of the “works of the flesh.” This Greek word is usually translated into English as “witchcraft,” but it literally translates as “the use or the administering of drugs.” In ancient times, as in modern times, individuals used various types of drugs, ultimately for the same reason: a vain attempt to fill a spiritual void in their lives.
California compels students to learn ethnic studies
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Oct. 8, 2021, that makes it mandatory for California students to take ethnic studies in order to graduate high school, starting in 2025. Lessons will include “#BlackLivesMatter and Social Change,” “Afrofuturism: Reimagining Black Futures and Science Fiction,” “U.S. Undocumented Immigrants from Mexico and Beyond,” “The Immigration Experience of Lao Americans” and “This Is Indian Land: The Purpose, Politics and Practice of Land Acknowledgment.” This will open the door to critical race theory, which teaches that U.S. institutions were founded with the goal of assuring white dominance.
The radical liberal approach to ethnic studies divides Americans along racial lines, and not by accident. This is leading to a time of conflict prophesied in Isaiah 1:7: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.” This is a passage warning the descendants of ancient Israel, including the Americans, about non-Israelites rioting in their cities because the people of the land have turned to their own ideologies and away from God’s law.
Daughters wanted for U.S. Army
As part of 2021’s National Defense Authorization Act, Democrats in the United States House of Representatives passed a bill on September 1 that empowers the government to draft women into the military. If passed in the Senate later this year, it will be considered a victory for feminists.
This follows the government dropping its ban on women going into combat in 2013. At the time, the Trumpet cited an Army survey showing that 85 to 90 percent of even women who were enlisted in the military opposed putting women in combat. One female soldier said, “Those feminists back home who say we have a right to fight are not out here sitting in the heat, carrying an M16 and a gas mask, spending 16 hours on the road every day, and sleeping in fear you’re going to get gassed.” It was not enough for feminists for women to volunteer for combat: Now they want to draft them into it.
God has taken the “mighty man, and the man of war” away from America (Isaiah 3:1-3). Instead of strong leadership, children oppress, women rule, and leaders cause the people “to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (verse 12). The government’s push to draft women is another self-destructive step down this path.
Pfizer hides its use of aborted babies
Former Pfizer manufacturing quality auditor Melissa Strickler has made public the fact that the pharmaceutical mega-corporation is hiding certain facts about its COVID-19 vaccine.
Project Veritas published her reports on Oct. 6, 2021, noting that while it isn’t widely known outside medical circles, Pfizer and other vaccine makers have used aborted fetal tissue in their vaccine testing. Many who have learned this have consequently sought religious exemptions from taking the vaccine. But Strickler’s Project Veritas interview revealed a corporate strategy to suppress the truth.
“From the perspective of corporate affairs, we want to avoid having the information on the fetal cell lines floating out there,” read an e-mail from Pfizer’s senior director of worldwide research, Vanessa Gelman, shared by Strickler. “We believe that the risk of communicating this right now outweighs any potential benefit that we could see, particularly with general members of the public who may take this information and use it in ways we may not want it out there. We have not received any questions from policymakers or media on this issue in the last few weeks, so we want to avoid raising this if possible.”
The fact that aborted fetal cell lines are used in vaccines is not a secret to anyone who researches the matter, but Pfizer has actively worked to keep this out of the news. According to Strickler, Pfizer has blacked out windows to its manufacturing rooms so that outside observers cannot see what is happening inside.
The Bible shows that God considers the life of an unborn child equal to that of an adult, and therefore considers abortion murder (Exodus 21:22-23). But many people and companies in America are willing to turn a blind eye to the murder of millions of babies in return for profit and personal convenience.
