Inverted Reality

I read it twice to be sure it said what I thought it said. It does: "US Unemployment Rate Looks Good Compared to Some Other Countries."

The article begins with, "I don't know how this was kept a secret so long, but a newspaper in Nambia is reporting that the country had 51.2% unemployment in 2008. That's a far cry from the US employment rate of 9.6% in August 2010."

And this is a serious article. While it is not a major newspaper, AOL is sending it wherever they go.

While wondering how we got to the point of comparing ourselves to Nambia in order to feel good about things, I noticed an article in The New York Times. It is on a different subject but communicates the same inverted reality.

The Times is remembering the "Good Life" in the "socialist state" of East Germany.

The progressive left struggle to avoid American exceptionalism, by regularly and expertly finding the most unusual and sometimes odd ways to invert reality.

This Times writer, Michael Slackman, writes with nostalgia on the disillusionment some Germans felt after the "Wall" came down and people were free.

He writes of the "values forged--- in a socialist state," and the deeply insulting perception that those values were "expunged and delegitimized."

He quotes Ms. Kummer, 52, who feels displaced, although she has gone on to be a reporter.

"Yes," she says, "it was a dictatorship, a state of injustice, no freedom, but there were 17 million different lives."

The Times was so taken with her quote that they inserted it in the caption under the picture.

Surely the reunification of Germany has been traumatic for some, but let me tell you a different story.

I was in Germany three different times during the time the wall was coming down. I saw the people dancing in the streets, climbing on the wall, hacking it to small pieces and celebrating their new freedom and thanking Ronald Reagan for his stand on their behalf.

A middle aged man took me to a wire fence area in Berlin near the wall, showing me pictures of people who tried to escape to the west and were shot. He pointed to a picture of one of his own relatives saying, "now they could walk across freely."

I joined an evangelical church as they held a Christian service in the public square in East Berlin, celebrating their freedom of speech and religious expression, most, for the first time in their life.

I have a piece of the "Wall" in my desk as a reminder of how very much people want freedom. We do not seek bondage. We seek freedom.

If I am to be influenced by the progressive left in this country, I would conclude that 9.6% unemployment is good, there is much value to be found in a life dominated by socialism and dictatorial leadership and while our country is no more exceptional than any other, according to our President, we are going the right direction---everything is going to be just fine.

Inverted Reality.

It has been called "exchanging the truth for a lie."

Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful. Be Active. Be Blessed. Be Free.

__________________
Gary Randall
President
Faith and Freedom

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