Satan's Gambit

by Conti, Gene;

  “Well, the students are broke, and Father is on a fixed income, and the student waiters and waitresses need the money,” I stammered, trying to plead my case.

  “I know,” she says sweetly. “One of the reasons why I love you is because you are generous with those who need it.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss. “Mmm, that Shiraz on your lips tastes good.”

  “By the way, what did you have for lunch when you met with Father?”

  “Oh, part of a chicken salad sub.”

  “Part?” Emily looked at me strangely.

  I changed the subject. “What do you have planned for dessert?” I asked, licking my lips trying to savor the last bouquet of the Shiraz.

  “How about a root beer float with rocky road?” Emily offered as she got up from the table and started to pick up the empty dishes.

  “I’ll help you clear the table,” I offered. “How about we take the root beer floats and relax in the living room?”

  As Emily was preparing the floats, I asked her how her day went.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. The power company came onto our property sometime while I was out running errands today and installed that smart meter.” I sensed a slightly disturbed tone in her voice.

  “I thought you made it clear to them that our old meter was functioning just fine,” I stated emphatically.

  “They have been pestering us for months,” Emily pleaded, as she finished putting a straw into each of our floats. “I’ve tried to keep this from you Honey.”

  We carried our root beer floats into the living room. I plopped down into my lazy boy recliner and Emily into her comfortably wide overstuffed chair with ottoman. “I have responded to numerous emails and flyers,” Emily comments. “Each time I’ve emphasized that we don’t want one. And today they sneak onto our property to install it.”

  “Honey,” I reply, “I’ve seen the ads: ‘Monitor your energy usage, control your costs, conserve energy, save our planet.’ I oughta go outside and rip out the whole damn thing.”

  “Then we wouldn’t have any electric power for sure,” Emily answered, thinking I’m really going to do it.

  I’m still irked. “What difference does it make? What a bunch of fools we are. I believe that over thirty states now have these devices. The government first softens you up by making you think you are in control, and that the meter will help you save on your utility bills.” I paused just long enough to scoop up some of the rocky road. “‘We will install them free of charge for you,’ they say. What B.S.! The sheeple don’t realize that the meter works both ways. It sends and receives a satellite signal much like our smart phones. If the powers-that-be don’t particularly like your politics, if you’re ruffling too many feathers, off goes your washer and dryer—or your whole house!” I got so worked up I spilled a little rocky road on my shirt and quickly spooned it up. “So now it’s gone from an option, to forcefully imposing their will on us,” I stated, swabbing the smudge with my napkin while cussing under my breath for being so sloppy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  SECRET SECTS

  “What’s the matter with people?” Emily implored, flailing her hands like an Italian.

  I must be rubbing off on her, I thought.

  “Don’t they get it?”

  “No!” I replied emphatically. “They are robotons—busy with work, social activities, watching the TV ‘reality’ shows, or blowing several hundred dollars, that they don’t have any way, going to some sporting event. The lamestream media doesn’t report on many critical and crucial topics. They can’t. Look who owns and controls them.” I get up from my lazy boy to wash the stain off my shirt. “Speaking about the Rockefellers,” I continued. “David Rockefeller, around thirty years ago or so, at some big hoity-toity dinner, thanked the press and media CEOs and owners for working so well with them. Hell, some of those big shots were at the latest Bilderberg meeting.” As I returned to my lazy boy, I brushed at my now wet, discolored stain on my shirt.

  “Don’t worry; I can get that stain out,” Emily said, commiserating with my frustration regarding both the people and my stain.

  “I’m going to find that quote of his, doggone it.” I turned on my tablet and fudged around a bit. “Ah, here it is. Listen to this pompous ass.”

  “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years.

  It would have been impossible for us to have developed our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march toward a world government.

  The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (David Rockefeller, Baden-Baden, Germany 1991)

  “Notice what Rockefeller said with respect to when most of this ‘legal’ organized crime and corruption was organized—almost forty years prior to his 1991 statement. The Bilderberg group was formed in 1954.”

  “And the pièce de résistance … give me a second while I bring this up. You’re going to love this,” I said as I proceeded to Google the statement. “Good, here it is. I’ll read you some selected portions of a speech given by JFK before the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NYC on April 27, 1961.”

  “The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and secret proceedings….

  And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment….

  For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence…

  It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations….

  Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.”

  “So tell me, Babe, was Kennedy writing his own epitaph? A year and a half later he was assassinated. Nothing to see here, move on,” sarcasm dripping off my words.

  “But why, Joe?” Emily asked, squirming very uncomfortably.

  “Because he wouldn’t dance to their tune. Those international elitists and Illuminati that run the banks and mega-corporations want to own everything—including the U.S. He fought them and lost. It’s been downhill ever since. Ironically, the poor and some of the middle class will suffer the most. Unfortunately, so many are blitzed out of their minds on drugs—legal and otherwise—zombied out on a raft of pain killers, psych meds, sleep meds, anti-anxiety meds. The only thing many of them care about is when their next check will cash. And again, Big Brother likes them in that easily controlled dependent state.”

  “But it isn’t right that the government forces itself upon us,” Emily whined.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  WRONG OR RIGHT

  “Right and wrong is basically what it’s all about, the truth subverted. One of my students, Pete, is just starting to grasp that concept,” I explained to Emily as I took a big sip of my float. “He’s beginning to understand that if there is no right or wrong, then might makes right and only Darwin’s survival of the fittest prevails.”

  Emily shifted to a more upright position in her chair as she reflectively stated, “That’s when it becomes all about money, which leads to the power and control thing you always talk about - What David Rockefeller said and what Kennedy was fighting against.”

  “You got it, Babe. A good percentage of peop
le know things are getting worse but can’t put their finger on it. This is not rocket science.” I took another sip of my float, but it was too thick. I’ll just wait for the ice cream to melt, rather than taking the chance of spilling more on me, I thought to myself. “Take any indices you want, and you can see it getting worse by the year. Crime, rape, civil unrest, homosexuality, abortion, loss of faith, fewer youth attending church, government corruption, international corporations in bed with the major banking firms screwing everyone.”

  “Why?” pleaded Emily, practically wringing her hands.

  “Simple. As we move away from God, society becomes more pagan and corrupt like ancient Rome. Oh excuse me, there is no God. Darwin has ‘proved’ that.”

  “People claim that there were evil individuals and societies in the Bible,” Emily asserted.

  “Correct. Pagan societies, pagan peoples, and even the Israelites themselves when they rejected God in the Old Testament. Remember the Rabbi Jonathan Cahn DVDs we watched? He has abundantly testified to ancient Israel’s aberrant behaviors. And we are following suit.”

  “Some of my Catholic girlfriends claim that one doesn’t have to be a Christian to be moral.”

  “Oh, boy; yeah, but whose morals and whose ethics?” I challenged.

  “Huh?” Emily asked, looking at me quizzically.

  “For a pagan to be ‘moral’ as you say, they need to ‘steal’ from Judeo-Christian morals and ethics, otherwise whose morals are they abiding by—pagan Rome or maybe a remote Indian tribe that boils stillborns or cannibals whose tribal rituals include eating people,” as I suck violently on my straw; the ice cream clogging it up.

  Emily was getting very animated. “I remember you telling me about how Jesuit Fordham University canceled a talk to be given by Ann Coulter and then turned around and invited Peter Singer, the bioethics professor from Princeton who believes in infanticide and bestiality! My God, and this guy is a bioethics professor!?”

  “Honey, Notre Dame University asked former President Obama to be their commencement speaker and awarded him with an honorary degree, even though the guy voted to legalize late-term abortion. This is known as dilation and extraction. You know the scissors deal where the base of the infant’s skull is punctured with the surgical shears and then the brain is suctioned out. Forceps are finally used to crush the cranium, making it easier for the now dead fetus to be withdrawn.”

  “No more, no more,” holding her hands against her ears. “What is happening with Christians; with everybody in the U.S.? Have we gone mad?”

  “Babe, we have become the Israelites of the Old Testament who have forsaken God. Don’t forget Obama ‘asked’ Notre Dame to cover all its religious symbols, prior to his speaking engagement.”

  “But why?” Her hands were clenched in anger.

  “If Darwin and evolution are true, there is no God, no right or wrong. And if evolution is true, we came from nothing, and therefore when we die, we go to nothing. So, truth and morality become relative. Each person decides right or wrong for himself. This is what I’m slowing trying to get my class to realize.”

  Emily’s eyes lit up. “Ahhh, but with Christianity there are guidelines, like the Ten Commandments. We believe when we die there will be a reward or retribution,” she stated matter-of-factly as she settled down in her huge lounge chair.

  “So tell me, Honey,” I said, leaning forward to get her complete attention. “What has the school system, including the Catholic schools, universities, and even seminaries, been teaching now for decades?”

  “Darwinism! And therefore everything must be tolerated, except Christianity, of course,” she heartily concluded.

  “Correct. And if evolution’s true, how dare you criticize my actions - if I want to berate a nurse, throw rocks and bottles at fire and EMS personnel, rip you off, lie, cheat, or whatever. This attitude that there is no right or wrong mentality - with no shame, permeates our culture; whether it’s a purse-snatching thug, the lying mainstream media, a corrupt politician, or embezzling CEO of a multi-national corporation,” I elucidated while still trying to get my straw to work. “I’ll do whatever I can get away with,” I mocked in an arrogant voice. “That’s why they actually have formal college courses in situation ethics and relative morality. The assumption being that you probably believe in evolution before even registering for the class.”

  Emily, still somewhat confused, asked, “How come so many people say, then, that they believe in God?”

  “Honey, the Devil believes in God! Why would he waste his time following just any ‘crazy man’ around the desert for forty days if he didn’t think that person was really God? Someone telling me they believe in God doesn’t impress me one single iota. At least the Devil really believed that ‘crazy man’ in the desert could change stones into bread. Whereas, half these people who claim to believe in God don’t believe that same ‘crazy man’ could change water into wine.” I leaned in a little, “And you wonder why everyone, including, priests, ministers, nuns, and rabbis are becoming more pagan, or should I say more evolutionized with each passing generation?”

  I took a moment to finalize my thought. “The kicker is, that the left makes us feel guilty, that we’re the hate-mongers if we don’t agree with their positions on abortion, homosexuality, etcetera. What drivel! What sane individual would despise his brother if he’s a homosexual or loathe his daughter if she’s had an abortion? Okay, they might disagree with their lifestyle and choices, but they would and should still love them,” I concluded finally giving up on my float.

  I looked at my wife who just seemed to be sitting there kinda stunned and somewhat bewildered. “Honey, I think it’s time we go to bed.”

  As I was dropping off to sleep, I realized I hadn’t even mentioned to her what Father Ed had told me about Professor Dietrich.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  UGLY ALIEN

  We concluded the Pledge with Ali still resisting. I proceeded to make an announcement to the class. “For those who are able, we will be meeting a young engineer at the north end of the quadrangle after class, around 10:15, for a brief talk. It’s entirely optional.”

  Andy asked, “Is he a young dude, always wearing cool threads?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s into marine engineering, married with a couple of kids?”

  “Yes again, Andy.”

  Andy then addressed the class. “I know this fellow. We’ve taken a few engineering courses together. You’ve got to meet this dude. He is sharp, always pressed, and has a way with words.”

  Claudia seemed particularly interested in what Andy was saying. He continued, “Nothing personal, Doc, but this guy is with it.”

  “Okay then,” I confirmed, “It’s settled. After class, around 10:15, north end of the quadrangle, the grassy spot by the trees.”

  Everyone nodded, acknowledging they knew where it is. Whether they would come was another matter.

  ***

  I pulled a coin out of my pocket. “Here, catch,” I said as I tossed the coin out to the class. Andy caught it.

  “Andy, being an engineer you have a very logical mind. Let me propose a scenario. You are an astronaut on a rocket and are about to engage the propulsion system into hyper-drive after exiting the earth’s gravitational field.”

  Matt, our Star Wars aficionado commented. “Way cool, I want to be on board, too!”

  “Okay, Matt, you too.”

  “Where are we going?” He asked.

  “’To boldly go where no man has gone before,’” I replied.

  “That’s Star Trek,” he groused. “At least we can launch into hyperspace with warp drive.”

  I don’t even need to look to know that Philip, leaning back on his chair, was rolling his eyes.

  “By now both you guys are millions of light years out in space. You land on a solid planet. Your sensors tell you that the ‘air’ is the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide. You put your space suits on and exit your spacecraft. The World Space Agency wants
you to collect rock samples, and while doing so you find a coin.”

  Matt hops over Pete and grabs the coin from Andy, as if he’s really its first discoverer on this distant planet.

  “What conclusion can you come to by examining the coin?”

  “It has some weird writing and symbols on it. I can’t read it,” Matt complained.

  “What does that tell you, Andy?” I questioned.

  “That some intelligent life force dropped the coin and—”

  “Yeah, some ugly alien that eats people came to that planet and lost it. It probably has magical powers.” Matt broke in before Andy could continue.

  The class, by now, had had its fill of Matt’s vivid imagination. Claudia stepped up to the plate. “Matt stifle yourself! You need to attend to this germane application,” she chided, as the rest of the class mumbled in affirmation.

  I proceeded to question Andy, while Matt cooled his jets. “Andy, so what you found was not raw iron ore or copper or bauxite. You used two words: intelligence and coin. How do you know it was an intelligent life force that dropped it?”

  “Well … uh … unusual specificity.”

  “Explain.” I asked him.

  “I’m trying to think of another example.”

  “Let me help you. Would you consider Mount Rushmore in that same class?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Wind, water, erosion couldn’t have carved out Mount Rushmore anymore than the elements could have made that coin. Someone with ingenuity and intelligence, and with knowledge of metallurgy, had to design, forge, and manufacture that coin. Same with Mount Rushmore.”

  “Andy, when one sees a painting, what does it preclude?”

  “That’s a dumb question, Doc. The painting had to have a painter, someone with the creativity and intelligence to paint the thing. Rembrandt was brilliant. He didn’t just throw paint on a canvas,” he said half chuckling to himself and those around him.